A Journey Through Connected Systems

How Your Body Works Together::

Have you ever wondered how everything in your body works together? Just like a well-orchestrated symphony, your body's systems are constantly communicating and supporting each other. Let's explore how this amazing connection affects your health and well-being.

The Building Blocks: Blood, Nutrients, and Movement

Your body needs three main things to stay healthy: good blood flow, proper nutrients, and the ability to move freely. Think of your body like a bustling city. The blood vessels are like roads that carry important supplies (oxygen and nutrients) to every neighborhood (your tissues and organs). When traffic flows smoothly, everyone gets what they need on time.

Just as a city needs its waste removed to stay clean, your body has a special cleaning system called the lymphatic system. This system helps remove waste products and keeps your tissue healthy. Unlike blood vessels, which have the heart as a pump, your lymphatic system relies on body movement to work properly.

The Magic of Movement

When you move, several amazing things happen:

Your muscles contract and relax, which helps pump blood and lymph fluid through your body

Your joints get lubricated, kind of like oiling a squeaky door

Your nerves send messages more efficiently, like having a better phone signal

Your organs get a gentle massage, helping them work better

The Body's Natural Wisdom

Your body has an incredible ability to heal itself when given the right conditions. This is where the principles of osteopathy come in handy. Osteopathy teaches us that the body functions as one unit – no part works completely by itself. For example, if you hurt your ankle, you might change how you walk. This can affect your knee, hip, and even your back!

The Rule of Threes

Here's a simple way to remember how your body stays healthy:

Movement must be free (your joints and muscles can move easily)

Blood must flow (carrying oxygen and nutrients everywhere)

Nerves must communicate (sending and receiving messages clearly)

When these three things work well, your tissues stay healthy and strong. But if any one of them is disrupted, it can cause problems. For instance, if you sit in one position too long, it can:

Slow down blood flow

Reduce lymphatic drainage

Create pressure on nerves

Make muscles tight and uncomfortable

Taking Care of Your System

Now that you understand how connected everything is, here are some simple ways to keep your body working well:

Take movement breaks throughout the day. Even simple stretches or walking around your room helps keep everything flowing.

Stay hydrated. Water helps your blood flow better and helps remove waste products from your tissues.

Practice good posture. This helps your organs work better and keeps pressure off your nerves.

Get enough sleep. During sleep, your body repairs tissues and resets its systems, like a city doing maintenance at night.

Listen to Your Body

Your body is incredibly smart and will often tell you what it needs. If something feels tight or uncomfortable, that's your body's way of asking for attention. Maybe you need to move more, drink more water, or get more rest.

Remember, every part of your body is connected to every other part. By taking care of the whole system, you help each individual part work better. It's like taking care of an entire garden instead of just one plant – when the soil is healthy and there's enough water, all the plants thrive together.

When we understand these connections, we can make better choices for our health. Simple actions like taking a walk, drinking water, and getting good sleep aren't just good habits – they're ways to support your body's natural ability to stay healthy and strong.

The Structure Of Functional Medicine

How Broken Crayons Still Know How To Color::

Maybe you’ve had this feeling too: something kicking around your head for years, refining, developing, refreshing, sourcing information and sorting itself, on its way to becoming…

Years ago I read a book called Range. It made sense of my life in ways that I’d not previously been able too; short of describing myself as a Sagittarius with a penchant for firing arrows with little consideration for aiming.

Much like my life. I’ve worked across numerous industries, collected titles and traveled across continents, searching for some way to make sense of a strange collection of skills that longed to be of service.

It’s been said that the first 40 years of a life are for growth and lessons. With that, the next 40 are to apply that information in a life filled with purpose, creating momentum for the life truly desired.

My name is Ramesh Tarun Narine, and for much of my life, I have been guided to learn about the body. It is anatomy. It is physiology. It is the story of relationships that take place under the every day influence of gravity as well as the inexpressible mystery that keeps it all coherent.

A large part of these interactions come down to how structure and function depend on one another as the body generates its native and vital force, it’s potency, a form of currency, that creates resilience and keeps dysfunction away.

For the past 20+ years I’ve been working with the body in various capacities, all with the perspective that with the right conditions, a body knows how to do health and can self regulate itself in that direction with grace and ease.

For the past 10+ years, I’ve been working primarily in a hands on capacity with the body. I’ve been helping people to harmonize the systems of their body, to support the relationships of the body internally, and thus, to find ease in the body’s relationship with gravity.

For the past year, I’ve been working exclusively with the west coasts preeminent medical clinic dealing with complex chronic illness. In some ways, these are the people that have been unable to find a solution for the way they wake up more tired than when they went to bed. I work with private clients and patients of the doctors from a structural lens and often these clients are the most complex of a very complex community.

And so I’d like to share with you some thoughts on holism and health with the intention that it might be of service to you.

Whether you are of optimal health or have been diagnosed as someone dealing with complex chronic Illness, it’s my plan that you find something of use here, perhaps even encounter something unique that provokes your own coloring outside the box.

Because a broken crayon can still color.

And so I encourage you to remind yourself that as you are right now, no matter your challenges, your body knows health.

IT feels strange to share that for much of my life I’ve looked at one of my greatest teachers to be a self inflicted concussion at the age of five.

I had a hammer and was trying to industriously expand a small hole in the cul-de-sac across from my childhood home. My frustration arose in a two handed overhand grip. The asphalt was resilient, to a fault, and the recoil of that hammer strike drove the tines of the hammer into the top of my skull.

Kids are tender creatures. And life leaves an imprint.

At this age, my imprint met the Lambda suture of my cranium. Named for the Greek letter it resembles, this intersection of cranial bones is integral to free motion in the skull as well as supporting the spine in maintaining a neutral relationship with gravity.

My subjective experience of the scar tissue that formed in my skull was that it created a limitation that my spine was forced to grow around. Objectively, I consider that being a larger baby, there may have been unobserved birth trauma that could have affected the place where the low back and the pelvis meet.

It’s difficult to tell as the whole spine functions as a continuum.

I also spent 20 years playing sports that created pretty strong shearing, pulling and compressive forces on my spine so it’s a bit of a chicken or the egg conversation as to which came first.

What I can say is that my whole spine move away from neutral at some point, and that affected a number of things in my body’s physiology, from how my spine moved in gravity to how the central nervous system was able to both interpret information coming in and sending signal out.

It’s but one example I’m excited to share with you.

Because a question we like to ask at the clinic is what might your other Doctor’s be missing?

For me, the structural component of functional medicine is being overlooked.

With an example we can all relate to, I ask you to consider childbirth, a dynamic process that is a wonder to observe, even more so to be involved in.

If you don’t know anything about your birth, I encourage you to find out what you can.

You and I both began as a baby. We came into this world tiny, and grew in size as we matured. The birthing process, a strong experience, required that we arrive from a place of softness.

A baby is born with a soft skull to allow them passage through the birth canal. Bony skull plates overlap to make their way through the mother’s pelvis. For the most part, this birth process results in a natural progress whereby a child comes to maturity with health and vitality abundantly on display.

What about those born under duress or too early without enough time to develop with all the mother’s resources at their beck and call. What about difficult births where the child spent too long in the birth canal, were birthed with a cord around their neck, or had an asymmetric presentation of their cranium.

It might seem insignificant, an anomaly of presentation, but the shape of a child’s face may foreshadow items seeking support. What if a slight rotation of the head as it develops in the mother’s womb leaves the baby pinching the nerves at the base of the skull?

These nerves communicate with key organs like the Heart, Lungs and Liver. Organs that, at such an early age, the brain needs to have it’s clear intent communicated well and with ease. It’s keys like this that can significantly cue development.

Same with the tubes that deliver blood to the brain. Were this slight twist of the head on the neck to remain through early development, it would throttle nourishing blood from the Heart to the Brain at a time when a lack of resources would be severely missed.

Working this last year with clients who have great complexity in their conditions, a question I have been asking is what leads an individual to join the complex chronically ill? What preexisting conditions or causes, what slow accumulation of injuries, can disrupt the natural coherence of the body, limiting its resilience to disease, and why then are select people being subject to the world in ways the majority of people will never experience?

My perspective on health, vitality and chronic illness is not common. It requires a vast amount of desire to comprehend. Only you can make these connections for yourself. If you’re here, I encourage you to do what one of my teachers did and, dig on. I continue to educate myself and look forward to sharing more.

I welcome your comments and questions and I will do my best to honor and meet your curiosity with my own.

I hope to be of service to you on that journey.

Thanks for being here,

Many blessings,

Ramesh

An Axis from Upon which to Hang

Your Spine, Gravity and Complex Chronic Illness::

Over the last few decades, I've had my hands on thousands of individuals dealing with complex systemic issues.

I've had the question of why these people ringing through my mind long enough to have sought education from some of the most unique thinkers on the topic.

I've had to dig to find resources and the quest hasn't always been easy. And I've been guided. I've had excellent teachers, a superb education and resources continue to reveal a way forward.

I genuinely believe I can help you cultivate the resources to recover from whatever challenges you are dealing with in your journey to health.

I see the body as a collection of relationships.

It's not very scientific to describe it as such, and sometimes we need a little bit of distance to gain perspective on how the whole functions.

To that end, I launch these writings with the desire for us to stand shoulder to shoulder and view a landscape with some similarity.

No easy task.

Let's begin in the abstract and further on from there.

The following describes your body’s spine under the influence of Gravity.

I trust you can see yourself in its words and wonder at the story of your spines traumatic life, from the falls in the shower and braces to whiplash events.

In time this will all make sense, and for now, a fable to tempt you, and your desire to know more.

An Axis from Upon which to Hang

In a garden of wonders, a peculiar sculpture stood: a plump grapefruit balanced atop a slender toothpick. Nearby, two triangles rested, one inverted atop the other, with lustrous pearls strung between them on an elastic string.

The garden's caretaker, Gravity, swept through daily. The grapefruit-toothpick structure swayed gently, its pearls shifting slightly while the triangular forms flexed. This delicate dance kept the structure upright and functional.

One day, a mischievous squirrel scampered by, knocking into the sculpture. The grapefruit tilted, the pearls shifted uncomfortably, and the triangles lost their symmetry. Delicate vines entwining the structure began to pulse erratically, and a network of fireflies surrounding it flickered in disarray.

As time passed, the garden's harmony faltered. Flowers wilted prematurely, fruits grew misshapen, and the once-vibrant ecosystem fell into disarray. The gardener, concerned by these changes, decided to investigate.

She noticed that the water flow through the garden's intricate irrigation system had become irregular. Some areas were parched while others were oversaturated. The garden's temperature regulation seemed off-kilter, with certain spots unusually warm and others oddly cool.

The gardener observed that the bees, vital for pollination, appeared disoriented. They buzzed erratically, often missing the flowers they were meant to visit. Butterflies, once abundant, were now scarce, their delicate wings no longer gracing the petals of the garden's blooms.

Even the soil seemed affected. In some areas, it had become compacted and lifeless, while in others, it was too loose to hold roots effectively. The earthworms, usually abundant and active, were fewer in number and less vigorous in their soil-enriching activities.

The garden's once-melodious birdsong had changed too. Some birds chirped too loudly, others barely at all, creating a cacophony that replaced the former harmony. The garden's small mammals behaved oddly as well, some hyperactive, others lethargic.

Fungal networks beneath the soil, which once facilitated communication between plants, appeared disrupted. This led to a breakdown in the plant community's ability to share resources and warnings about pests or diseases.

The gardener noticed that the garden's ability to heal itself had diminished. Pruned branches were slow to regrow, and areas damaged by storms or pests struggled to recover. The garden's resilience, once a point of pride, had waned significantly.

Even the air in the garden felt different. The usual fresh, invigorating scent had been replaced by a subtle but persistent staleness. The gardener found herself less energized and more fatigued after spending time among the plants.

As she pondered these changes, the gardener's gaze returned to the grapefruit-toothpick sculpture. She realized that its misalignment seemed to mirror the garden's myriad issues. The once-perfect balance had been disturbed, and the effects rippled through every aspect of the ecosystem.

With careful hands, she gently adjusted the sculpture, aligning the grapefruit more precisely over the toothpick. She straightened the triangles and realigned the pearls. As she worked, she noticed the vines pulsing more steadily and the fireflies regaining their synchronized glow.

Over the following days, the garden began to show signs of recovery. The irrigation balanced, temperatures normalized, and the soil regained its vitality. Bees and butterflies returned to their crucial work, and birdsong once again became melodious.

The gardener learned a valuable lesson: in this intricate ecosystem, every element was connected. The balance of one central structure influenced the health and harmony of the entire garden. She vowed to pay closer attention to this delicate equilibrium, understanding that small adjustments could have far-reaching effects on the garden's overall well-being.

As seasons passed, the garden flourished once more, its vibrant life a testament to the importance of balance, alignment, and the interconnectedness of all living things.

Many Blessings,

Ramesh