4 from ritual to theater and back: the efficacy ... - AAAARG.ORG

asaesthetics 349
In short, I now take the possibility that the gut affects emotions
very seriously. This seems much more likely to me now than it did
when I wrote my book. A dialogue between us might be of mutual
interest.
The dialogue has not yet progressed beyond the email quoted, but it
is destined.
Let us suppose, in light of ENS research, that when someone says, “I
have a gut feeling,” she actually is experiencing a feeling, a neural
response, but not one that is head–brain centered. Let us suppose that
her feeling is located in, or emanating from, the “second brain,” the
brain in the belly. When expressed, this feeling is an emotion. Can such
feelings be trained? That is, what are the systems converting “gut feelings”
into expressible emotions? Gershon is interested primarily in the
therapeutic value of vagus nerve stimulation, of causing or evoking
feelings in autistics who suffer from lack of affect or lack of range
of affect.
The presence and location of the ENS confirms a basic principle of
Asian medicine, meditation, and martial arts: that the region in the gut
between the navel and the public bone is the center/source of readiness,
balance, and reception, the place where action and meditation
originate and are centered. A related place is the base of the spine, the
resting spot of kundalini, an energy system that can be aroused and
transmitted up the spinal column. Gaining an awareness of and control
over the gut and lower spine is crucial to anyone learning various Asian
performances, martial arts, or meditations.
Phillip Zarrilli has for many years researched both in a scholarly and
in a practical way the relationship between what in the Keralan martial
art kalarippayattu is called the nabhi mula (root of the navel) and performance
art training, psychophysical centering, and ayurvedic medicine.
According to Zarrilli:
When impulses originate from the nabhi mula [. . .they] are
“grounded,” “centered,” “integrated,” “filled out,” “dynamic.” The
nabhi mula of kalarippayattu is identical to the svadhisthanam of classical
yoga. Its location is two finger widths above the anus and two
finger widths below the root of the navel. It is at this center that both