Dwarf Daphne: Harbin Hot Springs' field work in the pools is fascinating and salutary when studying the relaxation response

Harbin Hot Springs' field work in the pools {harbin.org} is fascinating and salutary when studying the relaxationresponse.org/steps, anthropologically, in the context of Heart Consciousness Church {which is Harbin}, as well as among friends there.

The warm pool deepens and makes more fulsome the relaxation response, even in inclement weather {e.g. rain, hail, etc.}. The warm water, at body temperature, is so encompassing and enveloping, in a very welcoming way, which adds to the experience of a kind of physical oneness for your bodymind. And people are often intimate, cuddling, in the pools, which in the state of relaxation due to the warm water, and observing this (participant observation as anthropological method), makes the relaxation response very harmonious and serene and natural to be a part of.


The Harbin pool area, as well as all of Harbin itself - the 1700 acres of relatively untouched land and nature - and even the process of traveling to get to Harbin, all contribute to the possibility of eliciting the relaxation response remarkably at Harbin, especially in its warm pool.


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I've written in other blog entries here {} about how bliss can bubble up {a neurophysiological process for me}, when deeply relaxed, particularly in the Harbin warm pool, and also in moving back and forth from hot to cold.


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Anthropologically, it's primarily the warm pool which facilitates the relaxation response's elicitation so richly, and is part of what I'm studying at Harbin.

In the context of Heart Consciousness Church, which is Harbin Hot Springs, I wonder if relaxation response elicitation in the warm pool is one unique expression of what happens there, biologically, that might contribute to aspects of Harbin being a church, but naturally {without the context of 'spirituality,' 'religion,' etc.}, and especially in the context even of evolutionary biology {since our bodyminds were shaped by this, and warm water elicits the relaxation response, richly}.

{talk}


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Eliciting the relaxation response on my own at home every morning is a different experience, a different biology. It is more varied in terms of focus, but the focus isn't so influenced by the warmth of water (only occasionally through memory, that is, in going 'there' to what the memory elicits, in my bodymind}, and which gets me out of my 'head' in the Harbin pools - naturally. At home, I return my attention to the releasing process, again and again, which involves focusing my mind (on 'releasing' or the word 'one'), if only to release.

At home, while eliciting the relaxation response, I also explore the idea of my bodymind being a musical instrument, releasing relative to where my attention is drawn - the light through a window, an idea, a small piece of thread on the rug, etc. and so there's sometimes slightly more 'interactivity' in the releasing process when I elicit this at home.

My regular practice of eliciting the relaxation response makes possible a variety of ways of exploring it, and considering it anthropologically, as well, at Harbin.




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Daphne (which is in a pot on the edge of the Harbin warm pool)

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(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/01/dwarf-daphne-harbin-hot-springs-field.html - January 28, 2010)