The Space in Between
Reflections on embodied cognition, electromagnetic fields, and death
Can you feel the space in between us?
This prompt came in Bonnita Roy’s pop-up school this morning, and it’s a good one.
What does this mean? Are we talking about the empty space between bodies? And if it’s empty, then how can something be felt in there? This is what I’m going to explore.
On embodied cognition
I’ve been contemplating embodied cognition a lot. Amazing things happen when people can be “fully online” in this way. We can connect to others more deeply, bring our gifts into the world more fully, heal our trauma more effectively, and ultimately, make better decisions.
For those who are used to operating mostly from the head, the embodied way of being can be overwhelming, disorienting, and even alien at first. It gets better with practice, though. Like learning to use any new tool, the first steps are clumsy. Yet the more we do it, the more skillful we become, and the closer we can get to mastery.
Sometimes when people think of embodied cognition, they think of the body that is contained inside our skin. But humans actually occupy a much bigger space. Your electromagnetic field extends outwards around your physical body. It’s not visible to the naked eye, but it can be measured with special instruments. This is still “you”.
When I am face to face with you in physical space, my electromagnetic field is interacting with your electromagmetic field. This is a real thing, and it’s possible to feel into. You know how sometimes you just get a “vibe“ from someone that you can’t quite explain? It’s like you instantly know something about the person’s state or character without being told anything. Most people can relate to this exeperience, though some people are more sensitive to it than others. It’s also something we can learn how to do better, like any other skill.
A story from the mountains
One time I made friends with a guy who came to visit some people I knew in Bulgaria. On one of his last days in town, I took a small group of us on a hike to one of my favourite spots in the mountains near Plovdiv. One of the people in the group was getting lightheaded, so several of our friends ended up sitting down and resting in a meadow halfway up the mountain. So this guy and I were the only ones who continued hiking to the top.
I thought it would be fun to challenge us both and introduce a little more aliveness into the field, so I literally ran the last stretch up the mountain. He followed, stumbling and falling a bunch of times, but continued nonetheless. When we got to the top, we were both panting, sweating buckets, with our legs cramping. Embodied cognition was activated.
The view was breathtaking, and he looked towards the valley away from me and stretched his arms out, as if hugging the sky. I looked at his back, and in that moment I instantly knew that this would be the last time I would see my new friend.
I just sensed that he had very little time left on this Earth. I can’t tell you how I knew this - nothing along those lines was discussed explicitly during our times hanging out.
In this beautiful and alive moment, I felt that he simply no longer had the will to live.
Two weeks later, I got the news that he passed away in a skiing accident.
“He was looking for his place to die”, reflected another friend.
On electromagnetic fields
Every living thing on Earth is generating its own electromagnetic field. Your body is an electrical power generator. Your have a literal personal force field. It’s The Force, like in Star Wars. The electromagnetic field you produce is the thing that holds your atoms together. It’s the only way you exist as a coherent entity.
Your electromagnetic field interacts with the fields of other beings. We can feel each other’s fields, man. And there is nothing woo-woo about that.
When our fields interact, electrical signals are transmitted. That’s information. Something is happening there, even if we don’t understand the exact mechanism for it.
When you die, your body no longer produces the electromagnetic field. And maybe, just maybe, when people are ill or close to death, the decohering of that field is possible to sense for others.
In addition to being able to connect to each other when in direct proximity, we are all connected to a system of electromagnetic fields of the Earth. The geomagnetic field protects us from solar wind, coronal mass ejections, and cosmic rays from deep space. Without it, life would not have been possible on this planet. We are all contained inside of the Earth’s field, like being in a giant womb. It’s also a massive information sharing network that all living things are part of.
This geomagnetic field responds and adapts to the conditions in space, in real time. When there are variations in the solar wind, the field distributes that energy in what is called a geomagnetic storm. This is what produces the spectacular nighttime displays we know as Aurora Borealis.
The precise location of the electromagnetic North and South pole on the planet also drifts with time, and sometimes the poles suddenly flip or drastically change location.
In a similar fashion, the electromagnetic field of the human body responds and adapts to the conditions of your environment. We all get cognitive storms sometimes.
And maybe, just maybe, others people in the geomagnetic field network can pick up on that - even if they’re not in the same room.
One of the many beautiful things about us humans is that we are agentic.
We can move through our environment at will and affect it in significant ways, which in turn ends up affecting us. We shape our environment, and it shapes us. We also shape each other, and we can shape ourselves. It’s actually incredible, if you really think about it.
This reciprocal relationship between all things, this dance, is the space in between. This is what was being talked about in the original prompt.
Can you feel the space in between us?
I often think back to that day on the mountain. If I had trusted my intuition, maybe I could have done something to console my friend. If I could have said something to remind him of his agency then maybe, just maybe, he would have been still alive.
Love this piece, your themes in general and your writing in specific. Even the images you use here and there. As a creative image-maker and editor, I do wish I knew where the images you use came from.. who the org or persons were who made them! Thank you~