THE NAVICULAR BONE, INNER AND OUTER BOATS, AND OCEANS

Letters 

Every day brings a ship,

Every ship brings a word;

Well for those who have no fear,

Looking seaward well assured

That the word the vessel brings

Is the word they wish to hear. 

      -  Emerson

I have a collection of small boats gathered over the years. Friends have asked where my love for them came from.  I’m not sure – maybe in utero experience or a past life! I do know I was captivated early on reading the Old Testament story of the baby Moses in among the bulrushes in his little basket/boat. Also one of my earliest memories is being five years old at “Kiddieland” in Chicago on a ride in a little boat in murky water, with a small bell I rang again and again.

These thoughts led me to the name and shape of the navicular bone in the foot – whose root of course is the same as “navy” from the Latin ”navis” and even earlier from Sanskrit “naukā – small boat. The navicular, along with the other bones of the feet, all float in the rhythmically flowing medium of the water in our body. Though wedged between other bones – the talus, cuneiforms and laterally by the cuboid, the navicular moves with each step like a boat on changing seas, side-to-side, bow to stern, port to starboard.

The force and energy traveling through the hammer-shaped talus flows down through the navicular to the 3 cuneiform bones, from there to the 3 medial metatarsals and the 8 phalanges of the big toe, 2nd and 3rd toes.  The calcaneous plays a similar role through the lateral foot, articulating with the four-sided cuboid, that leads directly to the 4th and 5th metatarsals and the 6 bones in the “ring” and little toe.

Through the foot and the other bones of the body, the vast irregularity of the shapes of bones is most astonishing. Just visualize TWENTY-SIX varied, different bones gathered together in every foot!  Indeed each individual human is the living solution to a three-dimensional jig-saw puzzle of nature-sculpted living matter. Somehow this vast array of 206 bones – 54 of which are in the feet – coalesce to compose our unlikely form with no single bone exactly like any other! And then we see this whole unlikely collection issue into movement – as gracefully as a Martha Graham! 

A Little Compendium of Boats and Things They Have to Tell Us

This boat conveys the small but majestic nature of the navicular with a little peak in the middle signifying the abstract passenger.  We are all passengers of the navicular as well as every other bone in the body. Because we are overall 60% water it is important to visualize and to feel that all bones are floating bones, moving rhythmically in the waves created through respiration, circulatory movements, and the neuro-muscular system.

 Here we see the pelvis very much as another “navicular” structure, whose freedom to tip forward, back and side-to-side is the keystone to the relationship of upper and lower body.

Each boat, whether floating on the high seas or our inner ocean, has the innocence of this little cat/boat from Bali.  Every bone within us humbly moves and responds to changing physiological and anatomic circumstance; every bone playing a unique role in response to the varying waves and tides within.

Each navicular leads to the 3 cuneiforms and the 3 “masts” of the medial metatarsals that help give our feet their buoyancy upon Mother Earth. 

On every metaphor you ride to every truth…

-       Friedrich Nietzsche

In Zero Balancing we use the metaphor of the sailboat to depict the relationship of structure and energy.  The body is like a sailboat whose masts and sails can be variously positioned.  When we have an optimum relationship of structure and energy, we’re in our “sweet spot” then we move forward with greater balance and momentum in our lives. When we are out of balance, we cannot “catch the wind” as well, so may lose our way or find our momentum diminished. It is the job of all individuals and therapists to help us regain the wind in our sails - finding again and again the capacity to respond to the ever-changing nature of our inner and outer world. In this manner we can journey on, more certainly and gracefully fulfilling our dreams and our destiny.

Just like Jacob’s coat of many colors, living in in our imaginations are boats of many colors – illuminating our lives with the full spectrum of delight and wisdom they can embody.

Perhaps the most powerful force in the relationship of energy and structure is LOVE.  It is what in so many respects keeps us afloat. May our sails be filled with love.

There is a Chinese proverb, "As the Eight Immortals cross the sea, each reveals its divine powers." This indicates the situation in which everybody manifests their skills and expertise to achieve a common goal. Ships and passengers are all vessels containing life, wisdom and welcoming divine guidance to inspire our journeys.

Each successful voyage is nourishing to body, mind and spirit - an honoring of the evolution and hard work that preceded us. The shapes of our bones and of our boats bear the fruits of so many thousands of years of experiment, evolution, discovery and invention.

As our vessels proceed from light to dark, from life to death and to life again, we are borne upon the ever-renewing sea of life.

The Goddess Isis was said, by virtue of her magical knowledge, to be “more clever than a million gods.”  Her realms of influence and her roles were vast.  Isis was depicted on a ship, among many other ways, and was thought to assure the safety of seafarers. It has been only natural to invoke the protection of the Isis and other gods along the seafaring journeys we call our lives.

We are reminded that all the vessels we have considered here, whether they be ones borne upon the ocean, or the bones and other living structures borne upon our inland seas are all composed of organic matter. The body is a sensate organic vessel afloat and moving within the larger living container of our 71% water planet.

“Take a pitcher full of water and set it down on the water –

now it has water inside and water outside.

We mustn’t give it a name

Lest silly people start talking again about the body and the soul.” - Kabir

The imagery of the ships who we are conveys not only the dance of all things in the water medium in which we live, but simultaneously it represents as well our soulful aspirations, as we embark and perpetuate this human odyssey, each quest ultimately no less adventuresome than that of Odysseus himself.

“Saliling” by Christopher Cross