In my introductory genetics class at Clemson University in my lecture on chromosomes and sex inheritance, I would sometime close with this little question. This was also after I had covered genetic mutations and how, when it came to human, or mammals for that matter, even small aberrations were usually devastating, much less changes in chromosome numbers. I’ll point out, for example, trisomy 21 which results in mongolism. This means that there is an extra copy of the 21st chromosome, a fairly small chromosome at that.
Now, when it comes to determining the sex of each individual, in humans and mammals in general, it is the Y-chromosome that determines the whether someone is a male or female. In the developmental sequence we would all be females. If an individual has a Y chromosome however, this developmental program is switched. Think of a train barreling down a railroad track and the Y like a switch to a different track for that train. This is what happens. The ordinary female developmental sequence is switched to become male when the Y is present. If it is not present, then the individual continues down the track and becomes a female. Which leads me to virgin birthsmythology…
This is a story I wrote years ago after a memorial encounter with author, entrepreneur, and general genus, Dannion Brinkley. His books include, Saved by the Light: The True Story of…
In my previous post, I wrote about working with our 24-hour, circadian bio-rhythm. In this post, I address the other type of bio-rhythm I mentioned, ultradian bio-rhythms. Ultradian rhythms, also…
I am a big believer in working with one’s body and its natural bio-cycles, genes, physiology, etc., as well as the biorhythms of nature in general. I am using “bio-cycles” here as a broad category of natural biologically-driven cycles, including, but not limited to, our daily circadian and ultradian, the subject of today’s blog, female minstrel, developmental, aging, Kreb’s citric acid cycle (from biochemistry), cell division, etc. And, more from Nature, the daily diurnal light-dark cycle, the yearly cycle of the seasons and months, lunar, solar, the nitrogen, carbon and other elemental cycles, ecosystems, and so forth. As I write in my Guru book, Turquoise Woman is my archetypal symbol for these cycles in her role as Navaho’s, Changing Woman.
We have two types of natural bio-rhythms I wand to address: circadian and ultradian (see figure below). Circadian refers our 24-hr wake-sleep cycle. Ultradian refers to the 90-120 minute rest-activity cycles that we go through within our circadian cycles. In this post, I am focusing on the circadian cycle, In a later blog, I will write about ultradian cycles, which are also very important.
This post was inspired in one of my early morning awakening periods and my recurrent question of, “instead of fighting it, how can I work with it,” which goes back to my Guru story’s vision quest’s ending of “how do I dance with it?”
For decades I have had what is known as Early Morning Awakening: no matter what time I go to bed, I awake somewhere usually around 3:00a.m. I have tried all kinds of ways to deal with this, including melatonin and many other informed recommendations, but not medications, prescribed or OTC’s. I wanted to find a more natural way to work with this issue.
On top of this, is that as we age, we need less sleep. For years (decades), I wake up after sleeping for five hours. Very aggravating! With only five hours sleep, I feel sleep deprived and drag through my day with low energy. With six hours sleep, I feel pretty okay. With seven hours, I feel great! Usually, I just lay there trying to go back to sleep, or, more accurately, hope that I will go back to sleep, often giving up and getting up around 6:00a.m. My body’s circadian cycle is from about 3:00a.m. to 3:00p.m., and I want to come back to this below.
I compensate for lack of sleep, and also just to take rests when I feel tired, or in between projects, or, actually, any excuse for 20-minute power naps. I’ve done the power nap thing ever since I got out of graduate school back in the Stone Age (1975). And, no, skipping the naps doesn’t effect the five-hour/early morning awakenings. That is, except of Sundays when I often take a longer nap, especially after a long bike ride. These longer naps sometimes can affect my ability to get to sleep, which is countered by the intense exercise I got that day. Sundays are kind of my days off. I usually do a lot of cooking on Sunday’s too.
My natural circadian rhythm is from 3:00am-3:00pm. My cycle is common for day-owls. Plus, I am an early morning person. I do my best writing, thinking, creativity, etc. in the early mornings. By 10:00am, I can feel my efficiency at these dropping off. By around 3:00pm, it is like the bottom drops out of my energy level. I grow tired and more fuzzy-thinking. This is when I try to turn my attention and efforts into doing more mindless type of activities, e.g. house or shop cleaning, bringing in firewood in the winter, or going for a walk with the dogs or a bicycle ride, etc.
At about 3:00am for us “normal” people, our body/brain starts making the transition from its sleep cycle to its wake cycle. At about 3:00 pm it shifts to making the transition for our upcoming sleep cycle.
Unfortunately, when I wake up around 3:00a.m., my mind starts cranking up. The downside of it cranking up is that I jump from topic to topic. The upside is that it is often a very creative period. I come up some of better ideas during this time–like this morning. It is sort of the “Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”. The “Good” is the creativity that often comes up. The “Bad” is feeling sleep deprived if I don’t get enough sleep. The “Ugly” is that this is also often my Shadow time.
Right now I am working on continuing education workshop ideas spinning off and discussed in my Guru book.
In the Guru book, I propose that Jungian archetypes are equivalent to Shamanic Spirit Guides or allies (as in Castaneda’s Don Juan books), and introduce readers to my personal archetypes/spirit guides.
As it turns out, there is a whole group of practitioners, mainly healers of the psychotherapy/counseling professions, interested in the parallels between shamanic practices, actually neoshamanic, and their healing practices. Many of these use neoshamanistic-like approaches to help their patients. For those that are not familiar with Jungian archetypes and some of the other terms. Let us start with archetypes.
On this rainy Saturday morning I had an inspiration while sitting on the toilet. Today I wanted to blog about bidets, toilet paper, trees, and green choices. So here we…
Every time I ride my bicycle somewhere instead of taking my truck, I feel like I am doing my little part for climate change and living closer to my ideal…
I like to make my own chorizo (Mexican) sausage using ground pork from the grocery store and ground red peppers, either from my own stash or from New Mexico. However,…
Old man on a bicycle tee I awoke thinking about this this morning. One of my goals at this stage and place in my life is the cultivation of self-sufficiency.…
I have always liked sauerkraut, usually as in with brats. Well, as an older adult anyway. As a kid you wouldn’t have been able to get me to touch the stuff. Now, it’s German potato salad, brats, and sauerkraut, yummy! With a nice German beer, of course.
With my hermit lifestyle, I’m doing a lot more experimenting and have discovered a whole wide world of sauerkraut. My eldest daughter, Elian, has been preaching the gospal to me for years about “fermented” foods. I had ran later across an article in Mother Earth News on fermenting not too long ago. When I used to think about “fermenting,” it was about beer, wine, and such, not cabbage and other veggies.
Then, just a few months ago, attending a continue education workshop for counseling (mental health) on the gut-brain connection and health, the speaker brought up fermented foods for their pro- and pre-biotics, and their many health benefits., both mental and physical health. The universe was trying to send me a message maybe?
Then, several months ago, Elian brought me a pint of jalapeño sauerkraut. She and her business partner, Lance, own and run the Clemson Area Food Exchange, which is an internet farmers’ market specializing in locally grown, mostly organic produce, meat, eggs, and crafts. Someone had ordered the jalapeño sauerkraut but not picked it up. She had plenty of fermented sauerkraut on hand already. Plus, she likes a little spice, but honestly, jalapeños? I tried it. It was indeed “spicy.” I loved it!
