Neurobiology of Connection News
The photo above has some of the tone of my mood today. Yesterday we finished our autumn semester, graduating two cohorts of the post-doctoral seminar in Autonomics. I woke up this morning to the patter of rain, an atmospheric river moving through, deep slow-moving dreams, a reluctance to get out of bed. It is deep into autumn, my body is ready for rest, slowing down, gatherings with friends. Ready for stews, ready to forage for mushrooms, ready to compose wreaths and sculptures of autumnal foliage, ready to walk through the dripping forest. I am ready for evenings by a fire doing handwork: I’ve brought my honing stones to the house. Attention moves inward, studying the interoceptive landscape, the moment, seeking distance from the intruding chaos and noise of techno-feudalism. My dog, who hates the rain, refuses to go outside. I am awaiting the arrival, through the rain, of the final galley of the new book this morning.
Once this is reviewed, and, godwilling, discerned to be free of printing errors, we will order in bulk to fulfill all hardcover preorders. We don’t have the budget to print a lot of excess inventory, so if you’d like to receive the book before the winter holidays, please place your order by Friday November 22 so that they can be included in our initial printing. (You can also download the full e-book immediately here. Or, if you want to take a smaller taste-testing bite, download the second section of the book for $9 here. It lays out the complete map of Autonomics: it might be the most useful nine dollars you ever spend ;)
At the end of the month we begin publicity, a virtual speaking tour initially. On November 30 at 11 am PST (-8 hours GMT) I’ll do a celebratory free quasi-reading (I don’t like readings: I like to teach. So I’ll teach and read a bit.) December 1, 2024 I’ll present to a conference in Europe, then begin hitting the podcast circuit. We’ll keep y’all informed of upcoming tour dates, virtual and actual, which will be announced on the Autonomics Tour page and through this substack.
If you are looking to deep-dive into the Autonomics model underneath the book, interested in figuring out how to apply its insights to your clinical practice, interested in applying an autonomics-centered view in your clinical or coaching praxis, you might consider one of our graduate seminars. In the spring semester (January to May 2025), my esteemed colleague Sue Bahnan, MS, MA from the Hearth Science faculty will be teaching our Autonomics seminar. About the class, she says:
In this introductory graduate-level seminar, we will rediscover the interconnected, animated intelligence of the human body and nervous system as it exists within a likewise alive and symbiotically related world. We will reestablish this thread of relationship, starting here within our own autonomic nervous systems. Rather than solely focus on pathogenic models of deteriorating health, we will restructure the ontology through which we perceive into that of a salugenic nature; that is, health creation and health sustaining frameworks of being.
Within this framework shift we will explore:
A non-brain-centric worldview of the human nervous system and collective body
Developmental growth patterns of neurogenesis and accurate understandings of directionality of neural pathways (origination and termination) as it pertains to distribution of neural intelligence and functional significances
Refined understandings of distinction between neuroanatomy and neurochemistry
Concentric (rather than linear) dynamic movement between autonomic states in relation to the neuroceptive contexts of safety, danger or life threat
A comprehensive map of vagal pathways conscious of postpartum neuronal myelination beyond birth
Foundational contributions of various neural structures (in the body, in the periphery, fascia, skin, etc.) in identity, feeling, and cognition
Over 12 weeks, we will explore the General Autonomics Foundation Model from the seat of our own subjective, embodied experience. We will centralize our field of learning within our the body, as well as the fields of relatedness created and built between bodies in a collective group. Therefore, in addition to pedagogical material, this seminar will be highly experiential and practical, involving the following forms of commitment and assignment:
Live engagement and tracking during each seminar class
Basic interoceptive exercises practiced throughout the 12 weeks
Video and written homework
Final project
This class is a pre-requisite, with instructor approval, for more advanced Hearth Science pedagogical and clinical coursework
I’ve had the good fortune to work with Sue for a number of years. She is a refined teacher of this material, and you’ll be in excellent hands. Members of our faculty and advisory may drop in from time to time if she invites us;)
The seminar is capped at twelve participants, and will fill, so if you are interested please fill out an application. You can learn more about the course details here.
Finally, in a manner similar to our serial publication of The Neurobiology of Connection on this Substack, we will begin, in January 2025, to publish Visionary Neuroscience: Epistemologies of Illumination for Darkening Times on this Substack. This will be only available to paid subscribers. The book re-writes the lineage history of neuroscience from an animist perspective, seeking to move the entire discourse of the discipline out of its enboxing in cognition and craniums, its origins in necrotic anatomy, into the field of the body entire and the reclamation of our neural indigeneity. Dare I say you won’t want to miss it?