Mycellium of our Bodies

Guess what!? Fascia researcher Jean-Claude Guimberteau compares our inner form to the complex, chaotic branchings within forest structures. He says (in a thick French accent):

“Very often people think that chaos makes no sense. But in fact if you look to a tree in your garden. Try to find a sort of order along the branches. There is no order as humans consider order. The branch repartition is chaotic. It’s a disordered pattern. But it’s a tree. And it’s a perfect tree.

We have to accept how our body is made with a similar architecture.”

— Jean-Claude Guimberteau

Jean Claude Guimberteau is a hand surgeon and fascial researcher and is famous for the “Strolling Under the Skin” video that reveals in real-time, the “microvacuolar fibrillar network” of our living gliding and sliding fascia. (To learn more about Guimberteau and his work, check out the video . . . or one of our past blog posts for more.)

While trying to better understand hand anatomy for the purposes of surgery, Guimberteau stumbled upon the fascial networks between skin and muscle. Looking more closely, he found a softness and fluidity that stunned him and tenderized the way that he had previously thought of our anatomical structure.  In his book, Architecture of Human Living Fascia he talks about just how much the adaptable, responsive structure of our fascia reflects our ability to change and regenerate. (And physiologists like to say, structure follows function.)

Like gazing out at a giant tree and at first seeing mostly tough outer bark and rigid structures, from the surface, the image of the human body seems like an organized solid structure. But underneath we are, as Guimberteau calls us an “intelligent chaos”.

He says of our make up, our fascia:

“This tissue, which neatly ensures the efficacy of gliding structures and their independence, is composed of a network of collagen fibrils whose distribution seems to be totally disorganized and apparently illogical at first sight. This impressed me because my Cartesian mind could not come to terms with the idea that chaos and efficiency co-exists perfectly. This was the starting point for an intellectual voyage that took me far from the beaten track and off into the largely unknown world of fractals and chaos.”

— Jean-Claude Guimberteau

 Love this!

I love shifting our attention away from the thick outer bark of ourselves, and focusing more on infinite possibilities of inner branchings. We are like mycelium in our potential for change, lateral connection, and regeneration.

[Micronutrient cycling and transfer within subterranean mycellial networks.]

Guimberteau’s research as well as the findings of many clinicians who work with the fascial system continuously affirm their understanding that we are built, constructed, and wired to be adaptable, to glide, to slide, perceive, interact, inter-relate, and to change.  That’s how we are made. I love forms of treating the body and ourselves that operate from this way of seeing -- acupuncture, myofascial release, cranialsacral therapy, visceral and other fascial work.

In my experience so far, this way of seeing our bodies and selves makes up the foundation of healing that happens for people in treatment. 

Sometimes, and especially in severe pain cases or even in deep-seated chronic patterns, I remind patients about the fluid, adaptable, constantly-moving nature of our inner body. In some extreme pain cases for example when a nerve is being compressed (such as in low back pain from a vertebral disc injury, sciatic nerve-related pain, shoulder pain as in rotator cuff injuries, or other pain patterns) all that is needed are a few millimeters of space and decompression for the pain to change dramatically.  And it does. And we can.

Our system's very composition is one of change, interconnection and responsivity. Sometimes it's helpful to be reminded on a cellular level.