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4. INVOLUNTARY ACTIONS
"Emotion was there from the start.
While feelings announce how
Little Spirit responds to
What the body encounters
Emotion is the messenger that
Carries the deep-down response
Across the spatial divide
That separates entities—
It lets the thing out there know
How you feel about it.
E-motion—
Triggered by that extra energy
Little Spirit has fetched from the deep
To muster physical action—
Makes you hug or scream grab or gore
That thing out there
A smile a grin or a kick in the shin
Is a feeling expressed in action.
As soon as that surplus energy
Spills into a physical expression
The e-motion is spent as well.
Basic emotions are simple events—
They rise as they must and trigger
A muscular response in a swoop:
In comes a feeling
Out spills an emotion
And that's all there is to it—
No telling where
Within the energy loop
One ends and the other begins.
The emotional expression
Originates in the part of the body
Whereto that energy spills:
The seat of joy is
At the base of the skull
Wherefrom the energy leaps into
Frenzied exuberant actions that
Accomplish nothing in particular.
Fear is seated
In the throat and will
At the slightest provocation
Shut off breathing—freeze action
To make time for orientation.
Love floods the heart
With wellbeing fostering actions
That sweeten the bond with
The object of attraction
And so prolong that state
Of wellbeing.
Anger churns
In the pit of the stomach
Ready to jump-start assertive or
Defensive actions to safeguard
The self from harm.
Courage snoozes
In the gut and triggered
Propels the body into action
With the force of a spring released.
And Sorrow
Settling in the small of the spine
Far from the harassing world
Where mellow cello intonations
Foster healing by bidding
Littler Spirit to lie low."
*
Unlike sensory impressions
Which fixate in memory,
Emotions bypass the brain altogether
Leaving no imprints behind.
That's why long familiar emotions
Surface as vividly as if
For the first time.
You recall an emotion either
By the feeling that spurred it or
The backlash your action received.
Having encoded patterned and
Mapped the surroundings
Having spun bridges between
The inner and outer worlds
The nimble fingers of Attraction
Have prepared the budding human being
To survive in a world
Riddled with dangers."
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