The Breath Electric: Embracing Our Magnetic Nature
We are electric.
Waves, oscillations of charge, frequency, and tone accompany every heartbeat, impulse of thought, and breath we take.
The human body is not just a biomechanical system but an electromagnetic instrument, attuning to our internal and external environments moment by moment… through neuroception, interoception, fascia signaling, heart-brain rhythms, and cellular bioelectric currents, all happening faster than thought.
Like any instrument, its capacity to harmonize or fragment into dissonance depends on a multitude of factors, including awareness, tension, tempo, and touch.
In my work, we listen for that signal beneath the static… the subtle communication of electrical impulses, oscillations within the tissue and nervous system, the shifting rhythms of breath and fascia, and the deeper pulses of the brain.
And through this, we see how healing is not about locating and fixing problems; it’s about restoring coherence and balance to the electromagnetic field.
From AM to FM
Chronic stress and unprocessed trauma create static in the system. The body contracts, the breath becomes shallow or fragmented, and the fascia grows dry, dense, and armored. In this state, communication between systems becomes distorted.
Neural loops spin in high Beta, ventral vagal tone diminishes, and our sense of internal safety and equilibrium is lost in the chaos.
Just as the body remembers pain, it also remembers harmony.
Coherence is its original rhythm. Every response that arises from internal fragmentation leads to some form of distortion, whether through over-efforting, collapse, control, people-pleasing, perfectionism, or numbness. Beneath it all is a longing to return to safety, connection, and ease.
Reich saw armor as the physical manifestation of resistance, which feels even more literal when viewed through the lens of bioelectric charge.
In electricity, resistance is what limits the flow of current.
Too much resistance, and the signal weakens or overheats; too little, and the circuit can trip. The same happens in the body: when emotional and muscular armor (resistance) builds, energy stops circulating freely, the system gets blocked, and what was once aliveness becomes essentially chronic inflammation, stuck and chaotic.
Resistance itself isn’t the enemy; it’s the body protecting itself from overload. Just like an electrical system needs insulation and regulation to avoid blowing a fuse, our biology resists what it isn’t yet resourced to feel.
Armor, and even what Reich called the Emotional Plague, can be seen as a kind of emergency brake… an adaptive, though costly, attempt to preserve stability when life energy becomes too much to manage.
Seen this way, Reich’s insights were incredibly grounded in biological truth.
Suppression distorts the wiring, yes, but what’s being suppressed is often too intense to safely process without support. Healing isn’t ripping out the resistance or forcing a charge through a blocked system. It’s the relational process of restoring conductivity slowly, in rhythm with what the body can hold.
This might explain why so many catharsis-based methods that came later… techniques focused on “release” and explosive emotional discharge… often left people just as fragmented as before. Without restoring coherence, the system can’t integrate what’s been unleashed. The energy floods, but it doesn’t connect.
This becomes, of course, a systemic issue. Modern institutions… education, religion, government, even most healing spaces… are built and run by nervous systems that are themselves armored. They don’t have the bandwidth or the coherence to model regulation or curiosity, and if they do, they are still existing inside of a world and marketplace where the Emotional Plague is not just alive and well but thriving.
So instead of teaching younger generations how to feel and think for themselves, we train them to adapt to the system’s own fragmentation.
And the deeper layer of tragedy is that we’ve normalized it.
We treat emotional literacy, embodiment, and energetic awareness as optional, something extra, instead of foundational.
Better go to a good school, get a degree, and make money. You can learn about emotions and self-reflect/go to therapy when you’re forty. We’ll just hope you don’t kill yourself or anyone else before then.
This is the Emotional Plague now in America, all these years after Reich first named it in Nazi Germany. Collective psychosis might be another word for it.
Yet everything begins here.
Our thoughts, our choices, our capacity for honesty. The body is the first classroom, and almost no one is teaching from it… and if they are, it’s almost certainly going to fail in a world engineered by algorithms designed to keep people isolated and distracted from feeling.
What follows is a deeper dive into the bioenergetic world—how our biology functions as an electromagnetic system. We’ll map brainwave states, heart coherence, fascia as the body’s conductive wiring, and how structured water helps cells hold a healthy charge.
Willful Practice: Initiating Coherence
Willful practices like conscious breathing, meditation, body/energy work, being outside, touching the earth, walking in silence, listening to the birds—almost anything that interrupts the threat-perpetuation cycle—can act like a tuning fork. They bring us into co-regulation and coherence, soften fascial tension, and return us to a state of human being, softening the Human who’s busy doing.
Most of us move through life in Beta brainwave states (13–30 Hz)—scanning, problem-solving, and strategizing. In this state, attention is externally directed, and the nervous system stays primed for action. The default mode network* (DMN), a set of interconnected brain regions that supports self-reflection, mind-wandering, and internal narrative, is relatively quiet here, waiting for space to re-engage.
Beta itself is not uniform. Low, mid, and high Beta sub-bands correspond to subtly different states of mind.
Low Beta can support focused attention and problem-solving.
Mid-Beta is associated with active thinking and planning.
High Beta often carries tension, vigilance, and anxiety.
Recognizing these shades can help because the nervous system is never simply “on” or “off,” but rather constantly fluctuating.
Intentionally downshifting from high Beta toward Alpha or Theta allows the nervous system to release accumulated tension, integrate experience, and restore coherence.
As this happens, the DMN* gradually re-engages in a balanced way, giving us the safety and perspective to reflect, process, and learn from experience rather than being trapped in rumination or habitual reactivity.
Chronic high Beta keeps the nervous system in sympathetic overdrive. Breath speeds up. Fascia tightens. Awareness narrows.
Shifting down the ladder of brainwave states can bring up armor, experienced as resistance. The system often favors familiar discomfort over unknown coherence, even when the unfamiliar would better serve it.
That’s why intentionally downshifting… through breath, movement, or focused attention… can be transformative. It helps us feel safe in new territory, opens the door to presence, and restores a sense of empowerment and resourcefulness.
Practices like breath watching, walking, and any activity that anchors attention to the felt sense in the body begin to soften high Beta. As the DMN gradually re-engages, presence and reflection emerge. Awareness expands. Coherence begins.
As breath and body soften, brainwave activity shifts into Alpha states (8–13 Hz). Interoception awakens. We feel more of what’s happening inside rather than just reacting to the outside. This is the foundation for deeper work.
*The default mode network is a collection of interconnected brain regions that helps generate our sense of self—our personal narrative, memories, and the patterns that relate to the predictive processing of the brain as we try and guess what will happen next. It supports reflection, planning, and imagination, but when it dominates, it can trap us in rumination, projection, and habitual Beta patterns, keeping the nervous system in high alert.
Downshifting into Alpha or Theta isn’t just relaxing; it temporarily quiets the DMN, giving the nervous system space to integrate, update old patterns, and recalibrate the networks that shape how we experience reality.
Fascia, Structured Water, and the Fluid Body
We will keep going with the brainwave frequencies, but first, let’s look at fascia.
Fascia is more than connective tissue; it’s a liquid crystalline matrix. Its hybrid liquid-solid structure—densely packed collagen fibers interspersed with water and proteins—makes it both strong and flexible, and allows it to respond dynamically to mechanical and electrical stimuli. Its fluid and adaptive nature lets it hold structure, transfer force, and function as a conductor of energy—a communication superhighway.
When healthy and hydrated, fascia acts as a semiconductive web, transmitting information throughout the body faster than nerves alone. Research shows fascia contains six to eight times more proprioceptive nerve endings than muscle tissue, making it one of the most sensitive and communicative systems in the body. Some researchers now propose fascia may be considered the body’s largest sensory organ.
Fascia doesn’t hydrate and function optimally simply through drinking water and eating well. It requires movement, breath, electrical charge, and presence to structure the water in the way the body needs.
This is where structured water, or EZ (Exclusion Zone) water, comes in. Structured water is more ordered, gel-like, and energetically responsive than ordinary bulk water. Found at the interface between tissues and fluids, it holds memory, responds to frequency, and supports energetic flow through the fascia.
The body’s energetic state is also influenced by negative ions from the Earth and sunlight. Negative ions, abundant in forests and near waterfalls, help neutralize free radicals, reduce stress, and promote well-being. Sunlight stimulates Vitamin D hormone production and helps regulate circadian rhythms. Together with structured water, these elements support the flow of energy through the body, enhancing vitality and healing, especially when harmonized with movement, breath, and conscious presence.
When fascia is armored, it’s not just tense; it’s dehydrated, lacking the very medium that allows energy and information to flow. Breath becomes tight. Perception becomes distorted. The system loses coherence with itself.
In my sessions, I guide breath, movement, and intentional touch to help rehydrate the fascial matrix, restoring conductivity and energetic potential. Hydration isn’t just water absorption; it’s a living, dynamic process of electromagnetism. When fascia is nourished and restored to its original form, it becomes a coherent antenna for the body’s intelligence to broadcast and receive information. Breath, sensation, emotion, and perception all communicate better.
As we breathe, the rhythmic expansion and contraction of the diaphragm mechanically stimulates fascia and influences its energetic resonance. Each breath pulses through the fluid body, connecting sensation, nervous system signaling, and the movement of structured water, keeping the body responsive, alive, and coherent.
Let’s start to bridge this back to the brain and how fascia affects our mental state.
Fascia is a medium for energy… It’s also the gatekeeper for the brain’s oscillatory potential. The tension and hydration of our fascial network directly shape the rhythm of our breath, and the breath, in turn, modulates brainwave states.
If the fascia is armored or dehydrated, the diaphragm can’t expand and contract freely due to tension. The breath speeds up, becomes shallow and chaotic, and the nervous system stays locked in high Beta. In other words, the brain struggles to slip into Alpha or Theta states because the body’s architecture isn’t giving it the space or signal to do so. Breath and fascia become the bottleneck through which energetic potential must pass.
Think of it like a garden hose: if the tubing is kinked or clogged, the flow of current is restricted. Similarly, if the fascia is stiff and tense, the breath can’t fully slow, and the brain can’t fully access its range of frequencies. A healthy, hydrated, responsive fascial network creates both the flexibility and the conductive pathway for the nervous system to explore more optional, coherent states.
Fascia and the nervous system talk to each other (I’m sure Darryl would say that fascia and the nervous system are the same thing).. Tight fascia can speed up the nervous system, just as a calmed nervous system can soften fascia. What happens in the body shapes the brain, and what happens in the brain shapes the body.
So the work of de-armoring, elemental hydration, and restoring the fascia’s ability to carry charge… by grounding, getting sunlight, and being in sync with the natural rhythms, and cultivating a relationship with our breath are not physical health hacks….
It’s the prerequisite for cognitive and energetic plasticity. The healthier and more responsive the fascia, the more readily the nervous system can navigate between Beta, Alpha, Theta, and even deeper oscillatory states, giving us greater presence, perception, and agency.
In short, fascia tension sets the tempo for the nervous system. Release and hydration open the door for the brain to flow through its natural spectrum, turning what was once resistance into a portal for coherence, reflection, and embodied intelligence.
Surrender: Accessing the Subconscious Body and The Sound We all Make
Through the assertion of our will, we can guide ourselves into calmer states and enhance our body’s ability to maintain coherence with our brain, shifting from the alertness of Beta to the reflective awareness of Alpha. But deeper access requires something else. Beyond a certain threshold, doing gives way to allowing.
Theta waves (4–8 Hz) mark the edge where willful action stops working. This liminal space between waking and sleep is where insight, memory, and emotional processing arise. It’s not something we can force; we only enter when the system feels safe enough to let go.
In this zone, the breath naturally slows, and the body may reorganize through tremors, sensations, or spontaneous movement. Integration happens without effort, as the system unwinds on its own.
Delta (0.5–4 Hz) brings even deeper restoration. Common in deep sleep and advanced meditative states, Delta reflects the body’s innate intelligence at work, repairing, replenishing, and restoring vital functions.
Epsilon (below 0.5 Hz), though rarely accessed, is associated with profound stillness and non-dual awareness. In this state, physiological signs may become nearly undetectable, yet consciousness remains present. It’s been observed in advanced practitioners during deep samādhi, where separation dissolves, and awareness rests in pure being.
Gamma: Coherence Beyond Comprehension
Gamma waves (30–100 Hz) are the fastest measurable brainwaves, linked to heightened perception, insight, and non-dual awareness. Unlike the tension of high Beta, Gamma is coherent. It arises not from urgency but from integration, when the system is open, alert, and at ease.
Gamma emerges when the nervous system’s capacity can handle high-frequency flow. It’s seen in states of awe, compassion, creative trance-type states, and expanded consciousness. Advanced meditators can show sustained Gamma coherence.
Gamma mirrors the mystery of Epsilon, the slowest brainwave, found in states of suspended animation, deep samadhi, or near-death experiences. Epsilon has been measured in monks who appear lifeless to outside observers, yet describe pure awareness inside. Gamma and Epsilon occupy opposite ends of the spectrum, yet both signal a profound, unified coherence of the system.
Both point toward a unified field of awareness that holds the full spectrum of experience: silence and sound, self and no-self, stillness and movement.
Coherence, then, is not a higher rung on the ladder. It’s a return to wholeness, through the remembering and surrendering to our true resonant nature.
It is the sound we all make.
The Heart’s Electromagnetic Field and Planetary Coherence
While we have been speaking as if the brain is the seat of rhythm and perception, it’s the heart that generates the most powerful electromagnetic field in the human body.
Electrically, the heart’s field is about 60 times stronger than the brain’s, and magnetically, it’s up to 100 times more powerful, extending in a toroidal shape several feet in all directions.
The field of the heart is rhythmic, intelligent, and deeply relational. With every beat, it transmits signals that move through the breath, inform the brain, and ripple through the fascia and nervous system as one integrated field. When we enter into a state of heart coherence, often during feelings of gratitude, compassion, or inner stillness, the heart’s rhythm becomes smooth and sine-wave-like, generating harmony throughout the system. Breath, brainwaves, and emotional perception begin to sync.
In this state, the heart’s electromagnetic field resonates around 0.1 Hz, a frequency that aligns with a breath rhythm of about six breaths per minute, a well-established cadence for vagal regulation, nervous system balance, and internal coherence. Of course, this rhythm is influenced not just by the breath itself, but by the thoughts we’re thinking while breathing. When thought and breath are aligned, the heart, brain, and body begin to move as one, functioning as a unified, coherent field.
And this internal rhythm appears to resonate with the world around us.
The Earth itself has an electromagnetic pulse, known as the Schumann Resonance, averaging around 7.83 Hz, which falls within the alpha-theta range of human brainwave activity. These are the same frequencies associated with relaxed presence, deep intuition, and meditative awareness. Emerging research suggests that when we enter coherent physiological states, our internal rhythms may begin to entrain with the Earth’s field, bringing us into bioenergetic alignment with the planet itself.
This process of entrainment is, in essence, a form of co-regulation. Just as our nervous systems sync with those of other humans, our coherence can attune us to the natural world. This means that connecting with nature isn’t just metaphorically healing, it’s a literal form of co-regulation. Likewise, the more coherent we become, the more we contribute to the electromagnetic well-being of the living systems around us, including other people, animals, trees, and the Earth itself.
Fascia, as the body’s semiconductive matrix, plays a quiet but essential role in this process. It carries the signal of the heart throughout the body, distributing information and enhancing the body’s sensitivity to subtle environmental shifts. When the fascia is hydrated and receptive, the body becomes more like an instrument, able to receive, conduct, and amplify the heart’s frequency in resonance with the Earth’s field.
This may be why states like awe or reverence don’t just feel expansive, they reorganize us. They create an energetic clarity that brings the body into harmony with something greater. The sensation of being “in tune” is more than a poetic experience; it’s a physiological one, grounded in the coherence between the heart’s field, the fascia’s conductivity, and the frequency of the planet.
When thought, breath, and emotion align, the heart becomes a tuning fork, resonating through the fascia, guiding the nervous system, and syncing the body with the wider field we belong to. In that state, healing ceases to be something we seek. It arrives naturally through rhythm. Through remembering. Through resonance.
Health as a frequency
Health isn’t a fixed state; it’s a dynamic expression of vibrational harmony. When disrupted, dysfunction can emerge.
Take cancer cells, for example. They display altered electrical charges across their membranes and vibrate at lower frequencies than healthy cells. These dysfunctional cells often thrive in environments marked by chronic stress, systemic oppression— I mean, inflammation—low oxygenation, poor circulation, and dehydrated fascia. All conditions associated with sympathetic dominance and prolonged high Beta brainwave states. E.I. Highly Armored.
By contrast, healing states, characterized by slower breathing, hydrated fascia, parasympathetic activation, and coherent electromagnetic fields, create internal environments that are inhospitable to disease. Delta and Epsilon brainwave states, in particular, support cellular repair, immune recalibration, and a return to bioelectric harmony.
In this way, shifting from high-frequency stress states into deeper waves of presence isn’t “healthy” because your IG feed said it would help regulate your nervous system. It changes the body’s entire electromagnetic terrain, all the way down to the cellular level. Chronic illness is shaped by the vibrational quality of our internal state.
Our capacity to access and sustain healing frequencies depends on the whole system functioning as a unified antenna, capable of receiving, transmitting, and amplifying subtle information. The heart generates the signal, the brain interprets it, the nervous system transmits it, and the fascia distributes it through the physical and energetic landscape of the body.
When the system is hydrated, coherent, and connected, it becomes exquisitely sensitive, tuned to the deeper rhythms of life. And remember: hydration is not just about water consumption. True hydration is elemental.
It’s the result of a living dialogue with the natural world, not just the forests and rivers, but reality itself.
The world as it is, not as we wish it to be.
Disconnection is armor, and though the armor is designed to protect us, it also isolates us from ourselves, life, and our inherent vitality. Coherence requires contact and open communication with truth, external, internal, and everything in between.
To be truly hydrated is to be in symbiosis with the forces that sustain life.
It is to participate in a co-regulatory exchange with the planet, a mutual entrainment between body and Earth. Without this kind of communion, coherence becomes fragile. The signal distorts.
But when the heart, brain, nervous system, and fascia are attuned with each other and the rhythms of the planet, when the body becomes a living antenna for resonance, healing doesn’t have to be hunted down or forced. It finds us.
Through these rhythms.
Through these relationships.
Through the remembering that we are not separate from the field we are trying to attune to, we are it.
****I wrote much of this section many months ago, approaching it from a largely intellectual standpoint—trying to capture rhythms, frequencies, and coherence through research and theory. But since then, I’ve had the privilege of doing two different ceremonies with Darryl, one of which was specifically about getting to know and aligning ourselves with these rhythms firsthand.
As I revisit this writing now, preparing it for Substack, I find myself laughing a little at how odd it feels to have “known” these things so much with my head but only now beginning to grasp their resonance in my body. I can’t remember all of Darryl’s teachings… not all the rhythms we worked with, though I know clearly there was the lunar rhythm, the circadian one, the seasonal one… but I can’t remember the rest.
This is a testament to the difference between knowledge as information and knowledge as understanding and knowing. The mind can hold concepts, patterns, and even grand ideas, but that alone doesn’t move or heal us. It’s only through de-armoring/making ourselves available to truly witness and participate with these natural cycles and elements… that knowing starts to arrive. It is earned, yes, but also gratefully received as a gift through presence and attention.
So here’s my honest confession: this material isn’t just intellectual content for me anymore. It’s a living rhythm in motion, a dance with the earth, the moon, the breath, and yes, with Darryl’s teachings unfolding day by day. I hope this deeper embodiment of these truths can find its way into the writing, inviting you not just to understand, but to feel and live them too.
________
I wrote much of this section many months ago, approaching it mostly from the mind, trying to understand rhythms, frequencies, and coherence through my own lens of practice, research, and theory. But since then, I’ve had the privilege of doing two ceremonies with Darryl, one of which was about getting to know and aligning ourselves with these rhythms firsthand.
As I revisit this writing now, preparing it for Substack, I find myself laughing at how odd it feels to have “known” these things conceptually but only now beginning to sense their resonance in my body.
I can’t remember all of Darryl’s teachings, of course… not every rhythm we worked with, and how it relates to the body, the mind… It’s all pretty advanced to actually be able to feel much less articulate and put language to it.
This feels like a testament to the difference between knowledge as information and knowledge as understanding. The mind can hold concepts and patterns, even grand ideas, but that alone doesn’t move or heal us.
It’s only through de-armoring, through making ourselves available to actually participate, making direct contact with these natural cycles and elements, that knowing starts to arrive.
It’s earned through attention and received as a gift. As Darryl often says, can I be grateful for something that came from my own hand, meaning for something that I created or did? And I can say I am grateful that I have been able to spend time with Darryl in these ways, and being able to know him and be known by him has been such a gift, and I am the one who chose to make myself available for myself in my life in these ways.
So, yes, I am grateful to Darryl and to his grandparents, who raised him and taught him traditional medicine as practiced and handed down through the generations of the Dine people.
It’s astoundingly beautiful and inspiring, and I share this in the hope of extending the gift outward, and perhaps you, the reader, can soak up a little bit more from this now knowing that this material isn’t just intellectual content but rather deeply embedded in our day-to-day cycles and rythyms and if we stop to pasue and notice it all starts to be reveal to us.
The Dance Between Effort and Trust
As mentioned in previous blogs, Healing does not arise from force. It’s about presence and how it gives rise to resonance.
Willful practices create the conditions. They help us slow down, get curious, and begin to feel again. But lasting transformation comes when we learn to trust the field —the field of the body, the heart, and the planet.
In my sessions, I guide with presence and attunement, not pressure or trying to get somewhere. We tune into what the body is already doing. We support the system to unwind at its own pace. And we listen, not just to the sound of the breathing or the symptoms, but to the underlying signal. To tone. To the quiet wisdom beneath the noise.
Because the inhale is electric.
The Exhale is Magnetic
And healing, like truth, is resonance.
