From Kidneys to Teeth, Water and Sea Pearls, an Exploration of the Urinary System

July, 2025

The Context:
The urinary system's function is to filter blood, to remove the waste by-products of food and toxins, and to balance water in the body. Blood and water meet in the kidneys to filter a liquid waste called urea, to create urine that then goes down into the bladder. The system includes the kidneys, renal pelvis, ureters, bladder and urethra.

The system is about filtration and reabsorption, a complex shift in the fluids carrying waste, allowing the filtered fluids to continue to nourish the cells of our body.
In the context of Chinese medicine, kidneys are Yin, connected to cold, fear, teeth, memory…while the bladder is Yang and warm. The kidneys store the life force for physical growth and support the root of our respiration.
When I begin to inquire about a Continuum dive, I look up some contextual knowledge and let my attention be guided by subtle sensations, images, sounds… following the path of my awareness moving inward into the cellular realm. Sometimes I like to start with a question like, “what is it to filter toxins and reabsorb nutriments?” Then I dive, then I look up some scientific information. Interestingly, I often come up with similar outcomes when I compare my experience to what I have read, some sort of understanding that the intelligence at the cellular level wants to be known through experience.

The Dive:
1) My baseline starts with the concept of the kidneys as the “root of respiration” by placing my hands behind my kidneys below the diaphragm on my back. What does the “root of my respiration (breath)” mean?

2) I enter with my attention, going deeper to meet with these two bean-shaped kidneys, and for that, I introduce micro-movements like pushing, arching, and rotating around the area of the kidneys. I attune my sensation to sounds - Humming works as I sense a vibrant response, the Zéphyr breath (a silent puffed O) gives me more sense of space and the SSSHH sound, a sense of their filtering nature.
I give plenty of time for the responses and feedback to emerge. I deepen my listening.

3) Then I place both of my hands on top of my pubic bone. Right underneath lays the volume of the bladder. I send some Puffed Os into this chamber to melt the compression that may be held in this lower part of my pelvis. This helps softening the tissues connecting down the legs.

4) For the next section I am seated with my legs in front of me, slowly following the kidney meridian on both legs with the Theta Breath (a soft hissing made by varying the sound of the English way of vocalizing the “th” sound). Begin at the soft cushion below the big toes on the plantar (bottom of the) feet to the inner sides of the ankles, along the inner sides of the legs to the groin, then a few inches out from the sides of the midline, to reach the two collar bones. When my breath ends, I pause before inhaling through my nose to continue stroking this meridian path gently with my fingers.
I give plenty of time for any sensations to arise, shifting my consciousness inside this organ system. I let myself be moved, informed, carried into the experience of not knowing, but receiving.

5) Finally, I tune into my teeth. I never really explored my teeth before, but I feel invited to connect with these 32 pearls that we call teeth. I feel their potency, energy, and power of the primitive form of organismic life on earth.
I create a soft teeth-chattering with a lot of air and saliva in my mouth. This chattering is like the jaw’s response to cold, but it is soft and gentle. There is a sound similar to a white noise that is created between the friction of air mixing with saliva. The tongue is flattened and open wide in the back of the mouth.
Then I place my fingers on my face to touch the roots of my upper teeth through the skin. I imagine combing the root canals with the White Noise breath from the teeth into the bone structure of the head.

In the imaginal realm, I sense a connection of the nerves from my teeth informing my whole body.

To help feeling the dimensionality of the vast net of connectedness, you might orient your awareness towards sensations from your back body when working the upper teeth and the front body when exploring the lower teeth while feeling into the sensations arising in between these two planes in open attention.  

Stay in open attention to refine the subtle sensations that may arise from this exploration.

To end this dive, take a moment to explore the quality of your sight as the last baseline as you stand up and take few steps in the room with your eyes open. Enjoy!

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