Widening the Sensorial Aperture

A GUEST POST BY NICA CELLY

Jerry Mander, author of Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, at his typewriter. (Roger Ressmeyer/VCG via Getty Images) Yes, this button-up and vest vibe will be in my autumn '26 repertoire

This is a brief dalliance from our regular scheduled programming to welcome a very special contribution from Nica Celly, a dear friend & collaborator on Understory: a retreat exploring body, word and landscape. I hope you enjoy her words and insights as much as I did!

It’s all happening, and it won’t stop.

When I spoke with Jolene Beilstein about our upcoming Understory collaboration this week, we were trying to figure out how to share about the Understory in a time like this. We don't want to be prescriptive, given the current swell of anxiety. As we opened the conversation, we spoke in fragments: words, feelings, bylines, but we couldn't find congruence.

We were both tired from too much bedtime scrolling... yes, even us. There is always an update for us to see. One that makes us laugh maniacally for 30 seconds only to cry 45 seconds later with one that panics us to the core. And then fear, and then a hefty dose of can’t-not-see-it. The predictable outcome arrives: overwhelm to sleep. 

Then we wake. 

At 3am. 

Of course. 

We pray sleep might come save us. 

It doesn’t. 

And then, we get more tired. 

Less responsive. 

Jolene and I tried to figure out how to talk about what we are doing in a time like this. A time of undeniable unraveling, of violence, of the shattering of what we knew in the face of what is coming. We couldn't do it.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/ade213_31b1c9083a1145a492336f294f3ad0ec/720p/mp4/file.mp4

Later That Day

Through the day and between scrolls, a book kept coming to mind: Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, written in 1978 by Jerry Mander. I'd read it a couple times, 20 years ago.

In it, Mander, an ad executive, describes how televisions move us from alert beta states into alpha, that soft space between waking and sleeping. Beta is interactive, responsive, reciprocal. Alpha on the other hand is deeply receptive. It is where meditation lives. Yoga nidra lives there, too. If in alpha, I could guide you into connective tissue, breath, fingerprints to footprints, and your nervous system might soften enough to remember itself.

Even after 47 years, Mander's proof points have only become sharper. What was once affectionately called the boob tube has been replaced by short-form video, binge culture, sped-up whatsapp messages: and the outsourcing of our own agency to devices. And that alpha state, filled with scrolling, refresh buttons, replays of replays on replay becomes something else entirely. It is what Mander calls technological hypnosis. 

And it results in a nervous system churned to exhaustion.

Unable to respond, we cook in our customized stew of rapidity and paralysis.

So here we are, in alpha, suspended between two pathways:

One is passive receptivity, offered by our beloved light boxes. Our minds love it, churning ever faster to potential burn out - to a crisp (I know you’ve been there, or edge delightfully until it’s too late). It goes without saying, our nervous systems don’t manage as well as our minds.

The other is the curious waking to a wider sensorial aperture: awareness. Not just awareness through sight and sound (the two senses that take the most hits and, if we are being honest, can wear themselves out easily from doing far too much), but rallying the whole system: interoception (internal organ perception), proprioception (spatial), nociception (pain), balance (physical and conceptual), thermoception (temperature)… In this wider view, all the parts have the opportunity to commune.

And when all sensorial hands are on deck, we can respond, breaking the hypnosis.

And this is the work of Understory: subtle investigation through specific and skillful method:

• forest bathing,

• pranayama,

• yin & hatha (aka slowwww) yoga,

• & creative writing

We will move through alpha, and come back to beta, balancing and inspiring the senses to return, so that we might feel a whole system coming back into calibration, and awareness, and awakeness…

Jolene here again... I am just so delighted to be offering a multi-day retreat with Nica. It has been such an honour to dream, create and bring this project to life with her. She is wildly creative, funny and wise, with a depth and breadth of knowledge and experience that inspires me endlessly!

Understory is hosted by Ratna Ling Buddhist Meditation Centre, in beautiful Cazedaro, California (about 2 hours north of San Francisco). You can learn more about Understory and the gorgeous amenities at Ratna Ling here.