Hi Nort,

I would agree that our emotions and thoughts connect us to the world and should not be conceived of either originating within or without the body. The point I am trying to make, however, is that each culture conceptualizes the world differently in terms of emotions and it should affect how people in that culture relate to the world and each other. It is the cultural understanding that counts. For example, the Dogon, who live on the Bandiagara Cliffs in the Niger Bend of Mali, do see the body as a kind of antenna that attracts spiritual principles that exist outside the body. The body is also connected to the world through the four elements of water, fire, earth and air which constitute both world and body. This connection is evident in the exchange between the body and worldly elements through the food one eats, water one drinks, and air one breaths. Another way the body is connected to the world according to the Dogon is by its souls (kikinu), of which there are eight in total, each associated with a different bodily organ, i.e., the brain, liver, heart, pancreas, spleen, etc. The souls are also associated with different emotional states: joy, anger, dread, etc. Although the souls reside in the bodily organs, they have their origin outside the body, where they are held in reserve. The kikinu move about in the form of the wind and are taken into the body through the breath. It's a complicated, but intriguing mapping together of anatomy, physiology, psychology and cosmology. The take away from this Dogon cosmology of affect is the fluid interconnection among the different realms. The modern male tendency is to take, appropriate, consume, and hoard. We should have a choice of how we conceptualize our emotional life!

Tad