Now, when we sleep, we may dream. And when I dream, I notice (upon awakening) that there are strange sensations of … tingling or movement in my abdomen and belly.

When I meditate, I ‘drop’ my consciousness down, down, down… into the core of my abdomen. Deep.

When I feel fear, or love… I feel it in my guts, in my root, which is not in my head. When I kiss one I adore, my gut feels wonderfully and strangely active. My ‘in-tuition’ seems to be based in my abdomen, not my brain. And on those occasions when I have experienced transcendent ecstasy (as I did with my nonhuman teacher), my guts were alive with a whole array of unfamiliar sensations.

During my few psychedelic experiences… it seemed that something was ‘speeding up’ in my torso… coming into another way of being. Similarly, when those experiences were ending, there was a ‘slowing down’ there.

And all of this leads me to a simple observation: there is another mind, and it is not in our heads. It is older, by far, than brains. In fact, I suspect… it engineered them as a sort of grandstanding expression of its anciently evolved intelligence. But we think our intelligence is in our brains. We’re mistaken. And what’s more, bacterial symbionts (our commensal microbiota) are involved here. Hugely, vastly, and astonishingly involved. And we acquire those from each other, animals, plants, the world, and our relational activities. For best results, acquire them early, and often. Don’t wash them off. Don’t poison them with pharmaceuticals.

For 6/7ths of the history of life on Earth… there were no brains. There were guts. And they were the organ of knowing.

Watch any infant. When they want to know something?

They -taste- it.

See?