The Spanish have a word for it: Brillo. Pronounced BREE-ohhh.
The English word, Brilliance, must come from the same Latin derivative. Thus, for us "brilliance" gives an understanding of our life force within us. Vivacity. Vitality. Latin "vita" means Life....Latin "Viva" means Life. We can now comprehend that Life has something to do with vivacity and vitality, and vice versa!
When the Spanish wish to describe the energy and exuberance they'd like their horses to exhibit, they use the word "brillo." American Western Pleasure riders? Your horses are the exact opposite of "brillo." You train them to be subdued, to hang their heads low, to have a glassy look in their eyes, to appear robotic.
Once, on a ranch in Colorado, I took our Mexican ranch-hand out with me to look for cows. Julio had not ridden with me before and I had no idea of his skills, if any. The horse I chose for him was Sunny, a gentle Palomino who I trained and worked with to become quiet and calm for his novice rider, our boss-lady.
As I rode ahead of Julio, I looked back occasionally to see how he was doing. Just a ways down the old ranch road, I looked back, and Julio had taken the ends of his long reins and was snapping them back and forth, side to side, of his horse, Sunny. At a walk, the bombproof gelding was prancing, neck arched, head up, ears up, excited but controllable.
I sort of yelled, "What are you doing!" and Julio said, "I'm waking him up."
I told him, "Don't do that! Our boss-lady would never be able to control that horse if he pranced like that."
Julio was doing what he had learned in his homeland: To bring up the "brillo" in the horse.
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Humans have "brillo." I was really not aware of it until I broke my C1. But in order to even get up, get dressed and go to the store takes a modicum of it. To visit with friends, laughing, takes more. And to get onstage to perform takes a ton of it!
I have learned, the hard way, that every single thing that we do goes directly through the upper Cspine and skull base. There is nothing we do that does not start or begin there. Any straining, even in your legs, will impact that area. Walking impacts the skull base area. Moving an arm. Laughing. Chewing. Talking. Crying. Even thinking!
We are wondrously made, and so in the undamaged person, these things do not negatively affect the skull base. Things work as they should, and this is no problem...if everything is in good working order.
Bringing up the life force, the Brillo in us goes directly through the skull base area. I can attest to that. If doctors want to know about this, they can ask me.
Now, I'm not feeling sorry for myself, please understand that, but imagine living where you cannot bring up that vitality. I suppose I could but I would pay immediately for this. If I work up some of this life force to play with my dog, for example....briskly working my arms back and forth and my voice getting some excitement in it: "You're such a good dog! You're a good dog! Go get the ball! You wanna play?" I will immediately feel the effects.
My arms will tingle, my feet will go painfully numb, my brain will feel fried (burning and hard to think), and I will be overcome with weakness that is also painful. I asked my surgeon about this, if it would be better after my extraction fusion. He suggested I try my over-the-door traction unit when I feel this sort of reaction. See if it feels relieved. He is a smart man (oops, I've said that before) and he was right...it does relieve it. (however, the traction unit is simply diagnostic for me. When I use it and then take it off, I get total "rebound," meaning that nerve compression is back with even worse afects.)
But the relief while in the traction means that when I have the rods screwed into the back of my skull and going down my Cspine to C5, this should take the compression off whatever nerves are being pinched, and hopefully, I would not have this reaction to the core and center of our existence, our brillo.
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