#46: Lily Gottschalk
"Am I dancing or fumbling? Is the world a prison or a playground?"
#46: Lily Gottschalk
Welcome to Health Gossip. Today’s guest is Lily Gottschalk, a screenwriter, experience designer, musician, and masseuse-in-training. I think I first encountered her work when she made music as Bebe Yama (IYKYK). Many lifetimes later, here we are.
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah
Big 3: Libra/Gemini (ow)/Cancer
What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?
I’ve interfaced with health in some pretty extreme ways. From working on an ambulance where bodies reckon with ultimatums, to simulating physiological function in beauty pageants. I’ve had a Diné medicine man exorcise a fragment of human corpse out of my skull during a curse removal. The more I see, the less I know for certain. But there are some interesting connections to be made when you educate yourself with extremes.
My primary measurement of health would be grace. Liquidity. Am I dancing or fumbling? Is the world a prison or a playground?
Another measurement for me would be ability to connect — including with non-human entities. When I was 19, I went to Indonesia and this healer named Tjkorde Gde Rai drew a magic symbol on my chest with a Crayola marker to mend my heart. I went on with my day but about an hour later I was able to understand the language of stone and birds. It was one of the few lucky moments in my life I felt the upper echelons of what is possible in health. It felt elvish. Like full Rivendell send.
So, I agree with the Ayurvedic model — that the purpose of medicine is to allow one access to a higher state of consciousness. Additional pathways include music, ceremony, and architecture. Health reaches far beyond the self/physical body. It is relational. We are all a little sick by virtue of being tied to systems of violence. Andrew Huberman white-knuckle biohacking type stuff pisses me off because it feels like just a means to serve productivity and capitalism.
I have some masters’ level schooling in physiology so of course that also influences my understanding, but I decided not to pursue it because I didn’t want to be in debt $300k and leashed to a hospital for the next twenty years.
Health is what happens under harmonious conditions.
Harmony allows passage for the very force that bore you, to move you into evolution.
Evolution can only occur under the condition of harmony.
How do you harmonize with a band of toddlers smashing on a piano, all the while avoiding complicity in disaster?
Let God lead you to the note that turns it all into a Rachmaninoff chord.
Revolution is a harmonizing act.
How would you describe your current lifestyle?
Sporty student / doomer GF / silent philosopher / dog mom.
How do you start and end your days?
My routines are seasonal, cyclical and site-specific. They shift with the weather, the stars, my menstrual cycle and with whatever new psychological or earthly terrain I am exploring.
In winter, to restore (hypnosis):
hot mineral baths
oil treatments for hair and skin
foot massage
sing
stare at wall
fresh ginger tea with varying herbs / spices
stew
stretch
cuddle
watch TV / rot
yoga nidra / self-hypnosis
ambient music
sex
In winter, to stimulate (hormesis):
wake up to the sun engulfing me (my bed is in the rising sun’s path)
plot revenge
diary brain dump
cold exposure (snowy walks)
figure skating (challenging new skill for neuroplasticity)
pilates / weight lifting
Facetime bestie
sugary treat
joke around giggle
nibble a weed gummy and spiral
short fast
tobacco
espresso
read
research hole
plan
music-listening tornado
I’m in a massage therapy program right now so that takes up most of my day.
Can you recall a moment when you became more aware of your health, or your relationship to it changed?
2017: study of Kung Fu hyper-tuned me. Every lifestyle variable had a direct feedback loop via athletic performance. I could feel that fried chicken in my veins the next day at practice. All the rotational kicks loosened fascia and engaged muscles deep in the pelvic girdle, like the super deep obturator internus. Bringing circulation to this muscle unlocked repressed memories of being suffocated as a toddler (not by my parents). It highlighted how consciousness extends into body tissues beyond the brain. I’m way more dialed into the link between psychology and physiology since then. I will be down that rabbit hole for life.
Are there any practices that you rely on when feeling ungrounded or ‘unhealthy,’ per your definition above?
Walk until inspiration reveals itself. I go to the mountains and sleep in the forest alone for a night or two. Sleeping on the ground, vulnerable to the will of fate, with all sound stripped away except elements in their magnitude (rain, wind, ducks). It does something to you. It actually doesn’t humble me, it makes me feel special, blessed, and neutralizes power differentials. Nature only humbles you if you’re an asshole in your daily life.
If we’re talking unbearable, acute psychic pain, I writhe around and scream possession-style so the emotions don’t calcify in my tissues. If you can’t sink into pain, you will be controlled by the need to escape it and your life will become a lie. This dynamic has been linked to autoimmune issues by doctors like Gabor Maté and Peter Levine. It’s sad/inappropriate that women are prone to being institutionalized for somatically expressing psychic pain. Being a woman is a gift but socially it is a prolonged form of psychological torture. It’s no wonder we are addled and shouldn’t be pressured into silence on top of that. It takes a deeply strong man to handle a woman awakened to expression. It can appear vulgar to the programmed eye.
What’s your relationship to self-healing?
My approach to homeostasis is proportional to my funds. If I can afford acupuncture, massage, psychotherapy or a vacation, I will. If not, I have to dig deep into physical movement (auto-manipulation of tissues and lymph) and self-hypnosis, free elements like sun and hot water, breath, tears, cheap herbs, and lean on my loved ones.
I like to nip things in the bud. The more out of hand the dysfunction, the more expensive, complex, and unpleasant the solution.
You can do so much for yourself with basics. Like sleep… is when you produce human growth hormone which aids in tissue repair and muscle formation. It’s also when your brain cleans itself with pulses of cerebrospinal fluid. Like a dishwasher slurring through the corridors of your mind. I’m a teen level sleeper.
I aim to respond to aggressive stressors with prophylactic consideration. I was exposed to a lot of formaldehyde last week, so am now taking a liver serum. When I was out working on wildfires last summer, I started a cordyceps protocol in advance to account for smoke inhalation. Stuff like this.
Do you work with any practitioners, texts, or modalities on a regular basis?
Hazrat Inayat Khan’s The Mysticism of Sound and Music is a monolith. I am also studying shiatsu and nerding out on its philosophical approach.
Do you have a favorite meal? When do you feel the most nourished?
After a truthful and supportive exchange.
I went to see a Korean nutritionist named Peter Yoon, PhD, who uses an ultrasound to measure your organs. He then profiles your ideal diet type based on the relative proportions of your organs (see: “8 Body Type System”). I have a small liver :/ and long lungs and intestines :D which means I don’t tolerate red meat or alcohol well. I do better with fish, rice, berries, broth and cooked greens. Big on foraging, regenerative farming, fermentation and trying to prevent war crimes within my microbiome. I cook a lot of arctic char and feed the skin to Wolf [editor’s note: Lily’s husky]. I’m not dogmatic about diet. F*cking obsessed with fresh sheep’s milk and it’s hard to come by because they don’t love being milked.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Pause.
To the person reading this?
Follow the music.
What would you like to see or create more of in the world?
Relaxed interactions. Experimental art.
What Lily’s reading: “Sobotta Human Anatomy 1 & 2, Do It Yourself Shiatsu by Wataru Ohashi, PubMed articles.”
What Lily’s listening to: “Midwife’s No Depression in Heaven, my own demos, Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood collabs, Alice Coltrane’s Turiya Sings (most beloved recording of all time).”