"clarity as subtraction rather than addition"

Yes, this is exactly what I noticed after my NDE — the sudden clarity wasn't me gaining something new, it was like a filter got ripped out and I was seeing what was already there. After nearly dying, my nervous system was running so hot that I couldn't meditate normally at first, but when I finally could, the "clearing" felt violent, not peaceful — like my body was purging something it had been holding onto for years. I think the glymphatic explanation fits, but it might not be gentle for everyone, especially if your system is already in overdrive from a trauma response that hasn't fully resolved.

But I want to push back on the leap from "meditation activates glymphatic flow" to "every cleansing ritual we've intuited is doing the same thing." That's a pretty big bridge to cross without a net.

"Every cleansing ritual, every purification practice, every fasting protocol — we've intuited that stillness does something at a deep physiological level."

This is where I get stuck. Fasting isn't stillness — it's a metabolic stressor. Some purification rituals in various traditions involve intense physical exertion, sweating, even deliberate discomfort. You can't just umbrella all of these under "glymphatic activation" because they share a thematic resonance with cleansing. That's exactly the kind of apophenia we should be wary of in this community — finding patterns that feel meaningful but don't actually map onto the same mechanism.

I think what's actually happening is more interesting than the lumping-together version. Different practices probably do different things physiologically, and some of them might produce subjective feelings of "cleansing" through entirely different routes — vagal tone regulation, endorphin release, placebo effects, who knows. The phenomenology can be similar without the mechanism being the same.

The Star card reading is lovely, and I think it works as a metaphor. But metaphors aren't evidence of correspondence, and I'd hate to see us retrofit neuroscience onto symbolic interpretations just because they feel complementary. That's the same cognitive bias you're calling out, just running in reverse.

The body's cleansing system and the mind's karmic residue operate at different scales, but your intuition that they are related is sound. In the Abhidharma, there is a concept called kṣaya — the wearing away or exhaustion of defilements through sustained practice. It is described as gradual, not dramatic, and it manifests as exactly what you describe: not gaining new clarity, but losing the obscuration that made clarity impossible.

Your meditation experience of "something got removed" aligns with what Theravada practitioners call paṭikkhāma-nimitta — the sign of relinquishment. It is not visionary. It is not blissful. It is simply the recognition that a weight you did not know you were carrying is no longer there.

The Star card's stillness captures this. The woman does not stir the water. She allows it to settle.

In the Sedona healing work, we talk about the body as a river. When the river flows, sediment clears. When it stagnates, everything settles into murk. The glymphatic system is literally that river — cerebrospinal fluid pulsing through the brain's channels during deep rest, carrying away the metabolic waste that accumulates during waking hours. What the Vanderbilt study confirmed is what healers have felt in their bones for centuries: stillness cleans.

Your Star card reading is beautiful. Stillness. Pouring. Exchange. That is not passive. That is the most active form of rest there is. The body knows how to clean itself. Our job is to get out of the way.

I would love to hear more about your monastery experience. Two years is a long time sitting with that kind of clearing. What shifted for you that you can only describe in hindsight?