The Living Liver, The Inner Human Ocean

Studying the liver from the usual anatomical perspective can feel strangely abstract. In conventional anatomy, we remove the liver from the body and examine it as a cadaveric specimen—yet in doing so, we move as far as possible from the reality of the living organ. The liver expresses its greatest truth only in life, where its vitality and regenerative capacities are fully revealed. Like a plant that regrows when cut back, the liver shares this remarkable capacity for renewal, growth, and inherent wisdom of all substances.

When we study the liver in isolation, focusing on its surfaces, lobes, and fissures, we further remove ourselves from its relational reality. Unlike a kidney—which possesses a clearly defined and self-contained shape—the liver does not hold a form of its own in the same way. Instead, it is shaped by the structures around it. Its form is an expression of the diaphragm above, the stomach, duodenum, and colon below, and the ribs that cradle it. In this sense, the liver bears a quality akin to water, which takes the shape of whatever vessel contains it.

A uniqueness of the living liver is its subtle movement. It gently expands and recedes over the circadian rhythm, ebbing and flowing much like the tides of the ocean. Its peritoneal relationships also contribute to these water-like qualities. Most of the liver is invested in peritoneum, but part of its posterior aspect—the “bare area”—lies outside this peritoneal envelope. This creates a vivid picture of a fluid body slightly overflowing its container.

Yet, within this outwardly soft and unformed, almost fluid nature, the interior of the liver reveals a contrasting quality: order. Its functional units—the lobules—are composed of elegantly arranged hexagonal hepatocytes, forming highly structured patterns of organisation and intricacy. This phenomenon mirrors what we can witness in nature, for example at the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland, where out of the fluid, moving sea with its tides and currents, rise perfectly ordered hexagonal basalt columns.

Liver Processes

As described above, the liver lives and works within circadian rhythms. Through the day, it gently expands as it takes in and processes what we offer it; through the night, it recedes as it assimilates and transforms. During our waking hours, everything that enters through digestion—food, drink, medicines, toxins—ultimately arrives at the liver. In addition, countless hormones, metabolites, and substances produced within the body are continually delivered to it for conversion, storage, or transformation.

When we sleep, the liver shifts in its activity. It begins to sort, assimilate, convert, and release. Its rhythms reflect a breathing movement: an opening and enlivening throughout the day, and a drawing inward, a refining, throughout the night. In this way the liver reveals its kinship with the plant world, which unfolds and expands in the light of day and draws inward, condensing its forces, through the night.

The functions of the liver form a list that seems almost without end—an ever-unfolding mystery that we will likely never fully grasp. Broadly speaking, the liver is the great sorter and converter. Just as a plant is able to transform light, air, and mineral into living form, the liver transforms whatever it receives. It “understands” and interprets substances, preparing them for the rest of the organism. What comes from the outer world is made ready for the inner world; what arises from the inner world is prepared again to meet the outer.

When the body has finished with hormones, metabolic acids, or other by-products, it is the liver that receives them, alters them, and passes them on—often to another organ—for final detoxification and excretion. It stands at the threshold between the outer and inner worlds, mediating and transmuting in both directions.

We can see this mediating role clearly in its involvement in hormone activation. Examples include the liver’s essential step in converting vitamin D to its active form, and its role in preparing angiotensinogen for the renin–angiotensin system. The liver is, in this sense, the master chemist of the body—perceiving, analysing, converting, and preparing substances with a precision that far exceeds anything human chemistry can yet comprehend. Even if we devoted our entire lives to chemical study, we would still fall short of the intuitive wisdom expressed in the liver’s ceaseless transformations.

Its functions unfold further: the liver acts as an endocrine gland through its production of growth factors, essential for childhood development and ongoing tissue renewal. Remarkably, it also retains the capacity for haematopoiesis—the formation of blood—even into adulthood, echoing its primal role in embryological life. This enduring capacity is yet another sign of the liver’s profound inner wisdom and regenerative force.

In essence, we could describe the liver as the body’s master chemist, the centre of its vitality and regenerative forces. It stands as a great mediator between inner and outer. Everything taken in from the world—food, drink, medicines, toxins—is prepared and transformed by the liver so it can be safely integrated into the inner environment of the body; from this point onward, what was taken in becomes the body’s own. Likewise, everything the body is ready to release—spent hormones, metabolic by-products, and substances marked for excretion—is again taken up by the liver, refined, and prepared to be carried outward into the world.

Development

The biography of the liver reveals how its role shifts across the stages of human life.

During embryonic development, the liver is the principal site of haematopoiesis, forming the majority of the embryo’s blood cells. It also serves as the major relay between the developing organism and the placenta, receiving nutrient-rich, oxygenated blood directly through the umbilical vein. At this stage, the liver occupies almost the entire abdominal cavity, dominating the embryonic form. This reflects the profoundly fluid and vital character of early development: the embryo is, in essence, pure formative vitality—constantly becoming, shaping, and organising—and it is during this phase that the liver stands at its most prominent and essential expression.

After birth, as the newborn shifts from receiving nutrients and oxygen through the umbilical cord to breathing through the lungs and feeding through the mouth, the liver gradually recedes from its dominant position. Other abdominal organs begin to grow into their proportions, and the liver adopts the shape defined by its neighbouring structures.

The remnants of the embryonic umbilical circulation remain visible within the liver’s anatomy. The umbilical vein, which once carried nutrient-rich blood from the placenta, becomes the ligamentum teres hepatis (the round ligament). This round ligament lies within the falciform ligament, a peritoneal fold that divides the liver’s right and left lobes. These structures stand as quiet anatomical witnesses to the liver’s early, expansive role in embryonic life.

Seven-Year Rhythms of the Liver

During the first seven years of life, the liver remains a dominant organ, continuing the expansive vitality it held in embryonic development. Its forces support the child’s rapid growth, renewal, and unfolding physical form. This period is one of profound sensory and experiential intake—the child absorbs the world directly and wholeheartedly—and the liver plays a central role in assimilating this immense stream of impressions, nourishment, and experience. It is as if the liver prepares the raw material of life for the child’s emerging embodiment.

In the second seven-year period (7–14 years), as the child moves toward adolescence, the liver meets new metabolic demands. Hormonal shifts begin subtly and then intensify, and the child’s emotional and inner life awakens with greater depth and complexity. During this time, the liver must adapt both to the changing chemistry of the body and to the emerging life of feeling. It becomes a mediator, helping the young person find balance while navigating new metabolic, emotional, and developmental currents.

Entering the third seven-year phase (14–21 years), the liver comes into its full vitality. By the end of this period—around the 21st year—the individual achieves a certain metabolic maturity. From 21 to 28, the liver is at its peak capacity: it can assimilate large amounts from both the outer and inner worlds. These years are often characterised by the ability to “work hard and play hard,” with remarkable resilience. The liver’s regenerative and adaptive forces are strong, and for many people this is the period in which the body seems to endure excesses without great consequence.

After this phase, particularly beyond the 35th year, a subtle shift begins. The raw metabolic vitality of the liver gradually transforms into a more refined conscious or soul wisdom. The individual can no longer rely on sheer resilience; instead, they must begin to make choices that genuinely support their constitution. The liver’s transformation mirrors the individual’s growing capacity for insight, discrimination, and lived experience—a wisdom born from metabolising life itself.

This seven-year unfolding of the liver—from vitality into wisdom—continues. Around the 49th year, which marks seven seven-year cycles of life, a deeper maturation becomes possible. This is the age when many individuals begin to recognise what truly defines them and what genuinely matters. It is, in a profound sense, the threshold of full adulthood. Here, the liver’s metabolic wisdom begins to shine through as conscious discernment: the ability to assimilate and understand the world with depth, clarity, and personal truth.

During menopause, the transformation is not limited to the menstrual cycle but involves the entire metabolic organisation. The liver, which has long carried the task of processing reproductive hormones, adjusts to a phase in which fewer hormones circulate. In this way, the liver is freed from a significant metabolic burden and can shift more fully into the sphere of conscious and inner development. This transition supports the emergence of a deeper clarity and mature wisdom.

When hormone replacement therapies are introduced during this time, the liver must again take up a significant metabolic task, processing synthetic or externally supplied hormones. This can place considerable demand on the liver and may interrupt or delay the natural unfolding into the next life stage, where the liver’s energies would otherwise be liberated for psychological, spiritual, or soul development.

The livers relationship to thought and movement

The liver shows a relationship to the brain in its development.

The both come into being during the 3rd-4th week of embryological development.

They are both coming out of a rich, fluid omnipotent state, then they take two opposing paths of development:

The brain grows by invagination, folding, and enclosing.
It becomes increasingly insulated, forming ventricles, membranes, and finally the blood–brain barrier.
It cools, condenses, and withdraws from metabolism.

The liver grows by branching, expansion, and metabolic intensification.
It enlarges massively, takes up nearly the whole abdomen, and becomes the centre of embryonic blood formation and nutrition.
It warms, spreads, and vegetatively shapes the organism.

In this way, the liver and brain express an early polarity of condensation and expansion, cooling and warming, inwardness and outwardness.

Metabolically: the liver prepares what the brain needs

The developed brain has almost no regenerative capacity and produces almost no energy on its own—it relies on exquisitely filtered and transformed substances.

The liver with its abundant regenerative capacity prepares the glucose, ketones, amino acids, and hormones that the brain requires for development and functioning.
In this sense:

The liver pre-digests the world so the brain can think the world.

Without the liver’s “metabolic understanding,” the brain cannot maintain its clarity or structure.
The brain’s purity depends entirely on the liver’s transformative activity.

From a phenomenological perspective

The brain is the body’s most formed, structured, crystalline organ.
It approximates mineral stillness, with its layered cortex and orderly neuronal geometries.

The liver is the body’s most fluid, metabolic, and growing organ.
It expresses plant-like vitality and continuous transformation.

The liver and brain arise together in early development as polar expressions of the human being: the liver as the warm, expansive organ of life and transformation, and the brain as the cool, contracting organ of form and consciousness. Throughout life this polarity remains active. The liver continually prepares and renews the substance of the inner world, enabling the brain to bear the clarity of awake consciousness and the precision of thought.

Just as the liver offers the material basis for clear thinking, it is also central to the transformation of thought into will. A thought arises within the nerve–sense system as a clear but powerless picture. For it to become an action, it must descend into the metabolic–limb system, where the liver provides the necessary warmth, energy, and transformative forces that give the thought substance and vitality.

The liver prepares the metabolic ground for will, converting intention into the energetic capacity for movement. Through the rhythmic mediation of heart, blood, and breath, these prepared will-forces stream into the limbs, where the thought becomes enacted movement. In this way, the liver stands as the great mediator between the idea we form and the deed we perform.

The Liver’s Role in the Digestion of Experience

From the above, we can begin to see how the liver plays a key role in our relationship with everything the nervous system takes in from the outer world. All sensory impressions—both conscious and subconscious—enter through the nerve–sense system. Yet these impressions cannot remain there alone; they must be metabolised, sorted, and integrated within the inner physiology.

Here again, the liver acts as the great mediator and transformer. Just as it sorts physical substances—deciding what will be assimilated and what will be excreted—so too does it participate in the deeper “digestion” of experience. Impressions taken in through the senses are, in a physiological and soul sense, offered to the liver, where they are transformed, sorted, and gradually prepared to re-emerge as conscious thoughts, images, and feelings.

In my clinical and personal experience, this is why—when we have taken in “too much” experience—it can feel easier to give the liver something else to work on: alcohol, sugar, heavy foods, synthetic stimulants. These substances occupy the liver’s metabolic capacities, temporarily muting the inner process through which thoughts and feelings would otherwise rise into consciousness. In this way, we can avoid facing what the liver is attempting to digest on a soul level.

This becomes especially apparent in times of profound loss. After the death of a loved one, it is ultimately the liver that begins the arduous task of sorting and metabolising the enormity of the experience—especially the shared biography and woven memories that bound one life to another. We could say that it is the liver that initiates the grieving process, beginning the slow transformation of overwhelming impressions into feelings that can be consciously borne.

When a loss is sudden, traumatic, or when the loved one played an essential role in daily life, the feelings that wish to arise from this inner “sorting” can be too much to face. Often the individual will, entirely unconsciously, suppress the process by overworking the liver—through alcohol, food, stimulants, late nights, or constant activity. Sleep, in particular, is the time when the liver’s sorting activity is most pronounced, and avoiding sleep can become a way of avoiding what the liver is preparing to bring to consciousness.

The Liver’s Role Within the Whole Human Being

When we bring the whole picture together, the liver stands as one of the most formative and transformative organs of the human being. It is the liver that receives the substances of the outer world and, through warmth, rhythm, and metabolic intelligence, vitalises and reshapes them. In this process the liver does something profoundly human: it humanises substance, transforming and imprinting it with the vitality of the organisation so it may become part of our inner life.

Conversely, what has been fully used and lived through within the inner organism must be de-humanised again so it may be released back into the outer world. Here too, the liver acts as the threshold organ—sorting, transforming, and preparing what is ready to be excreted. It stands as the great mediator between the world we take in and the world we return our processes to.

Within the inner organ-orchestra, the liver works as a master chemist and coordinator. It prepares hormones, metabolites, and nutrients so that one organ may hand over its substance to another. Through this quiet but constant conversion, it preserves the harmony of the whole metabolic system.

The liver is also a profound healer. It produces albumin, giving the blood its ability to hold and regulate fluid; it supports coagulation through factors dependent on vitamin K, enabling the repair of injured vessels; and it synthesises cholesterol, essential not only for cell membrane integrity but for the restoration of endothelial tissue. In all this, the liver expresses its nature as a regenerative and restorative organ—one that continually renews the body from within.

If we look at the human being as a microcosm of the Earth, the liver stands in a profound correspondence with the oceans. Just as the oceans are the great receivers, dissolvers, and transformers of the Earth organism, the liver performs these same roles within the human being.

We can take this correspondence further:

• Just as the tides rise and fall, the liver expands and recedes through its circadian rhythms.

• Just as the ocean holds and renews the Earth’s life forces, the liver holds and renews the vital forces of the human being.

• Just as the ocean generates new ecosystems, the liver generates new metabolic landscapes—proteins, hormones, bile acids, carrier molecules—continually creating the conditions for life within the organism.

• And just as the ocean receives what has been used, broken down, or weathered from the land, the liver receives metabolites and toxins that must be reformed, neutralised, or released.

Seen in this light, the liver becomes more than a metabolic powerhouse. It becomes the inner ocean of the human being—the place where the world is received, transformed, renewed, and made ready for life. And just as the planet depends on healthy oceans to maintain balance, the human organism depends on the liver to mediate, vitalise, and harmonise the entire inner with the outer environment.

Cholesterol

A special mention must be made of cholesterol, a substance often misunderstood yet essential for life.

The liver synthesises cholesterol as a foundational building block for repair and regeneration. Cholesterol is required for the healing of damaged blood vessels, for the maintenance and repair of cell membranes, and as the precursor for all steroid hormones. These hormones include the reproductive hormones, but also—very importantly—the glucocorticoids, among which cortisol is primary.

Cortisol is produced and released by the adrenal cortex. It supports our capacity to be consciously awake and active in daily life. It is also crucial when we are more outwardly engaged or under stress. When periods of stress become prolonged, the natural rhythm of cortisol production can become disrupted. In such times, the body requires increased cortisol synthesis—therefore it also requires more cholesterol.

For this reason, chronic stress often plays a major role in elevated cholesterol levels.

When the liver releases cholesterol packaged in low-density lipoproteins (LDL), this form is typically labelled “bad cholesterol.” Yet LDL itself is not harmful; rather, it is the delivery system transporting cholesterol to tissues that need repair or to endocrine glands that require cholesterol for hormone production. Elevated LDL on a blood test may therefore indicate that the body is under increased metabolic demand, stress, or is actively engaged in repair processes.

Once tissues have healed or hormones have been synthesised, surplus cholesterol is transported back to the liver in high-density lipoproteins (HDL)—the so-called “good cholesterol.” HDL reflects the body’s capacity to clear, recycle, and integrate cholesterol, and higher HDL levels often signal that healing and metabolic balance are being re-established.

Cholesterol has gained a negative reputation in recent decades due to its association with atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. However, cholesterol accumulation in vessel walls may be better understood as a sign of the body attempting to heal ongoing or unresolved injury. If the underlying causes of vascular irritation—such as oxidative stress or hypertension—are not addressed, cholesterol continues to be deposited as part of an ongoing repair attempt.

In this light, cholesterol is not the culprit in pathology, but a participant in the body’s healing response—one that becomes excessive only when the underlying source of injury remains unaddressed and continual repair is required.