The Heart of Stillness

A Biodynamic View of Structural Integration

By Carol Agneessens, MS, RCST

Carol A. Agneessens, M.S. RCST, teaches both Rolfing® and Rolfing® Movement Integration. She is also a certified instructor of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy and the author of The Fabric of Wholeness. This article is an excerpt from her forthcoming book: The Heart of Stillness: The Essence of Craniosacral Biodynamics. Carol can be contacted at carol@biodynamicschool.com or (831) 662-3057.

Introduction

Sometime in late 1982, I began studying the cranium as a way to further my understanding of the seventh hour. At the time, I purchased Dr. Upledger’s first book and began working privately with one of his students. I was taught the 10 step protocol and although my tutor was highly skilled, I felt uncomfortable following a recipe for the manipulation of cranial bones. I was looking for ‘something’ but was unsure of where or how to find it. I continued to pursue study with other cranial specialists, and always appreciated their skill, but I was unable to find a methodology which would support the depth of contact I wanted for working with the cranium.

In 1998, I was introduced to a fluid approach to craniosacral therapy. My body eased as I was guided into the ‘well’ of fluidity which floated the bones. This approach made sense to my hands and my heart. The depth of contact with ‘a fluid body’ inspired me to pursue my inquiry into a Biodynamic approach to craniosacral therapy. Biodynamic perception removes the veil of template perception. Template perception is a prism, a lens or a model through which a practitioner either knowingly or unknowingly views the client. This lens acts as a standard, used to measure the client and/or client’s progress. Once this process begins, the therapist attempts to make the client fit into that model, which then induces the practitioner to try to reach a particular outcome. Every therapeutic exchange is colored by the perception of the therapist. When looking through a biodynamic prism, I attempt to let go of a desired outcome in order to allow a client’s body to self-organize. By stepping back from ‘doing’, a space arises. It is within this spacious presence that change occurs. I do not ‘do’, as much as cultivate a state of receptivity, allowing an inherent treatment plan to surface from within the client’s system. If I am able to slow down enough and WAIT, this expression emerges. Their system reveals what needs attention in a myriad of creative ways.

I have discovered that a biodynamic perception influences all of the structural and movement sessions that I do. In addition, my understanding of health and healing has dramatically shifted. In the writing that follows, I will present an overview of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BDCST), and the scientific ground behind various biodynamic phenomena. There are five major areas in which a biodynamic approach can support the work of Structural Integration. These areas will be highlighted through the experiential explorations which follow.

Somatic Exploration: The Impulse to Do

Stand at the feet of your partner gently holding their lower legs just above their heels. Notice the impulse or “pull” to do or begin to work. Continue to wait…holding their heels. As you wait notice if there is a palpable sense of settling within your partner’s system (as well as your own). Notice how often something arises in their system that calls your attention, just notice this, but do not act.

Continue to wait and notice, settling into yourself as their system drops into a more restful place. Count the number of times you might have “jumped into” their structure. There will be a moment when everything seems to settle…practitioner, client and the space within the room. From this place called ‘neutral’, something will arise from their system which is the ‘main event’ of the session. This is their system’s unique expression. In repeating this exploration you may want to make a note of the number of times and where in their system you experienced the impulse to start working.

SI Application #1: Slow down. Find Neutral. Let the immediate impulse ‘to do’ pass … as you wait for their system, and yours, to settle. Try waiting at least 3 minutes.

Biodynamic

The origin of this word comes from embryology and the pioneering vision of Erich Blechschmidt. Biodynamic refers to the dynamic metabolic forces which arise and affect the growth and development of the individual from its origin as a single fertilized cell. A metabolic process is the sum total of chemical processes of living organisms and result in sustaining vital life functions.¹ Blechschmidt saw the human body arising from wholeness. The perfection within wholeness is the underlying ground and functioning force of the body.

Blechschmidt was a skilled research scientist who was fascinated with embryos. He held a curiosity and awe about the biodynamics and biokinetics of human development. He questioned how life came into being. What happens? Although he never arrived at an answer, he wrote that the “cause of the beginning of human life is held within the consciousness of the embryo itself.”² He also sensed that there was a secret, a mystery that needed to be recognized and not dissected. This mystery of life, he would soon realize, is at the center of the Healing process. Blechschmidt was fascinated by the fact that there was a force inside the fluids of the body that was not coming from genetic information. He felt that this force within the fluid actually contained the idea of form for each part of the human body, whether it’s a kidney or vertebra or eye, and brought it into manifestation. At about six weeks of embryonic life, the genes begin to modify this original form. In other words, embryonic growth emerges via metabolic fields and the influence of something he called a fluid force. However, initially, metabolic processes within the fluid environment of the embryo form the embryo. The varying growth patterns and biokinetic activity shape the embryo according to specific spatiotemporal aspects of development. Although a “field” usually means an electric, magnetic or photonic emission, “a biodynamic metabolic field is a field of force based on a locally ordered metabolism.”³

Blechschmidt described nine different functions which illustrate how fluids behave internally. It is out of these movements or functions that structure emerges. He felt that the movements were “driven by the metabolism of cellular tissues. Cell metabolism potentizes or depletes various fluids, which Blechschmidt called a metabolic field.”⁴

An example of a metabolic field which I find easy to understand and visualize can be illustrated by the very early bending of the embryonic disc into a ‘C’ shape. This flexing is actually due to a decrease in pressure from the dwindling of the yolk sac. “Cellular metabolism depletes nutrients in extracellular fluids and causes build-up of metabolic wastes. Sheets of cells adjacent to depleted fluids then slow their growth, and become the concavity of tissue curvatures.⁵ Over time, these biodynamic metabolic fields can be used to describe cells, and cell ensembles (e.g., zones of loose tissue, zones of dense tissue) or whole areas of differentiation such as the lung, liver, or the thyroid gland.

“What is needed is to learn afresh, to observe and discover for ourselves the meaning of wholeness.” David Bohm⁶

BDCST has its roots in the writing and study of the early osteopaths, and most directly, William Sutherland, DO (the founder of cranial osteopathy). From 1948 on, Dr. Sutherland devoted himself exclusively to a biodynamic approach. He referred to the Breath of Life as an unerring Intelligence or potency infusing the cerebrospinal fluid. He said it was “the Breath of Life” which carries out the correction, not the therapist. The manifestation of the Breath of Life within the body is called Primary Respiration. The potency within the movement of primary respiration is not limited to the cranium or the cerebral spinal fluid but moves through a fluid body which is intimately connected with the soma.

The fluid body is part of the bioelectric field or zone which surrounds the physical body and is also intrinsic to what Mae Wan Ho, Ph.D. describes as the liquid crystalline matrix⁷ and James Oschman, Ph.D. refers to as the Living Matrix.⁸ Through its bioelectric nature, a continuum of communication flows between the immediate environment and the collagen fiber alignment within the body’s connective tissue. These pathways provide channels for electrical intercommunication.

Eric Blechschmidt described nine different ways in which fluids will interact within the body. William Sutherland perceived forces within the fluids. Yet, the two men had never met or read each other’s work. Both of these scientists were describing the same phenomena within a fluid medium.

“Within the cerebrospinal fluid is an invisible element that I refer to as the Breath of Life. I want you to visualize this as a fluid within a fluid, something that does not mix, something that has Potency as the thing that makes it move…that is more intelligent than your own human mentality.”
William Sutherland⁹

Biophotons: light within the fluids

The potency that Dr. Sutherland contacted within the fluids of an individual’s system, and the force within the fluids that Dr. Blechscmidt sensed was directing embryonic formation, find a scientific ground in the pioneering research of Mae Won Ho, Ph.D. biochemist, geneticist and researcher.

In her exciting book, The Rainbow and the Worm: the Physics of Organisms,¹⁰ Mae Won Ho describes the physics of living processes. She initiates the reader into the ‘poetry that is the soul of nature’ and which is intimately experienced through our own sensing of the natural world. She writes that ‘life is a process of being an organizing whole…and therefore must reside in the pattern of dynamic flow of matter and energy that somehow makes the organisms alive…’¹¹ The characteristics of life processes that she cites include: an extreme sensitivity to specific cues from the environment, dynamic order and coherence, extraordinary efficiency and rapidity of energy transduction, and wholeness and individuality.¹² All of the characteristics that she describes can be easily translated into a description of the biochemical underpinnings of biodynamic principles.

When Dr. Sutherland writes of ‘a fluid within a fluid’’, perhaps he was referring to a phenomenon involving the emitting of light that occurs as a living system gains greater and greater coherence. Perhaps Dr. Sutherland, in his treatments, was touching a liquid crystalline matrix. This matrix of bound water layers on the collagen fibers provide proton conduction pathways for rapid intercommunication throughout the body, and enable the system to function as a coherent whole.¹³ In Mae Won Ho’s research with Drosophilia larvae ¹⁴ she speaks of the synchronization of oscillating systems which may include the flashing of fireflies, the chirping of crickets or the coherent action of the pacemaker cells of the heart (to name just a few). Sutherland referred to this coherent resonance as the ‘fluid potency’ within the body. The fluid body, which is an expression of a bioelectric matrix, is a coherent field of energy. Sutherland recognized a phenomenon of light within matter that is the Health or potency that sustains living processes. As the system becomes more coherent, there is a greater expression of Health.

Mae Wan Ho suggests that light and living matter have a very special relationship and that all organisms emit light at a steady rate. The emitted light is called a biophoton. “This emission is correlated with the cell cycle and other functional states of the organism and responds to external stimuli and stresses. Biophoton emission is universal to all living organisms.”¹⁵

“… the biophoton light is stored in the cells of the organism…. The processes of morphogenesis, growth, differentiation and regeneration are also explained by the structuring and regulating activity of the coherent biophoton field. The holographic biophoton field of the whole organism, may serve as the basis of memory and other phenomena of consciousness. The consciousness-like coherence properties of the biophoton field indicate its possible role as an interface to the non-physical realms of mind, psyche and consciousness.” Marco Bishof¹⁶

In treating the many who sought his care, William Sutherland found that as potency increased and was sustained within a system, clients reported feelings of greater well being. The liquid light of potency and the existence of biophotons create a biological tapestry with the role of regulating the unfoldment of Health and personal well being.

A case study

A silicon valley computer programmer recently came to me for treatment. She exhibited many symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome: low grade fever, aches and pains that moved throughout her body, low energy, cycles of depression and an early history of childhood emotional abuse. In working, I would ‘drop’ my awareness beneath the trauma and activation that could be felt within her nervous system. As I settled into my own sense of an embodied ‘ground’, her system followed me. As I energetically ‘sank’, she ‘rested’ further into my treatment table. During our initial sessions I could not perceive a fluid field generating from the inside of her system to the outside of her skin boundary. I contacted various spaces, or ‘embryonic gateways’ within her system. At each site I would wait until I felt the discharge of a ‘buzzy’, electric-like energy often referred to as ‘hard’ potency, which is held within the trauma event. I would WAIT until the buzzy discharge shifted into a softer, warmer energy. As the release of ‘soft potency’ became more palpable there was a distinct change in the nature of the bone or tissue that I was contacting. The sacrum (for example) became more porous, more permeable and began to ‘breathe’. There was no longer a distinction between the porous quality of her sacrum and my hand. The inherent motility (inner movement) within the sacrum itself seemed to increase and I could sense a reorganization from the sacrum to the lower lumbar spine and then within the entire structure. The system itself ‘knew’ how to reorganize; I did not have to ‘make it happen.’

I understand this as the inherent Intelligence of potency rising within her system. With each consecutive session, the Health sustaining Intelligence flourishes and she reports less and less of her initial symptoms.

The Fluid Body

The fluid body is more than a sum of the fluid systems contained within the body. (i.e. lymph, interstitial, blood, cerebrospinal fluid, synovial fluids etc.) The fluid body is the bioelectrical continuum arising from the primal mesenchyme and ground substance of the embryo. It can be measured and palpated both within and around the body due to the bioelectric properties of its fluidic nature. The potency within the fluids is not limited to the cranium or cerebral spinal fluid but moves through this fluid body and is intimately connected with the soma.

My initial introduction to the concept of spatial intelligence and connectivity came from the writing of Samy Frenk and Francisco Varela in an article they published called The Organ of Form.¹⁷Their research explored the interrelationship and communication between the extracellular matrix, ECM (space) and the defined tissue structures (form). Varela and Frenk saw the ECM as a global network of fluid space because it is continuous throughout the body. This fluid body is a global function of biochemical/bioelectrical intelligence, which permeates the physical body. The fluid body includes the extracellular matrix, the connective tissue matrix (which both defines a space and shapes the form of tissue structures) and is responsive to the surrounding environment via the inherent responsiveness of the perineural system. ‘Peri’- is a prefix meaning around, surrounding or near. In this instance peri-neural refers to the cells that encircle ‘each neuron in the brain and follow every peripheral nerve to its termination’.¹⁸ The peri-neural system is like an ‘amoebic brain’, very ancient yet responsive to environmental surroundings and stimulation. It operates beneath cortical control, and is an instinctual aspect of self, sensing our surroundings and moving us toward or away from contact with the events within our field of experience. I think of it as the ‘psuedopod antenae’, shaping and informing the permeable fluid body.

Robert O. Becker, pioneered research that explored the functioning of the perineural system and its relationship to the semi-conducting (communicating) matrix in which it is embedded. This semi-conducting matrix is the connective tissue. He recognized a ‘dual nervous system’ consisting of the classical nervous system that operates in a sequential fashion transmitting electrical impulses from a commanding brain to axon and dendrite. In addition to the classical nervous system, he described the perineural informational system that is made up of more than half the cells of the brain and transmits information via ‘slow moving waves of direct current throughout the organism, affecting every part.’¹⁹ On an evolutionary scale, this system is much older, sending information in a global manner, and spreading systemic regulation throughout the body for injury repair. I imagine this system to be our instinctual brain and much like an amoeba in its fluidic motion. These movements operate “under the radar” of conscious awareness yet are totally intelligent. I imagine this system operating when our amoebic antennae move us ‘out of the way’ by seconds of an impending impact. We contact this system every time our hands touch the connective tissue matrix of an individual’s body.

Mae Won Ho speaks of a liquid crystalline matrix that describes a system that is open to the environment, that organizes itself (and its environment) by simultaneously ‘enfolding’ the external environment and spontaneously ‘unfolding’ its potential from within.²⁰ There appears to be an equivalency between Ho’s description of a liquid crystalline matrix, Oschman’s living matrix, and Sutherland’s many references to the liquid light moving within the fluid body. Dr. James Jealous carries this understanding further when he speaks to a primordial body as a living continuum of fluidity with a living and palpable Intelligence:

“We must have fluency in our perception and we must be able to move from the center of the soma to the center of the fluid body to the center of the potency…. I recommend you go to the center of the fluid body and feel it breathe. Don’t try to feel the fluid body by surrounding it with your consciousness. If it’s fluent in its expression, it means the psyche is without will. Its fulcrum is not in one’s individuality but in the life of the SEA as a whole….” James Jealous²¹

Whether it is a reference to the ‘living matrix’ and its crystalline nature or the living Intelligence within the fluid body, the scientific ground for the communicative properties of the matrix can be linked to the primeval functioning of the perineural system.

Somatic exploration: contacting the Intelligent web (part 1)
with a partner…

Settle into yourself, feel your feet on the floor, soften your vision and expand your perceptual field to include a sense of your skin boundary and the space to the sides and behind you. Notice your breath. Settle into yourself with an easy and relaxed field of awareness,

From a neutral space, place your hands on your partner’s thigh. With more attention/ intention on the back of your hand (rather than on the palmar surface) ‘ask’ their system to show you the superficial fascial web beneath the skin surface. Next, ‘suggest’ contact with one of the muscles of their thigh. Let a sense of their femur rise into your hand. How does your sense of contact change if you “go after” this anatomy? What does your partner experience?

Now…hold all of these systems in your awareness…the fascial web, the muscle, the bone, the fluids… .

What happens?

SI Application #2: If you experience your perceptual field narrowing, and suddenly find that all that exists in your perception is what is underneath your fingertips, step back and widen your field of vision to include the space around you, and perhaps even the space around the building or beyond. ‘Get Wide’ without losing your feet.

Each time we touch someone we have the opportunity to contact finer and finer aspects of the inherent Intelligence. The sense of presence and receptivity, which we bring to each therapeutic contact, will determine what is revealed.

“…finer nerves dwell within the lymphatics than even with the eye. The eye is an organized effect, the lymphatics the cause, in them the spirit of life more abundantly dwells….Can you find the 40,000 finer nerves that go between the hypothalamus and the pituitary body?”
Andrew Taylor Still, D.O. ²²

This inherent Intelligence is not an anthropomorphized “something” living high up in the sky; it is inherent to the life and Health which moves through all living things.

The Movement of the Tides

Life is movement. Every living system is in perpetual motion from the intercellular activity of protein formation, to the more palpable rhythms of circulatory pulsation, thoracic respiration, and cranial rhythmic impulses.

All of these rhythms function within the global membrane of our skin. There are also much slower rhythms, which move through the body either from the surrounding environment or from a center of stillness within the midline of the body. These are the subtle and slow rhythms known as the potency tide of the fluid body and the long tide of primary respiration. “The potency tide expresses the biodynamic force within the fluid system as a unified tensile field at a rate of 2.5 cycles/minute of inspir and expir. The long tide can be felt at an even slower rate of one cycle per 100 seconds.”²³ These rhythms are not unlike the ocean currents and tides permeating the natural world and moving through the enveloping field. The rhythms of the sea, and the rhythms of life are constantly present. These natural rhythms are sometimes veiled to our sensing by the limitations of our perception and the often overwhelming pace of the world around us. The environmental speed and chaos when coupled with the ‘state’ of our own nervous system in ease or activation influences each person’s perceptual sensitivity. Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy is an approach that senses the whole of an individual in relationship to the field. This field is not static but is in motion, as if ‘it’ is breathing around and through the physical body. The felt-sense of connection to something greater than oneself arises from the perception of, and a relationship to, the whole of life in all of its processes, forms and densities. A biodynamic approach develops an awareness of an Intelligence that infuses every nook and cranny of a living system.

The tides can be sensed moving through the soma (tissues, fluids, bones) as well as through the fluid body of potency and the tidal body of primary respiration. Just as the embryo arises from a still center, the tides arise from a depth of stillness, which is at the heart of the biodynamic work.

Somatic exploration: Every drop knows the tide. (Sutherland)

Find a comfortable sitting position. Follow your thoracic inhalation and exhalation as your breathing becomes deeper, slower and easier. Imagine that you are a teardrop of fluid (not water but thick, vibrating, and viscous)… Become this singular medium of pulsating fluid. Sit with this awareness for five or more minutes. What do you notice? Is the fluid body breathing you? (adapted from J. Jealous)²⁴ SI Appication #3:

Take a moment to sense the fluidity within your hands and the rest of your body before you make contact with your client’s body.

Waves, Particles, and Therapeutic Touch

If the fluid body is viewed through a quantum lens, our perception may be of “particles” or “waves” within the individual’s system. If the inquiry is expanded to include the function of biophotons, “it is possible that light stimulates the flow of solitons, which are waves of energy and information that travel rapidly through the protein fabric of the body. The flow of solitons opens gates and switches and organizes dynamic living matrix pathways. On a microscopic level the cells communicate and orchestrate the repair of traumas of all kinds.”²⁵

Research currently validates the existence of these interconnected systems, which transmit the intelligence of the whole. The perineural connective tissue system is an essential function of this global and life sustaining movement.

Somatic exploration: Contacting the Intelligent web (part 2)
with a partner…

Settle into yourself, feel your feet on the floor and widen your perceptual field to include a sense of the space to the sides and behind you. Notice your breath. Settle into neutral.

Sit comfortably at your partner’s feet, with your hands contacting the dorsal surface of their lower leg, above the ankle. Sense the perineural system within the connective tissue matrix.

Let your perception include not only the front surface of your partner’s body, which you can see, but also the entire back of your partner’s body. Sense their body as a wave of inherent connectivity. Hold the “all of their body” in your perception. Include an awareness of the space around you, behind you and to the corners of your workspace. What do you notice? What does your partner report about their experience of your contact? Narrow your view to their ankles. What do you experience? What does your partner report?

When we extend our perception to experience the body as a waveform, or reduce our attention to a more particulate focus, or if we widen our perception to include the environmental space while simultaneously holding the ‘micro’ view, the therapeutic intervention will have a different outcome. All of these perceptual shifts are palpable realities which resonate throughout the whole of the practitioner and client. It is two- way communication.

A Focus on Health

Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy is a holistic process designed to allow a practitioner to come into relationship with a fundamental and therapeutic force that moves within the body, and through the bioelectric field which surrounds and permeates the body. Incorporating the vision of Dr. Blechscmidt, it is an approach to seeing the totality of the individual in Spirit, Soul, and Body, thereby acknowledging the underlying wholeness and depth of the mystery which is functioning Life. Health is the underlying wholeness within every body. True health is the embodied fullness of the dimensional aspects of body, mind, emotion and spirit.

“Osteopathy in its conception contained a philosophy as well as a science. Osteopaths were asked to consider questions of the soul, death, transcendence, and use only their hands in healing. The background in which life occurs has meaning. …Any healing art needs to help individuals find the way to a deeper reality than a biomolecular model of health.”
James Jealous²⁶

The core of the Biodynamic work is perceptual. It is about learning to sense the whole of an individual and relate to the HEALTH, which is predominant, rather than relating to the “problem” or “dis-ease”. Health is not merely the absence of illness or pain, which might be relieved by taking an herbal formula or receiving a deep massage. In this context, to hold a philosophy of contacting the Health within each person/client is to perceive wholeness, or a sense of connection between the many facets of self: emotional, physical, spiritual, relational, etc.

As a structural practitioner, we are taught to look at what is not working in an individual’s structure / movement patterns, with the intention of “correcting” it. What would happen if our first intention were to contact an individual’s health/underlying wholeness as a primary resource and then relate to “the problem” within the context of their essential Health? [The word resource is used in this context as the embodied sense of connectivity to life, and ‘core’ essence. An individual’s felt-sense of their inherent wholeness is the primary resource.]

For example: Imagine a large 3-D satin sheet with a number of ‘historical mementos’ scattered upon it and embedded into the many layers of fabric. These mementos are the past events, which continue to affect the system and which often create the impetus for an individual to seek our services. These histories could be accidents, injuries, traumas, both physical and emotional, all of which are triggered by an event in time. As a practitioner, if I focus my attention on the part or “particulate”: i.e., the past event resonating in present time; the spinal misalignment, the old whiplash injury, or the pelvic rotation etc., I might forget to include in my perceptual sphere the underlying ground of the whole (the sheet, rather than the mementos). In a biodynamic context, contacting the ground of Health, as the resource, shifts the focus from what needs correction to the resource of wholeness or connectivity throughout the system and field. Imagine how your kinesthetic sense might shift if, as a practitioner, your focus was the ‘sheet’ in which the specific event was held rather than the individual event. The ‘sheet’ in a somatic context is the connective tissue continuum, the matrix of wholeness. This comprises the fabric of the physical body, which is contacted every time we place our hands on someone.

Roland Becker, D.O., a student of Dr. Sutherland, frequently spoke to the manifestation of health within every living system even in the face of terminal illness. He referred to the living physician within us, which is always manifesting health.

“From the time you were conceived until the time you kick the bucket; it is constantly manifesting health for you. For every decade of your life, you have a pattern of life that is right for you. If you’re in your twenties, you’ve got a health pattern that literally is an expression of that decade. It matures as each of us does and gradually changes gears but it is constantly manifesting health.” Roland Becker.²⁷

Somatic Exploration: connecting with the fabric of wholeness, the underlying health With a partner…

Settle into your seat. Expand your perception to include a sense of your weight through your pelvis, contact with the floor, and a sense of your skin boundary. Include in your perception a sense of the room around you (especially behind you).

Place your hands on your partner’s lower leg or thigh. (without having an intention of ‘fixing something’, just make contact with your partner). Settle for a few minutes with a relaxed intention of contacting the intrinsic health (the 3-D sheet). As you make contact with the connective tissue fabric, is there a quality within the tissue that emerges? Recognize the “quality of the tissue” with your contact. Perhaps your partner might “name” the felt sense of this tissue layer. Just meet “that” tissue state without trying to change it.

Next, shift your intention and contact your partner with the goal of fixing something or changing the contacted “state” of the tissue.

What is your experience when you just make contact with the underlying health within your partner?

Do you notice any difference as you contact what you imagine needs to be “fixed”?

What does your partner experience?

SI Application #4: Slow down and meet the “tissue tone” exactly as it is. Sense the Health within the system …and then proceed.

A case study

For over a year, I have been working with an 83-year old woman who suffers the degenerative nerve symptoms of neuropathy. She has been dealing with painful bouts of sciatica and neuropathy for many years before beginning biodynamic craniosacral therapy. Her symptoms have improved in the time I have been seeing her, but it is clear this is a degenerative process. Over the time we have worked, she has gained a strong and deep grounding in her experience that she is not her dis-ease, but a whole person who can access her deepest resources and sense of self despite her growing loss of function. I think this is going to be increasingly important as she becomes less mobile and needing to use a walker for security in the event that her knees ‘give out’. As she develops more compassion for her body rather than pushing it away because of its “failures”, she is able to connect with something that is bigger than her chronic discomfort. She calls this being in an “ocean of God’s love”.

She often comes to her sessions feeling somewhat crippled and often fragmented from living with constant pain. Her system tends to dive into EV3 [expansion of the 3rd ventricle] or another still point and I can sense the shift in her being able to come back into the body even while she acknowledges the difficulties and frustrations of her body’s limitations.

I ardently practice staying ‘out of the way’, so I can be most receptive to what arises for us in each session. While it never seems to be about physical healing, she is certainly moving into a clearer relationship with Health.

“The Health in the patient cannot become diseased or die. You can’t kill it. It’s transcendent. All we need to do is listen, use our hands in a skilled fashion, be patient, have the time and follow the Health. Then, the natural laws, not “framed by human hands” will reveal to us our role in the moment. The intellect remains in check. It’s really none of my business how the process of healing is occurring…. All I can do is help life come into balance in the way it intends to.” James Jealous²⁸

Dimensions of the Body

We are more than our physical body, yet as Dr. Rolf pointed out, it is the body that we are able to “get our hands on”.

The soma includes the connective tissue, bones, organs, nervous system, interstitial fluids, everything found within the skin boundary. In our work, we touch all of this either directly or indirectly. Dr. Rolf pioneered the understanding of fascia as the organ of form and the key element in Structural Integration. Dr. Andrew Still, the ‘father of Osteopathy’, also brought attention to the fascia.

“The fascia gives one of, if not the greatest, problems to solve as to the part it takes in life and death. It belts each muscle, vein, nerve, and all organs of the body. It is almost a network of nerves, cells and tubes, running to and from it; it is crossed and filled with, no doubt, millions of nerve centers and fibers to carry on the work of secreting and excreting fluid vital and destructive. By its action we live, and by its failure we shrink, or swell or die. …when you deal with the fascia, you deal with the branch offices of the brain….” Dr. A.T. Still^29.

The interconnectedness of the physical body is viewed through what James Oschman calls the Living Matrix. He describes a continuum of communication comprised of the cell’s cytoskeleton and connective tissue that form a structural, functional and energetic matrix extending throughout the body and into the nuclei of every cell.

“Structure does not merely exist as a substrate for communication; structure exists because it communicates.” JamesOschman³⁰

It is the living matrix that practitioners touch and interact with in all body-centered therapies. The living matrix is a network of connectivity that reaches into every nook and cranny of the body. When you place your hand on the surface of someone’s skin it is this living, vibrating web of life that you are contacting. This matrix of communication and connectivity is the underlying resource of Health. The intention [or goal] that we hold as practitioners shapes the “message” that we communicate to an individual’s system. If I imagine a client’s body tissues to be static, or if I imagine that it is my job to infuse their system with vitality, that is exactly the goal my hands work to achieve. However, if I can find the patience to wait and connect with the quality of the tissue, exactly as it is and with the underlying health, the outcome will be different. The quality of the tissue, whether it is hard, dense, muddied, static, flaccid etc. needs to be recognized and ‘met’ through a practitioner’s embodied contact. Changes in the state of the tissue are sustained when therapeutic contact ‘meets’ both the tissue quality and the system’s inherent health.

Communication with the connective tissue matrix is always a two-way exchange. The key factor is my ability to listen to the system from a neutral and receptive place before I ‘roll up my sleeves and get to work’.

The images that we hold shape the therapeutic intention and influence the outcome of our treatment – whether successful or not. “Intentions are not trivial because they give rise to specific patterns of electrical and magnetic activity in the nervous system of the therapist that can spread through their body and into the body of a patient.” James Oschman³¹

Somatic Exploration: The intention in your touch
With a partner…

Part 1. Settle into yourself, feel your feet on the floor and widen your perceptual field to include a sense of your skin boundary and the space to the sides and behind you. Notice your breath. Follow your own breathing cycle for the next minute or two. Notice the impulse to begin to work. Notice where the impulse takes you…to your partner’s shoulders, or pelvis etc. Do not follow these impulses, just wait and return to a sense of your own breathing cycle. Notice how many times you are drawn to jump into “doing something”. Just wait. There will be a moment when everything settles, both within your own system and within your partner’s system. Wait for the settling to happen. This is neutral. Notice the ‘place’ in your partner’s system that comes into your awareness as you listen and wait in this neutral space. Make contact.

Part 2. As you contact this place in your partner, maintain a sense of the space around you. Each time you might begin to narrow your vision to the part of the person you are touching, widen your view to include their body and the space around it. Is there tension in your hands wanting to “do” or to “fix” something? Notice the activity in your hands. What is the intention your hands convey?

Take a moment and just let your hands relax. Let them rest into contact. Do not ‘do’ anything, intend anything, or begin to manipulate the tissues. Notice if there is movement beneath your hands or stillness. Meet whatever tissue quality is there without the intention of changing anything. Contact the tissue, in its present state. Notice what is there without trying to change anything. WAIT with embodied presence in your touch.
SI Application #5: Emphasize a quality of receptivity rather than transmission through your hands and with your thoughts.

We communicate with a client’s body as their body communicates with us. I am touched as I am touching. How well am I listening and inviting a client’s system to reveal the therapeutic intervention that is needed at that moment in time? Am I willing to step back and wait in the gap of ‘not knowing’ until ‘something arises’ which informs a therapeutic treatment plan? This intervention may include working with the biomechanics of a spinal fixation to relieve acute pain, or waiting as the inertial fulcrum of spheno-basilar compression begins to release with the rise of fluid potency. The spectrum of touch within structural work includes all facets: biomechanics to biodynamics. It is an individual’s system that determines its own creative labyrinth of healing.

The Organizing Principle

Dr. Rolf brought to the fore an understanding of the midline of gravity and directed practitioners to organize structure in relationship to this line. The basis for Dr. Rolf’s understanding of a midline around which the body organizes, can be found in the biological imperative which is the earliest expression of function within an embryo.

A ‘primitive streak’ which forms within the embryological germ layers of ectoderm, endoderm and mesoderm, foretells the emergence of the embryological midline around which development happens. If there is no midline, there is no development. This critical moment happens (or not) about 3 weeks after conception. The caudal-cranial axis is the blueprint for an uprising force within the embryonic disc, beginning during the phase of gastrulation, (formation of the three germ layers). This ‘uprising’ along the midline informs the spatial organization of the embryo and eventually forms the notochord. When I am in contact with this primal midline, I am in relationship to the embryological forces that are continually organizing human form. Often times, it is an orientation to these embryological forces that promotes the realigning of both structure and function for an individual. As a practitioner of Structural Integration, I find it useful to remember that the ‘Rolf line’ we seek is a biological imperative. This generative embryonic force is continually ‘informing’ structure. In a sense, my job is to bring this three-dimensional kinesthetic function to the fore.

“In this matrix of protoplasm, within this elastic fluid, something begins to vibrate in the center.…we need to see here that we start out as this undifferentiated ground substance that can become anything. Inside of this encapsulated fluid field, something begins to vibrate.…This midline is a dynamic stillness through which and into which there is an ignition, and out of that ignition comes the bioelectric field that is actually around the stillness of the midline.…Without it [a midline] we would have no form, no function, and no point of orientation for our consciousness.” James Jealous³²

At the very core of the midline is dynamic stillness. This dynamic stillness holds the potential for energetic, three dimensional, moving presence in relationship with the whole of the environment. This is the same principle at the core of the interface between structural and movement work.

Around this core are varying midlines of orientation and function. Every living thing has an orienting midline. The notochordal midline is the primary line of orientation for structure and function. It is present from the tip of the coccyx all the way up through the vertebral column to the center of the basisphenoid and basiocciput. The bones of the spinal column develop from this and eventually the notochordal midline dissolves into the nucleus pulposus of the vertebral bodies. The notochordal midline is at the center of the neuromuscular/skeletal system. In addition, there is the fluid midline containing the neural tube, brain and spinal cord; and the gravity midline. These midlines are like harmonies, sung around a melody line. There is no actual separation between them. They are resonances of one tone.

These midline ‘sleeves’ organize and orient every body. The fluid midline of the dural tube and spinal cord flow through the gravity centers of the brain. Deep within the cranium is the brain stem which regulates our orientation in gravity through vestibular balance and an innate sensing of up and down. The boney midline of our vertebral column both protects the fine neural functioning of our central nervous system and provides an inter-relational structure for nerve plexuses, organs, diaphragms, suspensory ligaments, muscles and more. At the center of the vertebral body lies the nucleus pulposus, the embryological remnant of the nototchord.

These midlines encompass the gravity midline. The gravity midline is no longer a reflection of Newtonian mechanics statically piercing the epicenter of each body segment, but rather a reflection of the gravity flow within a living and breathing body dynamic. It is gravity in concert with this generative midline that organizes the human body in time and space. In both structural and movement integration, we work toward supporting a 3-dimensional awareness within an individual’s structure (front/back, side/side, up/down and inside/outside). In movement, we are looking at the 3-dimensional expression of contralateral motion. Working with midline awareness refines an individual’s relationship to gravity and perceptual sense. All of these midline sleeves are dynamically interrelated. When these energetic layers are functioning in harmony, there is a palpable and sensed embodiment.

It is important to remember that it’s not about having perfect structure, or holding a posture which might be deemed as correct. That is not the goal. Uprightness or alignment is about presence, an embodied location of self in relation to the surrounding environment, to ‘other’, as well as to a constancy of a sense of self. Where am I? and Who am I? All of the midline sleeves function as part of our personal history, nourishing and developing these relationships.

Within these functioning sleeves is a core of dynamic stillness. This core is the catalyst igniting life and through which life permeates the soma. The dynamic core of stillness is not personal. It is a phenomenon of a non-causal reality which connects us to the underlying unity of all living things. This is the quantum connection to stillness which is at the center of creation.

“During this investigation, I became familiar with certain limits of the rational gaze: It tends to fragment reality and to exclude complementarity and the association of contraries from its field of vision….The rational approach tends to minimize what it does not understand.” James Narby³³

Somatic exploration: Midline Perceptions
With a partner…

Part 1: Settle into yourself, taking time to slow your breathing, quiet your mind, and relax. Take a few moments to become aware of your midline. You might place your attention on the boney midline of your spine, the fluid midline of your spinal cord and brain, or an energetic midline which flows in front of your spine, extending through your pelvic floor and out the top of your head.

Gently cradle your partner’s lower legs, contacting the dorsal surface just above the ankle.

After making contact, ease into an awareness of one of the midline sleeves. From this midline, expand your perception to include the space around you, especially to the back and sides.

From an embodied sense of your midline, expand your perception to the horizon. Continue to sense your midline as your expanded perception also reaches the horizon. Breathe.

Notice what information comes into your hands from your client’s system. Next experiment with letting go of your midline awareness and let your gaze focus on your partner’s ankle or knee. What do you notice, what does your partner experience?

Return to midline awareness and sense any shift in what you are perceiving.

Part 2: the rhythm of mid tide
Find a comfortable position sitting and make contact. Be aware of your midline. Allow the fluid nature of your own system to come to the foreground of your awareness. Find a fluid sense within the tissues and bones of your hands and let your hands float on your partner’s tissue.

Let your mind be still and your breathing be relaxed. Sense the whole of your partner’s body from this fluid perceptual space. Allow your mind to settle. At mid-tide you are contacting the fluid body. Sense the whole of their system including the bioelectric field within and around them. Wait and listen, the mid tide rhythm of 2.5 cycles/ minute will reveal itself to you as a longitudinal fluctuation along their vertical axis/ core space.
SI Application #6: Sense how your own midline supports your perception.

The Heart of Stillness

At the heart of this work is a dynamic and vibrant stillness. It is a space of reverberating quiet and seamless wholeness from which all arises and to which all subsides. It is a place of unknowing. The central midline of dynamic stillness is non-personal and non-dual. I experience this midline as the inside expression of the continuum between a far horizon of stillness, and the inside depth of silence which is always within us, yet often unrecognized and left ‘unheard’ because of the hectic schedule of doing. It is the busy-ness of doing that often takes over my senses. What I have discovered through the biodynamic work is that my own consciousness as a practitioner influences the depth of the therapeutic changes within a session. Again, it is not what I “do” but how free my mind can be from conscious rationalization. The depth of outcome has much more to do with a receptivity to myself. The core of stillness is the anchor for receptivity.

The paradox of creation is contained in the stillness. Within this state, profound healing can occur. It is the space in which the Breath of Life makes itself known and the unity of all of life is revealed and can be touched.

The story goes that before Roland Becker, D.O. saw each client in his very full work day, he would take a moment and settle into this ‘still space’ within himself and then recognize this ‘still space’ within each person he worked with. Try this before you begin your next session of Structural Integration and notice what happens, within yourself and with your client.

Somatic exploration: ‘Be still and know’ (Sutherland) Adapted from I AM SILENCE, Roland Becker, D.O.³⁴

In a comfortable and supported sitting position, relax and notice the easy movement of your breath, allow your thoracic inspiration and expiration to find a slow and balanced rhythm, without a conscious effort. Follow your exhale into your belly…. and then into the space below your belly….then easily into the space below your seat….and then into the ground. At each increment of your descending attention and exhalation…. you may notice a pause.

“Allow any physical, emotional, or mental effects which arise to do so without effort and without placing your attention upon them. Let them be as clouds drifting across a clear sky. Be the stillness. Be the silence.”³⁵

Stay within the pause until your inspiration returns. You may notice a deepening quiet and stillness as you follow your exhalation down through your core midline.

The work of biodynamic craniosacral therapy has ignited the development of more and more subtle perceptual skills, propelling me through gateways of healing within myself and with my clients. At the same time, I have endeavored to maintain integrity in the inquiry of what I originally imagined the body to be. As a long standing practitioner of Rolfing®/ Structural and Movement Integration, these perceptual skills have greatly enhanced the depth with which I am able to work with each individual in my private practice. Simply stated, biodynamic perception has deepened my ability to touch the heart of stillness that lies within us all.

References

1. 1987, Webster’s Dictionary, New York: Lexicon Publications, Inc. pg.627.
2. Blechschmidt, E., 2004, The Ontogenetic Basis of Human Anatomy. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
3. Ibid, pg. 22.
4.Torsten L., 2004, Cranial Osteopathy: Principles and Practice, 2nd ed., London: Elsevier/Churchill Livingstone, pg.668.
5. Ibid, pg. 668
6. Bohm, D., 1998, On Creativity. London: Routledge Press.
7. Ho, MW. In press, The Acupuncture System and the Liquid Crystalline Collagen Fibers of the Connective Tissues, American Journal of Complementary Medicine, (in press).
8. Oschman, JL. Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis. London: Churchill Livingstone. pg. 49-50.
9. Sutherland, W. and Wales, eds., 1998, Contributions of Thought. The Collected Writings of William Sutherland, D.O. 2nd edition, The Sutherland Teaching Foundation,Inc., Fort Worth, Texas. pg.291.
10. Ho, WM., 1993, The Rainbow and the Worm. London: World Scientific.
11. Ibid, pg. 5.
12. Ibid, pg. 6.
13. Ho, MW. The Acupuncture System and The Liquid Crystalline Collagen Fibers of the Connective Tissues, The American Journal of Complimentary Medicine, (in press),
14. Ho, MW. 1993, pg. 112-115.
15. Ho, MW, 1993 pg. 123.
16. Bishof, M. 1995, Biophoton: the Light in Our Cells, Frankfurt: Zweitausenderns.
17. Frenk, S. and Varela, F. 1987, The Organ of Form Journal of Social Biological Structure. London: Academic Press, Inc.,10: 73-83.
18. Oschman, J., 2000, Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis, London: Churchill Livingstone, pg.223.
19. Ibid, pg. 224.
20. Ho, MW., 1993, pg. 175.
21. Jealous, J., 2000, The Fluid Body, CD lecture transcript.
22. Sutherland, W. and Wales eds, 1998.
23. Sills, F., 2001, Craniosacral Biodynamics, vol.1, Berkeley: North Atlantic Press, pg.107.
24. Jealous, J., 2000.
25. Starwynn, D., 2003, Vibrational Medicine Acupuncture Today, July 2003, 4:7. (Quoting James Oschman.)
26. Jealous, J., 1997, Healing and the Natural World, Alternative Therapies, January, 3:1, pg.1.
27. Becker, R., 2000, The Stillness of Life, Stillness Press, Portland,Oregon..
28. Jealous, J., 1997, pg. 4.
29. Becker, R., 1997, Life in Motion, Rudra Press, Portland,Oregon. pg. 295.
30. Oschman, JL, and Nora H., “Somatic Recall: Soft Tissue Memory, Part 1”, (manuscript), 1995.
31. Ibid, pg. 48
32. Jealous, J., 2000, Midline No. 1, CD transcript.
33. Narby, J., 1998, The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge, New York: Tarcher/Putnam, pg.55.
34. Becker, R., 2000, pg. 244.
35. Ibid, pg. 244.

Contact Carol Agneessens at carol@biodynamicschool.com for more information.