Embryology: the seeds of function and form
Part 1.

Carol Agneessens, M.Sc., RCSTÆ

Carol Agneessens, is a Certified Advanced Rolfer, Movement Instructor, member of the Rolf Institute faculty, certified instructor of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. Author of The Fabric of Wholeness. (2001)

Abstract: The basis for all body form is embryology. In understanding embryology, we understand how the adult structure came to be. Embryology does not stop at birth; we have the potential for change all along. In a sense, we are embryos throughout our lifetime.¹

Embryology is the branch of biology that studies the formation of the embryo from conception through birth.² This paper offers an overview of my understanding and integration of the embryological research of Dr. Eric Blechschmidt, the writing and lectures of Dr. James Jealous, D.O, and the way in which these approaches inform my on-going education as a Rolfer, RolfingÆ teacher, Rolfing Movement instructor as well as my study within the field of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BDCST). My intention is to inspire embryological study and highlight the importance of this branch of science as a means of deepening our knowledge of integration, the origin of gesture and the implicit motility within our bodies.

Embryology offers the humbling experience of touching a developing process. An understanding of embryonic development, differentiation and birth broadens the scope of functional/structural knowledge and expands the conversation that a body is able to "speak" and that a practitioner can learn to perceive. As a practitioner of Structural Integration for more than twenty-five years, the realm of embryology has stretched my understanding of human morphology and unlocked a doorway into the dynamic process of life and its implicit wholeness. According to Dr. James Jealous, osteopathic physician and pioneer of the biodynamic model of osteopathy in the cranial field, there is more embryology under the practitioner's hands when touching clients than there is anatomy and physiology.

Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BDCST) attunes to three major therapeutic forces: dynamic stillness, primary respiration, and the tempo of a fluid body (see glossary). Dr. William Sutherland (the founder of osteopathy in the cranial field) began perceiving these forces in his osteopathic practice in the later years of his life. Dr. Eric Blechschmidt, a German embryologist, used the term "biodynamic" to refer to the forces in the fluids which caused order and organization to occur. A biodynamic approach to embryology is an exploration of the movements, occurring through the fluid body, which sustain, shape and resource the "whole" person.

An embryological understanding enriches the scope of dialogue. If the body holds memories, it also holds the memory of its beginnings – not through cognitive process and cortically driven concepts, but through the instinctual knowing and a felt experience of the bio-kinetics that are shaping its form and that continue to move, shape and maintain life processes in the adult body.

"Embryological development , from a biodynamic perspective, emphasizes epigenetic forces in human development. … The embryologist Blechschmidt's description of the 'tensile quality of the embryological fluid matrix' correlates directly with Sutherland's description of the Primary Respiratory Mechanism acting as a fluid within a fluid, expressing a tensile quality with the ability to direct force … the forces of embryological development persist as the forces of healing in our patients. …"³

Our experiences are imprinted in the fluids of our bodies as well as tissues, bones, and cellular memory.⁴ Embryology expands somatic understanding, deepening contact with the pre-conscious impulses, gestures, and metabolic motions that are directing and shaping this process of growth through the fluid drive of the embryo. This fluid drive and fluid integrity continues in the adult body.

Dr. Jealous speaks of three different bodies. The first is the physical body, our soma, made up of connective, nerve and visceral tissues. The second is the fluid body, which is the living, instinctual organism. The fluid body permeates and contains the physical body. The fluid body carries "lesions" embedded in the dense tissues of the soma, yet extending beyond the physical body. You might imagine these lesions along the vector of impact or trauma, extending through space and time. The fluid and physical body both respond to what Sutherland called "primary respiration" or the tidal body which transmits the potency of life. The fluid body is holographic, or as Sutherland is often quoted as saying, "Every drop knows the tide."⁵

"…All living things were water things, living inside the sea. Then a few hundred million years ago, maybe a little more – just a little while, really in the big history of the Earth – the living things began to be living on the land as well. But in a way you can say that after leaving the sea, after all those millions of years of living inside of the sea, we took the ocean with us. We carry oceans inside of us."⁶

It is possible to perceive the ongoing process of development and change that is the adult embryo. For many years, I have been a dedicated student of a biodynamic approach to craniosacral therapy. BDCT allows the perception and lived experience of these formative processes perceived through deepening into a state of consciousness experienced as Stillness. This dynamic state is at the embryological core of midline formation. Through synchronization with slow and universal tempos that shape and organize the development of the embryo, these processes can be perceived. These tempos and the embryological "fluid drive" that informs structure, can be sensed through learned processes that cultivate sensorial states of perception. BDCT is a perceptual unfolding, grounded through the lived and three-dimensional experience of a practitioner's body. The disciplined practice of allowing is a whole-body sensation. The art of perceiving certain tempos of growth, the qualities underlying these tempos and the morphology of the embryo, support a "causal" way of thinking and being. These sensory states contact the movement of life which vivifies all living things. This movement is undiminished, whether we are ill, aged or healthy. By coming into relationship with the underlying wholeness, it is possible to cultivate a relationship with an intelligence that is bigger than my oftentimes myopic assumptions about what a body is.

The Shaping of Experience

"The child's position in the uterus is thus important in its structural development and alignment. Whether the head is to the right or to the left of the knees, where the arms are in relationship to the spine, these factors establish the individual pattern of the vertebral column." ⁷

It was Ida Rolf's assumption that spinal patterns are established as early as the first week of pregnancy. Such primary rotations are augmented and compensated by intrauterine limitations during late pregnancy.⁸ The threads of embryological understanding weave a three-dimensional tapestry between an individual's movement patterns, structural compensations, perceptual preferences and early intrauterine imprints. At one time or another we have all felt the whole-body moldings arising from accident, injury and other life experiences, reflected in the torsions and twists of the connective tissue. Imagine perceiving the origin of these shapes as imprints from the intrauterine environment. An individual's history of accidents and injuries may actually be a recapitulation of his or her formative embryological and fetal period. Below is a case study which illustrates the breadth of experience that meets our hands.

Case Study: Michele L.

Michele, a 26-year-old woman, came to see me because of what she called "her terrible posture and scoliosis". She had been receiving a continuing series of advanced RolfingÆ over the years to address her postural issues and had benefited greatly from this work. According to her physical therapist, Michele had a 20_ curvature. What I saw was the gestalt of her struggle: her left shoulder rolling forward "into" her sternum (as if being pushed from behind), rotations, compressions and s-curves shaping her spine, a deep concavity in the center of her sternum, the spiraling strain through her right pelvic bones, pelvic floor and legs. She complained of the pain and struggle she experienced while trying to "stand up-straight" and feel aligned with her life and her youth. For many years, she had been battling chronic fatigue.

As we began working, I casually inquired about her mother's pregnancy and her birth process. Michele quickly answered that she had been a large baby and was two and a half weeks overdue. Her mother opted for a C-section.

"The way the baby lies within the uterus determines the ultimate pattern of the spine."⁹

As I worked with Michele, I entertained the possibility that the compressive forces arising between the walls of her mother's womb (the environment) and her growing fetal body (the formative experience) contributed to her structural set. Her body did not end at the edges of her skin. Rather, I perceived a fluid membrane extending beyond the edges of her skin boundary. My current understanding of the fluid body involves that part of us that does not stop at the edges of our skin but permeates into the space around us. The fluid body feels like a viscous filled membrane, enveloping and permeating the physical body. The compressive forces arising between the uterine walls and the growing embryo imprinted these malleable tissues.

Protoplasm is the first moldable substance of life that can be imprinted.¹⁰ The imprints or lesions held within an individual's structure are also held within the fluid body. Within the intrauterine environs we begin as an undifferentiated mass of protoplasm, about the size of a lentil, and initially even smaller.

Throughout the sessions my hands were receiving the embryological imprints her system was ready to reveal. Through an afferent recognition of the origins of her spinal patterns, and by perceiving these beginnings via a "slower-than-slow" tempo and without intention, Michele's system began to express its beginnings. The felt-reality of her uterine confinement, which seemed to be at the core of her structural issues, expressed itself through a variety of shape changes and internally sensed pressures. By recognizing these shapes, and listening to the release of the corresponding connective tissue holding, her structure began to change.

After a few sessions, Michele reported that it was easier for her to stand up straight and that a feeling of being upright was sustained between sessions. She reported that her chronic sense of being "compressed from behind" had diminished greatly and was no longer a source of discomfort.

In the fourth session of our Rolfing series the spiraling compressions within her tibia, fibula, leg tissues and feet, began to lengthen. By the fifth session, I made contact with the deep depression in the center of her sternum. The delicate function and early shaping of heart and pericardial tissues rose into my hands. I was not looking or searching her system for this history. A felt-reality of this movement arose as if to be seen and acknowledged as a process occurring in time that was now able to complete itself.

Presently, the concavity in the center of her sternum has begun to soften. Her clavicles now appear to support the emergence of her thorax through their subtle yet essential response to breath and movement. In all of these sessions, it was as if we were working within a non-linear time capsule, touching the very beginnings of function developing into a form, hearing the echoes of Michele's embryonic journey, yet reaching through time into her current structure and movement.

Our work allowed direct feedback about the nature of the forces that sustain and maintain present-time structures. Through an understanding of embryology and with a felt-sense of working within the slow tempo of primary respiration and stillness, I was able to touch with the imprints held within her tissues. These early embryological imprints are functional patterns; when acknowledged, they transform and mobilize the structural shifts necessary for integration and balance. Every human being begins life in-utero. The tissues are imprinted with this early memory, whether it was a favorable environment for embryonic and fetal growth or an adverse environment. As the developmental arrests within a client's system are recognized by the practitioner, the reality of what we imagine a body to be is turned around, upside down and inside out. Yet, as these embryological functions are "worked with", a coherent maturity emerges within the individual.

Biodynamic Principle: One's embryonic journey does not stop at birth. The potential for change and differentiation continues throughout a lifetime.

An age-old saying goes something like this, you cannot put your foot into the same river twice. Knowledge of embryonic development broadens and enriches the "river" of contact. Structural issues are often directly related to the intra-uterine environment or a difficult birth process. The organizing patterns initiated at that moment in time continue through our lives. They are whole-body patterns that shape every nook and cranny of the body, including the fluid space around it, and yet, the body is always at potential to change.¹¹

Biodynamic Principle: The tempo of your work supports an individual's system opening (in time) to the potency of life moving through it.

According to biodynamic theory, embryonic growth is carried by the rhythm and wave of primary respiration – the pulse that carries life.¹² This tempo continues throughout a lifetime and carries us through death. When I contacted Michele's system from this very slow pace, these intrauterine shapings emerged. I did not search for these imprints. They arose and I recognized them as processes of formation.

Biodynamic Principle: The space surrounding the body is as much a part of the body as our physical matter.

The semi-permeable membranes of our cells exchange information with the interstitial spaces around them.¹³ In much the same way, the body as a unified and holographic structure exchanges information with its surrounding environment. Our bodies cannot be viewed as separate from the environment in which they live and breathe. There is a mutual exchange, whether we acknowledge it or not.

A fluid body permeates the physical body. The fluid body is different than the physical body:

"A patient's physical body is actually inside the fluid body. … The thing is that when we are healthy, the fluid body and the physical body commingle, so they feel like one substance and so you could say when a person is healthy you can't feel an acute boundary at the edge of the skin."¹⁴

We do not stop at the edges of our skin. There is a resonant and viscous field surrounding the body that I consider to be an extension of the liquid crystalline matrix that Mae Wan-Ho describes in The Rainbow and The Worm:

"Life is a process of being an organizing whole. It is important to emphasize that life is a process and not a thing, nor a property….It refers to a system open to the environment, that organizes and enstructures itself (and its environment)."¹⁵

This resonant field is real – and as much a part of the body – as our physical body of anatomy and physiology. It is not empty space but alive and vital. The fluid body is not just the electromagnetic field of auric studies. The fluid body is not a water body. It is not watery at all, but rather a kind of viscous substance that can be viscerally sensed. The fluid body cannot be relegated to the interstitial fluids or extracellular matrix. It is not that. This "body" is perceptual, intelligent and responsive. In cultivating a sense of my fluid body, a sense of connection to something other than my small-self emerges. Perhaps health is a reflection of the coherence between our physical and fluid bodies.

Somatic Exploration

Recall a time in your life when you experienced a deep connection with something in nature. (a place, an animal, a tree or cave, etc.). Remember that time. Remember the sensations that you experienced. Can you name some of those sensations? Through this connection, do you remember having a sense of communion with something bigger than yourself? – an intelligence, a presence? This sense of 'other' or presence is non-personal.

Biodynamic Principle: The fluid forces that shaped the embryo are dynamic and function in the maintenance of structure throughout a lifetime. The embryo grows by varying pressures, gradients and concentrations of proteins and genetic materials along with the interaction and formative movements of metabolic fields. The embryo is shaped by pressure gradients from within and without, interacting with its protoplasmic fluid nature. We are mostly fluid and the embryo is 99% fluid.

"Protoplasm means the first moldable substance. It's the first substance of life which can maintain an image, which can sustain an image, which can imprint with an image….So we have this kind of jello-like elastic protoplasm that can take in an idea and express it as a form."¹⁶

Through the cultivation of a recetptive touch, rather than a directing one, it is to feel the movement and early shaping of various embryonic structures. Form is being shaped by the interaction of the metabolic fields and the morphogenetic forces of tensegrity.¹⁷ This movement can be perceived through the slower than slow tempo of Primary Respiration. This very slow rhythm seems to be the therapeutic and natural force by which growth and development occurs. Embryonic growth synchronizes with this rhythm. The process of coming into form is a function of the external world shaping the internal world and vise versa.

Detecting the fluid body surrounding and permeating the physical body requires both discipline and the cultivation of a listening and receptive contact. As practitioners of structural bodywork, we have developed skill of an efferent quality. Structural change is effected through our hands. Essential to the sensing of the fluid body and the kinetic movements that are shaping the embryo is afferent contact and perceptual receptivity. It is an afferent, or allowing, hand that senses the subtle shifts and movements within the fluid body.

Somatic Exploration

Picture yourself within a gelatinous egg that permeates to the center of your core and extends around you about eight to twelve inches. The fluid body is breathing right out through the skin. Without effort or will can you develop a sense of this body. Can you sense a vitality, a wholeness and breath? Can you sense this body sensing you?

Biodynamic Principle: "Life is Matter in Motion." (Andrew Taylor Still, founder of osteopath.)

The embryologist, Blechschmidt, used the phrase "metabolic field" to describe the mechanism by which fluids "behave" to both form and differentiate the growth of the developing embryo. The submicroscopic movements that these fields direct are ordered and precise in their tempo and direction. In Blechschmidt's understanding, these metabolic forces are moving at a slow tempo, this growth all occurs according to a pulse – the natural rhythm of the developing organism.¹⁸ According to biodynamic theory, the tempo of embryological development is found to have a 100-second cycle.

"Is it not a striking phenomenon that in the midst of flowing, movement forms arise, not through any differentiation of substance, but simply through the interplay of currents and their forces?"¹⁹

Blechschmidt identified different metabolic fields that order the kinetic development of the embryo. He elaborated nine different fields of motion by which fluids behave internally, creating function, out of which emerges structure: corrosion, contusion, distusion, dilation, retension, detraction, densation, loosening and suction. These mechanisms are driven by the metabolism of cellular tissues. Biokinetics is the study of how the fluid body (as a moving system of metabolic fields) congeals, solidifies and differentiates into the structural components of the embryo, whether the blood, lymph, bone, muscle, nerve tissue, etc. This stepping down into form and the refining of structures and functions from the biodynamic self-organizing whole, defines the embryonic process.

"The entire embryo functions as a whole unit to maintain its metabolism. The various metabolic fields dance together all at once. Restraint in one area is countered with growth in another area, and vice versa. Flexion of the embryo occurs as a result of the dorsal branches of the aorta tethering the neural tube to the more ventrally located, and more slowly growing, aorta. The more rapidly growing neural tube bends forward as a result. The aorta and dorsal aorta branches restrain while the neural tube grows."²⁰

According to osteopathic theory, the forces of embryonic development persist as the forces of healing in the adult; maintaining, and sustaining the health of the organism. The developmental motions and relationships between the fields are important considerations in the healing process as the embryo in the adult continues to generate its form, maintain its form and repair its form moment to moment. Healing would then be considered to be synchronized with Primary Respiration, containing the original function of the metabolic fields so that any imprinted memory of stress or trauma that occurred at that time could be uncoupled and resolved into the process of stillness and reoriented to midline (function).²¹

Somatic Exploration

Find a comfortable place to sit or lie down, supporting your body as needed. Settle into a whole body-sense of yielding into the support of the chair, bed or floor.

Breathe.

Imagine the inside of your body as 'fluid-filled', like a sea anemone or ocean hydra. Place your hands on your lower abdomen. Imagine being firmly rooted to the ocean floor from a root extending from your umbilicus through the space of the lumbar vertebrae 2 and 3. Settle and yield into a perceived movement of warm ocean waters.

Through biodynamic study, I have been able to expand my appreciation of the body's inherent fluidity to include the perception of being moved and even being breathed by something from outside the body, specifically primary respiration shaping life process.

Case Study: Karen B.

Karen, a forty-five-year-old mother of two, came to see me about the severe wrist pain she was experiencing. She works as a computer programmer. Initially, I thought her complaints stemmed from her work, and possible carpel tunnel or thoracic outlet syndrome. However, she did not complain of any of the nerve impingement symptoms that usually occur with these presenting conditions. Instead it was the ligamentous tissues in her wrist that were chronically inflamed, and aggravated by an uncommon stiffness in her arms.

During our second session, I had the impression that I was holding the arm of a fragile bird. The bones felt as if they had not fully formed even though her arms looked "normal".

Karen had a difficult time finding weight in her arms, and there was very little sense of direction/orientation in her elbow. Her arms did not swing when she walked. Both arms felt tethered to an encapsulating tension around her heart. It seemed that in order for Karen to experience the relief she was seeking, she needed to develop a sense of weight through the bones of her arms and an easing in what I sensed as tension in the center of her chest. Another curious note: Karen often spoke of feeling tiny and small. Although her body sense of 'being small' was not my experience of her. I imagined that somewhere in time, the development of the bones of her arms had been arrested.

Without looking for any specific cause, I stayed open to the felt-reality of the development of the embryonic limb buds. With a contact that allowed this possibility, the metabolic forces were momentarily engaged and "something" began to change. I began with her right arm and cradled her elbow and forearm with my right arm. I contacted her thoracic spine (T4+T5) with the palm of my left hand. Both hands were engaged yet permeable in their contact. I waited and settled more into myself. I noted that the sense of weight coming through her bones was negligible. Very slowly, Karen's elbow began to drop into my palm. I waited, challenging my curiosity and desire to direct the result. I waited as a slow, spiraling gesture of her "embryonic"elbow began to lengthen and orient toward the back of her body. I began to sense subtle shifts in the density and weight of her bones. When she returned for her third session, her arms seemed livelier and hung in a different way. At this time, Karen still experiences a degree of wrist pain, but it seems to "come and go" rather than be a chronic companion.

Conclusion

Nature moves by system in all her works. She succeeds in all because her plans are perfect. … Andrew Taylor Still

It is possible to perceive embryonic development and its arrested expression within adult tissues. This perception has turned around my reality of structure, function and somatic history. When an embryological process arises, it is a humbling experience requiring the cultivation of a witness state as "something" arises and unfolds. I sit awed by the "hidden dimensions" of this process we call a body. It is through a cultivated and whole-body receptivity to wholeness and a non-material potency, moving through my hands, unobstructed by (my) personal directives, that this process reveals itself. The mind always wants to take a closer look because it is so amazing. However, that kind of curiosity seems to close the system. It is like watching an animal in the forest or a bird in a tree: with gentle awareness and a wide peripheral sight, the animal or bird will remain in a human's field of vision. Similarly, with the cultivation of a perceptual state that senses an expanse toward the horizon, the embryonic history might have the safety and space to be expressed.

As I explore the far reaches of a biodynamic state of perception, there is an allowing of the wholeness of life, this "breath of life", this potency that moves life and which moves through me, my hands, my client, and is undiminished. I have to get out of the way. Usually it is with the recognition of the embryologic field that a client's system is released from an arrested pattern, and evolves from that point. There is also a systemic response in the client's field, which verifies to me that "yes" that was somewhat important for the organism. At the same time, my own mind will go through a shift in consciousness. Sometimes a client will tell me that something is different but they can't name it specifically. In Karen's case, I no longer heard her describe herself as child-sized, and her arms began to swing more naturally as she walked.

The secrets and stories embedded within the many dimensions of our bodies carry personal history. The forces that shape the embryonic body continue to sustain, shape and heal the adult embryo. These are the expansive, thrilling and transformative moments in my practice that leave me inspired by the incredible complexity and intelligence of this living process we call a body.

"Our bodies are a central focus for our experiences as human beings. Therefore, it is important to carefully examine what typically makes up our conception of a 'body'—for the 'typical' is taken for granted all too often. A fresh perspective, grounded in 'felt-reality', thus may emerge from a kind of experiential review and challenge of our usual preconceptions"²²

Glossary of terms

Breath of Life: The Breath of Life (BoL) carries out the correction, not the therapist. It is described as the fluid in the cerebrospinal fluid, as liquid light, potency, and A. T. Still's "highest known element"²³ pp. 678-9.

McPartland describes the BoL as a Quantum field force. As it passes through the body it generates spatially ordered movement expressed in the physical plane by fluid forces (electromagnetic water hydrogen bonds).³

Fluid Body: The core of BDCST lies in sensing the Whole. It is not about the cranium but rather about the movement of Primary Respiration and the movement of automatic shifting. As the central nervous system settles and quiets, the CSF and all other fluids and tissues merge into the fluid body. Within the protoplasmic fluid body, motion is purely metabolic, responding freely to the outside presence of the natural world and the BoL.²³ p.663

Long Tide / Primary Respiration: Rollin A. Becker used this term to denote the concept of a very slow rhythm. He states that this rhythm enters the body from outside, originating anywhere and spreading through the body. He palpated a rhythm that took 1.5 minutes to permeate into the body and the same length of time to ebb away.²³ pp.684-5.

Dynamic Stillness: Dr. William Sutherland wrote "be still and know". For me, this dynamic stillness resonates in the heart of BDCST. Dynamic Stillness is a state of consciousness vibrating with a potential from which life is arises and moves.

Epigenenis: An embryological concept that celebrates interaction, change, emergence, and the reciprocal relationship between the whole and its component parts. Epigenesis states that the identity of any particular cell is not preordained, but that this particular fate arises through the interactions between the cell and its neighbors.²⁴

Metabolic field: A region of metabolism, determined by its morphological and biodynamic properties, containing spatially ordered metabolic movements.²⁵

Morphogenesis: formal development, the forming of structures. 26

Endnotes

¹Feitis, R. and Schultz, L., The Endless Web, North Atlantic Books, 1996, pg. 3

²The New Webster's Dictionary. Encyclopedic Edition. Lexicon Pub., 1987., pg. 308.

³McPartland, JM. and Skinner, E., "The Meaning of the Midline in Osteopathy", in Morphodynamik in der Osteopathie. Torsten Liem, ed. Hippokrates Verlag. 2006 pp. 312-323.

⁴Emoto, M. The Hidden Messages of Water Beyond Words Publishing, 2004.

⁵Jealous, J. The Fluid Body, CD Lecture series, 2003.

⁶Roberts, G.D., Shataram, St. Martin's Press. 2003. p. 373

⁷Feitis and Schultz, The Endless Web p.15.

⁸Ibid.

⁹Ibid. p.12

¹⁰Jealous, J. Dural Sacs, CD lecture series, 2007.

¹¹Feitis and Schultz, op.cit., p. 3.

¹²Seifitz, W. Protoplasm of a Slime Mold: The Stuff of Life video. 1954

¹³ Varela, F. and Frenk, S. "The Organ of Form", in J. Soc. Biol. 19,87,10, pp.73-83.

¹⁴Jealous, J. The Fluid Body & Rebalancing. CD lecture series, 2006.

¹⁵Mae Wan-Ho, The Rainbow and the Worm: the physics of organisms, World Scientific, 1993. p.5

¹⁶Jealous, J. Dural Sac, CD lecture series, 2006.

¹⁷Ingber, D. "Mechanical control of tissue morphogenesis during embryological development", Int. J. Dev. Biol. 50: 255-266 (2006) p. 256.

¹⁸Paoletti, S. The Fasciae, Eastland Press, 2006 p. 14.

¹⁹Schwenk, T. Sensitive Chaos, Rudolf Steiner Press London. Pg. 80

²⁰Hoelscher ,Sharalee. "Understanding the Embryo"unpublished paper, 2006.

²¹Shea, Michael. Metabolic Fields: Palpation and Sensory Experience, 2007, pg. 2.

²²Tulku, Tarthang. Time, Space and Knowledge, Dharma Publishing,1977 pg.21

²³Liem T Cranial Osteopathy: Principles and Practice Elsevier Churchill Livingstone, 2^nd edition. 2004.

²⁴Haraway, D. Crystals, Fabrics and Fields, Metaphors that Shape the Embryo, North Atlantic Books. 2004, p.xi.

²⁵Blechschmidt, E. The Ontogenetic Basis of Human Anatomy, North Atlantic Books, 2004, p. 237.

²⁶Ibid. p. 237

²⁷Still, AT. Osteopathy, Research & Practice, pg.10, Eastland Press. 1992.

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