by Michael Kern
Then, widen your perceptual field to include a whole sense of yourself. Let your attention broaden out into awareness. Move your interest from an appreciation of just the motion of tissues and fluid, and start to sense the force or vitality expressed within the fluid. Keep your mind relatively still and relaxed and imagine that your hands are actually immersed in the fluid. In this way it is possible to place your awareness into the potency forces carried within the fluid. At this level of perception you may notice the rhythmic motion of the mid-tide operating at a slower rate. You may feel it as a subtle surge and settling of tissues, fluids and potency, as they move together into inhalation and exhalation.
When finishing this exercise, take time to reorientate by taking a few deep breaths and a gentle stretch before getting up.
Unified motion
Perhaps with a little practice, the mid-tide can be palpated as a unified field of motion naturally organized around the midline of the body. Through the medium of the body’s fluid, the biodynamic potency of the Breath of Life produces an inner breathing or motility of tissues. At this level of function, tissues, fluid and potency all breathe together as “one thing.”50 This rhythmic expression of biodynamic potency carries our blueprint for health into cells and tissues, and organizes their function. Palpating the mid-tide gives the practitioner an important relationship to the essential forces that organize our health and the way they are operating in relation to the presence of stress or trauma.
When palpating the mid-tide, any inertia is perceived as a distortion within this unified field of motion, organized around an inertial fulcrum. Within every inertial fulcrum there is a concentration or gathering of trapped potency consisting of the biodynamic and biokinetic forces that center and maintain the disturbance. These are the forces that underlie any tissue contractions or compressions. It is the presence of these concentrations of trapped potency that affect the natural balance of primary respiration.
At the level of the mid-tide, an inertial fulcrum can be perceived as a particular concentration or gathering of inertial forces within a unified tensile field. However, if the same condition is tuned in to at the level of the cranial rhythmic impulse it may be discerned as something such as a flexion or external rotation pattern of a particular structure in relationship to another. A person tuning in to the mid-tide will not only perceive the type of pattern a particular structure is holding, but will also be in touch with the forces that organize and underlie it.
Perception of the long tide
The long tide is the initial tidal unfoldment of the Breath of Life, emerging from intrinsic stillness. It has a very light and airy quality, as it rhythmically breathes into inhalation and exhalation in 100-second cycles. This is the most subtle radiance of the Breath of Life, which expresses our original matrix of health. To access a perception of the long tide it is necessary to be very still and relaxed, and to hold a very wide field of perception. Dr. James Jealous suggests that you let your awareness breathe right out towards the horizons.51 When the long tide makes itself apparent, it is usually a sign of some deep settling and healing taking place in the patient’s primary respiratory system. Consequently it cannot always be palpated. However, the exercise in the next section may enable you to more easily perceive this phenomenon.
A long tide exercise
Continuing from the last exercise, let your hands gently rest on your thighs. Next let the horizons of your awareness expand around you, not only appreciating the whole sense of yourself but also taking in the whole room, the building, the street and the area you are in. Let this expansion happen gradually by allowing your perceptual field to breathe out naturally. Essentially, this is a process of letting go and cannot be achieved by effort. Be aware of any edges of discomfort and take care not to strain.
From your perception of the mid-tide in the last exercise, imagine that your hands are immersed in the potency you may have sensed before. See if you start to perceive the underlying force of the long tide, enfolded within the mid-tide.
To access the long tide it’s necessary to find some deep settling and tranquility within yourself, and to have a light quality of awareness. Try to let go of looking for anything; just let impressions come into your hands. The long tide has a very subtle quality of radiance as it gently permeates the body and its surrounding field. You may feel it as a shimmering that comes into your hands, slowly moving into inhalation and exhalation in 100-second cycles. At this level of perception, inertial fulcra are perceived as slight distortions within the fabric of this subtle field of motion.
Slowly narrow your perceptual field again, bringing your awareness back into the mid-tide. Take a few moments to notice the sensations that you feel before slowly getting up.
Perception of dynamic stillness
If we are able to still ourselves even more deeply, we may be able to sense the dynamic stillness that is at the basis of all primary respiratory motion. Perception of this primordial state is for most an infrequent and precious event, but we may catch glimpses of it. First, however, we may have to clear some of our perceptual clutter. As Lao Tzu observed, “In silence the teachings are heard.”
This state can be experienced as something that is universal, beyond the duality of subject or object. It has no defining characteristics or qualities, as it is the realm of our pure unfabricated nature. Consequently there are no words or concepts that can adequately describe it. At this level of our being there is no inertia and no conditioning, just the presence of peace, luminosity and stillness. It may be perceived as a sense of Grace. When we emerge from this experience, something has changed—for we never come out in the same way that we went in. We become touched by our own deepest nature.
Sensing the changes
Craniosacral diagnosis involves following living and dynamic processes as they unfold within the patient. During the course of treatment it is important for the practitioner to be aware of any changes taking place. For example, has there been a resolution of the forces trapped at the inertial fulcrum, or is the fulcrum still exerting an influence? Do the tissues express any greater ease of motility and mobility? Is there any improvement of fluid drive and amplitude? Is rhythmic motion getting expressed with greater balance and symmetry around its natural midline orientation? Sensing the changes enables the practitioner to follow any resolution and to assess what still remains to be worked with.
In principle, this process need not even end at death, for the Breath of Life never dies. Once it has left the body, the Breath of Life still continues to function. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition the intermediate states between one life and the next are known as bardo states. Some Tibetan lamas are adept in the practice of tracking and supporting the departing life-stream during its journey through the bardo states after death.52
A lifetime’s practice
The refinement of palpatory and perceptual skills is lifetime’s work (at least!); it requires practice and dedication to cultivate. With practice, the competency to differentiate between many subtleties within the primary respiratory system can be achieved. These skills provide the ability to reveal the presence of disease processes at their most profound level of physiological functioning. As Dr. Magoun points out, X-rays can show gross changes in pathology and laboratory tests can analyze changes in body chemistry, but neither can reveal the fine and subtle shades of motion, tone and tension in the tissues.53
Diagnosis becomes treatment
The dividing line between where diagnosis ends and treatment starts is not so well defined. Just the simple act of presence and contact can create change. A reassuring hand may be enough to help someone work things out when distressed, and just the ability to hear a problem can be the start of its transformation. Once we become aware of our conditioning and patterning, the process of working with the issue has already begun. Healing essentially occurs in relationship. A practitioner’s ability to clearly relate to any conditioning within a holistic perspective can act as an important resource for resol
ution. In this way diagnosis becomes treatment; one very naturally flows into the other.
7
ESSENTIALS OF TREATMENT
To find health should be the object of the physician.
Anyone can find disease.1
DR. A.T. STILL
AIMS OF TREATMENT
A doctor who prescribes an identical treatment in two individuals and expects an identical development, may be properly classified as a social menace.
LIN YUTANG
“It seemed like he was hardly doing anything.” “I just lay there as he put his hands on my head, but when I got up it felt like there was more wind in my sails.” “I don’t know what was going on, but my back pain disappeared afterwards.” These are comments heard from patients after receiving craniosacral treatment. It can be a surprise, if not a culture shock, to realize that inside of us we have all the resources that are needed for healing. We are so used to asking doctors to “do something” to make us feel better that we often lose sight of our own inner potential.
From the outside, at least, it often seems as though nothing much is going on during a craniosacral treatment. For many minutes at a time, the practitioner’s hands may rest in gentle contact with the patient’s body. Yet as a result of the application of subtle skills, a great deal can happen at a profound level of our physiological functioning. As Hugh Milne remarks, “It’s amazing how much how little will do.”2
There are many different treatment skills employed in a biodynamic craniosacral approach, but they all have one thing in common. They all co-operate with the essential forces of health found within the patient. The practitioner’s awareness is synchronized with the rhythmic motions of the Breath of Life and how they are able to bring order into the body. The main intention of treatment is to find, support and facilitate these expressions of health. When the expression of the Breath of Life is restored in areas of disorder, natural motion resumes and health is the result. In this process discordant parts of ourselves, which have become separated from their source of order and vitality, are brought back into relationship with the whole. We literally become more of who we are.3
Supporting health
Health is at the foundation of our being. Although the essential forces of health are never actually lost, they have to re-organize in relationship to the experiences—mental, emotional and physical—in life that shape us. Sometimes an experience such as an accident, trauma or toxin overwhelms our ability to dissipate its effects, resulting in inertia that affects the primary respiratory system. Health then re-organizes itself, seeking the best possible balance in the circumstances. But there is still health; there is still life.
In practice, working with our health means not limiting our attention to what is wrong, but identifying with and supporting what works. Finding health in the patient gives the practitioner some deep-acting and tangible resources with which to work.
In biodynamic craniosacral practice the patient’s intrinsic forces of health are relied upon to make any necessary change, rather than the practitioner applying any external force.4 In this regard, the practitioner is merely the facilitator or even just witness of the patient’s healing process. Nevertheless, the skill of the practitioner is an important factor because without some support our healing resources cannot always be accessed. The clear presence, reflection and facilitation provided by a practitioner’s hands may be the particular keys that unlock the door to health.
Meeting the needs
Craniosacral work is a client-centered approach, as treatment is tailored to individual needs. Listening and responding to the messages given by the physiology of the patient enables the practitioner to relate to conditions with appropriateness and safety. Because of this, it is always the patient’s own physiology that dictates how and where treatment is applied. In this way, treatment is simply followed in a fluid process rather than prescribed or predicted.
Prescriptive approaches based on protocols of treatment and the application of techniques are never as effective as following the priorities of the Breath of Life itself. The way that an inertial pattern can be unlocked is individual and unique, and needs to suit the particular conditions of the patient at that time. The Tibetans seem to understand this principle well, for the word for health in traditional Tibetan medicine is trowaten, which literally translates as “that which suits you.”
HEART OF THE HEALING PROCESS
When the human mind-emotion-body continuum comes into alignment with life’s intrinsic order, there is an avenue for the release of an immensity of power.5
MICHAEL BURGHLEY
Craniosacral treatment skills seek to facilitate the most-favorable conditions for our natural ordering forces. Here is a summary of three basic tenets upon which the application of these treatment skills is based:
Healing occurs at the fulcrum organizing the disturbance.
Healing occurs when the forces maintaining the fulcrum are resolved.
Healing occurs in stillness, not in motion.
Healing at the fulcrum
Each fixed pattern of stress in the body is organized around an inertial fulcrum that acts as the center of any disturbance. At the core of each inertial fulcrum there is a concentration of trapped potency. Due to these bound-up forces, patterns of compression, twists, swirls and pulls become retained in tissues and fluids. Wherever the stasis of an inertial fulcrum is located, a state of fragmentation is created and the expression of the essential ordering principle of the Breath of Life is affected. This is considered to be the very origin of disease and pathology.
When a resolution occurs at the fulcrum organizing the disturbance, the carpet is taken away from under the feet of the whole pattern and the natural expression of primary respiration (together with the blueprint for health it carries) is restored. It should be noted that tissues can sometimes change their motion pattern without any significant change occurring at the fulcrum. However, to be effective, treatment must deal with the origin of a problem, its fulcrum, and not just the resulting symptoms. It is only by facilitating change at the fulcrum that the practitioner is able to support any real progress.
Resolving the forces
At the core of each disturbance, there are underlying forces that have become inertial and remain unresolved. It is these forces that essentially center and maintain a problem, holding the inertial fulcrum in place. Therefore, for a fulcrum to disperse, there must be a resolution of the inertial forces that organize it. If these become dissipated, a change automatically occurs in any associated tissues and fluids. Consequently, the treatment process involves finding a resolution of the forces that form a fulcrum, not just their effects. Unless these underlying forces are addressed, the pattern will continue in some shape or form.
An appreciation of this underlying level of physiological functioning goes right back to the roots of osteopathy. Over a century ago Dr. Andrew Taylor Still observed that the role of the practitioner is essentially to “revive suspended forces” in the same way that an electrician works with electrical currents.6 Because of the presence of inertial fulcra, a lot of energy that would otherwise be available and expressed through the whole system can get bound. The aim of any treatment is to help free this up.
Once inertial forces become mobilized they provide a deep resource for healing and transformation. Therefore, they can be regarded as a kernel of health trapped within every fulcrum. This kernel of health is simply something that has to be liberated for fragmentation to resolve and healing to result. When forces are transformed from a state of inertia, trapped biokinetic potencies dissipate back to the environment (from whence they came) and a more wholesome connection of that region to the universal principle of the Breath of Life is established. The individual and separately functioning “wave” realizes that it is part of the “ocean” and re-enters the life-stream.
Healing in stillness
Another principle of treatment is that healing essentially occurs within stillness, rather than within mot
ion. States of stillness provide an opportunity for the self-healing forces of the patient to most easily come back into play. Within stillness the potency that organizes a fulcrum has the opportunity to express its healing and ordering function beyond the compensation that has taken place.7 Therefore, something else can happen; biodynamic potency can find the space to become liberated and free to move, and so make the correction. This is marked by a welling up, or permeation, of the life principle at the heart of the fulcrum. Primary respiration is then able to shift back to its natural midline orientation and state of original health.8
There are a number of types and levels of stillness that can be facilitated during treatment. Each of these will be explored in the following sections of this chapter.
Point of balanced tension
Creating the best conditions for the resolution of inertial fulcra can be approached from various levels of function within the continuum of the whole patient, and from various perceptual viewpoints. The cardinal approach in this process is to seek the optimal alignment at which the patient’s intrinsic resources are able to come back into play.
One such core skill commonly used when working at the level of the cranial rhythmic impulse (C.R.I.) is to access points of balanced tension. A point of balanced tension describes the optimal alignment found in the tensions of a particular tissue and fluid pattern for an inertial fulcrum to resolve. It is a specific point that can be accessed within the naturally allowable range of craniosacral motion of the tissues and fluids involved in the pattern. In effect, the point of balanced tension is a position at which there is a balance between all the tensions—natural tensions and any added tensions resulting from stress or strain—expressed through the pattern. All these tensions that gather around an inertial fulcrum become equalized. This is actually the point at which a stress pattern is maintaining its focus. Therefore, it is also at this point that the potential for change can be accessed.