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Biodynamic craniosacral therapy
“What is biodynamic craniosacral therapy?” —Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Association of North America
“Biodynamic craniosacral therapy” —Roger Gilchrist, MA, RPE, RCST®, Wellness Institute:
“This article focuses on a particular approach in craniosacral therapy (CST) called Craniosacral Biodynamics. We will explore how this is similar to and how it differs from other approaches to craniosacral therapy, as well as some of the unique features of the Biodynamic approach.
In many ways, the Biodynamic approach is much closer to the osteopathic roots of craniosacral therapy in relation to skills and philosophy. Osteopathic practice has always stated it is both a science and a philosophy, and this is true in Craniosacral Biodynamics as well. It is useful to appreciate the history of “cranial osteopathy” that began with William G. Sutherland, DO, then extended through the work of Rollin Becker, DO, where we see the premises that are the foundation of Biodynamic work. Franklyn Sills has been a primary developer of Craniosacral Biodynamics, a field in which most practitioners are not osteopaths (although some are, and there is a parallel field called Biodynamic Osteopathy). In this way, many massage therapists and other bodywork professionals have begun to include Biodynamic CST in their practices.
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy places an emphasis on what organizes Health in the living system, much more than the patterns of distress or dysfunction. The unique contribution of Craniosacral Biodynamics to the larger field of CST is a rich understanding of the forces that organize both stress patterns and normal functions. This allows the practitioner to work with the active processes at the root of distress in contrast to the symptomatic expressions of dysfunctional conditions. Tissue patterns like sutural compressions, membranous strains, joint translations, and connective tissue patterning are still perceived and worked with, but they are understood as results of the forces organizing life, including the conditional patterns of our history and overwhelming experiences. Biodynamic practitioners have special skills for working at the level of these primary forces.
Important features of Biodynamic work include the following:
The Relational Field — In Craniosacral Biodynamics the interactive field in which the client and practitioner both participate is given a great deal of attention. A well-negotiated field of contact, attention, and perception is considered paramount in the work. In a clear relational field, contact and attention are neither intrusive nor distant. There is a direct perception of healing processes as they arise, and it is safe for this to occur in a balanced relationship.
Inherent Health — Perhaps the most important idea in a Biodynamic approach to CST is that Health is inherent in the living system. One’s body or mind never really loses the relationship to health, even in the direst circumstances. A reorientation to health is always possible. The template for health is held within the dynamics of the living system. Of course, genetic adaptations and the further progression of any chronic condition places certain limitations on the degree to which one can align with the template for health, however, a person can learn to keep a relationship to their essence, even when certain conditions are maintained in the process of the body.
Three Fields of Function — Life takes place in a number of dimensions. Craniosacral Biodynamics describes some of these dimensions as “three fields of function.” Specifically, those are: the tissue field, the fluid field, and a field of organizing energies and dynamic forces. Dr. Sutherland referred to these dynamic energies as potency. The tissue field is familiar to all bodyworkers as the physical body, its structural organization, weight-bearing capacity in relation to gravity, tone in the muscles, quality in the connective tissues, and the reciprocal tensions in membranes. The fluid field is primary in the awareness of lymphatic workers, for example.
CST places special emphasis on the cerebrospinal fluid, and the CSF is viewed as interactive with, and influential upon, all the other fluids of the body. The field of potency is essentially the energy dynamics of the living body. The human energy field is now well-documented in a number of studies. Biodynamics refers to this as the biofield; this includes the physical body and its energetic exchange with the environment around it. Each of these three fields has its own operational laws and governing dynamics, which means that different therapeutic skills apply to each of the three fields. Furthermore, all three fields of function are interactive and influence each other.”
Reiki
“Reiki Can’t Possibly Work. So Why Does It?” —The Atlantic Monthly
“The effects were startling, Jamie told me. Veterans who complained that their body had “forgotten how to sleep” came in for Reiki and were asleep on the table within minutes. Others reported that their pain declined from a 4 to a 2, or that they felt more peaceful. One patient, a man with a personality disorder who suffers from cancer and severe pain, tended to stop his normal routine of screaming and yelling at the staff when he came in for his Reiki sessions.”
“The healer’s job is not to control the Reiki or to make decisions about healing. “We’re just the channel,” one of the masters said. “The healing is a contract between the person who needs to be healed and the higher power.” Reiki, they stressed, can never harm anyone. It should also be used only as a complement to conventional medicine, never as a replacement. “We are not doctors,” they said several times. “We cannot diagnose anyone with anything.””
“The ailments that Reiki seems to treat most effectively are those that orthodox medicine struggles to manage: pain, anxiety, chronic disease, and the fear or discomfort of facing not only the suffering of illness but also the suffering of treatment. “What conventional medicine is excellent at is acute care. We can fix broken bones, we can unclog arteries, we can help somebody survive a significant trauma, and there are medicines for all sorts of symptoms,” Yufang Lin, an integrative-medicine specialist at Cleveland Clinic, told me. But medicine, she said, is less successful at recognizing the way that emotion, trauma, and subjective experience can drive physical health—and the way that they can affect recovery from acute medical care.”
“What is Reiki?” —WebMD
“The reiki healing system, founded by Mikao Usui in the early 1900s, said that people should practice certain standards or values that bring about peace and harmony – ideals that most cultures practice. It was brought to the Western part of the world by Hawayo Hiromi Takata and become popular in the U.S. quickly.
The term comes from two Japanese words: “rei,” which means universal, and “ki,” which loosely translates to a flow of a lifeforce of energy that happens in all living things.
Reiki practitioners act as a middle ground between you and energy forces. Energy travels from their hands to you, and more specifically the areas of focus. During a session, you would take only the energy flow that you need instead of what the reiki practitioner might think you need.”
Tarot
“Tarot” —Britannica
“The standard modern tarot deck is based on the Venetian or the Piedmontese tarot. It consists of 78 cards divided into two groups: the major arcana, which has 22 cards, also known as trumps, and the minor arcana, which has 56 cards.”
“Before Fortune-Telling: The History and Structure of Tarot Cards” by Tim Husband, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“By the middle of the 15th century, the suit symbols of Italian cards were Cups, Swords, Batons, and Coins, and they remain so to this day. The pip cards were conventionally organized, with the repetition of the symbol indicating the value. In tarot cards, however, 21 trump cards, or tarocchi, were added, and these were figural, as in The Courtly Household Cards, with the fool at the bottom leading up to the emperor and pope at the top.”