Energy School Commencement

It's been two years since I began the training in Boulder and Sunday I received the certificate of completion for 350 class hours.

I still need to turn in the documentation of 150 sessions given, some anatomy sketches, verification of having received 10 sessions (?) from RCST's and the big nerve project. At that point I will have BCST after my name and certificate of 700-hour completion of biodynamic craniosacral therapist training.

I learned a lot about myself these last two modules. In thanks to the feedback from the staff at the energy school, I now can focus on healing the places which consistently get in the way of my projects focused on eliminating racism. These are the same issues which cloud my parenting and interpersonal communication at large.

Some of the reactions I create aren't necessarily ideally my responsibility but I DO have this world to operate in and I DO need to take that into consideration.

Generally speaking, as I shift and settle my nervous system I will become more consistently loving, wise, and with good judgment about what people (and those in different groups) I may be interacting with, can handle. I will have good discernment about my impact on different people.

The Session

The session was long and
Luxurious.

The session was holy
It was street smart

The session brought me
Into my body
It aligned my awareness
To the flow of the universe

It was bitter
It was sweet

The session with an old friend
Continued something we once
Started
Held gently all
These years—

Then Renewed.
Brought out to be viewed,
acknowledged and recalibrated.

But I couldn’t be with her (or myself)
Back then
To the extent I seem to now.

Her attention
Pointed, precise
The field she sits with
It holds her.

All reliable.
Just neutral enough
That it’s not sticky
But engaged, caring enough
That I can land here.

And I’ve never trembled
As though my body were
An ant farm releasing
Its passageways into a
Canyon
Before.

I’ve never trembled beyond
Three dimensions
My heart chakra as a bowl of water vibrating
Old shock and fear bubbled out like storm clouds
Into a desert of sunny horizons


I enjoyed knowing I’d leave this room without that.


The session was lively
It roared with
High pitched belly laughs

The session was tentative
Then moved to
Complete immersion

It was respectful
Even of the things
That keep me from a
Full life.

For those were the ways
My brilliance—indeed my Love
Kept me alive
Got me through

The session was the wake
After the funeral
It was an anniversary
Many years past
Of a death
Nothing that was healing
Was new.

It had simply waited
For this moment
Waited for my friend.

The session was a teaching
It was not mutual
She offered something
I’m just discovering, uncovering, noticing.

Yet.

Yet, I know the forces re-organizing within me
Also nourished her.

It was hopeful
But unknowing

That many more
Hours such as this
Could transpire

And old locked up
Terror-in-a-box
Would not be carried
Beyond this door

So sweet
So—somewhat—anti-climactic
There it went
That “something-got-scary-once”
Energy
That I hadn’t had the safety, nor the ground, to release.

When you find a friend who can give you a hand
With something you’ve kept locked up for years

Stay

Do whatever it takes

You’ve found your green pasture

When you find a friend
who can sit with your
Hurts and appreciate
How brilliantly you’ve
Managed

Stay

You’ve found your still waters.

The session was
Present tense
Embodied in the material
World

The past came rolling off
Like great warm
Murky waves
Seeking a beach
To deposit
Their treasures

There were the deep
Breathless sobs
I would’ve taken
As an infant.

Taken now.
And left here, no longer carried.

My story, at last has been heard
I've said the things I needed to say all these years.

I am becoming the woman I’ve wanted

I’m so glad you too, have made it through.

I wish I had known and been there but … The forces, in your quiet moments of fever, pain and doubt in your own lovableness, saw to it you were seen.

For that I am glad.
And that’s enough.

copyright Sea Ganschow 2006

I'll Meet You There

Out beyond any idea of wrongdoing or rightdoing, there is a field.
I'll meet you there. Rumi

March 31, 2006: Anna told me it was good to have me there and that she wanted to make sure to tell me that. I wanted to make sure to say goodbye to her this time.

The last session before lunch was with Charlie. He is very thoughtful about asking me first if I have any preferences for contact. We began with some resonance stuff which is sort of taking turns naming body sense / felt sense stuff. I’m on the bus and not sure how long I’ll type while driving but so far okay. There are a bunch of bikes in a bike rack. Not sure is that a school or what? No signs

He started at my ankles and stayed there for quite some time. It was one of those bliss things. I was in such a fluid state and felt all this enfoldment. Anna walked up and stood there for a few minutes at which point it even deepened more. So the long tide is very pleasurable to be in.

Our offer for the house was accepted and we have until June 9 to sell our house.

The morning was spent on embryology. We had a lot of short video cuts of the developing zygote. Embryology has figured out at this point that the sperm doesn’t penetrate the egg nor competes with fellow sperm but the sperm group is assisting the one to reach the egg. At the point that the one makes it there is a dance of the sperm and the egg. Then there is a meeting. It is a mutual dance. Then a reception of the sperm by the egg and it is not a penetration type of thing at all Also, the sperm does not “fertilize” the egg. It meets the egg and they mutually join.

This has implications for the pro-choice discussion. And I mean just about the equality of men and women in particular and the myth of the egg just waiting passively doing nothing is not true.

Also, we looked at the first two weeks after fertilization and at that point there are no genetics involved. It is all fluid biodynamics. The “primitive streak” forms and becomes the neural tube. But first the heart has formed. There is no brain per se. Something is forming us. It is happening but it is not about genetics or brain because of course there is no brain yet.

John has referenced the many studies currently on people who have a slow condition where they are losing their brain. Even in cases where there was only 5% of the brain left, these people functioned normally. This is only with people who have developed a slow condition of loss of brain tissue. Something is allowing them to function normally and even above average academically with no brain.

The zygote drawings, photos and video clips with sketches, animation and true life showed an unfolding of two bubbles into themselves so the outside folded and became the inside and that was the start of the neural tube which became the brain and spinal cord.

As I was on the table afterwards as client, I felt the unfolding as though I were inside a bubble and pieces of the bubble—little spheres were moving slowly. They were winding and moving asymmetrically within and all around me within a sphere and then connected within the field--which was the room we were in.

After a while Charlie moved to my spine, I turned over onto my stomach and the exercise was just to put your hands on the client’s vertebral process and find a sore one and just ask it do you like to do this? Referring to whether it likes flexion, extension, anterior torsion, posterior torsion, shearing etc. And not to move it yourself but its answer would be in the way it would sort of move itself in the direction of what it likes. If it doesn’t like to do that it won’t move at all. And not to consider that pathology but just be like oh wow you like to do this thing. And be appreciative of that.

So he first went to the C7 and that was fine. But then when we were done there he moved to T6 or so and suddenly we were both like floating. His hand he said felt like it was floating and I suddenly had all this opening up stuff happening all over. So we stayed with that for a while and then moved to my sacrum and I turned onto my back again. He held my sacrum and the spine near where he’d been holding my T6.

Again, this was sort of the pure bliss. Neither of us really wanted to let go but lunch came and we did. Some of the processes I went through that were interesting was there was the sensation I’m becoming more used to of spreading and widening like pancake batter on the table. Then a sharp scraping feeling on my right temple and then it moved to a sharp scraping feeling on my right forearm then upper arm. Then that just dissipated. Suddenly as things slowed down more and more my left upper quadrant began a gurgling sensation but it wasn’t digestion related. It was in an unlikely spot. And it was very deep and reminded me of draino in a clogged pipe. That same thing happened in my left leg. But it was even more sustained and more surface. There were a few jolts that went through me and a sense of joy not elation or emotion but just a physical all-over pleasure. Like being lifted in a warm pool but the pool is you and around you all at once.

Last night I had a cranial session with Jo. I did a lot of deep crying and felt some of the settling. There were a couple of times the potency filled up and I was nourished but a lot of it was just deep emotional crying that I could tell. I don’t know if it was a challenge for her to be with me but when I checked with her at the end she said no. I talked a little about last module. I noticed Jo looking at me a few times but I think she is just checking me out. Which feels a little like she’s checking up on me. That’s my stuff I’m sure.

So Anna was saying that we are still being formed. We aren’t forming. We are being formed by something. And that embryology is so relative to what is going on inside us now. I guess it’s just a really good way to learn fluid biodynamics. And that will help you do this work.

I remember not wanting to take anatomy. I thought it would make me forget the energy fields I was in touch with. But you know Alex Gray? He first drew straight anatomy and then the more he was familiar with the structures, the more the energy underneath all the structures began to make itself known to him. Now he draws all these way far out pictures of the nervous system, the energy field. I guess there’s some influence by psychedelics as well. I have his book.

Well, she mentioned again to practice on yourself. To give yourself a cranial sacral session. She likes to just put her hands on her ilium and settle there. All kinds of stuff happens in those sessions. I’ve been doing that like at night when I’m going to sleep or anytime I’m just sitting I’ll notice my felt sense which is pretty much go to your seat. Go to your feet on the floor. Go to the contact point. Put your attention in what you notice your body feeling.

See if you can go any slower or listen any lower or deeper to your system. See what you notice again and keep going back to your seat or back of your body on the table. Others around you begin to respond. It’s not to hypnotize them but to meet them and they will attune themselves to your connection to this long tide.

There is fluid body which is midtide and there is the more shimmery body when aware of the long tide. And to connect to the long tide is a conscious thing. Occasionally it happens when people haven’t tried to or know what it is. I remember sitting at times in nature or in a room of people and suddenly the light changes. It looks golden. In nature you might notice a shimmering web of light threads coming off everything. That’s the –well, the thread part I’m not sure if it’s longtide or midtide but the golden light changing in the room that’s being in tune with the long tide. And that is a place where our nervous system for one is drinking it up and is being nourished. We can embody ourselves and become more present within our own bodies is my understanding. It’s a place of nourishment, love and resource. So I can’t like offer that to someone unless I know how to be in it first. That’s why even though our systems are intelligent and know how to heal they won’t necessarily get to this longtide by accident.

So when I first got there I felt very stuffed up and toxic (Tuesday night and most of Wednesday, part of yesterday) but then I had patches of clarity and being more buoyant. After the session with Jo I had a lot of clarity. I laughed really hard with Will last night on the phone. Had a good phone conference with Josette and the other families, then found out a bunch of people had linked and or visited my site yesterday. Plus got an email from Liza at culturekitchen responding to my email about slow loading times. But she said in it btw thanks for your contributions and helping build the community.

Today I was great. I mean if you asked me I’d say excellent. I’m connected to myself. I’m in a much easier place to be with. The toxicity, heaviness, grogginess, angry disappointment was in large part discharged and dissipated by last night.

I was in touch with how good I am.

I’m grateful for this work. For the sessions I’m getting. I think they are helping to integrate me in places where I’ve really been struggling. I will continue to settle and be able to carry on my work.

studying

Question: What exactly are you studying?

Thanks for asking. I'm studying Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. I have a link to the homepage from here--see links to the right.

A young osteopathic student named William Garner Sutherland, at the turn of the twentieth century, began thinking that the skull bones were not fused but meant to sort of breathe. He tried bolting a football helmet to his head to prove that the bones of the skull don't move. It created strange personality changes, gastric disturbances, and disorientation and his wife made him stop. But he proved to himself that the cranial bones do move.

One of the things Sutherland did was for five years he just listened. One day he noticed a movement under his hands as the client's system adjusted itself. From this he gathered that there is an intelligence within the system. He called it the Breath of Life because he could palpate (to feel with one's hands) a very subtle rhythm or breathing.

If you've ever heard tapes of whales talking it reminds me of that. It's a very slow and long and fluid rhythmic breathing that is going on all the time all around us. It's not a sound per se but the whale song just reminds me of it.

When that "breathing" meets our tissues and bones it becomes a primary respiration. The sides of our skulls shows the tip of a bone that looks like a little gill. One day the thought struck Sutherland "beveled like the gills of a fish for primary respiration." This bizarre thought led him to his lifework. He was known as a very gentle and spiritual man.

So secondary respiration is our lungs breathing air. The primary respiration is when this very slow fluid-like breathing that is going on all the time in the universe meets our body. It goes through the tissue, bone and muscle--every cell. It's the underlying Health or Resource which is not affected by trauma or illness. When it gets blocked or sits in inertia there is pain and suffering. So craniosacral therapy is an approach to noticing and mirroring so the client can notice their own Health. When you focus on something it grows. So this work does not focus on pathology but on what is working well in the client.

In our society, most of us are not tuned into that and become sort of wrapped up very tightly. It's a state of sort of disassociated shock. Like how much do you notice your body sense? So it's a way that a lot of us (including myself) are walking around outside of our bodies in a certain way. And that would be fine except when we can tune into the subtle rhythm and settle a bit--it doesn't mean we walk around like zombies, you can actually move and speak quickly while in contact with the longtide--but it gives the system a chance to discharge stress, shock and so on and live in a space where there's resource and connection.

So it's the practitioner who is in touch with the longtide and just sits with the client and gently guides them. We don't try to force anything to happen, just invite it and the Intelligence of the client's own system presents the treatment plan according to how safe it is and whether there's resource enough.

It's very good stuff. I'm only beginning. So I am at the very beginning trying very small steps with contacting the longtide and noticing my own primary respiration. It's not easy. Yesterday Anna asked me, "Do you feel your shoulder rolling out?" I did. I was on the table and I had one student contacting my sacrum, an assistant supporting her and then Anna came and held my hand by my left shoulder. I began to settle and little twitches started to happen as my nervous system discharged stress or shock, then as we contacted the more fluid states of being I felt these little bubbles under my skin in wierd places like my arm and my knee. And I felt like I was spreading like pancake batter.

At first I had felt scared on the table and Anna helped my fellow student to "contact" me. Like there was a way she had been there but not really with me. It's amazing what a difference it makes just to shift inside yourself. Everyone in the room can feel it. So underneath the Breathing I'm telling you about is a Stillness.

When you inhale (air with your lungs) there's actually a little space of stillness, then the exhale and stillness again. It's the same way on deeper levels. And that Stillpoint (it's referred to) is also an amazing place to be in. The difference between the Stillpoint and just plain numbness or frozen terror is you can feel a dynamism there an aliveness, an expansion. In that place is very healing for the system and sometimes just sitting in the longtide can lead to the Stillpoint.

Anyway, I hope I haven't bored you. Don't worry if it doesn't make sense. It's one of those things that you kind of need another person with you who is experienced. If you're interested, look on the website link and there is a practitioner referral link so you can search and see if there are any practitioners in your area. Biodynamic Craniosacral is a little different than the mechanical craniosacral, such as Upledger. It has embraced the more mystical aspects of this work.

Has this explanation been helpful? Feel free to ask more questions if something wasn't clear. It's helping me review what I'm learning to write about it.