Biodynamic Craniosacral Training

This training stems from traditional American Indian bodywork where the healing method was developed by  traditional Native Americans. The original body work originates from indigenous people, and is the basis of Osteopathy, Chiropractic, Cranial Osteopathy, and probably many other healing practices.  Currently what has survived in pockets around the country (along with Zuni and Navajo healing and bone-setting) is Cherokee bodywork, which was surely similar to Shawnee practices, since they were neighboring tribes in Virginia. "Dr Still westernized the practice and language of indigenous healing practices by using mechanical and biblical wording to describe Native American Healing Practices. He learned these healing arts by living on a Shawnee reservation for many years. Dr Still’s father was a missionary and a physician to the Shawnee and, starting in 1853, Still assisted him for a number of years as part of his own medical training. Dr Stone and Dr William Sutherland were students of  Dr Still.  Dr Sutherland developed  cranial osteopathy with colleagues such as Dr Stone, Dr Becker, and Dr Fryman and others. Dr Upledger then shared this work  with Chiropractors, Physical Therapists, Massage Therapists, Polarity Therapists, etc... ( not just osteopaths), and coined the term CranioSacral Therapy.   From there Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy was developed further by Franklyn Sills, Michael Kern, Michael Shea, Katherine Ukleja, Myrna Martin, Anna and John Chitty, Christopher and Louise Mueller, Ray Castellino, and others.

View Indigenous Roots of Osteopathy Powerpoint

This is an in-depth explanation for those thinking of taking the 2-year training...​This is a very yin form of healing.  On a structural level there is a measurable force that enlivens our cells every second and directs them to work in unison with each other and maintain our health as it interfaces with our environment.

This work and training is trauma informed and includes concepts from soamtic experiencing, pre and perinatal preverblal imprints, focusing, and heartmath, and Alchemical Alignment teachings.Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy works as a bridge between the divine mystery that everything comes from energetically, and bridges that connection with our physical body.  These forces are witnessed everyday as we see the oceans tides change. It is a scientific fact that the moon and the sun and ocean tides are interrelated. Our physical body is also influenced by these larger forces. We are quantum/energy-based beings with a physical structure. Every second we are breathed by a higher intelligence a divine mystery. Feelings, thoughts, our birth, our prenatal experience, accidents, injuries, and how we were raised; strongly imprint our health. These experiences can be held in our tissue as dysfunction. Most of our health issues today are about an imbalance in the autonomic ("automatic") nervous system that influence our: sleep, digestion. hormones, and how we react to our surrounding environment.  What the mind thinks, feels, and focuses on affects the body. Imbalances in the quantum body can greatly affect our nervous system tone, and physical body ...involuntarily. As a cranial therapist I magnify the the natural forces that direct our cells to function at the deepest level just by noticing the bioelectric field and listening and augmenting this divine mystery energy breath. In doing so people feel better on many levels.

This energy breath starts as soon as we are conceived and is an energy blueprint of information for our cells and body to organize from.  This is why this work is called biodynamic. These biodynamic forces help us differentiate into a human being from a cluster of cells.

Healing happens through empowerment, encouragement, and support. Most of our wounding is in relationship, and often this is early on. In the class we learn to hold this wounding and work with it in the presence of the tides, dynamic stillness, and the breath of the divine mystery.  A trinity happens between the practitioner, the client, and the divine intelligence. Practitioners learn to listen and support these aspects in others and co-regulate with people from learning to regulate their own nervous system first. Then after they can do that, they begin to be an anchor for that with clients.

Cranial work connects directly with the quantum physics of your body. It is one of the most grounded forms of energy work. The practitioner tracks the physical body, as they listen to the force that directs your cells to do their job. Both aspects work together as a unified field making you whole. Relationship safety and settling is learned to support what arises with our clients. Often physical and emotional aspects are held in the body together, and this work addresses both bringing then into stronger connection with the tides, stillness, and the divine mystery.

To be more specific, “quantum” theories deal with the smallest quantity or fundamental unit of radiant energy in a system. “Physics,” while perhaps understood most commonly as the class many of us had a hard time passing, is, put simply the science that deals with energy, motion and force. The human body is a receptacle and proprietor of our energy. As such, biodynamic craniosacral therapy works directly with the most basic energy in our bodies, our very life force, and how it breathes our tissue.

Every cell in your body connects expresses a rhythmic subtle movement that is fundamental to life. All living things on our planet have this motion. Here is a video that shows a tadpole being formed by an electromagnetic field.

From a more scientific perspective, this is also energy that directs each cell to do its job. Our cells make one big community of cells called “our body”. All living things have a breath like motion that has been measured as 50 seconds inhalation/expansion, and 50 seconds exhalation. Much like the ocean tidal motions that are scientifically affected by the earth’s relationship to the moon, we have our own tidal motion that moves through all living things. This community of cells (our body) is imprinted by the specific situation of how we first started out in life. Cells then pass on their memory to new cells. Because the body is a living, changing organism, sometimes the information that is passed on at a cellular level needs to be updated. All therapies attempt to connect the body more strongly to its energetic blueprint of perfect health.

Physical trauma and emotional stress can cause one’s tissue to contract. Sometimes this tissue stays contracted. Over the years these traumas and stressors can build up in one’s tissues, giving rise to problems over the years.

Craniosacral therapy reaches underneath our patterns (both psychological and biological) and connects them to the source of health/ the original blueprint that is much larger than our collective traumas. When we expand and deepen into this place that originates in the core of our being, a sense of wellness occurs. We get a glimpse of not having imprints and patterns. We get a glimpse of the beginning. Over time this awareness extends beyond our experiences and becomes bigger than our original imprints and patterns. We begin to heal, and not react so strongly to things that remind us of what we have endured. We become more resourced and less overwhelmed by our past experiences. This is a lifelong practice.

Craniosacral therapy changes your relationship with yourself. You begin to notice places where you have activation and reactivity, otherwise understood as our natural fight or flight response. It creates a millisecond of time where you see that you are not your trauma or reaction.  Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy is based in Buddist principles of mindfulness.  Students can get a felt sense of calm, settling, and non-reactivity in their body by taking this training and being in the classroom.

Biodynamic therapists generally orient to three parts of the craniosacral system: the Midtide, the Longtide, and Dynamic Stillness.Focusing on health rather than disease during treatment empowers patients to connect with their inherent intelligence to heal themselves.

The divine mystery is a breath that is felt very strongly on the midline where the nervous system and spine are, where the forces that formed our embryo began.

This work unlike any other work brings the tides of the craniosacral system in the relational field of support with the practitioner. The work is verbal at times, and very quiet and calm too.