Summer 2014 Newsletter – Fresh Perspectives

 Astrowork, Bodywork, Craniosacral, Honoring Nature, Meditation
May 302014
 
Headshot 2
Summer 2014

Firstly, as last time, I want to thank all of you for supporting my practice by coming to see me!  Being able to make a living out of my passion is such a blessing and it wouldn’t be possible without YOU.
I just returned from my sabbatical month in Gainesville, Florida.  This was a time for being with the family, for reading, for meditating, for, to use a term I picked up from Carl Jung, reverie – unscheduled time.  Time for Being.  Sometimes I think that I meditate too much or that I emphasize JUST BEING too much, but then I remember that that is my job.  In this society of Go Go Go my job is, in part, to help you remember to settle down physically, emotionally, mentally.
I spent much of the month writing, thinking, visioning and sharing ideas with friends.  It is from that space that I have returned to my work here, refreshed and eager to dip my hands in the ocean.

Below are two projects that were born from this fresh perspective, I hope you can join me in them.  In addition to these projects I am, of course, offering loving, awesome bodywork.

The Stillness Project

This project was kept coming to me as I sat, meditating, in the early mornings.
I am aware that so much happens when I sit in meditation.  Cars drive by, airplanes fly by, people bustle to their jobs, and during all this I try to sit motionless for an hour and in that motionlessness I find much movement.
I let go of my neck (was I holding it) and it finds a better place; I feel fully settled, then I notice my upper lip (was I holding there?) I let go and it finds a better place; I feel fully settled, deeper than before then I notice my belly (really? how come I didn’t notice that tension) and I let go and a new sense of alignment and identity arises, and the process goes on and on and on.
This to say that there are many layers of tension to let go of, and these layers become clear through stillness.
Stillness is at the root of my work and I want some brave souls (YOU) to come explore stillness together.
The structure that I envision for these sessions is 90minutes: 30 minutes dedicated to talking and checking-in, possibly even a written or video interview followed by 45 minutes of 1 hold, followed by 15 minutes of transition back to the world.
Come STUDY stillness together.

1 Year – 50 Books
In this society of Go Go Go (I repeat myself) we have lost time to slow down and read.  We are often flicking the screen of our ipods/iphones/ipads and before we know it an hour has passed.  I want to encourage you to join me on a project I’m calling: “1 Year – 50 Books”.
Sounds daunting but it breaks down to 1 book a week.  This may seem unrealistic but, well, you know the saying “Aim for the stars and you may reach the Moon” (as an astrophysicist that would mean that you were unaware of some major errors).
Lets replace screen time with page time.  Lets reclaim bookreading!  Whenever you are going to reach for the gadget to check on the status of the world reach for the book instead.  I’m also writing a brief review of each book on my reading blog and my facebook site so drop by and tell me which books you are reading.

I look forward to being with you.

Ancestral Blessings

 Archetypes, Cultural Studies, Honoring Nature, Meditation, Poetry
May 292014
 

“Thank you very much,” said Jumping Mouse.
“But you Know, it was very Frightening Running under you with only One Eye.  I was Constantly in Fear of your Great Earth-Shaking Hooves.”
“Your Fear was for Nothing,” said Buffalo.
“For my way of Walking is the Sun Dance Way, and I Always Know where my Hooves will Fall.  I now must Return to the Prairie, my Brother.  You can Always Find me there.”
- Hyemeyohsts Storm

Haya Trees1Chief Tsunka Wakan Sapa (Phillip Scott) holding Haya up to the the tall redwoods

Just a few days ago I got to attend a beautiful blessing ceremony for a baby girl, Haya, who turned 1.  The ceremony took place amongst tall redwoods and was led by Phillip Scott, a Chief in the Lakota tradition.

Blessings Haya!

Review to book #2: Lost in the City of Flowers

 Cultural Studies, Novel
May 272014
 

Lost in the City of Flowers was book 2 of 50 and it landed perfectly between Walking the Labyrinth and The Wondrous Mushroom.  I smiled to see the theme of feeling lost (as in a labyrinth) continuing in to this book and then I was fascinated to find the concept of Flowers being the centerpiece of The Wondrous Mushroom.

Lost in the City placed me in Florence in the year 1469, in the time of Leonardo da Vinci, and as the book’s adventures unfold the reader gets to live and imagine what life was like at that time and what Leonardo’s personality could have been like.  This book brought me to a place of seeing the human in Leonardo; I loved how he is portrayed as a witty, playful, not-boastful young man as well as already being very accomplished in many fields.
Reminded me of Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World in that it teaches the reader something but not in a direct way, it does so in the way that we humans best learn which is through stories with interesting characters, heroins we identify with, villains we love to hate and larger than life humans such as Leonardo da Vinci.

Definitely recommended.

LITCFauthor Maria C. Trujillo enjoying her book

This is Maria C. Trujillo’s first book and I look forward to accompanying her evolution in writing and storytelling.

Book 4 of the 50 Book Project

 Archetypes, Cultural Studies, Poetry
May 262014
 

Skull and Flower“Come sit with me, and let us smoke the Pipe of Peace in Understanding.
Let us Touch.
Let us, each to the other, be a Gift as is the Buffalo.
Let us be Meat to Nourish each other, that we all may Grow.
Sit here with me, each of you as you are in your own Perceiving of yourself, as Mouse, Wolf, Coyote, Weasel, Fox, or Prairie Bird.
Let me see through your Eyes.
Let us Teach each other here in this Great Lodge of the People, this Sun Dance, of each of the Ways on this Great Medicine Wheel, our Earth.”
 – Seven Arrows, by Hyemeyohsts Storm

Join me in Book 4 of this 50 book project.  Seven Arrows by Hyemeyosts Storm.
Previous books were:
1 – Walking a Sacred Path – Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Tool, by Dr. Lauren Artress
2 – Lost In The City Of Flowers – The Histories of Idan Book I, by Maria C. Trujillo
3 – The Wondrous Mushroom – Mycolatry in Mesoamerica, by R. Gordon Wasson

You can read my brief reviews of the books on plimbooks (playing catch up with the reviews of books 1 and 2)

Readings: 1 year – 50 Books

 Archetypes, Poetry
May 262014
 

Oyanoconic in nanacaoctli, ya noyol in choca
I have drunk the liquor of mushrooms and my hear weeps.
- Poesia Nahuatl

 

In this age of constant interconnection we are seldom OFF.  We are seldom not-doing.  We are constantly catching up.
There is new information every time we scroll down.  It is either something happening in the world, a new coup, a new discovery, a new bomb, a new intriguing popstar relationship, or it is something new in a friend’s life (even if it is a friend whom we haven’t spoken to in many years, it is there and we must read it).
My connection to books dwindled with the coming of the internet to the point where I’d look at my many bookshelves and wonder “why exactly do I have these books that I love but don’t read”, something was off.

And so I have committed to a simple challenge/project (I like to call my challenges PROJECTS).  A book a week for a year.

A book a week for a year.

Yesterday I finished my third week and my third book: THE WONDROUS MUSHROOM – Mycolatry in Mesoamerica, by R. Gordon Wasson.
wondrous_mushroom2What an amazing book.  Powerfully written (full of conviction), clear, concise, focused and with profound effects.  Simply put Wasson’s work strongly invites you to see the recently lost great civilizations of the Nahua, the Greeks, the Aryans in a completely different light, one strongly, deeply influenced by entheogens (“plant substances that, when ingested, give one a divine experience”).  This book encourages the reader to attempt to see the world through the eyes of a simple people who place at the core of their culture, of their cosmology, of their living the world shown to them by the mushrooms.  Nowadays we call those substances psychadelics or hallucinogenics with the limited understanding that they influence our brains; our scientific endeavours shaping our perception; our yearning for a logical framework limiting the depth of experience.  For those people the mushrooms were, possibly, a door, a passageway, an entrance… not a “figment of our imagination” (or sad excuse for an imagination).

Just Sitting

 Craniosacral, Meditation
May 072014
 
stars and bones 1

Sitting, just sitting.

So much is happening in the stillness, there is no need to go anywhere else.

The client lays their head on my hand and we Be together, that is all.

Skilled Bodywork is Simply a Reminding

 Bodywork, Craniosacral, Poetry
Sep 132013
 
Skilled Contact

Image from a craniosacral workshop at the Florida School of Massage

You could probably best define someone by the things they hold on to.

You could say “hold on” or you could just as well say “cling to”.  The things we cling to are the things we will not bend for.  Ghandi held on to his quest for Truth, satyagraha – the quest for truth.  He wanted to know truth, understand truth, and embody and live truth.  We may not even know what is at our core but we may insist on … we may insist on “dinner is a time for family to be together”, or television time at the end of the day, or “my God exists and he is the only one”, or “I do it for money”, or any other phrase we may have adopted as our motto.

We hold onto things in our body too.  Our verbal and mental phrases are physical postures too.  They may be slight such as a passivity to the eyes, downturned corners of the lips, or a shuffle to the step.  Or they may be pronounced, such as an arrow-straight spine, or a collapsed one.

We hold these voluntarily… though oftentimes we forget.

The most skilled kind of bodywork is an act or reminding, not a forcing.  I, as the bodyworker, touch the body and look for the fulcrum, the center of all that is happening.  And yes, the fulcrum is an attitude and a posture but with the right words, and touch and the right movement we can reach the level of the posture and the attitude.

To encourage a change it is not necessary to put a lot of effort; in fact, it is often counterproductive and our effort gets in the way of working with the person.  Find the way to be effortless while being fully effective.

“A good cook need sharpen his blade but once a year. He cuts cleanly. An awkward cook sharpens his knife every month. He chops. I’ve used this knife for nineteen years, carving thousands of oxen. Still the blade is as sharp as the first time it was lifted from the whetstone. At the joints there are spaces, and the blade has no thickness. Entering with no thickness where there is space, the blade may move freely where it will: there’s plenty of room to move. Thus, after nineteen years, my knife remains as sharp as it was that first day.”
- excerpt from Chuang Tzu’s “The Dextrous Butcher“

Sessions – Letting Go

 Craniosacral, Poetry
Sep 012013
 
Touch 3

There is a moment between the decision to let go and the act of letting go when things soften.

Together we rocked right, together we rocked left.  A tide pulled us further out and, after drawing us out so far that it felt endless, brought us back in.  The movement always happened together, never one leading the other; in unison, in sync, in flow.  Yet, it was boring, or became boring.  Where were we going?  What was the purpose?  What was the meaning?
At some point I, or maybe it was you, or probably it was us both, found the boredom more interesting than the story we had been living and decided to let go.  Let go of the other, let go of the precious flow, go our separate ways.

And isn’t that when we felt most together?

Suddenly there was a sense of vertiginous space where before the air was stuffy.  The stagnant pond became an ocean and a tide so strong it put our efforts of trying to feel a tide to shame drew us clear across the universe and back.

Infant Craniosacral and the Breath of Life

 Craniosacral, Poetry
Aug 282013
 
Mateus Bruno First

But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
- William Wordsworth

Newborns are some of my favorite clients for craniosacral work.  As William Wordsworth put it so well, we all come into this world trailing clouds of glory, arriving from a place which we cannot see but we can recognize.

It is at this place that craniosacral work aims.  A craniosacral therapist works with the tissue, with the bones, with the lymph, the nervous system, the craniosacral fluid, the fluid body, and with systems that he or she can feel but cannot name, however, the aim is on that place, the origin, what the founder of cranial osteopathy, William Garner Sutherland, termed: the Breath of Life.

He, William Sutherland, called it: God, The Mind of Nature, or Primary Respiration (The Breath of Life).

Another William, John William Coltrane, in his “A Love Supreme” poem, the same poem he sung on his saxophone in the album of the same name, said:

“God breathes through us so completely…so gently we hardly feel it… yet,it is our everything.
Thank you God.”
- John William Coltrane

Working with newborns is a pleasure and a gift; to once again be in the deep gentle presence of that trail of clouds is rejuvenating and refreshing.  It is also essential for the newborn, for thought they may have arrived from a place of glory they immediately being to be shaped by the forces that brought them here, the forces that gave them a physical form.  They are immediately exposed to lights and sounds and expectations and manipulations that compete with the sense of peace and wellbeing from where they came.

“As the twig is bent, so grows the tree”

Work with a baby touches on the essence of craniosacral – the Breath of Life.  It is my view that in no other field (except very likely craniosacral work with the dying, though I cannot speak to that from personal experience) is the craniosacral treatment plan more defined by the focus on the Breath of Life.

“When we work with a baby we are looking for the health, we are building on what is already healthy and we are simply removing the obstacles that are in the way of that health being expressed.”
- Benjamin Shield, PhD

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