Celebrating 51 years circa 1973
The History of the Dynamic Stillness School
In 1972, I was actively on a spiritual path meditating 3 hours a day. One of my fellow meditation practitioners told me about cranial work. Hearing the word cranial for the first time was intriguing so I went to the doctor he recommended to receive a cranial session. The results were life changing.
In 1973, after one biomechanical sutural session, I realized I AM
From one session, my consciousness expanded to infinity - as a constant presence of stillness - for 30 days. Presence of Stillness was the original title of my first book Stillness that was published 33 years later.
After a month-long abiding in infinite consciousness, it turned into a Sacred Repose that recapitulated a consciousness I had enjoyed when I was 3-4 years old. I had longed to regain that felt-sense of wholeness and a union with everything, which suddenly left me after an early Core Erotic Wound.
The life-changing impact of a single biomechanical cranial sutural session was the seed that gave birth to the Dynamic Stillness School three decades later.
After that Sutherland-based cranial sutural session, I became a devout student of osteopath Dr. DeJarnette who was a student of Dr. Sutherland.
I studied and practiced Sutherland's medical cranial approaches - biomechanical and functional work - for 23 years. Then, Dr. Sutherland's non-medical biodynamic tides spontaneously emerged in me in 1995 during my sessions. That moment marked when I ceased my medical-model cranial practice and teaching. No longer did the medical model and its professional code of ethics apply. Why? Because Stillness Touch was a path for the evolution of consciousness. That means by definition, Stillness Touch is not a medical practice in which we treat people. Hence, the full title of my first book Stillness: Biodynamic Cranial Practice And The Evolution of Consciousness.
Having no prior exposure to biodynamics, my spontaneous encounters with the tides were overwhelming. I experienced the neutral as a whole-body stillness, the fluid tide, long tide, and Dynamic Stillness and all this occurred spontaneously during sessions, meditations, and classes in a mutual group field. To integrate these bewildering states of consciousness, I daily sat in meditation in the early morning with my crown and heart field open toward Dr. Sutherland's essence. I wrote everything down.
You can read the fruits of my meditations, cranial sessions, and teaching of classes in two books: Stillness: Biodynamic Cranial Practice And The Evolution of Consciousness and e-book Beyond Stillness: Practices For Practitioners. Both books contain Stillness Practice meditations that I developed from my study of Steiner and the ancient spiritual traditions.
My writings convey experiences that have occurred in our mutual group fields
Despite having meditated for 25 years prior to 1995, I needed deeper embodiment practices to help me to ground, center, and strengthen my will so I could be with and integrate the unbearable intensity that arose when I contacted the tides. I subsequently wrote eBook Beyond Stillness Stillness: Practices For Practitioners to help others practitioners embody consciousness as it evolved while practicing Stillness Touch. My eBook contains descending current Stillness Practices that were inspired by Rudolf Steiner, the ancient Vedic, Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, Kashmir Shiva-Shakti Tantric practices, Carl Jung, Saniel Bonder, and Neil Cohen. I combined all these practices into one seamless practice that became the e-book Beyond Stillness, mentioned above.
An "Aha" Moment
One morning while sitting in meditation, it dawned on me that "biodynamic cranial practice evolves consciousness." That is how the subtitle of the book Stillness emerged.
It is obvious today (2024) that consciousness evolves whenever we fall into a Sacred Repose inside (Pratyahara) while enveloped in the biodynamic neutral, which is a whole-body stillness. This is the classic definition of a biodynamic neutral, yet the insight that the neutral evolves consciousness had 'not yet' permeated the biodynamic cranial field in 1995.
My tidal experiences, along with the personal numerous encounters that were shared by students, clients, and session exchange partners confirmed that the neutral, the tides, and Dynamic Stillness are all states of consciousness.
In Stillness: Biodynamic Cranial Practice And The Evolution Of Consciousness Chapters 5-8, I document these pre-biodynamic and biodynamic states of consciousness. In Chapter 9, I introduced a post-biodynamic domain. Click here for a CHART.
As mentioned, before the publication in 2006, the material in Stillness came from my biodynamic experiences that I began to write down in 1995 after the tides had emerged. The encouragement of North Atlantic Books Publisher, Richard Grossinger inspired me to publish. Three other events inspired me to craft a book out of my biodynamic class notes.
The first event that inspired my writing of Stillness occurred in the mid-1990's during a pivotal session exchange with a biodynamic osteopath who was a teacher for Dr. James Jealous. Mid-session, whilst we were immersed in a vast luminous radiance, the D.O. blurted “Charles I’m panicking right now. I don’t know what’s going on or what to do!”
It was obvious that the ego was afraid, and was recoiling her away from her powerful encounter; most likely this was due to a fear of the unknown while she was basking in the vast radiance of long tide. I suggested that she orient her awareness inward without any expectation and to sense what is arising within from a neutral disposition of repose. She was also a meditator and on the same spiritual path as I, so she was able to relax and let her heart open to her overpowering encounter while in Sacred Repose. As the session continued, I enjoyed a life-changing direct inner contact with my Inner Divine Child that has never left me. Jung says that this Divine Child encounter is an experience of the Christ.
My session with the osteopath mentioned above, demonstrated that there was a real need for a book like Stillness.
Regardless of one’s biodynamic cranial training or meditation background, the overwhelming power of a tidal encounter can challenge us. When the written word is based on direct inner body-felt experience, it carries the power of a direct oral transmission, which supports a practitioner in being fully present amid encounters with neutral, the potency, the Breath of Life, and Pure Breath of Love.
I cannot count the number of emails I have received from people who profusely thank me for the words in my books. They say, in essence, that my written words reflect their exact inner experiences.
The next thing that inspired me to publish Stillness is the rampant confusion outside of the field of cranial osteopathy. Namely, in the Biodynamic Cranial Approach (BCA) generally and specifically the Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy school curriculum (BCST). The BCST school curriculum unforgivably overlays an efferent medical-model upon an explicitly non-medical approach that Sutherland gave to us as biodynamics.
Regardless of what they advertise or what the teachers tell you, the BCST school curriculum is not derived from Sutherland's cranial osteopathy that I was trained in.
I felt an obligation to name that fact in Stillness, and to clarify in one book the precise osteopathic terms and definitions of Dr. Sutherland's three types of cranial practice that were crafted very carefully by his inner circle of 15 osteopathic colleagues over many years. Unfortunately, the osteopathic definitions were spread though dozens of books and articles, so I put them in one place with references in Chapter 3 in Stillness.
Finally, I wanted to emphasize that realizing the biodynamic neutral - as a whole-body stillness - is the fulcrum that opens the portal for embodying a biodynamic practice. I showed inner practices that embody the neutral so deep that it becomes Sacred Repose, which not only is a spiritual practice, but also it is a lifestyle.
Ultimately, touch for spiritual evolution is the essence of Sutherland's biodynamics, and it forms the foundation for the Dynamic Stillness School.
Clarifying the precise osteopathic definitions of the three types of cranial practice became more urgent after I participated in an advanced post-graduate biodynamic craniosacral therapy (BCST) workshop for teachers in Maui in the mid 1990's. This class consisted of certified BCST teachers who as a group managed to destroy Dr. Sutherland's biodynamic principles. The contents of that class, demonstrated a complete medical overlay onto Dr. Sutherland's non-medical biodynamics. Besides me, three other seasoned biodynamic cranial practitioners participated: a biodynamic cranial osteopath, a Rolfer, and a chiropractor - we were the only outsiders who participated in that class. All four of us had each been cranial practitioners for decades, and we each regularly experienced the tides in our practices at home.
In that class, amid a virtual biodynamic field, all the BCST teachers participated in an unconscious collusion.
The participant BCST teachers boasted that they are in contact with the neutral, the potency, the tides, and Dynamic Stillness without having any actual contact with any of them!
Imagine the shock to experience a virtual group field permeated by medical practices that create an empty void which is bereft of the living potency of the Breath of Life (See Stillness p 61-63).
The experience of the empty void was so disturbing to the chiropractor that he wept at lunch; and my biodynamic cranial osteopath friend quit practicing cranial after that class! The negative impact that the class had on four seasoned biodynamic practitioners was so profound that it inspired me to reveal the truth by clearly distinguishing between Dr. Sutherland's osteopathic types of cranial work: biomechanical, functional, and biodynamic, and contrast it with the BCST definitions, which are very different because their curriculum and practice is medically based; it is not at all derived from Sutherland's osteopathy, but rather Upledger's work. I finally understood why Dr. Jealous was so enraged by the founding of the BCST schools:
When biodynamic principles are contaminated by efferent medical principles and practices, here's what happens. There is no contact with the neutral, there is no potency, no fluid tide, no long tide, no primary respiration of the Breath of Life, no Dynamic Stillness, and no Pure Breath of Love. However, there is a lot of 'talk' using biodynamic terms, but there is no biodynamic 'walk' that is based on Sutherland's teachings.
The group field that BCST/BCA teachers contrive are permeated by an empty void, and bypass is the classic sign that indicates that we are in the medical model.
Out of this empty void, a virtual biodynamics emerges.
Again, despite what their marketing tells you, BCST was derived from Craniosacral Therapy (Upledger) and Polarity Therapy (Stone). Today the BCST institutions falsely market that their impulse came from Sutherland, without any evidence. This assertion is contrived and a reaction to my book Stillness published in 2006.
Any discerning student who reads the osteopathic definitions that I reproduced in Stillness, can discern exactly what type of practice a particular curriculum is being offered - whether it is biomechanical, functional, (medical), biodynamic (medical or non-medical), or post-biodynamic.
This is important because even though the international BCST organization call their work biodynamic, they are in fact teaching a medical curriculum. When compared to the osteopathic definitions, their curriculum is functional cranial, which by definition is a medical approach. This is a fact, and it not an arguable point. This is why the BCST organizations boycott me and my writings. Search, you will not find my books listed on any of their websites, but, of course, it backfired.
The institutional boycott of my work is so pervasive that BCST graduates and teachers have to hide from their BCST colleagues that they attend my classes!
Since the founding of my Dynamic Stillness School, and after the publication of Stillness, thousands of brave BCST graduate practitioners have taken my school's courses. I say brave because a BCST practitioner has to buck the official international BCST organizational boycott of Charles Ridley, which continues today in 2024.
Many BCST practitioners and teachers confess to me that they have to hide from his collogues that they take my classes!
Another reason that I say it is brave for a BCST graduate to take my class is the disappointment. After spending $12,000 for a 2-year biodynamic medical training they have no contact with the living tides. If a BCST practitioner wants to contact the potency and the tides, they have to stop all the efferent medical practices that they were taught in their BCST curriculum!
Despite taking a 2-year 'biodynamic' training, nearly all BCST graduates that I have met have no real contact with the potency, the tides, or Dynamic Stillness! The BCST practitioners who think they have contact, cannot clearly characterize their experiences! Instead, they use vague, almost meaningless, biodynamic jargon to describe their non-experience experiences.
A public confession of the BCST's failure to teach biodynamics is the most popular post-graduate BCST course in the US is on How to Contact the Tides.
The failure of the Biodynamic Medical Curriculum is epidemic: I cannot count the number of emails I have received from sincere BCST graduate practitioners and teachers who say they feel bereft and confused because they have no contact with the neutral, the potency, the tides, the Breath of Life, or Dynamic Stillness. Even today, I witness only a rare BCST teacher who actually experiences the neutral, the tides, or Dynamic Stillness.
These BCST teachers offer a secret curriculum so students can have contact with the potency!
BCST practitioners genuinely 'think' they feel the tides, but it is a virtual, mental experience. It is not possible to encounter the tides if we employ medical model efferent practices. It is not until we cease medical practices that we experience an authentic contact with the unerring potency. In my classes, practitioners can see for themselves the difference between a virtual medical biodynamic practice and a real biodynamics that Sutherland gave us, which is touch as a spiritual practice to realize I AM, which includes contact with the living tides.
I have been severely criticized for naming this 'secret' BCST shadow:
BCST graduates have no contact with neutral, the tides, the potency, or Dynamic Stillness.
Why? Because BCST teaches a medical approach.
Again, I share this because I have personally witnessed it in BCST students and teachers thousands of times in my classes over the last 30 years.
For an in-depth insight into the practice of virtual biodynamics, which occurs when "biodynamic cranial sacral therapy" is offered as a medical approach in an empty void, or there is a mixing of the types of cranial:
Click Here Death of Biodynamics Blog
Neutral
When Immersed In Neutral, Amid Not Knowing, Profound Insights Arise Retrospectively
When I look back to a particular biodynamic class in 2002, I realize that a new enfoldment of consciousness had emerged in our mutual group field that was off the biodynamic map:
Pure Breath of Love manifest in our class during an Ithaca, NY Mentor Course.
For my characterization of that post-biodynamic non-tidal enfoldment, read Chapter 9 in Stillness and Chapter 9 in Stillness Touch.
In that class, our mutual group field realized I AM at Dynamic Stillness that imploded within, and then, ... a sublime Divine Feminine Magma-like Presence of Love emerged that escorted our group consciousness across the threshold, off the biodynamic map, and into a magma-like non-tidal super substance of love.
After 7 years, this enfoldment began to self-clarify. By 20o9 it emerged as a whole-body pulse of love that emanated in tandem with the heart's SA Node. Even though it is funny now, I, at first called, this pulse the 'fish mouth.' Why? Because when every cell in the body pulses in unison with the heart beat, it felt like how a fish mouth looks when it opens and closes to breathe with its whole body.
21 years have now passed since that encounter, and I can assert with confidence that Pure Breath of Love is 'off the biodynamic map.' Why? Because the biodynamic tides are gone! They disappeared in Dynamic Stillness after realizing BE STILL AND KNOW I AM, which is the culmination of Dr. Sutherland's path of touch.
The key to the realization of Pure Breath of Love is to have the strength of will and the capacity to wait in Dynamic Stillness ... for nothing ...
... then, THE FULCRUM emerges from within Dynamic Stillness as I AM that descends to implode into all the cells of the body, suffusing them with Pure Consciousness out of which emerges the pulse of Pure Breath of Love.
A Sacred Pulse emerges as an all-cell, whole-body, non-tidal pulse of love that is emanated by the heart's SA node.
The Descent and Cellular Implosion of I AM is THE FULCRUM for realizing
Pure Breath of Love
Your body then unites with a love that is stronger than death
BE STILL AND KNOW I AM LOVE
Pure Breath of Love re-spiritualizes matter and you realize your Body As Love
(See Stillness Touch Chapter 9).
A 'Not Yet' Event in NOW
It turns out, in retrospect, that the Divine Feminine Wisdom by Grace, revealed to our 2003 group field a non-tidal post-biodynamic domain of consciousness that we now call Pure Breath of Love.
In 2003 the characterization of Pure Breath of Love had never before been articulated in writing in the osteopathic biodynamic cranial field, and I only briefly characterized it in Stillness Chapter 9. My sequel, Stillness Touch Union of Body & Love thoroughly articulates and characterizes Pure Breath of Love as a non-tidal, post-biodynamic enfoldment of consciousness.
The Biodynamic Ascending Tides Lead To:
BE STILL AND KNOW I AM
⇓
The Post-Biodynamic Descending Non-tidal Pulse Leads To:
BE STILL AND KNOW I AM LOVE
Pure Breath of Love is a whole-body all-cell pulse that is emanated by the SA Node.
The Importance of the Descending Current
As mentioned in Stillness Touch, Dr. Becker's spiritual path is Kashmir Shaivism. This path emphasizes a sacred pulse that is called the Spanda, or the Sacred Tremor. Swedenborg called it tremulation. While the Tibetan Buddhists consider this pulse to be a 'completion stage' realization. The Completion Stage realization evokes a ferocious-hearted presence and a strength of will to bear any intensity that we encounter when we face everything in us that is split off and prevents contact with the Potency and the Tides, which lead the body to Wholeness.
During the completion stage, we integrate all our recoils to love, and we realize that our Whole body emanates love from our infinite cellular space.
The Dynamic Stillness School explicitly offers this unique spiritual path to practitioners of any modality.
(Read the book Stillness Touch)
THE FULCRUM
Between
Biodynamic & Post-Biodynamic
Is The Cellular Implosion Of I AM
At Dynamic Stillness, I AM emerges, the tides disappear in the midline, and our biodynamic journey ends.
When I AM changes its direction and it descends as a current of consciousness, this is THE FULCRUM for Pure Breath of Love to emerge.
Now, instead of consciousness being guided by the ascending biodynamic tides, our consciousness descends into the cells and is guided by a non-tidal sacred pulse of love. This begins our post-biodynamic Grail Journey guided by love.
Post-biodynamic realizations emerge after consciousness descends and I AM implodes into all the cells that emanate the Sacred Pulse of Pure Breath of Love.
Not only is Pure Breath of Love a non-tidal, all-cell whole-body pulse, it also escorts consciousness on a mapless Grail Journey that asks for our total surrender to Love.
A surrender that includes our body as consciousness.
If we choose to surrender to Pure Breath of Love, our Completion Stage Grail Journey of descent begins.
The Grail Journey Of Love
At the Dynamic Stillness School, we first called Pure Breath of Love, Pure Breath of Life. Now, 20 years later, the Divine Feminine presents us with a new challenge:
The time is NOW to Strengthen Your Will
Take Up Your Bed And Walk' Your Grail Journey
Do We Bypass And Avoid Our Grail Journey?
Mustering the will to walk our Grail Journey is not easy, because habitual efference can become recoils that weaken our will, which creates multiple forms of bypass that has trapped far too many Mentor graduates as follows.
Enquiry, Stillness, Teacher Co-Dependance, and Hatred of Pure Breath of Love
Hyper-Enquiry Into Tides As Spiritual Bypass
Clinging to the biodynamic tidal map by a hyper-enquiry into the myriad of ascending tidal phenomena (that is created by enquiry!) keeps consciousness held high which prevents the realization of I AM. Bypass stops the descent of consciousness from imploding into the cells of the body.
Stillness As Bypass
Stillness as bypass holds consciousness hostage in the empty void rather than surrendering into I AM.
Codependance As Bypass
Codependency arises when a wounded teacher, covertly acts like a Guru and transmits a dysfunctional parent-child dynamic to their students. The teacher takes on the role of the 'good parent' or the Guru who is 'always there for you' (I am available to rescue the poor broken child), which obviously weakens the will of any adult.
This shadow dynamic so weakens our will that we can regress emotionally, which devolves our consciousness!
You can witness this regression in cranial classes with students who adore the teacher, and while amid an unfamiliar potency in the group field, students display gross bodily motions such as, convulsive activity, vibrations, coughing, unwinding, etc. These are unconscious bodily recoils that are covertly designed get away from the midline and block the potency.
This observation is so fascinating to me that I repeatedly ask biodynamic osteopaths in my classes 'have you ever seen gross bodily expressions on your table or in a class?" And the answer is always 'no.' It is simply not a phenomena that manifests in osteopathic biodynamics, nor have I ever seen it in my Dynamic Stillness School's classes (See Unwinding in Stillness p 210).
Chronic Bypass Weakens The Will And Prevents Pure Breath of Love's Enfleshment.
Chronic bypass triggers the Beast who harbors a Psychotic Core that expresses hatred of Pure Breath of Love and sabotages the spread of the practices to realize the Sacred Tremor.
To address the chronic bypass, teacher codependency, and Psychotic Core hatred of Pure Breath of Love, I now offer two Master Classes called The Grail Journey, and Enquiry, By-Pass, & Co-Dependency.
Witnessing so many Mentor graduates remain unconsciously stuck in chronic bypass was another 'not yet' moment that grew into an urgent call to any practitioner who longs to inwardly meet our times in full consciousness.
I founded the Dynamic Stillness Press to publish my books. The first is Stillness Touch Union of Body & Love, which thoroughly documents the post-biodynamic, non-tidal, Grail Journey. Stillness Touch is the source book for Master Classes.
The Master Class is for anyone who hears the inner call to begin their Grail Journey:
Click Here For Grail Journey Details
Your Body Is A Sacred Vessel Of Love
Body As Love
Pure Breath of Love
Pure Breath of Love is the quintessential enfoldment that will arise after realizing I AM at Dynamic Stillness. When I AM implodes within to suffuse all our cells, it frees our consciousness from the ego's controlling strategies of bypass that recoil us from love. Once consciousness is free, Pure Breath of Love emanates a Sacred Pulse of Love that is known as the Spanda in Kashmir Shaivism.
Stillness Touch
A Stillness Touch practitioner surrenders the body as consciousness and lets Pure Breath of Love take over.
Pure Breath of Love
Is The Guiding Presence For Your Stillness Touch Sessions And In Your Life
A practitioner reposes in the presence of stillness inside the heart's self-existing radiance while reposed in the pelvic floor with an inner oriented, free-flowing attention.
While offering Stillness Touch, we do not efferently leave our ‘seat’ inside or orient to stillness or a tide 'out there.' Nor do we efferently enquire into the tides to derive meaning, which by-passes the Unerring Potency.
There is no feeling with the hands the anatomy or nervous system, no tracking, no visualizing primary respiration as an outside force, no looking for cranial wave inertial motion patterns or tides, no seeking midlines or zones
Also, you do not name events, or dialogue with a recipient about what is unfolding during the session. All these are efferent practices that create inertia, which not only leads to practitioner-induced treatment reactions in the recipient, it also blocks the Template of Wholeness.
Dr. & Mrs. Sutherland’s last words implored us to:
BE STILL AND KNOW I AM
After Realizing I AM
The Tides Dissolve
And The Biodynamic Map Ends
When I AM Implodes
Your Post-Biodynamic
Grail Journey Of Love Begins
BE STILL AND KNOW I AM LOVE
One student said the quiet part out loud in class "Stillness Touch isn’t biodynamic cranial work anymore, is it?" (See Stillness Touch p 174)
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