Q: Charles, you speak about the medical and evolutionary model of a biodynamic craniosacral practice, what is the difference between these two perspectives?

A: There are a number of differences between the medical model and the evolutionary post-biodynamic model. In the medical model, there’s a set of principles that we use. The first principle is efferent activity. When we are efferent it means we send our awareness outward from our inner body to objectify the touch recipient. Efference sets up a dualistic relationship in which we are the 'doctor' (practitioner) and the person laying down on the table is the 'patient' (client). The medical model practitioner continues their efferent activity by projecting awareness into their hands to the inside of the client to evaluate the problems in the body, such as lesions. or imbalances in the nervous system.

And then there’s a treatment plan, designed to fix the problems that the therapist discovers. And so, there’s this dualistic relationship - a doctor-patient or therapist-client: the therapist uses the hands to touch and enters into the client’s subtle body to evaluate the craniosacral system. Based on what’s found, the therapist applies cranial techniques that fix the imbalances that were discovered.

The medical model works, yet there is no guarantee that it works every time.

In the evolutionary model, all efference is removed. There's no efferent activity and no objectification. That means there’s not a 'practitioner' and a 'client' who are separated from one another as objects. Instead, in a Stillness Touch session two people come together in mutuality: they both have the same inner-body wisdom, which is the Breath of Life that dwells in the client's body and in the practitioner's body. Stillness Touch is offered by orienting awareness inside ourselves, which facilitates an intercommunication between the wisdom in the client's body and the wisdom in the practitioner's body.

If the practitioner remains inside themselves (non-efference) and senses their own inner body qualities, they intuitively receive information direct from the wisdom in the client's body.

And then, if the practitioner can surrender their desire to "know" and let that process inside themselves continue in 'not-knowing' they will be guided moment-by-moment in their touch; so there's no knowing ahead of time. There's no treatment plan ahead of time. As a matter of fact, while touching, you don't know why you are touching where you touch. You may get to know afterwards, because the recipient will report what happened. Then you may say to yourself ‘so that’s what happened.’

Retrospective knowing arises after the touch session.

The final aspect in the evolutionary model is Stillness Touch is not designed to ‘do’ anything to a recipient. The hands are like tuning forks that receive the resonation of tones that emanate in the recipient. Touching is not to fix, to change, to modify, to heal, or to find any type of motion, including the tidal motions. Stillness Touch is offered without an agenda. All intercommunication occurs by a resonance-to-resonance interface through touch, which creates a silent "conversation" without words; stillness, which is the potency, informs us where to touch.

A silence to silence interface is our inner guidance, the qualities move our hands from place to place on the recipient.

Q: Can you tell us why orientation to the heart's SA node is so important in this work?

Yes, the SA node is the entry point in the human body for the infinite potency. The ancient Vedas recognize this place as the bodily location of the Self. Embryologically, before there were organs, which means before there was a heart, the SA node cells surrounded the whole embryo around its edges. The pulsing of the SA node cells, that surround the embryo, emanate a field that suffuses the protoplasm of entire embryo with motions that in nine months creates the whole human body. In other words, the SA node emanates infinite potency that creates the anatomy. We orient to the SA node because it is the location of the source field of potency that makes the body. We do not orient to the finished product, the anatomy, or to the nervous system, for example.

The heart field is emanated by the SA node, which makes the body.

After you are born, the heart field orchestrates, like a conductor of a symphony, all the body’s functions - the heartbeat, the blood flow, the pH, functions of the liver, the kidneys, pancreas, immune hormonal balance, the nervous system. In other words, every function is orchestrated by the heart field.

The Sa node emanation continuously suffuses not only our midline, our inner body space, and all organs and every cell, the field also surrounds us, fills the atmosphere and emanates to infinity and back.

At age 9 or 10, that same emanation of the heart field develops our perceptual capacities - we can think for ourselves, cognize, take an idea and hold it in our mind and develop a goal, a plan, and then achieve that plan in our life. The heart field maintains our health and heals diseases. Then, beginning in our 40's, that same heart power become the evolutionary forces that bring us back to wholeness. The heart field, is a self-existing radiance, that evolves our consciousness, until there is no longer any separation of the body, consciousness, and love. Here, the heart field is complete in our second birth.

All along our entire spectral journey of life, it is the emanation of the heart's SA node that is conductor. It is the power that made the body, maintains the body, heals the body, and evolves our consciousness. The heart field is the power that facilitates the death process, and it disappears after three days post mortem. The SA node then, is the source point for this creative journey of the human being, so by accessing it, you're in the seat, the center, of the field that already knows what's happening. By reposing in this seat, we access all of what I am pointing to above. The existence of the infinite emanating field of the SA node is why I can assert that Stillness Touch is an evolutionary approach.

Sutherland called this power that made the body the "unerring potency."

Cranial has evolved enough that today we realize that the potency and the biodynamic tides are harmonics of the field emanated by the heart's SA node.

The SA node is the location, the seat, or the fulcrum for the infinite pulsing field of life to enter the body. It is the central fulcrum from which life suffuses, or co-breathes between infinity and all the cells of the body. Also, it is crucial to understand, that for thousands of years the spiritual traditions have recognized that the heart's SA node is the center, or the seat of the Self, which is the Higher Self, or I AM.

Dr. and Mrs. Sutherland knew this too: their final transmission of biodynamics on their headstones is: BE STILL AND KNOW I AM

Q: Are there any other basic principles to this approach that you would like to mention?

A: There are a few. One, remember that in the evolutionary model the practitioner is not efferent and does not use objectification. We have to be careful if we've been trained in the medical model biomechanical and functional cranial. But we have to be even more careful if we are trained in a medical model biodynamic cranial approach. Why? Because if we abide by Dr. Sutherland's biodynamics, practitioners do not misuse the potency by efferent activity; we have to cease objectifying the recipient on the table.

We do not make the recipient into a separate other who is ‘over there’ on a table that we, as practitioners, fix or heal based on a “treatment plan.” Efferent treatments arise when, with our touch, we feel with the hands for what is inside the person lying on the table. Again, by efference we enter the inner-body space of the recipient so we can feel the processes going on inside their craniosacral system. And our treatment is based on that evaluation.

We don't treat in an evolutionary non-doing post-biodynamic practice of Stillness Touch.

It is important to realize that before medicine took over the modality, touch was an ancient sacred rite. Spiritual Touch involved the 'laying on of hands' which has been with us for thousands of years. By definition, it is non-medical, which is why I emphasize that Stillness Touch is non-medical, and, it is post-biodynamic, meaning it is non tidal.

It's challenging to appreciate Stillness Touch if we are trained in the medical model biodynamics, which most are. To learn how to practice an evolutionary model of touch there's a lot of unlearning to do. My book Stillness is all about the transition from pre-biodynamic medical to non-medical biodynamics. Since I wrote it in the 1990's, it needed an update, which is my book Stillness Touch Union of Body and Love.

We have to retrain ourselves to not be efferent.
That means no objectification, no creating of a treatment plan to heal the recipient, based on what we learned in school.

Rather, we let the wisdom inside the recipient determine the depth of the spiritual space, the containment, the dynamics of the touch, where to touch, and all the other practice boundaries. All we ‘do’ is orient inside ourselves and repose in our inner-body space until we can sense the qualities inside us, and then we let those qualities within us move our hands, instinctually. This is the key that unlocks the unerring potency and allows it to be in charge.

When we repose inwardly, we don't know why we're being moved to touch certain areas, yet, we allow it. There's a lot of backing up inside ourselves so that can happen, which means we become non-efferent.

We shift to "not knowing" as opposed to a disposition of “I'm a practitioner and I know what to do because I have skills, I am trained. I am going to apply techniques and the patient will get well.” The medical disposition is exhausting because it is not true.

We cannot realize the evolutionary model until we jump off the wagon and cease the medical practice of efference, and stop being a know-it-all and instead, to let that which actually knows - the power that made the body - be in charge.

In an evolutionary post-biodynamic practice of Stillness Touch, all practitioner efferent activity is withdrawn to a point within our heart amid the inner disposition of "I don't know."

Why do we rest in 'don't know'? Let’s be honest, if I don't know how a cell works, how can I know how a 100 trillion-celled human being functions? I also if I don't know the recipient's life history - how they lived their whole life - then I cannot know exactly what they need right now. It is impossible to know what is best for them in their overall evolution. I can't possibly know any of that, that is, if I'm honest and I have the courage to face the truth of the situation.

However, I can access something that does know: it was there at conception, before the recipient was born, and which created that person - an unerring power that continues throughout their entire life. This potency is the power that made the body and it contains the template of wholeness that even now, without me touching them, possesses a sequence of functioning that is already in the process of the whole-making of the recipient.

That’s the disposition a practitioner holds, which supports the client’s evolutionary process. By our reposing into the wisdom of the body inside us, and by touching from the disposition of 'don't know' amid our inner repose, the recipient can relax, become receptive, and hopefully, by grace, allow the hidden processes to emerge and bring them to wholeness. That is the art of Stillness Touch offered as an evolutionary session.

Q: I know that you teach those who are not trained in any osteopathic or body work, so is it possible for everybody to be taught this approach?

A: If they are willing to do the inner practices, and they're receptive to the practices, and they are disciplined in using them - then it's actually easier for a person who's never been trained in the medical model approaches because they don't have anything to unlearn, first.

When our treatments become a habit, then before we know it, the moment we touch a person we project our presence inside their bodies to analyze the recipient, we read them with our hands. We are trained in the medical model to take care of the recipient by controlling their already ongoing process! Efferent activity is not natural, so someone who's never practiced touch, they come with a pure innocence, and they are able to learn the non-efferent principles of abiding inside, reposing in non-doing, and to touch with no agenda, without any notion of what to do. Stillness Touch is offered in a disposition of not-knowing ahead of time what is going to happen. And so, in a way, a non-medically trained person can go deep faster than an already trained practitioner.

However, on the other hand, when trained practitioner reduces their habit of efference - which means they cease leaving their body to project their awareness inside the body of the client to diagnose them - then, they will be more skilled because they already know how to touch, how to be with a new person in the session room. A lay person won’t be as skilled in offering hands-on contacts at first, nor as comfortable, but in terms of the depth, the lay person can go very deep quickly. Once they acclimate to touch, it’s very satisfying to see lay people who’ve never touched in their lives offer this evolutionary approach to loved ones. The evolutionary teaching model easily bears fruit in a brand-new person who’s never touched before. It was astonishing to discover that, and I didn’t know that ahead of time - I learned by observing lay people in the Master Classes I've taught.

Q: You are talking about gradually building an ability to be present with things that are happening, so why is it so important? How does it help?

A: That’s a very refined question. Because it’s an evolutionary model, the Breath of Life illuminates - shines the light on, and brings to consciousness - all the aspects of us that block the pulse of the Breath of Life in the body. If these blocks remain hidden, they recoil our awareness from the Breath of Life, and for the most part they operate unconsciously. The hidden blocks started the moment we were harmed, wounded, or traumatized at a very tender age, and these traumas developed our personality. Our highly defended and controlling ego structure has emotional complexes and unconscious drives that express habitual and automatic recoils that push our awareness away from contact with the potency and the tides of the Breath of Life. For better or worse, once we open to the power of unerring potency, the uncomfortable aspects of ourselves that had been hidden start to come into our awareness. These recoils are expressions of the Core Wound, which depth psychology calls the Core Erotic Wound. When traumatized, we were cut off from our Eros, or life force. The recoils emerge after the core wound, and they are under the control of the ego and nervous system.

The potency resolves trauma if we learn how to be with our recoils and we grow stronger.

We remain present, without running from the painful uncomfortable memories of our wounds, and without trying to control the intensity and shut them down - but to just be present to them. Once we can face one aspect of a recoil in ourselves, we gain strength to be present to future recoils. Because we become stronger after having faced one recoil, when the next recoil comes up, which is usually more powerful than the previous one, we can be with it. And it goes on like that until we develop profound "spiritual muscles of presence" because we’ve developed this incredible capacity for presence that prepares for the real game - the Grail Journey. This involves the descent of consciousness into our shadows that permanently liberates our Soul.

The unerring potency that heals all trauma.

With our strength of presence in contact with the potency, we can meet our most avoided wounded aspects with unwavering presence. The wounded aspects of us we've had for our lifetime, which blocked and prevented us from meeting the wisdom inside ourselves.

Along our Gail Journey, after we’ve navigated enough of our core wounds, we can come face to face with the overwhelming power of the Pure Breath of Love that is the greatest healing force on earth that is stronger than death.

We have spent most of our lives suppressing that power of love that is stronger than death - we've spent a lot of our energy holding love back, holding love down, hiding love from ourselves, and especially concealing love from other people. And now, when our essential power of love starts to come up, it can be daunting if we haven’t developed the presence, our unwavering presence, the muscles of presence to be with it, or else we won’t be able to withstand the love.

To avoid love we recoil, bypass, leave our bodies, we unwind, we manage trauma, or we shut down.

Whatever way we can, we use outer techniques to try to control and suppress; we have done this all our life with our emotions and our traumas. We are terrified to be with the Divine Feminine Presence of Love that heals all things.

Facing yourself, includes being with the uncomfortable aspects of your life biography. The Grail Journey is a practice that gives you the presence - the strength of presence - to be with the true power of the Pure Breath of Love, which to the ego falsely believes is overwhelming.

What’s important about facing yourself is it ignites the illuminative quality of the Pure Breath of Love, and SHE takes care of the process of whole making ... until the so-called 'parts' re-join the whole. My new book, Stillness Touch Union of Body and Love, chapter 7 details the Grail Journey to navigate our Core Wounds, and all the unconscious recoils, which is crucial if we want offer Stillness Touch that is evolutionary instead of medical.

Q: Is it possible to tell shortly how can this work could be of help to clients?

A: I’ve heard of many medical model biodynamic practitioners, teachers, and authors dismiss the non-doing, non-medical approach. They say “you’re doing nothing because you do not have a treatment plan." "You’re not treating anything, so how can you help the patient?" "By hanging out in stillness you are doing noting, why can’t you help the Breath of Life out?" "You’re wasting your time and the patient’s money.”

Those comments confess that the practitioner is not only ignorant, but also they have no authentic contact with the Breath of Life. And that means the Sacred Pulse of Pure Breath of Love for such a person does not exist!

In the evolutionary model, health is a side effect because to become whole we have to access the forces of health first. In other words, we can’t evolve until our body is overflowing with vitality, which means we are healthy. All the fragmented aspects of ourselves arise from our core traumas that recoil our awareness away from the Breath of Life. Our recoils create symptoms, and we get ill, and we have “dis-eases.”

The illuminative quality of Pure Breath of Love brings up, and resolves all the trauma.

In Buddhism it is called Innate Bliss, which illuminates all those hidden, unconscious recoils, which may be from our spiritual, emotional, and psychological core wounds that then can turn into physical symptoms. Besides that, there are metabolic issues from chemical exposure, pollution, dietary habits, and there are physical injuries. For example, we might hurt ourselves playing sports.

So in Buddhism, it is Innate Bliss that illuminates, brings up, and resolves all our trauma. 

Amid all of that, Pure Breath of Love builds our inner-body vitality that enhances the health of the body and builds the strength of presence, so that eventually we can withstand the power when Pure Breath of Love reveals herself in her full glory.  

So, by example, a recipient comes into the office, and they may not necessarily come in for symptom relief; they may not even mention symptoms that they want relief from. But many times, symptoms that the touch recipient didn’t even consider as part of the evolutionary process, disappear. And the practitioner doesn’t know about it. So establishing health is an aspect, but not the focus of touch for the evolution consciousness. Health is inherent to evolution. You can’t evolve if you lack the life force, or Eros, needed for day to day functioning. It’s just impossible. If you are barely able to function in life, you can’t withstand being with the power of Pure Breath of Love- you simply cannot bear it - and so there’s protection already built in. Pure Breath of Love is not about breaking people’s health. It is about bringing the recipient back to a fully functioning wholeness. That’s what happens in an evolutionary Stillness Touch session. I learned that not because I knew about it ahead of time, I learned the evolutionary approach by offering it in innocence and watched people’s symptoms disappear, symptoms they never mentioned. And I would go to myself ‘wow!’

Q: Can you tell us some hints, for the daily life that can be useful?

A: Tending the green of our daily life is crucial because, as practitioner, it’s one thing to do the inner practices in the session room. And then, you go home and you turn all that off to leave all that 'innerness' behind. This work is much more powerful and successful when you take the inner practices and integrate them in your personal life.

You don’t stop the practices when you walk out the session room. You continue to practice orienting on the inside to sense the inner qualities that arise from your inner body space - that guides you - even with what to eat, how much to do, whom to see, who not to see, whether to go to a party, how long to stay, how much sleep you get, how to make love, and so on.

Another aspect of self-care is to discover all the behaviors that shut down your contact with the qualities of wisdom that dwell in your inner body space, and you have the courage and strength to decide that you’re not going to do the things that close down your inner contact with the wisdom. Aligning your daily lifestyle such that you remain in contact with your inner wisdom requires a daily habit of meditation. Then, you do that practice as a mini-preparation right before touching someone.

If we meditate every single day, at some point we don’t think about ‘how do I take the time for myself?’ The inner-body guidance does that for you. For example, when you feel the benefits of meditation, when you lose contact with the Innate Bliss, you say “wait a minute, I’m not going to stop meditating because I know what will happen if I do.” This comes from experience; you don’t know at first the importance of meditation, which places you in contact with your inner body wisdom. You go out and you drink too many Prague beers, and you wake up in the middle of the night with a headache, and then you get up and see five people with a headache, and you say “I’ll have fewer Prague beers tonight when I go out.” You begin to sense your limits relative to the caring for your body. And of course self-care is a life-long practice.

But if we want to maintain our inner contact with this wisdom of the body - in an unbroken continuity of contact - we have to adjust our lifestyles. We can’t live mindlessly. There has to be mindfulness about how we live based on what brings us in a deeper connection with the inner-body wisdom, as opposed to what breaks that connection. Meditation gives us the power to choose to keep the connection as a lifestyle. It’s a personal choice everybody has to make.

Q: And is it useful to teach meditation to our clients?

A: I’m happy you brought that up. Some clients are not interested in meditation; they just want to lay on the table and get a session, and maybe they want symptoms to go away, which is fine. But some people you notice, you sense, that they want to take these principles of evolution into their personal lives. And, actually, if we’ve seen them repeatedly over enough time, almost everybody will get to that place that they want to stay in contact with what occurred during the sessions. Here's how to distinguish between recipients who want to meditate and this who do not.

The evolutionary approach is very different because we don’t ask about symptoms, for example we do not ask

What’s hurting? Do you feel better from the last session? How is the knee?

The status of the recipient's symptoms are not the forefront of a biodynamic practice. Some recipients understand that, so we give them at-home meditation practices, and they can then work with those practices on the table and become more receptive to the powerful surges of the Breath of Life without being overwhelmed, and they learn how to be present to uncomfortable issues in themselves. So in mutuality the practice for the practitioner and the recipient are the same.

That is why there’s no need for efference, or objectivity - it is a mutual relationship. In mutuality, we are two fellow travelers who are on a journey together to connect with the mystery within.

And so, in Stillness Touch there’s no need for a practitioner to harbor an attitude of “I know more than you do.” Or tell a recipient what they experienced. It’s simply we humbly join in mutuality and both of us will evolve by grace. In a session, the practitioner receives the session as much as the person on the table. Both receive a session, even though the person ‘giving it’ gets the credit.

Q: Can you tell us your story? How did you get to this work?
A: My personal story?
Q: Yes, your personal story.
A: That could be a long one, but I'll make it short - the elevator version.

The first time I got a cranial session I didn't go in for a symptom, I went because my eye doctor friend mentioned the word cranial. I'd never heard of it, but I went crazy and I said "What is cranial!?” He gave me some cranial books and I read them. Then, I got one cranial session from the doctor in California in 1973.

My consciousness was expanded to infinity for 30 days!

Then I went even crazier in a good way, because that one session lit me on fire, and I thought to myself  "I have to do cranial for the rest of my life. It is my destiny to learn cranial work and offer it to people for the evolution of consciousness.”

And then came the grueling materialist journey: a seven-year medical training, thousands of hours of biomechanical and functional cranial training, and then establishing a practice in Manhattan New York, making money, paying student loans, three children in Waldorf school... all of that externalization pushed my spiritual impulse so far into the background that I forgot about it! So the evolutionary part of cranial practice receded into the background of my awareness even though the evolution of my consciousness is what ignited my love for cranial! Finally, after 20 years, the impulse reconnected with me when the biodynamic tides spontaneously emerged.

During that 20 years prior to when I had lost the inner connection to the spiritual impulse that started the process, I vaguely felt the impulse quietly going in the background, and I felt that something was missing. I couldn't connect with the inner impulse because I did not have the Eros, the life force, because I spent all of my chi on outer achievements. Once I moved out of New York back to California, the impulse returned and I remember it as an 'aha' moment, and I said to myself “I completely forgot about the evolutionary aspect of cranial.”

The "aha" moment illuminates the importance of evolutionary touch, which  came back to me in the form of a series of consciousness expanding encounters with the tides that spontaneously arose during my sessions in 1995. Then I remembered “This is why I started cranial!” I began to write down all my inner experiences, which became the book Stillness.

Q: And so what was the transition point between biodynamics as an evolutionary approach. So, it was just your idea, or what?

A: I remember the transition began in 1995 during sessions that ignited a curiosity that turned into an inner devotion to open up to Dr. Sutherland's spirit every morning in meditation. The so-called 'biodynamic tides' suddenly and spontaneously emerged during sessions as slower, bigger movements. They arose out of nowhere. I could clearly navigate and precisely sense the nuances of fluid flow, the vast radiant presence, and the black infinite Stillness of I AM. This began in 1995, and nothing had been published yet about biodynamics, so I did not have any reference. I remember saying to myself ‘am I crazy like when I first heard the word cranial?’ I really thought that I was crazy because these spiritual encounters were happening in the room and the people on the table were telling me about their encounters with these expanded states of consciousness.

I was fortunate that biodynamic cranial osteopath colleagues who were trained by James Jealous traded sessions with me. One session with a Jim Jealous teacher sealed for me the importance of writing all my encounters down from the perspective of the body-felt sense inner experience. In mid-session, the biodynamic cranial osteopath blurted “Charles I’m panicking! I don’t know what’s happening.” Even though I was on the table basking in the vast radiant presence, I needed to instruct the DO to orient her awareness inwardly to sense the inner qualities while relaxing to let the process just be as it is. This was easy for her, because the practitioner had been meditating for years the same way that I had been taught by the same spiritual teacher. Once she recovered from her panic, the session continued and I enjoyed a profound encounter with my Inner Divine Child.

I was intimate with Dr. Sutherland’s work because my cranial teacher was his student, however, it was the DOs I traded sessions who led me to Becker’s writings. I realized that biodynamics had been mapped, but obviously not well enough to alleviate the panic and confusion that can occur - even to a Jim Jealous teacher - during a real encounter with the power of the Breath of Life. Despite that they were highly trained in biodynamics by Dr. Jealous and they taught his classes, these DO’s demonstrated to me that they were not prepared for authentic encounters with the power of the Breath of Life. In biodynamic classes I taught to biodynamic DO’s they were blown away by their encounters with the Breath of Life, despite having seven years of biodynamic training by Jim Jealous. That was curious to say the least.

So Stillness is a compilation of my inner encounters with biodynamics that was supplemented by reading osteopathic biodynamic books and CDs that subsequently got published. However, these books and CD's don't reveal what Sutherland referred to as "between the lines"  ... which  are the actual sensual inner encounters that can overwhelm us. My first impulse was “I’ll write notes for my students so they don't get confused the way I did, or panic the way that the DO’s demonstrated.” I wrote these notes in 1995, which over11 years of refinement became the published book Stillness.

In my book, I assert that the neutral, the biodynamic tides, and Dynamic Stillness are levels of human consciousness. Each biodynamic enfoldment is a stage of human consciousness that gradually evolves our consciousness when we touch without an agenda in non-doing. Ken Wilber exhaustively detailed the stages of human consciousness, which I noted in Stillness Chapters 5-9.

My class notes reinforce what we experience within ourselves during our meditations, during sessions, and in classes. The words in Stillness are sensual characterizations. In classes I discouraged people from using the biodynamic terms - neutral, fluid tide, long tide, Dynamic Stillness, Breath of Life, Pure Breath of Love  - because words are not the territory. Words are jargon, so I asked students to speak in sensual terms. For example “I sense fluid flow or vast luminosity, my awareness is expanded to the horizon”... and on it goes, but each person's sharing is based on their direct inner body-felt experience. The sharing is not based on the use of terms such as “I feel the long tide.”

Why? Because the word long tide can mean anything. And what we claim to be the long tide may not actually be long tide - the person thinks they're feeling long tide, which is far too common.

Students say in all confidence “I feel long tide.” When I ask them questions, many times it wasn't long tide. Instead, it was inner light that arises when the attention goes into the 3rd ventricle. So, in my classes I request that students speak in sensual language. They describe, for example, how large is their inner body space, and they characterize the elemental qualities in that space - earth, water, air, fire, ether - and they describe the depth of the stillness, how vast it is, what type of images or sounds arise, and so on. And from that sensual characterization based on direct experience, we can connect the words that represent the actual experience. Rather than put the words on the experience ahead of time and say “Oh, yeah, we're in long tide” which, again, that may or may not be true. It's easy to use a term and think that's it. However, when we investigate the sensual inner-body reality, it turns out what I thought was present is not present; rather, we are lost in a mental concept by using terms or jargon.

Q: People who do not know anything about this work who would like to come - what changes in their life can come after sessions that merit doing more sessions?

A: That's a good question. So, an innocent person comes to receive this work, right? They have no idea what they're coming in for. They think they're coming in for craniosacral therapy, right? But I notified them ahead of time, usually in the phone conversation or an email dialogue that this is different from symptom work, right? They now know Stillness Touch is different, and they're willing to try it. Even though they  may not know what craniosacral is, right? That kind of client has potential to receive a deep emanation.

What often happens, because they don't have many expectations, is they directly contact the power of the Pure Breath of Love. They may say “This is what I was looking for and I didn't even know I was looking for it.” Some people will share after the session “I didn't tell you this, but I actually came in for my headache. Now I realize that my headache is not as important as contacting what I just experienced on the table here.” Now you know that the recipient contacted Pure Breath of Love, right?

If they come in, and after the session they say "I didn't tell you about my headache, and it didn't go away. You did nothing, nothing happened, and I'm not coming back.” Some people recoil from the evolutionary approach, and prefer the medical model, and that’s fine.

One thing to offer people who are innocent and don't know why they are coming for a session is you give them a bit of education about expectations - to drop the expectations, and you suggest that being receptive by allowing what's happening to just happen. And it doesn't hurt to teach them the inner practices - the inner orientation and the inner breathing - not complicated, simple - and ask them to sense, to let emotions come up, let thoughts be there, and allow the processes to occur - to let all the qualities be there. Most people can understand that, not everybody.

Some people, lay down and after the session they don't think anything occurred. "Was that it?” And you have to say “That was it.” That person is a mismatch for an evolutionary approach to touch; it is not for every single person out in the streets who want to come in and have a session. Stillness Touch works best for undefended people who have cultivated self-knowledge, curiosity, and a longing to grow, to improve themselves, develop, and evolve. We're on a different end of the spectrum. Forgive the word — customer — our customers are more interested in developing. They do yoga, Pilates, or they are involved in other exercise programs; they're on a spiritual path, they meditate, they eat well. They're already practicing an evolutionary lifestyle. It’s heartbreaking that this approach is not for everybody. It’s a given that medical model craniosacral therapy is not for everybody, and the evolutionary model is not even for every craniosacral therapy person. Stillness Touch isn't the heal-all for anybody who is alive. It's only going to ‘take’ by a person who has a certain level of development and is already in touch with themselves enough to bear a suffusion of the Breath Life.

Q: I have one, my personal question. If I start to do this practice, and I will work by this model, so my system, my body, and my mind will start to function in this approach. And then if I would like to work with a person, using a medical approach, how does that work.

A: I did the transition from the medical to an evolutionary approach to touch as a gradual shift. You can't just go cold turkey and cut off your medical model work because you'll starve to death, for starters. Most people offer medical model before they transition to biodynamics. We offered relief for headache, sciatica, digestion, TMJ, chronic fatigue, whatever it is, right? That's how we practiced - even our websites have those symptoms listed, so because we are oriented that way, so clients orient that way too, and that's how we've been operating. 

And now we're 180 degrees in a reverse direction, and we're offering something that has nothing to do with symptom relief, it's not the focus, right? Symptoms are probably going to go away, but we don't say that. You begin to offer people a biodynamic evolutionary model who you sense are ready. You ask them "Would you like to try 15 minutes of this new work as part of your session?" That's one approach, and another way is you ask "When you come back next time would you like to try this new way? Afterwards, you can tell me wether you want to receive another one, or if we go back to the previous approach.” That's how we can gradually shift clients from medical to evolutionary. 

But, to your question, it is best that you do not mix the two types. Offer medical one visit and evolutionary on another visit. If you must do both, offer the medical first - without going into your inner meditative practice before the treatment. And then you can offer the Stillness Touch at the end.

STILLNESS is written for exactly that transition from medical model to evolutionary. I have to warn you though, if you go back to offering the medical model, after you’ve offered enough of the non-doing evolutionary approach to touch, the amount of doing required in the medical approach over time becomes increasingly more difficult to offer. And eventually, you may not be able to because it is exhausting when compared to evolutionary touch.

By then, the people that want the evolutionary model work will have filled in your session spaces. The medical model people will either stay, and continue in the medical model. New people will come in for the evolutionary approach because clients will talk to others “Wow this work, is so beneficial. It's more than for just my health. I'm really feeling my behavior patterns are changing, and I'm becoming my true self again.” People who hear that, and are ready, want to come in, so over time the practice gradually becomes more of a non-medical evolutionary approach, with less of the medical model and the treatment of symptoms. And at some point you can't go back, but that transition is gradual over time.

This applies to teaching also, I taught medical model functional cranial, and then I'd go to some other city and teach my own biodynamic approach  ... opposite approaches ... and it eventually became too painful to teach the the medical model cranial. Teaching the medical model as compared to the evolutionary approach felt like I had to put on a suit that was too tight, and it felt like over time I had to make the suit increasingly smaller to be able teach the medical model. And then I'd take off the suit and experience the freedom of teaching the non-medical, the evolutionary model. Eventually, I couldn't fit into the suit and continue to let it tighten it on myself. I had to stop, I couldn't do it any longer - teaching the medical model became too painful to offer. And it was fortunate because that transition even in the teaching was gradual enough that I had plenty of classes and private intensive work that the shift didn't adversely affect my income, and that's an important thing as a practitioner if you're making your entire living from your practice, or teaching. You don't just go chop off the medical practice and starve for 6 months, there’s no point in that, so you transition.

And the wisdom inside you navigates that process and draws the clients that are ready to come in and receive what you offer. Eventually clients won't want the medical, they'll want to do the evolutionary biodynamics.

I'll say one more thing. What do you do now when someone calls you for symptom work? Let's say you've got your biodynamics practice off to a good start, the gradual transition is completed, and now you're mostly biodynamic, if not fully — and people call for their migraine headaches, chronic fatigue, Epstein Barr, Lime's, or TMJ. What to do? I tell them “I don't really address those symptoms directly” and you give them your description of this work. If they're not interested, I give them names of people I know who are excellent at the medical model.

You're not throwing people out. You're referring them, like you would do if you had somebody who wants to come in who is psychotic. They call and say "I'm psychotic can you fix me?” Well, you’re not going to say “Yes come on in.” if you're not a psychotherapist; you're going to send them to a psychotherapist, right? So, I have a referral list. I'll actually be quite honest, in most cases I refer to biodynamic cranial osteopaths because they are trained in the medical model and are skilled at biodynamics.