Biodynamic Cranial Approach ~ Touch of Presence® Intensive
Giorgia Milne embodies a personal and professional evolution from allopathic skill as a graduate of Stanford University’s Physician Assistant Primary Care Program, to the healing energy work of all the major craniosacral and related approaches, culminating in the advanced practices of Biodynamic Cranial Approach (BCA). She is the founder of the Touch of Presence® School for Biodynamic Studies. She travels extensively offering BCA Introductory and Intensives, along with courses in Craniosacral Anatomy, Embryology, The Brain, Fulcrums, Navigation Skills, and Fluids and Space. All courses are offered through the lens of BCA. Her teaching style draws upon her vast personal and professional embodied experience resulting in the ability to sense and teach spontaneously from the alchemy of the present moment.
Gainesville, FL has become an anchor for her teachings on the eastern coast of the United States. Students have the opportunity for in-depth study and embodied learning of BCA and related topics as a distinct practice, or as adjunct to existing modalities. At its essence, this work integrates in such a way that it can support any aspect of your life.
History
Dr. William Garner Sutherland, D.O. developed Osteopathy in the Cranial Field over the course of his long career. He had a profound experience and resulting insight during his final year as a student of Osteopathy, however, didn’t start sharing the work until many years later, after meticulous study of the cranial sutures, mapping the craniosacral system, self-experimentation, and careful exploration with patients. His attempts to disprove the “uncanny notion” that the cranium moved in a breath-like motion, lead him on the defining journey of his life.
Because the concept of a moveable cranium contradicted current medical theory, his early presentations focused on the scientific and mechanical aspects of the craniosacral system, and how to apply precise forces for treating the system. As his confidence grew in speaking about what the deep origin of this “uncanny” motion, his focus evolved over the years and by the end of his life, he asked practitioners to allow physiologic function from ‘within’ to manifest its own ‘unerring potency’ rather than to ‘apply blind force’ from without.
Dr. Sutherland and his wife Adah left us with what many believe were coded instructions on their epitaphs: Be Still And Know ~ I AM. And at the end of his life he would add: Trust the Tide. He would say: “The Tide is making all the diagnosis and doing all the treatment”. These are not metaphors.
Students of Dr. Sutherland, such as Dr. Rollin Becker, and his student Dr. James Jealous (and others) would further articulate the biodynamic lineage. Much understanding would also come from the biodynamics of embryogenesis: the creative forces of the embryo. These were people who did not have a conflict with science and spirituality.
Biodynamic Cranial Approach
In our approach we not only abide by Dr. Sutherland’s guidance to ‘trust the Tide,’ we leave the door open for our own Guiding Principle to be revealed. We honor and share the history and lineage, however, allow for your own unique individual experience and understanding to develop. The Touch of Presence® School for Biodynamic Studies offers a non-medical, non-doing biodynamic approach to touch that is free of mechanical/functional overlay.
The Biodynamic Cranial Approach (BCA), is a bodywork training that is designed for practitioner development. The work itself is a process of developing the skill to perceive and trust the natural inherent forces to manifest their ‘unerring intelligence’. It is an evolution of craniosacral work, but it is not a symptom-treatment model of working with the craniosacral system. We do not focus on craniosacral anatomy, nor do we track cranial wave manifestations. We sense and perceive globally, directly, from within our body-boundary. We do not search inside our client looking for specific rhythms or motions, yet we include that which we perceive within our client. It is a more all-encompassing instinctive nature of direct-sense perception, and it requires letting go of all notions or ideas of “treatment” or being the “doer” of a session.
When in a state of present-sensing awareness, the many faces of the therapeutic indwelling forces come to the forefront. These natural indwelling forces are more fundamental to that of our respiratory diaphragm or heart rate. As practitioners we resonate with these natural forces ourselves and then make contact from that present-awareness-sensing-state.
“Many of my teachers… made the statement, ‘all you do is begin a treatment, then the indwelling therapeutic forces finish it.’ …The goal of engaging an indwelling therapeutic process is the hallmark of our tradition. …This is not an ideology, but a directly perceived reality that one begins to appreciate by following the therapeutic forces and accepting the wisdom behind the amount and direction of treatment.” –Jim Jealous, Osteopathic Physician
When a practitioner rests in steady present-awareness and places their hands on a client, all manner of subtle yet powerful sensations are palpable… not just through the hands! A more global direct sense of perception becomes available. From that disposition, the practitioner’s focus or orientation influences what can be perceived. Research in Quantum Physics has shown a phenomenon known as the “observer effect” — observation affects whether or not electrons behave as particles or waves.
A similar observer effect happens in craniosacral work — when a therapist holds a client’s head and senses into the client’s system looking for something specific, the act of sensing in this way influences what can be perceived. A very primitive part of the client’s system recognizes it is being observed, being made into a separate observable entity, and the system goes on “alert”. When a practitioner is looking for cranial wave (or the craniosacral rhythm — CSR), this is when cranial wave is found.
But when a practitioner orients to wholeness with unwavering presence, sensing into what IS without trying to fix anything, the client’s system can rest back, and the work deepens into other rhythms and depths beyond the tides. Without looking for anything in particular, resting in presence with open awareness, we orient to wholeness which is where the health is. This is where our attention goes — to wholeness and health.
The trainings primarily support the inner development of the practitioner to directly connect to the Breath of Life. Practically speaking, this frees your attention from its efferent orientation to an inner one to naturally flow with and serve the Breath of Life.
Biodynamic Cranial Approach practitioners are trained to let the motion of primary respiration direct the sequence of the session. For the practitioner this means resting in oneself with free attention, and thus not tracking inside the client for inertial motion patterns, and especially not naming the processes during the session. Our practitioners apply no techniques, or outside forces of any kind to cranial lesions, body tissues, or tides.
Touch of Presence® Courses:
Touch of Presence® Introductory Course
Biodynamic Cranial Approach
Open to anyone wishing to develop personally or to investigate pursuing a committed professional track. The Introductory Course is for all health practitioners, psychotherapists, movement therapists, and bodyworkers new to cranial work. It is required for all craniosacral practitioners or other biodynamic practitioners who wish to learn more about the type of biodynamics we teach before undertaking a committed Intensive of Biodynamic Cranial Approach.
During the Introductory Course you learn how to touch in a way that is non-efferent (neutral), non-doing, and in resonance with primary respiration. This course is designed to provide you with an array of embodiment practices by which you directly access primary respiration in your direct experience. This is accomplished through a gradual process whereby you cease all efferent activity and intervention balanced with not being overly distant or unresponsive while touching another such that you learn to relax in present-awareness, abiding in neutral, and allowing the natural creative forces do the work.
We explore the influences of Drs. Still, Sutherland, Becker, Jealous and others’ profound insights and contributions into this field along with other sources and related science and spirituality that influenced them. We honor this lineage in a way that leaves the door open for our own discovery, understanding, and meaning that is true and relevant for each individual. This opens us to the possibility of developing a deep trust in the inherent natural forces that create and maintain us. The practices can inwardly lead us to powerful encounters with the Breath of Life and experience directly how Wholeness is Health.
Cost: $600; $300 to repeat
CE Credits: 16-24 FL & NCBTMB
Touch of Presence® Intensive
Biodynamic Cranial Approach
Open to those who wish to develop personally, or who want to become a professional Biodynamic Cranial Approach Practitioner. To join the Intensive you have to first take the Introductory Course, or equivalent Private Intensive, and have teacher approval.
The Intensive develops out of a field of interest to immerse oneself in the work, and often as a response to an uncanny yet inexorable “calling”. Dates are scheduled once there’s critical mass of committed participants. It requires an up-front commitment for the entire 4 x 4-day process, and the tuition is not refundable for any reason.
Each course provides the opportunity and support to progressively cultivate and maintain a living, intimate, ever-deepening, and continuous body-felt connection with the Breath of Life. Consciousness and Presence are discovered to be inseparable and that when one has perceptual experience of Wholeness, health or what we call “healing” (on any level) end up being a sort of byproduct of the process. Biodynamic Cranial Approach Intensives offer a way to practice a non-medical approach that can be applies outright, or integrated with any healing modality such as cranial work, medicine, integral medical work, acupuncture, homeopathy, naturopathy, bodywork, movement, somatics, or psychotherapy.
Cost: $4,000; $2,000 to repeat
CE Credits: 120 FL & NCBTMB
Craniosacral Anatomy
Distinction within the Functional Whole
Recommended foundation class for any CST and of great value to other modalities. Suggested pre-requisite for Brain ~ The Matter of Mind.
An introduction and overview of foundation anatomy, structure, function and energetics of the craniosacral system. Open to anyone from any school. This class benefits cs students and practitioners of all levels as well as those from other touch and movement modalities. The teaching approach and atmosphere supports a variety of levels of background and learning styles. Whether you are just beginning your exploration of cranial anatomy, are seasoned practitioners, or anywhere in between, you will discover something of value in the transmission field of how this course is presented. Emphasis is on the “parts” related to a functional whole.
Topics include and are not limited to: embryogenesis, formation of midline and early development, principal bones, muscles and ligaments of the cs system, origins of bones, ossification centers, sutures, joints and craniometric points, reciprocal tension membrane, cerebral spinal fluid production and circulation, venous sinus flow, intro and overview of CNS, brain function and cranial nerves.
Cost: $525 USD
CE Credits: 16-24 FL & NCBTMB
https://www.touchofpresence.com/courses-schedule
The Brain
The Matter of Mind
(Craniosacral Anatomy & Craniosacral experience highly recommended, or teacher approval)
The brain, being a fluid~chemical~hormonal~electrical field with inherent motility, requires contact from a quality of presence and touch that is in tonal resonance with it. This class provides the practitioner greater confidence working with brain related issues. It covers basic anatomy, structure and function of the brain as well as the disposition required to approach it. “Dis-ease” states are addressed and related to as part of a functional whole.
Open to experienced practitioners and students of craniosacral and other allied health modalities wishing to better understanding the brain and deepen their sensing skill. Approached primarily from biodynamic principles emphasizing practitioner development, quality of presence, and attuned touch rather than a series of techniques designed to “do something” to the brain.
Cost: $695/4-day; $350/2-day USD
CE Credits: 16-32 NCBTMB
https://www.touchofpresence.com/courses-schedule
Embryology
Spirit & Essence
(For anyone)
The structures found in us as adults are present, in miniature, by the eighth week of gestation. Prior to that, amazing transmutative forces are at play. Differentiation, all the seemingly “separate parts,” take shape and form as a continuum of unified functional wholeness arising from a core of stillness called the primitive streak: Midline. There will be daily hands-on work exchanges. Emphasis is on the body-felt-sense-awareness presence and healing potential of these creative forces.
Open to anyone interested in the subject and particularly applicable to biodynamic approaches. Prior anatomical knowledge helpful though is not required as this is a unique foundational territory and the ground from which various other studies can be based. The implications of what you discover here has the potential to expand your understanding and capacity as a practitioner of just about any modality.
Cost: $525/3-day; $350/2-day USD
CE Credits: 16-32 FL & NCBTMB
https://www.touchofpresence.com/courses-schedule
Fulcrums
Portals of Wholeness
“A fulcrum is a pivot point of stillness that provides the power to organize a specific activity. Fulcra are portals that connect all the dots between separation and oneness. Because stillness is the core of every activity, it is the constant uniting principle through which each part connects with other parts, and with the whole. In this way, the infinitesimal connects with the infinite.” Charles Ridley: STILLNESS, pgs 23-24
This course focuses on the depths and dimensions of Fulcrum. We will explore the spirit, matter, and essence of fulcrum beyond its classical description. Through the combination of lecture, experiential exercises, hands-on work, and discussion we’ll take a multi-faceted view of the manifold and even fractal nature of fulcrums. This supports the understanding and integration of Wholeness as Health, and its implication for any practice modality, as well as in everyday life.
At the heart of every fulcrum, there is love.
Be Still And Love
Cost: $525/3-day; $350/2-day USD
CE Credits: 16-24 FL & NCBTMB
https://www.touchofpresence.com/courses-schedule
Fulcrum of Being
“A fulcrum doesn’t do anything itself; it creates possibilities.”
Fritz Smith, M.D., D.O.
Embryogenesis and the concept of fulcrums are inherent to one another. Experientially understanding their essence individually and together offers a doorway into the spirit~matter of existence, and the non-separate nature of Being-ness. Directly sensing the power and creative force at the heart of every fulcrum, and of embryogenesis itself, is to be at the transmutative edge of development and evolution. The resulting paradigm shift in our perceptual capacity, disposition, and outlook in turn leads to a more harmonious way of living and being, where we abide as our authentic selves with each other and the world around us.
“You are your most you at the moment of conception. Everything after that is a differentiation” Erich Blechschmidt, M.D. Embryologist
“The Fulcrum of the Whole is The Whole”
Jim Jealous, D.O.
This embodied and integrated paradigm shift, when applied through touch regardless of the modality, opens the portal to Health as Wholeness. These principles then apply to everyday life.
“A paradigm shift occurred in the Osteopathic profession when Sutherland asked Osteopaths to consider that the power for functioning is at or in the fulcrum, and not at the ends of the lever.” Bonnie Gintis 2007 p229
In the process of alchemy or transmutation, the original form returns to its origin – its fundamental parts, and then reconstitutes or re-forms into a higher form. It becomes something of a higher order.
One has to see that in any process of paradigm change, arguments and controversy are inevitable. You can’t change the paradigm without people seeing how the argument’s played out.
Unknown
Join us in this exploration of our creative origin, and rest in its inherent health and wellbeing.
Cost: $525/3-day; $350/2-day USD
CE Credits: 16-24 FL & NCBTMB
https://www.touchofpresence.com/courses-schedule
Navigation Skills
Presence and Resonance of Verbal Touch
How you navigate your inner territory reveals how you relate to yourself, others and the world. Awareness deepens as you relax into direct sensing. Embodied presence then accesses all your unique gifts and skills in service of what’s needed.
This 2-day experiential course will introduce you to practices that land you in direct body-sense-awareness, which guides the quality, tone, and tempo of touch.
We will explore approaches for energetic, manual and verbal communication and learn ways to reflect, mirror, ask questions, and give feedback that uncovers and deepens understanding. Open to anyone; integrates into any modality.
Cost: $350/2-day USD
Fluids and Space
(For everyone)
“It is the not-yet in the now
The taste of a fruit that does not yet exist
Hanging the blossom on the bough.”
~Laurens van der Post
The focus of our exploration is this ‘not-yet in the now.’ Sensing into the space within and what moves between; the ‘fruit that does not yet exist’, and its potency of becoming.
Fluids are everywhere – on earth, in the air, in the cosmos, and they dwell in every space of our bodies. At the beginning we are completely fluid and our bodies are still primarily composed of fluids… and space. Physicists tell us that every atom is 99.9% space.
Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, the founder of Osteopathy, was very aware of the importance of the fluids. He talked much about the “irrigation systems” of the arteries, veins, lymphatic’s and cerebrospinal fluid, how they are connected among each other and their relation to the Health.
This course is an introductory overview of about the fluids that dwell in the spaces of the body, the space within the fluids and the tissues, and their inseparable relation to each other and the creative forces of life. Our main focus in this course is to experientially explore ‘Fluids and Space’ and the disposition required to sense and perceive the subtle ebb/flow/rest interface.
The approach to the touch sessions will be from the disposition of Biodynamic Cranial Approach, which orients to the Health. In other words, this course is not conducted in a medical symptom/diagnosis/treatment paradigm. There will be much to discover that can inform any approach or practice, as well as enhance one’s inner development and perceptual capacities.
Cost: $525/3-day; $350/2-day USD
CE Credits: 16-24 FL & NCBTMB
https://www.touchofpresence.com/courses-schedule
2024-2025 Schedule of Classes in Gainesville, Florida
Touch of Presence® Introductory Course
Biodynamic Cranial Approach
$600 for new students / $300 to repeat
Dates:
IC #1: January 26-28, 2024 (2.5 day course)
IC#2: TBD (2.5 day course)
2.5-day course worth 20? CEU’s (both Florida and National). Course runs 9-6 each full day, with a 60 minute lunch. The last day of course runs 9-1.
Contact Mary Reis with any questions regarding the class or to register: maryreis@me.com or 352-246-6280.
Because this work continues to evolve, this course continues to evolve as well. The basic material covered shifts somewhat with each group and many students find great value in repeating the Introductory Course to deepen their bodily experience and practice of the work. Half price to repeat.
Courses will take place at the Gainesville Retreat Center, located on over 100 acres of conservation land on the eastern edge of Gainesville. Onsite lodging is available. To make lodging reservations, please contact Shana Smith at the Gainesville Retreat Center:
https://gainesvilleretreatcenter.com
352-213-2221
Touch of Presence® Intensive
Biodynamic Cranial Approach
$4000
Immersion in Biodynamic Cranial Approach training presented as 4, 4-day classes. Additional work to be completed outside of class times. Pathway to potentially becoming a BCA practitioner, or purely for personal development and life enhancement. BCA Introductory Course and Teacher approval required. Payment in full required prior to 4th installment of class.
2024/25 BCA Intensive Schedule:
- #1: August 1-4, 2024
- #2: December 5-8, 2024
- #3: April 3-6, 2024
- #4: August 7-10, 2025
Contact Mary Reis with any questions regarding the class or to register: maryreis@me.com or 352-246-6280.
Because this work continues to evolve, this course continues to evolve as well. The basic material covered shifts somewhat with each group and many students find great value in repeating the Intensive to deepen their bodily experience and practice of the work. Half price to repeat.
Courses will take place at the Gainesville Retreat Center, located on over 100 acres of conservation land on the eastern edge of Gainesville. Onsite lodging is available. To make lodging reservations, please contact Dan Smith at the Gainesville Retreat Center:
https://gainesvilleretreatcenter.com
352-316-6696