by Giorgia Milne
The three fundamental types of cranial work widely practiced today, regardless of personal variations, can be characterized as biomechanical, functional and biodynamic.
Biomechanical cranial work has been the most widely practiced as it was the first cranial work taught by Dr. William Garner Sutherland.[i] It was his first attempt at presenting his remarkable discoveries that represented quite a radical shift from the accepted model of his time. This is classical cranial, a structure-function approach based on biomechanical principles. It is a conceptual mechanical movement model where a sequence of techniques is performed and stillpoints are “induced.”
In the functional approach, the practitioner follows permitted motion using the client’s breath as the balance point for shifting unhealthy patterns towards balance and stillness. Treatments remain oriented to a mechanical structure-function model, however are not based on biomechanics alone. The practitioner is aware of many other influences and depends upon the cranial wave to intuitively guide the sequence of techniques.
There is a major threshold to cross at the biodynamic level.[ii] The most important difference is that the cranial wave is no longer looked to as the guiding therapeutic agent. In biodynamics, the practitioner acquiesces to the felt-sense guidance of primary respiration (PR), an intelligence, which as a presence, is found in all living organisms. Dr. Sutherland spoke of the “Breath of Life.” One senses the inhalation and exhalation of PR as all motions throughout the entire system without regard to layers. This motion “breathes” as a unified whole. There is no separation.
(See chart below)
This intelligence is perhaps billions of years old. It is the genesis of life that creates all living organisms, and is the source for all therapeutic processes. This inherent power of transmutation is the reason that any treatment modality works, whether it is surgery, drugs, nutrition, manipulation, bodywork, homeopathy, acupuncture, movement, psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, spiritual healing, prayer, or meditation. If you can be present, in a non-interfering way, you may be granted the privilege to witness a miraculous process that is already built into our systems.
The capacity to be present in a non-interfering way with your attention freed is crucial for accessing this biodynamic domain. Dr. Sutherland characterized neutral as a state of consciousness in which attention is buoyant, freely moving, and automatically shifts with the Breath of Life, which can now guide one’s awareness with unerring potency.
When attention fixates onto an object, by default it operates from the limited separating aspects of ego (there’s a “me” and an “it”). The natural state of free attention is lost: it is not free to move with the Breath of Life, and one suffers the sense of separation from the object he or she is attending to, as well as loses inner contact with the Breath of Life.
Objectifying a client, or any aspect of the session process, fixes a practitioner’s attention: presence is kept busy visualizing, tracking, and treating. Ultimately it amounts to controlling the Breath of Life, the client, and the session.
In his final years Dr. Sutherland’s fundamental instructions were to trust the Tide and to let its unerring potency be in charge.
You have a choice to leave attention neutral, buoyant, open, free-flowing, and let it be guided by the Breath of Life, which offers your client direct sensual contact with unerring forces of health that are available without ‘adding any outside force.’
Biodynamics is altogether simple, natural, and humbly mystifying:
‘Be Still and Know’ and ‘Trust the Tide.’
Join us for the Biodynamic Cranial Touch Initiatory Course to learn foundation practices that develop your capacity to be present with free attention while touching in a non-interfering way and rest in the heart of stillness. The workshop will be held January 17-19, 2015 at the Florida School of Massage. Click here for more information or call Mary Reis at (352)246-6280 to register.
[i] Sutherland 1967, Magoun 3rd edition.
[ii] Sutherland, Becker, Jealous.
From STILLNESS by Charles Ridley, page 165 – The Three Types of Cranial Work:
| Three types of cranial: | Biomechanical | Functional | Biodynamic |
| Degree of efferent application by the practitioner(How much doing is there?) | Spans a range between the extremely skilled application of precise physical forces to the cranial bones to create changes in the relationship between the sutures without the use of the cranial wave motility (direct method) to following the cranial wave motility, exaggerating it in its direction of ease (indirect method) to its endpoint and holding it there until a stillpoint is induced, which effects a more balanced motility in the cranial wave motion and thus create a change in the tissues being treated, which begin to function more healthfully. | Practitioner follows the cranial wave in the direction of ease within its freedom of motion only. There is no exaggeration, no holding at endpoint, or inducing stillpoint. Stillpoint arises naturally by waiting until the motion is inherently suspended and the tissues become buoyant—this is called neutral. During neutral, the client’s breath is employed to balance the tissues, along with autonomic nervous system balance that effects a stillpoint and a body-wide physiological change. | Practitioner mirrors the motion present, but does not use the client’s respiration, instead he waits until the client naturally relaxes in neutral and until stillness in the local part deepens and spreads to the whole body (this is stillpoint as redefined in biodynamics) after which primary respiration appears as a delicate breath-like motion throughout the client’s whole body that creates a potency in the fluids that transmutes inertial motion into coherent motion, inherently, throughout the whole body, and in all systems. |
| Therapeutic forces the practitioner employs | In the direct method cranial techniques move the bones based on a detailed knowledge of suture architecture and its range of motion. In the indirect method one follows the cranial wave motion, which is exaggerated to stillpoint. Both methods are structure-function models: Changes in structure, and function changes (direct), or, function changes, and structure will rebalance (indirect method). | One supports the permitted motion of the cranial wave until a neutral arises inherently, and with the use of the client’s breath and a balance of the autonomic nervous system a stillpoint inherently arises in which a dynamic exchange between the potency, fluids and tissues ensues which will create a new function that effects changes in the structure. | One cooperates with primary respiration (PR) a developmental motion that begins at conception, creates the fetus, and continues as an innate motion that maintains healthy function in the body. PR creates potency in the body’s fluids as a therapeutic force that appears in the neutral, segues to stillpoint in which primary respiration breathes healthy motion throughout the body. |
| Cranial Wave | Fluid Tide | Long Tide | Dynamic Stillness | |
| Rate or motility | Variable rate:7-14 cycles per minute=Expands 4s./recedes 4s. | Steady rate:2 ½ cycles per minute=Expands 12 s./recedes 12 s. | Invariable rate:1 minute 40 second cycle=Expands 50s./recedes 50 s. | No rate |
| Character of each level | The presence of cranial wave (CW) depicts normal function in modern life, (indigenous people have no cranial wave). The CW disappears when the client deeply relaxes, and after whole-body stillpoints. CW rate varies, based on the client’s status—whether they are stressed, ill, injured, traumatized, etc. The CW is protective and it responds to the stressors of life. Like a vinyl record, the CW holographically reflects a client’s inertia, which can be discerned by a practitioner who chooses to be skilled in such. | The presence of primary respiration (PR) of fluid tide appears when a client relaxes into neutral and after a whole-body stillpoint. PR is sensed as a delicate whole-body ‘breathing’ that reunites the client’s bodymind, connects them to their midline, and proceeds to resynchronize the body’s inertial motion patterns and transmutes them to healthy motion. The practitioner’s work is as a supportive witness to an inherent healing process with its own sequence and order by including PR, fluid drive and motion present in awareness. | The presence of primary respiration of long tide appears if client has sufficiently reconnected to their bodymind-Soul, and their midline has re-balanced such that it is available to the more global infusion of the potency of long tide. The inertial patterns are reorganized in long tide en-mass and system-wide on many levels at once. Clients report encounters with the Self—as archetype; exalted deities are met here and clients feel seen and contained by a radiant presence that beholds them in unconditional love. | The presence of stillness only.An infinitely deep stillness literally enters the room from outside and permeates every aspect of both the client and the practitioner. Healing occurs behind the curtain of awareness in a cloud of unknowing, yet there is a certainty that healing has occurred on a very deep level. A deep sense of reverence to stillness is permanently instilled into consciousness, which unites with stillness such that there is no perceptible difference between the two. |
| Level of human consciousness | Rational to Vision-logic.(Body mind split unites as bodymind) | Psychic(bodymind-Soul) | Subtle(Self) | Causal(Pure Spirit) |
