In From the Way Out

Happy rainy Thursday all,  

A little something to spark the inner sun. 

There were some sections of the newest Cranial manual that, despite how much we loved them, just didn't fit. Below is one of them. If you want to contemplate some of the newest findings about the connective tissue and learn about a few brain structures, all in the context of cosmological musings from Chinese poetry, painting and cosmology - then this is for you!  Enjoy...

Also, we have Cranial II this weekend - there's still a couple spots open if anybody is looking for a fun way to spend their weekend. If you've already taken it you can retake the class at a 40% discount. Repeating this class is a great way to take your cranial work to the next level. You will gain new insights for sure and be able to refine your techniques. 

We have Cranial I coming up 4/28-30. The new manual should also be available on our website that same week. 

We hear stories near weekly it seems from people who have taken our classes and are benefiting their patients - there's nothing more gratifying than that for all of us. Thanks to all of you for being part of what inspires to do this work!

Body Intelligence - the existence-tissue

Jean-Claude Guimberteau, surgeon and fascial researcher, posits that the fascia is not just connective but that it is constitutive. His research led him to the idea that fascia is the constitutive component of the human form. But more than that, he says that fascia has an intelligence within it that establishes the lattice-work to form a specific structure. For example an organ, such as the stomach, becomes that organ not because the cells tell it what to become, but because the fascia lays down a template of sorts that creates the environment that tells the cells to become stomach.  It is an idea that is radical in its implications. One of which, is that the cell is not the most essential aspect of our form and does not dictate all bodily function. There are other forces at work. A thing comes into being out of formless-ness.

It is amazing to consider that these newest findings about our inner nature are paralleled by poets considering cosmology thru the lens of ancient Chinese painting and poetry. David Hinton, in his book, Existence, a story, coined the term existence-tissue to described the dance between form and formless.

"...there is no distinction between empty awareness and the expansive presence of existence. They are whole, a single existence-tissue, which is to say that existence-tissue is our most fundamental self... (Hinton, p. 8-9)"

The tissue-intelligence is incredibly responsive to its environment, and reflects Hinton’s concept of existence-tissue.  Often, before an experience registers with the thoughts and feelings that we attribute to our emotional experience, there is a visceral response, a kinesthetic register of the impact of the experience. This is felt by the tissue, and the tissue-intelligence attempts to mediate and facilitate the best response possible to that experience, often below our conscious awareness. Sometimes there is flow, the system allows an experience to move freely through the body. At other times, the vibratory quality of the experience gets lodged in the tissue.  This existence-tissue is perceptive.  The tissue perceives and stores the vibratory quality of an experience if not the actual content. Or, as Hinton says:

There in the beginning is this existence-tissue open to itself, miraculously and inexplicably aware of itself.  Vast and deep, everything and everywhere–the sheer presence of materiality is open to itself through our eyes, aware of itself.  This is one form of intelligence.  The story of existence is a self-portrait (Hinton, p. 8-9).

This could be a way to understand the release of emotions that can occur from hands-on therapies such as cranialsacral therapy. Bessel Van der Kolk is doing some wonderful work linking the bodily experience of emotions and trauma. See his book The Body Keeps The Score.

With cranialsacral therapy there is the added dimension of not only working with the connective tissue and all of its properties, but also working within the brain itself. Specific brain structures responsible for mediating our emotional memory can be affected by our work. Specifically, the amygdala, the frontal cortex and the corpus callosum. In addition to the specificity of the above structures, there is the existence-tissue of the brain itself.  Often we consider neurons to be the primary component structure of the brain, however, it is glial cells that make up the tissue of the brain and outnumber the neurons.  The glial cells are considered the fascial component of the brain. The structure and function of glial cells varies wildly to suit their given purposes – much like the structural diversity of fascia and connective tissue in the body. Further, we know that while neurons transmit impulses, they can’t do so without the glia.

An in-depth discussion of these brain structures is beyond what we will cover here, but it is worth mentioning them and having them within our field of awareness: 

• Amygdala: considered to be the brain structure primarily responsible for mediating and storing our emotional memory. One facet of the amygdala is retaining memories of experiences that were considered threatening in some way so that the person knows how to be able to avoid similar stimuli. 

• Frontal cortex: essential in helping us become observers of our experience in the world. This is what allows us to witness ourselves from a healthy distance and gain perspectives needed to heal and gain insight into the nature and complexity of our lives.

• Corpus callosum: mediates the communication between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. The relevance of this shouldn’t be underestimated. While it is true that both hemispheres of the brain are involved in all of our perceptions and activities, they do not perceive and respond equally. Each hemisphere has a bias of sorts. Without diving too deeply into a big ol’ controversy, let’s say that the more the two hemispheres are unified in our perception of and response to the world, the better. There is a sense of calm and peace that comes from this unified perceptive field. Think about the effects of yoga, tai chi or qi gong, all of these enhance the right-left brain stimulation and have the effect of putting the system in a more balanced or unified state.

But at the level of experience, what we perceive is synthesized from the work of the two cerebral hemispheres, each hemisphere having its own way of understanding the world – its own ‘take’ on it. In The Master and His Emissary, psychiatrist and scholar Iain McGilchrist writes that this synthesis is unlikely to be symmetrical, and the world that we experience “phenomenologically, at any point in time is determined by which hemisphere’s version of the world ultimately comes to predominate” (10). 

The more aware we can be of these potentialities, the more trusting we can be about the body’s innate ability to heal itself and thus, the more potent our work becomes.

Please visit our course calendar to review our workshop offerings!

Upcoming Courses: If you register for two or more you receive a 10% discount per course! Enter "10PERCENT" at checkout to get the discount. If you have any questions please email me: michael@movingmountaininstitute.com

Look forward to seeing you soon!