I don’t have much to say as a preamble to this video.  I came across Mark two years ago, we re-met a year ago, and then 5 months ago.  I ressonate with his presence, and with his understanding, and speaking of yoga, of Life.

Enjoy!

http://www.yogamates.com/tv/?v=JTT01C2YO35IL

And for more, visit his site: Heart of Yoga

I’m excited, yesterday I signed up for the conference:

“Embodied Awakening” – Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy Conference 2008

This will take place in San Francisco, at the California Institue of Integral Studies!!

Check out the program!

Just a small post on this extraodinary subject and my recent introduction to it.

So midwives, doulas, homebirths, natural births, all have seen an intense hounding in the past century.  This has escalated decade by decade, only seeing a strong revival in the 60’s and 70’s which was rapidly quenched.  But not before managing to set in some roots with the help of pioneers such as Ina May Gaskin.

The importance of being educated around childbirth reveals itself to be so impossible to ignore once one looks into it even just a little bit.

At a glance, this importance, this value, can be seen in two major aspects.  The experience which the mother can have and the experience which the baby can have.  Those are the two main facets which are looked at and I have been thinking about the much less talked about experience of the father, both physically (hormonally), psychologically, and spiritually we’ll see what seeds come out of that.

I am a man, a step-father, I have never seen a human being give birth (other than in movies), I saw my two of my canine loves give birth to 9 and 8 puppies, I have taken a transformative 4 day workshop on craniosacral massage for newborn to 2 year old, and I will not even attempt to say what is “best” or “worse” or even my opinion.  Like a scribe I have accumulated some information which I believe can literally awaken a mother, a father, a person interested in children.  Awaken in the buddhist sense of removing ignorance, removing that non-knowing.  Allow people to see clearer.

I strongly recommend the following:

Ina May Gaskin – Who Is She

The Farm

What Babies Want

The Business of Being Born

Michel Odent

Orgasmic Birth

Joesph Chilton Pearce

And a little humour:

And some humor with quite a bit of sad truth:

So, I recently finished a four-day workshop on craniosacral (CST) “massage” for babies, newborn to 2-years old, and it has been one of the most delicious experiences (and physically painful too) of my life!

I went into this workshop with two expectations:

1- I was going to get to massage babies and

2- that no instructor of CST could compare to Hugh Milne

And, as is so often the case with expectations, both were a negative!

We did not massage babies and the instructor Benjamin Shield….  Let me explain.

The pediatric CST involved descriptions of the techniques which we apply on adults and how those techniques differ for a baby due to their size, to how a baby’s body receives touch and, especially, due to their anatomical differences (mainly the fact that many bones are not yet fused).  The instructor, Benjamin Shield, has a background in dentistry and over 25 years of bodywork, his aproach to the work felt genuine and heartfelt and extremely grounded in a profound knowledge of anatomy.

There would be demos each day as parents came in to the classroom with their child.  The situation would always be unique and it was always a blessing to see Ben give his full attention and respect to the child, honoring them and their parents.

Before and after the demos we would talk a little about the situation the child was presenting and Ben would give several possible outlooks on it; each outlook was grounded in a deep anatomical and emotional base.

I highly recommend this class/workshop to everyone.

In it we watched a movie called “What babies want” website which, also, I highly recommend.

Frontal, Nasal, Maxilla, Zygomatic, Sphenoid, Mandible

THE BOOK OF NOW.

Funny as it may be, I feel it is really to the point…  i’ve said too much already… anyway:

the book of now

And this site for “Instant Advanced Meditation Course” recommended to me by a good friend.

Enjoy the links and please let me know how they fit into your life.

An excerpt from the book Meeting the Shadow.  The text is by Michael Ventura.

“Which is the major difference between the expectations of a marriage and a relationship.  My experience of a relationship is two people more or less compulsively playing musical chairs with each other’s selected inner archetypes.  My tough street kid is romancing your honky-tonk angel.  I am your homeless waif and you are my loving mother.  I am your lost father and you are my doting daughter.  I am your worshiper and you are my goddess.  I am your god and you are my priestess.  I am your client and you are my analyst.  I am your intensity and you are my ground.  These are some of the garish of the patterns.  Animus, anima, bopping on a seesaw

These hold up well enough while the archetypal pairings behave.  But when the little boy inside him is looking for the mommy inside her and finds instead on this particular night a sharp-toothed analyst dissecting his guts.  When the little girl inside her is looking for the daddy inside him, and fids instead a pagan worshiper who wants a goddess to lay with, which induces her to become a little girl playacting a goddess to please the daddy who’s really a lecherous worshipper and…little girls can’t come.  Or if a woman is attracted to a macho-man who is secretly looking to be mothered: when a man’s sexual self is in the service of an interior little boy it’s not surprising that he can’t get it up or comes to quick.  Or they’re really not there at all, they’re masturbating, really, men in their little-boy psyches for whom the real woman is just a stand-in; while the woman who happens to be in the same bed, an extension of teir masturbation, is wondering why even though the moves are pretty good she doesn’t really feel slept with.  And why he turns away so quickly when it’s done.

On the other hand, teachers fuck pupils with excitement, analysts fuck clients with abandon, and people seeing each other, in bed, as gods and goddesses light up the sky – bu the psyche is a multiple and a shifting entity, and none of these compatible parirings hold stable for long.  The archetypal mismatches soon begin, and then it’s a disaster of confrontations that can take years not even to sort out (it would be worth years to get it all sorter out) but simply to exhaust itself and fail.  And then the cycle starts all over again with someone else.

My experience of a marriage is that all these same modes are present, but instinctively or consciously it becomes a case of two people running down each other’s inner archetypes, tackling them, seducing them, cajoling them, waiting them out making them talk, ‘fessing up to them, running from them, raping them, falling in love with some, hating others, getting to know some, making friends with some, hanging some in the closet on each other’s hooks — hooks on which hang fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, other loves, idols, fantasies, maybe even past lives, and true mythological consciousnesses that sometimes come to life within one with such force that we feel a thread that goes back thousands of years, even to other realms of being.

All of this is what we “marry” in the other, a process that goes on while we manage to earn a living, go to the movies, watch television, go to the doctor, walk on the Palisades, drive to Texas, follow the election, try to stop drinking, eat too much Haagen-Dazs.”

The massage school (FSM) is doing their spring cleaning and this year they have decided to revamp the place so much that the old collages made by the old classes have been removed.

I have taken pictures of most of the collages and here they are for posterity.

Enjoy:

These past three days have seen the completion of a 6-month-long training in body-centered psychotherapy. The title of the training was:

“The Body as Resource: Healing Trauma and Character Strategies”

As an overview: the workshop began with resourcing, noticing what resources we (as those who were taking the course and also “we” humans and potential clients) already have, how to notice them, how to bring them to the awareness of the client and how to engage them when we find ourselves in an unresourced situation. A resource here is a tool which we can, and do, use to keep ourselves grounded, to keep ourselves sane. A primitive resource than many people have is that of going into the fetal position when there is too much stress in their lives; or exercises such as going running to reduce worrying about issues – these are internal resources. An example of an external resource would be a friend, with whom we open our hearts and feel heard and thus feel more sane. In the training we are interested in building and cementing somatic (involving the body – soma) resources for our clients.

Once a client has a solid foundation in resources from which they can feel secure then their “window of tolerance” will have expanded allowing them and the therapist to delve deeper into the issues that trouble them while staying fully mindful.

Mindful is perhaps the most fundamental pillar in this work. It is mindfulness-based therapy. When a mindful therapist and a mindful client explore human trauma then, inevitably, fruitful conclusions arise. Mindfulness.

The world of Trauma is very diverse! We approached developmental trauma (example: having been bullied as a child, or being neglected by the parents) as well as trauma originating from one specific event (examples: hurricanes, car accidents, rape, torture) all with special importance as to how the body reacts to the trauma. The body, our body, is an amazingly efficient system and it can go through the most violent events and still keep us alive; yet sometimes it tends to stay protected/guarded long after the aggressive event occurred. To bring that somatic pattern to the clients mindful eyes can bring about great healing.

Throughout 6 months the group of 15 eager-minded people met in a small room and watched presentations, had discussions, did exercises, explored our human nature. A small group intent on bringing this beautiful god-work, healing work to everyone we know. And i’m leaving the 6 months feeling immensely grateful to everyone in the group who opened themselves so much. The training ended and I’m seeing everyone as whole.
Recommendations:

The Body Reveals – Ron Kurtz

Waking the Tiger – P. Levine

The mindful brain – Daniel Segal

Trauma and Recovery -

Facing the Dragon – Robert Moore

Nonviolent Communication – Marshall Rosenberg

The feeling of what happens – Antonio Damasio

Writings by Malidoma Some

The Felt Sense – Ann Weisner

And a little music to go with this post:

Yesterday was my last day of the craniosacral adventure. The previous entry on this blog was written during the first module of the training, known as C1, it was written on day 3…

I recall thinking and sensing that I had gotten a good idea of the work by then. By day 3!

I would like to make it clear that I had no clue as to what the work really was. Or perhaps, said more accurately, I had no idea as to the potential of the work, the depths which it was able to reach. ….

You see, to have an idea of the depths something can reach means that one already has a concept of those depths, they know how deep the well is and thus can say whether the rope and bucket will touch water… So, it wasn’t so much “the depths which it was able to reach” but more: the depth of the well itself. Or even the diameter of the well. Or even what it is made of.

I recall a post I once wrote called “limits“. That experience comes to mind.

As I sat on the sand and looked out at the ocean, realizing that I hadn’t just tested my limits of fear, I had dipped my toe in the waters of exploring myself – the ocean is vast beyond my ability to understand vastness.

In astrophysics we use light-years to measure distances. A light-year is an inconceivable distance. We have no notion of something that far. We can quantify in numbers how large the ocean is or how far the nearest galaxy is but they are only numbers – our minds have no concept of it.

Leaving both astrophysics and the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, looking inward now, inward turned, us, and acknowledging that we too have an inconceivable depth. Quantifiable, perhaps, yet beyond the minds’ ability to grasp.

Craniosacral workshop and the teachings went on far beyond that third day. The mind began to step out of the way, Bruno began to step out of the way, the experience began to take prime importance over the mind.

When I travel to a new country it takes 8-10 days before I arrive. My body is already there but my mind is not. Not to pick on the mind, it is awesome at doing its thing, and recognizing that living in the present is not what it prefers.

So i, the I, gently began to arrive at the workshop and to step out of the way.

And I began to experience what was there to be experienced. Surrender began to happen. Integration and release. The masks began to fall. I began to feel in the same depths where only those fish with those hundreds of little lightbulbs exist. Fish who have wisely given up their eyes – for those eyes we regard with such high esteem up here are useless down there – useless.

I began to see with new eyes. More accurately: I began to see with old eyes. The eyes that have always been there, closer to those true eyes. And as those eyes saw so unfolding took place. I could feel the thumbs on my teeth reaching far into my being. And behind the force of those thumbs was that force which began it all and moves it all. The recognition which my body felt upon once again being allowed to soak in that force from which it was born.

The body sank, the mind sank, the rush brought tears and sobs and yells and gasps for air. The back arched powerfully yet devoid of effort. I was accompanying, I was observing, I was supporting, I was arching, I was touching every inch of the skin of that Earth, this Earth, and yet I was not there at all.

Birth – Yet that is an event.

Anahata – the sound that is not made by two things striking together. The sound made by the energy of what the Universe is made of. What is that energy, that force, that all pervading radiance?

Call it God or Nature or Energy, call it Ananda – Love

What is it in the contact? What is it in the touch? in the voice? in those eyes and that smile and that eternally flowing hair?

Those are merely gates, passageways to the Essence.

Those are simply sirens, sitting in all their graciousness, upon the rocks of strange and unexplored shores of ourselves. With their voice in my ears and their fingers in my mouth beckoning me closer as I struggle with the breaking waves which they themselves placed there.

For I yearn to be with my siren, to feel her embrace, to hear her spine-chilling voice caressing my soul – the more I struggle to swim to her the closer to exhaustion I get and so I step out of the way, allowing for the currents to take me. My only guide now is myself, my body, my soul, my heart, my mind, trusting that they – I – will recognize home when I arrive there.

Craniosacral – suffice to say that this is magical work, work touched by shamans and lovers.  Healing work.  And I’m very grateful and appreciative of Hugh and Giorgia Milne as well as their assistants and, very importantly, all those who created and shared that healing space which I felt for 11 days.

And all I would want to say to my siren, beautifully expressed by Tim Buckley:

Song to the Siren – by Tim Buckley

Long afloat on shipless oceans
I did all my best to smile
til your singing eyes and fingers
Drew me loving to your isle
And you sang
Sail to me
Sail to me
Let me enfold you
Here I am
Here I am
Waiting to hold you

Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Were you hare when I was fox?
Now my foolish boat is leaning
Broken lovelorn on your rocks,
For you sing, touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow:
O my heart, o my heart shies from the sorrow

I am puzzled as the newborn child
I am troubled at the tide:
Should I stand amid the breakers?
Should I lie with death my bride?
Hear me sing, swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you:
Here I am, here I am, waiting to hold you