Cranial
Fluid Dynamics
Exploring the
forces that shape and alter the Fluid Rhythm and tides of
the Craniosacral system
Reprinted
from the Association of Humanistic Psychology Journal
'Perspectives' June/July 04 issue
The cranial fluid system is a powerful self-organizing
homeostatic system inherent in all of us. Its therapeutic
use was first discovered by an osteopath, William Garner
Sutherland, in the early part of last century, brought into
the osteopathic community in the 1950s, and although
initially relegated to the sidelines, has since been taken
up by many osteopaths. The osteopathic physicians who
practice it jealously guard their legacy, and rightly so,
as their training in anatomy and palpation is second to
none. However, other forms of osteopathy have evolved.
These form two camps, roughly described as either having a
mechanical or energetic bent. The mechanical approach seeks
to reorganize the cranial sutures, dural and systemic
distortions through unwinding the cranial system via
imposition of the vaunted “stillpoint” or the application
of minute force to elicit change. The cranial osteopath's
who favor an energetic approach [viz: 'forces'] use the
“tide” or rhythms within the fluid system to facilitate a
reorganization of the system with the potency of the tide
to unwind the lesion patterns. Various philosophical models
attempt explanation of the different approaches in the
“energetic” camp.
STRUCTURE
GOVERNS FUNCTION, AND FLUID TIDES GOVERN
STRUCTURE
Classical osteopathy works off the maxim that structure
governs function. Alter the physical body, and our
physiology becomes disturbed, which in turn alters how we
act and move, and think. Correct the disturbed structure(s)
and our system becomes righted and begins to put us back
into homeostasis and balance. Cranial work that uses a more
fluid approach would indicate that trauma and other
incidents alter the relationship of the fluid body at
cellular, tissue, and organ levels that put us out of
rhythm with a primary organizing tide. Allowing these
fundamental tidal flows or rhythms within the body to
reorganize the structures from within promotes well-being
and change. Both models support the idea that the ANS
(autonomic nervous system) provides for well-being and
physiological homeostasis, upon whose foundation the
organism sits. Few osteopaths take the view that an
ontological model may make more sense. Although they
recognize that there are many “other accidents” or forces
that impose themselves upon the fluid body, causing illness
and dysfunction, they take a singular view that the
physical structure rules supreme, and the ANS regulates and
maintains the inherent dynamic of the system. They do not
adhere to a more hidden causal affect whereby it is not
simply the physical world that imprints its influence but a
whole slew of unseen factors that press quietly and
constantly upon the body until the organism becomes
disorganized, which then predisposes it toward illness.
“THINKING /
FEELING / KNOWING” FINGERS
Effective somatic work is prone
to the vagaries of the practitioner’s own sense of
palpation: the capacity to “see” or illuminate that which
is felt, and to understand what one’s “thinking, feeling,
knowing” fingers actually are sensing. Awareness occurs at
many levels; but coupled with an understanding of anatomy,
our palpation feeds back an enormous amount of data,
interpreted through experience and knowledge. Surgical and
anatomical experience and an intimate understanding of the
workings of the body are the mainstay, and are pivotal
arguments for those in the osteopathic community who
consider that few others maintain their standards outside
of osteopathic medicine. It is perhaps why certain
contemporary cranial models have veered away from the
mechanistic anatomical model and sought a more energetic
approach.
LIMBIC
REFERENCE AND BIAS IN PALPATION
Practitioners extract diagnosis from initial history,
detailed observation, perhaps even nous, but primarily
elicit it through hands-on palpation. What is felt is
interpreted through an understanding CRANIAL FLUID DYNAMICS
of the “mechanism,” the palpation of a rhythm or its
nuance, and knowledge of anatomy. When we use our palpation
and other senses, the received data is tainted by our own
previous history even as we make a reflexive analysis. Our
perceptions are routed through our mammalian brain and
limbic system, where we sift, sort, and try to “mix and
match” our own experiential history with that which we are
at the moment perceiving. We assess through contrast and
comparison, and even though on occasions we may be fairly
accurate, many times our understanding may arise from an
approximate memory, from which we make our diagnosis and
take action. Recognizing that there is an infinitesimal
variety of human types, shapes, and individual histories,
our own limbic or internal assessment cannot ever gauge
properly the “map” or schemata of the ontologic roots of
illness and dysfunction, nor can our ordinary knowing, or
instinct, ever compete with inner wisdom.
GESTURES— A
PROTOLANGUAGE
Gestures developed prior to the advent of language, and
they can be used as a protolanguage. Most animals have
verbal or behavioral mannerisms that act as primitive, and
in some elaborate, gestures to warn, attract, alert, and
lure others of the pack or herd, or as a general warning in
moments of danger. Certainly higher mammals such as
chimpanzees and gorillas appear to have elaborate signing
gestures that also alert others to various needs, dangers,
or for social interaction. At the University of Washington,
experiments with signing taught to chimpanzees by Faulks
was initiated by earlier recognition in the forests of
Tanzania that these animals use gestures to communicate.
Babies are often observed, particularly when functionally
damaged, to place their fingers in precise and repeated
configurations (clinically we have seen damaged or
disturbed postpartum babies illustrate their woes with
gestures—their little fingers curled in simple contortions
and in elaborate configurations. After 20 years of using
gestures as a language, we now see that these little
gestures are modes which often (but not always) indicate
what is ailing them, and are extremely precise. This affect
announces their state nonverbally. Parallel to the
development of spoken language was the use of religious and
ritual processes designed to alter the state of the human
being. This sophistication of both language and gestures
parallels the awareness of the force or power of language
and of symbols.
Early icons, carvings,
sculptures, and paintings depict humans in ritualistic
poses (known also as a gestural pose) as well as depicting
hand gestures or mudras. Bronze casting of eastern sages or
a Buddha in meditative pose will often depict one hand or
both in a particular gesture (the word mudra comes from the
Sanskrit for seal meaning mystery, or from ancient Akkadian
(Iranian) musara meaning object bearing a royal
inscription. East Indian classical dancing tells ancient
religious stories through elaborate gestures both in body
and hand pose.
MUDRAS OR
HAND MODES
In contemporary society we see the reemergence of mudras—in
dance and worship or ritual and in yoga or meditative
practice. In Asia, where the religious or philosophical
were seen as parallel to the martial and secular, attempts
to elevate the rank of warrior to initiate was probably
exemplified by the monks of Shaolin in western China, who
augmented their martial arts training through ritualized
use of mudras and gestures that imparted physiological
changes to their warrior nature. The Eastern Christian
Church has an iconic art form depicting Jesus and his
disciples holding particular mudras or gestures. Some are
explained as an alliteration of Jesus’ name—a sign of his
initials, or as signs of Grace or blessing. The “fog” or
obtuseness in these ritualized forms is thought to impart
symbolic wisdom to the initiate or to invoke a change of
state in those who contemplated the icon itself.
Mudras are used in therapy in
Hindu branches of healing to change the internal state, and
as both something that alters the somatosensory cortex and
as a language. When mudras are used in conjunction with
ontological kinesiology, an offshoot of the practice of
muscle kinetics and function, they can be used to “ask” the
body-person what has occurred to cause the present
situation. This enables the practitioner to read the story,
and to find the root cause needing to be addressed. This
cuts to the chase, bypassing the literate and all-pervasive
mind, accessing the internal knowing to understand the
inner process that occurred. The mudras are used like
nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, stacking and creating a
storyboard, allowing the practitioner to hold the story,
whose force is the unseen element altering the fluid body.
It is this recognition of forces at work that changes the
client if they are able to rise above the influence of
their genome, past experience, emotions, habits, and errant
thoughts.
CRANIOSACRAL
THERAPY
In the
craniosacral model that utilizes fascia, dural, visceral,
and emotional work, the practitioner is taught to sense the
rhythm of the system to help facilitate or invoke a still
point. A still point is characterized by the center of the
storm —the balance point around which vectors of influence
have distorted the normal rhythm or dynamic of the system.
Change occurs when the vectors dissipate and the
relationship of the tissues and their innate rhythm
reasserts itself in normalcy. The practitioner learns to
listen, and yet their listening often only tunes into a
single rhythm rather than the complexity of the whole
organism.
TRAUBE-HERING
WAVE OR CRANIAL RHYTHMIC IMPULSE —A SUMMATION OF RHYTHMS
Osteopathic lore contends that there is a cranial rhythmic
impulse, a superficial but nevertheless pivotal resonance
frequency that when present indicates a dynamic healthy
system. This formal cranial rhythm is similar to the
Traube-Hering waves or beat (rhythmical variations in blood
pressure, usually extending over several respiratory
cycles, with a frequency varying from 6 to 10 cycles a
minute, related to variations in vasomotor tone. Modern
osteopathic research illustrates that this discordant wave
becomes synchronous after cranial manipulation and settles
into a 10 cycle rhythm, which has been known as the CRI or
cranial rhythmic impulse frequency, which oscillates
unevenly and in variance when the system is disorganized,
but when organized and congruent is noted to be about 10
cycles per minute.
It is almost always present but variable. However,
underneath this rhythm are a variety of other rhythms that
influence our health and capacity to heal. These rhythms
are the signs —albeit silent—of the system disorganized.
They act as keys to unlock deeper patterns, deeper
processes the being is undergoing.
KNOWING
VERSUS FEELING
The problem is that we rarely know —truly know what is
going on. We can intuit—that is feel through our own
emotional history and try to come to an understanding based
on our own experiences. We can “sniff or root it out”
instinctively, and chase and harass it until we have forced
our understanding of the hunt upon the “what” we think we
found. We can know by an educated analysis and by gestalt
guess, or be inspired by the muse within. But we may never
know what we are dealing with, even if the client agrees
with our observations.
KINESIOLOGY
In chiropractic, the development of muscle testing by
George Goodheart was an attempt to move away from intuitive
to cognitive therapy. Goodheart observed and illustrated
that remote switches could turn “off” or “on” muscle
spindles, not only localized trauma to the muscle fibers.
These switches altered muscle tonus, which in turn altered
the functional relationships of the body, resulting in
altered health. Applied Kinesiology (AK) mapped out a huge
array of bones, organs, acupoints, nutritional deficits,
meridian dysfunction, cranial and other bone lesions that
would affect particular or groups of muscles in functional
relationships. Alan Beardall brought into AK a gesture
language, or mudras. He used them as a form of
communication (called the Clinical Kinesiology)
ascertaining what corrective procedure, and in what order,
promoted the best and quickest resolution.
The modes helped to directly communicate information,
separate from the practitioner’s own needs and agendas,
that affect the accuracy of muscle testing. I used both
approaches extensively in my osteopathic practice. It
seemed to me while using Beardall’s work that a
mechanosomatic approach appeared often to miss the root
cause. Over many years, I, too, started to receive mudras
while in a state of surrender to the Great Life. These
seventeen hundred or so mudras make up a body of work that
looks at the ontological process behind dysfunction. Used
in conjunction with kinesiology, the mudras are assigned a
particular role—that asks the client to register or
acknowledge the mudra sequentially as a part of the syntax
of a story. The muscle testing elicits a change when the
relevant mudra is placed into the hand(s) of the client. We
stack a combination of mudras until their body lets us know
that this is the nuance or story line. We hold their body
in its state (story), allowing the force to facilitate
change of their distorted rhythms and tidal mechanisms.
ONTOLOGICAL
CRANIAL OSTEOPATHY—CRANIAL FLUID
DYNAMICS
An ontological approach enables us to observe or read how
the parts of the human organism have been displaced,
altered, or disordered; the accident that has occurred and
the reasons why the organism changed or altered its niche.
This may be an inherited disposition to do so, a lack of
adaptation, habitual patterning, or modes of thought that
predispose toward errant mindfulness. This ontologic model
is based upon a Neoplatonic, early Christian, Kabbalistic,
and Islamic theology and supported by the notion that
matter is energy, and energy is force.
We are composed of matter, within which are the phylogenic
remnants of all the subsystems or realms, and these,
operating at different frequencies, carry different
elements (or aspects of the differing realms) within them
exerting particular forces when time (and the power of an
accident) is applied. These alter the cranial rhythm and
the primary tide that organizes the whole.
Above: dominant genome - the
forces are out of order.
ONTOLOGICAL
KINESIOLOGY
Ontological Kinesiology uses mudras to read the story of a
disorganized system. It charts inherited or memetic
patterns, stored or constructed memories, environmental
nuances, emotional and sensory, habitual and instinctual,
and human beliefs, as well as higher models of thought and
understanding. We are able to find the root cause that
makes a particular life force—prana (material), qi
(vegetal), shamanic (animal), or human—become dominant and
disorganize the system. Each life force is a
manifestation/emanation of the various selves—parts of the
organism. We contain a material genomic self, a vegetal
autonomic, instinctual somatosensory, and human neocortical
part—all make up the being when we integrate, rhythms,
which in symphony are illustrated by “the” cranial rhythm
of 10 cycles per minute, in disarray or in dominance
superimpose their rhythms on the system. Our own awareness,
state, proclivities, and agenda superimposed upon what we
think we should feel often prevents us from seeing the
rhythmic mnemonic of the person’s state. This work allows
us to find the story and hold this as a shape when
palpating. Instead of manipulating or finding the still
point, we instead hold the body and its story. The system
changes by itself, as we become conscious of and mirror the
various forces that manifest through the structures of the
body—bone, matrix and organ, fascia and dura, brain motion,
ventricles and fluid. The person changes because they have
a companion who holds them in their story without
judgement, their hurts and accidents. As they find
stillness, they change because they meet the primary tide,
which rearranges, orders, widens, and integrates the fluid
being. They change because they are supported by a
conscious and cognitive awareness of their original
dysfunction, presenting both human choice to change and the
feeling within to do so.
SOLIHIN THOM,
DO (UK), DAc (SL), is author of Being Human:
Exploring the Forces that Shape Us and Awaken Inner Life.
He has taught Cranial Fluid Dynamics © in Russia, Europe,
the UK, and the U.S. for the last 20 years, which uses the
cranial system to augment well-being and a dynamic
relationship to Self.