Experiencing gravity and levity and balance

I dreamed I was dancing, able to leap high enough to touch the branches of trees, and to descend to the earth safely, only to do it again and again and again, higher, higher, almost floating back down, with buoyancy.

How exhilarating!

So… We were talking about the Tide, about sensing the Tide ascending and descending in your central energy channel.

How to be still and bring your awareness to that channel, the channel that is home to and connects your chakras.

The cranial pole of the channel (crown, sahasrara chakra) opens upward, to heaven, the cosmos, the universe, spirit.

That upward direction is called levity.

The sacral pole of the channel (root or muladhara chakra) opens to the earth.

That direction is called gravity.

Gravity and levity. Grounded and open to Spirit: balance.

My dream was about levity.

Who needs a dream like this?

Someone who is growing a private practice in Craniosacral Biodynamics, exploring Biodynamic Meditation with you :-), teaching, making 5 trips this year for training and personal growth, who is now also looking at a new location after 12 years in the same place.

Lots going on. Balance needed.

Today’s Biodynamic Meditation was about breathing, posture, sensing Tide. I invited a cranial stillpoint. Ajna chakra, radiance at my face, crown chakra. Swirliness in my cranium, then in my abdomen at manipura chakra, then in pelvis, ending with sacral stillpoint.

Balanced.

We are exploring what we’re exploring with ~ Gabrielle Roth

Yesterday I wrote about discovering the Tide in you.

It may take a few efforts to discover the sensation that ascends and descends in your central energy channel.

That sensation forms the basis of our inherent healing process, aka swirliness.

It’s there, working for us, maintaining life, all of the time, in various forms: Tide, stillpoints, swirliness.

The founder of this lineage called it Primary Respiration.

Bio (life) + dynamic (power).

It was pouring rain during this morning’s Biodynamic Meditation.

Like the solid sound of hard rain, my meditation felt solid and full.

Breathing, ajna chakra, Tide, sit bones, radiance at my face, abdomen, cranium.

A sensation I’ve occasionally felt before, of something like pressure on my body.

This time, pressure surrounding my cranium.

Is it shaping me somehow? Is it trying to get inside me?

Mystery.

Photo from Big Bend National Park: Rio Grande. Mexico on left, Texas on right.

Re-Sourcing for change and challenges ahead

“Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life.” ~ Dogen Zenji

This quote from Dogen has stayed with me from my early Zen days, and I’m finding it handy when life presents challenges.

Yesterday I learned that I may need to find a new place to live in the coming months.

This morning, my adored one messaged he’d started having symptoms of COVID. I’ve been exposed. I’ve escaped it so far, one of the few.

Here I sit with change, hoping for the best outcomes on all counts, holding confidence in that.

My Biodynamic Meditation was deep. Breaths, posture, radiance at my face, Tide in central energy channel. Healing energy in pelvis, heart center, ajna chakra, balancing my instinctive, emotional, and mental centers.

The healing energy knows I need to be resourceful. It knows!

Sometimes in Craniosacral Biodynamics sessions, the practitioner’s head involuntarily nods, from brainwaves heading into delta territory.

That happened, too. Delta, change.

To witness healing, be present and get out of the way

Feeling grateful this morning, for creation. For you, me, life.

My Biodynamic Meditation today: physiological sighs, settling into sitting posture, noticing tidal motion in central energy channel, monkey mind thinking, healing energy focusing for a bit in abdomen, then longer at cranium.

The sensations today in my cranium were not of bones subtly becoming more aligned, but of the dura mater at my temples and behind my forehead shifting, optimizing.

It’s still happening as I write, this incremental nature of healing.

We are made of energy patterns that shift in response to experience. Healing is about both being present and also getting out of the way to allow our patterns to optimize.

We get to witness this in Biodynamic Meditation.

Effervescence and soothing kindness nurture my vitality

My Biodynamic Meditation session this morning was about breath, awareness of my central energy channel, awareness of the Tide moving up and down and then settling at my sacrum as healing energy for a bit, moving up to my solar plexus region, and then to my crown chakra.

The energetic sensation was that of effervescence at my sacrum and my crown, and like soothing kindness at my solar plexus.

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Self-healing starts with intention

My intent when starting today’s Biodynamic Meditation was to keep my attention focused more on my sensation, with little distraction from my monkey mind.

It worked.

Intention is so powerful. It’s like making a promise to yourself and then honoring it.

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You are magic and can do anything!

Tuesday is magic skeleton day! You can do anything!

Did you even know that your bones are 31 percent water?

My Biodynamic Meditation this morning had a lot of Tide moving in my central energy channel.

The swirliness settled in the lower part of my sacrum and then in my sphenoid.

The sphenoid is a mostly hidden bone that many are unaware of.

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Biodynamic Meditation, Day 57

I slept from 10:30pm until about 5:30am. When I woke, I was comfortable lying in bed and not ready to get up, although my mind was active.

So I listened to a Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep, or non-sleep deep rest) recording on YouTube.

The best Yoga Nidra recording I’ve found so far is I AM Yoga Nidra by Liam Gillen, 38:41.

He guides you to relax deeply using breathing, intention, awareness of sensations, attention to chakras, stilling the mind, deepening awareness.

Sort of like what I’m doing in my Biodynamic Meditations (although he skips the Tide).

It’s teaching me more about how to teach. My session this morning was deeper after listening to his Yoga Nidra.

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Biodynamic Meditation posts on Instagram

I started studying craniosacral therapy in 2011 while still a massage student, after receiving it monthly for 3 years and understanding its sometimes-subtle but cumulative benefits to my health and well-being.

I started studying craniosacral biodynamics in 2013. Three days after learning it existed and hearing it described, I was in a class.

It’s a passion of mine. I’ve taken dozens of classes since, in both biodynamic and directive, Upledger-style CST. I’ve taken several classes multiple times and been a teaching assistant.

Craniosacral biodynamics works quite a bit with interoception, the “felt sense” in oneself.

A lot of the language in my classes was highly conceptual even though referring to felt states. There’s a big gap between concept and experience, between the map and the territory. It was frustrating!

What does the Breath of Life feel like? How do you distinguish the different tides? What does a still point feel like? How do you track potency? What about the different stages? What the heck is Dynamic Stillness and how do you get there?

I started experimenting with trying to sense these concepts in my meditation practice and had some pretty profound experiences, such as feeling like I was in the ocean and currents were flowing through and around me, experiencing a me-shaped hole of emptiness surrounded by dense energies holding me in place, the sense of being breathed, and the like.

But they were random experiences and I still didn’t know the names for them or how to get there. Hence pursuing more training.

Sequencing is important in a yoga class. You prepare carefully with easier poses and work up to the harder poses you didn’t think you could do — and then, wow, you’re doing them! It’s important in teaching and learning Craniosacral Biodynamics, too, guided by carefully considered preparation.

All of these states and experiences have helped me become more whole and healthy, wise and compassionate about our common human experience. They help me heal, and I do have experiences to heal from, still.

Samsara can be so rough.

I am an investigator, an Enneagram 5. I am driven by curiosity and learning and compassion. I came into this world to make a difference, and although side-lined by early difficulties, I’m doing it now.

Where I am now is this: I have a private practice in West Lake Hills, an old Austin suburb, where I offer two specialties: Craniosacral Biodynamics and TMJ Relief.

I also offer the same specialties in downtown Austin, at West Holistic Medicine.

And, I’m doing an experiment on Instagram. Every day I do a #biodynamicmeditation and post about it on Instagram. I choose images and music to accompany my words. It’s fun and growing, gaining followers, including teachers of Craniosacral Biodynamics.

If you want to follow me there, I’m @mareynolds. These posts also appear on my Facebook business page and on Tumblr and LinkedIn.

What’s behind this new endeavor? Well, if I could receive a Biodynamic session every day, I would! But I can’t afford it and don’t always have time.

However, I do have time to meditate every day. So do you, most likely, on most days.

So I practice Biodynamic Meditation and post about it, with an eye to eventually teaching it as a recognized form of meditation where the focus is on self-healing and restoring vitality. You can follow my progress.

Whatever we couldn’t process at the time gets contained energetically. Sometimes we experience releases and may or may not be aware of it. We feel more ourselves, more centered, grounded, vibrant, confident, resourceful.

Craniosacral Biodynamics greatly augments the body-mind’s ability to heal itself of dysregulation, stuckness, inertia.

When that energy is released, it returns to our overall vitality and well-being.

It accelerates wellness.

I’ve been practicing Biodynamics in meditation, in classes, and with clients for almost a decade. I am far from enlightened, though I have moments of deep presence and clarity about who I am, why I’m here, and what I want.

I am much healther, grounded, centered, aware, bigger minded, and bigger hearted than I used to be. And people who have known me for that long or longer have noticed.

This is where I am now, and I appreciate you reading about my process. There will be more to come, I’m sure. If you have questions, please ask!