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.
Continue readingToday’s Biodynamic Meditation was different.
Radiance at my face from the start, after 5 physiological sighs.
Tide moving up and down in my central energy channel.
No stillpoint unless it was brief, more of a pause.
Then…sensations in the skin, especially of my arms and legs. Pleasurable.
Continue readingWhen I wake up too early, I listen to a Yoga Nidra guided meditation on YouTube, led by Liam Gillen.
That happened this morning.
I’d stopped it from playing about halfway through the last time I listened so I could sleep.
This morning it started where I’d left off, and I realized I’d never heard the second half of it!!
It’s that good at getting me to sleep.
What I heard was a guided tour of the chakras, moving energy up the central channel, chakra by chakra, from root to crown.
Continue readingGo within and find the dance.
We are polyrhythmic beings.
Breath. Heartbeat. Circulation. Tides. Internal and external rotations. Digestion. Circadian rhythms. Fluid motion. Cellular activity. Neuronal activity. Lymph flow. And so much more.
To become still in body and mind is to begin to sense the magnificent dance occurring within each of us.
L’chaim!
Continue readingYears ago, a Zen teacher gave me a koan, a topic of inquiry: whole body awareness.
I started exploring this, and when I reported a discovery, she’d say, “That’s one way.”
That inquiry changed my life, and it’s ongoing.
In Biodynamic Meditation, the quality of our attention matters.
There’s the object of our attention. Is it small, large, near, far, internal, external? Known or unknown? Whole or a part?
Continue readingThe three most basic skills of meditation are posture, internal awareness, and returning to internal awareness when the mind wanders.
Many meditation practices begin with breathwork to bring awareness into the body and to cultivate a state of calm.
In Biodynamic Meditation, the next step is awareness of sensations, without any judgment or story, just simple awareness, nerves transmitting sensations to the brain.
Some people are internally oriented, and it will take less practice to maintain awareness of their sensations.
Others, like me, have worked at it for a long time. It does get easier with practice.
Continue readingI’m switching to another type of breathwork when I start my daily Biodynamic Meditation.
Brand new research published in the prestigious journal Cell shows that 5 minutes of cyclic sighing is more effective at improving mood and reducing anxiety than 20 minutes of mindfulness meditation.
Cyclic sighing, also called the physiological sigh, was first brought to public attention by the Huberman Lab podcast from the Stanford University neurobiology lab.
To do cyclic sighing, you inhale quickly and then inhale quickly again to fill your lungs, and then exhale slowly. Repeat.
It’s like this: Sniff. Sniff. Ahhhhhhhh.
Continue readingThis morning I woke with a twinge in my sacrum. It’s the area affected by multiple old injuries.
I did some movement that helped.
After I started my Biodynamic Meditation session, I sensed a couple of sweeps of the Tide, and then it settled into a sacral stillpoint.
I’m not sure exactly when that stillpoint became swirliness, because the swirliness only made small swirls with lots of pauses in the tissues on the back of my sacrum for the rest of my 30-minute session.
Old injuries are often complex. They can affect muscles, fascia, ligaments, tendons, nerves, blood flow, bones, etc.
Continue reading“We are exploring what we’re exploring with.” ~ Gabrielle Roth
I’ve been looking for an image showing the central energy channel through which the Tide flows in Biodynamic Meditation (and Craniosacral Biodynamics). (This post is one in a series of posts on practicing Biodynamic Meditation, on Instagram, this blog, and Facebook.)
This one is closer to what I experience than most of the images.
There are maps…and then there’s the territory, conceptual information and felt experience.
IMO, we need maps to show us where we’re going. The territory is what we’re exploring.
In yoga anatomy, the sushumna nadi is the channel that connects the crown of the head to the pelvic floor.
Continue readingThis morning in my Biodynamic Meditation, the Tide was elusive.
I did 12 Bhastrikas, settled into sukhasana, and tuned into my body.
I sensed my midline, seeking the rising and falling sensation of tidal motion.
Nothing.
Was I in a stillpoint? I couldn’t tell! I didn’t feel a pooling of energy at either my cranial or sacral areas.
I remember when I first started getting acquainted with Biodynamics 10 years ago, seeking the tide and not finding it.
Then, one day I found it, or part of it, in my abdomen along my midline or central channel.
Continue reading
The Well: bodymindheartspirit 