I want to reinvent the term “somatic” with this chapter. Somatics comes from a rich experiential therapeutic tradition centered in the lived experience of the body. It is rooted in the philosophy of the phenomenology of the body. It has gradually fallen out of usage in the past decade with the proliferation of many body-centered approaches to health and healing which actually means it is no longer a marketable term for the masses. I believe however, that the term “biodynamic” is replacing it as a descriptor for lived experience in the body and a therapeutic process that supports awareness of internal aliveness. I would like to define the word “biodynamic” in its various uses for the reader. Then I would like to define the way the concept of biodynamics is used particularly in the context of embryology and the way biodynamic is used to describe a discrete therapeutic process in a new manual therapeutic art called biodynamic craniosacral therapy. To do this I will need to form a bridge to regulation theory in pre and perinatal psychology. This will include a specific look at how an infant regulates his brain physiologically, how an embryo regulates its growth and development metabolically, and the link between these two developmental periods. I will then conclude this chapter with the idea that biodynamic practice is a paradigm shift in the manual therapeutic arts and indeed does have applications to other health care practitioners as well.  

To start it is important to remember that cranial osteopaths and cranial practitioners are not the only ones using the term biodynamic. When Franklyn Sill’s first book Craniosacral Biodynamics, Volume One came out, he got a call from the European biodynamic psychology folks claiming turf. This was from a unique type of body-centered therapy pioneers in Europe who had developed an approach started by Gerda Boyesen and originally called psychoperistalsis. Biodynamic psychology has a much better ring to it. In my research, I found that the Rudolf Steiner community also uses the term biodynamic to describe an ultra form of organic gardening and soil preparation. Biodynamic farmers reference the myths surrounding Demeter who was the female god of all earth and sea and represents a seminal part of their biodynamic culture. Thus it could be said that biodynamics is a proper course of inquiry because there is also a mythology associated with the biodynamic concept as well as conflict and tension from different communities who use it as a descriptor for their work. Of special note is the fact that the word is used by the founders and developers of Osteopathy in the Cranial Field also in a spiritual context by the use of related metaphors to the Breath of Life, the Master Mechanic, and other such terms found in their literature. Dr. William G. Sutherland himself said that one could consider osteopathy and therefore the cranial concept to be religious in nature. Osteopathy in some circles is considered to be a theology of the body in this light. Even the Rolf Institute held a kind of Inquisition around the use and misuse of the word itself and the “right” to use it. Thus the term “biodynamic” has become loaded with therapeutic, psychological, religious and mythic overtones. In other words, it is a big story, a very big story. 

So what is “biodynamic”? The word biodynamic, as it is specifically used in the cranial community comes from experimental embryology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It simply means wholeness. The question that many biologists experimenting with embryos spent nearly the whole of the last century exploring with their embryonic newts and salamanders was how wholeness is conserved through progressive stages of complexity in the form of an embryo up to an adult human or frog or chicken. It required a whole new paradigm. The conclusion among many biologists was that wholeness was related to biochemistry and nowadays that means molecular genetics. This was a deduction based on an observation. Historically, from a theoretical biology and experimental embryology point of view, biodynamic means wholeness. It is the element of completeness that is seen in each stage of embryonic development.

Biodynamics actually began as a concept and an observation from experimental embryologists at the end of the 19th century. It originally lacked a proper description but that is not the original scientific method. First there is the observation and then a metaphor to describe something, then the experiments and then the verbal description for a new paradigm. The central theoretical and intellectual inquiry of those early biologists was how the wholeness of the embryo was carried forward in successive stages of development. The embryo became the new metaphor that was concurrently supported by the emerging paradigm of genetics except for a little detour by a German embryologist. 

Along came Dr. Erich Blechschmidt in the 1940s, who in his later writings suggested that the theoretical notion of wholeness was precisely related to the submicroscopic organizing or ordered movements in the fluids of the embryo. He used the term “biodynamic” to describe the properties of these organizing movements. Dr. Blechschmidt, in the glossary of his first book in English, The Beginnings of Human Life, defined the word biodynamics as “a special category of vital phenomena.” Then he said, “biodynamics implies biochemistry.” That’s it. Not much more explanation. So one has to look at his later writings, talk to his colleagues such as Dr. Raymond Gasser or Dr. Seidel at the Blechschmidt Museum in Germany and try to tease out a greater meaning. Rather than use the word wholeness which experimental embryologists were using at the time, he used the word “entirety.” His writings in English imply that he observed submicroscopic movement in the fluids that generate, maintain and sustain (much like a catalyst) the fields of cellular activity in the embryo that metabolize the raw building materials of the embryo into the structure and function of the body. All of this goes on within the context of the fluid form of an embryo – which is a water being that over time congeals into the structure and function of the fetus, infant, child and adult. He went on to say that the genes were not self-activating but needed an impulse coming from the fluids.

To understand and palpate wholeness as a movement is to understand and palpate wholeness as a self-organizing principle in the body. In other words, there is a discrete and palpable movement in the embryo and the adult that generates order as Dr. Blechschmidt said. Both Dr. Blechschmidt and Dr. Sutherland said the ordering movement is located in the fluids. They were saying the same thing except from a different perspective. To make a leap now, I would like to propose that the submicroscopic self-organizing movement in the fluids is the one called “Primary Respiration” by Dr. Sutherland (because I sense it as a long slow subtle breath all around and inside my body). This is no longer a theory but a sensory experience and a clinical observation that I have verified thousands of times. Consequently the rest of this discussion may seem theoretical unless the reader has sensed Primary Respiration. Furthermore, there is a matrix of form called the human embryo in which the activity of Primary Respiration takes place and is conserved throughout the lifespan. Form is the totality of all structure-function relationships in the embryo at any given time. Wholeness is thus a self-ordering movement and a three-dimensional form in the image of an embryo called Primary Respiration. It is rather hard to wrap your neurons around this until you have a direct palpatory experience of it. It is non-linear. One has to touch it and feel it in the hands and heart.

Of course there are many types of movements and vectors in the fluids, but I am specifically referring to a slow one that Dr. Sutherland originally called the “Long Tide” or “Primary Respiration”. The discovery that Dr. Sutherland and his students made in the middle of the 20th century was that something subtle and very powerful was directing the healing process. He originally referred to it as the “Breath of Life.” It is what I am now calling wholeness, although some would call it love so I will call it love as well. He further observed that it was moving in the fluids but it was not of the body’s fluids. Primary Respiration is a perceptual experience of living, moving wholeness, and perhaps the embryo is the image of love if I may be so poetic. Some other Osteopaths and biodynamic practitioners make distinctions about the perception of the Breath of Life and use other descriptive language, images and metaphors all of which is part of the unique perceptual and palpatory experience of the whole. Images and metaphors are extremely useful in describing the preverbal experience of our particular origin in the womb and remember that Primary Respiration reveals itself differently to everyone in the sense of its perceptual sequence. 

I personally have had a direct perception of this movement called Primary Respiration and can access it anytime, with or without a client in my body and around my body. It is a perception of wholeness because of my senses being totally immersed in it and its three-dimensionality out to the horizon and back. It is outside my body and it orients to specific places called fulcrums and axes inside my body. Where does it come from? I do not know. It seems however to frequently trade places in my perception with a deep stillness. I am able to sense it within moments of attending to it by evenly suspending my attention throughout my whole body, the total surface of my skin, and then all around me and out to the horizon. But that is not enough because wholeness is a type of breathing, and it is a reciprocal type of breathing. My suspended attention then begins to move back and forth in rhythmic phases of fifty seconds. Out for fifty and in for fifty or up for fifty and down for fifty, and so forth. I am not attending to tissue but to the image of the contents and surroundings of my body being a fluid medium with multiple currents. This is the new metaphor and the new body-centered practice that seeks contact with the fluids rather than the tissues of the body. What is amazing for me is how easy it is for students to sense this.  

Therefore, I have concluded that wholeness is the movement of Primary Respiration perceived to be occurring in the total fluid medium of the body. It is coming from outside my body when I orient my head and neck to the horizon. It is coming from the earth when I lie supine on the ground, and, most interestingly, I can sense it between my heart and the heart of my spiritual teacher or the heart of my client. I can sense it directing the session of work with clients and its relationship to the deep stillpoint that it dances with and trades places with during the treatment. This is of particular relevance to all health care practitioners and especially manual therapists because of the importance of accessing stillness frequently during any session of therapy for the sake of integration. This makes biodynamic practice a slow therapy. 

The way in which the wholeness of the embryo is conserved during a lifetime of shape shifting called development and differentiation is through the 100-second cycle of Primary Respiration, or what is sometimes called “the Long Tide”, “the tide”, or “the primary respiratory impulse”. It is like the catalytic converter of the embryo for the enormous amount of work that the embryo does in its growth. Proportionally the embryo has a much larger basal metabolism than the adult body. It is working incredibly hard, and it is interesting to note that human embryos spontaneously abort more than the embryos of any other species on the planet. Up to 60%-70% of all human embryos fail to make it to term. It is hard work being an embryo! 

Saying wholeness is a movement is a pretty bold statement and requires perceptual verification by a trained practitioner. As Dr. Sutherland said, “this is not an idle dream” (or, as I would say it, “this is not a new age fantasy”). To review, the first defining principle of biodynamics is: Wholeness is the movement of Primary Respiration and its perception as a therapeutic force in the fluids of the body. I believe that this is what Dr. Blechschmidt meant by “the law of the continuity of individuality”.  The corollary to this first principle is that the therapeutic force of Primary Respiration originates outside the body and thus exhibits its influence from the outside-in. Several books are necessary to explain these principles properly which is what I have undertaken here with these books I have written. Biodynamics is a whole new paradigm rather than an eclectic therapy.

So let me switch gears now a little bit. You don’t have to accept this business regarding how I am defining biodynamics, but hold it as a possibility because – as Dr. Ida Rolf was fond of saying – “you can’t get there from here” but we can at least try to have a basic understanding. The next edge biodynamics explores is to find a contemporary unifying theory to hold all of this information together. It requires a theory that is inclusive of several domains of knowledge and research. Along comes Dr. Allan Schore, who has begun to codify what is called “regulation theory” in infant brain development from numerous streams of literature. He kind of holds the patent on the incredibly complex understanding of the orbitofrontal cortex of the brain. I will talk a little bit about this because it really is groundbreaking work and you can read about it in detail in the section of this book on infants and children. He points out that the fundamental developmental vector in the late fetal brain and the first two years after birth is the self-regulation of the emotions. Regulation theory derives from an enormous body of research material in the attachment and bonding literature. The new paradigm is now simply called “affective neuroscience.” 

One of Dr. Schore’s principles is that the client-therapist relationship is a direct analog of the mother-infant relationship. The client-therapist relationship is the other half of the equation when contacting the fluids of the body. Affective neuroscience describes a process of resonance and attunement that occurs between the right hemispheres of the infant-caregiver dyad. It is the same process when any two people seek proximity to one another or withdraw from one another. It is especially enhanced in any therapeutic relationship involving manual therapy because of the physical contact that a practitioner makes with the client. Recent research has discovered a discrete set of nerve pathways from the skin that goes to a center in the right hemisphere that reads the context of the touch rather than the sensory component of it. This context center gets sensitized during infancy as to whether touch is nurturing and loving. That center can be damaged and thus the adult client may misread the contact unconsciously and disregulate the autonomic nervous system. There is no conscious recall of the touch history because it occurred in the pre-verbal time of life. The trauma resolution paradigm really speaks to this dilemma. 

Recently, the term “neuroaffective touch” was coined by the Schore Study group at UCLA. It is a term that recognizes a degree of “palpatory literacy” necessary to hold the pre and perinatal memories being held in the client’s body. It further implies that the physical contact with a client is gentle, subtle and synchronized with a slow tempo. I believe biodynamic craniosacral practitioners are using that quality of touch because of the influence on the community of (Somatic Experiencing founder) Peter Levine and other important clinicians like Pat Ogden, Robert Scaer and Daniel Siegel who are promoting body-centered trauma resolution work. The reason this is important is because the infant’s entire organism, as well as its brain, develops best when it can synchronize with a slow endogenous tempo and be physically held and nurtured by a low-stress caregiver. This describes a biodynamic attachment process as much between a client and therapist as it does between the infant and caregiver because the contact is so slow, still, warm and tender mimicking a “secure” attachment. 

I have seen this over and over again and write about it in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, Volume 1. Much of my clinical experience over the past twenty-five years has been with infants and children. I originally had been practicing Rolfing and biomechanical craniosacral therapy with infants who have severe brain damage and evolved into treating infants with feeding problems or complications arising from c-section and vacuum extraction deliveries. Infants are always more responsive when someone in the room is actively engaged in the perception of Primary Respiration or resting in a stillpoint. I have verified this for myself by observing cardiovascular monitoring equipment when I work with medically fragile children. I can see all the parameters – such as blood pressure, heart rate, etc. – in the infant or child become lower when I am synchronized with Primary Respiration, and the positive affect that this has on the healing process is obvious to me and the pediatric therapists that are present.  

Treating someone biodynamically also means that the practitioner needs to spend a majority of the time in a session sensing his own body and accessing a slow tempo. This allows for a biodynamic self-regulation to occur across nervous systems and fluid fields. This creates a resonance that down-regulates autonomic activation or withdrawal states in the client. Biodynamics in this sense is an attunement to these slow tides in the practitioner first which recognizes the need to remain differentiated in the therapeutic relationship and oriented to a slow tempo in the client. Even psychotherapists are now being coached to sense their own bodies to be more effective biodynamically with their clients. The basic idea here is that the client is trying to learn to self-regulate in two ways. The first is autonomously, or what is called a “top-down” ability of the executive control centers in the frontal cortex of the brain to consciously lower states of activation in the limbic system and body when alone. The second, using the same neural pathways, is through relationship and the way in which I down-regulate states of activation when I am with another person non-violently or non-aggressively This corresponds to what Dr. Schore calls “experience-dependent maturation” of the infant’s brain which is caused from the activity of the caregiver’s brain, her gesture and touch, her eye gaze and sounds being interpreted by the infant’s sensory systems and brain. These are the two basic types of self-regulation and are directly related to what Dr. Blechschmidt called an “outside-in influence” in the embryo from fluids to cell membrane to cytoplasm to cell nucleus. But in the case of the infant the outside influence is the mother’s attunement. The underlying metabolic processes in the embryo are directly related to the physiological processes in the infant can therefore be described as biodynamic. Both self-regulatory processes are designed to be slow, purposeful and well-organized. I believe that the intention of many of the manual therapeutic arts has always been about creating autonomy for the client and thus supporting self-regulation. When this occurs at the same pace and same attunement as the infant-mother relationship it is biodynamic. This is why I now believe that the term “somatic” could be renamed as biodynamic. 

We have to move infant regulation theory, however, back to the embryo and even the pre-conception time of when the egg originally differentiated in the mother’s ovary when she herself was an embryo inside her mother’s womb. There are many stages of egg development before fertilization by a sperm, so fertilization is considered to be the next stage of development and not the beginning of life at all. But rather than talk about the genetics of egg development and embryology, as a manual therapist it is more important to understand and then feel the morphology (shape changing) of the embryo. This will circle us back to the discussion of Primary Respiration and fluid movement. The wholeness of the embryo is self-regulated through properties found in its form. Form is defined as the totality of all structures and functions in the embryo. Form involves the following description of fluid behavior: symmetry, polarity, morphology, fields of physical metabolism and tensegrity, character structure (growth as gesture), constitution (heredity) and structure-function relationships. In a biodynamic embryology the form of the embryo itself is a visible image of wholeness. Fluid behaviors are the behaviors of the whole. In other words, the movement of Primary Respiration takes place within a fluid-form matrix and it generates shapes and structures in the fluid body of the embryo as one osteopath calls it. The fluid body is the total systemic fluid medium of the developing embryo and Primary Respiration is its brain, so to speak. This is the biodynamic human embryo. This is what I believe Dr. Sutherland referred to as the “blueprint” of form and function carried by Primary Respiration.

A gene responsible for the form and its shaping process that we inhabit has not been discovered yet, and until then this is a plausible explanation because it is a both a perceptual experience and clinical observation more than a theory. This is a study of the physical laws effecting growth and development coming from “outside-in”, whether an embryo, an infant or an adult. The physics of it “implies” the biochemistry of the embryo and together they become biology. Biochemistry is about genetics these days, but as Rolf implied with her life’s work, I cannot get my hands on the genes. I can, however, sense the shaping processes of the embryo in the fluid body of my adult clients. Hundreds and hundreds of clients report a deeper sensory experience or an image of wholeness from biodynamic craniosacral therapy, as well as from other modalities including Rolfing. The therapeutic experience is reported with different language, images, and metaphors that are uniquely non-cognitive because regulation theory is about a time of development development that takes place in a pre-verbal state.

How does one describe the experience of sentient fluids congealing into a specific structure? We need a whole new language and metaphor other than nervous system sensation generated by soft tissue manipulation that travels to the brain and back down to the body. We need something more three-dimensional or perhaps four-dimensional and descriptive of living fluids that were present before a nervous system even differentiated in the embryo. There is an enormous amount of kinetic metabolism that takes place prior to sensory neurons differentiating at twenty-eight days post-fertilization and ample literature on the experiences of those first twenty-eight days from regression therapy and analytical therapy from as far back as the 1940s. That preverbal time has what is called a homologous link to adult physiology but needs to be accessed differently by a biodynamic practitioner. Biodynamic also describes the state of mind and body of the practitioner which is the priority in therapeutic work rather than the client. What the practitioner is accessing in himself and the client is the behavior of the fluids. 

Fluids behave biokinetically which involves dynamic morphology. Dynamic morphology describes the active shaping processes that occur during each of the first three weeks of embryonic development and weeks four through eight or the end of the embryonic period. During each of these four stages of morphology the embryo undergoes a different shaping process unique to that week or stage. The purpose of the shaping is to orient the embryonic being to time and space, which are the precursors to a body’s orientation to gravity. For instance, this means that in the first week, its morphology has a symmetry that is very inward directed and thus a significant amount of compression occurs. The first orientation is coming “in” to form. The second week is very outward directed and thus a lot of decompression and tension. The second orientation is going “out” to make contact with the environment. Such orientation causes symmetry to arise in the structure of the embryo and is necessary for self-regulation at a metabolic level. The orienting embryo must build a system of cavities to create a boundary around its fluids. Think of the early embryo as three concentric spheres of fluid one within the other and each with its own metabolism and purpose. The boundaries of the cavities generate an inner membrane layer that creates a metabolism of autonomy and an outer membrane layer that is more permeable and open to an exchange with the environment. This permeable layer is the metabolism of relationship. Remember, this is a shaping process and a growth process that is biodynamic as well as biochemical. Dr. Blechschmidt felt there was more physics involved in early growth and development then there was biochemistry. Furthermore, the embryo is free of the influence of gravity and more under the influence of buoyancy or lift in the fluid body for the purpose of symmetrical orientation and metabolic self-regulation. The fluids of the embryo have discrete directions that they move in, such as along a longitudinal axis usually associated with a tissue boundary and a movement perpendicular to that axis. Manual therapy that only works with the effects of gravity is perinatal in its application in that the major effects of gravity come on-line after birth. A biodynamic therapy takes into account the biodynamic formative forces in the prenatal time of development as being more important in the clinical process not in the sense of being better but simply as a correct sequence. 

In the beginning of the third week of embryonic development, the symmetry of the embryo becomes oriented to a midline called the primitive streak and then the notochord. With a midline the embryo can orient to the basic directions of right and left, top and bottom, front and back; this is essential as embodiment begins to occur at this time. A middle develops and it becomes the body. The heart and future muscles and bones start to differentiate. I would like to reinforce an important aspect regarding the metabolic function of the midline, and that is that it is a distusion field. This means that the tissue itself is being pulled in opposite directions, and because of its position in the embryo, it is kinetically still. Dr. Blechschmidt felt that this was critically important because all growth and development was oriented to the function of stillness from the beginning and now the stillness became visible in the sense of the stillness shifting from a point in the fluids to an actual cellular structure. Stillness became embodied in the core of the body. This is one reason that biodynamic practice starts by orienting to stillness, which gives the practitioner clear access to observing the activity of these embryonic fields.

Finally, during the fourth week to the end of the embryonic period, an orientation to folding and unfolding becomes possible. It is here where the human embryo explores freedom which is a big story covered in my first Volume of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. Of course there are numerous other overlapping metabolic processes happening by then, but orientation to stillness and self-regulation through attunement to a slow tempo are the biodynamic ways that wholeness is conserved through very complex development. I believe that Rolfing is a related field of biodynamics because of its interest in establishing fascial symmetry around a midline. What is fascia? It is thick fluid. It has a different gradients of viscosity in it. Imagine being able to access the less congealed state of the fascia that is not bound by gravity but by the lift of the fluids. This is the embryo and it is still present in the adult. 

Then we have the business of metabolic fields as I mentioned above which is another aspect of biokinetics also mentioned. A through description of all the metabolic fields can be found in the section on embryology later in this book. Some students think that this business of field activity was Dr. Blechschmidt’s idea. But the notion of embryonic fields consisting of differential areas of fluid activity or “sub-wholes” in the embryo came into the scientific embryology literature in the 1920s once again by the experimental embryologists. This is really another aspect of biodynamic practice that is vitality important in the cranial community and manual therapy in general. The eight metabolic fields that Dr. Blechschmidt described are construction zones in the overall site plan (form) of the condensing fluid body. They are defined by their different positions, shapes, and interrelationships. They are definitely something a practitioner can get his hands on, because Dr. Sutherland discovered their homologue in the adult body. Specifically, these movements are described as flexion-extension, compression-tension, side bending-rotation, torsion-shearing, inferior-superior vertical strains, etc. When a practitioner orients to stillness and self-regulates biodynamically, these biokinetic fields actually appear as specific shapes and vector patterns in the practitioner’s hands as a kind of template subsequent to the four stages of symmetry and morphology described above; this is done while simultaneously maintaining a wide perceptual attention within the context of the total fluid system of the body via Primary Respiration, rather than specific end condensations like the cranial base as is traditionally taught in biomechanical work. These fields have zones of activity called polarities. One polarity is sensed as different gradients of density and temperatures in the fluids along or perpendicular to a membrane axis.

A major polarity begins at the end of the first week, when the first stem cell lines become apparent. The first two stem cell lines are a division into two separate bodies. Dr. van der Wal calls these the “central body” of the embryo (which ultimately becomes the soma) and the “peripheral body” (which ultimately becomes the placenta). This type of polarity is more like a bifurcation of the form of the embryo itself into two wholes that are mirroring one another but with different bias in their chemical metabolism. There is a certain elegance here, because the central body projects function to the peripheral body biodynamically (streaming of information in the fluids). In other words, the outer layer of cells, in contact with the uterine environment, contains liver enzymes and hormones being produced by the peripheral body and all sorts of interesting movements, areas of stillness and specialized cells on its inner lining. This is the metabolism of relationship, because the peripheral body is in contact with the uterine environment with its outer layer of cells. The central body has no specific structure called a “liver” or “glandular tissue”. It prefers its autonomy for as long as it can by first establishing two fluid cavities called the yolk sac and amniotic sac before it connects to the periphery. The communication between the two bodies is through the fluids biodynamically with the ultimate biological intention being connected blood to blood. The mother’s blood is being invited to connect to the embryo’s blood that is already being produced in the second week. Blood attracts blood, so to speak. The central body is autonomous and early on is not even directly connected to the periphery by tissue – only by the biodynamic movements in the fluids between them.

The process of projecting function by the metabolism of the central or autonomous body to the periphery (until the structure arises internally) becomes a physiological process in the fetus and infant. This means that the infant manages his autonomic nervous system by projecting it to the mother and consequently having it reflected back in a settled state (ideally). Finally, the function of projection becomes psychological in the adult. The strong emotions that I can’t handle get projected on to other people around me until I can re-own them with the proper psychospiritual structure for such. Thus, it is natural for clients to project function onto the practitioner, and practitioners help build the structure in their bodies for it to be reclaimed biodynamically by the client with Primary Respiration and stillness. The principle here is that the therapist simply must stay in contact with his sensory body in a slow tempo. His brain is unconsciously creating the client as a neural network in his brain and body just like a mother does with her baby and just like the baby does with the mother. It is a two-way street, whether in an infant/mother dyad or a client/therapist dyad. Preverbal visitations from the client into the mind and body of the practitioner are constant and likewise the client is visited by the practitioner’s unconscious. It is a two way street. It is quite real and at times not so unconscious. The client must be able to resonate with a slow tempo in the practitioner to self-regulate the relationship and at the same time generate autonomy.

If a theory is a good one it will include the spiritual, as the theories of Dr. A. T. Still and Dr. Sutherland did. In this case there are two theologies in the Judeo-Christian world. One is the theology of transcendence, where one projects divinity as something way beyond the horizon of the mind and body to comprehend. The other is the theology of immanence, in which the divine is immediately accessible in and around the body and available in the here and now. I believe this starts with the metabolic function of the embryo having a center and a periphery. The function of projecting to the periphery is maintained spiritually as well, and the connecting link is Primary Respiration – in the sense that the transcendent and the immanent breathe together and are not mutually exclusive. This is the great work of mysticism, Jungian analysis and countless ecstatic traditions. Please don’t think I’m making a case for biodynamic mysticism. I am not. The case here is for understanding the notion of center and periphery and its role in a therapeutic process that does not exclude the spiritual. It is huge. The entire last section of this book is dedicated to exploring the spiritual dimension of biodynamic practice.

Finally, I have one last note on the principles of biodynamic practice. Structure-function relationships are quite active at all times in the body from the first differentiation of an egg cell to the moment of death. I have heard it called “structuring”, which describes the structure-function relationship as a unitary metabolic process (build up, break down and fueling the process of structuring) that is a constant with living bodies. A structure is not a static thing. It is very active. This brings up a particular principle in that all adult function is pre-exercised in the human embryo. For example, Dr. Blechschmidt said that the newly fertilized zygote starts moving with a reciprocal movement in its fluids. He originally called this a “suction field” and said that this was the pre-exercising of the respiratory function. The respiratory function is the oldest function in the organism and is a high priority to assess therapeutically in biodynamic craniosacral therapy and a first hour of Rolfing. In my Rolf training in 1980 it was stressed that Dr. Rolf said the all change process needed to be supported by an increase in respiratory capacity. The point here is that, embryologically, function precedes structure; but, to avoid this chicken-or-egg argument, a practitioner must be able to palpate, unobtrusively at first, a functioning structure that is constantly shaping and reshaping itself, and to do so requires biodynamic skills derived from the principles stated here and outlined throughout this book. The same pre-exercising can be said then for endocrine function, autonomic nervous system function, cardiovascular function and so forth. All of this function is grounded in a slow developmental tempo with stillpoints all around it. Biodynamic craniosacral therapy is a model of physical metabolism. 

In this light, it is possible to understand that the study of a biodynamic embryology is important to manual therapy and especially craniosacral therapy. The embryo is a living whole. It has a form. This living moving form is the image of wholeness and can be palpated in an adult or a child. Practitioners can synchronize their attention with it and support and augment the healing process of biodynamic self-regulation. All of this is accessible if the practitioner is working at a slow tempo and has a personal relationship with Primary Respiration. This is the meaning of biodynamic. It is much deeper than the embryo itself in my clinical observation and palpation. It is first and foremost based on the perceptual and palpatory experience of the practitioner. It describes a unique therapeutic approach to supporting self-regulation of the client from the beginning in the prenatal period of life. It is done through the lens of the practitioner’s perception of a variety of events occurring in the fluids of the body rather than the tissues.

The whole process of biodynamic practice becomes deeply instinctual and less mechanical. By less mechanical, I mean less cognitive and more sentient, less intuitive and more instinctual. The mind of the practitioner becomes still, the slow tempo of aliveness in the fluids becomes the priority, because that is the way it was in the beginning. The biodynamic process then reveals the biokinetic and morphological processes, which then reveal the biomechanical and physiological processes – rather than the other way around. This developmental sequence is honored in biodynamic craniosacral therapy.

This chapter was originally presented at the annual meeting of the Rolf Institute in 2006.