Jenna Milner

Early in my career I knew so much. Now, it’s almost laughable how little I know. Yet I’m confident that my sessions are fruitful for my clients; and they seem satisfied with the results.

I’m describing a part of our skill development in which the practitioner’s perception of nitty gritty phenomena gets muffled by an unwavering perception of Stillness. At this stage, we can surrender to knowing less, because we have reliable access to a wisdom that does know. Here are some pointers that I use to cope with the loss of information.

1. ACCLIMATE TO BLURRY PERCEPTION

At the level of the Fluid Tide, we know an uncanny amount about our client and their session. For years, I benefited from robust perception of my client’s experience. As the drama played out, I would follow along. “Aah, the work is happening in her shoulder now, and there! That inertial fulcrum has now dissipated!”

That’s the hallmark of the Fluid Tide, of course: The healing work occurs in a sequence that both practitioner and client can effortlessly follow. The fluid body is an energy body, not a tissue body, yet the healing events still occur in space and time.

As our embodied consciousness expands beyond the Fluid Tide, we lose our grip on time and space. And that is how we lose our ability to identify the distinct phenomena that arise in time and space.

As an analogy for what I’m calling blurry perception, take this art historian who could accurately detect forgeries, described by Malcolm Gladwell in the book Blink:

[The renowned a]rt historian Bernard Berenson…sometimes distressed his colleagues with his inability to articulate how he could see so clearly the tiny defects and inconsistencies in a particular work that branded it either an unintelligent reworking or a fake.

In one court case, in fact, Berenson was able to say only that his stomach felt wrong. He had a curious ringing in his ears. He was struck by a momentary depression. Or he felt woozy and off balance. Hardly scientific descriptions of how he knew he was in the presence of something cooked up or faked. But that’s as far as he was able to go. (My boldface for emphasis.)

In my professional practice, I’ve gone from Sherlock Holmes to Bernard Berenson. It’s like I cook by sniffing the fragrances in the air, instead of directly tasting the pot.

However, new perceptual channels continue to develop. For example, in my case, my inner eye wasn’t well developed. Then a few years ago, I realized I could see what kind of embodied quality (which enfoldment) my client inhabits when they stand up after a session. Previously, my well-developed empath channel could feel that a client is inhabiting their feet (because I felt my own feet strongly contacting the ground). Now I can also see that my client’s body is porous and radiates outward to zone B, their fluid body.

2. KNOW THAT CRAZY THINGS HAPPEN FOR A REASON

In my previous post I described a Descending Current that develops when the practitioner becomes so steeped in stillness, that we stop relying on or identifying with the conventional body. (By which I mean, the tissue and fluid bodies.) We begin seeing the world permeated with emptiness.

On the Ascending Current, the practitioner’s consciousness increasingly expands to encompass the Cranial Wave, Fluid Tide, Long Tide, and Dynamic Stillness; and there’s a natural boundary between these landscapes. For example, when we perceive the Fluid Tide, then only Fluid Tide phenomena are apparent.

In contrast, on the Descending Current, the pristine Biodynamic boundaries become muddled. Any phenomenon can arise, at the same time as any other. Yet rarely are the tides are apparent. So how are we supposed to know anything about our client’s experience?

Take spatial dimension, which in the absence of tidal phenomena was my go-to cue for which embodied universe was manifesting for my client. On the Descending Current, I’m usually aware of all dimensions at once: the tissue body, the fluid body, the potency body, and even the Dynamic Stillness (which has no spatial dimension).

It’s important to know that this is possible, so that we stop misreading the cues.

Often, students who are newly on the Descending Current are unwaveringly aware of the vastness. The student thus notices vastness, and assumes that their clients are in the Long Tide — even, for example, when all other cues point to the Fluid Tide.

For that reason, they often send me write-ups of their practice sessions that read, “The session alternated between the Fluid Tide and the Long Tide.”

But that simply does not occur. What’s usually happening is that vastness is present for the student, but the client is in the Fluid Tide. So the student is aware of both Fluid Tide and Long Tide phenomena at the same time.

3. USE OTHER STRATEGIES WHEN TIDES DISAPPEAR

There’s an assumption in our field that the Tides remain our guiding force as clinicians — not just as a healing force for our clients, but as the very way that we orient to the work.

So if a Biodynamic practitioner orients to the tides and the tides disappear, to what do we orient? What distinguishes our expertise, in a professional field where the measure of our expertise dissipates over time?

Here are some of the answers I’ve come to, all of which are interrelated.

• KNOW YOUR CLINICAL OBJECTIVES

I have distilled my own clinical goals to the motto “ground, expand, and allow.” When my perceptions during the session are obscure or lacking in abundance, knowing what my goals are helps me communicate with my client after the session.

• ORIENT TO SUBTLE PERCEPTION

Whatever your own intentions as a clinician, Biodynamics suggests that our client’s embodied state is meaningful. It helps, in particular, to recognize if they have achieved a Neutral. Subtle perception, even when it’s scarce, can guide us. In the next section I give some examples of the kinds of cues I work with.

• INSTEAD OF DOING NOTHING, BE NOTHING

Our ability to do less requires trust that another wisdom will take the reins. This means less identification with ourselves as the “doer.” The practitioner is no longer an observer witnessing something that happens “outside me” (that is, inside my client). Instead, everything simply arises in awareness…and there’s only one theater of awareness.

• LEARN TO BE WITH WHATEVER ARISES

The height of skill is to dance spontaneously with what arises, instead of imposing on the client an idea of what’s supposed to happen. Some of my favorite sessions have started with the “failure” of more conventional approaches.

• KNOW THAT TECHNICAL SKILL IS ONLY HALF THE PICTURE

Technical proficiency is imperative, whether it’s knowledge of anatomy, pathology, theory, how to comfortably contact the body, or any other skillset that’s aligned with our clinical goals. But we must leave room for a little magic. Usually, this is a variant of “being with whatever arises.” The practitioner must be comfortable with not knowing what’s happening.

4. KNOWING JUST ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

I know just enough. I call it working on a “need to know” basis. Here’s a list of some of the indicators I currently rely on.

• Verticality. (My spine — or Midline — involuntarily lengthens)
• Client borborygmia. (Belly gurgles as an affirmation of what is happening in that moment.)
• A sense of seeing and feeling fractal patterns at the same time. (This tells me the work has engaged in my client)
• My own body shivers involuntarily. (This indicator of the healing process looks weird, but clients tend not to notice)
• Feelings in my own body that refer to the client’s body. (The “empath” channel of perception)
• Sense of limits or containment. (We’re contained, for example, within the skin, within the room, or we’re limitless)
• My own body’s breath. (There are variations of breath that represent, for example, work “going strong” in the client, or completion of a process.)

Sometimes I’m lucky enough that my client gives a verbal report of their experience — whether during the session or after the table work. I seek to correlate their experiences with my own; and to validate my impressions by connecting their words with the biodynamic map.

For example, they might report, “My body felt like Gumby…like taffy…or like an underwater creature.” (We’re clearly in the fluids.) Or “I was in a vast landscape flying high above the earth, I no longer had a body at all, it was like I was floating.” (We’re in the potency).

5. TAKE HEART AND TRUST IN THE STILLNESS

Biodynamics isn’t a technical endeavor. Though its genius is deeply applicable to clinical work, its special power transcends professional manipulation and touches the light that shines within.

Even on the Ascending Current, we have always relied on, and trusted in, something greater than our personal expertise as the clinician. On the Descending Current, though, we fully recognize that we’re “co-hosting” the session with an intelligence beyond our personal will.

At this stage our perceptual cues may seem pitiful in the face of our client’s suffering. But we grow in our confidence that there’s something wise at work. We try to get out of the way so that wisdom can shine through.

If you, too, used to have access to the Tides and now find yourself puzzled by the lack of phenomena, I recommend that you take heart and trust the Stillness as an unerring resource, just like Dr. Sutherland suggested. It can help to know that when the Stillness swallows up the details of our client’s session, the fading perceptual access indicates our perceptual maturity. Over time you will build anecdotal evidence that there’s nothing wrong.

I would love to hear from you! What do you experience? Are you challenged by the loss of information in a clinical setting? Do you want to share any pointers about how you handle it?