Posts by Jenna Milner
Beyond Relaxation: Nervous System Regulation Can’t Fully Explain Our Work
Why does Biodynamics work? I’ve heard many practitioners say it’s effective because it regulates the nervous system. Indeed, that’s an essential aspect of any healing modality, especially in the frenzied atmosphere of sympathetic overload that burdens many of us. Some practitioners are particularly skillful in working therapeutically with specific elements of nervous system. For example,…
Read MoreCross-Training for Stillness: Meditation for Biodynamic Practitioners
While it’s the basis of the transformative work that we do, the Dynamic Stillness is not something that we can easily point to, because it’s not a thing or an experience. Meditation is one way that we can develop our recognition of this continuous, underlying stillness and thereby move our Biodynamic practice forward. We live…
Read MoreClinical Confidence: Had It but Lost It? Oddities Beyond the Dynamic Stillness
Have you lost the perceptual cues that used to guide your way in Biodynamic sessions? This can happen when we get deeply familiar with the Dynamic Stillness. In Biodynamic Craniosacral we talk about the Dynamic Stillness as the end of our “map.” When I say map, I’m talking about the territory of clinical Biodynamic work.…
Read MoreThe Body That Can’t Be Damaged: The Quantum Leap from Tissue to Fluid
Have you seen the documentary film My Octopus Teacher? In it, Craig Foster develops a relationship with an octopus. Although an octopus is simply a sac of fluid, it can respond to circumstances with impressive shifts of appearance. It can take the form of a muscular sprinter, a barnacled rock, a predatory cloak, or a…
Read MoreImprove Your Outcome Through the Genius of Non-Doing
Any Biodynamic practitioner will tell you that our stillness carries something valuable and trustworthy. When we stop trying to make things happen, we discover an underlying wisdom that effortlessly expresses itself. But how do we find our way to the genius of non-doing, when so much of our education and our very impulses are based…
Read MoreBiodynamic Mastery, Part 2. How To Function When Stillness Is Profound
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…
Read MoreBiodynamic Mastery, Part 1. More Skill, Less Information
Mastery seems like you should know more and more. Weirdly, in the field of Biodynamics, as we gain maturity in the work, we know less! How do we understand this slipping away of information that we used to take for granted? THE ASCENDING CURRENT AS A PATH OF KNOWING LESS AND LESS In my last…
Read MoreNot Just Tides: The Ascending Current
The Biodynamic Craniosacral community has settled on four embodied qualities to which we aspire and to which we attune. They are: We could also refer to the biodynamic qualities as four substances: tissue, fluid, potency, and void. What is their relationship to one another? Is there a bigger whole in which they participate? Biodynamic author…
Read MoreBig-Picture Biodynamics in 50 Questions
What is a body? What is your felt experience of the substance your body is made of? Does that substance ever change in feeling, texture, tone, or quality? Does the body have boundaries? Where are they? What is healing? What embodied disposition is necessary for healing to happen? What are signs that that disposition is…
Read MoreAny Part Will Do: The Versatility of Wholeness
Biodynamic Craniosacral Work is about wholeness. So why does our field emphasize cranial bones, dural membranes, and cerebrospinal fluid? Books, education, and practice all place a high priority on these parts of the body. Biodynamic pioneer Dr. James Jealous memorably quoted a friend of his: “A visible segment is a segment in trouble.” But what…
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