Alchemy of Presence is a wide-ranging approach to healing, self-inquiry, and the evolution of consciousness.
Programs are woven from two paths: Biodynamic Craniosacral Work and non-dual meditation. Both of these modalities convey and catalyze the power of getting still and quiet.
When you cultivate inner stillness, it becomes a catalyst for visionary perception, authentic communication, and transformation. It facilitates your inherent capacity to heal the self and support others.
At heart this is a journey of self-evolution. You cannot experience certain Biodynamic patterns until you are both seated in your body and able to expand awareness beyond the body.
In the presence of Stillness and being with what is, transformation occurs — for you, and for those around you.
2 day For clinicians. Biodynamic Craniosacral Fundamentals: Stillness and Touch (14 CEUs for LMTs. NY State and NCBTMB)
3 day For everyone. Nourishing the Stillness Within (22 CEUs for LMTs. NY State and NCBTMB)
3 day For clinicians. Visionary Perception of the Body (22 CEs for LMTs. NY State and NCBTMB)
4 day For anyone. All are welcome, though the emphasis is clinical and this workshop includes significant table work. The Stillness Within (32 CEUs for LMTs. NY State and NCBTMB)
NOURISHING THE STILLNESS WITHIN is three-day mentoring workshop (22 CE hours) open to everyone interested in the nourishment, healing, and evolutionary power of Stillness.
This program distills the insights and principles of Biodynamic Craniosacral Work for use in daily life and contemplative practice, as well as clinical use.
This modality was established by osteopathic physicians to give you reliable access to an inner source of intelligence, healing, and perception. Now, with Jenna Milner's innovative approach, you can apply the work in daily life, self-care, and meditative inquiry as well as clinical practice.
For this class, the only prerequisite is the ability to sit or lie still for about 35 minutes.
Students will learn practices to develop access to the biodynamic universes of perception and experience, which are catalysts for growth, healing, and transformation: The Neutral, Fluid Tide, Long Tide, and the Dynamic Stillness.
VISIONARY PERCEPTION OF THE BODY (22 CE hours) is a three-day workshop that will give you advanced tools for listening to (and seeing and touching) the wisdom of each client's body, no matter which modalities you use. Instructor Jenna Milner will reveal the innovative perceptual "tool kit" that is the basis of her thriving clinical practice.
When you get still enough to really listen, it's amazing how much information comes in. Accurate, visionary perception enhances your skills as a healing arts practitioner, so that in addition to assessing what's wrong, you can also see and optimize the underlying health.
In a fun, experiential environment, you will:
• Identify your primary channels of non-ordinary perception and gain practice in accessing them.
• Learn to get still enough to see clearly (this is the Practitioner's Neutral).
• Practice grounding in the body and modulating awareness along the midline axis.
• Expand your awareness in the transverse axis.
You will be able to put these skills to immediate use in a clinical setting, but you may also draw on them in meditation or personal relationships. The work draws from Jenna's background in meditation and biodynamic craniosacral work. For a more in-depth approach to Biodynamic Craniosacral Work, please see the workshop THE STILLNESS WITHIN.
This has been one of the richest, most nourishing experiences of my educational path. I am leaving this workshop having gained profound insight and tools to take into both my personal development and professional work.
-Melissa Kelley
Amazing openness, knowledge, humility, teaching on part of instructor. Would love to take more classes with instructor. Love how Jenna made the space sacred and safe, both with flowers etc. and feeling tone. Really felt free to explore, grow, ask questions, and most of all, just BE.
-Ann Margaret McKillop
Like the tides we learned about, the content, sharing, trades filled & ebbed in a well attended to rhythm. I leave the workshop feeling a welling up of creative potential in myself and sense the same in all the other participants. Jenna created such an invitation to each of us to show up in our uniqueness. This contributed to much movement and “work” in us all.
-Janet Fortess
Jenna is able to articulate things that would be very challenging for most people. I’m impressed with her ability to relate to each person individually and address their needs. She’s a master.
-Margaret Kish
A safe, sacred space was created that nurtured us and allowed us to go deep. The instructor has a depth & breadth of knowledge and wisdom and skillfully imparted this with us. Outstanding! Thank you!
-Dolores Mannix
THE STILLNESS WITHIN (32 CE hours) is a densely-packed but meditative introduction to Biodynamic Craniosacral Work. It can lead to further study if desired, but stands alone powerfully.
The workshop covers the full sweep of the biodynamic map:
* The Cranial Wave (nervous system)
* The Fluid Tide (healthy organism)
* The Long Tide (animating essence)
* The Dynamic Stillness (formless void).
No traditional craniosacral techniques will be taught; in Biodynamic Craniosacral we work with rhythms and amplitudes that are slower and wider than the cranial wave.
This deeply affecting workshop is oriented toward clinical practice, but open to everyone. Integrating science and spirit, we combine table work; guided meditation; breath, movement and partner exercises; lecture, images, and discussion.
The class gives you both a conceptual foundation and the basic tools of touch, perceptual engagement, and practitioner disposition required for clinical work. Yet the work is taught from a wide-ranging, non-medical perspective, so that each element deepens your awareness of the landscape of healing, creation, consciousness and self-inquiry.
Applicable to clinical or personal relationships; meditation and self-inquiry; and working at a massage table. A small group environment optimizes individualized mentoring and includes daily trades.
Revelatory, nourishing, engaging, life-changing!
-Previous Participant
The Stillness Within class is a revelation.
Jenna is a highly skilled and amazing teacher,
and through teaching methods that are very grounded, precise, and clear, she is able to impart this potent, deep work derived from awareness, stillness, and meta-level healing, and make it an embodied, accessible experience for the student. At once a meditative and clinically significant practice, Biodynamic Cranial work goes beyond the "less is more" paradigm, and introduces both the lay person and practitioner to the incredible powerof embodied being versus doing.
-Mary Santello
The instruction feels well-rounded, comprehensive, embodied, and informed by experience and contemplation.
-Leslie Mentel
Jenna was awesome — Love her style, expertise, direct and experiential approach. She is warm and open and honest. She creates a very safe space to learn.
-Laura Rubin
Dynamic teaching style of lecture, movement, video, table[work] + extensive knowledge of so many topics related to this work + beyond — lectures infused with stories, personal examples, ancient references. Your intentional connection with each person (me) on an intimate level, right away, made me feel valued, included and an important part of the group. You infused all your delivery of work with humor and felt like you were so very present the entire 4 days — all the time. Jenna — you’re an amazing person — teacher — human + guide. Thank you.
-Lori Lefkowitz
One Heart
One Heart is an 18-day mentoring program over three years with a committed cohort.
The seven workshops support participants to anchor in the body, expand awareness, and recognize the rhythms, textures and qualities of qualities of stillness that form the universe of Biodynamic Craniosacral Work.
A practitioner's ability to inhabit these enfoldments facilitates deep rest, transformation, and unsurpassed activation of healing potential.
This course of study will impact any healing art that you practice. Beyond bodywork, it will also benefit your meditation practice, understanding of reality, self-knowledge, visionary perception, personal development, and relationships.
Intended for healing arts practitioners seeking greater awareness and effectiveness; and for anyone with a body.
(Six of the seven workshops offer CE hours for licensed massage therapists.)
Jenna's compassionate, knowledgeable, and embodied approach to her One Heart program has been the single most valuable experience in becoming the body worker I am today. I am inspired by the profound healing it makes possible in my clients.
-Paul Gagnon
ONE-DAY SKILL BUILDING WORKSHOPS
At each level of the work, a retreat for students who have taken the prerequisite workshop with Jenna. Offers an extended table-work trade in an amplified group field and an opportunity for rich discussion.
• Skill Building in Biodynamic Craniosacral Work: Perception of Stillness (7 CEs)
(For graduates of The Stillness Within)
• Skill Building in Biodynamic Craniosacral Work: Fluid Tide (7 CEs)
(For graduates of The Fluid Tide)
• Skill Building in Biodynamic Craniosacral Work: Long Tide (7 CEs)
(For graduates of The Long Tide)
• Skill Building in Biodynamic Craniosacral Work: Dynamic Stillness (7 CEs)
(For graduates of The Dynamic Stillness)
TWO-DAY INTENSIVES
• Midline Contacts for Biodynamic Practice
This course is a supplement to an extended curriculum in biodynamic craniosacral work. It is intended to offer the participant a wide-ranging selection of ways to take up physical contact with the client’s Midline. Intended for use in biodynamic craniosacral sessions.
The contacts are organized in seven tiers from feet to head for ease of presentation. For each tier, the student will enjoy a corresponding “lab” to practice the given contacts. The day will culminate in an extended trade, in which the students will draw on the material learned.
Prerequisite: The One Heart workshop Beyond The Body, or interview with the instructor.
Can be held as one very long day or two half-days.
8.5 CEs for Licensed Massage Therapists (NCBTMB and NY State)
• Alchemical Body: Integrating Massage and Biodynamic Craniosacral Work
Using lecture, demo, discussion, and trades, this course reveals how Jenna Milner has pioneered the integration of Biodynamic Craniosacral Work with massage. Open to any massage therapist who is a biodynamic craniosacral practitioner familiar with the Dynamic Stillness.
16 CEs for Licensed Massage Therapists (NCBTMB and NY State)
• The Descending Current in Biodynamic Craniosacral Practice Live
This two-day in-person workshop builds on the online introduction described on the STUDY ONLINE page of this website. It is for anyone with stable perception of the Dynamic Stillness and/or the Descending Current.
When the Dynamic Stillness saturates us sufficiently, we remain lucid and are witness to its appearance in whatever we see, hear, and know. All the precise boundaries of the Ascending Current are washed away in the paradoxical appearance of the Descending Current, and the mature practitioner must learn to navigate this new reality. This has also been called the “non-dual level of perception."
Table work trades are complemented by detailed discussion, lecture, and Q&A concerning the context, principles, and features of the Descending Current.
14.5 CE hours for Licensed Massage Therapists (NCBTMB and NY State)
Two full workshop days include a daily opening meditation and lunch break.