Teaching December 2009: Love and Fear
I think it would be useful to examine these words. I have been quite preoccupied with them both in recent times. At the level of feeling/emotions they represent, in my thesis, the two prime emotional forms arising out of Emptiness, at the emotional level. All other emotions
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Intermezzo: 6 Entering the Circle – the Great Womb Space
This is a beautiful companion piece to Intermezzo 5. It is written by Jo Feat. We have done very substantial work together and Jo has meaningfully assisted me on several occasions. Both Liz the author of Intermezzo 5 and Jo have the comment that what is often described as sexual energy, is not examined in schools. This seems a pity as we would not have taken form without it. There is room for much more immersion in the Masculine and Feminine principles and this will involve a substantial nakedness from teachers. M.B. When I first arrived in Cornwall, I couldn’t work out why I had such an immediate resistance to the place – the never-ending dampness, the dark, mossy caves, the stark looking stone circles and the disturbing wildness. I didn’t know it
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Intermezzo: 5 The Serpent and The Tide
Awareness takes an infinite number of forms. The following is the offering if Liz Borodkin, a student, friend and teacher in her own right. She is currently doing great work in bringing the practice, in the conventional form, to appreciative students in the heart of the Middle East. We shall meet together again soon. This article immediately brought up a companion piece in Intermezzo 6: Entering the Circle - the Great Womb Space from Jo Feat. It will be interesting to see what other analogies this liberates! Can we look for the co-emergence of all forms? Where do they emerge if not in the sensory mechanisms of the body? M.B. “THE SERPENT AND THE TIDE” ON KUNDALINI AND OTHER YOGIC PHENOMENA ARISING DURING CRANIOSACRAL THERAPY SESSIONS. It was that time in the Foundation training when “Strange Things” began to happen. It was like magic, and we felt like kids playing with fire for the first time. Hey, look what happens when you feel the
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Teaching October 2009: Stillness, Peace and Healing
Teaching #2 October 2009 I much enjoy e-mail conversations with Gill Siefer, a well-respected Psychotherapist in New York and a spiritual adept who I count as a friend and one of the Elders. (seifer@verizon.net ). We are both about 80 and both suffer from the disease of
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Teaching August 2009: The Blessing of Insecurity
If, according to Erich Fromm, the emergence of the `mature man’ is the aim of both Oriental Zen and Occidental psychoanalysis, and if the man on that level has shed his petty fears of insecurity, his one-sided logically reasoned propensity, there is hope for human beings to arrive at a better grasp of the meaning of reality. That this implies the shedding of greed in all forms and the overcoming of ego-worship goes without saying. Thus satori, or what we attempt to define as enlightenment may, in the final analysis, be instrumental in a person’s emergence on the apex of maturity in its widest possible connotation and within a thoroughly humanistic frame of reference. Paul Neumarkt It is important to note that Fromm says, ‘shed his petty fears of insecurity’. He does not say, shed his Insecurity! Being, I suppose, highly insecure, I take great comfort from that statement. As a teacher and as a person,
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Teaching June 2009: More About the Tide
More about the Tide (and Craniosacral therapy.). I want to explore the limits of the extent to which the model of Craniosacral therapy can lead, not only to healing of a symptom but and much deeper, to a fullness of life which transcends medicine as we popularly understand that word. To a state of human ordinariness, that is who we really are, so much more profound than the pathologised condition that we live in and have accepted as being our nature. It is not our nature but is rather, an accumulation of undigested life experiences. First a word about models: Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Philosophy, Psychology and indeed Craniosacral therapy, are all models. They are not it. Any of them is only it, when it becomes an experience at a deep level. In the meantime we are talking about theories, models, thoughts, opinions, dreams, hopes and prayers about the experience. This is a pretty dogmatic statement and I hate dogma, so I will modify by adding, in the opinion of many people who’s judgement I respect. The next piece of dogma, that I hate, so it carries the same modification, is that the deepest levels (I shall expand on this elsewhere) are formless and are not subject to the intellect, which like thoughts and emotions, never mind the body itself, are already
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Teaching April 2009: The Tide
My thesis, my conviction, not just belief, and my passion are contained in this short phrase, you can rely upon the tide. I have spent the last 15 years analysing, testing, working with and then teaching the truth of that statement. Today, 120 years or so after William Garner Sutherland D.O.first voiced that statement, I am going to try to explain where I have been and what I came up with, so far. Let’s take this slowly and start at the beginning. I first heard this phrase when I was training in CST with Franklyn at Karuna. It was here I first heard the words...You can rely upon the Tide. I began to think “what Tide, and what does “rely on” mean. The word rely was the big one. Does rely mean work with or manipulate in some way? Why did Sutherland choose that expression, “rely on”? I came to believe that if he said that he was independent enough to know what he meant and that he meant rely, literally. That means someone else or something else does it, whatever is to be done. As to the Tide, I did not assume that Sutherland was trying to say one of the body’s autonomic rhythms was the source that we could rely on so devoutly, I did not think that even the Long Tide, which many of you will be familiar with, was being suggested as the motivational energy of all life, these are, after all objects of our awareness, not the underlying foundation of our awareness. What I came to truly believe that he was talking about was the hypothesis that there is an Intelligence that is not part of the individual and personal ego structure, not subject to the Intellect, which can be absolutely relied upon. What I later came to fully understand was that, in the same way that there is no being a bit pregnant, there must be no reservation about trust or reliance. It needs to be total. Shakespeare said, “there is a Tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.” Even that is not it but it is a shade closer. It implies an “other.” This raises a big conflict: If there is an “other” that can be relied on, what place is there in there for me. How will I know what it is doing, how will I know what is happening to the other person?. Supposing something goes wrong and I get sued-what a litigious country this is! You see what is happening here, the poor old personal ego is having a bad time already, getting really anxious. We could go on further, “we have to have boundaries, I can’t not know what I am doing. How do I explain what I am doing? It’s not scientific and best of all; I have got to be present, fully present at all times.” How often are we told that. Oh, boy! Now nobody can be trusted, not even me! It’s not that bad. What we need to do now is have a look at what being present means in this context.
What I mean by being present is to be mentally still, just noticing what arises without getting attached to it in any way. Without making any judgements
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