Sacred Touch Biodynamic Craniosacral Work
Hiromi practicing Sacred Touch
“Follow your bliss.” This advice from the famous scholar of mythology, Joseph Campbell, continues to shape my life since my husband Matthew began reminding me of the wisdom of my own inner knowing, over twenty years ago. Following my bliss has led me to Biodynamic Craniosacral Work, what we call Sacred Touch, and it has changed my life forever. In this process I was naturalized and found myself in my true element of embodied love and natural being. This is what I am meant to do. It was love at first contact. Since then I am in love with this work.
What is Sacred Touch / Biodynamic Craniosacral Work?
Practitioners of Sacred Touch orient to the biodynamic fields which form the body, heal the body, and express vitality in the movement of cerebrospinal fluid circulation.
Sacred Touch is a practice of cultivating stillness and touching from a place of internal repose and inner sensing presence.
Sacred Touch is a non-medical model and does not rely upon assessment, diagnosis, and intentional manipulation of the body’s tissues or energies.
Sacred Touch uses hands-on contact from a perspective of open-hearted compassionate unknowing. It allows the wisdom of our body to restore and return it to wholeness. It recognizes the body as a sacred vessel of love. It is a gentle modality that promote dynamic shifts in our well-being.
Sacred Touch is in the lineage of Cranial Osteopathy, founded by Dr. William Garner Sutherland.
The practitioner learns to hold space and rest inwardly in loving repose, allowing the subtle feedback resonance of what is called “tonal match” to guide our touch intuitively.
The practitioner and client both rest in unknowning and allow the mystery to reveal deeper levels of being and wholeness.
Sacred Touch sessions have a great potential for us to awaken to the divine love that formed our bodies.
Is Sacred Touch for me?
Sacred Touch helps to release deep trauma and to integrate more consciously with our higher spiritual potential as a human being.
Sacred Touch is a gentle way of being with stored trauma in our body. As we learn to be with this intense energy we gain more capacity to meet the challenging sensations and release them. Without talking about our traumas, as in typical psychological counseling, we learn to be with the stored energy and allow it to naturally discharge. Sacred Touch provides release of not only thoughts but also bodily sensations as well. When this take place, we feel a more integrated way of being. Our response to the old trauma pattern will shift and transform and we begin to feel more freedom.
Sacred Touch is also a way to experience deep states of meditation. As we allow ourselves to open to the mystery, we might experience a dream-like state of deep presence while simultaneously wide-awake on the table. Some clients see divine forms. This has happened to me. While I was receiving a session from my teacher Charles Ridley, I experienced being Buddha. Then soon after, I was being Ramana Maharshi. One client told me that he became the entire city of Eugene.
What is a typical session looks like?
Each session last about 30 to 50 minutes. You wear your comfortable street clothing. You are invited to lay on your back. Unless you have physical needs to be in a different posture, you will be on your back for the whole session. I will place my hands where your body invites me to go. This could be on the soles of your feet, ankles, calves, knees, hips, sacrum, coccyx, abdomen, chest, heart, shoulder, neck, head, or jaw. I might only touch few spots, or many - it all depends on your body for that day. You are always invited to inform me if it any contact is uncomfortable to you. When you are not quite ready to be with intensity, I can stop and move on to a different spot.
What do I experience during the Sacred Touch session?
Your body expresses what is stored in your cells. This could be an old memory, old message, thoughts, a trauma experience, a smell, or simply sensations. In ordere to return to wholeness, your body needs to release what is out of harmony with wholeness. In the wild, an animal such as a porcupine will encounter a tiger and will play dead. Once the danger is over, they will shake their body to release the trauma and move on. The human body will go through a similar process of discharge if we allow it. Sacred Touch facilitates this trauma release.
My invitation for you is to be receptive and allow the process to happen. Let your body process without any judgment. Let it come, let it be and then you can let go. The more you have open awareness to let your body express itself, the more your body will be restored back to wholeness.
Be willing to allow everything to arise through you. Sometimes what you experience could help you to feel a deep sense of gratitude about life, yourself, and everything. You might get some interesting spiritual insights. Each session is different. Gradually you learn to be with what is. You recognize your maturing capacity to be present for your own life in a more joyous way.
After a Sacred Touch session, you might feel “spacey”, or “out of it” and find it difficult to return to normal reality for a little while. This is totally normal. I recommend not to go to busy places, music concerts, anywhere with too much stimulation after the session. It would be best if you could just ease back into your routine as much as you can allow. One client told me that they had a hard time ordering food at the restaurant, going to the grocery store, or dealing with traffic.
Your body will continue to process the session after you leave my office. Some people have vivid dreams. Your body will release energy, maybe detoxify, or let go of whatever that was inside keeping you from wholeness. What you had stored in your ody will start to release as you allow to process without judgment. It is amazing how the wisdom of our body will take care of what needs to happen.
You do not need to tell me what is going on ahead of time. In fact you don't need to tell me anything after the session either. What you experience during the session is for you.
Why do I practice Sacred Touch?
I really sense Love in this work. Everything came from love. I let Love guide me in this work. I cannot emphasize how much I love this work and how much love I feel with each person who lays on my table. The sense of sacred reverence that I feel toward each person is something I have never felt in any other things I have done. I finally do understand why in some culture they will kiss their Guru's feet. I feel that way about this work. It make sense why I had to wait this long to find what I love doing. My life has started to blossom and nourished by Sacred Touch. I am a better being because of this work and every time I give a session, I feel humbled and overjoyed at this divine manifestation we call life. I finally found my calling. I embody being the Love.