To: K-list
Recieved: 2003/01/12 19:18
Subject: [k-list] Cranio Sacral Therapy
From: Charles Portugal
On 2003/01/12 19:18, Charles Portugal posted thus to the K-list:
Happy not so new year to all. Ive been away from the list for some months now having been around for most of last year. Funnily enough I was thinking only a few days ago that I would rejoin the list and the invite that I received yesterday was the nudge I needed. Thank you to all that have been involved in getting it back up and running, as Im sure there were many people surprised and lost when they discovered it was no longer there.
I went through a fairly torrid and solitary time when I first suspected I had a K awakening, just before Christmas 2001. The K list was the only place I felt I could turn for support and the support I received was wonderful. Im only sorry that the community has been temporarily parted but Im sure it wont be long before it's thriving again.
The last few months have been a time for me to consolidate, take stock and get grounded. I am happy with my progress :-)
I had an accute back problem for 10 years (Im now 29) and had tried everything to get some relief. Nothing seemed to work. Then in November 2001 someone gave me the number of a healer/therapist here in London who might be able to help. When I saw him I was at my wits end. I could hardly walk and had hit rock bottom, starting to feel really depressed and hopeless. I had never knowingly had an injury, so the prolapsed disc was a mystery.
During my first visit with the therapist I had a very intense experience that I came to believe was a Kundalini awakening. He stood at the end of the massage table holding my feet gently and to cut a long story short my whole body started violently shaking and twisting. He was shaking too and making a lot of huffing and puffing noises and before long I was screaming and crying like a child. Memories from childhood were flooding into my mind with absolute clarity and the emotions that flowed were those that I had blocked and denied myself at the time. Even my voice had changed and was no longer that of a 29 year old man but was sounding like a childs voice! Even though this was a very intense and surreal experience, I felt incredibly safe and protected. It just felt 'right'.
After about an hour of this, the whole thing subsided and my body relaxed completely. I felt totally calm, remarkably free and like a great weight had been lifted. I just kept on sighing as if I had had one monumental gigantic orgasm.
After a few minutes, I sat up and then carefully stood up. It was a miracle. I bent down and touched my toes fpr the first time in 10 years (I had been a very fit and athletic young man before this mystery disability had set in). There was no pain at all and I became aware very quickly that my senses had become extremely heightened too. I could see energy everwhere in the room. It was like I had taken LSD but I felt totally clear and obviously chemical free. I was extemely calm and felt totally centred and comfortable with the situation. It just felt like I was witnessing reality more than before thetreatment, like veil had been lifted.
I had regular treatments with this guy over the next year and on a number of occassions I similarly profound experiences but without the memories coming up any more. On one occassion my body was doing its twisting and shaking when all of a sudden my arms started to rise from beside me into the air above my head, shaking violently as they went. I felt like I was observing this process with fascination as well as experiencing it at the same time. After 20 mins they stopped shaking and just shot straight above me directly towards the sky, my hands clasped together in a prayer position. They were lifting me off the bed, my whole back arching to keep up with them. I thought I was going to start levitating and for the first time felt a little bit frightened. As soon as the fear kicked in, my arms dropped down and started shaking again. I tried to relax and go with it and before I knew it, they shot up very peacefully back into the prayer position again. I was totally still and calm but with my arms pulling me skywards.
My eyes were closed throughout and I suddenly got this amazing white light in front of me. It was in fact indescribable but if I were to try I would say it was white, purity and beautiful nothingness.In the corner of my eye I could see two figures that I can only describe as angels. This incredible peace came over me and tears started to pour form my eyes. They were tears of joy. I felt like I was in heaven. I had gone home. I dont know how long I was in this state for but it ended all too soon. I couldnt really talk and just wanted to be alone and rest.
I knew this man was a cranio sacral therapist as well as having studied many other healing modalities with people all over the world but for some reason I didnt believe it was CST that he had been using. I suppose I thought that someone who could induce this experience must be come kind of spiritual master and not someone who was following guidelines as sset down in some course. I was in awe the man and what he was doing and I was extremely grateful to him for setting me free.
At times I felt like I was very much alone in the months following these treatments and I was showing many of the signs that are normally associated with K awakenings. In fact I had always felt these things: a deep empathy with others, a desire to do good in the world, an ability to sense energy, psychic occurences, etc but I had always denied them and they were much more subtle before the therapy.
Over the folllowing months I went very intensely into my self discovery, meditating for long hours, employing a strict vegetarian diet, reclusiveness, exercising, devouring books on mysticism, personal development and spirituality, sometimes reading 4 a week and doing very little else. It was like I was trying to turn myself into a finely tuned machine to see how far I could take this whole thing. I wanted to experience the transendental and truth instead of the illusion and I would do whatever I could to achieve that. It was a fascinating experience but the flip side was that I felt more and more separated from others and somehow that didnt feel right.
The last 2 or 3 months I started going out and having fun again, ending up drunk and eating pizzas with old friends, smoking the odd spliff, stoppped meditating, etc. I began to feel a lot more grounded and a lot less lonely but at the same time felt like I was neglecting myself somehow and straying from my path although I was aware that I often swing from extreme to extreme in order to see different perspectives and finally rest at some sort of balanced middle ground. At the same time I had this nagging feeling that I was not moving forward on my journey and was becoming a bit stuck, especially with regard to my work.
I have been earning my living as a Thai Yoga Massage therapist for about a year and a half now and enjoy it very much because for the first time in my working life it felt like I was doing something that had value, meaning and purpose. But somehow I couldnt see myself doing Thai massage for the rest of my life and it only felt like an introduction to body work. A few weeks ago I was chatting with a lady who is a Cranio Sacral Therapist and she suggested I look into doing the Cranio Sacral Therapy course at the Upledger Institute. The suggestion really struck a chord so I went to their web site and by that afternoon I had booked myself onto CST1 which I start in a couple of weeks. I really didnt know very much about the mechanics of CST, what it hopes to achieve and how it works so I couldnt understand why I had been so impulsive to sign up for the course but I did and it felt very 'right'. Before the course it is compulsory to acquire the two coursebooks written by John Upledger (the man who devised CST) and read the first 6 chapters of each book. Which I did.
One of the books is very technical and medical in nature and requires a lot of concentration to digest. It describes the Cranio Sacral system as being made up of the membrane system known as the meninges; the cerebrospinal fluid which encloses the membrane system; the structures withing the system that control fluid input and outflow for the system and all of the bony structures that are related to the meningeal membranes ie. the bones of the skull and the vertabrae right down to the sacrum. As you can see this whole area corresponds exactly to the physical locations of the seven chakras and the journey that Kundalini makes as it rises through the nadis.
The other book is called "Your inner physician and you" and in it Upledger describes numerous case studies from his time as a CS therapist. It was when reading these accounts that I began to recognise what had actually happened during my treatments a year earlier. He talks about holding a patient gently by the wrist and this patient writhing about like a fish on a line, crying and screaming with the voice of a baby. Story after story that confirmed that although these rather extreme responses were not the norm, to a greater or lesser extent these were the results of CST.
It is an incredible book and well worth a read if you are interested in healing and bodywork. And also of great comfort to me to know that my experience was a valid one and that I am not alone. Upledger doesnt explain what is really going on at the deepest level during the healings. He is very humble and self effacing and whilst he does try to offer a medical explanation he concedes that there is something inexplicable going on that he believes to be the work of the divine and that he has managed to develop a set of techniques that facilitate this natural healing process.
It strikes me as very interesting the relationship between the cranio sacral system and the Kundalini pathway. It is as if Upledger has discovered a way of accessing the very core of the human being to set in motion the healing process. And whilst he doesnt make that connection in his book I feel there is certainly a strong link.
Charles x
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