From My Hands and Heart
Achieving Health and Balance with Craniosacral Therapy
by Kate Mackinnon
This poem by Nancy Levin was inspired by her experience of craniosacral therapy, and it is reprinted with grateful permission.
whole
while her hands navigate
the map my body makes,
it’s the radiating rhythm
of vibration and stillness
that now allows me
to receive what it hides
and translate all it has to tell.
this journey to knowing,
deep in my essence,
that I am loved.
no matter what I do or don’t do,
even if I don’t do anything i will be loved.
but to believe, I needed courage.
i found it in my body.
my body,
a treasure chest,
its cellular secrets under lock and key
until the moment they were ready to be freed.
in the body
love first develops as hunger.
these walls have cellular memory.
there is a haunting here.
tight fitting skin,
barely wrapping bones
in dehydrated desert conditions
are infused with vitality
fleshed out and expanded
nourished and recalibrated
buoyant.
sensation returning and there,
my breath still held,
i felt full for the first time.
my power is very confusing.
and although my legs just want to run
i can feel my feet begin to find their roots,
sourcing safety for my strength.
i found my grounding
and what feeds me
in asking for help
from an intuitive hand.
my body,
once a fortress,
now begs for entry
and re-entry.
the thaw begins like this,
after being frozen in place
for so long,
waves of flame and prayer
release me,
finally locating the passage
from my heart,
revealing the way to healing.
and so in the softening,
i learn that love
present in many forms:
in flames on candles carried
in kisses and wishes of peace
in snow surrounding a mountain waterfall.
my body melts
outside its lines.
my thoughts,
my own
for the first time.
and as pieces of me
return or arrive,
desire alone senses
the rise and fall
of what’s alive
inside.
and now,
stripped of all
i once defined
myself by,
it takes only a moment
to notice
i have always been
whole.
V女史とのメモリー
age changes people’s lives. The accounts of how it has affected those with cancer are dramatic, unexpected, and sometimes inspiring. Anxiety is curbed, pain dulled, and nausea made manageable. Patients describe feeling whole again, hope is restored, or connection to self is reestablished. For one woman it was like being “held in the hands of God.” Another patient, who received massage following chemotherapy, was able to plot through her treatments without having to be in bed the first few days following chemo. This was important, as she is the mother of a four-year-old.”
” Why should it surprise us that we can tap into the body’s own inner wisdom to facilitates a positive response through the use of our hands and an innate desire to help? In my mind, this is health as it was meant to be – a natural collaboration between two human beings on multitude of different levels, all simply allowing the body to do what it was born to do best.”
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