A Startling Neurological Event (or SNE for short) – 20 Massages in 2 Months (Massage #15)

Shamanic dreaming, the process of traveling into the spirit realms to gather information, conduct healing and commune  with the spirit world, is accomplished through a change in brain waves often triggered by a fast drum beat.

I received Massage #15 of 20 in 2 months from Aiden Savoie-Gavosto at the Well-Being Center for Health in Monroe, Washington.  Click here for a picture of Aiden who at age 21 is the baby of this team of therapists.

In Massage #15 Aiden continued the focus on feet, ankles, hip and QL muscles with attention to a new muscle, the psoas.  He also busted out with helpful intuitive messages, something I understand may be a new development for Aiden and which is not surprising given the intuitive nature of his massage work and his determination to grow as a therapist at this time.  Don’t let his youth fool you.  Aiden gives a consistently good and impactful massage.

As mentioned in earlier posts, the energy in the lower half of my body has been harder to describe than that in the upper body. The connection between the energy, physical symptoms and other changes is harder to decipher.  Massage #15 was no exception.  Fortunately, Aiden’s intuitive messages helped bring clarity.

Before going further, I need to mention that the first weekend in February I attended a three-day shamanic dreaming workshop.  I will blog more about this in March.  For now let me say that shamanic dreaming – the process of traveling into the spirit realms to gather information, conduct healing and commune (or communicate) with the spirit world - is accomplished in part through a change in brain waves.  While it is possible to journey by will power alone, for many a fast drum or rattle beat makes dreaming possible and/or more efficient.

This workshop has added to the intensity of this massage marathon in no small part because while journeying I experienced a startling neurological event, or SNE for short.  During the workshop, as the drum beat started, I began to travel out of my waking consciousness.  As I traveled I felt anxious.  I saw several glimpses of myself in black shadow gripping my head as if in pain while saying, “This is too much!  It’s too much. I can’t do it.” 

Nonetheless, I completed the journey and afterward felt as if the left side of my brain, including the brain stem, was encased in wax.  For a few seconds, I did not move or speak but stared straight ahead.  The words “small seizure” flashed in my mind when, a few moments later, I pondered the nature of my experience.  I was frightened because of the possibility of doing damage to my brain or nervous system through journeying. I was angry at any associated limitations.  I shared both my feelings and what had happened with group.

During a break another workshop attendee, a stranger to me, sat next to me.  After a few moments she offered an insight into the SNE.  She asked me why I kept myself spiritually small.  I told her about a time of dramatic spiritual opening during which I was not fully consciously aware of what was happening.  At first I did not notice that I was seeing spirits and events that the people around me were not always able to see.  Although weeks before I had been the skeptic, I did not always pick up on the discomfort of others and described my experiences as I would any other part of my life.  The situation progressed and some became frightened or angry.  They lashed out.  Even though I had just opened up I began hiding what I could.  Since this time I have never shown myself fully to anyone.  “You’re doing this,” she said, “by not opening to the fullness of who you are.”  Although I was not immediately convinced, the accuracy of her other observations persuaded me to consider this in working to understand the SNE.

Since I don’t have a medical diagnosis I will just call this event, this brain waxiness following shamanic dreaming, an SNE, knowing that it shares symptoms with seizures.  In the past, while working to uncover childhood memories, I have had painful headaches that seem to burst repeatedly from a focused location in the front part of my brain. I have also had mild headaches and nausea as well as some sensitivity to light and sound before glimpsing future events.  As a result, I have become curious about the biological foundations of mysticism.   

There is little to no medical research in this area.  This means that medical science is not able to offer a coherent theory giving reliable insight into what, biologically speaking, triggered the SNE, whether the SNE was a seizure, and the ways in which my nervous system, with any oddities it may have, interfaced with the dreaming process to create the SNE.

(for more, see next post)

Hmmmmmm........? - 20 Massages in 2 Months, Massage #14

As this marathon progresses, I struggle to keep pace with my experience.

I received Massage #14 from Richard Oliver.  Based on events in this massage I predict that more changes are ahead, physically and otherwise. 

Lately, my legs have been doing strange things.  It’s uncomfortable to have any pressure applied to them, like the chair on the back of my legs when sitting!  They don’t look swollen but they feel it.  When I drag a finger along my thigh, I feel the same movement in my lower calf!  (I’m trying not to think too much about how weird this is as my naturopath can’t think of a medical reason that would cause it).  

In this massage Richard Oliver continued with the experimental use of cranial-sacral therapy on the feet. Cranial-sacral therapy works – at least in theory – with the cranial-sacral pulse, or the rhythm of the spinal fluid as it circulates the length of the spinal cord and within the cranium.  Richard explained, “In theory you can feel the cranial-pulse anywhere, not just in the cranium or sacrum.  So it can be used anywhere on the body.”

In truth because alignment in feet affects alignment in hips, and tightness in hips affects comfort and strength in lower back, the new focus on feet and ankles has morphed into a combined focus on everything from QL muscles down.  Or - for the non-anatomy experts among us - everything from the waist down.

I know that western science can’t make heads or tails of cranial-sacral therapy.  This confusion notwithstanding, I experience its power directly.  It appears to be the shamanism of benevolent angels.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, energy and emotion moving in the lower part of the body has been harder to decipher as the images are more impressionistic and emotive, the connections being perhaps more deeply buried.  This has not prevented dramatic changes from emerging including a new ability to write right-handed & backward in addition to the usual left-handed & backward writing and right-handed & forward writing.

In Massage #14 the therapy brought out anger in the right ankle.  Within a visual impression of this anger, I wore metal braces on my legs.  I was confined to a wheelchair and could not stand without support.  I did not understand this as a past life memory but rather the emotional story of my ankle - much as my inner-attorney told the story of numbness in my right arm. 

As Richard worked my ankle, defenses rose to the surface. I discovered that I was angry not only with my disability but with the therapist willing to dig deeply enough to help.  The version of me in the wheelchair swung her crutches violently and shouted – silently and from inside of myself of course -“Leave me alone, we live in different worlds.  There are certain things I can’t have!” This is a side of myself I am not well acquainted with.

As mentioned in earlier posts, past life memories stored in the neck came to the surface readily in just over one session of focused neck work.  This is the seventh massage focusing on feet and ankles and no new past life memories have surfaced.

However, what happened next, when cranial-sacral was applied to the right ankle, suggests that there is more than one way for emotional patterns to impact physicality and even contribute to the structure of the body – past or alternate lives being one way.

In discussing cranial-sacral energy I have heard both Tasha and Richard refer to it as an energy that unwinds.  This is exactly how I would described my experience with massage #14. It felt as if the cranial-sacral work began unwinding from deep within my feet the emotional foundation of sore ankles, flat arches and bunions.

Richard held my right ankle and rotated it gently - as he said, in response to the cranial-sacral pulses. Accompanying the sensation of emotion being pulled from my flesh - like a thread from a hem - was a message, “You are letting go of a disability and its ability to keep you small.” 

Hmmmmmm………..?????? 

I do not know what else to say except for that as this marathon progresses, I struggle to keep pace with my experience. The consciousness driving these events proves its intelligence.  More and more the ability of my mind to decipher and describe the process is surpassed. I, a witness to my own transformation, am overtaken.

That, and my legs did feel much better afterward!

 

Prelude to Massage #14 – Unexpected Developments

Sample of journal entry from February 10, 2011describing a dream.  At the top is the usual left-handed and backward writing (yes - like Leonardo Da Vinci) and below this - less neat with more cross-outs - is the new right-handed & backward writing.  Who knew massage - and spiritual awakening - could bring changes of this magnitude!

 

I received massage #14 from Richard Oliver.  Before talking about the massage, to recap, as a New’s Year’s Resolution I am doing 20 massages in 2 months with therapists from the Well-Being Center for Health on Hill Street in Monroe,Washington.

I am an alternative healer focusing on natural, intuitive and shamanistic modalities. In this massage marathon I am looking to ease physical symptoms in my own body and explore massage.  In doing so I am also testing a theory of life, disease and change that says that all physical symptoms as well as life circumstances have stagnant emotional energy as a foundation.

I have had some luck applying this theory to self-healing in the past.  For instance, I was able to heal a life-long allergy to cats this way.  In a similar vein, the results of this massage marathon continue to surpass expectations.  Originally, massages focused on chronic numbness in the right arm. It also focused on my neck and the fact that since childhood I have cringed and/or yelped in fear when being touched on the front or sides of the neck.  Unbelievably, after only 7 massages the transformation in neck and shoulders was so complete I moved on to another problem area – feet and ankles -- where fatigue from bunions and flat arches as well as sore, achy ankles are the norm. 

Emotional patterns underlying discomfort in neck, shoulder, and arm were fairly easy to decipher.  A past life memory of drowning after driving off a bridge was responsible for fear in the neck.  This was released in massage #6 with the help of cranial-sacral therapy. Arm numbness resulted from an inability to let go and trust the spiritual process, especially when it came to writing.

I will admit that emotions in the feet and legs are harder to decipher.  They are impressionistic, a stream of emotions and images with no clear connection, at least one my conscious mind can make.  I have discovered no past life memories in the lower limbs as I had originally anticipated. 

Nonetheless, work on the feet and ankles is bringing dramatic changes.  For those of you who know me or read the stand alone page “The Writing” above, a few years back I developed the ability to right left-handed & backward (yes, like Leonardo DaVinci).  Up until this time I was right-handed and could not do anything with my left hand, let alone write backward.  Now, when I write long-hand I mostly write backward with my left hand – by now I have journals full of the stuff!  (See photo above from a journal entry recording a dream sequence!).

Now something new has happened.  Before now I could either right-handed & forward or left-handed & backward. Even though I tried, I could not write right-handed & backward or left-handed & forward.

Then the other night, after I had been writing left-handed & backward for a couple of hours, my hand was getting tired.  I grabbed the pen with my right hand and began to write. To my surprise, I continued the backward writing but this time with my right hand!  Writing this way it was challenging to keep “a’s” oriented in the right direction!

I don’t understand what, exactly, brings these changes in writing although it seems probable that the awakening process, supported by all this massage and energy work, has created changes in brain function, changes responsible for the DaVinci factor and other activities, like shamanistic journeying and healing work.  I can't think of another explanation - can you?

I predict that more changes are ahead, driven at least in part by the somewhat experimental cranial-sacral work done by Richard Oliver in Massage #14.