THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF CRANIOSACRAL WORK
extracts from 'Wisdom In The Body - The Craniosacral Approach To Essential Health'
by Michael Kern, published by Thorsons/HarperCollins

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Expressions of health.

The potency of the Breath of Life has remarkable properties for maintaining health and balance. An essential blueprint for health is carried in this potency, which acts as a basic ordering principle at a cellular level. This integrates the physiological functioning of all the body systems.

Dr Sutherland believed that the potency of the Breath of Life carries a basic Intelligence (which he spelled with a capital "I"), and realized that this intrinsic force could be employed by the practitioner for promoting health. A similar concept is found in many traditional systems of medicine, where the main focus for healing is also placed on encouraging a balanced distribution of the body’s vital force.

The presence of full and balanced rhythms produced by the Breath of Life signifies a healthy system. As long as these rhythms are expressed naturally, the body’s essential ordering principle is harmoniously distributed. Therefore, this rhythmic motion is primarily an expression of health. Its existence ensures the distribution of the ordering principle of the Breath of Life, and its restriction can have far-reaching consequences.

This brings us to two basic tenets of craniosacral work:

1) Life expresses itself as motion.

2) There is a clear relationship between motion and health.

Primary respiratory motion.

Dr. Sutherland named the system of tissues and fluids at the core of the body which express a subtle rhythmic motion, the primary respiratory mechanism . As these tissues are not under voluntary muscular control, they are also sometimes referred to as the involuntary mechanism (or I.V.M.).  Dr. Sutherland used the term "primary" because this motion underlies all others. It is the manifestation of the life-stream itself. Every cell expresses this primary respiratory motion throughout its life. Significantly, many different symptoms and pathologies which involve both body and mind are related to disturbances of primary respiratory motion.

There are, of course, other vital rhythmic motions in the body such as the heartbeat and lung respiratory breathing. Although necessary for the maintenance of life, these are considered "secondary" motions because they are not the root cause of the body"s expression of life. Without the Breath of Life there would be no other motion. Lung respiration or the breathing of air is therefore sometimes called secondary respiration.

This fact was proved to Dr Sutherland early on in his development of this work. During the days of prohibition in America during the 1920s, he was staying at a cottage on the shores of Lake Erie. One day he heard a commotion outside, when a man who had been drinking far too much illegal liquor was being dragged out from the water. By the time Dr Sutherland reached the shore, the man was lying on the ground. His normal life signs (lung function and cardiovascular pulse) had ceased, and all attempts to resuscitate him had failed.

With some quick thinking, Dr Sutherland took hold of the sides of the man’s head and encouraged a rocking motion of his temporal bones, in an attempt to stimulate primary respiratory motion. This worked; within a few seconds the man’s breathing and heartbeat started up again and he regained consciousness. This experience helped to affirm to Dr Sutherland the tremendous power of working directly with the Breath of Life.

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