Aquapoetics

Quote: Water is the most soul-like

Water is the most soul-like in its association with the vast underground of the unconscious; the realm of emotions, imagination and fantasy; sexuality; and creative and procreative fertility; the mystical web of interconnection which ties us to this earth and to each other; and a distinctly feminine worldview rooted in an attitude of surrender to mysterious forces beyond the reach of will or reason.

Joe Landwehr, The Seven Gates of Soul: Reclaiming the poetry of everyday life (p.95)

Read Joe's commentary on science and soul in relation to therapy and aquatic bodywork.

Water bridges a therapeutic gap

Back in 585 BC, the mathematician Thales predicted mathematically the precise time of an eclipse.  He concluded that all natural phenomena had rational causes that didn't depend on deities.  This event, wrote astrologer Joe Landwehr in The Seven Gates of Soul (p.95), marked the  beginning of the scientific revolution that would ultimately deny the existence of the soulful life. 

Thales still drew inspiration from the world view he was trying to escape. He believed that the principle substance that governed nature and composed it's essence was Water.  In his book on the 6000-year history of soul, Joe went on to point out that Thales is reputed to have said: 'All is water and the world is full of gods'  proclaiming the omnipresence of soul that he had tried to rationalize away. 

Joe, my partner, is a great sounding board for my thoughts and ideas, including those on aquatic bodywork and spa culture, though both fields are quite new to him.  Like me, he has followed a rather unconventional career path - beginning in science and then finding it could not provide the answers to some of his deeper questions about the meaning of life.

Recently, Joe commented on my last post How to investigate aquatic altered states of consciousness.  I have compiled his input below since I think it provides a valuable and interesting extension of the issues raised there. I encourage you to join in too by commenting below either post or Email me here. 

'Without quantifiable measurement, science is lost', notes Joe but so much that is important in healing or therapy cannot be measured or quantified.

How to investigate aquatic altered states of consciousness

As a practitioner of Watsu-type aquatic bodywork becomes more adept with their techniques and more sensitive in their awareness of the receiver, they inevitably witness some profound and mysterious effects of this work.  These are subtle effects that arise out of the ways in which touch and movement are translated through water, a medium with sensitivities that are rarely acknowledged. 

On the other hand, those who practice in a more methodical and results-orientated way are unlikely to create a setting that allows for this deeper experience. To a certain extent this can act as a kind of safeguard.  This is because such work needs a well-developed sense of safety in guiding a person who will often be experiencing something akin to an altered state that is difficult to articulate.

There are great differences between this type of approach to aquatic bodywork which is highly intuitive and not easily quantified, the kind of practice appropriate to the spa leisure industry which is intended for relaxation and pleasure, and the carefully regulated ways of working in the disease/disorder-defined clinical practice. 

In the relatively unexplored and, by definition, fluid area of what I have come to call intuitive aquatic bodywork, it is especially important to record and research its effects.  It is also important that we value and respect the skills required to practice in this way, and that we begin to define benefits and applications. 

Such work can be an effective adjunct to psychotherapy and to the care of those facing life transitions that have a non-medical aspect to them - such as pregnancy, bereavement, old age, and terminal illness.  The expanded awareness and enhanced well-being engendered by aquatic healing, also has the potential to promote creativity and an attitude of optimism in the receiver as well as the giver.

Over several years in both spa settings and private aquatic bodywork practice, I have documented my experiences of a non-clinical but nevertheless therapeutic approach. In this blog I am presenting some of the insights gained from this and encouraging input from other aquatic bodywork practitioners (and receivers) regards their own experiences.

Pristine waters; murky depths

This post is the fourth in a series on exploring altered states through aquatic bodywork (reading the earlier ones is recommended, see below for links).

Healing at the level of soul, say Connie Zweig and Steve Wolf (Romancing the Shadow, Ballantine, 1997) is a natural, regenerative process.....It is not a cure, but a deep sense of acceptance and a reorientation toward life and toward the gods'(p.10).  They are writing about the value of shadow-work, an exploration below the surface and into the depths.  While Self denotes a connection to transcendent spirituality, soul implies relatedness, complexity, and vulnerability (p. 19).

Ideally we hold space for both aspects when working in water since aquatic bodywork seems to trigger both transcendent and descendant experiences in people.  The paradox I began this series of posts with requires us to be comfortable with this tension of opposites, with ambiguity and complexity.  We ought to be as willing and capable of guiding someone through the murky, monster-ridden deep as we are at playing in the pristine, glistening realm of spiritual waters.  And for that, it's best to be well-acquainted with both places ourselves.

Physician Larry Dossey, well-known for research into the healing power of prayer, says: All acts of health carry this greyish, dark side to them, because they remind us what we most wish to avoid: illness and death. ... our frenzy to be healthy only increases our sensitivity to the phenomena of illness and death, just as light, in a world of objects, always casts shadows.  The two go together, they draw each other onward, they cannot be teased apart (Ch. 18. The Light of Health, The Shadow of Illness, in Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature, ed. C. Zweig and J. Abrams, Tarchner, 1991, p. 92).

Each person (practitioner and client alike) brings with them to the water many hidden parts, some of which are in the form of frightening monsters.  Using watery terminology, Zweig and Wolf (Romancing the Shadow, Ballantine, 1997): The personal shadow .... is shaped by a confluence of forces: the collective or cultural shadow, which forms the sea of moral and social values in which we swim; the family shadow, which forms the vessel in which we grow; and the parents' shadow, which form a legacy of abuse and betrayal.

In the water things don't remain hidden for long. Poet Robert Bly: the Wild Man encourages a trust in what is below: the lower half of our body, our genitals, our legs and ankles, our inadequacies, the soles of our feet, the animal ancestors, the Earth itself, the treasures in the Earth, the dead long buried there, the stubborn richness to which we descend. "Water prefers low places," says the Tao Te Ching, which is a true Wild Man book. (Part 4: The Disowned Body: Illness, Health, and Sexuality in Meeting the Shadow, ibid., p. 82).

If the pool environment, the readiness of the receiver, and the ability of the practitioner are conducive, the poetry of healing begins to flow. Trainer in Bioenergetics John Conger: Most of us tend to think that the shadow is invisible, hidden way somewhere in the recesses of our minds.  But people who work regularly with the human body and can read its mute language are able to see in it the dark shape of the shadow. It etches itself into our muscles and tissues, our blood and bones.  Our full personal biography is recounted in our bodies, there to be read by those who know the language (Introduction to Part 4: The Disowned Body: Illness, Health, and Sexuality in Meeting the Shadow, ibid, p. 84).

In the water, it seems that mind-body-spirit express themselves in unison in a way that is not possible on land.  What can we learn from these other fields of investigation and how can we begin to apply these insights to aquatic bodywork? 

Inspiration: Conscious fluidity

In recent posts, I have been exploring how aquatic bodywork might affect state of consciousness.  This extract from Ken Keyes book The Handbook of Higher Consciousness which has been a bible of sorts for some people offers some interesting watery metaphors.

When you are heavily addicted, your experience of 'self' is solid like a block of ice.  When you have succeeded in reprogramming almost all of your addictions into preferences, your 'self' loses it rockness and begins to have the adaptability and clarity of water.  When one is operating primarily on preferences, the hardness melts and instead there is a conscious fluidity.  In this state, like water, your sense of 'self' is infinitely flexible to accommodate itself to your here-and-now surroundings... For the few intrepid explorers of the mountain of consciousness who wish to go to the top, even preferences must be reprogrammed. [At this level] even the fluid self boundaries disappear.  As water evaporates, it becomes a transparent vapor.  Similarly, at the highest level of consciousness, the experience of 'self' or 'somebody' disappears, we become 'nobody' - which then lets us be in unitive space with everybody. Ken Keyes, The Handbook of Higher Consciousness, p. 128-129

Diving deeper: shamanic, yogic, scientific and poetic paths

 

There are many paths to the ecstatic state, and the parallels between them are pertinent.  One of the most fundamental questions to ask, is why pursue this state at all?  That pursuit is something that humans have been engaged in since we can remember, and avoiding it because it is hard to define or control does not seem very satisfactory to me.  It is also helpful to avail ourselves of some of the wisdom possessed by our ancestors and other explorers, before we dive into potentially treacherous waters.  Light goes with Shadow.

[This post is the third in a series of five exploring some aspects of aquatic bodywork based on the author's recent personal experience as a receiver and as a practitioner since 1998.  See links to the related posts below.]

The meeting with oneself is at first, the meeting with one's own shadow.  The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well.  But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is.  For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad.  It is the world of water, where all life floats in suspension; where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me.p. 21-22 in Carl Jung,  The Archetypes of Collective Unconscious, 1959

Since my recent Harbin experience had a distinctly yogic quality, I begin my investigation here.  On my desk is a copy of John White's attempt to investigate the related topic of kundalini back in 1979; he compiled essays by many authors on traditional views, personal accounts, scientific research, and advice for seekers (Kundalini, Evolution and Enlightenment, edited by John White, Anchor Press).  Kundalini is a phenomenon that I believe is related to my experiences of aquatic bodywork (see An aquatic kriya: the bodywave).  In the Introduction to his book, White wrote:

Some of the lines of investigation offered here may appear bizarre or even absurd at first because they are contradictory to 'common sense' and accepted scientific views.  However, nothing need be taken on faith. That would be out of keeping with the basic assumption of the book - namely, that the scientific method can be applied to kundalini as a means of determining its validity and usefulness.

He went on to make four requests of readers that might also be helpful to those of us looking below the surface of the emerging and little understood aspects of aquatic bodywork - in particular, those aquatic experiences involving energy effects, psychosomatic shifts, and even spiritual epiphanies, that are real to those reporting and witnessing them but do not fit current medical models for beneficial procedures or outcomes in healing.  Here are the requests John White made:

Health and fluid movement: insights from biodynamic massage

From an article originally published in The Journal of the Association of Holistic Biodynamic Massage Therapists Vol.7 Issue No.1 Winter 2003/2004 ISBN 146-3743) Gill Westland, posted on the website for the Cambridge Body Psychotherapy Centre.

Biodynamic Massage:  Theory

[Gerda Boyesen who developed this method] has uniquely described tissue armouring within the body psychotherapy field. She recog­nised that ill health seemed to be consistent with lack of fluid movement and stagnation in the body, and health with fluid movement. She observed that 'dry' tissues (i.e. skin, connective tissue, muscle) seemed to lack fluid. She also noticed that sometimes parts of the body have swollen, warmer, red tissues. This is in the absence of any infection. It is as if there is an excess of fluid and the fluid creates internal pressure. Individuals with this symptomology often describe themselves as feeling under pressure and jittery. This situation is known as distension pressure.

Sometimes tissues can be swollen, but the skin colour ranges from brown to grey or white and it is cold to the touch. This is called transudation pressure and is tissue armouring. It is a more chronic patterning. People with depressive illness, for example have a preponderance of transudation pressure.

Reich saw that fluid draws energy; and energy draws fluid. If there is stagnant fluid there is impeded flow of energy and conversely, if energy flows, so does fluid. Boyesen recognised that the 'solution' was to invite the emptying off of excess fluids and to draw fluid into drier areas of the body. The fluids are central to self regulation and are fundamentally involved with the inherent wisdom to heal and connect with essential health.

Apart from tissue armouring, Gerda Boyesen's other unique contribution is the theory of psychoperistalsis. She noticed that when clients had tummy rumblings during sessions that there seemed to be therapeutic benefits. She began to work with an extended stethoscope to listen more intently to the sounds and gradually developed her theory that the guts not only digest food, but also regulate affect. Again she speculated that excessive fluid in the intestinal walls, the distention pressure, stimulated the peristaltic activity. So biodynamic massage therapists often work with an electronic stethoscope. This gives the therapist feedback and guides the therapeutic process.

A path to aquatic ecstasy

 

May we live like the lotus at home in the muddy water.
Judith Hanson Lasater (yoga teacher)

This entry is a continuation of A return to the water.  It describes and elaborates upon my recent experiences as a receiver of aquatic bodywork at Harbin Hot Springs where I first came across and trained in this healing art (Watsu and other forms). Please see below for the remaining posts in the series.

The word ecstasy comes from the Greek meaning to be placed outside one's self; a form of trance or state of consciousness.  More recently, this word has been associated with the drug MDMA or Ecstasy with it's highly sensual and blissful effects - applied initially in therapy for those who had lost any feeling for pleasure, and later in the rave culture where dance escalates the experience.  My own fleeting experiences of the ecstatic state have been primarily associated with aquatic bodywork. 

I'm a cautious explorer in this realm and, like those who have experimented with other methods of altering consciousness, I am aware of the difficulties.  The exploration lies in conceptual gray zone where science  challenges spirit.  I'm a scientist by early training. Finding effective ways to investigate such experiences, and then to articulate them, is an ongoing personal challenge.  One approach is to attempt a dialog with the few who are exploring in this field in general, and in aquatic bodywork in particular.  I invite your involvement.

Quotes: A yogic river

In the spirit of the yogic theme of current posts, here are two water quotes - Inspirational Blessings from the blog of Guru Singh.  Please click here to read more.

An unbroken river

Relate to your existence as an unbroken river. You have been from the beginning before any beginning at all . . . you will exist until long after the end beyond any end could be . . . eternity has nothing to do with these measures.

Become the river, not a drop of its water . . . be forever (source to ocean), not (a drop) wondering or worried if you will make it to the ocean. All water makes it to the ocean — in fact — the 'river' is already at the ocean. Be the river . . . be already there.

The more you connect with . . . the more you relate from this perspective of guaranteed eventuality — the more you're strivings - your imaginings - and all your wantings will become; they will just become, as if they were [here] all along. The only thing that has changed is your awareness of their existence.

...

Posted by Guru Singh 4/8/2009

Immerse yourself in the river

Immerse yourself in the river of your existence. This is your identity and it is time to accept it in all of its parts . . . all of its places. This is the path of you becoming you.

By being the river—from the source at the head-waters to the ocean—your intuition increases exponentially. Use this intuition to remain as the river in the face of all the bubbles of illusion. Remain as this river; do not become enamored by the bubbles of your individual wonders. Make yourself comfortable in all your places and be as ease with all your wonders. ...

Posted by Guru Singh 4/17/2009

A return to the water

One of my most blissful early aquatic bodywork experiences was being held upside down and under water in  the 'embryo' position where it seemed I accessed both my conception and my dying.  It was as if everything came together in me and expanded beyond me at the same time: a paradox that made sense.  The person who facilitated this was my friend Inika Sati.  There was always a certain recognition between us, then a too-long gap, and recently we connected again for another session.

This series of five posts was inspired by that  recent session, and the two with other aquatic bodyworkers that followed it, during a week in mid-March when a similar shift in my consciousness occurred.  I had returned, after many years, to the place where my love affair with the element Water began - Harbin Hot Springs in northern California.  I was hoping, with some trepidation, for the kind of recollection that did in fact occur.  I was in need of a depth of healing or soul-tending that this form of bodywork in water has been able to effect in me.

In just a few days, with the certainty of an intuition I have come to recognize and act upon, I shifted from a state of chronic depression to one that I am comfortable describing as 'ecstatic'.  For me, that state is synonymous with 'joy'.  It's as if whatever keeps me from direct contact with a vibrancy I'll call life force falls away.  There is also a sense of invincibility to this feeling, since any fear of being hurt by anything outside of myself dissolves, along with the separation of 'inside' from 'outside'.  Others can see and feel this in me too.

On his website The Souls Journey, Lawrence Edwards writes:  Kundalini awakening is the esoteric goal of all yogas and has been sought by sages for thousands of years. It leads one into the profound depths of meditation, states of rapture and union with the Divine, dissolution of self and the direct experience of the infinite spaciousness of Being. This series is my story of an aquatic kundalini re-awakening.  It's an important part of my own soul's journey.