The Field is a term we use all the time in Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy. The field refers to the “invisible” landscape around us that we are also part of. I put invisible in quotes, because we can see the field when our perception becomes accustomed to it. The field is co-creative. The field is influencing and affecting us all the time, and we are influencing and affecting it. Whether we are attuned to this level of perception or not, it is still occurring. Every living thing is in constant communication with every other living thing.
It is crucial to recognize that we have been taught to see the world as not alive and ourselves as not part of it. In modern times, we are more accustomed to being separate from than part of. Our individuality is encouraged and communal thinking for the good of the whole is uncommon. Separation is a taught experience, handed down to us by our ancestors and theirs before them, who have lost their felt sense of the living co-creative world.
“This concept of separation is a mistaken paradigm and every problem in the world stems from this mistaken paradigm.” – John Chitty
And the paradox is that we are both connected to everything else and having individual experiences. As Lynn McTaggert explains in her book The Field, matter at the most fundamental level cannot be divided.
Yet, each person and every living being has their own unique way of expressing into or experiencing the space around them. Our relationship to our individual field changes in relationship with others. When we feel safe and supported and relax into the support around us, we also relax into our field and experience the space around us as safe. On the contrary, when we feel unsafe or threatened, we contract away from our field and the larger relational field of the family or community we are part of. When this happens we can lose connection, not just with others but also with ourselves. However, the universe is interconnected so thoroughly that no one part can disconnect from it.
It is therefore in some sense then an artificial partition to separate out different qualities in the field or to separate the field from the body. However, it is important and useful to recognize the degree of separation a person is experiencing. It is also quintessentially important to listen to and recognize and understand an individual’s experience. Recognizing and supporting a client’s relationship to the space they inhabit, both in their body and in the space around their body, is part of what Biodynamic Practitioners do.
WAYS TO SENSE THE FIELD
1. Notice your sense of yourself.
2. Pay attention to the space below you, the places your body is touching external surfaces.
3. Notice your body, then the external surfaces, go back and forth between the two until you feel your breath deepen and your mind quiet.
4. When ready, consider your sense of connection to the space around you, also called the field.
5. Remember that you are both part of the field and surrounded by it. Remember that the field is Intelligent and that all parts of the field, all of life is equally intelligent. Notice what changes.
6. Set aside your ideas of Intelligence as greater or lesser, and consider Knowing, consider that EVERYTHING KNOWS SOMETHING. Notice what changes inside you with this thought.
7. Consider that this Intelligent field is a field in motion and that the motion or stillness you are perceiving is occurring within a wider field. Notice what changes with this thought.
8. See what new thoughts or sensations arise in this place of connection.
9. Stay in this place of connection as long as you want. Before you shift away from this perception, take some moments to feel what it feels like and add this feeling to your memory bank.
10. Recognize that this connection is something you are choosing to go away from, not something that is leaving you. Promise yourself you’ll remember and practice coming back into this awareness of the field that is both within and around us always.
