Stillpoint supports our community of students, practitioners, teachers and fellow journeyer’s to share their views, experiences, insights, skills and wisdom. We are happy to support voices from our BCST community, family and friends. If you would like to write a blog, please contact Clara Favale at cfavale@stillpointcst.com. We would love to her from you!
By Tai Chou-Kudu, Stillpoint Graduate
There are so many things that I want to say. But, as I’ve found out earlier this year, I am neurodivergent, and in times of collective grief, my knack for expressing things in words is markedly less present—and other, non-verbal forms of communication and creativity have come to the forefront. One example is that I have gotten more into figure drawing. Another has been distance Biodynamic work. These modalities allow me to go to a timeless, beautiful place, where the pain and grief are felt, but are felt in the wider field of awareness of inherent health and wholeness. A place where the heart rules rather than the mind.
When the pandemic first started getting serious and my family decided to leave the city to quarantine, I felt so much grief for those who didn’t have the choice or families to rely on. After deep sadness came a need to help. I researched and shared countless mutual aid resources, grant funding, etc. with friends and personal networks. After two successful distance biodynamic exchanges, I started offering donation-based distance biodynamic sessions through my personal network and also a couple volunteer networks. Immediately, requests started coming in. So many people needed support that went beyond the left brain, a deep support that allowed some sense of being okay, as a human in the wider macrocosm of the world and all of existence. I was doing session work almost every day for the past 4 weeks.
Session work mainly consisted of helping people get out of freeze, lots of primal midline work. After sessions I’d guide people slowly to return their sensory awareness, wiggling fingers and toes, opening eyes when ready, noticing 5 different colors and textures around the room. I found this step was necessary. Who wanted to be in their body, to come back to a world so full of chaos? The return had to be gentle, like waking up slowly to a chiming of birds in the morning. Resourcing at the beginning of sessions has been another essential focus of session work. That has helped people connect to a sense of being okay in their body and in the world.
Some people have connected with ancestors—which makes sense, in such a time where resources beyond the Earthly are called for. One woman even had her first encounter ever with her ancestors. She concurrently had an immensely physical session—lots of twitching, popping, resolving of fulcrums. Oh, and—it was her first biodynamic session—done by distance, yet described similarly to clients who’ve had in-person sessions. Needless to say, my clients and I have been blown away from the power of this distance work.
When I first left the city, I missed being able to support people through touch-based work. I still do miss that. However, being able to tap into work that focuses on the health, resilience, and “okayness” of the individual and collective body has been a blessing for me and my clients. This Tibetan-Buddhist-informed work guides me on the path of loving-kindness. While doing this work, I’ve been tired and burnt out at times, but it puts things into perspective when I get annoyed at my family. There’s a sense that we’re all relatively harmless, which evokes both compassion and possibilities for the future, for us to live lives of gentleness, joy, and highs and lows—but, still be okay in it all. The line between mortality and aliveness feels striking, yet blurred. I hope to meet some of you in the biodynamic fields, and hope we can all find a bit of “okayness” during these times.
Tai Chou-Kudu comes from a lineage of holistic healers on her paternal grandmother’s side and was drawn to Biodynamic Craniosacral work (BCST) because of its emphasis on the body." CranioWithTai.com