Shiatsu and Archaeology
The bodies of our patients have a story to tell. A patient’s words might contain a lie, but their body is unable. It is the journey of a lifetime to acquire the skills to read this story in the body.
Time Travel
The possibility of time travel has fascinated people of all ages and has been the subject of numerous TV shows, books and films. In its literal form it will probably remain an elusive mystery to mankind for a while, but in certain forms it exists already as part of our day-to-day reality.
At one end of the spectrum, we hear of near-death experiences, regression hypnosis and shamanic journeys that effortlessly transcend the linear boundaries of time. At the other end, we have the everyday power of perfume. Fragrance is widely known to have the ability to instantaneously transport us to times previously known. The smell of cooking, freshly mown grass or a flower can immediately “transport” us to a time and place we had believed long forgotten. It can be something extremely pleasant, entirely neutral or highly unpleasant which takes hold of our memory. The only reliable factors are the unforeseeability and uncontrollability of the phenomenon.
A similar mechanism exists in conjunction with several forms of bodywork, among them Shiatsu. Shiatsu practitioners quickly become accustomed to a form of time travel that resides within their clients’ bodies. It is easily approached through the mantra of the Rosen bodywork method*: “Your body remembers what you have long forgotten”.
According to the logic of this saying, the body has what is known as muscle memory, a kind of passive storage capacity whereby events, people and situations long beyond the recall of regular memory function suddenly become accessible through needle insertion or the touch intervention of a therapist.
Early Days
Here are two examples from the very earliest days of my Shiatsu training, both involving close friends.
One friend reported in a delighted voice that she was experiencing memories from her early childhood. Her tone did not lack a tinge of amazement, presumably because the memories involved were so old and also surprisingly pleasant.
Only weeks later, another experience showed me the other side of the coin.
Another friend suddenly sat up and burst into tears as I was treating her feet. I was completely taken aback and, at a loss to know how to proceed, stopped what I was doing, paused for a second and then covered her first with a blanket and then with a hug. She was unwilling to discuss the events which had surfaced, but they seemed traumatic enough to warrant truncating the treatment and not attempting a re-start.
A Sense of Depth
I deliberately use the word “surfaced” above to imply a sense of depth within the human energy system. The idea is a useful one because it provides a simple model for placing events and memories on a scale of depth. According to this, superficial levels would contain things in the very recent past, while deepening levels would contain events and situations from farther back in the past - crucially still present, although less easily accessible due to their greater depth.
Staying with this image, we can consider the effect of energy-based therapeutic work.
A human being is a living network of networks, an almost infinitely complex web of interaction, interface and transformation. Within this web, there are energy depots which represent specific events and thus memories. As the client permits the therapist’s intervention to allow the relaxation of the superficial memory layers, deeper ones become accessible.
Usually, this access gives rise to certain feelings or images, which materialise in the client’s awareness - either physically or perhaps somewhat less tangibly, but no less authentically, as emotions, ideas and even as specific names and faces. If we consider the two examples briefly described above in this light, the process can, on the one hand, lead to a very pleasant experience as a kind of film is replayed with memories long forgotten flowing through the client’s consciousness.
If we, instead, consider the second example, we realise that the therapist needs to be prepared at any time for on-the-spot meltdown.
Whether the experience tends towards the former or the latter will normally depend on the kind of memories stored in the particular client’s memory layers. If the client has led a relatively harmonious and fortuitous life, then we can expect a fairly delightful experience to manifest. If on the other hand, the client has led a tough life flavoured by trauma and hardship, we do well to expect the film to be somewhat more intense, not to say dramatic and possibly unpleasant.
As the therapist becomes more experienced, it gets slightly and gradually easier to make a tentative guess as to which tendency to expect - even if there are never any guarantees and life is fond of springing surprises, both of the pleasant and unpleasant variety.
Access, Release and Resolution
The important point in all this is the possibility of memory access through energetic touch and therapeutic intervention, and of course the corollary - the release and resolution of these memories.
The potential for liberation from energy stored in the form of memory is of two-fold importance.
If we consider the plus side first, we might call its consequence: joyful recycling. Life proceeds in phases but even more importantly, cyclical phases. In fact, the phases of life seem not only to be cyclical but also spiral in form. (This idea will be explored more thoroughly in another article: The Healing Spiral)
Briefly, the spiralling movement of life means that we move into and through similar themes again and again throughout our lives. Things we thought to have left behind in our childhood, youth or early adulthood reappear in our lives for reassessment and re-evaluation. We get repeated chances to understand life’s themes and challenges from fresh perspectives. Indeed, there are those who maintain that this is life’s very purpose and that until we have satisfactorily investigated a theme from enough angles, that theme will return ad infinitum until such time as we do.
Within this movement of life is the potential for the body to store memory, so that with the intervention of therapeutic touch, needle or herb the body can release the stored energy for review. This is a joyful occasion, as it brings the stored energy back into conscious flow, where it can be assessed and either transformed or retained for use by the energy system as a whole. We see here a reactivation of potential and a movement from latency to active engagement through the medium of circulation. The joy of recycling is enhanced by the lightness of shed memories and the increased flow of vital energies.
A Challenging Payload.
If we look at the other plus side, we see a similar process but charged with a far more challenging payload.
Let us imagine that a person comes for Shiatsu treatment with the express wish of learning to sit quietly. Some might call this a wish to meditate but let us not get carried away. For some of us the “M” word carries with it connotations of mystical spirituality, tinged perhaps with thorny issues of complexity, discomfort and difficulty. To sit quietly may seem a modest enough goal but for some of us it is nonetheless elusive in the extreme.
Let us imagine that the person in question receives a short Shiatsu treatment and does indeed, immediately acquire the ability to sit quietly and still. Let us extend the picture and see the client coming for a follow-up treatment, equipped with and emboldened by this new ability to quietly sit. As the follow-up treatment progresses, and much to the surprise of both therapist and client, spontaneous bodily movements occur. Not only this, but the movements are also accompanied by vocal exclamations and, gradually, by images. These images, revealed slowly over the following weeks and months, provide an explanation for the volatility of the sounds and movements.
The images resolve themselves into a series of memories, the overwhelming majority of which are far from pleasant. We move into the area of trauma, more specifically childhood trauma and helpless exploitation at the hands of persons of trust.
Parallel Processes
As the process evolves, the client gradually notices that other, parallel processes are underway. Lines of light, movement and energy reveal themselves throughout the body, specific patterns of breathing show up and deep states of calm are achieved. The client discovers techniques of sitting and visualisation that are typically familiar only to practitioners of esoteric meditation traditions. Movements closely resembling yogic asanas are spontaneously formed and practised.
The client becomes so interested in the images that regularly emerge from within that they engage with a therapist specialising in dream and image work. The new therapist begins to assist in building connexions between dreams, waking images and the transitions through the healing process as layers are revealed and released and the process deepens.
One day, during an acupuncture treatment, the client begins to describe a scenario.
Although fully present in the treatment room, there is a parallel setting. It is a temple ruin in a desert landscape. The ruin site has been partially excavated. Also present is the hawk, the bird which has become the herald of developmental shifts. The client descends into the interior of the temple and moves through the space. It is largely empty. There are doorways and openings, but the structure is relatively simple.
The image of archaeology in energy work is cemented.
With this, arrives a deper feeling of comfort around the movements of energy within the system, a sense of security with the shifts back and forth in time, as treatments progress and dreams assist in clearing the desolate rubble of past trauma.
The way lies open.
* Rosen bodywork method – a modality developed by Marion Rosen. The basis of this modality is that since memories are encased in the body, the gentle and mindful touch of a therapist can unlock and release them.
