CRANIOSACRAL ART
Is therapy art ?

Osteopathy in the cranial field is a “non incisive surgical art.”
William Garner Sutherland 1899

ABSTRACT

“Is therapy art, and if so what are the elements in CranioSacral Therapy that can make it a form of art?”
To attempt to answer this question, we first need to clarify some of the terminology and common points of interest in the discussion both from anatomical / physiological and aesthetic points of view.

FEELING & EMOTION

In an article titled “A physiological-genetic theory of feeling and emotion” Floyd Allport of Harvard University makes the observation that although introspection upon emotional states is difficult, all emotions are fundamentally either pleasant or unpleasant. When one searches the body for a neuromuscular mechanism linked with the poles of pleasant and unpleasant emotional experiences, one finds such a function in the autonomic nervous system and the viscera which it supplies. The two divisions of the autonomic nervous system are identified as the sympathetic (sometimes called the thoracicolumbar) and the craniosacral division.

In the work of Dr Cannon published in 1915 the sympathetic motor effects are identified to include the checking of digestion and sex activity, accelerating the heart beat, constricting the blood vessels, and reinforcing its own activity by the liberation of autacoids. All of these changes are in opposition to those produced by the craniosacral efferent fibers. All the emotions studied by Dr. Cannon and reported as involving sympathetic impulses are identified as being unpleasant in their affective value (states such as anger, fear, and grief). Since the sympathetic division appears intimately concerned in unpleasantness, one may regard the craniosacral, as the basis of the pleasantly toned pattern responses. The craniosacral division innervates those responses which follow immediately upon the attainment of objects of food and sex. “Digestion and sex depend upon its unimpeded efferent impulses.” The craniosacral division of the autonomic nervous system therefore, supplemented under certain conditions by the cerebrospinal system, innervates those responses whose return afferent impulses give rise to pleasantness. The sympathetic division produces visceral responses which are represented in consciousness as unpleasantness.

When one researches the different stances that contemporary art historians have taken on the forms and functions of art it is interesting to encounter a body of work that offers an insightful perspective; Ellen Dissanayake in her book HOMO AESTHETICUS - Where art comes from and why – states that as art persists in all human societies, it must do so for a number of reasons. Most importantly among these, she proposes is the pleasure that it gives, and anything as strongly pleasurable and compelling as the arts has probably in some way, contributed to the biological survival of the human species. Amongst the examples that she cites is the ability to create social cohesion from ritual life, the ability to make important things (such as tools, weapons, and transitions) special by transforming them from ordinary to extra-ordinary, and having a capacity to experience a transformative or self-transcendent emotional state.

The first proposal in the discussion then is that both CranioSacral Therapy (CST) and art share a dynamic in the emotional states of  pleasantness and pleasure. Having drawn this link we can advance the discussion and look at some important concepts in CST and explore corresponding elements in art.

CRANIAL CONCEPTS

Mabel Todd in her classic, THE THINKING BODY, asserts that “man’s whole body records his emotional thinking.” Likewise when osteopath Dr Sutherland identified that the sutures of the sphenoid and temporal bones are designed for movement and mobility (bevelled like the gills of a fish and indicating an articular mobility,) a connection was drawn between physiology and emotive states of being. Dr Sutherland researched the effects that the springing of the occipital squama of the cranium towards each other has on the medulla, pons and ventricles – areas of the brain directly responsible for feeling and emotion. He conducted a number of experiments on himself over a thirty year period which led him to conclude that immobility and compressions of the sutures could manifest as headaches and a range of pathologies and emotional states including psychosis and depression.

In his work Dr Sutherland further identified something that he called “The Breath of Life”.
Franklin Sills in an article titled The State of Balanced tension : a holistic approach outlines the function of the Breath of Life in the following terms:

• There is an inherent state of balance to be found within every inertial relationship in the body.
• When a state of balance is accessed the potency of the Breath of Life is initiated / activated.
• As the Breath of Life unfolds within the human system, a transmutation process takes place.
• The movement of the Breath of Life arises from an intrinsic and dynamic stillness.
• In its first ‘transmutation’ from stillness, an intention also arises.
• This intention carries the blueprint energy, or the Original matrix into the world of form.
• From this, force or potency is generated, from which there is a transmutation into the fluids of the body.

In simpler terms, stillness is identified as the principle element through which the potency to heal within the body becomes functional and most importantly, stillness is recognised as having a dynamic quality.

STILLNESS

In the paintings of Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca (c. 1420-1492) the element most often remarked upon by art historians and critics is a quality of unexplainable stillness. His works are described as embodying a kind of mysterious beauty and stillness which is cited to have influenced much of twentieth-century art. (De Chirico’s metaphysical period (1910–20), with ferrara and modena cathedrals, histrains, and empty piazzas, Giorgio Morandi and many others are examples of this influence.)

The stillness in Pierro della Francesca’s work has been attributed to a mathematical structure, a sense of space and that everything shown is represented as seen from a single ideal viewpoint. (“Piero della Francesca - A Mathematician’s Art” by J.V. Field). The use of a square format has also been identified as a contributing factor to the overall sense of stillness. These theories on their own however are unable to sufficiently explain the stillness and the magical appeal inherent in his works. Possibly the closest that one can get to explaining the stillness is the Renaissance term grazia.

(Grazia may be thought of as that which gives a painting a certain "air", as something added to beauty but not directly visible. It is a quality the presence of which makes a painting a great work of art.)

It is said that Piero della Francesca achieved a link between an organic and geometric basis of beauty, what Kenneth Clark has called the Philosopher's stone of aesthetics and that it was through this union that della Francesca was able to connect with nous or pure intelligence.

It is interesting to note that pure intelligence is described in the work of the neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus as an active force without a substratum; as perpetually producing something else, without alteration, or motion, or diminution of itself. This production is seen to be an emission of force and not a physical process. There are certain similarities between this description and the description that Dr Sutherland and Franklin Sills have of the Breath of Life mentioned earlier. Namely that Dynamic stillness can be thought of as the ground from which the essence emerges and acts within the world of form.

EXPLORING NOTHING

In an informative article titled “Much ado about nothing” Raymond Bishop phd observes that there are silences and spaces at all levels in the human body and asks one to consider the pauses in heartbeat and respiration. Quoting Mabel Todd, he points out that the gaps between heartbeats are longer than the length of the heart’s contractions. Similar observations are made about the workings of the diaphragm. “Next to the heart, the diaphragm is the most continuously active of all body structures. It does not become fatigued, partly, because like the heart, its rest periods are longer than its working periods; that is the phase of relaxation is longer than that of contraction. “Like the ‘rest’ that the musician employs in a composition, to enhance and amplify appreciation of musical tone quality and variation in phrasing, so Nature employs frequent rest periods. It is as though Nature must re-establish the potential energy balance before allowing it to be employed again in kinetic form.”
In human body the craniosacral and sympathetic nervous systems alternate in their function. The degree to which the sympathetic branch is activated, is the degree to which the craniosacral system cannot function. Dr James Jealous attributes eighty percent or more of disease and illness to an imbalance in this interchange. The encouragement of still points facilitates a craniosacral response which serves to equalise the imbalance. Dr Becker states:
“ The stillness is that which centres every molecule of being of the living body. The body physiology is the outward expression of that stillness. They are in total unity, in balanced interchange. Health is related to a return to the freedom of interchange between body physiology and stillness.”

The second proposal in the discussion is that art and CranioSacral Therapy share a dynamic in the potency of stillness. In the case of art it is beauty that arises from stillness and in CranioSacral Therapy a transmutation process which facilitates healing and health.

WHAT OF ART ?

Ellen Dissanayake in her book “WHAT IS ART FOR?” lists a number of ways to characterize art. Perhaps not surprisingly a number of these points can be shared with CranioSacral Therapy:

• the exhibition of skill,
• the heightening of existence,
• the giving of meaning to life
• the generation of unselfconscious experience
• the product of conscious intention
• a concern with change and variety,
• therapy
• the provision of paradigms of order and /or disorder
• a self rewarding activity,
• a tendency to unite dissimilar things
• the imposition of order on disorder
• training in the perception of reality

Professor Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe in ART & ARTISTS: the Roots of Modernism, relates that the overarching goal of modernism, of modern art, has been the creation of a better society. He also states that progressive modernism in recent years, has seemed bent not on defining a future but in destroying the values of the present, especially as they pertain to art. In the late 60s and early 70s, an art emerged as an affront to the established values of art. This art form was termed conceptual. Conceptual artists deliberately produced work that was difficult if not impossible to classify according to the classical system. Some deliberately produced work that could not be placed in a museum or gallery. It was an attempt to place art beyond all limitations and definitions, to break the hold of formalist art history and criticism. Attention was turned towards "making" and the manipulation of materials. The process of making was given importance, with the result the final object became secondary, often temporary. In his essay "Art after Philosophy," artist Joseph Kosuth wrote: " All art (after Duchamp) is conceptual (in nature) because art only exists conceptually."

If one considers this statement: “art only exists conceptually”, what implication does this have for our discussion? Firstly it must be stated that CST is not reactionary or destructive. Nonetheless, “concepts” are essential and pivotal to the practice of CST. These concepts are in themselves revolutionary and dynamic in that they offer a different perspective to health from allopathic medicine. CST is process driven, and technique is often of secondary importance.
Within the parameters of the conceptual art movement it can be said that CST enjoys something in common with process art in that process art is concerned with the actual doing and performance, and where art is viewed as a creative journey, rather than as an end product.

The third proposal in the discussion is that CranioSacral Therapy like art is experiential and ultimately beyond limitations and definitions. Stillness, space and emptiness are as essential to CST as they are to art. Nous or pure intelligence is of as much a concern of CST as it is of neoplatonistic thought and finally CranioSacral Therapy like art is a process. To quote CST therapist Candice Marro:

References:

Floyd Allport : “A physiological-genetic theory of feeling and emotion”

Michele Emmer: book review” Piero della Francesca a Mathematician’s Art” J.V.Field

Ellen Dissanayake: “What is art for?”

Raymond Bishop: “Much ado about nothing”

Franklin Sills : The State of Balanced tension : a holistic approach

Mabel Todd: The Thinking Body

Wisdom of the Body: Michael Kern

Ellen Dissanayake: Homo Aestheticus

William G. Sutherland : Teachings in the Science of Osteopathy

Denis Dutton: Ellen Dissanayake

Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe ART & ARTISTS

Candice Marro: First tell me, do you have a quest?