Transformative Healing

Gerry Clow
Registered Polarity Therapist (RPP)
Craniosacral Therapist (CST) Bodywork is an ancient practice. It is as old as human touch. At some point in our existence as an emerging species, we used the best tool available to us to heal one another. Intentional, directed, compassionate, connected touch. Today, practitioners in many healing modalities, as well as their clients, know exactly what I am talking about: touch that can break up tumors, touch that can help mend broken bones, touch that can calm and quiet the traumatized nervous system.

To describe "what I do" is to describe what happens when I myself get on someone's healing table. Following my natural instinct, I settle and center myself, I find my spine, I connect with the spark of life within-even before the practitioner puts his or her hands on me. Sometimes, I settle so well on my own that little "crias" of energy jolt up my body, as if something inside is saying "Yippeee!" or "Finally!"

Then, when I feel the practitioner's hands on me, I go right to work, doing a deep self-assessment. I call it "energetic introspection." Where is the energy moving, where is it not? The practitioner feels this as well, and we may have a quiet dialogue about this as the session progresses. Then I go deeper, as if my body is made of energized mud, as if I am the roots of the trees and plants around me, as if I am in a sacred garden. I go so deeply that I may reach the core of our Earth, the iron-core crystal, the record keeper, where my identity and yours are stored, as well as the codes for all living things, past and present, on our planet. Now that is taking inventory of oneself! Lately, taking off on the term used on Wall Street by the 99%, I refer to this process as "Occupy Your Body!"

You can probably feel this in your own body as I describe this process of "energetic work." Your mind, however, might be saying: OK, but what does this have to do with health, wellness, and healing? The answer is: everything! All health is dependent on how well we are managing our own bodies, how in touch we are with them, how much "re-sourcing" we can supply to our bodies. When we speak of deep rest, nurturance, taking care of ourselves, this is it. Going into these awake states of deep relaxation and rest, in which we can connect with all living matter around ourselves, is essential to being alive, and therefore healthy.

Inevitably, the session takes healer and healee to those places in body that are "stuck" or "slow" or "resisting". Then, depending upon the modality, a dialogue occurs, through intentional, directed touch, or through deep, intentional "listening". Touch involves sending and receiving; it can take place off or on the skin, down at the level of connective tissue, inside muscle, and all the way down to the bones. The skilled practitioner knows exactly at what level he or she wishes to operate, and half that equation comes from the client, and what his or her body and tissues are asking for, in the language that the body speaks. That's what I mean by listening: knowing how the listen to what the body is saying. That's what we mean by the term "body talk".

The result of this kind of work is often this: you rediscover the energy pathways for your entire body, which has been termed your Original Blueprint. Each of us is unique in how we are put together. All human, all with parts with the same names, but woven together in a fashion unique to each of us. "Energy" is defined as electromagnetic energy, or bio-energy, or chi, life force itself. Biodynamic craniosacral work addresses this energy in all its fundamental forms, defining the waves of energy as "tides" running in the local tissues, in the entire spinal column, and outside the body as well. So does Polarity Therapy, where its founder, Dr. Randolph Stone, speaks of the Ultrasonic Core and "polarizing" energy points in the body. "Where there is movement, there is health," was one of his favorite expressions.

I close with the statement: Once you have discovered these energy pathways, whether from touch, yoga, or meditation (or from all three!), you always want more and your choice for wellness is always to seek it at these levels. To simply be diagnosed with a cold is no longer satisfying; you want to know why you are sick, and where the blocks are inside yourself. You want to return to that feeling of liberation, instead of swallowing handfuls of pills. Any good doctor will tell you, antibiotics and drugs are only supporting your immune system, and if it is not strong, pills alone can never save you. The will to live comes from living, not dying.

Training
My formal training totals 1100 hours in the areas of Polarity Therapy and Craniosacral Therapy. The work I offer goes beyond the bounds of traditional massage. Most sessions include verbal dialogues, as well as consultations on yoga postures beneficial to your long-term health. All "touch" sessions use very gentle contact and are designed to complement the direction established through the initial consultation. Together we facilitate your own body's ability to heal itself.

• reconnecting "mind and body"
• more energy, deeper relaxation, better sleep
• less anxiety, more connection to self and others
• better focus and concentration
• renewed sense of purpose
• enhanced movement in ankles, hips, neck, shoulders
• more mobility in your entire spine
• relief from chronic pain
• better breathing, leading to better overall health
• improved digestion, informative nutrition choices
• a return to a state of self-sustained wellness
• feeling happy again!

Sessions on Bowen Island, BC

For the past sixteen years, I have blended my skills in Polarity Therapy and Craniosacral Biodynamics into my client sessions. I meet you at the level at which you are asking to be met. That sometimes involves the awakening and integrative skills from polarized energy, and sometimes that involves the grounding and stillness skills from cranial/sacral contact. And often, the sessions involve employing both skills, plus the gifts of sight and intuition that come from years of practice in a work that I love.

I highly recommend you enter into the work through an initial set of three treatments. The first session is two hours ($100), and the follow-ups are normally ninety minutes ($75 each). Following thd initial set of three sessions, you can come back any time for a one-hour "tune up" for $50 or for a longer session. This work is a partnership, where you learn to work with me, and I learn to work with you. Once that partnership is established, the work proceeds with trust and ease.

My sessions are primarily on Saturdays and Sundays at my healing studio on Bowen Island, BC. I am also available on Friday afternoons and Monday mornings per special request. You can also contact me regarding home visits in Vancouver, especially if you have more than one person to treat within your household. My email address is gctrav@earthlink.net. You can also reach me at: 227 David Road, Bowen Island, BC, Canada VON 1G1.

My studio on Bowen Island is located close to the ferry landing, making it an easy drive or a 20-minute walk if you're on foot. Bowen is also a great place to take a hike following your session. Once you book a time, I will send you detailed instructions on how to find my studio, as well as my recommendations on how to prepare for the session.

I wish you success in the coming year, and I look forward to assisting you on your journey into balance, health, and self-optimization.

Two recent client testimonials
"Well, I've experienced a courage to relax, a willingness to be led, a recognition of a former self-and in all of this I feel the refreshment of new and renewed friendships, fun, and mostly of a sweet calling towards a new destiny. I can say that I have experienced things I have not experienced before, and overall these past three months have been unlike anything I have ever known. The intentions I set out before working with you and my subsequent experiences are connected by the enlivening energy I experienced in your studio . . . . I feel in many ways very similar to you, I appreciate your wide-open curiosity and patience, the way you took time to do the detail work on the table. It all makes a difference. There is new initiative taking root from deep in my being, touched off by energies surrounding our work together, accessible only when I get quiet enough to hear it and then let myself be led by it. Even in writing this I feel a renewal of this same energy, animating the core, and singing with new inspiration. Tonight and before I sat down to write this, I was being "led about" but it feels now again like my strength or core inspiration is doing the leading. This connection to my core is what I suspected was waiting to be discovered, and it contains in it a new kind of rapture."

"I am so very fortunate that you are in my life: validating what I'm doing on my own, stimulating me to reach further, and healing me with what always feels like magic. Thank you for another amazing session. I really like my new postures and today went spontaneously into a Sun Salutation after rolling upward from your series . . . . The model you and Barbara have set of creating our own ceremonies has been crucial to me in learning body dynamics; I'm formally thanking you for it and the magnificent release it has brought to my life. And I'm very grateful for your sensitivity, experience, and intuition in bringing me to exalted moments of wholeness."