SHOULDER WELL, BUBBLING SPRING AND HEAVENLY ANCESTORS

Tensions in our body-mind do not mostly come from the present. They come from the past, some from recent stresses, some from the more distant past, from early in our lives, from past generations and from who knows where!?

I often note in sessions and classes that the trapezius is a good example of how we can contact both space and time in our work.  The surface of the trapezius often holds tensions from the recent past: last night’s troubled sleep, yesterday’s disagreements, even tense situations from TV shows..

Pressing in even a little more deeply and holding for a slightly longer time, we may contact tensions that accumulated some years ago.  Even at the very bottom of this area, generally called “Shoulder Well” in acupuncture, we may contact and help the client let go of tensions from their very earliest years.

Interestingly, Gall Bladder 21, “Shoulder Well,” is located in the trapezius between the tip of the shoulder and the base of the neck.  Now, at the bottom of the feet is a point called Kidney 1 often translated as “Bubbling Spring”.  Frequently, I entertain the image that my fulcrum into the shoulder well/trapezius is traveling down to and rising up from the bubbling spring at the bottom of the feet.

We work on the complex geometry of space within the body. Yet, we forget that, in an important sense, we also work on time – with the history of the person as embodied in their tissues and nervous system.

In a recent Zero Balancing class I taught, I realized that the next step in the protocol of Zero Balancing is one that also relates to time, yet from a unique perspective. The next step after the trapezius is to work with a point in the very middle of the scapula variously called “Heavenly Ancestor” or “Celestial Gathering”, Small Intestine 11.  We press up into this point bilaterally almost as if we were balancing two triangular plates on the tips of our middle fingers, supported by the 1st and 3rd fingers.  Commonly holding these points for a longer duration will evoke an altered state in the client.  There are many possible reasons for this.

1.   We know we “have” a back. But what could be in back of the back?  It’s like a psycho-physical koan. In fact, the scapula is in back of the back.  Often, we are even unaware that the shoulder blade is there.  But there it is, in this unimagined space, the back that is in back of the back.

2.   When you help take the client’s awareness to a bodily place they are not ordinarily aware of, they commonly enter an altered state.  In that state, they may have unusual experiences or new visions.

3.   Of course, in order that our “wings” can move, there is a necessary space between the scapula and the posterior ribs – even a bursa between the scapula and the subscapularis muscle. When this subscapular space is compromised, often by the scapula almost adherent to the ribs beneath, this can give rise to both structural and energetic problems. The range of motion of the scapula and the shoulder can become limited.  Also energetic issues such as a sense of burden, being put upon, having the “weight of the world on our shoulders” can become chronic.  When this space is energetically compromised, tensions that would normally “wash off” our backs go rather into the ribs, respiratory movement, even affecting ultimately the lungs and heart.

4.    Some profound experiences are tellingly evoked by the names of this point, variously called “Heavenly Ancestor” (sometimes Celestial Gathering”.)  It is indeed not uncommon here that people will feel themselves in relation to “ancestors.” Fulcrums into this area then may invoke not a personal past, but with a past that may have preceded them:  older teachers, living or passed on, well-wishing beings who seem to bring blessings – an archetypal past. When I receive sustained work into this point, I relax, and sink into a dream-like sense of support from what has preceded me, what is offered by the past before me. This is similar to the Zen koan – “what was your face before you were born?”

5.   So from trapezius and the Shoulder Well we are given the opportunity to let go of recent and distant personal tensions. From Heavenly Ancestor and the scapula we are given the opportunity let go even more deeply perhaps to feel archetypal support from times, people, events, and beings who preceded us.

What is behind the back in space?  What is behind the back in time? It is no accident that the scapulae have been used in Asian traditions as “oracle bones.”

Two kinds of time and space are evoked through this amazing work – through the shoulder well, the shock-absorbing trapezius, and the celestial gatherings that take place through the fascinating energetic life of the scapula.