Glossary
B
Bio-field: the total interactive field of the physical body, its anatomy and physiology, with the fluid body, the unified and holistic field of body fluid and the potency which enlivens it, and the tidal body, the tidal form of the Long Tide.
Biosphere: Dr. Becker’s term for the whole of the body and its local field of energetic interaction. The biosphere consists of the physical body, its anatomy and physiology; and the fluid body, including the potency or life force that enlivens it. The fluid body, and the potency within it, can be sensed 10-15 inches around the physical body.
Breath of Life: a mysterious and sacred presence that connects the created to the Source of the creative intention, which generates primary respiration and its ordering potencies.
C
Centering action: a term coined by Rollin Becker DO, to describe the action of potency or life force in centering and compensating for unresolved conditional forces within the human system (forces generated by trauma, pathogens etc.).
Coherency wave: a term coined by Peter Levine PhD to describe his experience of the Long Tide as a coherent wave form which emerges as traumatic forces are resolved in healing processes.
Cranial field: denotes the scope of work developed by many teachers and practitioners in osteopathic and craniosacral practice.
Cranial rhythmic impulse (CRI), or cranial rhythm: a superficial and composite rhythm that is like the waveforms of experience, autonomic activation and unresolved history, manifesting as a relatively fast and variable rhythmic impulse (6-14 cycles a minute).
Creative Intelligence: A term that denotes the mysterious intelligence from which all creation emerges and all things arise and return to.
D
Dantian (Tan Tien): The Chinese term for an energetic, primary ordering and organizing fulcrum. The three Dantians are located at the umbilical center, heart center and third ventricle, which are the major fulcrums of Sutherland’s ignition process.
Dynamic Stillness: the ground of dynamic and alive stillness that holds the potential for all form and from which the Breath of Life and primary respiration emerges. It is an implicate field that supports all form and function within the human mind-body system. It is perhaps similar to the concept of the zero point field in physics, an implicate field of infinite energy from which all sub-atomic particles arise form and return to.
F
Fluid body: the body’s holistic fluid field, which manifests a unified field of action. It is primordial in origin as all life depends on its presence, from the humblest single celled entity to the complex human form. The fluid body is composed of the unified fluid field within the physical body and the potency that enlivens and informs it. It can be sensed 10 – 15 inches (25-38 centimeters) off the body as an energetic field of interaction and interchange.
Fluid tide: the relatively stable tidal motion (1-3 cycles a minute) within the fluid body generated by the action of the potency or life force within it.
Fluid-tissue field: fluids and tissues form a unified field of action that manifests in a matrix-like fashion.
H
Holistic shift: a primary stage in the unfolding of the inherent treatment plan where the client’s system settles out of conditional forms, tension patterns and the CRI level of rhythm, and reorients to primary respiration and wholeness.
I
Ignition: a term coined by W. G. Sutherland DO to denote the process whereby potency manifests within the body’s fluids via transmutation or a change in state from the ordering matrix to embodied ordering forces. In a wider context, there are a series of primary ignitions which allow for the incarnation of spirit or being in the physical body. These are: Conception ignition, Heart ignition and Birth ignition.
Inherent treatment plan: a term coined by Becker DO to orient practitioners to the knowledge that the arising and sequencing of what has to happen within any given healing process is a function of primary respiration, not of practitioner analysis, and will unfold in its own way. The practitioner does not have to analyze or diagnose to learn what needs to happen. They do, however, have to develop an inner state of stillness, orientation and listening that opens a perceptual doorway to this intrinsic process.
Intelligence: Sutherland DO oriented practitioners to a mysterious ordering and healing presence that he called Intelligence with a capital “I”. This Intelligence is a direct manifestation of the intentions of the Breath of Life within the client’s mind-body system. This innate intelligence is present even in the direst situations and conditions.
J
Jing (Ching): The Chinese term for the formative ordering and enlivening forces within the fluids of the body, commonly translated as essence, similar in concept to Sutherland’s potency.
L
Long Tide: a term coined by Becker DO. To denote the primary ordering force generated by the creative intention of the Breath of life, which manifests as primary respiration in slow and stable respiratory cycles of 50-second inhalation and 50-second exhalation within a vast field of action. It seems to move from the horizon to the midline of the human system, generating the ordering matrix, within which embryological differentiation occurred, and through which cellular order is maintained throughout life. The Long Tide manifests as a tidal body oriented to the midline of the ordering matrix of the human mind-body system.
M
Mid-tide: A tidal phenomenon generated by the action of potency, the embodied ordering force manifesting within the fluid body. Potency is the enlivening force, fluids are the media for that force, and cells and tissues are ordered and maintained by its action. Within the mid-tide potency is sensed as a driving force within the fluids, fluids manifest this drive as the fluid tide and tissues express its ordering principle as motility (inherent motion) oriented to natural fulcrums and the midline. The mid-tide manifests a relatively stable rhythm from 1 – 3 cycles a minute.
N
Neutral: an osteopathic term which denotes a state where all of the factors and tensions present have entered a dynamic state of equilibrium.