Screen of Time

"Many scientists have confessed that the answer to a problem which made them famous came to them from out of the blue, ‘from outside’, as Einstein said about the equation E = mc2. A similar breakthrough has to happen to a spiritual seeker who knows he has the total intellectual understanding of a crucial concept, but is equally certain that it has not become total. What is ‘beyond’, out of the blue, the ‘outside’? Undoubtedly, it is a further dimension screened from us by our self-made concept of ‘time’. A phenomenon is something that occurs in three- dimensional space interpreted with the fourth dimension seen serially as time: Reality is motionless, ubiquitous, permanent. The fourth dimension when seen by us serially as time, as opposed to its total aspect which is eternity, produces the illusion of manifestation – maya. What seems to us to be serial – cause and effect – is really in eternity fixed and permanent. What is seen as a movie, frame by frame, is actually a film already produced, and already in the can. A stone thrown at a ceiling fan will pass between the blades if the fan is not working, or  horizontal time. In the former, it is the working mind functioning; in the latter it is the thinking mind."

Balsekar, Ramesh (2013-03-14). The One in the Mirror (Kindle Locations 309-310). Yogi Impressions Books Pvt. Ltd.. Kindle Edition.

Fetal Life

          Recorded by Felix Schembri in Wiggensbach/Germany in the IBA office in Europe

Intelligent Fools

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

~ Albert Einstein

The Injury-Free Yoga Practice, by Dr. Steven Weiss

“In the unspoken language of the human body, anatomy is the vocabulary, alignment is the grammar. And yoga becomes poetry.”

Book Recommendation by Esther Veltheim


As a BodyTalker, whether you practice yoga or not, you are going to love this book. The Injury-Free Yoga Practice is a book about alignment, anatomy and how not to get hurt doing yoga. And yet, as you can tell from the above quote, Dr. Weiss writes from a very unique perspective. His reverence for the work, combined with his deep knowledge of both yoga and chiropractic, translates into an exploration of the body that is nothing short of inspirational….and very practical.

As BodyTalkers, we all know how important alignment is, especially where our work is concerned. We know that poor alignment disrupts our body’s energy systems and, in so doing, compromises our overall health. We also know that the way our body aligns itself is a direct reflection of how we feel about our self and the world. When we are “out of alignment” or have poor alignment, our self-esteem and our world- view reflect this distortion. Strangely, even though we have these understandings, alignment is a subject we easily dismiss when pondering our health and wellbeing.

The Injury-Free Yoga Practice explores the fundamentals of alignment as a codified system that applies consistently in every yoga posture. Personally, I am discovering that application of the alignment principles, as Dr. Weiss presents them, is transforming my experience of my body both on and off my yoga mat.

And those of you working to fulfill your studies of anatomy and physiology, you will so appreciate the way these subjects are brought to life. Discussions on anatomy are presented, not as a secondary curiosity, but in a way that reveals how anatomy is the underlying rationale for every principle of alignment used in yoga practice….and in life. And the so-called “secret” tips to alignment that never seem to be shared fully are revealed in a way that makes them immediately applicable, not just to asana but to every move you make in life.

The Injury-Free Yoga Practice is born of Dr. Weiss’s many years living not just as a yoga teacher and diligent practitioner, but also as a holistic chiropractor and anatomy instructor. The book is, in part, a compilation of ideas developed by many great teachers of alignment-based yoga, including Anusara and Iyengar. But what seems to make this book such a unique and distinctive contribution to the growing body of knowledge about yoga is the place this book is written from. Writing from the perspective of years of observation and hands-on adjustment, Dr. Weiss shares great insight into the intricacies of human alignment.

Practicing yoga can be either therapeutic or the cause of trauma. The postures themselves are not inherently safe or dangerous. The outcome of yoga practice depends on one essential criterion: the successful application of alignment. Yoga has the potential to be one of the most sophisticated and empowering means of creating structural alignment in the body.

Clearly alignment should not be an afterthought. Nor should it be considered a facet of advanced asana practice only. Alignment is essential at all levels of practice and all areas of life. Healthy alignment ensures that asana and all our movements in life are performed safely and expertly.

As far as yoga is concerned, yoga postures need not be overly advanced to be beneficial. The most basic postures are generally the most therapeutic, since they are the easiest ones in which to establish precise alignment. What this means is that even for those of you who do not practice yoga, as long as you have a body this book can transform your experience of being in it. But chances are that by the time you have read this book you will want to take up yoga!

For those of you who are already practicing yoga, The Injury-Free Yoga Practice offers you the essential tools for creating a safe and advancing practice that will provide years of health and vitality. Click here to purchase the book.


Steven Weiss, MS, DC, RYT has over 30 years of experience as a holistic chiropractor, nutritionist and dedicated yoga student and teacher. For 17 years, Dr. Weiss served as the resident chiropractor and nutritionist at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, NY. He is a member of the International Association of Yoga Therapists. Besides teaching anatomy and alignment for yoga teaching training programs, Dr. Weiss is a post-graduate instructor with two chiropractic colleges, presenting programs for chiropractors that explore yoga-based biomechanics and therapeutics. His yoga training has been in various traditions with an extensive background in Anusara and Iyengar yoga, studying with teachers in India and throughout the United States.

Impossible Possibilities

After many years of problems with my left ovary my body finally did the right thing and killed it! Put it out of its misery! It had many cysts that ruptured, too many to even count, and one that was the size of a grapefruit and I hemorrhaged into it. I spent many days agonizing in pain in bed and several trips to the hospital and into surgery. When doctors couldn’t find that ovary, I thought Halleluiah! The doctors searched with several ultrasounds over the course of several months trying to figure out where it went. They requisitioned surgical records and determined it had been removed. It was completely gone, which I was fine with, until I saw my hematologist.

I have high platelets, due to a genetic disorder and my hematologist explained that because I was young, not menopausal, the risk of a stroke is minimal. “The best we can hope for is that western medicine will have a good solution for you once menopause sets in.” my hematologist tells me. However, I am starting to wonder about how solid this plan is? I am certain he is not talking with my gynecologist or my general physician, nor did he do any blood work on my hormone levels, so how does he know this is a good plan? Does he even know I am short one ovary?

Over time my mind is consumed again with this ovary, this time from a different perspective. Every time I had any symptoms that could be related to menopause (or several other things!) I thought about the missing ovary and how this was all going to affect my risk of a stroke. I hear John’s voice saying “It’s a dynamic interactive system” and I am learning this first hand. When one thing compensates, it really does affect everything else. So what am I going to do? My faith in the Western Medical System is declining rapidly; although I do believe it is responsible health care not to abandon that side of things all together. I pursue BodyTalk more vigilantly with a focus on this ovary that has gone MIA.

By the time I am in PaRama Unit 2 with John, I have already done quite a bit of work on this ovary. BreakThrough Steps that helped me to recognize the masculine/feminine imbalances and belief systems that perhaps had a helping hand in the total destruction of one of the most feminine pieces of my bodymind. FreeFall classes that taught me to breath into my pelvis, enriching the energy and life into a piece of me that was virtually dead. The opening of the heart and renewed circulation within the entire bodymind is the incredibly powerful healing that occurs only in this way within the FreeFall class. Structural Integration assisted on releasing fascia and aligning the structural integrity of my body to feel energy flow through every cell like I have never felt before. Several BodyTalk Sessions and a lot of MindScape work all set the stage for what was able to occur in the PaRama Unit 2 class.

As I am called up to be a demo session I am curious which PU2 technique will come up and what possibly could happen to this ovary that is making a subtle appearance now. The ovary at this point is very atrophied, but now visible. The Finding Health 2 technique is what comes up and it all becomes a bit of blur from here. I remember following my breath and then I feel bubbling and popping where my ovary is. The best I can describe is a bubble blower pipe that you blow into and there becomes a cluster of bubbles forming. This is what my ovary was doing! At this point I remember looking in John’s eyes and he is telling me that the cells were replicating themselves and the ovary was growing. I now had a healthy new ovary!

When I got off the table I could feel my entire pelvis shift to make room again for its lost resident. I bent over and it was so amazing, the awareness I had for this ovary. Part of what John told me was that I would be presented with situations in my life that would allow me to explore how this ovary disappeared in the first place…. Let me tell you, I have had several opportunities to explore! I can even feel it ovulate now, something I don’t ever remember feeling on the left side.

I am so blessed to have found this amazing system. There is not a day that goes by without appreciating for our amazing body’s ability to heal from within and to John and Esther for their strength to pursue their own healing journey so they can shine the light for the rest of us in our healing. I recall hearing somewhere that you cannot lead a client to a place where you have not been to yourself. I feel in clinic we get to see miracles happen every day and that day, in class, I physically felt one of my miracle as my ovary returned. 

Thank you John for being open to the impossible possibilities and holding the space for that to occur within me. I am truly inspired to continue learning, exploring and healing…. I truly believe impossible things are now possibilities, gifts of wisdom and healing to cherish ♥

Sherry Gilbert 

CBI, BAT, Adv.CBP

How the Umbilical Cord is Cut Can Affect the Rest of Your Life

The article below is from the Globe and Mail national Canadian newspaper. I was excited to see it because it is finally addressing the subject of when to cut the umbilical cord of a newborn baby. Many people don't consider this a significant question, but my long history in working with improving childbirth and the health of babies has made this a very strong issue with me.

The fact of the matter is that the timing of the cutting-of-the-cord, as well as the location of the cut, is very important with regards to the health of the baby from that moment on, for the rest of their life. The article below focuses on the timing of the cutting and is self-explanatory. It also has the usual opposing views from various aspects of the medical profession.

I want to address something else involved with this decision. It's not good enough to say you should wait at least five minutes or longer to cut the cord. That should be obvious. The newborn baby is strongly reliant on his or her placenta for sustenance and oxygen. It takes a little while before its lungs and other functions can take over that job. That can vary from baby to baby but the fact is, if you cut the cord too soon, or to late, there are many ramifications both physically (nutrition, blood, oxygen, etc.) and psychologically (separation issues, abandonment issues, fear of survival, etc.)

Further, if you cut the cord too close to the body it affects the energy system to cause a slower and more sluggish nervous system and metabolism for life. Cutting too far away will cause an over stimulated energy system which mainly affects the nervous system and gives it a lifelong tendency to be hyper-reactive.

Nature tells us when, and where to cut the cord. If you leave the baby for a while, then after several minutes one small section of the cord will start to contract and shrivel. Soon, it will contract sufficiently to shut down all flow from the placenta to the baby. This is nature doing this function at the right time for that particular baby. That is when, and where the animal will chew through the cord. It is also when, and where, we humans can safely cut the cord. The time and place will vary with each baby according to individual needs.

Taking notice of what nature shows us will go a long way to improving the health of the baby and the subsequent ramifications in adult life.

-------------------------

Taken from the Globe and Mail, Canada April 24, 2013

When exactly should the cord be cut during birth?

Most expecting parents anticipate having to decide who – whether it’s a birthing partner or health-care professional – will cut the umbilical cord when their babies are born. But few consider the question of when to cut it.

The decision of how long to wait before clamping and severing the umbilical cord can have serious consequences for a newborn’s health, according to Dr. David Hutchon, the past president of the North of England Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society. And in many cases, he says, physicians and midwives are doing it too soon, depriving babies of blood.

Doctors traditionally clamp the cord immediately, in the belief it can reduce the risk of neonatal jaundice and protect infants from drugs administered to the mother.

But Hutchon joins a growing chorus of experts who are promoting delayed clamping. Some health organizations, such as the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation, recommend that clamping be delayed for at least one minute for healthy babies, and the World Health Organization also recognizes there is growing evidence to support delayed clamping. Meanwhile, a small fringe advocates not cutting the cord at all, allowing newborns to remain attached to the placenta for days, until the cord detaches on its own.

As media organizations such as the New York Post and the Daily Mail have recently reported, these so-called “lotus births” have become a trend in the United States. Parents who opt for lotus births typically keep the intact placenta wrapped in cloth until the cord breaks.

Hutchon, who does not have a strong view on lotus births, says the decision of when to clamp and sever the cord should depend not on a specified amount of time, but on when the baby has established his or her own breathing and no longer relies on the placenta. This can be determined when the umbilical cord is no longer turgid with blood and has ceased pulsating, which generally occurs three to five minutes after birth.

“If at birth, the cord is clamped quickly, a lot of blood can be trapped in the placenta,” Hutchon says, noting that babies can lose significant blood volume, which could eventually lead to anemia, iron deficiency, and potentially, in rare cases, cerebral palsy.

A Swedish study published in 2011 found that four months after delivery, iron levels were 45 per cent higher in infants whose umbilical cords were clamped at least three minutes after they were born, compared with babies whose cords were clamped within 10 seconds.

Delayed cord-clamping is especially important when newborns are unable to breathe on their own and require resuscitation, since continued blood circulation through the placenta will ensure they get at least some oxygenated blood, as well as adequate blood volume and extra stem cells, which may be help repair any tissue damage, Hutchon says.

Nevertheless, clamping less than a minute after birth remains common practice, says Hutchon, explaining that it may be a holdover from the 1950s, when doctors sought to protect infants from drugs given to mothers to prevent postpartum hemorrhage.

But the need to immediately administer such drugs to the mother is “complete nonsense,” Hutchon says. He says the drugs can be administered after the umbilical cord has quit pulsing and has been clamped and severed.

Carl Backes, a neonatal physician with the Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, adds that early clamping may also relate to anecdotal evidence that delayed clamping could increase the risk of jaundice in babies. He says, however, there is an “abundance of evidence” to support delayed clamping.

At the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC), chief executive Dr. Jennifer Blake says there are considerations for both early clamping and delayed clamping. She suggests parents should discuss with their obstetricians, doctors or midwives about the relative pros and cons and what is most appropriate option for them.

The SOGC’s guidelines notes that for babies born at full term, the potential risk of neonatal jaundice “must be weighed against the physiological benefit of greater hemoglobin and iron levels up to six months of age conferred by delayed clamping.” Blake adds that parents who want to bank their babies’ cord blood need to have their cords clamped early. Cord blood-banking stores the stem cell-rich blood taken from the umbilical cord for the possible future treatment of a variety of ailments, such as blood disorders and metabolic disorders.

While lotus births may be gaining more attention, Vancouver home birth attendant and midwifery educator Gloria Lemay has yet to see evidence that it is a growing trend in Canada. In the past 33 years, Lemay says she has only attended about 20 lotus births out of more than 1,000. “It takes very patient people to do it,” she says, saying that while lotus births are safe, handling the baby and its attached placenta can be cumbersome.

“It’s a small number of people who are interested in it, but they’re devoted to it,” says Lemay, who typically waits two hours after a home birth – allowing time to prepare food for the mother and letting the parents relax – before she inquires whether they want to cut the cord. “There’s no rush.”

Dr. Eileen Hutton, director of the midwifery education program at McMaster University, says she is not aware of any particular health benefits to leaving the umbilical cord intact longer than three to five minutes. At the same time, she says she is not aware of any health concerns about lotus births. “I don’t think the practice is well studied, and thus we could only speculate on any risks,” she said.

The London-based Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists issued a statement in 2008 that noted a lack of research regarding safety.

“No research exists on lotus births and there is currently no medical evidence that it is of benefit to the baby,” it said, warning that infants should be monitored carefully for possible signs of infection that may be spread from the placenta.

Sneak Peak: The Science and Philosophy of BodyTalk Book

My journey in personal growth and what I would call personal awareness started at quite a young age when my father graciously spent several nights a week taking me to martial arts classes. I was lucky to have drawn a teacher who extended my vision beyond martial arts to the power of personal development by teaching me many disciplines such as Zen meditation and the power of the mind.

I was eight years old when that journey began. I soon learned that skills did not come from simply doing a lot of exercises and building big muscles. I was fortunate to have an instructor who realized that the true strengths found in martial arts come from the Energy (Qi) within and the training of the mind in focus and intent. Unusually, I had good discipline at that age to train hard and, in particular, to do extensive Zen meditation practices to discipline my mind.

During those early years, I learned that I could put my hand through a stack of clay tiles without the need of big muscles and hard calluses on my hands. My hands remained soft throughout my decade of martial arts training because I always knew I wanted them in good order for when I later practised healthcare. By the age of 15, using focus and intent and harnessing my Qi, I was able to drive my hand without incurring injury through stacks of up to 30 tiles at a time.

However, brute strength can only do so much. I saw large muscular men with hard, callused hands attempt to break similar stacks of tiles, and only make it through the first 20 because the sheer brute power could only keep the momentum going through those first 20 tiles. By going through the mental process of directing Qi right through to the bottom of the stack of tiles, I not only reached the bottom of the tiles but would shatter them into hundreds of small pieces from the sheer explosive impact of the Qi.

When I was about 11, I taught myself how to hypnotize. It seemed to be just an extension of my meditation practices that enabled me to affect other people. To me, it was a way of exploring the nature of the mind and just how powerfully it influences the body. 

In my later teens, I did several experiments to demonstrate how much the mind could affect the physiology of the body, its health, and its strengths by simply getting the false ego out of the way through the means of hypnotism. However, my goal was to utilize this knowledge and gain a better understanding of how to help the mind and the energy system of the average person, and maintain healthcare and quality of life, in a natural way.

In my early years as a chiropractor I worked at two different levels of chiropractic:
Symptomatic – based on physical manipulation to mobilize the body and relieve pain.
Traditional – based on the principle of balancing the nervous system through specific spinal adjustments to improve general health. This also involved the concept of allowing the Innate energy of the body to flow freely through the spine to all the body parts.

With the first level, I was basically acting in my capacity to address back problems and relieve back pain. This tended to utilize my osteopathic background to do osteopathic manipulation of the spine designed to mobilize the spinal segments and restore movement where they were previously restricted.

With the second level, however, in my public lectures and in my literature, I talked a great deal about the philosophy of what I would call “traditional” chiropractic. At this stage, in Australia, the public generally saw chiropractors as “bone crunchers” who “fixed” backs. Eventually, over a period of two years of patient education, I developed a practice where less than 20 percent of my patients came to me with back problems. The other 80 percent came for general health concerns and received good results in a specific range of health challenges.

A typical example: One of my patients had been coming to me for about five treatments for general back pain and was responding very well. In fact, I was at the stage of giving him his final treatment when he mentioned that he had been reading my literature. He had read that chiropractic could help stomach ulcers and explained that he had been suffering from severe stomach pain, especially at night, for several years. As the medication he was taking from the doctor was not helping much, he asked if I could try using my system.

I had actually finished the specific treatment for his back pain but asked him to lie back on the treatment table. I proceeded to adjust him using the traditional chiropractic technique, with the very specific intent and focus of balancing the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve supply to the stomach region and restoring Innate flow to the body. Remember that my previous osteopathic adjustments had an intent and focus of simply mobilizing the spine and relieving back pain.

Two days later, the patient rang me to say he just had the best two nights’ sleep of his life. I treated him four more times along the same lines and when I saw him six months later for another problem, he mentioned that his stomach had been normal throughout those previous six months.

Once again this highlighted, to me, the absolute importance of intent and focus in any technique performed on living things. Later, as an acupuncturist, I encountered similar situations all the time. For simple conditions, I often used a symptomatic approach in my acupuncture formulas that afforded me good results in the average case. I had a very busy practice and they were quick and simple to do. However, whenever I encountered a particularly tough case that was not responding after three treatments, I found myself having to shift mode into my traditional acupuncture training. This involved a full diagnostic profile of reading pulses, tongue, etc.

I found that on most occasions, once I shifted my mode of thinking into a fully traditional way and worked out a specific tailor-made formula for that particular patient’s condition, I often ended up with a combination of acupuncture points very similar to what I was already using. Again, the big difference was my intent and focus as I inserted the needles. In my years as a senior lecturer in an acupuncture college, I often demonstrated to the students just how much intent and focus determined the outcome of a needle insertion. Simply inserting a needle into an acupuncture point can have a certain predictable effect. However, when the practitioner has a detailed understanding of the whole meridian system and the ebbs and flows of the energy according to the time of day, lunar phases, and gender of the patient, then a skilled traditional acupuncturist can effectively cause many different changes in the energy systems of the body by the use of the same acupuncture point simply by changing the intent and focus while inserting the needle.

Over my many years in practice, I saw this concept to be relevant in almost all forms of healthcare that involve energy at different levels. Another example would be homeopathy, which is, in fact, energy medicine. A traditional homeopath can prescribe a single ingredient that, with his intent and focus as he gives the remedy to the patient, has a far better result than the symptomatic homeopaths using standard formulas designed for specific outcomes. I also saw this effect in applied kinesiology, craniosacral therapy, and the use of machines to generate frequencies for specific outcomes.

My early life experiences clearly demonstrated to me that the state and quality of training of a practitioner, his focus and intent, his clarity of thought, and the rapport that he has with his patients are seriously important factors determining the outcome of any therapeutic situation.

During the early years as I was developing The BodyTalk System, one other factor, in addition to the above, became apparent to me. That factor is the importance of the attention of the practitioner in any therapeutic situation. In BodyTalk, a differentiation is emphasized between the terms “attention” and “intention”.

In many energy-based modalities, one often hears the phrase “it is the intention that matters.” From this perspective, intention carries the connotation of agenda. When practitioners proceed with intent, they are proceeding toward a goal with bias and expectations derived from past training and experiences hoping for a specific outcome to the session or treatment.

In BodyTalk, sessions are conducted by the practitioner paying full attention to what is happening in the present moment. The practitioner is there with the client – fully. In this way, attention and awareness take advantage of the interfacing of the left and right brain hemispheres which encourage Innate mental clarity. However, when treatments are given with intent, as is the norm and what I believed in for many years, the practitioner’s own agenda, beliefs and expectations inhibit the healthy interfacing of the left and right brain hemispheres.

Order your book today! All book orders will be shipped after the official book launch on May 2nd during my public lecture in Toronto, Canada (this event will be streamed live online for free).