Deep Listening: Somatic Bodywork and the Transmutation of Awareness

"The changing of bodies into light, and light into bodies, is very comfortable to the course of Nature, which seems delighted with transmutations." - Isaac Newton

The Setting

After a very long day on a business trip to Santa Fe, I felt slightly disconnected, ready for something to reintegrate me and put me back in touch with that often blissful state of harmonized body and mind. Lorin Parrish, whom I was also visiting at this time, insisted that I "needed a session with Avi Khadir."

The energetic and proactive Executive Director of the New Mexico Academy of Healing Arts (the Academy), Lorin is highly attuned to body language and the unspoken commentaries of mind and spirit. Although at the time I just wanted to immerse myself into the healing powers of sleep, I could not resist the offer to experience something she called “Somatic Polarity®.”

Lorin took me to Avi Khadir's studio, tucked into one of Santa Fe's ancient little niches, and left me at the door. Like a guardian angel who has completed her mission, she raced off to her next encounter, calling over her shoulder that she would be back to pick me up.

I knocked, waiting at the doorstep. Avi opened the door promptly. He had been expecting me and welcomed me warmly. A deft and physically fit man who seemed ageless and rather European, he gently asked me a few focused questions, then the cranial-sacral session began.

It is important to pause here to explain something integral to this particular session: for many years Avi has developed a bodywork concept he has named Somatic Polarity®, which integrates the practices of somatic (body) experience with the technical aspects of traditional polarity therapy and cranial-sacral work.

The Experience
I lay on the treatment table in a quiet softly lit room, in an atmosphere that literally embraced me. After asking if the temperature of the room felt comfortable, Avi stood at my head, then requested that I take a series of deep breaths. Within moments, I felt very relaxed.

Over the next 45 minutes, he administered a variety of specific movements that included holding, lifting and stretching of my hands, arms, feet, and legs. Then he focused on key pressure points, joints and accupressure sites. My energy released in strong, deep waves, leaving me feeling completely relaxed and in a wonderful empty place of time, mind and body.

It seemed Avi "danced" with the movements and energy in perfect choreography. A distinct shamanic essence permeated the treatment, as if my soul had made an agreement to participate and to help me let go of some very deep "stuff" lodged in my body, particularly a long-standing stiffness in my legs.

As the session drew to a close, he moved to my head and neck. The experience of cranial release can be ecstatic, and it was. There was "no mind" —just me, in my body, in the floating relaxation of surrender, all tensions gone. As the session came to a gentle close, I felt very attuned to my true self.

Theme and Theory
A Somatic Polarity® session done with Avi Khadir is a deep experience of the true art of bodywork. By releasing and opening pressure points in the body's physical structure, He deftly cleared out old energy hidden in the crevices, joints, tissues, and bones themselves. It is an approach of perspective and intention that produces a real paradigm shift in the body.

As we talked about his process later, Avi spoke of "unlearning old assumptions and habits, relearning to listen to the body and the importance of being fully present. Being open to discovery and having a sense of adventure are also important to the integrity of the work. “If you are not discovering something new,” says Avi, “you’re not doing the work.”

The Academy's Program
With the support of Lorin Parrish—who has been working for several years to move beyond mainstream Polarity at the Academy—Avi created the Somatic Polarity® program and a graduate-level Cranial-Sacral Certification program, both grounded in the principles of somatic healing. "Helping students develop their own unique awareness is a process that creates openness," he believes, and he helps students learn to listen to their own healing intuition.

Avi Khadir has more than 25 years of experience in teaching, private practice, and interdisciplinary treatment of the whole spectrum of health issues ranging from traumatic injuries to chronic health problems to maintaining optimum wellness. He has facilitated hundreds of workshops nationally and internationally. He now lives in Santa Fe where he maintains a private practice and teaches exclusively at the Academy.

Going Beyond
What struck me most about my session with Avi was the emphasis on synergy, and the felt sense that all facets of my being were integrated. I experienced a positive response that clearly moved me beyond the boundaries of my "body at hand" to a deeper connection with life's healing energy.

It has been said, "Life's not just being alive, but being well.” Cranial-Sacral and Somatic Polarity® as taught by Avi at the Academy work “from the inside out” and encourage healing, personal growth and optimum wellness.

"Every body continues in its state of rest. . .unless it is compelled to change that state
by forces impressed upon it." -Isaac Newton

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New Mexico Academy of Healing Arts

"Conscious touch that starts at New Mexico Academy of Healing Arts ... yet goes far beyond"

http://www.nmhealingarts.org