The NOW
Evolution of Equilibrium
1971 – 2024
The Embodiment of the Sounds of Silence …slowly releasing over the years.
Waiting in the NOW
December 2023 +
Awakening
Danny Wright
My most recent breathing experimentation began in December, 2023, stimulated by reading James Nestor’s best-seller Breath. I have practiced a variety of ‘conscious’ breathing techniques over the years; and, during the past five years, I was proud to announce that I had increased my inhalation capacity to all 32-measures of Brahms Waltz, Op. 39, No. 3 in G-sharp minor. (This link takes you to the Waltz….test your inhalation capacity!) When I began reading Nestor’s book, I was shocked to learn that the exhalation was more critical than the inhalation! I was also mesmerized with his vivid storytelling and meeting historical ‘pulmonauts’ with astounding stories. I ended up purchasing fifteen books or audible files, and giving them to friends, family and doctors for Christmas.
The book Breath was a gamechanger for me, leading me to re-examine the world of Orthodontics, the current arena of ‘Facial Development’. I discovered there remains controversy and chaos 40 years later.
– AND also the opportune time
for the interface of Cranial Osteopathy and Orthodontics
2024
January – June 2024
In January, 2024, I discovered my Tongue was much more than a ‘taste-tester’.
The newly discovered function of this part of my anatomy is making a surprising impact on my chronic medical history.
I learned my Tongue had NEVER known how to rest….for 77 years!
And then I met Tasha Turzo, DO, ororfacial osteopath, in her book,
“The ALF Approach: Changing the Face of Orthodontics”
The swallow and the tongue became paramount.
In her world of interface between cranial osteopathy and functional dentistry,
the correct ‘resting tongue position’ and ‘functional swallow’
helps to stabilize and enhance cranial physiologic motion.
I was privileged to enroll in an osteopathic on-line course with Dr. Turzo during the Spring of 2024:
The Interface of Osteopathy, ALF and Myofunctional Therapy.
My understanding rapidly increased and medical puzzle pieces started falling into place.
I am here to confirm and bear witness to the disastrous and complex effects that can occur
with restricted physiologic cranial motion (palatal motion at the midline maxillary suture) from a dental appliance.
This restriction did, in fact, precipitate debilitating repercussions and reverberations
far beyond orofacial pain and uncommon reactions.
By June, 2024, this website had evolved.
Revisiting Orthodontics led into expanding and updating The Cranial Connection (1986) for the Patient.
July – October 2024
Flying to Santa Cruz, California
Bluebird
Alexis Ffrench
July finds me driving in circles trying to locate the office of Tasha Turzo, DO located in a complex built around a central island building in the middle of multiple offices circling this focal point.
This describes my travels during the subsequent months of September and October. Driving in circles, getting lost “On the Road to (and from) San Jose”, the airport destination for driving across the Santa Cruz mountains on Highway 17 replete with detours to arrive in Santa Cruz on the coast. Navigating in a rental car alone with google maps that refuse to interact with the big screen in the car plus side-road detours that occasionally become one lane can be exhausting and frustrating as well as adventurous and scenic.
July 2024
This first July visit was a motor trip from Phoenix to Santa Cruz accompanied with a friend, both a moral support and a driving partner. I was most hesitant to fly, being concerned about air pressure and the effect it could have on my symptoms which involve the jaw joint and eustachian tube. I wanted to present with ‘normal’ issues, not with a possible ‘air pressure’ upset to confound an already difficult case. The 12-hour drive was divided into two-days – four days of driving in addition to doctor and exploration time in Santa Cruz. I could never have done this alone – physically or emotionally.
I am indebted to this lovely friend who took time to be there with me and for me.
We both were rather concerned driving out of Palm Springs to Barstow, California on a ‘back road’ with no gas stations, having forgotten to fill up the tank in Palm Springs! We arrived with 24 miles to spare in 118 degree heat. That initial California adventure on our first day of travel prompted both of us to become very aware of the gas tank!
Another set of hands palpating my body, evaluating and treating. Having initially scheduled one treatment, this “initial visit” was extended to include two more treatments and staying an extra day. This was most advantageous for the doctor to be able to better see how I responded to treatment as well as getting to know my case of 40+ years. Luckily, we had ‘zoomed’ in May before this initial in-person visit, a very productive initial way to ‘meet and greet’… one of the few positives of COVID and the reorganization of ‘meeting and greeting’ in every area of our lives.
In addition, to hands-on treatment, this osteopath uses a 1064 hot laser. It seemed like she had three hands at times. Per her recommendation, I have a cold laser with violet, infrared and red probes. She and her dental cohorts have used lasers for 20 years with amazing success in treating infections as well as bone, tendon, and ligamentous issues. I continue to be amazed how I can strongly ‘feel’ a pulsating light that is neither hot nor cold, shimmering in my face and throat in the area that creates an icepick splinter-sharp sensation one day and voluminous fluid the next…changing the intensity as well as the sensation: twenty-six years of ‘unknown’, a reaction to a 1996 orthodontic trauma in the face of unrecognized previous intubation injury resulting in necrosis of the palate. Subsequent surgical intervention uncovered the the injury and the necrosis, but failed to resolve the pain syndrome.
SUPPOSITIONS and WONDERINGS
Sphenopalatine (Pterygopalatine) Ganglion Irritation
The sphenopalatine ganglion is a group of nerve cells
linked to the trigeminal nerve.
It is the largest of the peripheral parasympathetic ganglia of the head and neck, located behind the nose.
My ENT subsequently performed a Sphenopalatine Block with anesthetic through the sinus cavity. This block,
done before my September Santa Cruz return,
lasted for 30 minutes. The procedure exacerbated my symptoms after-the-fact.
September 2024
September saw me in an airplane to San Jose and a rental car drive on 17 through the Santa Cruz mountains to the coast. Airplane was kind to my ears…much shorter than driving for sure! At the end of the second treatment, minutes before getting in the car to catch an airplane in San Jose, an astounding event happened.
2024
I was laying on the treatment table and my osteopath, a specialist in orofacial osteopathy, had just finished…
I thought.
Instead, reaching onto her desk, she said
“Wonder what would happen if you put this under that upper left canine tooth? Open your mouth and bite.”
A piece of dental articulation paper was inserted into my mouth and I bit down.
Her hands were immediately palpating my head as I held this articulation paper between my teeth.
“Oh my goodness. Your entire head just opened up!” she exclaimed in shock.
“What a surprise! Do we need a dentist?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
In the world of the cranial osteopath, this palpatory perception
was not only an unexpected but also a welcome response
…to a thin piece of dental articulation tape?
More Wondering. This was September, 2024.
My mind was spinning backwards in time ‘on the way to San Jose’ …..back to 1977 and 1996…
other dental ‘adventures’ with this same ‘canine’ tooth.
I know the Way to San Jose – drive along with me.
I left her office at 3:30 in Santa Cruz to drive to the San Jose airport for my trip back to Phoenix. She told me to keep this tape hanging from my mouth on the trip home. The icepick, splinter pain in my jaw/face dissipated as I drove to San Jose. At 4:04 on the outskirts of San Jose, my bite shifted and my teeth occluded on the right side.
With a piece of dark blue tape hanging out of my mouth,
I returned a rental car, spent four hours in the San Jose airport, landed in Phoenix and found a taxi,
arriving home at 10:30 pm.
The ‘block’ lasted through the next day – far longer than the 30-minute anesthetic sphenopalatine ganglion block
previously performed in my ENT’s office two weeks ago.
Reverberations, Rebound, Reactions
Listening and Hearing
AWARENESS
“Would she have done this had I told not my story of how and when the orofacial pain began
and was exacerbated by ‘dental canine insults?”
Her hearing continues to wrap me in a warm blanket of being heard.
Within 8 days of inserting dental articulation paper at this
‘canine’ location when the sharp sensation in the left side of my throat
and face overpowered me, an upper right molar (tooth #3) fractured.
“Was this ‘coincidence’? Or, is my body screaming at all of us,
showing us the way toward resolution?”
Unanswered questions. This ‘remedy’ works some of the time. The pain continues to assault every other day.
My Phoenix osteopath has palpated this phenomenon that she experienced as well.
The both agree about the instability of my system that responds readily to treatment and refuses to ‘hold’,
manifesting constant change.
There are no answers… yet.
Both are wondering and amazed at this latest discovery, along with me.
Thus, unannounced, my door ajar was flung wide open by this unexpected response to a piece of dental articulation paper placed between two teeth – the same two teeth that previous dental equilibration in 1977 and 1996 had precipitated unfathomable repercussions
and years of pain.
I was powerless as my “door ajar” swiftly transformed into a limitless, infinite boundless space, catapulting me into simultaneous overwhelming sensations, emotions
and thought.
I was on the crest of a wave, travelling at the speed of light.
Is Groundlessness the same as Surrender…
Where both Trust and Confidence are born and can reside in the Ground of Being….
Where the vital force, the energy of life vibrates, expanding and contracting as does our Breath?
‘To let go is to lose your foothold temporarily.
Not to let go is to lose your foothold forever.
Soren Kierkegaard
I always had trouble with the word surrender. A vivid childhood image of the cowboy on a horse pointing a gun at someone and saying, “Surrender” was an immediate reflexive reaction to the word. I had to create many different words to circumvent this image and finally settled on “Let it Be” – which was always accompanied by the melody of the infamous Beatles song drifting in and out of my inner hearing!
I also had an ongoing argument with the word ‘hope’ and had to invent other words to avoid the collision of hope with expectation. This became a balancing act, stemming from an on-going family experience with estrangement. for me, Cynthia Bourgeault’s ‘mystical hope’ was another word for Trust. Emily Dickinson, however, helped me ‘see’ differently with her images of ‘a door ajar’ and ‘the little thing with feathers.” My door ajar replaced hope and I would be witness to the little thing with feather flying in at most unexpected times, bringing gratitude that would cover me and seep within My door ajar enabled me to Trust with ‘mystical hope’.
Pema Chodron with her combination word for hope and fear transports me to another level of understanding:
“REDOK”
‘A feeling with two sides…as long as there’s one there’s the other.
If hope and fear are are two sides one coin, so are Hopelessness and Confidence.
If we’re willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated,
then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation.
Hopelessness is the basic ground.’”
(When Things Fall Apart, p. 39)
I momentarily traveled into the Beyond where I was embraced and engulfed by Groundlessness
On The Way to San Jose.
It was only later that awareness creeped through my wide-open ‘door ajar’.
Insight arose from deep within. I could see Groundlessness as a doorway into the Ground of Being
juxtaposed with ‘Thy will be done’ and Surrender.
This happening, over which there was no control, overpowered me On The Way to San Jose.
….a very special condition of psycho-spiritual transformation.
Impermanence is foremost in my spirit as I venture forward
on a return trip to Santa Cruz on October 14.
October 2024
Coming Soon
I unveiled – and continue to discover – what amazing changes can and do evolve
as my body continues to be awakened and speak
. under cranial osteopathic care
…the primary form of medical treatment
for a diagnosis of “Unknown” –
Disorder unfolding into Reorder
Counter-Entropic
Self-Regulation
Beyond Words ?
The Silence is broken at this time of my life.
In the NOW, there are many words.
I Kiss the Rain
…washing me within and without.
Kiss the Rain
Meyers, arr. Hauser
I lived on RedBud Drive in Knoxville, Tennessee as a child.
Our front yard was covered in dogwood trees with only one redbud tree.
The side street that led into our driveway was uphill.
One afternoon after a summer rainstorm, I was running and playing in the street, splashing in puddles.
Standing in the middle of RedBud Drive, a shower began and rain was gently falling on my head.
As my eyes gazed west into the early evening sky, a rainbow appeared. My arms reached out to catch the raindrops.
Many times during my lifetime, this memory has washed over me with a deep sense of peace.
– my standing in the middle of the street,
– arms outstretched to touch the sky,
– absolute awe and wonderment of the blue sky peeking around billowy dark clouds,
– all dancing underneath a rainbow umbrella.
The rain kissed my face that day ….so many years ago.
And as equilibrium peeks from around the clouds into a blue sky underneath a rainbow umbrella,
I Kiss the Rain.
Once again, I am that little girl
…this time, standing in a shower of
Gratitude…
with one redbud tree in my yard in Phoenix, Arizona.
The NOW