Fascia
Fascia is a connective tissue which forms a continuous sheath throughout the body from the top of the head to the soles of the feet. It envelops every organ, nerve, blood vessel, muscle and indeed every structure throughout the body.
The significance of this shows up when the body experiences trauma. Think of fascia like glad wrap, layers and layers of glad wrap. Between each layer is a thin layer of fluid so that they glide over each other smoothly.
When trauma happens it imprints on the fascia and inhibits the free movement of the fascia. The bruises may heal but the imprint remains in the fascia.
Because the fascia covers every structure in the body a trauma in one part of the body affects the whole body.
Think of a tin of beans sitting on a shelf in a supermarket. It is wrapped in a layer of glad wrap. The tin next to it is also wrapped in glad wrap. The tin on the other side is also wrapped in glad wrapped. All three tins are then wrapped together in a further layer of glad wrap. All the tins of beans on the shelf are also wrapped in glad wrap. On the shelf below all the tins of peas are wrapped individually and then in groups. Then the shelf with the beans and the shelf with the peas are wrapped together.
This process is repeated with every item on every shelf of the whole isle. Then the isle is wrapped together with the isle next to it. Then those two isles are wrapped together with the isle next to them. This process continues until every item in the whole supermarket is wrapped in glad wrap then the whole supermarket itself is wrapped in a giant sheet of glad wrap.
The supermarket is then wrapped together with the store next to it which has also had its whole contents individually and collectively wrapped in glad wrap. Every building in the whole suburb is similarly wrapped and then the whole suburb is wrapped in one giant sheet of glad wrap. It is then wrapped with the suburb next to it and the both suburbs are wrapped together with the suburb next to them and so on until the whole city is wrapped in glad wrap.
Outside the city a small boy tugs on the glad wrap. It doesn’t look like his tugging has any effect on city at all. One small boy tugging on this huge city wrapped in glad wrap. Nothing is affected except our original tin of beans. It is rattling on the shelf every time the boy tugs. If the boy keeps tugging it will fall off the shelf.
You are on the far side of the city. By placing your hands on the glad wrap (fascia) you can feel along it to the tin of beans and then following through you can feel the boy and his tugging.
Fascia is your friend.
It is like the glad wrap of the body and so much more. It is infused with the living energy of the person and can help you find and treat restrictions far from where your hands contact the body.
Connection to the cranio sacral rhythm.
This continuous fascial sheath forms a close connection to the meninges at the point where each peripheral nerve emanates from the spinal cord. As the spinal nerves penetrate the Dura they pull some of the Dura with them and this blends into the fascial sheath which covers the spinal nerve on its journey.
This transition point from membrane to fascia is called the epineurium. It is one of the ways the Cranio Sacral Rhythm is translated to the rest of the body.
Embryonic Development
This first video shows the development of the embryo. You may find it helpful to pause the video and use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard to advance the video one frame at a time.
This video shows a fetus. You may find it helpful to pause the video and use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard to advance the video one frame at a time.
Al Pelowski – He was the best of us.
Today I lost a dear friend and college.
Al Pelowski died this morning in Johannesburg.
If you know who Al was you will know the great hole his passing has left in the cranio sacral world, particularly in South Africa.
Al was the main tutor in my cranio sacral training.
That’s how I met him. He was a fantastic teacher.
His energetic passion and enthusiasm made anatomy and physiology, which I had difficulty with, come to life. That is a rare gift that few teachers have. As my training progressed I got to know Al the man.
At times irreverent and provocative he was always warm and immensely personable. But above all Al was one of life’s live-ers.
He exuded a vitality that took it as read that I was a better man than I realised. That is who he talked to, the better man he could see, and because of it I became that better man. I suspect most people had that experience with him.
He also had titanium confidence and would take on the most difficult of cases without batting an eyelid. I traded on that confidence a lot in my fledgling days as a therapist. Whenever I felt scared I knew that Al wouldn’t be and that somehow gave me courage.
Over the years we stayed in touch. I went to live in Australia and founded The Australian Institute of Cranio Sacral Therapy and he went to South Africa and founded the schools there.
In time he came and delivered post graduate seminars to my students in Brisbane and I went to South Africa and I did the same for his students.
Regardless of which country we were in the times I remember most were the evenings after the teaching was done.
We would sit on a deck or a veranda and drink too much wine, smoke too many cigars and have the best of times.
Al’s legacy is huge. The therapists he trained, the teachers he cultivated, the outreach programs he championed. No will ever know the full extent of the number of lives that were positively affected by his having lived.
I spoke to Kitya in Cape Town today. She told me that the news of Al’s death traveled through the local cranio community fast and in a very short space of time he was surrounded and ‘held’ by the therapists he had trained.
They held him for a long time.
I was struck by the beauty of the image of him being held in this way, cocooned in love, womb-like almost.
Then something came back to me from a post grad Al delivered in Brisbane years ago. He was trying to get across the continual unfoldment that goes on in a life both physically and in every other way.
He said, “It’s not a case of you are born, you live and you die. It is more a case of you are born and you are born and you are born and you are born until your life is over.”
Goodbye Al, you have gone right back into the mystery now.
You are missed by many.
You were my teacher, my mentor and my college.
I will miss these aspects of you but mostly I miss my friend.
B1.19.0 – The Membrane System
*As with all anatomy I suggest you search for each new term on google then click on the ‘Images’ tab at the top of the page. Look at as many different pictures of each structure, from as many different angles as you can. Then look at it on the Visible Body. This will help you get a 3 dimensional image of the structure in your head.
The Membrane System is made up of three layers-
❍ Pia mater This is the innermost layer and it adheres to the surface of the brain and spinal cord.
❍ Arachnoid mater This is the middle layer and is close to the dura.
❍ Dura mater This is the outer most layer and is very tough. It is firmly attached to the bones of the skull, C2, C3, and S2. It is free floating around the rest of the spine.
These three sheaths of membrane are known collectively as the meninges. They surround and enclose the central nervous system or brain and spinal cord. The space between each layer is filled with cerebrospinal fluid. The space between the arachnoid and dura mater is called the Sub arachnoid space. It is the Sub arachnoid space that contains the majority of the cerebrospinal fluid.
The Cranial Dura is further sub-divided into two layers.
The outer layer lines the inside of the cranuim and the inner layer forms several folds or infoldings called -
❍ The Falx Cerebri - A sickle-shaped membrane running from the front the to back of the cranium along the mid line between the two Cerebral hemispheres.
❍ The Falx Cerebelli – A much smaller sickle-shaped membrane passing down the midline of the Occipital region between the two Cerebellar hemispheres.
❍ The Tentorium Cerebelli - A tent-shaped membranous structure passing almost horizontally across the Cranium dividing the Cerebrum above from the Cerebellum below.
❍ The Diaphragma Sellae - A small horizontal membrane forming a roof over the Sella Turcica of the Sphenoid bone and enveloping the Pituitary Gland.
It is helpful to think of the Cranial Dura as being like a balloon with four infoldings inside. Restrictions in this membrane can pull the cranial bones into compression and restrict areas of the brain.
As stated previously, but it is worth saying again, all parts of the Membrane system are interconnected forming a Reciprocal Tension Membrane System. Meaning that tensions within any part of the Membrane System are liable to influence all other parts of the Membrane System.
B1.26.0 – The Ventricular System
*As with all anatomy I suggest you search for each new term on google then click on the ‘Images’ tab at the top of the page. Look at as many different pictures of each structure, from as many different angles as you can. Then look at it on the Visible Body. This will help you get a 3 dimensional image of the structure in your head.
The Ventricular System is a system of cavities and canals deep within the brain and spinal cord. They have a thin membranous lining called the Ependyma. The whole Ventricular System is filled with Cerebrospinal Fluid. The Ventricular System consists of four ventricles connected by various communicating channels.
These are:
❍ Two lateral Ventricles (1st and 2nd Ventricles) located within the two cerebral hemispheres, each of which communicates via an inter-ventricular foramen to
❍ The third Ventricle located between the two Thalami of the brain.
The Third ventricle communicates inferiorly through the cerebral aqueduct (aqueduct of sylvius) to
❍ The fourth Ventricle located between the Cerebellum (posteriorly) and the Pons and Medulla (anteriorly). The fourth Ventricle is continuous inferiorly with the central canal passing down the centre of the Spinal Cord.
In the roof of each of the four ventricles are located Choroid Plexi.
These are filter like structures through which Cerebrospinal Fluid is formed as a filtrate from arterial blood. Arterial blood enters the Choroid Plexi from the cerebral arteries; then blood cells, proteins and other large particles are filtered out (remaining in the blood). The pure colourless fluid that filters through this Choroid Plexi into the Ventricular System is Cerebrospinal Fluid.
HOW DOES CEREBROSPINAL FLUID GET OUT OF THE VENTRICULAR SYSTEM?
In the posterior and lateral walls of the fourth ventricle are three foramina -
The Foramen of Magendie (medial aperture), posteriorly, and
Two Foramina of Luschka (lateral apertures), bilaterally.
Cerebrospinal Fluid flows throughout the Ventricular System. It passes out through the Foramina of Magendie and Luschka into the sub-arachnoid space where it circulates throughout the Sub-arachnoid space around the Brain and Spinal Cord.
Cerebrospinal Fluid also seeps through the walls of the ventricles into the nerve tissue of the Brain and Spinal Cord. From the sub-arachnoid space it seeps through the Pia Mater into the tissues of the Brain and Spinal Cord. Cerebrospinal Fluid also seeps out with the peripheral nerves of the spinal cord as they leave the Central Nervous System and travel out to the periphery.
REABSORBTION
Cerebrospinal Fluid is eventually returned to the blood via the Arachnoid Villi which protrude from the sub-arachnoid space through to the Superior Sagittal Sinus of the Brain. It re-joins the Venous blood which then drains from the Venous Sinuses via the Internal Jugular Vein to be returned to the heart.
So the direction of flow is,
- Arterial blood is pumped into the Choroid Plexi in the roofs of the Ventricles where it is filtered into cerebrospinal fluid.
- The lateral ventricles drain into the Third Ventricle via Inter-ventricular foramina.
- The third ventricle drains into the Aqueduct of Sylvius to the Forth Ventricle.
- It is in the Fourth Ventricle that the cerebrospinal fluid leaves the ventricles and enters the sub arachnoid space via the foramina of Luschka and Magendie. (It also travels down the central canal of the spinal cord.)
- It travels throughout the sub arachnoid space.
- Some of it seeps out with the peripheral nerves and is reabsorbed as an extracellular fluid.
- The bulk of it is reabsorbed by the arachnoid granulations of the arachnoid villi. These transform it into Venous blood as they deposit it into the Venous sinuses, particularly the superior sagittal sinus.
3D Anatomy
Below is a demo for Visible Body I encourage you to register for
the free service they offer so you can begin to see the anatomical
structure in 3D .
B1.11.0 – The Cranio Sacral Sysytem overview.
*As with all anatomy I suggest you search for each new term on google then click on the ‘Images’ tab at the top of the page. Look at as many different pictures of each structure, from as many different angles as you can. Then look at it on the Visible Body. This will help you get a 3 dimensional image of the structure in your head.
The cranio sacral system is a physiological system within the body. Along with the Respiratory and Cardio-Vascular systems, it forms one of the three primary life systems.
The Cranio Sacral System consists of -
❍ Fluids
❍ Membranes
❍ Fascia
❍ Bones
Each is a recognised anatomical structure but outside Cranio Sacral Therapy they are not treated as one integrated system.
CEREBRO SPINAL FLUID
A clear colourless fluid which surrounds and bathes the central nervous system, creating the environment within which the brain and spinal cord grow, develop and function. It provides nutrition and drainage for the brain and spinal Cord also. It is in continuous motion, as any stagnation would undermine the brain and nervous
system.
Cerebro spinal Fluid is produced in hollow spaces at the centre of the brain called ventricles and circulates throughout the membrane system.
THE MEMBRANE SYSTEM
Containing the cerebrospinal fluid is a tough waterproof sack made up of three membranous layers called the meninges which surround the brain and spinal cord. The meninges have horizontal infoldings in the cranium which separate the cerebrum from the cerebellum called the Tentorium Cerebelli and a vertical infolding called the Falx Cerebri and Falx Cerebelli which divide the right and left hemispheres of the Cerebrum and cerebellum respectively.
THE FASCIA
Fascia is a connective tissue which forms a continuous sheath throughout the body from the top of the head to the soles of the feet. It envelops every organ, nerve, blood vessel, muscle and indeed every structure throughout the body.
This continuous fascial sheath forms a close connection to the meninges at the point where each peripheral nerve emanates from the spinal cord. As the spinal nerves penetrate the Dura they pull some of the Dura with them and this blends into the fascial sheath which covers the spinal nerve on its journey. This transition point from membrane to fascia is called the epineurium. It is one of the ways the Cranio Sacral Rhythm is translated to the rest of the body
BONES
The meninges are closely attached to the bones of the Cranium and also to the 2nd and 3rd Cervical Vertebrae (C2 and C3) and to the Sacrum and Coccyx. The outer layer of the Dura is so closely attached to the bones of the Cranium that it forms a periosteum or inner lining to these bones.
Consequently, all the bones to which the membranes attach must inevitably follow any motion exhibited by the membrane, expanding and contracting in accordance with the membrane and reflecting every pull or tension within the membrane system.
