Perceptual Fields - foreground and background

All perceptual fields exist at the same time. They are equipresent and part of the fabric of reality. However, the nature of our sensory system is to be more interested in particular perceptual fields over others. Overall there’s a common relationship to the narrower fields of perception as most of our daily life exists within it. Going to work, interacting with people, doing your tax returns all needs a narrower field. After all, going around connecting to the the ecosystem you are just a part of, isn’t necessarily something that is possible in the everydayness of our lives. Nevertheless these fields exist and we reside in them whether we are conscious of them or not. In fact the wider the field the more sustaining it is for our health and order and it’s often a lack of relationship to these that creates disease and depression. 

Being locked in narrow fields of perception includes a whole way of understanding the world that is partial and out of touch with our true nature. The BCST practitioner brings a huge possibility through a relational touch. It’s an ability to relate to the unconscious perceptual layers of our system. So it’s no surprise that most clients are unable to feel or perceive all of what takes place in a treatment. It takes some training to be able to relate to the them. The sophisticated practitioner is able to be in relationship to all perceptual fields simultaneously. This allows the relational field to be truly relational and not partial. How the client’s system takes this up is interesting. Most people’s systems have particular tendencies to certain perceptual fields. You can feel this when you touch them. This is why holistic shift can be such an important mechanism for the client’s system as it opens up options to other perceptual states that are not consciously experienced. One of the great benefits of this therapy is to open up the client’s conscious awareness to other perceptual states. The client then goes through profound changes as the body and mind are effected by the qualities and states within the perceptual field. One of the most remarkable experiences as a practitioner is watching the client’s system drop into dynamic stillness or long tide and observing their response across many levels. And of course, watching how this unfolds in their lives. This is the biggest effect of all. That’s the transforming nature of the therapy, to open up new perceptual fields for people. This is much more powerful than helping resolve trauma and illness. 

Babies are formed in the wide perceptual field and young children move in it. That's why we like them so much. Part of growing up is to narrow our field of perception to deal with the realities of physical life. Socialization and the modern world hasn’t helped with this shift. It’s only intensified the orientation to the physical and the material world. Lost are the wider perceptions of life. The modern world has lost much, the subtle world, feeling part of the universe and simplicity of life. Instead there’s a subjective mind that is full of ego and skepticism about anything that is not physically evident. 

The BCST practitioner opens up to these perceptual layers that are in the background of our lives and guess what happens? The body loves it. It’s what the body has been missing. A connection to the matrix that we were formed in as embryos and fetuses. Suddenly the body starts becoming fluid and less structured. The material world melts and we drop into a volume of fluid reminiscent of the uterus and the fetus and experience a state of floating and freedom. Then the body wants more, it wants to dissolve back to its components into the subtle wide field that creates a feeling of being connected to all life and the body becomes air and feels like one node in a huge interconnecting web. The body is happy beyond belief now. It’s what it’s been waiting for all its life and missing. The big picture. 

And to the practitioner this is normal. This is our residing state of aliveness. It comes with a wash of vitality and potency and a sense of the hugeness that is right next to us and within us all the time. It’s been there waiting in the background. It’s funny in a way because we are so blind to it. Once you know it, you see it everywhere. You are transformed to it. It’s in your daily life. It’s in the coffee shop, it’s on the train and the plane and it’s at your workplace. You feel it all the time. Humming in the background, there’s no escape from it now. All these years it’s been ignored and misunderstood but now it’s flowing into your mind and body and you are walking around feeling vast and spacious in a majestic state. And the stress and strains of life are not so serious after all. Hey, you’ve gained a perspective on things at last. And now you know you aren't just a physical body you are a fluid being, you are a relational field being. The part you thought you were is but a small bit of who you are. And this has all happened through being touched by someone with a perception of these fields and the interweaving of them through your whole system, and that's just like a painting - there’s a foreground and there’s a background. And the foreground is what's eclipsing the background. There's not even a window to see the background and the landscape never mind the horizon. But you know it's there, you feel it. And within no time at all the background is becoming stronger. This is in the first session.

And the other fields are starting to reveal themselves and the foreground is now a mix of fields not just the narrow one and suddenly there’s the backdrop of reality coming into the room and the body, there's an horizon in the picture now and the person’s body is diffusing into it because its not separate from us, it's what we are made of. We have coalesced out of it. The body is a coalescence out of an energy field matrix. The same way the sun is just a part of it's huge gravity field that effects all planets around it and responds to the rest of the galaxy through dark matter and if only we could see with other eyes the universe would light up with streams of relational lines that reveal how preposterous it is that we think we are separate. 

Meanwhile the body is feeling bliss from surrendering into a state of union or is that a state or relationship to its environment? The mind might be freaking out a bit but the body is in heaven and at last it’s found what it's been missing and now physical conditions and states of mind are but miniscule things next to a health that is everywhere, in your every atom that you’ve somehow insanely missed. That's the mystery, how we miss it. How we have civilized our way into such separateness. And the practitioner is sat there once again being mesmerized by the phenomenon of life. That life will show itself and the body will naturally reorganize itself in response to this alignment with the whole because the mind, the modern mind, can't except it and it looks like a miracle but actually it's just the most natural thing in the universe happening. That's what's so funny and that's what's so important about the evolution of this work - it's getting simpler because its recognizing the simple truth that we need to relate to the whole system that we are a part of. That's all it needs for health and happiness and emancipation and enlightenment and I suspect that's all that every wise man in the history of wisdom has ever really been saying and now we can make a difference through the most powerful thing in the world - touch.