“Origin” implies a primordial beginning, an original state. Its symbolism is both spatial — in the sense of an original point or place — and temporal — a beginning in time. The word is derived from the Latin oriri, “to rise”, from which we also get “the Orient”, “to orient” and “orientation”. This immediately speaks to the intention of the clinic, which is to “orient toward the Origin”. This Origin is not a place or moment backwards in time; it is a presence and Reality right here — it is, in the words of craniosacral biodynamics, the original Health that is never lost.

“Tide” provides the watery symbolism of rhythmic motion and change. A tide is a manifestation of the cosmic situation, dependent on the Earth’s rotation and gravitational pull of Moon and Sun. Thus it refers to the fact that we are all embedded within a greater whole, a rhythmic, pulsing organism we call Cosmos. The word “tide” is also deeply related to craniosacral biodynamics: for it is with the various “Tides” of subtle fluid and energetic motion within and around the body that the practitioner works — and which ultimately provide the healing.

Moreover, “tide” suggests a moving out from and returning toward a source. Now let us call this source our “Origin”. From a traditional perspective — found in most cultures before the modern West — the human being is recognised as having an Origin and transcendent Centre. From this an individual emerges, and the goal of the spiritual life is to remember it once more.

Nowadays, we have largely discarded and forgotten these ideas of Origin and Centre. Meanwhile, birth, life, conditioning and traumas confuse our true nature, fragment our wholeness, and take us away from our original state. But, perhaps, as the ocean rises and recedes, we can return and remember the truth of ourselves once more: for regardless of all circumstance and transitory states, our Origin remains. Thus the Dao De Jing states simply:

“The motion of Dao is to return.”

But this “return” is not a regression: for the Origin is itself the goal and destination, the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end. This is, in fact a cycle: symbolised by the circle. Contrary to our modern fascination with linear evolution and progress, from the traditional perspective, true “progress” is made by moving toward the Centre — the same Centre from which our journey began.

Ebbing and flowing towards our beginning…

And thus we ride the Origin Tide: the breath that moves us out of our Truth and back to it once more.

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Let us explore another significance of this name. The original meaning of “tide” from Old English, is “time, period, era”: such as in the words “noontide” or “yuletide”. Here, then, Origin Tide invokes the symbol of the Original Time: the mythic, sacred time, where the gods establish the patterns upon which all forms of life are based. This is perhaps best known in the Australian Aboriginal concept of the Dreamtime. We may think of it biologically as the embryological and foetal period; in craniosacral biodynamics, it relates to the forming of the Primal Midline, around which all bodily form and function are organised.

Religious scholar Mircea Eliade found that all over the world, peoples as diverse as the Hindus, Africans and ancient Mesopotamians all recognised this sacred time, which he referred to as “in illo tempore”. Furthermore, he found that these traditional cultures all periodically return to this ever-present, timeless time, through ritual, for regeneration and renewal.

When we step out of the “time of clocks and calendars”, and what Eliade called “the terror of history”, into the timeless time of origins, deeper healing can take place. For it is here that we encounter the “gods” the formative forces that create, maintain, and heal our being. This may be the time of sleep and dreams, when we leave the linear, storyline perspective of waking reality behind, to enter something more fundamental.

So let us orient towards our origins, and return to that ever-present, timeless Time where we find ourselves breathed into being: for a necessary rest, perhaps… yea, for regeneration and renewal.