Michael J. Shea - The Biodynamics of the Immune System: Balancing the Energies of the Body with the Cosmos

To my mom and dad for pure love and the support to get me this far in life.

To His Holiness the Dalai Lama for pure love and the support to get me this far in life. Please turn the Wheel of Dharma for world happiness.

And to all life and death, the greatest teachers.

THE
BIODYNAMICS
OF THE
IMMUNE SYSTEM

Michael J. Shea offers a potential bible for anyone wanting to support or improve their health. He generously provides specific scientific details about the physiology underlying the pandemic of metabolic syndrome and also the guidance to heal, incorporating more than 25 years of experience in the field. Beyond that, what brings the book to heart for me is Michaels personal stories. He candidly writes of his journey with fat and fasting, effects of military servicerelated PTSD, and his own prenatal and ancestral/ epigenetic history. His story invites us to also investigate our own lives with more curiosity. In the process, like Michael, we might find our embryo, the biodynamic fluid body of our origins, and its cosmological connectedness with all that is. This discovery is facilitated by a beautiful collection of embryo art as an additional bonus to explore in the book. The Biodynamics of the Immune System reminds us of the essential continuity of mind, body, spirit, and nature and how the splitting of these generates suffering and dis-ease. This is no ordinary book about metabolic syndrome! It offers paths to deep healing you have probably been craving.

CHERIONNA MENZAM-SILLS, PH.D., AUTHOR OF THE BREATH OF LIFE: AN INTRODUCTION TO CRANIOSACRAL BIODYNAMICS

The Biodynamics of the Immune System is like a tall glass of cool, clear water. Page after page, this book soothes and nourishes my mind, body, and spirit. Whether you are a health care provider, a bodyworker, or just a regular human trying to make it through these challenging times, this book offers respite and incredible information. More importantly, it offers ways to incorporate many of the thousand faces of Health into your daily practice.

K. MICHELLE DOYLE,BIODYNAMIC CRANIOSACRAL THERAPIST AND FOUNDER OF LOCAL CARE MIDWIFERY

Michael Shea brings together the ancient history of separation from nature and from each other and provides a beautiful, practical guide to bring healing and health to us as individuals and as a collective. His poetic metaphors and scientific research show us that health on every level is possible and how to live from a place of wholeness and love. The specific therapeutic applications and collaborative somatic learning experiences will benefit all humans and sentient beings on the planet. While this book was originally intended for manual therapists, all of us in the helping professions can greatly benefit both personally and professionally from the philosophy, information, and practices found here. If everyone read and applied this wisdom, we as a planet and a people could move more quickly into sustained health and happiness! I found myself inspired and my heart opened as I traveled through the pages of this incredible gift to all of us. Highly recommended!

MARTI GLENN, PH.D.,CLINICAL DIRECTOR AND CHIEF EXPERIENCE OFFICER OF RYZIO INSTITUTE

In this paradigm-shifting book Michael Shea shares his biodynamic embryology, anatomy, and spiritual expertise so we too may clearly see. This book is about the pursuit of truth through compassion and critical thinking, giving us the insight and inspiration to see and heal the elephant in the room. In these times of COVID and a worldwide plague of heart disease, anxiety, depression, dementia, and obesity, this is the one book to read... and share!

MARY BOLINGBROKE, OSTEOPATH AND LECTURER AT THE DAISY CLINIC TRUST

I am familiar with the beauty and biodynamic nature of this book because Ive had the good fortune to have a collegial relationship with Michael for many years. We regularly treat each other, supervise each other, and share clinical experiences. This book represents an advance in biodynamic thinking to include a sense of origin and connection to the universe so necessary for the contemporary client.

BRIAN SHEA, D.O.,A 30-YEAR CLINICAL BIODYNAMIC OSTEOPATHIC PRACTITIONER IN BOULDER, COLORADO

Acknowledgments

What an incredible network of friends, colleagues, family, and professional helpers to get this book launched. My wife Cathy has supported every aspect of getting this book to print, including her contributions in the first part of the book and appendix. We know and live every part of this book through our clinical practice, our home self-care life, and seeing it all in our spiritual practice.

Bill Harvey and Ann Weinstein gave regular support as I walked the tight rope of thirty-five chapters and almost three hundred figures put together by Jeanie Burns, a fantastic friend and graphic artist. I take photographs for the sake of healing the planet and chose to keep many of the original photographs taken for classroom purposes in order to honor all of those students and assistants who willingly volunteered to be photographed: Fritz Lang, Beatrice Fischer, and my niece Erica Stetzer. Thank you to my niece, Evelyn Stetzer, for her photography prowess and to my incredible course manager and dear friend, Almut Althaus, who single-handedly manages hundreds of students every year in our classroom in Germany.

Joshua Horowitz inspired me to move toward the immune system for my teaching at the beginning of the COVID pandemic; Jrg Schrpf lent his expertise in many things, especially about Chi Nei Tsang in chapter 31. I am grateful to Jullian Gustavson for not only ten years of discussion but also the editing of chapter 7 on character structure. Chapter 15 was thoroughly edited by Tim Shafer, who labored over it for quite some time. I am most grateful for the time and attention Tim gave to it to improve everyones biodynamic perception.

I have great gratitude for Michelle Doyles editorial assistance in chapters 5 and 32. Michelle is perhaps one of the most brilliant midwives I have ever met; she gives and radiates pure love, having helped birth over 4,000 babies. I love teaching with her.

Behind the scenes is our most wonderful office manager, Lisa Fay. With her constant support editing and checking the text to make sure everything was synchronized and aligned properly, she has been a spiritual rock in my life.

While in creation, many pieces of this book were vetted, edited, looked at, discussed, and taught to my students by colleagues, teaching teams, and translators internationally. I am indebted to so many people, including Bettina Ravanelli, Ursula Walke, Joachim Lichtenberg, Carlos Rodeiro, Beata Kirscher, Claudia Oliveri, Luisa Brancolini, Javier de Maria, Ellen Grsser, Mary Bolingbroke, Renata Ritzman and her husband Barry Williams, and Dale Alexander for his encouragement in educating the manual therapy community on the meaning of metabolism.

Stephen Porges, a brilliant scientist who developed the polyvagal theory, has contributed to the book and to my life since I first studied his work in 1990 and later got to know him while on the same dais at several conferences. Stephen walks his talk regarding compassion and spirituality.