TALES OF THE TOES

Every part of the body has a story to tell.  You might think that toes, for instance, don’t have a lot to say, but you’d be wrong.   This Zero Balancing fulcrum for the toes gives the toes the time and space to tell us their tales.  If you hold anything for long, it will begin to speak to you.  As Blake said, you can even, “hold eternity in the palm of your hand.”

The feet are the foundations for our whole life’s structure and energy.  They are the “ground” up from which we grow.  And especially powerful and touching are our toes.  As babies, adults marvel and play with our children’s toes – this little piggy went to the market, and so on.

With the onset of adulthood, however, our toes are commonly not regarded as little marvels!  Thus, when our toes are touched as adults, it not uncommonly can make us feel vulnerable, evoking poignantly sometimes, the experience and feelings of childhood.

As a result, work with the toes, when done with clarity and care, can take a person back to their earliest days – before conditioning, before we even knew our own names.

In Zero Balancing there is a simple yet very profound method of engaging the energy and structure of the toes – sometimes whimsically called “the toe sandwich,” more commonly the “toe nestle fulcrum.” Please note that it can take people back to childhood, to earlier times, most often in a lovely way.

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Here is a video of the hand positioning for the Toe Nestle fulcrum. Then please read the detailed description below:

Using the right foot and toes as an example:

With the client supine and you the therapist standing at the foot of the table, take your right palm and place it beneath the toes.  Make sure that, as much as possible, your hand is beneath all the toes, leaving none out.

Then gently place your left palm across the back sides (dorsal surfaces) of the toes.  Now place your thumbs so that your right thumb rests on the middle of the fingers of the left hand.  Place your left thumb beneath the right hand. 

Now all toes should be comfortably enveloped by your hands.

The next step is to take out any remaining looseness by gently pressing both thumbs toward each other, which gives your hands fuller contact with the toes.  Be careful not to squeeze the toes towards each other, no medial compression.

If you like, you can add an additional vector with a very gentle pull toward yourself, creating a barely perceptible opening and sense of length through the foot.

Now just hold this fulcrum in place, with kindly attention and stillness, no further movement. You are giving the client the opportunity to feel their toes held in a safe place. In addition to the reassuring experience of containment, your hands now provide an experience of warmth at the extremities which feels very welcome, good, and safe. 

The client, resting into this experience of warmth and safety around the toes is now free to return to earlier days or just to sink into a peaceful feeling of being held with kindness in a place that often doesn’t receive much attention.  Hold this fulcrum for a while - perhaps 7 to 10 seconds – giving the person the time and space to sink into their experience.  Then in reverse order, let go of the gentle thumbs pressure, take off the top hand and the bottom hand.

Allow some time without contact for the client to savor their experience before moving on to doing anything else.

Often the toe nestle fulcrum on each foot is followed by the “Half Moon Vector through the Legs.”  

The world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.
~ Wendell Berry