What Dr Rolf was after we don’t seem to have a good word for, strangely.
I think in ancient Greece and Egypt it was called philosophy. It was a quest for a deep understanding of the human being, our place in the universe and an integration of all parts of us: mind, body, soul. But nowadays philosophy seems more like an intellectual endeavor and it has lost the whole body.
In Dr Rolf’s time she called it the occult. Now that word has lost its meaning and has become a word referring to magic and ghosts.
Psychology perhaps was a try for that understanding but now it seems to refer to Freudian complexes and such.
The genius of thousands of years of Indian, Tibetan, and Chinese philosophy and spiritual practice is called Yoga. Now in our culture it refers to stretching exercises.
Not that long ago spirituality referred to that quest for understanding and transformation. Now it seems to have religious overtones relating to fixed beliefs and rituals.
Perhaps the word Rolfing referred to that quest, at least in Dr Rolf’s mind and for some other people that saw that in her work. Now it seems to refer to a type of body work.
Perhaps that is just the way it is and we always have to create anew in the present in order to bring those ideas into our awareness and into social discourse.
May Spirit bless us.
