About Us
The Human Development Center (HDC) is located in Bellingham, Washington. We founded our business because we want to develop our humanity and kindle the light in ourselves and with the people we meet and work with. Through continually becoming better, deeper versions of ourselves, we strive to live in Truth, Simplicity, Love, and Service to all of life.
We offer our services in the form of facilitation/teaching, mentorship, spiritual guidance, individual sessions, group sessions, and ceremonial work. We live by the paradigm that healing is an inside job and we are helping people to help themselves by connecting with the resources that are already within them.
We teach classes and facilitate experiential learning in Craniosacral therapy, Pre and Perinatal Somatic Psychology, Attachment and Bonding, Nervous System Regulation, Embodiment, Interpersonal Neurobiology, Resilience Development, Meditation, Systemic and Family Constellations, Ancestral Healing, and Organic Beekeeping.
We incorporate all these teachings in the individual session work we facilitate.
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy
In our craniosacral therapy work we treat a full spectrum of presenting symptoms. We are specialized in working with newborns, babies/children as well as people with concussions and TBIs (traumatic brain injuries). Other conditions that we commonly treat include vertigo, tinnitus, sleep apnea, stress, anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, TMJ, PTSD, nervous system issues, chronic pain, MS, autism, cancer and support for chemo therapy and radiation, conditions indicating need for glymphatic drainage like dementia, and resilience based birth trauma resolution.
We work with families who are pregnant and in the postpartum period to support bonding and attachment through building coherent fields of connection with adequate layers of support. Helping babes transition earth side and find more proficiency and ease with breast-feeding and settling their systems.
The heart and soul of our practice is really about simple kindness. Wanting to help people in a way that deepens their abilities to grow themselves without becoming independent. While we both use several different therapeutic tools, biodynamic craniosacral therapy is our mainstay.
Craniosacral therapy has evolved through different iterations. It’s roots come out of osteopathy. Andrew Taylor Still developed osteopathy in large part from his intense work as a surgeon during the civil war. His philosophy was that all body systems are interrelated and interdependent in their structure and function. He believed that wellness derived from the health in the whole system. William Garner Sutherland became an early student of Still and was the first osteopathic physician to conceptualize the cranial approach and teach it systematically. Sutherland lived until 1954 and deepened the science of osteopathy. He developed the biomechanical approach of cranial sacral therapy which like osteopathy uses a more manipulative approach to aiding in the mobility of the spinal cord and brain. The fluctuation and function of the cerebral spinal fluid in the brain and spinal cord operates in a reciprocal tension membrane system consisting of the 3 layers of the dura as it folds around the cerebral hemispheres of the brain and continues down around the spinal cord to the sacrum. Sutherland had an incredible volume of clients during his career and his practice evolved into what we call the biodynamic approach to craniosacral therapy. He realized that there is wisdom in the body/soul that realizes exactly what is needed in the system. This deep inherent treatment plan is accessed through stillness and neutrality, when the client's system feels safe, seen, and understood, the changes that arise from this inherent wisdom can be quite remarkable. Cranial bones move, nervous systems settle, cerebral spinal fluid flows; nourishing and removing waste, fascia releases and reorganizes, organs reinvigorate. The regenerative forces of the breath of life and primary respiration work right down to the cellular level. Even and especially in the quantum realm.
This is what inspires us. The interconnectedness of all life is what really makes our hearts sing.
I think it’s also really important to remember that this inherent wisdom is our human birthright and that this understanding is not owned by any particular lineage. Still learned a lot from Shawnee bone menders. This understanding has been accessed throughout human history. Even neanderthals practiced bone mending. When we deepen our relationship with stillness and the perceptual field the possibilities are endless.
Michael Hiraman Reynolds, Co-director
Michael Hiraman Reynolds is co-director of The Human Development Center. He has been meditating, keeping bees,and doing quantum contact therapy for over 45 years. He is a bio-dynamic craniolsacral therapist and neurofeedback practitioner in Bellingham, WA. Hiraman grew up in the pacific northwest as an avid climber, hiker, sailor and outdoors-man. He lived in a monastery in India for many years and has been a lifelong organic gardener. He is a world traveler and has immersed himself in cultures and spiritual traditions all over the planet.
Having received all of his trainings through mentorship, foremost being his training and role as a priest, he operates under license of ministry under which is permitted the laying on of hands.
Clara Cunningham, Co-director
Clara Cunningham is co-director of The Human Development Center. She is a biodynamic craniosacral therapist in Bellingham, WA. She began studying craniosacral therapy 20 years ago while working as a care provider for children living with disabilities and in hospice.
Growing up in Alaska gave Clara a deep respect for and intimacy with nature and the raw elemental power of this earth that has shaped her views of life, and the continuum of life. She currently works with prenates, newborns, infants, children, families, and individuals of all ages offering somatic process work, attachment and bonding support, birth work/education, infant massage, BCST, and holistic resiliency. She offers experiences to groups and organizations facilitating womb surrounds, Systemic Family Constellations, intergenerational trauma resolution, trauma intervention, ceremony, guided wilderness experiences, and movement therapy for somatic reclaiming. Clara is a biodynamic organic Apiculturist of symbiosis honey farm.
Clara is currently teaching a two-year personal development course in pre and perinatal somatic process work, and also assisting Myrna Martin in PPN trainings around North America. She has worked for many years internationally as a holistic health practitioner that has included a variety of bodywork modalities including myofascial release, somatic experiencing, Chi Nei Tsang, meridian massage, teaching yoga/breath awareness, meditation and shiatsu. Clara has apprenticed for the past 20 years in tai chi, sensory awareness, and pre and perinatal somatic process work with both Judyth Weaver and Myrna Martin. She is a facilitator and educator in Pre and Perinatal Somatic Therapies.
Born with a natural curiosity and focus of living in the spirit, Clara’s path has woven through many heart-centered disciplines which have guided and manifested her course of life studies and learning of what it is to be truly human. She is currently the director of The Human Development Center which she founded in 2016 in Bellingham WA. Clara and her husband lead a simple and are blessed with a thriving practice. Inspired by the process of personal transformation to live clearly in truth, simplicity and love, Clara is devoted to the unfolding of the inner most nature in herself and others.
She operates her business under massage touch therapy license through Washington state and specializes in body centered education.