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Friday, June 4, 2010
Vetiver Oil the Scent that Encourages the Imagination
We were given an assignment in class to smell the scent of a certain essential oil and then write whatever comes to mind from the scent. so I centered myself for a bit then picked up the scent strip and with the inhilation of the scent I let my mind flow. The first picture that came to mind was a fresh green beautiful vegtable garden, where the air that is blowing all around me is fresh, clean , and crisp. Their is a forest of green everywhere the color of green pea pods. I'm reminded of something familar that I can't quite place.
Vetiver Oil Story
In our class, we were asked to write a story after smelling the essential oil "Vetiver". We were told to just write whatever came to mind. After we had written our stories, we were told that this particular essential oil is an Earth element oil. This struck me because earth element has to do with relationships(like family),and cycles (like life and death), both of wich were included in my story. Here it goes:
There's a beautiful scenery with rolling hills and fields of lovely flowers. A woman sits on a blanket. She is young, beautiful, with soft features. Her children run and play, a little girl and boy. They pick a boquette of flowers for their mother- they sing songs and play tag. They have a yellow lab puppy they play fetch with. Laughter fills the air as they roll down the giant grassy hill. Their mother is laying on her stomach, relaxing while she reads and listens to her children play under the hot sun. She feels gratitude for her surroundings and her beautiful family. A wave of sadness comes over her as she thinks about her late husband, who died shortly after her second child was born. She knows that he is with her in spirit, watching over her and her young kids. They are at his very favorite place. There is a beautiful oak tree which they sit under, that has his and her initials in a heart, carved into the trunk.
There's a beautiful scenery with rolling hills and fields of lovely flowers. A woman sits on a blanket. She is young, beautiful, with soft features. Her children run and play, a little girl and boy. They pick a boquette of flowers for their mother- they sing songs and play tag. They have a yellow lab puppy they play fetch with. Laughter fills the air as they roll down the giant grassy hill. Their mother is laying on her stomach, relaxing while she reads and listens to her children play under the hot sun. She feels gratitude for her surroundings and her beautiful family. A wave of sadness comes over her as she thinks about her late husband, who died shortly after her second child was born. She knows that he is with her in spirit, watching over her and her young kids. They are at his very favorite place. There is a beautiful oak tree which they sit under, that has his and her initials in a heart, carved into the trunk.
The Heart that boggles the mind
Our heart trully is an amazing yet complex organ. I never trully understood how much work our heart does to ensure that our blood gets pumped through our body on a daily basis. The physiology of the heart still amazes and befuddles my brain. When I read the article called "The Heart As An Organ of Perception" The heart turned into a whole new perspective for me. Everyday we come in contact with other peoples magnetic heart fields, yet we do not realize when this happens or we meet people and we tend to have a strong connection towards that person, almost a sense of feeling that you have known this person for you entire life. How is it possible for our hearts to send out a magnetic feild without our knowing? The western tradition is to live in your mind think with your mind anything beyond that will entail too much feeling. I think feelings truly scare people, so it becomes second nature to us to live in our heads. What if we started looking at life through the heart, and how much would that change our reality of life? I have to sign off for now but I have much more to add to this article.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Stephen Harrod Buhner Article
"The body is a complicated symphonic system, much like nature itself..." Fantastic statement. I agree wholeheartedly! (Ignore obvious pun). This article is an eye opener that's for sure. Intangible touch is that feeling of wanting to reach out, reach through and experience bonds that overwhelm you, before your brain takes over. I love the idea of the dance. The moment when the soul essence inside us , and the soul essence from something outside us, met and mingled. Every day we walk through life and enter and exit the lives of others, seemingly separate and definitely unaffected. That's what I used to think anyway. Having some life experience under my belt and knowing better, I see each and every human interaction as a meeting of hearts and souls. Not that I always introduce myself well or that my heart is even open half the time, it's not. I am learning to close my eyes, feel the vibration and just sit with it for awhile. In time, I will learn to dance freely.
The other point that I enjoyed in this article was that of entrainment. Hearts oscillating, exchanging information, beating each to his own drum and altering heart function. That is when the dialogue begins. Without a word being said. Speaks volumes for this profession. The healer can literally oscillate health and well-being to a client, without any words being exchanged. And all of this comes naturally. Learning to sense my heart field, and eventually to guide and direct it, will deepen my relationship with the universe, thus enabling me to truly help another.
The other point that I enjoyed in this article was that of entrainment. Hearts oscillating, exchanging information, beating each to his own drum and altering heart function. That is when the dialogue begins. Without a word being said. Speaks volumes for this profession. The healer can literally oscillate health and well-being to a client, without any words being exchanged. And all of this comes naturally. Learning to sense my heart field, and eventually to guide and direct it, will deepen my relationship with the universe, thus enabling me to truly help another.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Emotions of the Heart
I've never thought of the heart as an organ of emotion. Sure we talk about having a broken heart, or loving someone with all our heart, but it seems to be more of a metaphorical saying, not something true. After reading an article called "The Heart as an Organ of Perception" by Stephen Harrod Buhner in the magazine Spirituality & Health, I have new ideas of what the heart really is capable of. The hearts electromagnetic field is 5,000 times stronger than the brain's and can be detected by sensitive scientific instuments up to 10 feet away. This explains the reason we can feel someone's presence without seeing or touching them. And why we can tell how someone is feeling just by being close to them.
Indigenous people tend to say they live in their heart, while we in the West tend to say we live in our heads, we don't take the time to pay attention to the feelings we get from our hearts, or we just assume those feelings are really coming from our brains.
As it says in this article, first we feel with our hearts, then we know with our brains.
Indigenous people tend to say they live in their heart, while we in the West tend to say we live in our heads, we don't take the time to pay attention to the feelings we get from our hearts, or we just assume those feelings are really coming from our brains.
As it says in this article, first we feel with our hearts, then we know with our brains.
The Extraordinary Heart
I first learned about the heart from a Western point of view. I was amazed by it then with all the functions that it performs. Beating away, keeping us alive, the heart functions has a pump, releases hormones, and is composed of neural tissues which make up it's own pacemaker. Now I have come to the see the heart in a different and even more amazing light. The heart is not just a muscle sustaining life, but it is also responsible for feelings, emotions, consciousness, perception, cognition, and the innate closeness that we feel towards other living things. Of course this is what is advertised, that love comes from the heart. But what does that really mean? and is there actually a science behind it? Turns out that, yes, there is. The article that we had to read in class was very interesting just in the research alone. I wish that there was a title on it, but it was by Stephen Harrod Buhner in Spirituality & Health, March/April 2006. The article illustrates these amazing aspects of the heart that have long been underestimated of disregarded in Western Medicine and mindset. The concept that really struck a cord with me was where in the body we live determines how we perceive and interact with the living world around us. Buhner explains that when asked where in the body they live indigenous people who still have a closeness with the earth gestured toward their hearts, while Western people usually gestured toward their brain. To live from the heart is to feel from the heart and learn and know after. I really like this way of thinking, it just seems to make so much more sense! The heart truly is an organ of sense, with the power to entrain ones entire body and interact with others heart centers. This is why two people can exchange information and communicate with out every saying a word, they do so through their heart fields. The more we learn to feel from the heart, the way our body was meant to feel, the more connected to the rest of the living world around us we will be. Living in our heads just gets us farther from intuitions and innate abilities to communicate instinctualy. Unfortunately, Western society has put so much emphasis on living in the head/brain that there seems to have developed a social phenomenon that I am going to call the mind-body-heart disconnect. Western society seems to view each of these as an independent entity and therefor misses the concept of the whole system. "The whole is far more than the sum of the parts", and that is just putting it lightly!
I am going to have to cut this blog short since I am running out of time, but I plan to post more since I am not done evaluating and reviewing the article.
I am going to have to cut this blog short since I am running out of time, but I plan to post more since I am not done evaluating and reviewing the article.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Massage Therapy Is Not What I Thought It Would Be - It's More
By Shifu Chase Acuff, LMT
Here I go again, on to my next massage clients. I’m currently about 75 miles Northwest of Anchorage, Alaska. Moving along at about 120 knots and about 1200 feet up. At least that’s what it looks like on the dash as I peer over the pilot’s shoulder. This time, I’m heading out on a big, sleek, red and white turbo De Havilland Otter on skis. We should be arriving at the prestigious Winterlake Lodge in about another 20 minutes. Airplane is the only way in, unless you want to undertake the 90 mile snowmachine ride in from Talkeetna. In the summer, forget it. Too boggy.
My clients are onboard. They are to be guests at the Lodge for the next few days as the dog mushers blow through there at checkpoint four during the famed Iditarod Sled
Dog Race. They all look excited. A few VIPs from Anchorage, a couple from D.C. and another from North Carolina.
Oh nice! Here we go winging through the little pass again to the big valley where the lodge sits. Glacial-smoothed tundra stares right in my window. Awesome! We must be only 500' off the deck here.
Never would have guessed being a Massage Therapist would look like this.
This is my 5th or 6th time out now. I’ve been out in Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, and it’s a different place, each season. In the winter there’s snowmachining, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, then when it warms, hiking, kayaking, fishing, heli-hiking, heli-flightseeing, great food, camaraderie and of course, great massages.
Usually relaxation massage out here. Just tuning up a body not used to winter sports or a long hike or maybe just a bit of indulgence to offset a hectic life. I might have to occasionally smooth out a casting arm being overused from going for those monster Rainbow trout. Out helicoptering from fishing hole to fishing hole the day before.
Here I go again, on to my next massage clients. I’m currently about 75 miles Northwest of Anchorage, Alaska. Moving along at about 120 knots and about 1200 feet up. At least that’s what it looks like on the dash as I peer over the pilot’s shoulder. This time, I’m heading out on a big, sleek, red and white turbo De Havilland Otter on skis. We should be arriving at the prestigious Winterlake Lodge in about another 20 minutes. Airplane is the only way in, unless you want to undertake the 90 mile snowmachine ride in from Talkeetna. In the summer, forget it. Too boggy.
My clients are onboard. They are to be guests at the Lodge for the next few days as the dog mushers blow through there at checkpoint four during the famed Iditarod Sled
Dog Race. They all look excited. A few VIPs from Anchorage, a couple from D.C. and another from North Carolina.
Oh nice! Here we go winging through the little pass again to the big valley where the lodge sits. Glacial-smoothed tundra stares right in my window. Awesome! We must be only 500' off the deck here.
Never would have guessed being a Massage Therapist would look like this.
This is my 5th or 6th time out now. I’ve been out in Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, and it’s a different place, each season. In the winter there’s snowmachining, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, then when it warms, hiking, kayaking, fishing, heli-hiking, heli-flightseeing, great food, camaraderie and of course, great massages.
Usually relaxation massage out here. Just tuning up a body not used to winter sports or a long hike or maybe just a bit of indulgence to offset a hectic life. I might have to occasionally smooth out a casting arm being overused from going for those monster Rainbow trout. Out helicoptering from fishing hole to fishing hole the day before.
Yes, I’ve gotten in some great, kayaking, snow machining and fantastic heli-flightseeing and heli-hiking in between clients out here and, so nice, the staff gets the same gourmet food the guests get. Rough!
Now, my massage therapy practice is not always as glamorous as this, but it sure is interesting. My clients are so interesting. They open up to you as a massage therapist. You hear the back stories of CEO’s to a hairstylist in from Florida. You might find yourself doing massage by candle light because the generator just kicked off, or doing hard work with a line of chair massage clients at a health fair; in a hallway! I’ve done chair massage in the luxurious Denaina Convention Center for a Chamber of Commerce gathering, open-air massage at the raucous Downtown Market and an overnighter on the Kenai Peninsula for South Central Foundation, as well as numerous and ongoing gigs at many other places in town. It’s fun to be able to go into these places and meet people, where otherwise you would never go. It’s also nice to be so warmly welcomed and invited right on back into the business. Everybody likes having the massage therapist show up.
Your clients are interesting. They are all puzzles. Do they want relaxation, or therapy? Is it low back pain? Recent shoulder surgery? An old snowmachining crash still bothering them? Single mom of three needs TLC? Old injuries, or new? Recent life changes? What’s their rhythm, their depth? What approach, acupoint formula, should I use to give the client what they’re looking for? As I’m giving, is it working? Do I need to change approaches midstream? What do I need to say? Do I need to say anything?
A puzzle, the assessment, the approach. As my skills grow from further work on myself, advanced massage skills, acupoint formulas: the puzzle solving gets faster and the fix, more effective.
The puzzle, though, I find has more depth as I gain more depth. One can look deeper into a person and give, deeper, more refined care.
I was pleased to find, the years of Taiji and Qigong I had prior to massage school actually added to my understanding of massage clients and how to correct imbalances. I see things in body posture and movement and qi flow that tell me things.
I was actually opposed to going to massage school originally. I used to work in hospitals in varying capacities; I thought working with massage clients was like working with patients in hospitals. More of that impersonal, institutional relationship. I wasn’t interested in getting back to that.
I was wrong.
It’s much more personal and meaningful. Some of my clients have been with me for years. I have seen them change and grow for the better in those years. I’ve also been surprised at how fast and effective the massage techniques can be at times. Providing pain relief, relaxation and better health; and all with just my hands. Often times giving people hope, where before their was none.
So, entering the field of massage therapy has been quite the eye-opener. Quite meaningful as I improve people’s lives, and as I see the genuine appreciation on their faces. They don’t have to say a word. You do a good job; you read it on their face, you read it in their body. I get paid well for what I do, and, in addition, the greater "payoff", is in knowing I made a difference in someone’s life.
Shifu Lawrence Chase Acuff, LMT
Now, my massage therapy practice is not always as glamorous as this, but it sure is interesting. My clients are so interesting. They open up to you as a massage therapist. You hear the back stories of CEO’s to a hairstylist in from Florida. You might find yourself doing massage by candle light because the generator just kicked off, or doing hard work with a line of chair massage clients at a health fair; in a hallway! I’ve done chair massage in the luxurious Denaina Convention Center for a Chamber of Commerce gathering, open-air massage at the raucous Downtown Market and an overnighter on the Kenai Peninsula for South Central Foundation, as well as numerous and ongoing gigs at many other places in town. It’s fun to be able to go into these places and meet people, where otherwise you would never go. It’s also nice to be so warmly welcomed and invited right on back into the business. Everybody likes having the massage therapist show up.
Your clients are interesting. They are all puzzles. Do they want relaxation, or therapy? Is it low back pain? Recent shoulder surgery? An old snowmachining crash still bothering them? Single mom of three needs TLC? Old injuries, or new? Recent life changes? What’s their rhythm, their depth? What approach, acupoint formula, should I use to give the client what they’re looking for? As I’m giving, is it working? Do I need to change approaches midstream? What do I need to say? Do I need to say anything?
A puzzle, the assessment, the approach. As my skills grow from further work on myself, advanced massage skills, acupoint formulas: the puzzle solving gets faster and the fix, more effective.
The puzzle, though, I find has more depth as I gain more depth. One can look deeper into a person and give, deeper, more refined care.
I was pleased to find, the years of Taiji and Qigong I had prior to massage school actually added to my understanding of massage clients and how to correct imbalances. I see things in body posture and movement and qi flow that tell me things.
I was actually opposed to going to massage school originally. I used to work in hospitals in varying capacities; I thought working with massage clients was like working with patients in hospitals. More of that impersonal, institutional relationship. I wasn’t interested in getting back to that.
I was wrong.
It’s much more personal and meaningful. Some of my clients have been with me for years. I have seen them change and grow for the better in those years. I’ve also been surprised at how fast and effective the massage techniques can be at times. Providing pain relief, relaxation and better health; and all with just my hands. Often times giving people hope, where before their was none.
So, entering the field of massage therapy has been quite the eye-opener. Quite meaningful as I improve people’s lives, and as I see the genuine appreciation on their faces. They don’t have to say a word. You do a good job; you read it on their face, you read it in their body. I get paid well for what I do, and, in addition, the greater "payoff", is in knowing I made a difference in someone’s life.
Shifu Lawrence Chase Acuff, LMT
Shifu Chase is a wonderful massage therapist formerly practicing out of The Oriental Healing Arts Center in Anchorage. He specializes in deep tissue massage and will leave you feeling like a wet noodle (that's a good thing!). He enjoys Tai Qi, QiGong, personal growth, and hosts a highly successful workshop called "Breath For Stress" which he has presented to several local businesses for their Workplace Wellness day.
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