By Mary Reis
Beacon: A source of guidance or inspiration
One thing I am most grateful for in this profession is that our education offers us an opportunity to reconnect with a more essential part of our humanity. Giving and receiving work allows us to explore ourselves kinesthetically and drop into different states of consciousness. It draws us out of our heads and into our bodies, where we reconnect with a primordial form of intelligence. One that is not linear, but spiral in nature, and it can become a great beacon for how to live life.
I came to bodywork through a curious series of steps that seemed to be placed before me by Providence. I almost “stumbled” upon the profession, and I originally saw it as a means to get to another place. And yet once I came to FSM, something began to shift from the moment I took my tour. There was something here that spoke to me — not through my intellect, but through my sensing body… I literally felt roots growing out of me when I sat with Paul Davenport the first time we met. And while I had no intention of moving to Florida, my “being” knew it was the right move, and I attended FSM in January of 1993. Learning to trust this sense of guidance has been one of them most valuable lessons of my life.
Training in Massage Therapy provides an opportunity to learn with both our minds and our bodies. And FSM in particular, with its mission statement:
“To improve the quality of life through the vehicles of touch and awareness”
places great emphasis on developing our awareness. Because we are given the opportunity and space to pay attention and including how we feel, we learn more than just anatomical information and how to implement modalities. We learn to reconnect with that “creature” part of us, that has always been with us, but is often overlooked. For many of us, this intelligent and primordial part of our being has taken a “back seat” to our thoughts, over-ridden by education and cultural values. But dropping out of our normal waking states of consciousness through bodywork, and learning to pay attention to what we feel, the thoughts we have in relation to the sensations, and the impact these have on us, help us tap into our instinctual wisdom.
In addition to my private practice and teaching roles at FSM, I also work closely with Giorgia Milne and the Touch of Presence® School for Biodynamic Studies. I am both an administrator and an assistant teacher in the school, and like my experience with learning & working at FSM, I am particularly awe-struck with the Biodynamic Cranial Approach disposition:
Sense within your body boundary
Notice what it feels like to be feeling what you are feeling
Open up to the space that surrounds you, in 360 degrees
Be with what it is, as it is
Notice the qualities of what you feel
Notice the impact
As thoughts arise include them,
and return to sensing without pushing them away
Stay oriented in the direct feeling tone
The more we practice this, the more we are able to be with whatever shows up. The more we do this, the more expanded states of consciousness become available to us, and our perceptual capacities shift. How we are as human beings changes. We learn to become unwavering in our capacity to remain open and aware.
Bodywork has always been about more to me than just learning a modality — it has been about the development of my humanity in the process of learning. If this speaks to you too, I highly encourage you to look into Giorgia’s Biodynamic Cranial Approach Introduction happening at the end of January:
https://floridaschoolofmassage.com/event/biodynamic-cranial-touch-initiatory-course/2024-01-26/
Giorgia is one of those teachers that, in the words of Frank Merrillat, “is worth being in the same room with, no matter what she teaches”. She helps us develop our capacity to be in stillness, which in turn helps us be more in contact with our essential humanity. To me, this is awe-inspiring.
“I think awe is an exercise, both a doing and a being. It is a spiritual muscle of our humanity that we can only keep from atrophying if we exercise it habitually.
…Awe is not a lens through which to see the world, but our sole path to being. Any other lens is not a lens, but a veil. And I’ve come to believe that our beholding — seeing the veils of this world peeled back again and again, if only for a moment — is no small form of salvation.”
—Cole Arthur Riley
Come join us in January to begin or revisit your training in the Biodynamic Cranial Approach. Remember that repeating a course is always half price. To be eligible for the next yearlong Intensive training starting in August 2024, this Introduction is the required prerequisite.
Click here for the Registration Form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdmsK1sZgB74-iKWnE2cURB81yBEpAR4vWiqnpH6yRUfzSVNQ/viewform?usp=sf_link
Hope to see you soon!
