Hands on wellness is the opportunity for us to work in person, either with a massage for wellness, or a shamanic healing.  We decide together what treatments will be best experienced face to face, rather than remotely. 

These sessions are best in person, but since we are all currently social distancing, I have been offering them over videoconferencing, such as FaceTime or Zoom.  

Arvigo Mayan Abdominal Massages

This is an ancient Mayan practice of healing that originated with the Mayan people. My teachers were trained by Dr Rosita Arvigo, who apprenticed with a Mayan Healer and Shaman for 13 years.  He gave her permission to translate what she learned through him into a method that could be shared and taught around the world.  He requested she keep the sacred tradition and honor the Maya peoples through this work, which she has done.  She has created schools and camps for the children, protected the plants of the rainforest that Don Elijio loved and called home, financially supporting these projects through the work of the Arvigo Institute.  The Institute has trained thousands of practitioners, all over the world, in the Arvigo Method of Mayan Abdominal Therapy and offers education to practitioners and others in a variety of basic to advanced skills.  

As a midwife, I first learned of Dr. Arvigo and her work in 1998, and I knew I wanted to learn this therapy.  In its rich tradition, it gently honors the wisdom of the body to repair and heal itself when given the support and guidance needed. I feel deeply privileged to participate in an ancient traditional practice that has brought women so much healing, from fertility to conception, through pregnancy and birth, and beyond to managing other challenges like pelvic pain, fibroids, perimenopause, and bleeding irregularities.

Shamanic Healing

This ancient practice of spiritual healing that dates from 100,000+ years ago involves accessing other realms of Spirit for guidance, wisdom, and healing. The premise is that all conditions—emotional, mental, and physical—have an underlying spiritual cause. Shamanic practices include the shamanic journey to non-ordinary reality, spirit guides, power animals, and plant medicines. Shamanic healing may include a power animal retrieval, soul retrieval, and/or shamanic extraction as well as other healing ceremonies.

Shamans access spirit realms behind the veil and work with power animals and teachers there to help them help us on this side of the veil.  We journey for information, to request help from the spirits to solve a problem in our world and to work with the spirits on healing Mother Earth. 

When I add my practice of shamanism to my more “mainstream” medical knowledge, the healing potential is greatly expanded. It enhances how I see the patient and influences my options for treatment. It opens me to offer more plant medicine and more spiritual medicine, even as we look at what may be going on in the anatomy and physiology of the problem and what modern science may be able to offer us. It’s a model that is actually integrating body, mind and spirit.