Astrology, Dharma, Health and Wellness

This is a post about my reaction to working in a spa along with Astrological reasons why I am having certain reactions to doing so. Enjoy!

I recently got hired by a great spa in Charlottesville. This is exciting for a number of reasons and it brings up another reaction which I will mention below.

First of all, this spa takes exceptionally great care of its therapists – offering money to buy health insurance with, paying half of my social security (payroll taxes take a major toll on sole proprietors – no pun intended!), and she even offers compensation for continuing education classes and workshops! Not to mention giving her therapists a fantastic commission on each treatment we give.

So all in all, I’m pretty sure I was hired by the best spa in town regarding how well she treats her employees. Which for a recent massage graduate is a huge blessing!

I will be doing Craniosacral Therapy, Acupressure, and Reflexology there to start as I don’t have my massage license just yet. I am however scheduled to take the national exam July 3rd – wish me well!

This is incredibly exciting! Working at a spa may not have been my dream per se, but if I must work in a spa, I have chosen a great one!

Speaking of that dream, this is where interesting reactions arise. Disclosure of a personal nature coming, by the way…

I have been doing Craniosacral Therapy for 13 years, Polyvagal Therapy (trauma resolution) since 2010 and since 2013 I have been studying Pre- and Perinatal Therapy, aka Birth Process work. So in my ideal world, I would have a private practice where I work with children, babies and parents and adults who want to work on their own birth dynamics.

However, while I am a great practitioner, I am not a good business person. I don’t like marketing myself or my work (holdover from past lives as a Buddhist monastic). I don’t even like requesting my full rate – at least half of my clients in the past have been on a sliding scale or have stuck with a lower rate (Sun, South Node and many other planets in my 8th house – meaning I was the tribal medicine person and I was always taken care of by my village – I never had to ask for money for healing work – blasphemy if I’ve ever heard of it).

And this is why a tiny part of me cringes when I think about working in a spa. Not only am I concerned about doing more than 10 massages / week (even though I am only part time), I am also concerned that my greatest potential is not being met. Yes I want to practice financial self care – I don’t think I have ever spent a full year focusing on my bank account, paying off debt and truly saving every penny I possibly could. It is time to focus on me – something else I am not good at. (Chiron is conjunct my MidHeaven – I am very good at healing OTHERS, but less good at taking care of myself on some levels, the Wounded Healer in all of his true self-less glory)

Hopefully within the spa setting I will get the chance to read pulses – I am learning a lot by taking pulses, taking down notes, and asking acupuncturists when I have the chance about new things I am feeling. I read pulses as a part of Acupressure treatments. Hopefully I can offer a number of modalities at the spa and not be too limited to massage (even though that is the quintessential reason people go to spas…). I will set the intention and I’m pretty sure I will be pleasantly surprised.

Either way, I will give it at least six months. I can always attempt to cultivate thriving and healthy private practice down the road.

As it stands, I will have a couple mornings / week where I can see my own clients. I do have several from the past. Now if I can just be resolute in my rates going up once I get my license…

I am not planning on offering anything at the spa that requires talking. I am not being paid enough to do trauma resolution at the spa, no thanks. So that is a boundary I can honor at least.

Thanks for reading about my diverse excitement to starting to work at a spa! I start on Friday – exciting and …!

Have a great day,

~km

Donation to Kirby’s blogging efforts

Hi dear Readers, Help me buy tea so I can continue blogging. So if you enjoy what you are reading, please make a little donation. Thank you very much!

$10.00

Read Full Post »

Got started on a facebook page for my business – Wisdom Healing Arts.

Here is the link if you are interested:

Wisdom Healing Arts fb page

Things are gradually coming together – seeing a few clients / week, in July I’m going to take over a few clients / week from a friend who is going on maternity leave and I’m interviewing with two spas (might as well get the best offer!).

And somehow I have to read about 300 pages of the national exam review book and take a bunch of practice exams – all in the next four weeks! Wow!

So if you are wondering what I am doing for fun these days.. basically it is swimming, spending time with animal friends, seeing a few friends, giving treatments and STUDYING as much as possible. 🙂

Thanks for reading!

~km

Read Full Post »

If you have not read several of my previous posts about the amazing Massage Program I just completed in April or about my working with Hot Stones since then, I would recommend going back through my posts. Or click here: Hot Stone description

In my personal astrology chart I don’t have much in the way of Earth signs tenanted. I have Saturn in Virgo and my North Node (of the Moon) is also there, plus I have Chiron in Taurus, but that is basically it. So I see my working with Hot Stones as a healing process for myself as well – or not healing process per se, rather a way I can ground and work with the Earth element more consciously and overtly.

This particular Hot Stones treatment includes working with some of the Chinese medicine / acupuncture energy meridians and it has been fascinating experiencing how various clients hold different “stuff” in their meridians and around the various bones that we work with in the treatment.

In the Chi Kung that we learned in Massage School, we got into some intermediate and a little bit of advanced techniques by working with Bone Breathing or Bone Marrow Chi Kung. That is where the practitioner imagines light flowing through and around their bones as they do the inner Taoist yoga. I love it. I’m pretty confident I changed my constitution entirely doing this practice (and I continue to do it obviously).

So my next exploration involving the Hot Stones and Chi Kung will be to imagine the stones as objects of light in my hands as I am working with clients. I’m pretty confident it will work well (the stones already are objects of light, just due to my karmic predispositions I see them as charcoal-colored soap stone or reddish-gray basalt or greenish jadeite or the opaque white of quartz / marble).

I’m excited to continue to deepen my relationship with the stones (which are crystal formations in their own right), to work with my own inner / outer light, and to gift my clients some of the deepest levels of relaxation they have ever experienced!

I am very grateful to be able to do this work and I love how most people who receive a Hot Stones treatment schedule another within a couple weeks!

Thank you for reading!

Have a beautiful day,

~km

Donation to Kirby’s blogging efforts

Hi dear Readers, Help me buy tea so I can continue blogging. So if you enjoy what you are reading, please make a little donation. Thank you very much!

$10.00

Read Full Post »

Just to let y’all know that I am still chewing on words to put in the next post about Yods. At present however I am moving into my new apartment, so it might be a few days yet.

Just know that it is on my mind and in my heart ❤

Thank you for reading as usual!

~km

Read Full Post »

Hello dear readers!

I have been back from Massage school for over two weeks now (!!) And my bodywork practice is already picking up – hence not many posts here recently.

I am feeling several desires pulling at me, tugging, yanking, urging. One influence wants me to get as many days full of clients as possible (three clients / day is my current limit – in a couple months that might go up to four) and to schedule a few weeks out so I have a full calendar.

Another smaller timid subtle gentler voice wants me to rest and relax, to take a day off every once in a while, to go slow, to do Slow Eye Rolls – a technique from Zapchen Somatics which is very therapeutic and relaxing. It wants to exchange with a good bodyworker once / week at least to maintain some semblance of self care and it wants to find my own spiritual / self care practices which are extremely gentle, slow, and deeply resourcing.

And then yet another need is to study. I have one assignment left for massage school – but it is a big one (at least twenty hours left on it) and once I finish that, I can sign up for the national massage exam – the MBLEX. So I get in an hour or two of studying when I can. This is starting to become urgent however, so I’m guessing tomorrow might be a four or five hour binge of studying and workbooks and completion.

I also need to unpack my body mind and soul. My journey to Colorado was something powerful and special. I am noticing positive changes – bringing some of the Sacredness of Crestone Colorado back with me. Somehow in the midst of all this unpacking, I am continuing to see and treat clients! Like I said about two or three / day!

What I love about the bodywork I am doing, for the most part, every session is unique. Having a number of modalities under my belt allows me to do Integrated Reflexology or Foot Shiatsu, or 30 mins of Shiatsu blended with Craniosacral Therapy, or Swedish Massage with 20 – 30 mins of Acupressure. I love the creativity that is possible, I love how I don’t know what is going to arise, and I both love and internally cringe when a client says, “You know Kirby, you seem very knowledgeable about this, what do you think would be best for me?” I am being stretched in a good way!

Actually, I’m thinking I need to finalize an idea I have been toying with – that is to come up with a protocol of muscle testing to determine what is best for a client. Using muscle testing to discern what is the priority treatment(s) for them at that moment.

Oh – and I am doing a few astrology interpretations as well! Wow 🙂

If you miss me for a week or two, now you know what I am up to!

Feel free to drop me a comment or question.

Thank you reading!

~km

Donation to Kirby’s blogging efforts

Hi dear Readers, Help me buy tea so I can continue blogging. So if you enjoy what you are reading, please make a little donation. Thank you very much!

$10.00

Read Full Post »

Donation to Kirby’s blogging efforts

Hi dear Readers, Help me buy tea so I can continue blogging. So if you enjoy what you are reading, please make a little donation. Thank you very much!

$10.00

Read Full Post »

He started out in the morning in the mountains of Colorado, not knowing what this day would hold…

A long drive ahead of him, he started out the day with some Svaroopa Yoga – softer yin-like yoga that focuses on stretching the pelvis and spine.

Rush hour in Denver not too bad, but very glad to be clear of it, he continued on.

Stopping at a rest area in Eastern Colorado, he did some 8 Brocades Chi Kung. He was off the beaten path as it were, but some people going to the rest rooms (at the rest stop) gave him some curious glances. Better to plant a few seeds in their minds! Or they might just think he is a crazy person doing some odd movements in the sun behind the picnic area…

Not many cities to go through on the way through Kansas. Fortunately he found a health food store in Hays Kansas, a small town, where he purchased a couple of Kombuchas for the road – healthy caffeine was definitely needed for his drive.

He made another stop an hour later. This time stretching his upper body, doing some pull-ups in a little shelter and then finding some soft grass to do push-ups in. Then back on the road.

Flint Hills of Kansas – soft yet mesmerizing. He was listening to the audio book – the Red Tent as he drove hundreds of miles through the dry flat prairies. An amazing book about the female characters seemingly from the Old Testament – but written in a sensuous, female-empowering, intuitive, inspiring manner! It is almost from the perspective of a mid-wife, another reason he was enjoying the book.

He stopped at yet another rest area. This time he found a creek nearby. Peeking down over the foot bridge, he saw that the water was not that clean and also flowing very slowly or not at all – not a good place to do Water Chi Kung. Instead, he walked a little further and found a nice quiet spot to do Solar Chi Kung.

He first presented himself to the Ancient Solar Angel, having gratitude and a smile in his heart. Then he felt the Solar Chi wash over him. He kept the portals closed though, at first. Then he did the visualization with the hand movements to all the Solar Chi to pour through him. As he imagined the solar beam to flow down over and through his (light) body, he was gifted a vision of a deep canyon being filled with liquid light – first red, then orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and finally violet. It was beautiful!

He thanked the Ancient One for helping him to slowly remember who he was. Then he did some patting Chi Kung to wrap up his session.

For a moment there, he was light walking light. He was a being of light having a human experience. But only for a moment.

He was ready to drive again.

By the time he got into Kansas City though, he was very weary from his drive. A bath was in order!

Read Full Post »