I am excited to gradually be getting my business started! I am also getting unpacked (both physically and psycho-spiritually) from my amazing Journey West for the mystical and potent Massage School that I just completed. Not to mention beginning to study for the Massage National Licensing Exam… (I’m busy!)
And I need people to practice these incredible bodywork modalities on. Even people who don’t live in Virginia – I can offer distance Acupressure treatments (this is a give what you can session). We learned Asian Bodywork (Shiatsu and Jin Shin Acupressure), Swedish Massage, Integrated Reflexology (hand and mainly foot), Passive Stretching and Hot Stones Massage.
I just got a set of Hot Stones yesterday – they are presently going through a ritual of cleansing and soaking up the Full Moon’s rays before the stones will be ready for treatments in a few days! Also exciting!
Here is a link to sign up for my Newsletter, which I will send out in a couple weeks:
By the way, I am offering an incentive – for every 25 people who sign up for my Newsletter, I will give a complimentary bodywork treatment each week to a random subscriber (up to 4 max for the month of May)! So sign up now and get in the running to receive a gifted treatment.
So far, I am doing well in bringing the sacred potency of Crestone Colorado back home to Virginia.
(See below to sign up for my Newsletter or to set up a bodywork appointment)
For anyone not in the know, briefly, I just returned from Colorado where I was in a potent and very educational massage therapy program where we also did Chi Kung, Tai Chi and / or Kundalini Yoga every day for three months. It was awesome!
Of course I have my ups and downs – driving 1800 miles in three days and two nights for instance, was not easy, and it requires rest time to integrate and get my body back in sync with the local rhythms! I’m slowly getting there.
With that said however, today is a good day so far!
Woke up with the dog barking so I let her out (my parent’s dog). 8:30 am
Fed her and then went outside to do some Chi Kung. Did the 8 Brocades this morning – which it turns out, is also the sped-up version of a technique called Ba Dua Jin – a Chi Kung style rumored to cause its practitioners to be invincible (side note – that is if the person practices all of the Ba Dua Jin set which has apparently been partially lost with time). Anyway… did some good connecting with my foundations, standing in the sun, being the connection between heaven and earth and then rooting down into Mother Earth. 9:30 am
Dug through my parent’s barn where some of my stuff is stored and unearthed my juicer. Made Pineapple, Granny Smith apple, beet and ginger juice for breakfast. That was yummy! I also sang some prayers and mantras into the ingredients to bless the juice. This is a combination I must remember – nectar of the gods! I felt like I was right back in Hawaii (my birthplace).
As you may or may not know, it is good to bless your food and drink. Offer it light and if you have a connection to a spiritual lineage, then say prayers of blessing. Be grateful and try to have joy in your heart to connect with these delicious ingredients! Fake it if you must. I say this because it is not just what you eat, but how you eat it that matters for the Chi intake. I fully believe that we will get more out of any food we take in if we bless it and offer it light and love. (I realize this sounds way out there, but there are many stories of people – saints – who were thrown in prison and only given rotten bread or simple porridge to eat. But after blessing their “food” they regained robust health in spite of their conditions! So no, I’m not a saint, but I can fake it until I make it!)
By the time I had given juice to my parents and my brother and cleaning everything up, it was 11 am.
Then I drove to the local farmer’s market where I purchased some kale and some basil plants for my mother to plant. And here I sit, typing this curious missive.
This afternoon I am very excited to be picking up a set of hot stones – for hot stone massage. I learned a special technique in Colorado where a shaman taught us how to work with the energy meridians of the body while doing Hot Stone massage. It is more like Hot Stone Shiatsu – it is awesome!
So I will pick up my new stones, work with them, talk to them, put them in a mesh bag and put them in the full mountain stream to clean them and infuse them with good pure mountain Chi. Then in a few days I will be ready to practice Hot Stone Massage with people!
By the way, if you want to set up an appointment with me you can click here to go to my scheduling software:
I had quite a quick journey across the country, exhausting yet beautiful.
There was solar Chi Kung in Kansas,
Tree Chi Kung in Indiana,
and Water Chi Kung on the border of Virginia and West Virginia.
I can’t wait to share what little I know here in central Virginia.
I have had a rebirth of sorts. Massage school was basically beyond description – a Heaven and Earth school, a mystery school of sorts. Some of the teachings were esoteric in the midst of an entry level massage training – which of course included Asian Bodywork.
So I am going to take a week or so to digest, to look back over my notes, to unpack my car, unpack my heart and to practice various modalities on friends and family. I am only asking for a donation – $40-60 which is a deal because we were well trained 🙂
I can also offer distant Acupressure sessions as I want to practice that too. Let me know if you are interested in an in-person or distant treatment.
Curiosity arises when I wonder what my practice will look like here – will I need to work in a spa one or two days a week? We will see! It’s exciting.
I most look forward to bringing the sacred spirituality of Crestone Colorado back to Virginia. There is something really truly remarkable about that little town – you go there to work on your stuff whether you want to or not. And in the presence of a teacher like we had, then your inner work gets accelerated. All for the good. I look forward to sharing more soon.
Here are photos of the Rockfish Valley, Afton Virginia (I’m home!) Yay!!
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!
Yesterday morning we studied I Ching (I learned a lot of course, in spite of having been studying this divinatory tool for more than 10 years), Feng Shui, and further Hydrotherapy techniques. That was an awesome morning.
Then in the afternoon, I tried to check out on Integrated Massage. The director discovered that I was not remembering Shiatsu that well, so it was included in my treatment. Meaning I made a couple of little mistakes and did not pass. I took that poorly and had a rough few hours.
Fortunately today I did pass! Today was Marathon day – where we treated four clients in 5 and a half hours. Good practice in case we work in a spa one day.
It was so nice to be let off the leash as it were (weird metaphor there). We have previously been forced to use the same Kata or pattern for doing each modality and today we were given freedom to mix it up. It was awesome!
One of my clients received 4 modalities from me as that was her request. Passive stretching, acupressure, Craniosacral and Swedish Massage. She said her neck had been hurting her for months – I did about 15 minutes of Cranio on her and she said her neck felt great! Yay! We know a lot of modalities and I am so grateful to be able to do this beautiful bodywork.
It has only sunk in now that we are leaving tomorrow… over the weekend I kept saying to myself, “we have 3 days left of school…” and only now is the sadness / excitement / giddiness / curiosity / sense-of-adventure starting to well up. I am going to miss these incredible teachers, our wonderful group and these epics mountains – and not to mention Crestone’s powerful spiritual / transformational energy (it is legit).
And I need some people to practice on when I get back 🙂 I figure 5 of each modality for donation, then another 5 for a suggested donation and then I will be ready to go! It will probably take 2 – 3 months to get my license and pass the national exam. So it will work out well!
I’m very excited for what the next few months hold!
Thank you all for your awesome support!
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Less than a week before Massage School is over. It is sad and exciting at the same time. My heart is doing well with being present with what is. I will miss being a part of this great group. I will miss the spiritual potency that is Crestone Colorado. I will not miss how every little character flaw I have is reflected back at me directly or confronted quickly (another bonus of being in Crestone). I will definitely miss all the amazing modalities we are learning and practicing daily. And I will miss Dan and Sue – the teachers here. What a majestic, magical, mystical, sublime program they have created here!
Manifesting what I want… this is the second time I have manifested what I need / want. Tonight as a gift from a practicum client I received a beautiful essential oil diffusor. I have seen one used in several of our classes and I thought I would like to have one for my apartment or office… And sure enough several weeks later, here it is!
Speaking of practicum clients, tonight I felt sad about leaving the school – and leaving all these awesome people who have allowed us to practice on them for the past ten weeks! Of course I may have been feeling my client’s sadness as well.
We are now cleaning for about an hour a day – today we dusted the leaves of all the plants (they have about two dozen, some of which are massive). I am mostly packed up except for clothes and food. This weekend I will load my car with non-food items as the bears are starting to wake up.
I have been giving a few extra bodywork sessions outside of school – usually in exchange for barter. I received a number of potent essential oils recently – and elk steaks! And I have more requests for sessions than I can accommodate. I both wish I could stay here longer and I am happy to be getting home and getting my business up and running again! Very bittersweet.
Last night – integrated massage I did amazing shiatsu plus acupressure and reflexology. Tonight I did awesome Swedish massage with passive stretching done in the midst of the Swedish. I loved it and so did my client. With all we have learned, I could literally do a thousand treatments and not have two be alike… kind of overwhelming and incredible at the same time!
I am praying I get the chance to check out on integrated tomorrow. If I don’t check out tomorrow, I might have to wait until Tuesday – the last day to possibly do it. He has only held one person back – saying they had to come back to give him another treatment in a few weeks. But I do not want to be the second!
We took a huge physiology test tonight – took two hours, 105 questions. It was crazy challenging. We will grade them Friday.
Now only the Anatomy Test left on Monday. Then the Marathon on Tuesday – seeing 4 clients over the course of 5 hours. Good preparation for a busy practice or spa type setting.
Then we are out of here! Wow!
Thanks for reading!
~km
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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!
We are getting down to the last few days of class / training / practice here at Massage School. It is exciting, we have learned SO much and now I need to practice it all to keep it fresh and potent. By the way, I have a journaling assignment for school (hence there have been a number of massage school posts on here).
So we are now into Integrated Massage. Tonight was great – there was some flexibility in what we offered our practicum person and there will be through to the end of the program. Therefore I did Swedish Massage, Reflexology and Acupressure – oh and hydrotherapy and aromatherapy in 85 minutes. I loved it and so did my client – she said, “You have amazing Reiki flowing through your hands.” Could be?! (acupressure is one modality that is also a Chi Kung practice, so I actually get more energy from practicing it – hence she mistook the Chi cultivation for Reiki).
I passed my Reflexology check out today so that is nice to have behind me. Now all we have left is one modality check out, a Physiology test and an Anatomy test. Then we graduate next Wednesday!
Oh and this morning we got a bonus elementary martial arts / Chi Kung / I Ching instruction. Nothing like having an instant barometer for determining whether we are in our center or not.
I am excited and still doing my best to not leave energetically before the program is over. And with that said, let me know if you are interested in receiving a treatment of one of these incredible modalities for a donation (once I get my license I will charge $100 / hour – so take advantage of this while it lasts!). I will start seeing clients in Virginia May 1st.
Thank you for 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!
We only have 11 days of class / treatments / tests remaining. And either we are getting used to the rigorous schedule or the pressure is finally lightening up. For about a month there, things were really intense. The director warned us about that.
It’s gotten cold again – tonight it is supposed to get down to 27 F. Recently its been in the 50’s and 60’s during the day – so the goddesses are sun bathing when they can.
I am teaching Kundalini Yoga tomorrow and after practicing with my teaching partner, apparently I chose a really challenging Kriya (set of exercises). Oh well – it was fun while I was doing it! (We have to be able to do it in order to teach it)
We are learning Reflexology now and starting to do it on our practicum clients. I am realizing that if I want to offer that professionally, I might want to take extra training. We are learning a pattern that we can do in 45 minutes or so – then with stretching and hand manipulations we can make it an hour.
Speaking of stretching, I am in love with this modality. When I receive it, I am in such an altered state (in a good way). I have now realized that the tension and resistance in my joints is primarily emotional and by breathing into it, I can release some of it in seconds! Stretching a physical release and psycho-spiritual-emotional release as well… When I get back, I will be doing some sessions for a donation – I want to practice on you 🙂
This seems to be graduate week – we have had six grads come and talk to us in the past two days. They come and receive treatments during practicum and visit with the teachers and local grads as well. They pretty much say the same thing – we are so blessed and lucky. Apparently when a spa learns that you graduated from this school, it is no longer an interview, but just a you-are-already-in-the-door-let’s-just-make-sure-you-know-what-you-are-doing. Plus they went over the process for obtaining licensure – very helpful!
There is still some crazy intensity remaining. Friday, we are doing a 2-hour yoga set which requires oiling our bodies (privately) and taking a cold shower ahead of it. Then a week later, we are doing a 2.5 hour meditation with the intention of making ourselves better healing facilitators. All on top of studying for a big physiology test late next week.
Thank you for reading and may your Spring be joyous!
(By the way, this material is copyrighted by M. Kirby Moore. Please do not reproduce this work in any way without his permission. Thank you!)
This is a post about Spiritual Astrology (Yay! Finally! I have been discussing massage school a lot for the past ten weeks, and here is a post purely about an astrological concept).
I must begin with recommending that before you read on, please take several deep breaths… I want you to listen to this guided meditation to connect with your internal resources:
Having established some inner resources – specifically the Feet, Seat, Breath meditation, now it is appropriate to go on. I want people to have at least a bit of inner resources before reading on.
I had a great conversation with a gentleman from England recently and we got to talking about the Ascendant and why it has to do with new beginnings. In Timing Astrology, the Progressed chart (secondary progressions) shows how we shift and change from within. It is a very slow gradual process of growth and development which has some uncanny accuracy and parallels.
In this Progressed chat, whenever a planet is crossing the natal Ascendant, that can indicate a major shift or change is coming very soon. In fact, that is one way to rectify the birth time – if the Progressed Moon crosses the Ascendant and during that 3 month window, nothing is really shifting, there are no fresh starts, there is no impetus to make major changes, then the b/t might be off!
This is also true if the Progressed Sun crosses the Ascendant (which is much more rare than the Pr. Moon crossing it), this will also indicate large scale shifts as we move from the behind-the-scenes-psychic-dreamy-nebulous-shadowy-12th-house to the pioneering, adventuresome, more impulsive and more self-directed 1st house. In this case, the window of growth and change would easily be 3-5 years as the Pr. Sun only moves one degree per year. So again, if nothing occurred in that 3-5 year window, I would be very suspicious of that birth time.
As an aside, another way to rectify the birth chart is with the Progressed Ascendant. Let’s say someone has Uranus in their 2nd house. Somewhere in their 30’s or 40’s, the Pr Asc. would cross their Uranus. This is usually a major event! Sometime big and surprising nearly always comes about – it might be challenging or beneficial (depending on Uranus’ aspects in the natal chart, the house that Uranus rules – see where Aquarius is located – other beneficial transits at the time – look at Tr Jupiter or Pr Venus etc, etc), but it would always be a significant event and it is nearly always surprising and happens quick! If nothing like that happens during the 1 – 2 year window of Pr. Ascendant crossing Uranus, again, be very suspicious of that birth time – or be on the lookout for when that event happens! That will show how far off the birth time is.
Back to the main topic – the Natal Ascendant. Why this is a major indicator of new beginnings, fresh starts and rebirths? Whether new vehicles – cars or spiritual vehicles, new relationships (major Ascendant / Descendant association) or new directions in life, the Natal Ascendant often plays a large role in changes and new cycles.
I believe that one reason for this is due to the Natal Ascendant having so much to do with the actual conditions around the time of birth. And what is so important about our being born? Only one of the most important transitions and re-births of our lives! At that point, our astrology chart is set, we take our first breath as an air-breathing human, we literally have the cord cut from our mothers, we have often already decided at that point whether the world is a safe abundant loving place or not.
By the way, I am planning to teach Pre- and Perinatal Astrology and I will go into this concept very thoroughly in that setting. This is just a teaser for my planned upcoming classes! 🙂
What does it mean that the Ascendant has to do with the time of birth? Here is an example, which I share with a caveat – Astrology is a complex topic to begin with, and then trying to predict what an aspect configuration will mean for someone in terms of their birth… well, it is nearly impossible: for instance Neptune conjunct the Ascendant can mean that significant amounts of pain meds were used in the birth such that energetic connection between mother and baby was disrupted and depending on what else is happening in that chart, that disruption might take years to repair (most new parents don’t know all the psycho-spiritual-emotional needs of babies and then how to repair them if interruption occurs). In this example, in addition to Neptune on the Ascendant, if other planets are there as well, then that can add yet another flavor to the birth dynamics. (It is very complicated!)
Why is the time of birth so important? In addition to the above, the manner of the birth and the manner of being welcomed into the world greatly influences our thoughts about how we grow our body. Think about the cultures that plan to receive a new spirit for a couple years, meditating for the song of the new individual, and then having the entire village sing their song when they are born. What would that be like? How would I have grown my body if I had been welcomed like that?!
As you can see, the Astrology Ascendant is quite an important section of the chart. Not only does it lay down the template for the rest of the chart (the astrological houses), but it also plays a roles in cycles of time – birth, re-birth, new beginnings and completions. It has a lot to do with our personalities, our relationships and our inherited health (for instance the beliefs, thought patterns, paradigms that affect our health over time).
And for Pre- and Perinatal Astrology, the Ascendant is a crucial area to cover. 🙂
We only have 2 and a half weeks left of school! It is wild how fast these weeks are zipping by. Early on in the program it felt like each week was a month long.
The past few days we have been learning passive stretching – which means the client is being stretched by the practitioner – and it is incredible! When I was on the table, I realized some of the muscles in my body have never really been stretched. I am really hoping to find a good practitioner of this when I get home!
This week we are learning and performing reflexology – mostly foot reflexology. It is amazing how dynamic this program is. We stress how the human body is a holographic form – meaning each cell contains a blue print for the entire body. And there are many parts of the body that reflect the whole body. This is truly a holistic approach (which separates practitioners who graduate from here from other massage schools – this is a mystery school in addition to being an entry level program). We have briefly looked at how the ears, the colon, the irises, the teeth, the hands reflect the entire body – like the feet!
This week we are teaching a Kundalini Yoga class in pairs. I am paired up with a neat 20-year-old who has been on her own for 5 years and who teaches yoga back home. So that is nice. This is a good time to be working with the liver – so that’s what we are leading – the Liver Lover Kriya.
We just had two weeks straight – we did class and had fun through last weekend with herbology, crystals and working with plants in the context of massage. That was great!
I am realizing that I am learning so many techniques though that something (that I want to keep) will have to go. Therefore when I get back, I will practice most techniques but I am expecting one or two modalities to fall away naturally.
The thought of leaving is very bittersweet. This is a fantastic group I have been a part of. The teachers are awesome. And I am even starting to enjoy most aspects of Kundalini Yoga! I have truly settled into this pace and place.
It is challenging to get myself up for all the assignments which continue to come our way. I think the two weeks straight was taxing. Thankfully I can get some rest this weekend so I will have the motivation to finish strong!
I am very excited about heading home and getting a thriving bodywork practice going. It is a challenge though to keep my mind focused on the task at hand. I find myself wandering into the future about all the various things I want to offer. It is good though – I am writing the better ideas down for later use!
Meditation Informs Healing Facilitation 