touch heal balance

www.learn2massage.net

touchhealbalance — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 17:29:27 +0000

I have spoken a little bit about massage, somewhere in this blog, if my memory serves me well. It has given me and others great joy, in various parts of the world, from warrington to new york and from Tulum to Cannes. Please take a look at my new website www.learn2massage.net which has been constructed with the help of friends and family. Thanks people! There you can download a full massage course, with videos and course manuals. Those aformentioned friends are also helping me to add more treatments and therapies in the new future so keep checking for updates.

A friend as also joined in helping with the site, you can read more here…

http://poursomegravyonme.co.uk/2011/01/25/learn2massage-net/

Enjoy, good people!

www.learn2massage.net

Zapatistas

touchhealbalance — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 19:27:58 +0000

For our honeymoon me and the wife visited the southern Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca. They are the heartbeat of Mexico, rich in natural resources, culture and diverse landscapes. However, ironically or obviously they are home to the poorest people of Mexico. Looking out of the moving bus you can’t help but feel like you are in another country, such is the contrast with the spralling Mexico City or the deserts surrounding the central states. I recalled, when looking into the dense Lacandon Jungle while the bus driver stopped for a piss, my previous visit to this region.

We had stopped on the side of the road, for some reason i cant recall why, and as i looked into the wall of trees before me a man appeared, for a brief second. It gave me such a fright. The man was clearly a native of the jungle, there are many indigenous peoples living within (Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Ch’ol..) and was equally surprised to see me, i guess. He looked like Ian Brown in a wig, monkey-like, with no emotion or expression on his face. We held contact for a few seconds and the history of this man flashed before my minds-eye… small huts, hunting, Conquistadores, wooden tools… before the bus moved off and i had visions of him returning to his tribe to tell the story of the magical moving box with strange looking tribe members aboard.

The region is also home to the EZLN, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. They declared (predominantly non violent) war on the state and since the mid-eighties they have fought to protect what is theirs from the clutches of the corporate and military forces. The name is a direct reference to Emiliano Zapata, the revoltionary icon of the Mexican Independence.

What they have achieved in this area is the creation of independant autonomous zones, free from the influence of the local and national government in an attempt to protect and support the poorer people of the region. “For everyone, everything, for us, nothing.”

We had planned a visit to one of their zones, to try to understand their cause and to see how they go about their lives. Unfortunately i became sick the night before and we had to cancel the meeting. To make up for this we contributed to the cause by buying some “official” merchandise. How ironic!

These kind of people hold a great interest for many people, me included, Gandhi, Che, Bolivar, they stood up to what was wrong, to try and change for the benefit of all. I have often wondered why i am attracted to them, is it something lacking in me that i see so strongly in those or could be that we “lie” down to easy and accept that we have no influence or control over what is? Maybe it is because i have clean running water, street lights and a supermarket full of exotic fruits? Who knows?

What i do know is that i will continue to enjoy the comforts of this society whilst contributing little or nothing in the way of benfiting others.

to be human?

touchhealbalance — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:50:27 +0000

I have been reading 365 Tao. A book of daily meditations. It is another book that inspires me, wakes me up from the daily habits and reminds me of that something other. I could extract several pages from this book but here’s one. After reading this page our world seems so complex and cluttered. No?

“Animals live simple lives close to the Tao. They do not need to think or reason. They never doubt themselves. When they are hungry, they eat. When they are tired, they sleep. They respond to the cycles of the day according to their intuition. They mate at the proper season, and they nuture their young according to their own understanding. When they die, they fall under they teeth of predators or the dispassionate turning of the seasons.

By contrast, we as human being s depart from the natural norm, and worry about ethical action. Extremes of behaviour have become more varied, running the gamut from the sadistic to the moralistic. Tao considers all this artificial and unnatural. Why divorce ourselves from Nature?

The follower of the Tao prefers to live completely in concert with Tao, avoiding any interference of theory and excessive thought. Though one must learn skill and ethics thoroughly, one must come to embody them so completely that they become subconscious. Reacting to a situation by asking what is right and wrong is already too slow. One must intuitively do what is correct. There should be no foreshadowing of an act, nor doubt about oneself.”

Image is in the Eye of the beholder…

touchhealbalance — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 07:13:22 +0000

Are all the relationships that you and I have, that are presently in our lives, simply a relationship between images?

I have an image of my girlfriend. She does this and that, behaves this way and that way and i know that when my image say or does certain things that her image will do/say this or that in accordance with what has previously happened.

The meeting with an old friend is based on my image of him when we were together at University, not with fresh eyes and a blank page.

Do i find security in these images? Am I safe in the knowledge that this or that will be the same as it was before? Do I find it easier to live with my images of people rather than the reality of that person?

The image is a concept, a conclusion and ideal. They are unreal. What is real is what is taking place right now.

Who’d have thought it?

touchhealbalance — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 19:25:20 +0000

Have you ever considered this?

Is thought time? Time, the movement between ‘what is’ and ‘what could/should be’.

I observed this movement last night. There is a stillness in the ‘what is’. The buzzing Fridge, talking outside, amber lighting…then thought…’i need to clean those cups’…’what time do i need to set my alarm?’…’If i set it for 6am that will give me enough time for breakfast and a coffee…’

Experiments: Attention in the body

touchhealbalance — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:19:12 +0000

I refuse to massage people if I don`t feel happy with my state of being. Here in the South of France there are opportunites to do lots of massaging. The perfect excuse to help myself!

I have found an excellent Ashtanga Yoga Teacher in Antibes. She provides space for personal attention without sacrificing the harmony of the group. http://www.sohum-yoga.com/

In her class I am focusing on relaxation. Relaxation is achieved by putting attention in the breath and the movement. Afterwards my mind is clear and my body is super-charged with energy, and yet it maintains the calm felt during the session. This attention in the body has started to manifest itself in my everyday movements and stillness.

I am reminded of the time in Mexico when a friend and I performed the basic Asanas and 5 Tibetan Rites, almost everyday, for 4 months. There were times when I would feel such a strong relationship with All that upon finishing the movements I would rush out and buy everyone breakfast!

You can read more about the Rites here. http://www.mkprojects.com/pf_TibetanRites.htmFrom

Good luck with your own Experiments and enjoy the rest of your day.

Beyond the noise of words

touchhealbalance — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 06:39:18 +0000

It is only in listening that one hears the song in the words.

Putting aside screens?

touchhealbalance — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:06:46 +0000

How do you listen? Do you listen with your projections, through your projection, through your ambitions, desires, fears, anxieties, through hearing only what you want to hear, only what will be satisfatory, what will gratify, what will give comfort, what will for the moment alleviate you suffering? If you listen through the screen of your desires, then you obviously listen to your own voice; you are listening to your own desires. And is there any other form of listening? Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of ctraffic, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, your girlfriend, to your friends, to the cry of a baby? Listening has importane only when one is not projecting one’s own desires though which one listens. Can one put aside all these screens through which we listen, and really listen?

To be Human

touchhealbalance — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 07:15:39 +0000

Gripping the top of the glass with index finger and thumb he purposefully slid it toward the barmaid and silently ordered another pint. He then turned to me.

“You, you fucking hippies peace un Love and and chugging about living in fields growing your own fucking parsnips or whateveristhefuckyoueat. Tttry living in the real world, try, try…an onest living, paying your taxes…stop stop stop…”

He’d done well to get that many words out at once. I wasn’t really in the mood for a debate or a fight. As he tried to remember the previous 8 seconds I patted him on the back and left him with this.

“Let’s hope you move up a tax band in April, we could do with a few more fucking Chinooks…”

Listen with ease

touchhealbalance — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 23:01:12 +0000

Have you ever sat very silently, not with your attention fixed on anything, not making an effort to concentrate, but with the mind very quiet, really still? Then you hear everything, don’t you? You hear the far off noises as well as those that are nearer and those that are very close by, the immediate sounds – which means really that you are listening to everything. Your mind is not confined to one narrow little channel. If you can listen in this way, listen with ease, without strain, you will find an extrordinary change taking place within you, a change which comes without your volition, without your asking; and in that change there is great beauty and depth of insight.