David Lauterstein
If You Love the Body – poem for massage therapists
IF YOU LOVE THE BODY If you love the body you must know the bone that ribs and peoples it; deeper than flesh you feel the beauty. That will last, simply as stone upheaves in season where the winter rain rakes asters and drooping cornstalks from a hill. If you love the body you must…
Read MoreThe Meditation of Chair Massage
“Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, During all these waking hours, Let us establish mindfulness of good will, Called the highest state!” – Gautama Buddha Doesn’t lying down at night feel so good? Could sitting down feel as good? One place where sitting down feels as good as lying down is at the airport…
Read MoreMasters of Massage
Years ago I taught a workshop in South Dakota and there were two old-time massage therapists there – Floyd Hauk and Verne Jeffries. Both had that early American pioneer can-do attitude. Floyd talked about doing massage in the early days – working on Indians, on minor league baseball players, on farmers, housewives, and the full…
Read MoreMassage Therapy, Torture, and Loving Life
My new client said, “I’m here because I don’t like to be touched”. “Uh-oh!” I thought, “Now this’ll be interesting.” I noted to her that since touch is what I do, she might think twice about doing the session. No, she said, she understood what I did –this discomfort with touch was an issue she…
Read MoreMassaging the Windows of Life: Where Your Muscles Meet Your Bones
When we do our strokes in Deep Massage, when we pause, particularly at the beginning or the end of a stroke, it creates a kind of “window”. These pauses naturally occur at the beginning and near the end of the muscle – at the origin and the insertion. As in most stories, beginnings and endings…
Read MoreMassage and Faith
Yesterday, I received a good session from a student. I also received a deeper learning than ever about repetition. The student did some very lovely strokes down the back and then followed them by more and similar strokes. Each stroke is a communication. And though we know this on some level, we can forget it…
Read MoreTouch Changes Everything! – Massage Your World
– David’s article from the Jan. 2011 issue of Austin All-Natural Magazine live consciously in touch this year… TOUCH CHANGES EVERYTHING Have you ever had a meal and afterwards realized you couldn’t really remember tasting it? How about touching? How many times a day do you touch things or people and are unconscious as you…
Read MoreARE YOU BONE-TIRED? – reflections on Zero Balancing
When we say we’re “bone tired”, what does that really mean? It means tired to our core, not just sleepy. It refers to a feeling of depletion – that we’ve drawn upon our vital stores of energy, which are now in need of replenishment. In Chinese medicine and philosophy, the energy that flows through the…
Read MoreMassage and Meditation: Sacred Science and Art
Bodywork is in some respects a sacred art form, like mandala painting. Sacred art forms are themselves pathways for self-growth, ultimately vehicles for enlightenment. In the Western world, sacred art was the predominant art style until and through the Renaissance. Dance throughout the world has been the Path of movement. I recall reading about an…
Read MoreMassage and Meditation: Touch Changes Everything
Next weekend I’ll be teaching “Massage and Meditation” a CE workshop which has become a holiday and new year’s tradition at our school. Whether we’ve been doing massage for just one year or twenty, we can always find ways to renew our appreciation for how profound, and sometimes how neglected, touches are in our lives.…
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