Bodywork

The Medicine of Touch

I have never once in my 18 years as an apprentice to the Art and Medicine of Touch doubted humanity’s innate need for touch. In complete truth, I understand touch as fundamental to our whole-being health as individuals and as a community. Our bodies have need for connection and expression that is non-verbal. I pray that we can remember how to be a people that recognizes, values, and has skill in sharing loving touch with one another. That we can remember and acknowledge our essential need for touch; that it affects every facet of our being. I pray that loving, attuned, playful, reverent, and consensual touch be normal, abundant, and celebrated.

Mouse Bird

Bodywork

The Medicine of Touch

In the Temple, Bodywork is the Medicine of Touch. Touch is a basic human need. Touch is our primary, pre-verbal language. We all were held in the Wombs of our Mothers, and then hopefully lovingly and tenderly held in the arms of those who were our caretakers. Touch speaks directly to our bodies. Our bodies communicate directly through touch. Our bodies know. Touch is a language with many dialects that have been cultivated and refined by humanity for millennia; there are countless ways to explore and practice. Gaiamara Temple Bodywork Offerings draw from a well of 17 years of embodied practice and study of the intentional facilitation of Touch as Medicine. Inspired by the traditions and modalities of Reflexology, Acupressure, Thai Massage, Mayan Abdominal Massage, Visceral Manipulation, Structural Integration (Soma, Rolfing, KMI), Myofascial Release, Reiki, Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, Traeger, Trigger Point Therapy, Swedish Massage, Deep Tissue Massage, Alexander Technique, Intra Oral Massage, Breast Massage, Scar Tissue Massage, and more.

What to expect in a Gaiamara Temple Bodywork Session:

All Gaiamara Bodywork Sessions are 90 minutes. In every session we work with all of the layers of the Deep Body; the emotional, sensual, cognitive, social, ancestral, and archetypal bodies all meet in the physical. From the subtle energetic to the gross physical, touch can be deeply supportive to bringing presence and awareness into all dimensions of our being. As I provide touch, I offer gentle invitations to follow the sensations of the body and engage in conscious and intuitive breath, sound, and movement. In this way we invite the intelligence and follow the guidance of your body throughout. These sessions are an invitation for you to cultivate deeper curiosity, presence, compassion, and self-responsibility within yourself. A place to explore your inner dimensions and practice listening and surrendering to the intelligence of your body. Gaiamara Bodywork Sessions include:

  • Intuitive Bodywork Sessions

  • 5-Elements Full Body Massage

  • Breast & Chest Massage

  • Womb & Belly Massage

  • Head, Hands, & Feet Massage

  • Intra-Oral Massage

  • Body Reclamation Series

In the Bodywork Sessions, we are primarily working with Touch, but I also draw from and incorporate other forms of Medicine:

  • Ritual

  • Plant Essences, Essential Oils, Aromatherapy, and Incense

  • Sound Medicine, Music, and Song

  • Breath

  • Embodiment

  • Meditation

Whatever it is that draws you to Touch, to Bodywork, and into the Temple, let’s work together to support you and your unique journey of embodiment.

Benefits of Bodywork

  • Relaxation

  • Relieves Tension

  • Invites presence

  • Establishes context for relational healing through touch

  • Aids in mobility and flexibility

  • Nervous System Regulation

  • Aids in blood circulation

  • Aids in lymph flow

  • Promotes physical healing

  • Invites energetic, emotional, sensational, embodied presence

  • Emotional Regulation

  • Embodiment

  • Ancestral Healing

  • Soul healing and integration

  • Overall Well-being

  • Aids in digestion

  • Aids in depression and anxiety

Welcome to the temple, where we greet each other as holy and sacred. Let us go together.

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Bodywork Offerings

Threshold, Passage, Initiation, Acknowledgement, Honoring, Gathering, Circling, Centering, Communing

1:1 . Group . In-Person

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“Mouse Bird is an incredible healer. I am so grateful to have found her practice in Bellingham. From my first appointment, I knew I had found someone who would have a deep, profound, and healing impact on my life. She has created a beautifully intentional space.”

— Anna Katherine Rose