From an article by Dawn Jordan, a dear friend and colleague:   

Walking yourself through this change is a profound act of creation, re-creation. Through massage and bodywork we stimulate the senses in new ways, we multiply the connections between brain cells, increasing our physical, mental and emotional intelligence potential. The synergy of bodies moving in concert generates a massive opening for change.  We also know that human beings need to be touched in order to thrive.  If the skin is not nourished, if as babies we are not held and rocked and sung to and cooed over and kissed and have our fingers and toes tweaked and smooshed, we simply do not develop.  Older children and adults also need this tactile stimulation in order to grow healthy.  The novelty of new forms of touch and movement increases our creativity, our ability to recombine old elements of our selves into new images.     

And yet more happens.  The breath softens.  The mind quiets. The body begins to let go. We allow ourselves to rest.   Something about the act of removing your clothes in a warm, safe environment and surrendering your whole body to be rubbed, kneaded, and soothed with oils and lotions signals a willingness to relax deeply, let go of life's struggles and trust your ability to know yourself.     

Touch, rest and relaxation have become radical acts in our driven, production-oriented society. So getting out of the rat race for an hour massage is an act of liberation. Self-liberation. Liberation of the mind. Liberation of the heart. Liberation of the spirit because now you've slowed down enough to connect to it!  When all the parts of our selves begin communicating on multiple levels, at various frequencies, in many dimensions, creativity grows exponentially. This diverging and converging of the old and new generate previously unimagined possibilities.     

Massage further supports this process by offering people a beautiful, warm space where there are no expectations about these new insights that surface. In this space you truly contact your most visceral fears and longings and grief and joys and love without judging them.  Here you can observe the violence, the conflicts, inconsistencies and disconnects that are in all of us.  Massage therapists and bodyworkers just "hold the space" in order for observations and feelings to rise and reformulate. Along with this we ply your skin and stretch your joints.  This stretching of the skin and joints empowers you to stretch more deeply into yourself.     We also give you an hour of our undivided attention. What that means is we practice aligning our hands, heart and head when we give you a massage.  You, then, can "catch" our ability to rest in this alignment, to move with your head, your heart and your body all focused in the same direction. Focus makes it possible to draw new creations - a new you - out of this expanded psychic space.     

This is also the moment when creativity can metamorphose into healing.  The movement is like a caterpillar spinning a cocoon, liquefying its body, and then reorganizing its cells into a butterfly. Healing happens in the synergy between body, mind, heart and spirit. Healing happens when our trials and tribulations begin to make sense, when they have meaning, when we can fit them into a spiritual context that feels true.     

But the only way to foster this synergy and promote the healing is by spending time looking inwards, by entering the world beneath your skin.  Everything that is outside us is also inside us. Think how far out into the cosmos the Hubble telescope can see. That's how far inside yourself you can see.     

Massage gives you an opportunity to look in. It helps you let go of past pain, heal the suffering and re-create yourself.  Pain has to pass through the crucible of awareness, it has to be liquefied in order to be reshaped into something more helpful.  Massage supports this transformation by helping each individual be a better observer of the inner processes. This happens one person at a time.  
    
In the end, the power to change the world, to create it anew, rests in the power we have to change ourselves.  And that power lies in our very own hands. Literally.