Welcome
BALANCE – As a woman, learning ‘healing’ arts as a formal course, it was linear. It ignored the tides of being woman. Life had to fit in. Within the course, there was no space to share: To be. All was content to be retained, and spouted back. As a woman, regardless of babies, (I began this then two year part time course as a new mum with a 6 week baby tied to me as I hitch hiked up and down to Bne from northern NSW), periods, emotional trials – no tiome to be woman – as the linear mood was all – to pass exams, pay for the next course. As acupuncture training: being man dominated. Yet most who sought help were women. We really needed to be womb centred. Women are tidal. Lost was the gentle art of listening with our own being and of being present.
25 years on, having written and taught all levels of acupuncture education, mentoring others: always in woman space, attending births, assisting the making and rearing of babies, of my won three more children as I was always the problem solver for others . . . of assisting elderly, of all stages of being woman, I was looking for the missing piece. Where was it? For me I found this sitting in a woman’s circle, learning what was lost as a woman. Knowing that there was a large sector missing (traditional women’s ways of knowing), from the very first Arvigo class I came away with a deeper/broader understanding of what I myself had been teaching all these decades – women’s initiation content.
My path into deeper women’s work – really began fully when I was in an Arvigo self care course in 2014. I had been working with women in my own way – totally different from how I had been taught in the late 70s’s, being aware that it was men’s versions and not knowing where to find. I had developed my own style, and as I worked, one heart, one body one woman at a time, I knew there was more. Somewhere. Realising we have missed the initiations. Women need to be part of a tribe. Body wisdoms handed down mother – daughter. Thank goodness for Dr Rosita Arvigo – how would we have known? So much of the women’s wisdoms lost . .
By touch, by women’s ways of knowing that have come through cultures to us still. This is remarkable in its simplicity and its results. My world lit up when I discovered the gentle self care that the Arvigo work allows. Empowering women, one belly, one life at a time. What had underpinned life and survival in the past was learned at mother’s knee. Lost.
You may also feel this
When I found this work – I knew that there was no time to lose – and instantly booked myself into all that was offered. Not knowing what to expect, I flew down to Melbourne, and sat in total awe of all that I had not known. The Self Care course knitted together so much of what I had been exposed to in a way that was so easy, yet so profound. So many obvious things that have been missed/assumed in all I had done to date – and all presented here so simply. The entire course content cemented all that I had covered in my professional and personal life. I gained an understanding of how everything fit together. A month later, I was in the professional care training, a day later, the spiritual healing training, 3 months later, in USA for the Advanced/certification and the pregnancy advanced, a year later the Self Care teacher training, a few months later, the Advanced Spiritual training in Belize, with Rosita. Then I refined it all based on my already decades of working moving blockages to healing.
My background . . . already I had been exposed to, and ‘learned’ much from . . .
- Classical acupuncture 1977 – 82 (Dr van Buren based)
- Western herbs and Bach, then other vibrational flower, gem and shell essences (1978- 82)
- Aura Soma and its usage over many decades (to clear energy unhelpful in this now) 1990 onwards
- My love of gardening and nature (life long)
- Antakarana meditation (1990 onwards)
- All my own development of Moving Blockages style acupuncture (from beginning in my own clinical practice 1979 ongoing)
- My Pelvic Opening work developed as a result of my maternal health initiatives- in home and hospital birthing towards easy maternity
- My exposure to women’s work in sexuality and transformation – experiential retreats 1989 onwards)
- All I had seen play out in students’, patients’ and my own lives.
What I learned in becoming a Professional Care (PCT) provider of this work
Within a month I was at the first professional training, led by Jen O’Hagan, who offered the first class taught in Australia. Revolutionary. What was a surprise was the change of pace – the amount of anatomy we were exposed to as the foundation of what is lost in all past academic trainings. Structure determines function. Flows must go where they are designed to. Allowing the body to reboot back to optimal functioning, no need for anything other than sensible living and self care daily/weekly. Magic!!Constantly practicing on each other, we gradually worked out how to make massive shifts on the table for all. Totally reorganized bodies were the result. We saw transformation in all. Adding this into my usual practice in clinic, there was no longer the need for people to keep visiting the physical therapists all had been. By realigning their wombs, they were fixed! Especially if previous twisted pelvises and the broken sacrums/tailbones had resulted in the monthly challenges all had been told were normal women’s business.
This altered my practice. And teaching – as the woman who is in the business of transforming others’ ways of practicing acupuncture. All consulting me have a new therapist – a unique blend of wise woman’s medicines. The past lack of self maintenance – here is how to gently love yourself well.
What seems missed when women take up deep inner work in practice – especially in womb working.
This is a soul calling. We are guided via our own path to maturity. Some have sometime seen branded with our own breakage to learn from within. The journey out to graduate to be there for OURSELVES first is not found in the formal tertiary, (not master – apprentice) style of getting ‘qualified’. To work with the complicated cases we must see that Structure Determines Function, and this is outside the majority of academic courses. My own entry was a mix of classical (not TCM) acupuncture, and bodywork – from a chiropractor, who before IVF was assisting women loosen their inner physical tangle allowing their wombs to realign, so the ovaries were released from adhesion and structural bondage.
This, in addition to my lymph and sacral/coccygeal and visceral realignment skills (earned in acupuncture classes) along with what Dr van Buren . himself an Alexander technique aware classical acupuncturist allowed me to take this early deviation into what really works.
1 – What I discovered from assisting at my first Self Care course
The transformation of the participants – I was not prepared for. The whole focus of this workshop is experiential. It is about self-cleansing. It is a very safe sacred circle and the assistants are there to encourage the inner processes. All went deeply inside over the weekend. Often gently releasing. Participants were taken through a journey that seemed to be easier than anything else I have witnessed in all these years of helping people who uncover what was hiding within. The techniques used – as in – they may think that they are learning procedures to do – the course seems to be a front for the weekend’s adventure into self, coming out the other side more open, vulnerable and ready to be more of who they are.
2 – What I gained from assisting at my second Self Care course
Being an assistant again a month later, I got to see a very different group: same teacher. The content shifts depending on the audience. The second experience was more intimate again – possibly as it was also a retreat – most did not ‘go home’ over the whole days. This meant all were ‘in the energy’ and seemed to thus be able to go even deeper. Spiritual clearing – COPAL – needed to clear and protect.
THE JOURNEY TO COMMIT TO THIS WORK FOREVER AFTER
3 – What I gained from preparing to teach Self Care courses – We students all taught belly care , and were given a specific subject. Mine was male healing. Finding innovative ways to present my topic – male anatomy and physiology – had me come up with a very different ‘take’ on the subject. The horror of circumcision and how to clear this from the adult, as the body remembers all that has ever happened to it.
4 – What I have gained in teaching this work
I feel honoured to be able to facilitate all though the journey of undoing what has bound them before – now into freedom. With the scared space and the loving assistants, we can watch layers of self beliefs and the physical results of congestion all melt away. Undone so gently and effectively. Awakening.
5 – What I have gained in amalgamating this work into what I had always done
A huge shift in how much I have to do as when all is aligned the body heals itself. What set this in motion for the person on my table? Understanding the energy and emotional incidents that have created and caused the imbalance to stay means all can the release themselves. Self care is all about loving and respecting oneself – not taught or value in our modern society – but there is only one body to live in – and looking after this one will mean a happier, and more fulfilled life! Incorporatring accident recall, Triage and resolving STUCK RAGE (misnamed ‘anxiety’).
6 – What I gained in being in Belize Advanced Spiritual Healing retreat (Feb 2016)
Serenity – I loved being in the simplicity. Also to feel were the work was originally and to walk the paths that Don Elijio and Rosita did all those years ago – to be immersed in the nature, to see the people, and to just be. To then go into the spiritual healing classes and feel how the plants and the flowers speak to us – when we quieten down so we can listen! The understanding that we are all on our own journey and to go back to the garden to surround ourselves with nature is the only way to truly heal.
I got myself back. The meditation that I had done decades ago sustained me. All the gardening, the working in and with nature, the everything I had done to date – all coalesced for me. I healed myself. Ask for assistance and go to nature. Simple steps.
Copal being burned as a way to undo the energies that need to move on. Prayer and intention is also required.
You can find yourself in a shop that sells these tools and when you come into my space sometimes you will smell the residue – it is incredibly calming to pay attention to that which actually is there – just not in the physical realms – yet what upsets us us easily.
Clearing the space grants us clarity.
It shifts whatever is left after I work with people.
Used daily to start afresh
2017 – After having taught 6 Self Care courses in 9 months in two countries.
The depth and beauty of world wide women’s wisdoms – and the elder traditions need restoring into our conversations is very obvious, as we all have an inner life – and we are all not tapping into this. All have access still to the ‘old wives’ tales’ that they were brought up with – and all still return in times of trouble to – to the ‘default’ setting when all else fails – the hearth.
My last course was the most interesting as we instantly transformed into spiritual healing – go to see as we all did – just how powerful steaming is and how it transforms all. As I use Aura Soma liberally all through the work have done for the past 33 years – a form of spiritual bathing – we all felt massive shifts and were able to travel far within as we all shifted through this powerful work.
2018 March – I led 3 Self Care courses in 3 months!
I felt the effects of teaching these within me – it lifts me ever higher. It is an honour to be able to lead women through the maze of their own creation into what has been their ‘story’ up until now. PLUS. . .
2017- 2018 – I traveled back and forth 4x to Europe and USA teaching my own work . . a fusion of this and what I had been doing prior to Arvigo and how they fit together:along with the Mercier and my own Moving Blockages style
For my Gentling Way work – the Arvigo Self Care is the beginning – preferably with me teaching it as we all bring our own flavour. I am constantly amazed that so few women – especially health care workers – have any idea of what the women’s body is and does. Not from a medicalised but a structural point of view – uterine positioning and past sacral /coccygeal breaks rule all that we live it – and to ‘fix’ anything we need to start from the beginning. I always focus on the work of Reich – armour band blockages and thus the gut. Can it support life?
From there – the unraveling of what is in the way of our own unique gifts.
2019 – Evolution
No longer calling myself an Arvigo worker. After seeking more Finding Dr Jennifer Mercier’s work I developed the Gentling Way
I hold so many lineages – and continue to learn and grow. This work is all women’s and all beings We all need to soar. NOW
2026 – We begin again – women bleed/breed/become wiser
Do we know how to tend our wombs?
How to and together to support each other?
Maybe it is TIME – Setting self free
Rediscovering voice – Rekindling passion
Maybe join the tribe of conscious healing beings?
I am actively seeking those specially who wish to grow themselves further – into an energy/body healing practice.
AWAKENINGS
Self help first allows us to check back into our own stuckness and how simply moved it is. To be able to work with those who also go on their own journey – we start with our own. RECONNECTING Heart and Wombspace – We open up. Using many different frameworks to assist us and from then on – hold a very different vibration in clinic – change –are you keen?
LIBERATION – Living Ligaments as the hands on component – as my energy/Shen clearing version of what the traditional Maya healers would have done.
I bring it back to the roots – and to women who pass it on.
World wide women’s wisdoms is what we all need!
Healing ourselves – let us raise ourselves up out of the man’s race, into Being Woman
