I remember being a small child being asked what I wanted to do for a living. In between daydreams of being an astronaut, a paleontologist, or an actual dinosaur, I often would think how nice it felt to offer supportive touch to others. My first professional bodywork gig manifested as a series of unscheduled hand-and-foot rubs solicited by my mother, compensated at twenty-five cents per hand-and-foot. I continued this offering through most of my schooling, providing shoulder, scalp, and hand massages to friends. As I grew into an adult body, my love for manipulating tissues went dormant for about a decade, awaiting the ideal conditions to flourish through me once again.

My mind wished to awaken as I entered college, and I studied several disciplines and changed majors often, until finally settling on a degree in philosophy. Valuing “learning how to think” as my father always praised as I was growing up, philosophy offered a reflective pool of wisdom across the ages for my seeking self to peer deeply into. One of my favorite questions to ponder in classes and through late-nights-turn-early-mornings revolved around “what does it mean to be human?” This question sprawled across the embodied experience, tumbled through an array of multidimensional perspectives, and landed at the divide between the “self” and “other” and “how can this chasm can be bridged?” At the time, I looked to technology to connect one to the all, leading me down a path that was rewarding and ultimately unfulfilling.

I spent the first few years of my professional life living in Austin, Texas, enjoying fully life in a vibrant and expansive city while working a job that fit all parameters of my “dream job”. I worked on self-driving cars in an office more than full time, made plenty of money, and was undeniably miserable and unhealthy. No matter how good my professional life seemed, my soul needed more connection and more direct and tangible benefits after a complete work day. I chose to leave Austin, leave the tech industry, pack a backpack, and head out into the world to clear my head. While traveling I found my way to Thailand, where I received many thai massages from many masters of the craft. It was around my twentieth massage in a month that I remembered how much I had loved offering touch as a younger human, and began to walk the path towards a fulfilling career.

In total, I traveled around the world and the United states for fourteen months. As I was coming to a close, I used the remaining savings I had to put myself through massage school. I completed my massage education at The Edge School of Massage in Fayetteville, Arkansas in March of 2019. In school I was trained by Susie Byrd, a master in Neuromuscular Technique (NMT), and have learned to use this method as a foundation of the body work I offer. NMT works with the body and nervous system, incorporating specific holds and stretches that show the client where their holding patterns might be, helping them to let go in the process.

In my professional life as a massage therapist, I have spent a lot of the time still traveling around. I spent my first year as a private practitioner, mostly working outcalls in clients’ homes. I also spent many weekends at music festivals, where I found a niche in offering bodywork to those in celebration, supporting quick recoveries after long and intense weekends of play. After about a year of working, I began to call the work I offered intuitive deep tissue, as I found myself deeply listening to the body and working as slow as needed to allow each muscle fiber and fascia thread to unwind in its own time. I began preferring long and intimate sessions with clients, often giving two and three hour sessions.

In 2020 I was committed to continuing my education in the healing arts. In January I travelled to India, where I studied to become a Laughter Yoga Teacher with the creator of the modality Madan Kataria. Laughter Yoga is what I like to call “hilariously simple” where one uses laughter as a yogic breath work technique and uses playful movement to activate the body and then rest into meditation for a holistic restorative experience. Shortly after I returned from India, the world shut down and I found myself in a long, near continuous meditation. Unexpectedly and serrendipidously I received a phone call from a past acquaintance inviting me to come to southern Oregon to work on a housing project with him, and I eagerly accepted the offer. I found myself in Williams, Oregon where the housing project fell through, but the meditation continued. After a few months in the woods, I happened to meet Alison at a group meditation on the land where I was living and we instantly connected. A few months later and we had purchased a minivan and were traveling the country.

While on our travels, Alison and I chose to study Craniosacral Therapy with Etienne Piersman in the “No Mind” tradition. I quickly fell in love with the subtle and potent shifts I could feel at my fingertips while practicing cranio, choosing to stay and complete six courses consecutively. One way Alison used to describe the method was "sharing meditation with someone,” a statement I now use to explain what the experience is like for those who have never dropped into the “no mind” state.

In 2021, Alison and I ventured to the Big Island of Hawaii to give birth to our son and spend time becoming immersed in a tropical paradise as a new family. While in Hawaii, the opportunity arose to continue my massage education learning Lomi Lomi, the ancient Hawaiian healing technique native to the island. I was trained in the Mana Lomi style by Hawaiian Native Maka’ala Yates, who intimately studied and mentored with the world-famous Auntie Margaret. Learning Lomi Lomi was a capstone of my time on Big Island, a gift that keeps on giving, changing the way I work with bodies and move through the world.

Heart Waters Massage LLC

Craniosacral Therapy