naj


This is a very personal piece of writing that I am sharing to give explanation as to why those who have known me a long time may hear newer students calling me naj.

I’ve always struggled with my name as a thing that almost does but actually doesn’t quite fit.  My birth certificate says “Jennifer Anne Jacobsen”, but I have never been a Jennifer.  The only person I can recall ever calling me that with any regularity was my paternal grandmother.  I think my dad used it for a minute, but gave up fairly early on.  My mom called me Neffer, spelling it like that, with two effs, ever since I can remember. By the time I reached high school the fluffiness of those effs had started to make me feel like a puppy, and in an attempt to grow the name up and maybe exotify it, I changed the spelling to Nephyr. This made it fit a bit better, but it continued to tug a bit, or fall off my shoulders.  

I added my middle name as the author name on the books I wrote, for the first time owning the Anne, being Nephyr Anne as a writer, and that brought my name a bit closer to fitting, but it still tended to squeeze in the wrong places and snag on corners.  And no one actually called me Nephyr Anne. 

I’ve considered changing my name many times over the decades, but I worried about if someone from my past wanted to find me (same reason I kept my maiden name when I married), or if it would come across as pretentious, and besides, there wasn’t another name that was clearly the right one.  

I’m going to change topics for a moment, bear with me (pun intended). 

Last fall me and several thousand other people found out about Fat Bear Week, a week in early October when people all over the world vote on which bear at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park in Alaska has gotten the plumpest in preparation for hibernation.  My son was sick with covid on the other side of the country, I was stressed and worried, and watching the bears on the bear cam live streaming on Youtube, and voting on them with my son gave me reprieve from the world. The bears were a corner of peaceful covid-free beauty where silly humans voted on them with zero politics, all friendly bear love.  Something deep inside of me rested when I watched those enormous furry fisherbeings catching salmon in Alaska.  

I made a new Youtube account for some reason in relation to watching the bears; I can’t remember exactly why;  but I had to pick a new user name, so I randomly chose my initials, NAJ.   I looked at my initials and suddenly saw them not as separate letters representing names, but as a whole that pierced into me and said “this is you”.  naj. 

I felt instantly shy about this knowledge, tucked it away, and didn’t tell anyone. 

It was simultaneously big and important and tiny and personal. It was a secret that I carried around.  I am naj.  shhhhhh, don’t tell anyone. 

One by one the bears lumbered off to hibernate through the winter in hidden dens that not even the park rangers know the location of. The falls emptied. The bear cams, solar powered, turned off for the long dark Alaskan winter.  

Sometimes I doubted it  Maybe this is silly.  Changing names is so…. Fill in the blank.  Trendy? Pretentious? Needy? 

Sometimes I didn’t think about it so much. 

In early spring I was having a lot of anxiety again.  Climate change, Ukraine, daily mass shootings, no one caring about covid, people beating each other up on airplanes.  It was piling up inside of me and I felt like I was constantly pushing something persistent and fragile and nasty away from my edges. 

Then the cams in Alaska came back online and the bears started to come back one by one lumbering, all skinny from their winter sleep, to the river. I started engaging with other bear watchers around the world. I joined a Facebook group of people talking about nothing but bears. We all held our breath together wondering if this year Otis, the oldest bear in Katmai, would return, and we all cried happy tears when he did.  People in Australia, Germany, me here in Oregon, all crying happy tears because an old bear in Alaska made it through another winter; it was like sanctuary.  The calm of the bears, and the shared sweetness of humans in a world ever more divided came together to heal something cracked and in danger of splitting apart inside of me. 

Watching the bears stilled the chaos. Grounded me.  And made a little voice whisper quietly in my head, “I am naj”.  

I got to know the bears.  Grazer who is a fierce mama, chasing away any who got too close to her, 747, biggest bear at the falls; a positive mountain of fur and muscle, all of the COYs (stands for cub of the year, new spring cubs), Mystery Bear; a  new comer who stayed around for about two weeks delighting us all as he stole our hearts, as well as  fish from other bears, and played in the water like a cub despite being full grown, and then disappeared leaving us to miss his antics.  And sweet bear goddess Holly, almost as old as Otis, known for having stepped outside of bear norms to adopt an orphaned cub.
The name felt intensely connected to the bears. It welled up inside of me asking to be let out whenever I turned away from the constant to-do list and gave myself a few minutes of just watching the bears fish. naj.

I finally told Aaron that I think my name is naj.  He was not so sure about this turn of events.  I tried to explain that it’s connected to the bears, but what sense does that make? 

Lately it seems like everyone is changing their name, and changing their pronouns.  It’s hard to keep up.  I struggle to remember people’s names even when they haven’t changed them; not from lack of caring, it’s just how my brain works; or doesn’t work.  Certain things are hard. I’m not good at faces either, not until they have been strongly etched into my long term memory.  I’ve learned to tell my students at the end of a workshop not to take it personally if I run into them two weeks later on the street and look blank; I just need them to remind me of their name and context, and all of the love for them born of the workshop will flood back into me.  An old friend who is staying with us constantly mentions names from high school and I have no idea who he is talking about; probably someone I once desperately wished would befriend me. 

Seems like kind of a lot for someone who has to energetically kick herself everytime she calls her non-binary friends with a gendered pronoun by mistake and yet still does it again, to ask folks to remember a new name herself. 

So I kept quiet.  Except that I started telling baristas that my name is naj when I ordered my dirty chai. And I practiced it as a sign off on e-mails to strangers, with my full name “Nephyr Anne Jacobsen” in the byline underneath so that they could just see it as initials if they liked.

Last week I told my Thai medicine teacher about the bears and my name, certain he would laugh at my silly earnestness telling me to do whatever I wanted, don’t worry about it.  Instead he said “give me your time, place, and date of birth and I’ll check to see if it’s good”.  A couple of days later I received this missive “...in fact it would be best if your name starts with a “na”. So then naj is perfect”

So here we are.  If you want, you can call me naj.  Pronounced like Taj in Taj Mahal, but with an n of course.  Or you can call me Nephyr - because that’s also a name of mine, like how there are places other than my current home that are also home.  I just thought I’d tell you my secret because well, the bear cams are broken this week so I had a few extra minutes, and I’ve been meaning to explore this corner of bravery (because I still feel very very very shy about it). Do what you want with it. 


Fat Bear Week has come and gone again.  747 won this year.  He does not know or care, but we all rooted fiercely for our favorite bears knowing that in the end they are all winners, for the competition raises awareness of the bears, nature, the parks, the importance of keystone species and of taking moments in life to simply enjoy the fact that somewhere far away there is still a very strong salmon run, and some majestically beautiful floofy creatures sitting in a cold river getting pudgy for the winter. 

The bears are once again disappearing to their secret dens and Brooks Falls cams are going offline more and more. When they are on there are hardly any bears.  I wish them a good hibernation.  

-naj


written October 2022




Life By The Sea

 
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I grew up and have lived most of my life by the sea.  One of the first important life lessons I can remember is my dad telling me “Nephyr, never turn your back on the ocean”.  It was repeated until it was law.  Never turn your back on the ocean.  

The ocean is beauty and strength, healing and enlivening.  She can be gentle, giving us waters to float in and food to eat. She is psychedelic in her ability to expand the mind with possibility simply by gazing at her far off horizon. She shows us the curve of the planet.  She inspires poetry and romance, and there is no better place to grieve than by the sea.  She can also be the most powerful of forces, overturning great ships and tsunami engulfing entire towns.  She can overtly flex her muscles, and she can be a deathly subtle trickster. 

When you live by the sea you know the tides.  You know when it is safest to play in her waves.  Sailors and fisherfolk know when to venture out and when to come in to safe harbor.  Those who eat these things know when the seashore mollusks are safe for gathering and when they contain natural yet harmful toxins just as those of us who gather in the shore pines know which mushrooms to eat and which to avoid.  Those who regularly play in her waves, surfers and seals, know to avoid the places that will smash you on the rocks. And everyone knows, never turn your back on the sea.

We all watch with dismay as every year the landlocked tourists, who are fearless of the sea because they think she is an extension of the for-your-entertainment taffy filled boardwalks come out and get trapped on dangerous rocks by the tides, caught in undertows, pinned under water by logs that loll in the surf, and find endless ways to drown.  They ignore the signs posted saying “stay off of these rocks” and they repeatedly and fearlessly turn their backs.  There is a yearly weeping. 

Locals who live by the sea do not argue or lecture one another about freedom to ignore the rising tide, nor do they condescendingly accuse one another of being scared. No one says it’s better to swim in the storm than to embody fear.  

It is understood that the ocean should be feared.  That a healthy respect for, and fear of, her powers is what keeps the shoreline community alive.  It’s understood that a pinch of fear of the ocean does not mean that we live our lives quaking and trembling.  It is understood that discussing the incoming weather and possible precautions does not mean that we are inherently fearful people.  To the contrary, it is seen as wisdom. 

When you live the by the briny deep you talk about it a lot.  You talk about it with love, you talk about it with warning, you talk about it with joy and you talk about it with sorrow.  It’s an ever present thing.  

I talk about covid a lot.  Like most of humanity, I am living in a time of a viral tsunami.  Davy Jone’s Locker is the briny deep of mucous filled lungs. And so I talk about the rising tide of case numbers. I talk about the areas where we are more likely to get smashed on the rocks of human recklessness.  I talk about the lifeboat of vaccines and our exhausted coast guard of medics.  I talk about the people with little knowledge of science and medicine, the tourists to the shore of healing arts who are fearless in a time when a bit of fear is a life vest of wisdom.  I do my best to educate, to be that sign that says “stay off of these rocks”, because I know the tides are coming in.  

I am not living my life quaking and trembling.  Most of my days are spent doing lovely things like picking blackberries, communicating with my wonderful students, kissing my handsome kind husband.  That my conversations are frequently about the new and dangerous waters we are wading through, and how to best get through them, is not a sign of living a life in fear, it’s an embracing of the very reason that fear exists at all, which is to save our lives, and for that I am grateful to fear as that little respectful dose of it helps me to have less overall fear.  To say “there is an undertow over there” is not to live life in fear of undertows in a constant flood of anxiety, it is how we live with them with wisdom and stay well - we know we can trust one another to help us keep our eyes out, to stay informed, to know where it’s safe to tread, and in this knowledge we can relax a little. 

I have lived most of my life by the deep and wild, cold beautiful ocean of the upper left edge of this country. When I see deep waters I recognize them, and I will not turn my back on them. 
-nephyr

When I will have in person classes again (sigh, Covid)

My state is starting to allow massage, and people are asking me about when I will teach in person classes again. Here is where I stand. I take this disease dead serious. And I take my responsibility as a healing arts practitioner, to help not harm, dead seriously. I need to see some mixture of the following before I will consider it safe to do bodywork or teach bodywork:

• Widespread reliable infection testing

• Widespread reliable antibody testing

• Understanding of how much immunity presence of antibodies indicates

• A reliable treatment/cure

• A reliable preventative (vaccine or other)

Other factors that I am keeping an eye on as I follow the science and data are:

• Country-wide infection numbers (my classes generally have students traveling from out of state, so it’s not just about Oregon)

• Herd immunity progression 

• Covid-19 mutation (which may result in stronger or weaker viral spread depending)

Right now we have none of these things. To make decisions that could endanger lives with none of the factors that are needed to know that it is safe would be negligent.

Some thoughts about the push for massage therapists to work right now

• The novel coronavirus covid-19 is known to cause systemic circulatory issues including but not limited to formation of blood clots throughout the body. All licensed massage therapists have been trained that bodywork has the potential to dislodge blood clots, potentially causing brain embolism, pulmonary embolism, or cardio-embolism. Blood clots have been found in young, seemingly healthy or mildly sick covid-19 patients.

• Scientists and medics the world over are telling people to wear masks and stay at least 6 feet apart. Massage requires close physical contact for extended time. There is no way to practice social distancing and massage at the same time.

• The novel coronavirus covid-19 is aerosolized, meaning that the virus hangs and spreads in the air. The longer two or more people share air space, the more likely it is that if one person is infected, whether they know it or not, that the disease will spread to others in the room. Massage is most often done in small rooms with poor ventilation, for extended periods of time.

• I am following a number of social media groups in which massage therapists are talking about covid-19. Something that I am seeing over and over again is conversations about liability release forms. I’m seeing massage therapists who are eager to return to work, or who feel financially pressured to return to work, consulting with lawyers in order to iron clad their liability forms. Two thoughts about this: 1. there is no liability release form on earth that guarantees that you won’t get sued or be held accountable, and 2. If you are about to do something that you feel you need a legal firewall between yourself and responsibility for, that might right there be reason to pause and reconsider if what you are about to do is safe and ethical.

• I’ve seen conversations about having clients wait in the car rather than a waiting room, because the waiting room might not be safe. I’ve seen our governing board talk about clients bringing their own water bottles, because our glasses might not be safe, and then saying that the clients should leave the water bottle in their car, because their water bottles might not be safe. I’m not sure how we can say in one breath that the waiting rooms and water bottles are not safe, but that somehow our massage rooms and direct contact and shared air for between 30 and 90 minutes is magically okay.

• The push for massage to be open and for massage therapists to return to work has nothing to do with health care. It has nothing to do with worrying about client welfare. I have not seen one single massage therapist, in all of the social media groups, talk about clients who require massage in order to function. I’ve seen hundreds of massage therapists talk about needing money. And it’s my personal opinion that the states are allowing massage for money as well; because the more services they open up, the less they have to pay unemployment money.

• Around the country certain groups of people are being hit harder than anyone else by covid-19. This includes the elderly, people of color, native peoples, and the houseless. If you are white, relatively young, and have a roof over your head and don’t live in a hot spot, it is likely that you do not feel as threatened by this disease. If most of your community is white, well fed, and relatively young, it is likely that you have not lost anyone to this disease, or watched a friend suffer for two months through a bad case of it. It’s easy to start treating it lightly. But right now native peoples are, per capita experiencing numbers of covid cases higher than New York. And the risk of dying of covid in New York is greater than the risk of dying for soldiers in Afghanistan in 2010 (bad year in Afghanistan). If you want to be a white ally to people of color, and if you want to show up for our elders, then if you can (as in, you are not an emergency worker etc), you must stay home. You may be in a demographic that is less likely to suffer the worst of covid, but you share a world with demographics of people who are disproportionately likely to die from it.

• States that are allowing massage are requiring extensive PPE be used by both clients and therapists. If you have enough PPE to open your massage practice, then you have a moral obligation to give it to emergency medics who need it. If your local hospitals don’t need it, send it to a hospital in New York, or Chicago, or where ever the current hot spot is.

I don’t know if other massage teachers and schools will be opening up in person classes soon. I know that I miss my students. I know that I miss teaching. And I know that I’m going to choose safety over all else for as long as it takes. Maybe my classes will start in September as planned. Maybe they will be pushed back to January. Maybe I will be closed for two years. I don’t know. I just know that I love healing arts, and that as such, my decisions will be based in helping not harming. I have been doing massage for 30 years now. In that time there have been other times when I did something else for a spell. I know that time goes by quickly and that if I have to work a different job for awhile, I can do that. Massage will not go away. It will be here for me when it is safe for me to come back to it.

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When To Go Back To Work (another Covid post)

This flow chart is not mine. It is from a Facebook Post by Tracy Walton, which you can find here. I’m pasting links to all of the resources mentioned in the flow chart beneath it.
I want to acknowledge how hard this is. Acknowledge that in many cases our livelihoods rely on working. Acknowledge the many massage therapists who are closing their offices and embarking on new ways of making a living who may never return to their beloved bodywork. Acknowledge the incredibly impossible position of having to choose between client and personal safety, and the ability to pay your rent/mortgage. Acknowledge that LMTs are getting jobs in warehouses and supermarkets, where they are unable to do what they have worked so hard to excel at. Acknowledge how hard it is to say "not yet" to a client who is in pain and just wants a massage. Acknowledge that many of us are taking on financial debt that may take years to climb out of, and that those who are able to go into debt are often the lucky ones, for they have access to a credit lifeline that many don't.
That, if it turns out that this was overly cautious, we have made a choice between potential unnecessary financial ruin, and potential unnecessary deaths, and have erred on the side of caution, for financial ruin is better than being a part of a chain in which people die (although yes, I know that because of our terrible health care system sometimes financial ruin and death are related).
And finally, I would like to acknowledge that this will pass. That we will climb out of this. That money is an energy that waxes and wanes, and waxes again. That we will, in a couple of months or a couple of years, be able to safely nourish people's health with touch therapy. We just have to get through this. May you all be well. May you all be safe. May you all have abundance. May you all be happy

massage covid flow chart.jpg

LINKS from infographic:
(Video) Hayden, M., Werner, R., Thompson, D. A discussion on the potential changes coming due to Covid 19 to the massage/bodywork professions (April 20, 2020). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN_IpPWkX9k&feature=youtu.be

Cates, C. “Your governor is not a massage therapist.” April 21 blog post at Healwell, https://www.healwell.org/…/your-governor-is-not-a-massage-…/

Koplen, M. Massage therapy and coronavirus: 4 reasons why masks and clean surfaces aren’t enough. Massage (April, 2020)
https://www.massagemag.com/massage-therapy-and-coronavirus…/

MT & COVID FB group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/covidandmassage/

US Dept of Labor, OSHA. Guidance on Preparing Workplaces for COVID-19.
https://www.osha.gov/Publications/OSHA3990.pdf

Learning in Thailand

About once a week someone asks me where they should study during their trip to Thailand, where the “authentic training” is. Here is what I tell them.

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Travel - where to go or not go

• First, explore. Go someplace other than Chiang Mai. All of the healing arts people go to Chiang Mai. It’s like there isn’t any other town in Thailand. Chiang Mai is so full of westerners that I have had the experience in recent years of walking down a street there and not seeing any Thai people. It’s a great place to go if you want raw food, yoga, everything in English, and everything marketed just for you. But you can probably get all of that without flying to the other side of the world. I have loved Chiang Mai deeply in the past. And there are still things I love about it, but the changes that have occurred there have turned it into a crowded, intensely polluted, westernized city. Especially the old city section and the surrounding area; which is likely where you will end up staying if you are new to Thailand. I can remember when Thai people had homes in the old city. When there were businesses there that existed just for the benefit of locals. Now walk around the old city and you will not see homes with families living in them, you will only see guesthouses for tourists, shops for tourists, and restaurants for tourists. The community has been pushed out to make room for all of the things that westerners like to buy. If you want to experience Thailand, spend some time someplace other than Chiang Mai.

• Avoid Phuket and Pai as well. Pai was once my favorite town in all of Thailand, but it’s been utterly taken over by westerners (it went from being a sleepy tiny village that you had to take a bus to, that had a handful of guesthouses, to having over 300 guesthouses and an airstrip). And Phuket has been a hard core tourist island for as long as I have known it.

• Get a guide book. An actual book like The Lonely Planet or some such. Rather than reading other people’s reviews, just read about a place, old school style. Find some little town that looks interesting and go there. While you are there talk to other travelers. Hear about places they have liked. Read more in your guide book. Get on a train or a bus and go to another little place you heard or read about. See the country. See Thailand from a slow moving vehicle. Or don’t; it’s also okay to just hunker down in some little town and get to know it well rather than going from place to place. But go somewhere outside of the primary tourist centers. There is tourism everywhere in Thailand, but if you get out of the tourist meccas like Chiang Mai, you get to see Thai culture that isn’t so diluted, and this goes for the bodywork too.

You’ll find yourself in some places you love, and some places you don’t love. No guarantees. This is travel. It’s real and it’s interesting and it’s risky. When you find a place you really love, keep quiet about it. Remember what I said about Pai? It was ruined by word of mouth. Be a little bit protective of things that you hold dear in Thailand. When things are wonderful, excellent. When things are hard, just remember that when traveling, sometimes the worst experiences make for the best stories later.

Learning Thai Massage

• If you have never studied Thai massage before take some classes in your home country. There is almost nothing easily available, in terms of classes, to westerners in Thailand that you can’t get in the U.S. or Canada or Europe or Argentina. So many people go to Chiang Mai, they all study with the same teachers at the same tourist massage schools (and the tourist schools mostly all copy one another), and then a great number of them return to their western country and start teaching what they learned. I promise you, you can learn all that stuff that’s available in Chiang Mai, in the U.S. Or Greece. Or London. Or Argentina. Or Australia. Or you can go and learn it in Chiang Mai (or an island, or Pai, or, to a limited extent, Bangkok). That can be super fun and it’s cheaper in Thailand, but only do this if you have enough time to also do what I’m going to say next. If you have limited time in Thailand, then get your basic Thai massage training in your home country so that you can do something in Thailand that you can’t do at home.

• Learn by receiving. Once you have the basics of Thai massage down there is another level of learning that happens through experiencing the work on our own bodies. Most of us either cannot afford to get a ton of massages, or we don’t live someplace where there are many other Thai massage therapists. And if we do happen to live someplace with a lot of other Thai massage therapists, it’s probably because someone is teaching Thai massage in your town and you all learned from the same place, so there isn’t much variance. In Thailand you can get a three hour massage for about $10-$15. And there are a LOT of people practicing Thai massage, so you can experience a lot of different styles and skill levels. For this reason when people ask me where they should study in Thailand I say go travel around the country. See where this art comes from. Get to know the culture. Enjoy the country. And everywhere you go, get massages. We learn so much from receiving. In fact I would say that we cannot really understand the work if we do not experience it in our bodies. A lot. More than we get in an occasional workshop where we are being practiced on by other beginners.

• Everywhere you go, make friends with your guesthouse owner, tuk tuk driver, tour guide, restaurant owner, all of the people you encounter who know their area. Ask them where you can find the best massage.

• Know that you will get some terrible massages. You will get lots of mediocre massages. And you will get some fantastic massages. Learn from every single one of them; the terrible, the mediocre, and the fantastic.

• When a therapist employs a technique that you particularly like you can ask them to do it again, and watch what they do (kŏr èek kráng/ขออีกครั้ง/please do that again) . Or, if they are full of new moves and skill you could ask the therapist if they would teach you. Rather than go to schools created for westerners, why not travel around the country getting massages and getting the good therapists to spend an hour or a day or 20 days teaching you?

Here are some phrases to help you to get the massage you want (finish all sentences with kha if you identify as female, and khrap if you identify as male)
• kŏr bao bao noi/ขอเบาๆน้อย/could you please be very gentle
• por-dee/พอดี/perfect, just right
kŏr nak noi/ขอหนักน้อย/could you please work stronger/harder
kŏr nak nak noi/ขอหนักๆน้อย/could you please be very very strong/hard
bpùat têe nêe/ปวดที่นี่/I have pain here (you can point)
jèp/เจ็บ/pain (to inform massage therapist that what they are doing is hurting too much)


When Looking for a Teacher, Some Random Things to Consider

• In really touristy areas the locals know what the healing arts tourists want and they will give it to you. This is especially true of Chiang Mai. They will tell you that their mother/grandmother was the village midwife and that their father/grandfather was the village medicine man. This may or may not be true. But ask yourself this “if I tell you my father is a lawyer, does that make me someone you want representing you in court?”. Just because their grandmother was a midwife doesn’t mean they are. Be discerning and try to look past the romanticized story that they are offering you that will be fun to tell your friends. Try to seek out real learning, not a story. Unless you are really there for the stories, in which case, go for it.

• Does the teacher have an actual healing arts practice? Are locals coming to them for healing? Or is all of their time spent teaching westerners?

• Trust your instincts. A lot of the time when people are in such a completely foreign place they stop trusting themselves. If some part of you is thinking “this isn’t right”, it probably isn’t right.

• Just because a Thai person said it/did it, doesn’t mean it’s traditional, ethical, or culturally correct. Not every Thai person studies Thai healing arts. Not every Thai person teaching westerners Thai massage has really studied Thai healing arts.

• When seeking a teacher, dress appropriately. Knees and shoulders covered, clean, modest. It’s a different culture, and even though you will see Thais who dress in carefree modern ways, many of the teachers of Thai healing arts are from an older generation and will take you more seriously if you present yourself appropriately.

• Tok Sen traditionally is a technique used spot specifically to treat certain conditions. It’s meant to be taught with initiations and a lot more information than most people are getting when learning it in tourist schools. It is a technique, it is not a massage modality. Please be careful as tok sen can break bones if used incorrectly. It’s a fantastic technique when used skillfully, but it’s not a frivolous tool. If you are seeking traditional teaching, look for a teacher who does an initiation ceremony before teaching you, and who teaches it as a treatment technique, not as a whole body massage kind of thing.

• Yam kang, the stepping on the hot metal and then putting your feet on people, comes from spirit medicine, which requires many years of training with, and initiations from, a Thai spirit doctor. It’s meant for driving bad things out of people, it is not a massage modality. In recent years Thais have started to teach it to westerners as a massage modality, without any of the traditional training that is supposed to go with it. Because money. And so a specific healing art form is being diluted, mutated, and potentially lost. This one I would recommend simply staying away from unless you speak Thai and can work with a real Thai spirit doctor.

• If you ask someone to teach you and they say no, you can ask them again (politely, gently). Sometimes you have to ask a few times to show that you are serious. But if you ask three times and they say no, let it go.

• If it’s all about acro-yoga style stretches, it’s probably not Thai bodywork as Thai bodywork has historically been practiced. It’s probably heavily influenced by western culture. If that’s what you want, that’s fine - but people ask me a lot how they can find “authentic” training, so ….

• If it’s yoga and western anatomy terms mixed with Ayurveda, it’s probably not traditional Thai.

• If it’s Chinese meridians and reflexology, it’s probably not traditional Thai.

• If it’s osteo, dynamic, chi nei tsang, acro, circus, hanging from scarves, “energy work”, done by half naked people, using fancy clearly modern tools, using just the feet, using crystals and essential oils, etc. etc. etc., it’s probably not traditional Thai.

Again, to all of the above, if that is what you want, that’s okay, I’m not saying it’s bad or ineffective. I’m just being clear about what is and what is not the historical practices of Thailand, because again, what people ask me is “where can I learn the real traditions”. And I like crediting sources correctly whenever possible. And it does seem to be my role in the western Thai massage world to clarify what is and what is not traditionally, historically, Thai. Okay, the half naked would be historical, but you’d have to go back a long ways, and I promise you, it’s not appropriate in Thailand now.

I wish you all genuine, inspiring, wonderful learning experiences. May you receive skillful bodywork, may you find excellent teachers, may you learn things that help you to alleviate suffering in this world, may you prosper and thrive.

gratitude to Joshua Mackintosh for checking and correcting my Thai

Thai Massage Mats

Another question that I get asked in every class, of course, is about choosing a mat to do Thai bodywork on. When I started The Naga Center back in 2005 I had to put some serious thought into this because I wouldn’t be just getting one mat, but many for my students to practice on in class. Here is the criteria I used when choosing a mat:

• As non-toxic as possible. This rules out all polyfoam petrochemical mats, which is most of them. Petrochemical mats (most of the foam or rubbery ones) off-gas toxins for their whole life, so having client’s faces lying on them just doesn’t fit in my ideal of health care.

• As eco-friendly as possible. This once again rules out petrochemical mats. Also, unless you get organic, cotton filled mats, because cotton is a high pesticide crop.

• Comfortable and durable. Most cotton and kapok filled mats will flatten over time in the middle where people lay the most. And the beautiful Thai roll up mats that are usually filled with kapok (sometimes cotton), while gorgeous and Thai, tend to come apart at the stitches.

 
Natural latex mats lined up in my yurt with pretty tapestries covering them. These are twin size.

Natural latex mats lined up in my yurt with pretty tapestries covering them. These are twin size.

What I Use

In the end I settled on using 100% natural latex mattress toppers. They come from rubber tree plants, which are tapped for the rubber much like maple trees are tapped for syrup. This makes it a natural renewable resource. The proteins that some people are allergic to in latex are washed out, so they are safe for latex allergies (my son is allergic to latex and used to sleep on one of them). They are super comfortable and very durable so long as they are kept covered (a cloth sheet material cover is enough), but will begin to biodegrade very quickly when exposed to the elements. I’ve had some for well over ten years and they are still great, but I’ve seen them start to disintegrate within a month of being left uncovered. To me this is wonderful as it shows me that they are truly biodegradable. And they are a lot cheaper than many of the products marketed to massage therapists.

Of course, there is an ecological price to everything. In this case, we don’t have rubber tree plantations in north America, so there is global shipping. I have not found a mat that is perfect, but these come the closest. You can buy them at most natural bedding stores. This company has good prices and you can get an organic cover to go on your mat from them, but if you do an internet search for 100% natural latex mattress toppers you’ll find them being sold by many companies. Make sure they are 100% natural as otherwise they will have some toxic fillers.

For most massage spaces I recommend getting a firm twin or full size mat that is about 2 inches thick, or 3 inches thick if you have knee issues. If the mat is too thick then the therapist and client can end up on too great of a height difference in moments when the therapist is more on the floor. A full size mat is ideal, but twin size works for smaller spaces.

this is natural latex uncovered. It’s so comfy

this is natural latex uncovered. It’s so comfy

Outcalls

If you do outcalls I recommend using a cheap tri-fold gym mat. They are lightweight, have a carry handle, and are durable. They also wipe clean easily. They do not meet my normal criteria as they are petrochemical products, but the natural latex mats are kind of a floppy dead weight and so aren’t as easy to move around. Beware of products that are marketed to massage therapists for outcall work. There are a lot of glorified yoga mats being sold at exorbitant prices out there. Seriously, you can get a gym mat for about $50 -$75. They use them in Thailand all the time and they work well.

something like this

something like this

Reality

One of the things I love about Thai bodywork is that it is folk medicine. It does not require a bunch of fancy expensive equipment. You can heap a bunch of blankets on top of each other and do a Thai massage on them. You can get a cheap camping pad and do massage on it. What I’ve talked about here is my thought process in choosing my ideal Thai massage mat, but if you aren’t ready/able to spend $150 to $200 on natural latex, you can use anything. Keep it real and give a great massage.




Fantastic News

I am super excited to announce that The Naga Center is working in partnership with Lane Community College to offer my classes as transcripted pre-licensure education hours that can be applied toward applications for Oregon massage therapist licensure.

What this means
This means that students who are not licensed massage therapists in Oregon now have the option to focus their pre-licensure studies on Thai bodywork. In the past those who had fallen in love with Thai massage and knew that it was the modality they wanted to learn and practice, had to attend massage schools focused on western massage; now they can dive into their passion right from the start.

How it works
Starting in the fall of 2020 I will have a fully flushed out program that allows students to get all of their 625 pre-licensure education hours in about one year through a combination of classes at The Naga Center, online Naga Center classes, online Lane Community College classes, and either hands on classes at Lane Community College or participation in an alternate year Naga Center Thailand study abroad trip. This will all culminate in a deep immersion of study in Thai healing arts like no other.

What about right now?
Students registered in my Thai Manual Therapy Specialist Program for the 2019/2020 year who are not licensed massage therapists can use their hours of study toward licensure. The only difference is that it will take them two years to complete all hours needed as my current program is 317 hours and I will not start offering the full program until next fall.

Will students have to move to Lane county?
My classes will be in the same place, students do not have to live near Lane Community College.

Does this change things for licensed massage therapists?
Nope. My classes have always been designed to meet the needs of the most experienced Thai massage practitioners right alongside those who have never studied any kind of massage in their life. In fact I have often had students in my classes who are Thai massage instructors with 20+ years of experience in Thai studies and practice in the same class as complete newbies and everyone learns. I expect that the majority of my students will continue to be people who are already licensed massage therapists who want to dive deep into the waters of Thai healing arts. Licensed massage therapists will still be able to complete the Thai Manual Therapies Specialist Program as it has previously existed; their classmates who are seeking licensure will just be taking more classes than them.

Some things that are really special about all of this
There are some things that I want to share about this that make me really happy. Lane Community College has been just fantastic. As the only not-for-profit massage program in the state, their agenda in partnering with me has very clearly been for the benefit of students. It has been a delight to work with Kathy Calise, the Program Director at LCC. Her clear desire to provide options for students and to keep massage education affordable has been refreshing and heartening. It makes me happy that I get to work with the most affordable massage licensure program in the state and to know that we are harmonious in our desire to provide deep learning for the benefit of all.

When I first started The Naga Center in 2005 my original business plan (yes, I wrote a business plan) included a long term goal of turning The Naga Center into a licensure school. Over the years I have visited this idea many times, but have found that the process of doing this on my own would require that I grow my school in ways that I did not wish to. I love my small classes with mentorship style study. I love that I teach people in my whimsical somewhat messy yet beautiful space. And I didn’t want to create another $20,000 massage program, nor did I want to go into competition with the existing schools. It was only recently that I solidly let go of that old dream, realizing that what I have with my classes is exactly what I want. And of course, that’s exactly when Kathy approached me about partnering with LCC. Ah universe, aren’t you just like that? It’s perfect. I get to keep my classes small, stay focused on what matters to me, and offer my unlicensed students a path to licensure. Gratitude.

This is a river in Thailand that I have much love for. It could be here representing the flow of the path to licensure and learning deeply. Or it could just be a pretty river.

This is a river in Thailand that I have much love for. It could be here representing the flow of the path to licensure and learning deeply. Or it could just be a pretty river.


Facebook Revisited (and some words on climate change and ethics)

As many of you know I have been struggling with the Facebook conundrum. You can read my bold statement made last November about how (and why) I was going to slowly leave facebook here. I did everything I said I was going to do except the final step of fully leaving. I worked on building my newsletter list in order to better communicate with people that way, I put energy into MeWe, an alternative social media platform, and heavily promoted it on (irony!) Facebook, and finally I took a giant step away from Facebook beginning around the start of the year, only occasionally checking in and participating. I posted about classes, but only after sending out the information in newsletter form, and once in a blue moon I made a personal or political post. Mostly my relationship with Facebook since last fall has been one of contemplation rather than participation.

I put a significant amount of time into searching for alternatives to Facebook and settled on MeWe as being the best option. Why?
• It’s ad free
• doesn’t data mine your personal information
• doesn’t sell your information to anyone
• doesn’t manipulate post presentation order
• doesn’t make fake accounts with the names of friends it has stolen from your phone
• and is, for the most part, exactly like Facebook but without all the bad stuff. Okay, there is some bad stuff. Because the racist sexist alt right, who have their own reasons for wanting to leave Facebook, found it first. And because MeWe, unlike Facebook, doesn’t keep you in a bubble, only showing you what it knows you like, if you look for groups to join on MeWe you are going to see some rather mean spirited groups. These groups exist on Facebook as well, it’s just that if you are a kind hearted person (liberal or conservative) you are less likely to see them. Also, MeWe can be used to promote horrible things just like Facebook has been used. One of the reasons I want to leave Facebook is because of the role it has played in genocide and bullying. It has literally been a tool of death. The only social media platform I have found that seemingly can’t be used this way is Mastadon, which is a lot like Twitter, but adheres to strict “no Nazis” rules. Unfortunately Mastadon is a Twitter replacement, not a Facebook replacement - it simply serves a different role. I don’t use Twitter, so I haven’t put my energies into understanding that realm, but for those of you who do, please go check it out.

Anyhow, I rallied and pleaded with people to take the five minutes that it would take to set up an account over on MeWe (or any other good alternative social media platform) and start using it - because it’s only going to work if everyone goes over there and pours energy into it even while it’s quiet and boring, to get it going. Some people did, but not many; and those who did quickly stopped using it when they found no one there. It broke my heart a little. People talk a lot about all the bold and big things that they want to do to save the world, but when it comes right down to it just leaving a rather evil corporation, when there is an easy alternative, is more than most are willing to do. I understand, all of our friends are on Facebook. And for a small business owner, it has become the single most useful tool for connecting with clients/patrons/customers/patients there is. I really understand.

And so I have sat with this for many months. This conundrum. I pulled away from all social media, MeWe too, because it was just making me sad. And I thought about it.

For me, the ethical need to support something like MeWe instead of Facebook is at odds with the ethical need to be a strong participant in community, and for now, community is on Facebook an awful lot. I am an activist, and when I see an event that I want people to attend to help fight human rights abuses or the environment, I want to tell people about it. And when I see a charity that seems to be actually helping to get children out of cages on the U.S. Mexican border, I want to shout about it. And when I read an article that gives hope when so many are feeling hopeless, I want to share it wide and far. And right now there is something going on that we have to use every single tool available to us to fix, and that thing is climate change. We are on a train that is headed straight for a cliff, and worrying about the ethics of the tools on the train that might be used to stop it is simply not an option. Until people move elsewhere, Facebook is a tool on the train and I cannot justify ignoring it even if it’s a tool that has been used for violence and cruelty and privacy violations. We have an election coming up in which the winners (president, state and country senators and representatives, all the local positions…) will be the ones who determine if we take the train over the cliff or if we stop it. There are some people out there who find reason in the things I say and share. And if I can help even one person to support a candidate who will enforce laws that mitigate climate change, then I must. If I can get one person to call their senators and reps and beg them to support a bill that lowers climate changing emissions, then I must. If I can get just one person to give money to a charity that is working to protect the environment then I must. Because my son, who just turned 18, is in the first generation in known history to have a shorter life expectancy than his parents; because of climate change.

So, I’ve decided to rejoin Facebook for now, and to continue to support the growth of MeWe by double posting everything and using Facebook to promote it because populating MeWe with posts is the only way we can possibly grow it to a point where people will be willing to leave Facebook. My Facebook rule will be that I never use it without simultaneously supporting the growth of a viable alternative. It doesn’t have to be MeWe; if people find something else that is ethical that they like better, I’ll move my efforts. I’m not branded, I just see it as the current best alternative.

I will also continue to alert those on my e-mail newsletter list first whenever a new class opens for registration on my website, or other things of relevance occur. Since my classes have been filling fast lately, I’m hoping this will be an incentive to join. I also put little tidbits of what I hope are interesting and fun Thai related things on each newsletter. Like recipes, or Thai medicine information, or Buddha dharma snippets.

Many thanks to all of you who applauded my initial post about leaving Facebook. Your support of the effort is appreciated. I still hope to be able to follow through someday. And you may all find another post soon flip flopping again, as I may find that rejoining Facebook just feels too icky. We shall see. Right now I believe that fighting climate change is the single most important thing that any of us can be doing though, and if I can use Facebook toward this, and other important ends, then I must. It’s been a lot of contemplation; thank you for coming along for the ride. Much love and hope to all.

I had no idea what pictures to add to this blog post - but this is a nice little lizard being in Thailand

I had no idea what pictures to add to this blog post - but this is a nice little lizard being in Thailand

A Virtual Move: or, Ethics, Facebook, Staying in Touch, Triple Bottom Line

When I stared The Naga Center I based it on the idea of the “triple bottom line”. It’s a concept thrown around by a lot of businesses such as the original Ben and Jerry’s, that strive to be ethical and good. What it means is that while for most businesses profit is the only bottom line, the most important guidepost in business decisions, businesses trying to do better have two other bottom lines: Community and Environment. Every business decision has to be weighed not only in terms of “will this help the business stay alive financially”, but also in terms of “is this of benefit to my community?”, “could it hurt my community”, “is it neutral to my community?”, and “is this of benefit to the environment?”, “is it harmful to the environment?”, “is it neutral to the environment?”.

I have, over the years, made many decisions that from a pure money driven business marketing perspective would be considered stupid, but that from a taking care of the environment and my community perspective were the only option. Because honestly, I’d rather do something different with my life than do something that depends on slack ethics.

And so, here I am again, planning on doing something that perhaps isn’t a good business choice, but that I feel I must do because of community and ethics. I’m going to leave Facebook. Not right away, because I want to take the time to try to get as many of you to move to different ways of staying in touch as possible, but I’ll be leaving sometime in the relatively near future.

So, if you want to stay in touch and be notified when new classes are offered, or when I write a blog post, or when something pertaining to Thai medicine comes along in the news, I invite you to do the following:

Sign up for my newsletter. I haven’t written a newsletter in ages, but with this upcoming change I plan to start. Most likely they will be seasonal. I won’t bombard you with e-mails, I’ll just send out some news when I know I have something of interest to share. I’ll entice you with yummy Thai food recipes. For those of you who are interested in classes, especially my 300 hour program which only takes 8 people per year, definitely sign up for the newsletter as you’ll want to know as soon as registration opens.

Find The Naga Center on MeWe. MeWe is the social media platform I’m moving to. It’s very much like Facebook, only cleaner. No ads, no algorithms manipulating what you see, no data mining. And it’s easy to use. It’s not perfect though; like Facebook, it has people creating hate groups and all of that even though they aren’t supposed to. But it’s much better, or it will be if people from Facebook make the move over to it. Right now it’s a rather lonely place. If you join, you could be the beginning of a much needed exodus. I looked at a LOT of social media alternatives to Facebook before settling on this one. There were some that met my ethics better, but they were complicated and I didn’t think they stood a chance of people actually moving to them. MeWe seems to be mostly good, with good ethics. It makes money by having some of its features cost, such as my business page, which I’ll happily be paying $2.5o a month for rather than have the site make its money off of selling my data like FB does. But for personal pages, it’s free.

Maybe try Twitter? I’ve never managed to relate to it in the past, but I’m going to give it a go again. I’d say don’t make that the only way we stay in touch, but I’ll try to wrap my head around it.

For anyone wondering why I am leaving Facebook, here is what I said in a recent personal FB post upon being asked:

Individual users are not evil, and can use Facebook for great good, however, the company is very very bad. A high up exec sent out a memo clearly stating that so long as they maintain growth, it doesn't matter if Facebook causes people to die via bullying or the use of FB to promote terrorist attacks. They actually said this. They directly steal personal data, they access your friends through your phone who aren't even on FB and create fake accounts under their names that are used to advertise products, they have been directly linked to the election of Donald Trump, they do nothing about stopping fake news (despite their claims), they allow for hate speech and the spread of our new Nazi era, and FB has probably been the single most divisive influence on our culture - firmly dividing people at least as much, if not more than it unites us. Plus, Cambridge Analytica. I could go on and on. It's not just that it can be used for good or bad, but that the root of it, the company itself, actively uses it for bad and does nothing to stop the spreading of hate. You Probably have a very nice circle of friends on FB and you see people sharing messages of love and hope and activism. But there is a whole other side to it in which people are sharing messages of hate and violent activism and this is equally allowed. Sure, freedom of speech, but FB is a privately own company that can choose what it allows just as a store can kick out a customer who comes in and starts shouting racists or sexist bile. Facebook chooses to allow Russian election interference, racism, sexism, all of it. This most recent scandal about them hiring PR firm to use an antisemitic narrative to undermine critics is just the newest thing in an ongoing wave of horrible things that FB does or allows. But the goodness that you see in Facebook is real - we individuals have incredible potential to use social media for wonderful things. We just need a better place to do it. We must move.

Buddhist Pics (2 of 6).jpg



Healing Arts Isn't Just Doing Massage ~ please help these children

I should be correcting final exams for my online class right now.  Instead I'm taking just a moment to ask anyone reading this to please read this article about immigrant children coming up from our southern border (or raised here in the U.S. by parents who don't have legal status) being separated from their families, lost, abused, and detained in terrible conditions.  Toward the end of the article is a list of things you can do to help the situation.  

Thank you,
-Nephyr

Bodywork Newbies (unsolicited advice)

A friend and student of mine just posted on Facebook asking what people's advice to someone thinking about becoming a massage therapist would be.  I immediately knew I had more to say than would fit in a Facebook thread.  So I came over here.  I'm pressed for time right now, so this might be a bit clumsy, but here goes... My advice to those just deciding to dip their toes in the study of bodywork.

1) take good body science classes. If where you live doesn't require that you learn anatomy/kinesiology/pathology then go take some community college classes.  You don't have to be able to name every muscle in the body to be a good therapist, and knowing anatomy certainly isn't what makes someone a good massage practitioner unto itself as it doesn't teach touch sensitivity, but it can be a key ingredient in making someone who is good at touch into a great practitioner.  Having the ability to visualize what is under the skin you are touching is game changing. 

2) Then, if you don't know what modality you are interested in, dabble for a bit getting different sorts of sessions and taking workshops in different modalities at first. Remember that not every practitioner is the same, so don't judge a modality based on one treatment from one person. Spend some time finding out the potential of different modalities.  If one interests you, talk to a variety of people who practice it.  You are looking for something to sink your learning teeth into, so it's worth putting in the time to sass out what you want to do. 

3) Eventually figure out a modality that you like and go deep with it. Find something that you can study for years (not that it has to take years before you can practice, just that there will be ever more to learn) and get really good at it. Be careful of the tendency common to massage therapists to think that they need to have a laundry list of modalities that they have studied. Too many people become a Jack Of All Trades Master of None - I'd rather see someone who is serious about a modality, even if it's not my favorite modality, than someone who has taken a class or two in a modality that I like and tacked it onto a list of 10 other modalities. When I see those websites and business cards that list 10 modalities I think "yeah, but what are you good at?" 

4) Learn to do deep work - gentle light touch relaxation massages are a dime a dozen.  For people who like deep work finding a skillful deep tissue practitioner (and I use the term deep tissue to apply to a variety of modalities - for instance, I do deep tissue Thai massage) is like finding treasure.  Being skillful at deep work, you can still do the light gentle work as needed of course, but you bring more to the table for those who need and want more. 

5) If you go to one of those massage schools - the ones that are hundreds (or in some places thousands) of hours of training, remember that even though you are learning a lot, you are not graduating suddenly a masterful massage therapist or a doctor.  Those schools usually take about a year to complete.  Doctors go to school for significantly longer and becoming a highly skillful massage therapist requires having a practice beyond your school time - experience touching many many bodies.  I see a lot of people fresh out of massage school who seem to think that because they know what the greater trochanter is they are now a medic.  26 years ago my first massage teacher said to me "on Friday I'm going to give you all a certificate.  Remember that when you complete any course of study, whether it's a course like this, or law school, or medical school, the piece of paper that you get in the end doesn't mean you are now qualified.  It means that you now have what it takes to go out and learn your skill".  All the schooling is is a launch pad - it gives you the foundation that will allow you to then truly learn. Yes, you can immediately start your massage practice; and you should, for that is a huge part of how you learn your skill, but you aren't done studying.  After massage school, seek out individual teachers to guide you into your specialization.  Never stop taking classes.  And practice practice practice.  I've been a massage therapist for 26 years and I still take classes.  There is always more to learn. 

6) Know going in, that in addition to becoming a massage therapist, you are becoming a business. Most people who are attracted to learning massage are kind and compassionate people who want to spend their days nurturing others.  This is wonderful, but you need to realize that unless you plan on working for others (like in a spa or chiropractic office), then you also have to become a business person.  You have to deal with marketing, maintaining a website, social media outreach, all of the nuts and bolts of getting clients.  They rarely just show up.  Your social community of friends and family is rarely enough to create a viable massage practice.  The number one thing that I see cause people who became massage therapists to leave it behind is that they didn't realize going in that they would have to wear a business hat in addition to wearing a loving caregiver hat.  It's very hard to build a private massage practice that has enough clients to pay the rent.  Being a great therapist isn't enough - you have to also decide whether or not it makes sense to use Google Adwords, and if print advertising is dead or not, and should you give away sessions?  Should you try to give lectures at local events? And what is SEO and does it matter?
If you want to have a private practice, something about this side of things needs to be appealing.  I don't like it all, but for the most part I actually find the business part to be interesting and fun.  I like the creativity of business,  I like working on my website, and I like learning so much that I can even enjoy a well written business book. When I started The Naga Center I went to the library and I got a stack of books on how to write a business plan, and I wrote one.  I went to the local SCORE office where you can get free business mentorship and I paid attention.  I suck at a lot of the business stuff (hello pile of receipts tossed in a drawer to be looked at with horror come tax time), but I don't hate it.  Those who do usually move on to other professions. 

7) Massage can be a very solitary profession.  Most of the time it's just you and your clients.  Most of the time you aren't around others who are doing the same thing as you.  I've heard a lot of massage therapists talk about feeling isolated.  Seek out other massage therapists.  Join massage Facebook groups.  You'll want to talk to others who understand what you do sometimes. 

I think there is a lot more to say, but I have to fly to Thailand day after tomorrow and much to do.  I will probably come back and edit this - add more to it and smooth out the edges.