The Earth wants us to remember her. Not through our minds, but through reconnection. Feeling her. She wants us to grieve, to recognize together what we’ve been through. And she doesn’t want us to hurt her, or alter her. No drilling, digging, mass pollution, bombings, or weather manipulation. She may seem big to us, but she feels like the only one around. Small yet alive in a vast expanse of space.

We’re holding space for our bodies, because they’ve been through so much. Then we learn to hold space for other bodies of life (friends, family, animals, trees, the Earth).

In order to reconnect to the Earth, we can’t lean into concepts or the intellect. We have to go through our personal piece of nature: our own human body and get a hang of full body awareness and sensing.

It is in this spirit that we do this work: to feel, to remember, and to be with the presence of ages.

Your Body, Your Answer

19 Dec 2018

Mindfulness is a popular practice these days. Lots of people trying to be present and “in the moment”. Yoga teachers remind us “come back to your body” and “be aware of your breath”. But how far can you go down the rabbit hole of presence?

It turns out, quite far. Mindfulness is just a fingernail scratch on the tip of the iceberg: your body.

If you want to be present, it’s true your body is the locale, but here’s the caveat: you are only “in your body” to the degree that you can feel (and therefore occupy with awareness) its systems and structures. This is worth clarifying. You are only in your body to the degree that you can feel its structures. 

For instance, if you cannot feel your own heart beating, you don’t fully live there. Your heart lives offline to your awareness, and so it goes, you miss out on its intelligence and all the things it could help you understand.

Just the same, if you cannot feel your ankle bones, small intestines, liver, thoracic spine, or other structures, those areas live offline to your awareness. This means you miss out on the intelligence embodiment would offer you. On a global scale, this describes a huge separation between humanity and nature. A big deal that leaves me wondering, will humanity continue to move toward or away from health? Toward the Earth or up into our heads?

While we spend most of life embodying our heads, staring outward at screens until our nervous system shouts for basic needs to be met, we remain busy “upstairs” not yet having learned to calm the overactive mind. Thankfully, practices like yoga, meditation, and receiving bodywork like Biodynamic Massage help us quiet the mind and in permeating the whole body with awareness, allow fundamental aspects of our being to come back online.

Why does this matter? Because a human race lost in the noise of society and collective mind with its infinite offerings on Netflix and the like, is a human race disconnected from nature. Consequently, we are out of alignment and global dysfunction runs amok: dysfunction begetting dysfunction.

We cannot connect to nature unless we first connect to our bodies (our personal piece of nature) and if we want to enter a more profound relationship with all aspects of life, we have to go through our own vehicle.

Though it may seem challenging, I know from experience that we can do this. In fact, we are made for this. The human body is vastly intelligent and stands ready to teach us if we just stop to deeply listen.

Since I began cultivating awareness in various structures of my body many years ago, I’ve observed from a student perspective its relationship to all aspects of life. As a result, much of what I had formally identified as “me” turned out not to be me, but the automation of social conditioning and inherited trauma patterning.

Through this work, I have observed a fundamental shift from dysfunction into healthier states of being in nearly every aspect of life (i.e. relationship with my body, others, and nature). Just like the trees, rivers, planets, and star systems, bodies of nature synchronize into healthy orbit with one another as intelligence moves seamlessly through awareness. The human body is no different, and through this practice it can do the same if we consciously cultivate awareness into parts long uninhabited.

As a bodyworker, I am humbled by the amount of information available through the “vortex” of our very own operating system. The human body is truly the most intelligent ‘OS’ we have, even while we step further into screen-culture and its purported “smart” technology.

The body is the microcosm of the macrocosm. By giving it our time and attention through presence and compassion, we can begin to uncover the answers that will move us toward greater health and well-being. Not just as individuals, but as a collective extension of nature.

If you want to begin this practice, try using the ‘flashlight’ of your awareness to study your bones, muscles, organs, glands, and tissues when practicing “mindfulness”. When you’re sitting at your desk, stop and relax your neck. Bring your awareness into your throat and cervical spine. Just be with it and return every time your mind pulls you away. With time, your awareness will come online to the intelligence there and take up residence.

When you can’t sleep at night, instead of overthinking, bring your felt-sense awareness into your heart. Use your mind’s eye to watch and feel for several minutes or hours as your heart wakes up and responds to this new attention from the light of your awareness. There is so much to witness with continued presence!

When your partner is binge-watching a show you don’t like, feel your kidneys. Try to sense their shape, size, and texture. Observe without waivering. Ask them what they need. Ask them what is causing their adrenal-fatigue.

If you can watch plants, animals, or infants and garner responsiveness simply through the light of your present awareness, why would you think your organs would be any different? Just like any other living organism or aspect of intelligent life, your body blossoms in relationship to your time and loving attention.

It is my experience that spreading our awareness further into the intelligent intricacies of the human body (otherwise known as cultivating “embodiment”) is the new frontier of health and the answer to global dysfunction. We are doing yoga, we are beginning to meditate, we are choosing natural healing methods over synthetic ones, and hearing about mindfulness in the workplace. The human race is ready.

 

To Feel Life

16 Dec 2016

To feel life is its sweetest nectar.

Through hands and feet - our interface with land and life - we come to know nature in a way previously unknown.

Using the Central Nervous System, our felt-sense can reach full capacity by softening and sensitizing our contact with life. From awareness of the spine and vital organs to every surface of the body, we reach through the small bones of perception, our ankles and wrists, plugging deeply into Earth and life, connecting beyond through fingers and toes.

Here we feel, observe, and surrender to the flow of intelligent life forever pervading all that is; coming home to the place we belong.

This is the sweet nectar of life. It cannot be reached through reading books or by any means intellectual.

Academia, business, industry, and technology cannot touch it. It is not concepts or names, but the intelligence we haven't reached: it is felt, not thought.

To feel life is where love is found. It is our birthright, and the answer to our fears.

A unique opportunity to reset within the origins of undivided wholeness. 

Biodynamic Massage brings your body into alignment with nature’s intelligence and rhythm. It is profoundly different from traditional massage methods where your tissues can feel overwhelmed or neglected. Instead, it holds a therapeutic container for your body (and generations of its history) to be deeply met, nourished, and precisely treated where needed. The process by which a practitioner can offer this work requires many years cultivating the felt-sense. Refined palpation skills, depth of presence that includes the earth below and sky above, and the ability to drop mental activity and personal motives, make this work truly Nature’s bodywork.

Biodynamic Cranial Therapy similarly follows nature’s rhythm within a client’s body. While it can be hard to describe, it appears to be the observation of deep change through the catalyst of fundamental connection. It is free of sentimentality but full of potency like the moments before sunrise. A great option for those with acute conditions or highly sensitive folks, as there are no contraindications. Clients remain fully clothed on the table.

Bio

Molly brings an extraordinary depth of presence to her practice from nearly two decades of cultivation. Driven by her own healing journey from generational trauma and an ME/CFS diagnosis, she is passionate about our ability to embody nature’s intelligence when we make space for the layers of collective trauma and conditioning.

Her specializations in Biodynamic Massage and Craniosacral Therapy comprise 550 additional hours of training and mentorship, post licensure in massage therapy. She also has training in yoga instruction, dance, family constellation therapy, Vipassana meditation, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Focusing. She holds a BA in Social Science and spent a decade serving the Deaf community as an interpreter in drug recovery, mental health, and medical settings.

She believes Biodynamic bodywork to be particularly relevant for people who are:

  • Having difficulty adjusting to a major life change/event

  • Navigating chronic illness/auto-immune conditions   

  • Feeling overwhelmed by the demands of modern life

  • Seeking relief from a history of trauma

Outside of her offerings in bodywork, Molly likes to attend dance classes, go skating, and take advice from her dog and cat.

She is deeply grateful to her foremost teacher Todd Jackson, as well as many others who have inspired her along the way.

 

Location

2305 SE Washington St Suite 109, Milwaukie, OR 97222

Hours

Thursdays and Saturdays by appointment only

Rate

$120 for 60 minutes

Gratuity is appreciated but not expected or necessary.

Contact Molly for an Appointment

Testimonials

“As a woman struggling with Long Covid and chronic illness, bodywork with Molly over the past year has been a fundamental part of my healing process. At 55, I have 35 years of various types of massage and bodywork behind me, and Biodynamic Massage under Molly's hands stands out as some of the most profound, intuitive, impactful, and gentle work I've been lucky enough to receive. Molly is a practitioner who never gives a one-size-fits-all massage. She sees and listens deeply until she understands what your body is saying, and she'll surprise you with how she knows exactly where things are out of balance and how to gently bring your whole being back into harmony. I always leave her table filled with gratitude and knowing she has assisted me in climbing one more rung of the ladder back to full health. Biodynamic Massage with Molly is like the tesseract described in A Wrinkle In Time: no struggle, no pain, no force; a tranquil journey in which you will travel vast distances in the most easeful way possible; an eternity packed into an hour.”  ~MA

“Molly’s biodynamic massage leaves me feeling whole and integrated from head to foot. I continue to schedule with her because she’s one of the very few bodyworkers who takes the time to feel how my system wants to be met, and then follows that sensation. I never feel like she’s trying to make me, or my body, be a certain way. She doesn’t apply a rehearsed protocol. Instead, I feel swaddled, nurtured and spontaneously treated. My nervous system feels regulated and refreshed in a way that reduces all my other complaints and challenges.” ~TJ

“I’ve been doing Craniosacral Therapy and Biodynamic Massage for over 15 years and have collaborated with many wonderful practitioners. Molly stands out amongst them because she is kind, careful, and fierce in her approach to her work. FIVE stars!” ~MC

“Molly is an excellent practitioner of deep presence in her bodywork. She brings in a freedom and trust that truly allows you to sink into the experience of your own body. If you’re looking for kindness, joy, and a deep sense of being witnessed and held, look no further!” ~EB