I look Westward
into the end of day
The
Last Frontier
still made of Water
[L. Ferlinghetti, 'At Kenneth Rexroth's' in Open Eye, Open Heart, 1961]
What do
the three important elements (see below) of our professional practice as aquatic
bodyworkers most need from us, if we are to serve as creative artists,
maestros of change and transformation, healers who can hold a vast
oceanic space for life? Can we focus on the whole, putting aside our
own ambition? Can we make a difference? Read on. Share your thoughts.
The above stanza from Ferlinghetti's poem delighted me when I came across it yesterday, as it describes how I feel as the new year begins ... still made of water. Despite the truth that last year I was more often dreaming of it from the last frontier than floating in it.
However, the little mermaid you see above came back to me towards the end of 2012, and I see her as a good omen. She used to dance from the rear-view mirror of a second-hand car I once owned, though that car has long since been recycled (into useful parts I hope).
Consider my much appreciated car (mode of transport) a metaphor for the education and credentials that take us places along well-made roads of professional practice. The modes that once served us well eventually become outmoded, second-hand, ready to be recycled.
Meanwhile, the mermaid ~ arguably a dangerous distraction dancing in the periphery of our view of the recommended road ~ is a metaphor for the creative inspiration, the healing heart at the center of any true love of water as a medium for therapeutic transformation.
If the mermaid could speak she might sound like avant-gard therapists Bradford and Hillary Keeney singing an improvised healing song: 'Wake up and re-invent your practice and do so as often as possible. Do so to save your life.'
The Keeneys call their approach to healing 'circular poetics' or more formally 'circular therapeutics'. This powerful duo see psychotherapy as a 'performing art, informed and enlivened by helpful doses of heart-inspired interaction and spirit'.*
While most aquatic bodywork practitioners are not trained as psychotherapists, ours is a practice that can easily become a performing art in the way described above. It's also increasingly subject, as popular healing arts eventually are, to the rigors of regulation and calls for scientific evidence of efficacy.
I once wrote of aquatic bodywork as 'exquisite touch and movement performed in a warm-water pool'. It is now part of spa leisure and alternative health services, in addition to its physical therapy applications. In these different settings, it is often afforded different purposes and values.
Since 2007, I've called my own practice AquaPoetics. 'An aquatic art form designed to encourage creative inspiration and personal transformation, it draws on Watsu® and its derivatives, and focuses on encouraging each person to dance the body poetic, to listen to their own body's poetry.'
I describe what I do this way in order to emphasize an interactive and experiential approach rather than a scientifically structured or routinely executed method. I concede that science and sequencing might help a person in their initial studies but, like the Keeney's, I find that:
'…therapy is no more a replicable science than a poem is a computer program.' *
[See also: Healing or Therapy? Faith and Facts in Aquatics]
In a brilliant contemplation of 'Whether To Be a Professional or Not' [Part I and Part II], herbalist Jesse Wolf Hardin looks at the advantages and disadvantages of jumping through the hoops that apply these days to many recognized healing arts, including aquatic bodywork.
It's an issue I've struggled with over the years and 2012 provided some interesting opportunities to revisit where I stand on the question of what constitutes professional practice. I'm bemused by the apparent lack of serious dialog and organization around this topic in our profession.
[See for example: How to find people who are authorized to offer Watsu® sessions and Floating in sunlight and shadows: Watsu® in practice ]
As other professions, like massage (a common umbrella for aquatic bodywork), become increasingly regulated and the drive for evidence-based practices floods into the elite halls of the spa industry, there are likely some challenges ahead for our aquatic healing art.
Some readers of this blog might get the impression that I'm all for regulation and science ~ if so, they are misunderstanding my message. What concerns me are those who are tempted to use pseudoscience and confusing credentials to give an appearance of professionalism.
As someone who started out a scientist and pursued the professional path, walked on the wilder side for a while, and then took the trouble to get all my 'ducks in a row' again, I can see both sides of the dilemma that Jesse Wolf Hardin (a self-described amateur herbalist) addresses in her article.
I agree with Jesse that not all professionals are effective healers; it's also true to say that not all renegade practitioners are true healers. Jesse suggests the term 'adept' (meaning achiever) for healers 'who are focused and devoted, wise, experienced and consistently excel at what they do'.
Adepts are not always formally trained but are ideally tested by reputation. 'Calling someone (or ourselves) an adept', Jesse adds, 'says only that they are profoundly wise and extraordinarily proficient and effective, while allowing that there is always room for further learning and improving.'
'Calling someone a "Master" herbalist or master anything else seems absurd, since nobody ever completely masters (controls, knows everything about) any darn thing!' I agree. There is a humility in practice that the Keeneys also emphasize when they say:
'The way to help change a client is to change yourself.'*
This new years post is my call to all us long-time practitioners and teachers of this wondrous healing art to use the coming year as an opportunity to notice what we have been: pretending to be in ourselves, ignoring in the wider world of our profession, and failing to nurture in our healing hearts.
Notice what is really happening to our training schools (fragmentation?), our warm-water pools (unsustainable?), and our students and clients (confusion? fear?) as human hubris hurtles us on towards heartless destruction of each other and of the planet on which we depend.
What do these three important elements of our professional practice as aquatic bodyworkers most need from us, if we are to serve as creative artists, maestros of change and transformation, healers who can hold a vast oceanic space for life? Can we focus on the whole, putting aside our own ambition? Can we make a difference? What do you think?
New Year Blessings to all! I'm off to swim with my mermaid.
End note: I highly recommend exploring the work of Bradford and Hillary Keeney which runs much deeper than I have given justice to here. Also, please read both parts of Jesse Wolf Hardin's article. I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments, which can be emailed to me or added below.
*Reimagining psychotherapy: An interview with Hillary and Bradford Keeney, by Paul Gibney.
***
My annual disclosure : who is behind aquapoetics?
For
those of you who do not know me and have not had time to explore the
pages on this website (see links in the left-hand column) or my profiles
elsewhere on the web (also in the left-hand column), I share some brief background here.
My name is Sara Firman (aka Sulis). My interest in massage and aquatic bodywork began in 1989 when my dear friend Sally Bryant introduced me to Watsu® in the remedial pool at the sports centre in Bath, UK. At that time I was a freelance editor of scientific publications.
Almost
10 years later, having trained in massage and practiced in a variety of
clinical and spa settings, I had the opportunity to learn Watsu® and other related aquatic bodywork modalities at Harbin Hot Spring in California.
I introduced Watsu®
to Bath, where it is now a signature treatment at the luxury hotel spa I
managed and at the city mineral spa (where I worked during summer
2007). On moving to California in 2000, I co-created an aquatic bodywork
practice called WaterJourneys.
From
2002 to 2007, I co-owned and operated a private spa-retreat
specializing in aquatic bodywork in the Missouri Ozarks. When the
partnership dissolved in 2007, Aquapoetics emerged as my own practice
and approach to this transformational aquatic healing art.
Below
is a summary of some of my current offerings. If you know of anyone
else who may be interested in these, please share. For those who do
want to follow this up, here is a link to an inquiry form. To ensure a speedy response you may also like to Email me.
Watsu® is a registered service mark of Harold Dull
Current offerings from Aquapoetics/ Sara Firman
Contracts
at warm-water facilities as a versatile and experienced practitioner of
aquatic bodywork, including assistance in setting up customized aquatic
programs.
Mentorship for
aquatic bodywork practitioners seeking to deepen their own practice and
create a path of right-livelihood and service that is suited to their
own nature.
Workshops for
practitioners emphasizing intuitive skills in the practice of aquatic
bodywork and encouraging documentation of the benefits of this
water-based modality.
Writing services - commissions or collaboration on projects related to aquatic bodywork, including website creation and content.
Speaker for conferences or meetings, healing centers or training schools on topics related to aquatic healing practices.
AquaPoetics: Creative Aquatic Bodywork: experienced
and professional services that demonstrate commitment to high ethical
and environmental standards, while promoting creative and innovative
approaches that contribute to the evolution and recognition of aquatic
bodywork for health and wellbeing.
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