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A Selection from Massage and Recovery of the Soul by Don Hanlon Johnson Professor of Somatics California Institute of Integral Studies 1453 Mission Street San Francisco, California 94103 Don Hanlon Johnson is a scholar, writer, teacher, and the creator of the first graduate degree program in somatics. This somatics program began in 1983 at the San Francisco branch of Antioch University. A selection from his keynote address to the American Massage Therapy Association National Convention, October 16, 1999, entitled ‘Massage and Recovery of the Soul’ follows: Since 1967, I have been close to members of the massage crew at Esalen Institute. They are an extraordinary group of people, many of whom have lived and worked at Esalen since its beginning thirty-eight years ago, and who have consistently had the opportunity to study with the many gifted people who had come through there. Their work reflects this patient and long attention to the development of skill with gifted teachers in a visionary environment. It also reflects a plight and challenge for the practice of massage, which have to do with language, with giving voice to the significance of your work. The international stars who stand out in the public eye as the mainstays of Esalen – Fritz Perls, Alexander Lowen, Charlotte Selver, Ida Rolf, Stan Grof, and most of the well-known workshop leaders – have their seminars structured so that there is not only direct experiential work, but also a great deal of talking about the various works: their significance, their relation to other works, how people experience them, etc. There is a great deal of training in these sessions on how to speak close to the flesh, articulating the truth in a way that moves one forward, and enriches the community. I was once being interviewed by an author who was doing a feature article on Esalen’s twenty-fifth anniversary (in 1987). He asked me what I thought was the most significant component of Esalen’s history. I told him the massage crew. He seemed puzzled, listing all the famous people who have come through Esalen over the years giving workshops. But, I replied, only the massage crew has remained; they have studied with all these teachers, they are the integrators, they are the ones carrying on something of lasting importance. He paused and said, now that I think about it, massage has had a huge impact on me, it’s really the main reason why I keep coming back to Esalen. And he proceeded to tell me some memories of the extraordinary effects of massage over the years, improving his relationships to his loved ones, opening him to the depths of spirituality, releasing powerful feelings, etc. I asked him if he had ever told any of this to his practitioners. No, he said, I never had the chance. In contrast to what happens in the widely publicized seminars, there is little talk between the massage therapists and their clients, nor much discussion about the impact of their work. For that reason, I adopted a practice whereby, at the end of a seminar I have conducted in which massage has been experienced by all the participants, I invite the massage therapists to a final session to discuss the work. Inevitably, the conversation becomes juicy and rich with meaning. Given the opportunity to express their own approach to the work, the therapists speak with inspiration about their sensitivities to these particular people, the richness they have intuited under their hands. In their turn, the participants are able to verbalize the deep experiences of imagination, relief, vision, that they experienced during the sessions. Here is a perfect example of how silence can stifle the unfolding of soul. As therapist and client work to express what each brings to the encounter, there is an expansion of soul in both. Language is not only a pale photograph of a much more colorful and nuanced reality, it can, when it is close to the heart, be the vehicle for expressing the full and deep meaning of those delicate appearances of spirit that otherwise may easily disappear from consciousness. In many job situations, it is impossible to introduce meaningful language; you may have to create your own support groups to deal with this challenge, with like-minded therapists, perhaps even a few interested clients, who want to struggle with giving voice to these primal ancient wisdoms that are embedded in connective tissues and bodily fluids. There are so many fewer words to describe accurately what you and your clients experience in these rich interchanges. It takes a work of recovery. Moreover, even without talk, your remembrance has a nonverbal effect on the wakening of your clients to deeper regions of their own souls. I think most of us here are aware of that phenomenon which is so strange to those who do not touch as we do: that touch, without words, evokes in our clients the worlds of experience to which we ourselves are open. Our own beings are communicated through our touch. Your lively remembrance of who you are and why you are doing this work, the wisdom you carry and transmit, evokes something deeper in your clients, without words. Perhaps putting in their hands the seeds of dreams that will lurk in their sleep. Massage is an integral part of my daily life. I have a five-year-old son. He was born at home; my wife and I massage him daily from the outset. We didn’t discuss this, didn’t do it because research or self-help books told us it was a good idea. Being with each other in this way had become part of us, just as much as thoughtful feelingful verbal conversation. We just did it, just as we massage each other in times of stress or just to communicate. I’m sure many of you do the same. It is this daily incorporation of sensitive touch into our lives and larger communities – not just reduced to a specialty practiced by a few therapists – that contains a modest hope for a more humane world. You are the bearers of this touching hope, its vanguard of teachers, as we approach tomorrow’s dimly lit frontiers. This selection from ‘Massage and Recovery of the Soul’ by Don Hanlon Johnson was made by Carl W. Nelson to describe the significance of the Esalen contribution to the world. Don teaches and writes with erudition and eloquence. In the many massage workshops at the Esalen Institute I have taken over the years, the Esalen practitioner-instructors convey essentially this same message to the workshop participants. We receive the charge to take what we have learned and the skills we have acquired into our families, our circle of friends, our churches, and our larger communities. Don Hanlon Johnson is the author of three books: The Protean Body (New York: Harper Colophon, 1978); Body: Recovering Our Sensual Wisdom (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983); Body, Spirit, and Democracy (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1994); the editor of two books: Bone, Breath, and Gesture: Practices of Embodiment (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1995); Groundworks: Narratives of Embodiment (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1997); and the coeditor of one book: The Body in Psychotherapy: Inquiries in Somatic Psychology (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1998). |
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