Rebecca May Shiatsu

03/07/2025

Middle winter dreaming.
Keeping warm and embracing stillness.
With little moments of silliness within.
(And much moxibustion!)

Sessions available for July:
Saturday 5th 11am & 2pm
Friday 11th 10am, 2pm, 4pm
Saturday 12th 10am, 1pm, 3pm
Friday 18th 10am, 2pm, 4pm
Friday 25th 10am, 2pm, 4pm
Saturday 26th 10am, 1pm, 3pm

Text or call to book in.

🖤

21/06/2025

This documentary is called Surviving Progress.
It's from 2011, though the content is just as relevant today.
Well worth watching while it's still online.

Surviving Progress explores the dangerous paradox at the heart of modern civilization: what we call "progress" might actually be leading us toward collapse. ...

11/06/2025

The absolute privilege of treating family.
Love you sissie x x

Sessions available for June:
Friday 13th 2pm & 4pm
Saturday 14th 10am
Friday 20th 10am & 3:30pm
Saturday 21st 10am
Friday 27th 10am & 3pm
Saturday 28th 11am & 2pm

Bodywork, cupping/guasha, moxibustion.
Immune system loving.
Warmth and rest.

🤍

26/04/2025

Post-session wind-down.
Being back on the mat these days is beyond glorious.
The joy is real.

The lingering warmth of summer feels to have finally give out and we begin to fold inwards for the last of autumn’s cooling.
A perfect time to check in with the body;
to quieten the mind;
to bolster the spirit.
A perfect time for shiatsu.

Current practice days are Thurs-Fri-Sat in the home clinic space, Thornbury.

🤍

20/04/2025

Some excellent and long-awaited news - Shiatsu & Oriental Therapies will soon have private health rebates reinstated 👏🏼

It's a beautiful and affirming piece of news, to have this bodywork practice I love be recognised as providing sound therapeutic benefit.

As when health rebates were available for this modality previously, not all insurers will offer rebates.
Check your policy to see if shiatsu is listed, and if so, take advantage!

A Historic Moment for Shiatsu in Australia!
Dear Students, Graduates, and Shiatsu Community,
We are thrilled to announce that Shiatsu therapy will be reinstated under private health insurance coverage following the acceptance of recommendations from the recent Natural Therapies Review.
This decision formally recognizes Shiatsu's value in supporting Australians' health and wellbeing and validates the rigorous training standards at the Australian Shiatsu College.
The review, led by Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd AO and supported by the NHMRC, found sufficient evidence to include Shiatsu in private health insurance benefits. The government has accepted these recommendations and is working on timely re-inclusion.
While this doesn't guarantee all insurers will cover Shiatsu, it lifts regulatory barriers, opening important doors for practitioners and clients.
As Australia's leading Shiatsu education provider, we are committed to maintaining high training standards. This development enhances recognition of our qualifications and career opportunities for graduates.
For students, this means entering a profession with improved recognition and broader client access. For graduates, it offers new possibilities for practice growth and client support.
The Australian Shiatsu College will work closely with professional associations like STAA and ATMS to ensure clear pathways for those with older qualifications to upgrade and reinstate association membership, enabling them to receive provider numbers.
We thank every association, practitioner, and advocate who contributed to this outcome. This milestone belongs to our entire community.
This marks the start of an exciting new chapter for Shiatsu in Australia.
---
Official Government Announcement -https://www.markbutler.net.au/news/media-releases/yf7nvwdw52bzu2sirzmk27pmdmw609

23/03/2025

This past year has been larger than most.
So much learning.

About love.
Love for the body.
Love for the body as a house for the soul.

About acceptance.
Accepting ourselves.
Accepting ourselves for how we are in this moment.

This moment.
A return to sweet a festival called PANAMA in Tasmania.
Fresh and familiar faces; each body a story and a marvel.

Chlesea, Cassandra, Amalia, Pete, Hannah, Michelle, Robin, Kishka, Tye, Amy, Mary, Kate, Caz, Aedan, Alice, Chris, Ross, Ronny, Veroty, Penny, Nic, Matthew, Alison, Ben, Clancy, Michael and Ali.

Every set of eyes that opened after our sessions were windows to some wordless space beyond.

Thank you for letting me take you there.

🤍

16/03/2024

PANAMA

The gravelly cries of black cockatoos overhead. Bumblebees touring the tent during treatments. Lizards in the loo.
And all of you.

Jenner, Pete, Rachel, Kate, Kaz, Tye, Mary, Amy, Sam, Chris, Will, Marie, Tim, Charlotte, Mike, Heather, Evan, Allysha Joy, Verity, Penny, Rick, Emile, Nic, Cate, Selina, Jason and Ryan.

My heart bursts at the memory of the trust; the way each of your bodies were given over so beautifully. Joy, relief, revelation. Where would we be without tears? Where would we be without each other?

Always an honour.

Til next year x

15/11/2023

“And I want to tell people that healing isn’t about completion.
And it isn’t about lightness.
It’s about the mixing bowl where nothing is rejected.
Everything is included.”

Written and read by Sophie Strand live at at Amanda Palmer's O+ Festival Benefit at The Old Dutch Church in Kingston, NY, August 13, 2022. Accompanying live ...

13/11/2023

The weekend that was.
Eleven bodies.
Eleven stories.
Strength, sorrow, so much joy.
Thanks to the life livers and lovers of nipaluna/Hobart for having me as guest and guide.
Next visit to these southern lands will be in early March next year for a festival called PANAMA
Until then 🤍

05/11/2023

After several false starts and date reshuffles, I’m so happy to be treating from this beautiful space in South Hobart next weekend.

This happening has come purely from the love borne of a festival called PANAMA and the glorious patrons who return to the shiatsu stall for a session year after year.

Treatments will be taking place November 10-12, there are currently still a few spots available on the Saturday and Sunday.

If you’re a Taswegian in need of bodywork or know of one that is, sing out.

🩵

19/03/2023

Dearest PANAMA.

Together again, at last.

It seems like we are watching each other grow older and more in love with our lives than the last time we met, and all the times before.
This time, along with the stories of our love, we shared the gravity and the grist of living. We lifted the magic festival cloak that would have us appear forever dewy-faced and immortal, to show that death had left a mark on us all.
The choices, the challenges, the changes and that unbreakable thread of hope that holds it all together…we were all right there for it, right there with it.

We held each other close.

We held each other’s gaze and did not waver.

(I am never more seen than in the eyes of those that rise from the mat after each session given.)

To Celeste, Nichola, Chelsea, Pete, Angela, Victor, JB, Rick, Phoebe, Tye, Sarah, Ian, Anne, Rachel, Nic, Stewart, Amy, Mary, Jess, Ali, Penny, Claire, Jamie, Michael, Peter, Penny, Margy and Bella - my gratitude knows no bounds.

Blessings for a festival called PANAMA

See you next year x

26/06/2022

Medicine & the Matrix


To control a womb is an attempt to control a different way of knowing. And much like the agenda of colonisation is to conquer, subjugate and dispossess the land of its stories and its people their autonomy, so we see a kind of colonisation of the womb. The wounds of our culture become the wounds of our bodies.

The word ‘matrix’, etymologically, comes from the root-word mater- or matr-, meaning mother, maternal. Matrix is the old word for womb. An assault of reproduction is an assault on the matrix.

It is an act of silencing, and suppressing ways of knowing that are pre-colonial, ecological, interdependent, relational and capable of tearing down colonial, patriarchal systems of oppression. A fear-based act of violence and aggression. A child-like reaction to a threat to power.

As a herbalist, I think a lot about the practice of “women’s health”. When we practice women’s health, this practice exists inside a matrix, a network of mycelial threads which includes the politics of our bodies, a history of gender slavery and systemic discrimination, to name but a few factors.

Without addressing these social, cultural and political factors, the patching up of women’s bodies with iron transfusions and fertility herbs appears to be somewhat of a band-aid approach.

I’m not saying it’s useless. I’m just saying, remember the socio-political-cultural soil from which our bodies grow. This is how our work grows roots - by at the very least acknowledging the socio-political matrix from which these conditions bloom and fruit.

This applies to all health conditions, but it seems particularly poignant for those of us who reproduce, and for the ones who are yet to come.

“Women’s health” is a collective issue. We all have to tend the soil outside of our own individual bodies in order for it to flourish for the collective body.

I think we can all benefit from re-matriating this story into our terrain, composting it, and use it to fertilise our networks.

💚

(I've tried really hard to find who created this wonderful image, but sadly nothing came up)