07/26/2023
Dear friends and followers, I am sorry to tell you that The Valley School of Healing Arts has closed its doors.
This was not an easy decision, but it was, alas, a necessary one. We're sad about it—the kind of sad you are when you come to the last page of a book you loved deeply, knowing there will be no sequel.
The Valley School of Healing Arts became a licensed school in 2001, part of the wave which had seen massage schools springing up coast to coast. It was as though the body politic had known that the seismic ache inside itself required the compassionate touch of others to be released.
Learning to use one's energies for healing purposes was not a new-hatched notion for the school's founders, Patricia and Franklin Sterner. What became the Valley School of Healing Arts in 2001 was originally incorporated as a non-profit in 1974. Its mission: 'to be in God's service for the brotherhood of mankind and all creatures great and small.' (See: Far Point Stables) Toward this end, the couple devoted their lives to developing and teaching a wide variety of energetic healing modalities.
The Valley's School's educational philosophy—unswervingly expressed for nearly 50 years-- was 'the spiritual growth of the healer or therapist through compassionate service, and of the client through the experience and recognition of healing that is more than physical.' Though the Sterners have been gone for some years now, this mission has been faithfully pursued by their daughter, Marlana Flaherty, in her role as director, and by Peter Waldeck, who served as administrator throughout the life of the school. Other key foundational members included Nancy Waldeck and Daniel Flaherty.
We want to thank our students, whose longing for 'something more' led them to our doors. It has been an honor and a privilege to be present with your unfolding.
We are also deeply grateful to the Valley School faculty, an incomparable group of seasoned educators whose work comprised a curriculum which was both deep and broad, encouraging students to both feel the tension in the tissues, and to sense the inner ache which so often prompts it.
And to the seekers who have come to this page and find this door has closed? Keep searching. Let the longing you feel be your guide. You will know the place by its love.
Note to students: should you have need of your transcripts, the following link will take you to the organization serving as their repository. https:/transcripts.verif-y.com
