East West Therapeutic Arts

12/16/2025

Stay tuned~ A formal event with more details will be announced soon!

02/14/2024

For 2024: Introducing Tiered Rates
A better way of doing sliding scale rates at EWTA.

To the best of my knowledge, EWTA was one of the first practices locally to commit to sliding scale rates a few years back. It's exciting to see sliding scale models beginning to take hold in our community, in spaces where wellness can be accessed: massage and yoga studios are among the leaders in the trend toward community-centric economic models in wellness, along with Direct Primary Care models.

Have a peek!
EWTA is primarily an orthopaedic practice, devoted to true somatic healing, and is always accepting new clients. Pass it on!

Wellness should be a birthright, not a privilege. EWTA's sliding scale is in place with the intention of reaching chronically injured persons in low or limited income brackets afford needed pain...

01/01/2024

May your new year be enchanted with possibility!

(Artist Cred: Finnish artist Ulla Thynell)

08/28/2023

A note on "Treatable Conditions" and bodywork (contemporary western diagnoses and massage therapy) http://www.eastwesttherapeuticarts.com/manageable-conditions-at-ewta.html

Check out this new page on the website, containing a long list of (western medical) conditions that can be treated, managed, and impacted by skilled bodywork. It's incomplete; there will be live links added over time to several of these, highlighting some important points and maybe some of my professional insights.

If you or someone you love is living with a painful or stressful situation and bodywork could be of benefit, let them know about EWTA. The practice is actively re-growing from its pandemic-era hiatus!

It is outside the scope of LMTs and other types of bodyworkers to diagnose medical conditions, and believe it or not, even the terminology "to treat" is problematic for this field, since we are not medical professionals and "treatment" is typically reserved for a predetermined protocol with an intended trajectory. Sometimes treatment is limited by insurance coverage or blind spots where allopathic practitioners have no training with which they can speak to the beneficial impacts of bodywork. We are therefore considered to be allied health providers, and it is the responsibility of bodyworkers to self-educate beyond the limited trainings of massage therapy schools.

When we talk about treatable conditions within the scope of massage therapy, we talk about how the symptoms and complications of various conditions manifest, a conversation that is often absent in an allopathic setting. In a bodywork setting, we have permission to explore what else might be tying in to certain conditions, what may be resulting from these conditions, and we may explore the whole body in our search for things like core imbalances or original injuries...
..Which can sometimes lead to finding really good answers as to how those markers and symptoms may be managed in a holistic way; i.e. How can massage therapy mitigate, reduce or eliminate symptoms of certain conditions? Can looking at the whole body open us up to possible answers that may be overlooked in a limited allopathic setting? How can ongoing bodywork improve quality of life, when most of the conditions we live with don't just simply disappear forever after a few "treatments"? What do we do when we can't change our life circumstances that lead us into chronic pain patterns and imbalances?

The reality is, that we live in bodies that need ongoing care throughout our lives. We are not unfeeling machines, and even if we were, mechanics know machines need maintenance! Carpenters know houses will crumble if not built plumb, level, and square! The body is actually highly responsive to input, and in contemporary times, we need to preserve the knowledge of touch and soft tissue medicine.

This is one of the foundations of my work at EWTA. Many conditions may be highly managed, resulting in a much improved quality of life, and sometimes can lead to complete or near-complete healing, through skilled bodywork and a knowledge of a range of conditions. Massage and bodywork are not replacements for therapy or medical care, but can be of great support in a client's journey toward health, healing, quality of life, and a greater sense of well being.

I invite clients to understand their own bodies better when we work together, because knowledge is power. There is a night-and-day difference in our experience when we feel the results of hands-on soft tissue healing work, and when we are permitted to become engaged with our own journey of healing, restoring balance, or finding the path of a better quality of life. A world of opportunity awaits, when we step into self knowledge and empowerment, and the attitude of caring for our selves as a lifelong devotion begins with believing it's possible to have a better experience.

There are many, many, highly manageable conditions that can be addressed through bodywork. What it takes is that knowledge, devotion of the client to continuity of care, and the skill set of the practitioner to rise to the occasion each session; to be able to track changes over time; and to meet the client where they are at in any given session.

Send a message to learn more

03/04/2023

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-loneliness-reshapes-the-brain-20230228/

Things we already knew about social isolation...

Just as I am always reminding my clients to remember to make the habit of actively addressing chronic pain issues, this runs in the same vein. We tend to get stuck in our day-to-days. We forget the importance of breaking up these routines that have been shaping our lives for the last few years. The next thing we know it, we find ourselves lost down a rabbit hole of our isolation's making.

Today I'm encouraging people to consider ways you might challenge your post-pandemic tendency for increased isolation and general distrust of the world. The pandemic has been traumatic and impactful for everyone in some way. Isolation is one of the major factors the importance of which can easily be diminished... The mind can be a tricky influence that can bias us toward continuing to isolate, despite knowing all along that it is bad for us. The paradox of social isolation is that it increases the tendency for more isolation.

We are naturally social creatures, and it is also true that some of us do benefit from more or less solitude. But the effects of isolation, especially when it goes against the grain of our desires to be more connected, is a different phenomenon that does have very real long term health implications. We need to value our interpersonal lives as much as all other aspects.

Common social mores of Colonialism such as perfectionism, the nuclear model of family silos, narrow ideas about body image, intolerance of "different" and/ or neurodivergent people, binary and patriarchal gender-based expectations, and oh so many other defining features of this culture we find ourselves embedded in, certainly do add many layers to the protective barriers we may find between ourselves and others.

In the spirit of continuing to encourage active healing choices from the wounds of pandemic, what are some ways you might apply the same concept of physical self-care to your other-than-physical self today?

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, said "if you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another". I think this is a universally applicable concept, and a tool that has given me the courage to overcome my own feelings of being socially inept. If we wish to experience the benefits of connection, we might find ways to provide the sense of connection for another. Even in simple ways, like sharing a smile or kind words with a stranger in public, we help tend to the thread that connects us all.

Many blessings from EWTA on this lovely snow day!
~M

Feelings of loneliness prompt changes in the brain that further isolate people from social contact.

10/01/2022

Hello world! I'm a bit of a Luddite when it comes to online presence. Recently I've recommitted to online engagement and (hold on to your hats) I just created my first IG post! I'm not very tecchy, so I have to make a big to-do about it. 😉
Follow East West Therapeutic Arts on IG

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjLethurq1o/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

05/22/2021

Sending out a warm, welcoming Hello to the budding world!

Sweet, sweet Summer has begun. In the northern climates it seems to burst forth in bold yet delicate grace, just when we begin to think it will never arrive... That bursting-forth life force so present for us, brewing beneath the surface, infusing each Spring season we traverse through, as if just waiting for the right combinations of light, warmth, nutrition, and promise...

What have you been cultivating since planting your seeds in Winter's deep-root-nourishing times? What have you known to be true for yourself for the coming year, which has grown to now be the present moment, as you have kept close company with yourself through the shadow times?

Now is the time we may begin to notice the growth, the embodiment of all we are dreaming into being, all we desire to bring forth for ourselves. Harvest comes sooner than we think, and now is the time for tending to the sprouts of those dreams we hold. Another time around the wheel, another opportunity, another iteration of our truest, most full potential.

Don't let the short, sweet northern Summer slip past you too quickly. Time is precious. Take time out to be, just be. And your journey of wellness is precious too! Work a session or two into your Summer season. Eat wonderful, organic foods from your local farmer. Swim in the ocean, or in the moonlight. Remember to drink in the songbirds at evening, consider how you might steward the place where you live.

I am walking in the ways I promised to myself, when Winter's deep dreams inspired the inner canvas into color and life. Walking boldly, steadily, grounded. And Be. Just Be.

And I am daring! I am daring to book sessions at EWTA through til mid-Sept or so, with the caveat that, after all we have experienced in the last year, to honor my own suggestions means embracing that fluctuations in plans may happen and we should each honor opportunities to Be, Just Be, as they come up.

If you are interested in booking a Summer session, send me an email inquiry with some day and time ideas- Knowing your restrictions and availabilities helps me as I create the Summer schedule.

I wish you all the pleasures of Summer!
In Wellness, as Always
www.eastwesttherapeuticarts.com

01/16/2021

A message from EWTA in light of the challenges of our current times:

The sanctuary that is the office of EWTA is intended to be a safe space for all. This is a challenging belief to uphold in these challenging times, yet I intend to continue to uphold this belief in the broadest and deepest sense possible.

EWTA denounces violence, denounces white supremacy, and denounces classism and other forms of discrimination. EWTA actively engages in dismantling colonist thought as a method of facilitating healing and wellness by breaking down widespread institutionalized belief systems.

Violence and white supremacy are characteristics currently being stereotyped primarily as a feature of a certain faction of our fellow citizens.

But in truth, violence, colonization, white supremacy, and discrimination show up in our culture in a non-partisan form. In other words, they have the potential to show up deeply embedded in the belief systems on any side of any argument.

This is why it is my firm belief that we must all reflect on our own feelings and beliefs, and we must all question the sources from which our information comes if we are to ever heal and move forward together for the good of all. We must learn to see that we are all interconnected.

Deep wounds have been with us since before we were a nation, before colonial settlers stepped foot on the soil of this continent and perpetrated genocide against First Nations people, acts of violence that continue to this day.

The ancestral memory of the wounds we carry, as well as the harm we've caused, when unaddressed, leads to more wounding. Violence only begets more violence. This is why it is important for us all to recognize and address what we call colonial violence and colonial trauma, which have touched every last one of us in one way or another.

The true spirit of healing and wellness are non-partisan and they are a birthright to all life. It is my belief that true healing will only happen with relationship, communication, alliances, cooperation, and unity, yet these may be the most challenging concepts for so many of us at this time, as a nation divided. This is the reason EWTA will continue to uphold the intent of being non-partisan, non-violent, and open to all.

No matter what stance you take in this moment, I am encouraging everyone to become curious, deeply reflect, and to challenge our own feelings and beliefs in a way that, above all, seeks to uphold the creed:

Do No Harm.