Hi there. If you are new to this blog, we have something in common--I am too. Or at least I am as I write this, my first entry. My name is Dawn Elizabeth Hunt. I have a healing arts practice for women in Charlottesville, VA, Blue Heron Wellness. I also write for kids—more about that in a future post.
Through Blue Heron Wellness I offer cranial-sacral therapy, vagal system support, and zapchen—a playful collection of breath, sound and movement exercises based on Julie Henderson’s book, Embodying Wellbeing: How to Feel as Good as You Can In Spite of Everything.
I live with my husband in a 90 year old house surrounded by a lot of green space, and we deeply enjoy the peace there. Yet we are on the edge of town and trains run along the edge of our backyard, so every day we deal with an intensity of noise as well.
As part of this blog I plan to share some of the very simple techniques I have learned for easing the journey through this sometimes odd and crazy life.
As well as being a healing arts practitioner, I am also a poet, mystic, registered nurse, and a very human being. I love life, yet sometimes I can get depressed. I have struggled my whole life with low self-esteem, with feeling deeply flawed, not as good as, and sometimes terrified—underneath what can be a deceptively calm exterior. Sometimes I just want to give up. All that helps me practice from a place of humility.
My life has also been touched by wonder, ease, healing, compassion. And gratitude. Frequently—if I can slow down long enough to really pay attention.
So, I do my best to sit back, center down (as the Quakers say) and allow the ease, compassion and gratitude to flow to you and others via my hands during a healing arts session. And through my words—and silence—as a writer. Meeting your wonder which, like mine, may have fallen asleep over the years. Supporting you as you re-discover the healing tides of compassion and ease that run through your body and soul.
So, what’s the blog actually about? Dancing light and shadow. The pain, grief and struggle we experience as human beings, very human beings, trying to live out our lives on this astonishing—and astonishingly insane—planet. It’s about the hope I have found in spite of the pain and craziness. About the journey we all make through shadow and light.
It will also be about techniques I have learned along the way to ease the stress and ache so many of us live with—techniques that are quite simple, yet often surprisingly effective. If you are looking for a little ease, that is, and not for huge and radical fixes. (Which, I’ve found, don’t tend to work that well in the long run anyway.)
Hugh Milne, cranial-sacral teacher, author and wonderful wise man says, “It’s amazing how much how little can do.” It is true. It is amazing.
I plan to post to this blog about once a week, usually posting on Wednesdays.
Next time I’ll talk about why I named the blog “Unfolding.” And how the trains in my backyard relate to the unfolding process.
Until then,
Dawn
DEH photo by Wende Hope
Painting by Roderick MacIver