Devon Lockwood Providing Geopathic Stress Removal, Massage Therapy and Yoga

We live in a time of spiritual paradox. With the level of interconnectivity and information exchange these days, almost any spiritual practice sought after can be found. You would think large numbers of people would be well on their way to enlightenment. But I can quickly point out that the vast majority of people today lack basic discipline. I like what Aleister Crowley had to say about this in his autobiography, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley:

Combine in one man the strength of Hercules, the beauty of Apollo, the grace of Antinos, the wisdom of Athena, the intelligence of Hermes, and every other gift of every other god, unless the anatomist is careful to supply a spine to support the structure, you will have a mollusk and not a man. You must have a fulcrum, not only to move the world, but to move a feather.

But it goes much deeper than that. No matter how much practice people do, other than the initial changes that hook them, very little happens thereafter. Many teachers like Adyashanti just seem to resolve themselves to the idea that most students have no hope of making progress and that they should learn to accept that reality. Even though a select few, well known teachers like Osho understood the crux of this issue, there is very little awareness or discussion of the primary problem.

The Natural Human

Only a natural, innocent person can truly move into higher states of consciousness. By innocent Osho did not mean ignorant, or inexperienced in life. He rather used the word to point toward deep and natural acceptance of self, beginning with one’s body.

To my knowledge, other than Osho ashrams, no one has made this the primary focus of spiritual teaching for the masses. If teachers did focus on this central point, they would draw a different student demographic, one of hippies and drop-outs rather than committed spiritual students. Most spiritual students have an artificially inflated spiritual ego leading them to believe that they should be doing advanced practices; when in fact, they probably shouldn’t be doing basic practices. Hippies and drop-outs once given a safe environment to be themselves want nothing for anything else. God and spiritual practice… who cares?

The biggest irony is that a natural human, one free of guilt, sexual repression, dulled intelligence and creativity, has no inclination to think about god or spirituality. The need for spirituality, after all, is a symptom of repression and depression. I have seem so many people come and go from spiritual environments. They come as a result of trauma and leave when it has lessened.

True spiritual pursuit only arises when a natural human no longer has any desire to do human things and have human experiences by way of being fully satiated with this realm. It is more like having a curiosity about death and parts of reality outside of normal human parameters. It is the desire to live in a larger reality and the capacity to go there. No one I know fits this bill. If I really push it, I find that in each case people want to live a happier more fulfilling life; they want to be a natural human.

Add to our paradox, it is neither possible to be a natural human nor a true spiritual disciple. We live in times that make it necessary to pursue spirituality to arrive at the conclusion that we are not natural humans only to discover that we are not allowed to be natural... by our family, culture, socio-economic level, religion, science, government, ... and so on. We must come into this world with the inherent ability to overcome normal reality by way of spiritual discipline to arrive at the decision to continue spirituality to its real conclusion or to attempt to create an environment that is natural.

This is tough.

Given a level of attainment and progress (as hard as it is to come by), we have to undo it. With real insight into reality, we are deeply tainted and influenced by knowledge that inhibits natural behavior. Exposing deeper layers of reality means interacting with them and breaking normal rules. This mode of operating is alien to a natural human. On the other hand, without being free of guilt and societal programming, no real progress will be made past a certain point. If progress is pursued in violation of this basic truism, any unresolved tendency will be eventually be weaponized to monstrous proportions guaranteeing a grand descent. All must be undone and re-approached almost from the beginning.

Tantra

Given this nasty paradox, teachers like Osho, Gurdjieff, and Crowley choose to live and teach the Left Handed Path, Tantra. There is a great deal of confusion about this word. Let’s be clear; it does not mean special sex practices. That is a bastardized version of some eastern teachings. Some of the traditions of Tantra have as part of their repertoire some advanced practices that include sex. It is like saying that eating a bread wafer representing the body of Christ is the whole and some of Christianity. At best, it is a well concealed lie.

The path of Tantra has to do with embracing reality, the body, desires, and tendencies with a level of discipline that takes the practitioner into and through experiences to a level of transcendence. To do this, reality must be laid bare. Lies and coping mechanisms are dropped; turmoil is embraced. Imagine the power and presence of a crazy person that has discipline. This is a good way to look at it because the tantric practitioner marries chaos. In this view, there is no god, no right, no wrong - all is grey area. You have your intuition in each moment to decide on any action, where fear is your guide forward and toward experiences. This is marrying chaos because once on this path there is no support structure to lean on and the endgame is only success and bitter failure and no way out or in between. Tantra is considered the highest teaching in any path because of its potency and danger.

Tantra is one of the best paths for our time given our terrible paradox.

Tantra aims at its lowest level to produce a natural human with discipline. It produces results, often explosive results. The question you have to ask yourself is how important is progress in your world? What are you willing to risk in the name of being a natural human or leaving this reality? The naturally inclined natural human will look for natural environments and not be confused about it being something spiritual. If you cannot muster the mojo for either approach, then you should get on with being okay with being an unnatural human and at least be clear about it. Then you can live a semi-decent life. You may not be natural but you can be real.

Okay enough pontification on to bodywork...

My Bodywork

Just when I feel like I know something about the human body, I'm shown a new way to relate to it. There seems to be endless ways. Since form affects function and vice versa, how we use it and relate to it determines how it will orient and organize itself, which affects our glands, organs, moods, and energy levels. It can be made into a vehicle for experiencing the most exquisite pleasures or into a torture chamber of unrelenting pain and agony.

If that isn't complicated enough, we have to know something about the mind. For if our minds are allowed to have free reign, they become like spoiled children or in the worst cases demons. Our thoughts and emotions eventually, if not immediately, manifest in our body. Over time, the body's shape will literally match up with the psychological and emotional make-up of a person. Likewise, when we can change our physical posture, we affect our thoughts and emotions. This begs the question do we try to change our bodies or our thoughts and emotions or both at the same time? Is one of these routes easier than another? The answers appear to be quite individual. If we weren't so stuck in our point of view of self, we might find the process utterly fascinating and want to be in it and experience the process with appalling attraction.

Since I have a good understand of anatomy and physiology and have an analytical mind with respect to problem solving, as a massage therapist, I can help you with injuries, physical pain, and the physiological problems that arise due to structural imbalance. My work involves extensively charting the body's alignment, determining whether structural imbalances need to be addressed outside of bodywork, and then taking care of the problems that have been facilitated due to longer-term imbalance. With this approach, I'm looking to figure out why you have chronic problems and to address them with permanent solutions.

As a yogi and a massage therapist going through my own therapeutic process, my approach to massage and bodywork is always finding new territory. Almost every technique I use, I do on myself daily. I have a daily practice of yoga, self-massage, strength work, therapeutic stretching, and meditation. As my daily practice refines itself, my approach to bodywork gets smarter, more efficient, and more elegant. I believe that there are ways to do the deepest work without going through a lot of pain and I endeavor keep in mind that the body is an intelligent system and that everything is the way it is for a good reason.

My disposition is very calm. Just being in my presence will help relax you without me doing any massage. Since I do quite a bit of yoga and meditation and have a healthy lifestyle including eating well, my vibrational frequency is high. This benefits you because being around me will help raise your frequency. This will help you with your outlook on life, your mood, and patterned reoccurring thoughts. You want to work with a therapist that is healthier and happier than you are and knows that being a therapist involves a daily practice that helps resolve not only their own garbage but also their clients' garbage. Energy moves from denser concentration to lighter concentration. The therapist should be ready to pickup some of your stuff and be able to process it. If the therapist is vibrationally denser than you, you may pick up some of their garbage.

I've been a massage therapist since August 2003. I graduated from the Central Florida School of Massage Therapy in Winter Park. I integrate the following modalities - Posturology, Therapeutic Stretching, Fundamental Integration, CranioSacral Therapy, Positional Release, Neuromuscular, Thai, Body Tuning, and Sat Nam Rasayan.

While I appreciate many forms of yoga and meditation, it is Kundalini Yoga that I find myself doing the most. I'm trained as a teacher, teaching periodically, and it is a good part of the yoga I do everyday. In fact, I would say that it is yoga that got me into massage. I was into yoga almost a decade before I got into massage. When I went through teacher training for yoga, I felt that the training was substantially insufficient in training teachers to know and understand anatomy and physiology. I remember thinking that the best yoga teachers were also bodyworkers. White Tantric Yoga, which is closely related to Kundalini Yoga in the West, is what definitively led me to study massage. Doing White Tantric, I realized that many of the practitioners are also yoga teachers and bodyworkers. To really understand what was going on and get the most out of it, I felt that I needed to get into some kind of healing modality.

Boundaries

I'd like especially those Internet oriented clients to know that I am a Florida state licensed massage therapist. I am nationally certified through the NCBTMB. I am a member of the FSMTA and that all work I do is within the legal and ethical boundaries of these organizations.

Pricing

Private yoga instruction: 1.5 hours - $72 (at the Kundalini Yoga Center)

Pricing for table massage:

You come to me (incall)

1 hour - $72
1.5 hours - $108
2 hours - $144

I go to you (outcall)

1 hour - $81
1.5 hours - $117
2 hours - $153

Chair massage: $72 per hour.

I accept cash, check, and credit(Visa and Mastercard). Note that all numbers numerologically add to 9.

There are several ways I can work with you.

You come to me. There are several locations I can work from.
I come to your home.
Or I come to your work place (chair massage, clothed table massage).

Contact

The best way to contact me about making an appointment or to ask about anything related to this site is by phone.

Phone: (321) 377-8725

Otherwise, you can reach me by email.

Email: devonl@mindspring.com

What's New

April 24, 2012: Added a Glycemic Index page to my Diet menu. Since I list the glycemic index of many of the sweeteners on the Sweetener page, I feel that it is important to point out common misconceptions about the index.

March 5, 2012: Added a Sweeteners page to my Diet menu. I have listed every sweetener that I know of in a sortable, colorable, table with descriptions and recommendations.

February 5, 2012: Added Sodarshan Chakra Kriya to my practices menu.

January 24, 2012: Added my favorite green juice, Columbia Gorge Just Greens to the Diet page.

January 9, 2012: Added Thai Massage to the modalities menu. Updated my massage education page.

January 5, 2012: Added my preferred goji berry vendor to the Diet page.

January 4, 2012: Added KeVita and goat milk kefir to the Diet page.

December 4, 2011: Added Coco's Chocolates to the Diet page.

December 3, 2011: Updated massage license documents and links. Separated the Kirtan Kriya page and added a link to purchase the music as an individual mp3.

November 21, 2011: Removed products from the Diet page with honey and brown rice syrup as a sweetener.

I have been mulling over restructuring the site. I cannot track web statics with the way I put it together. As a transition, I have been separating pages out like the Diet, Breathing, Moola Bandha, and Pranayam Series pages. They are on the original menu but link to separate pages; on which, the menu system is reduced to a home link to get back to the main page.

October 27, 2011: Removed products from the Diet page with Agave Nectar as a sweetener. I may removed all products with sweeteners next.

November 29, 2010: Added Geopathic Stress page and I am now offering Dragon Line blocking as a service.

April 17, 2010: Added Coconut Aminos and Coconut Curry Raw crackers to my food page.

I have been hopping around geographically for more than a year. I have spent some time working on a web site for my Mom's dental practice. I started working on a sweetener page but the list of sweeteners out there is very long and I don't like the subject to start with. So, I have been slow to work on this site for a while.

March 26, 2009: I have been attending Richard Freeman's classes in Boulder. I have updated my Ashtanga page to include my enthusiasm for his teaching.

January 28, 2009: Moola Bandha has been added to the Yoga Practices menu.

October 24, 2008: Chocolate Hemp Milk has been added to the diet page. I am no longer offering classes at the You Health Center because I am moving to Montana in a week.

Posturology is the study of posture. My training is through Neurosomatic Educators based out of Tampa Florida. It is Paul St John's approach to charting the body, such that the structural imbalances become apparent. It also provides a standard to measure therapeutic progress.

Below is an example of the charting I do. Measurements are taken standing, lying down, and sitting. Generally, the body should be treated based on imbalances that are present during standing. Because the body is always trying to keep the eyes level with the horizon, it bends, twisting, and rotates in whatever way it needs to right the eyes. If our eyes are not level, we experience vertigo and cannot do anything. In nature, we would become prey. So, keeping the eyes level, the righting reflex is a top-level priority and gravity has everything to do with how that works. When lying down, most if not all imbalances should correct. When they do not correct, we call them a fixation. Bodywork and massage are particularly good at correcting fixations. If the body goes into dysfunction in a new way when lying down, we call that a subtle proprioceptive mechanism. It indicates that the person needs visceral work; one of their organs is under unusual stress. I can also get a pretty good idea of whether there is a leg length imbalance from the lying down measurements. Taking measurements while a person is sitting allow me to determine if their hips are equal in size.

In the example below, the person's hips have gone into an oblique position, the right ilium is flaring in and the left is flaring out. Typically when this happens the temporal bones in the head go into an oblique position in the opposite way. As goes the hips, so goes the head, in an opposite way. When obliqueness is present and unaddressed, no other bodywork will stick and provide lasting results. Obliqueness locks in place most imbalances.

The person below has a smaller right tibia and fibula, lower leg, and a smaller left femur, upper leg. Between the imbalances in both legs, they are equal. At first it appears noteworthy but it turns out not to be causing any problems.

From the sitting position, I determined that the right ilium is smaller than the left. First, I take all the measurements. Then if the hips are out of place and I suspect a leg or hip length/height difference, I will put the hips into a balanced position and then see how much lift is required under one of the feet and/or hips to put the body into structural balance. In this case, the person needs a 7 mm lift under the right foot when standing and a 7 mm lift under the right sit bone when sitting to prevent the imbalances I've charted from occurring.

I see that the left foot has a fallen arch. This is part of the body's compensation for trying to cope with one side being bigger than the other. Likewise, the left hip rotates into a negative position allowing the head of that femur to be higher, making the leg functionally a little shorter. The right side of the body in this example is projecting, tilting forward. With all of the compensations that the body is doing, it has actually made this person's body functionally smaller on the left side and as a result, the right is rotating and tilting forward. Generally when in balance otherwise, the body will rotate and tilt forward on the bigger/longer side.

When the body is structurally in balance, the left and right sides are even and level when the person is standing up in the three planes, sagittal, coronal, and transverse, correct posture comes natural. It does not require effort or special awareness. When a person has bad posture, it usually is not their fault. It isn't because they are lazy. They, in fact, have to work very hard to deal with all of their imbalances. The body has more energy and is more efficient when it is in structural balance. Further, form affects function. The organs and glands, and in fact all physiological aspects of the body, work better when there is structural balance. For example, when one side of the body is more out of balance than another, it is not uncommon for the associated armpit to produce less favorable scent. Quality of scent is, in general, directly related to structural balance. From the point of view of nature, it makes complete sense. Survival of the fittest and mating is driven by scent. Another example of form affecting function is that when a person has a smaller hip on one side and obliqueness increasing towards its maximum, a person can experience dyslexia. The bones in the head should move oppositely from the hips. When the bones in the head get out of balance enough, parts of the brain do not communicate with exact precision. Memory has very specific positioning. When the bones in the head go out of balance, the brain's ability to calculate correct positions for certain types of memory is effected.

Neuromuscular Therapy is a form of deep tissue work that focuses on pressure points. When specific pressure points are desensitized or released, they relieve referred pain in other parts of the body.

Neuromuscular Therapy works with five types of imbalance that occur within the body.

Ischemia: Lack of blood supply to soft tissue
Trigger Points: Specific pressure points in muscle tissue that refer pain to other parts of the body
Nerve Compression or Entrapment: Pressure on a nerve by soft tissue, cartilage, or bone
Postural Distortion: Imbalance of the muscular system resulting from the movement of the body off the longitudinal and horizontal planes
Biomechanical Dysfunction: Imbalance of the musculoskeletal system and the incorrect movement patterns that go with it

I've been working part-time for a clinically oriented massage establishment called New Directions Health & Bodywork Professionals since May of 2004. They place a strong focus on Neuromuscular and CranioSacral Therapy. Working there has been a driving force for me to get to know both of these modalities.

The concept behind Positional Release is really quite simple. Position the body such that for a given area where there is hypertension or pain, stress is taken off of that area and it is allowed to reset. For example, if there is pain and tightness in the upper part of the shoulder, the trapezes or levator scapula, the therapist makes sure that the client is not helping and lifts the shoulder up and in towards the head. The therapist can now work on those muscles and have them release easily with very little pain. Another good example is the position a chair massage chair holds the head and neck. The muscles in the neck and at the base of the skull automatically begin to release. Ideally this approach is always used. However, it is not straightforward as to how to position the body to release stress on certain muscles or groups of muscles. I try to use this approach as much as possible.

Sat Nam Rasayan is an application of meditative awareness cultivated by Kundalini Yoga. By becoming increasingly aware of what the various aspects of their own body, mind, and emotions normally feel like and how they feel different when in the presence of another person, the practitioner can know things about other people, particularly imbalances. By putting awareness on and providing energy to imbalances in the client, the practitioner provides an opportunity for change, without judgment as to how or when the change will occur. This practice takes the ego out of the equation for the practitioner.

Energetically speaking, characteristics in individuals follow from people who strongly embody them to those that don't, as they spend time together. It is similar to one of the laws of thermodynamics. When a hot body is brought into contact with a cold body, heat follows into the cold body until both bodies reach equal temperature. Character traits, emotions, intellect, physicals imbalances, really anything works likewise on an energetic level. An easy way to notice this is with speech patterns. When two people send a lot of time together, they tend to talk and think alike.

The yogi takes advantage of knowing this in that they notice the shifts that occur when they are around a given person or environment. The shifts in their own body due to external factors tell them a great deal about their surroundings. This is essential how the practice of Sat Nam Rasayan tunes into problem areas. With awareness steadily put on a problematic area, the additional energy and the perception provide an opportunity for change. In fact, just from the point of view of perception, change occurs. Science and medicine are becoming increasingly aware that perception shapes reality. By observing a thing, the observer becomes a co-creator. How they view the object, their karmic view on reality, contributes to changing the object or putting greater emphasis on its next manifestation being similar to the last. Merely observing a thing can change it.

Sat Nam Rasayan is an art of energy and awareness.

I'm finding that the best bodywork results are achieved by applying just the right stretch for a given problem. Many people have told me that they get the best, most lasting results from Thai massage. Since Thai massage is mostly stretching that statement makes a great deal of sense to me. I think that even better results can be obtained. Most Thai therapists are doing the same routine on everyone, every time. I believe in applying a great deal more specificity. I do not limit myself to any particular approach to stretching.

I highly appreciate Aaron Mattes's Active Isolated Stretching. I use some of his stretches. I particularly like his psoas stretches.

Having a substantial exposure to yoga, I draw upon my understanding of asanas for specific therapeutic results. One of my favorite stretches comes from the second series of Ashtanga yoga, Parighasana, the Cross Beam of a Gate Posture. It opens up the low back one side at a time like no other approach I know. By the way, this is the final version of the posture. Anything approaching this also produces results therapeutically.

I've come to really appreciate using Thera-Bands for stretching and strengthening. The Thera-Band products provide quick, easy ways to work on otherwise hard to get to areas like the sides of the hips and the tensor fasciae latae muscle, for instance. I've recently added a number of Thera-Band exercises to my daily routine. One of my favorites is stretching the fingers apart. We mostly use our hands for gripping. The muscles in the hands and forearms become unbalanced based on over use in flexing. I put my hands one at a time into a Thera-Band with the fingers together and then stretch my fingers apart repeatedly. Also, I think using Thera-Bands to strengthen the back of the neck and stretch out the front is one of the best ways of addressing a reverse cervical curve, or military neck.

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