BACKGROUND

To be and to mean and to think and to tell are the same, yet all of them rest on that tissue of interconnection.
The story that you tell and are is you but not your own.

Robert Bringhurst

I studied massage at the Potomac Massage Training Institute (www.pmti.org) and worked in its professional massage clinic my first year after graduation in 2004. Since then I have continuously been practicing massage and studying bodywork modalities including neuromuscular, shiatsu, and thai massage.

I became interested in massage through my experience with yoga. For many years I felt out of balance, body and mind. After much seeking I found yoga to be the most helpful therapy, returning my body/mind to a sense of wholeness and well-being. I first tried Hatha yoga (physical postures called “asanas” coordinated with breath) in college. Over the years I continued to practice intermittently and then more consistently, with greater benefit. In June of 2007 I completed a two-year yoga teacher training course with Bagheera yoga (www.bagheerayoga.com). I currently assist at the Bagheera yoga studio.

My experience with yoga has more recently led me into the practice of Zen meditation. Since 2004 I have been practicing Zazen (seated meditation) with other dedicated Zen practitioners in the area (www.zenmind.org, http://www.bagheerayoga.com/zen.html, www.dczen.homestead.com). I believe hatha yoga and Zen meditation are both deeply physical practices that point in the same direction: to a directly experienced awareness of ones intrinsic nature and our interrelatedness. In September of 2007 I took the 16 Bodhisattva Precepts in a ceremony with Zen Master Dae Gak (www.furnacemountain.org). Taking precepts for me is an expression of my commitment to following the path of meditation wholeheartedly and completely with the intention that the practice be extended always for the benefit of all beings.

Before pursuing massage as a career I taught English as a Second Language in DC Public Schools, San Francisco, and as a PeaceCorps volunteer in Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

Elizabeth Bourne, LMT