SA
Hi Shadi, are you keeping well?
S
Hi Prinita – thank you, I am! I feel I am at new heights of my wellbeing these days.
SA
If you were to describe your spirit using your five senses, what would it sound, taste, look, smell, feel like?
S
What a beautiful question. My spirit would sound like a Ney (middle eastern flute) played softly at dawn and taste like whichever earth i happen to be standing on; it would look like my favourite golden hour of the Sun setting, and smell like Sandalwood. It would feel like the cloth of a hot air balloon..flying over the hills of Cappadocia in Turkey!
SA
Where in the world are you located?
S
I live on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. With my gentle steps on this earth, I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge that my modern privilege was built upon the injustices of colonisation that disrupted their original existence on this land.
SA
What has your experience living in Australia been like?
S
I first came to Australia in 2004 having grown up in Tripoli, Lebanon – My parents migrated here in the late 1970’s but eventually settled back in Lebanon just before my brother and I were born a decade later. I was eighteen years old and knew that I had some important self-discovery to do – I also sensed that the relocation would give space for a slightly bruised adolescent in me to breathe. Like millions before me I quickly came head to head with ‘assimilation’. My identity was suddenly also in the hands of the communities I gravitated towards and cherished: The middle eastern communities of Western Sydney, the student activist bodies on my university campus, and the Queer communities of Sydney with their loving embrace.
But ultimately, my experience of living in Australia will always be centred around a daily gravitational pull to remember, acknowledge, respect, and cherish the traditional owners of this land, past, present and emerging.
SA
What is Avicenna as a massage therapy and how did you arrive at it as a practitioner?
S
Avicenna or Ibn-Sina (980-1037) was a Persian Polymath who gained an important position in the medical world for centuries to come with his five-volume encyclopaedia, ‘The Canon of Medicine’. It was subsequently referred to as the Holy book of Medicine in the Western world, and includes in its section on ‘Preservation of Health’, information on 8 types of massage techniques and their effects and techniques. Ibn-Sina systematized the medical information gathered from dispersed Ancient Greek sources, and updated them with his own observations and practice.
On the very first day of anyone’s Certificate IV in Massage Therapy – in the first chapter of their handbook, they will read of Avicenna and the earliest documented writings on massage therapy in China dating back 3000 years. For me, Ibn-Sina had been part of my psyche since childhood, along with many other guides from that time, philosophers and poets and scientists whose names I admired so much growing up such as Ibn-Rushd (Averroes), Al- Farabi and Jalaludin Rumi. Yet still, I needed the reminder on that day, and his name in that book instantly re-lit a fire that I now get to gratefully watch burn against each evening’s sky.
SA
For some, massage therapy is a way to relax and work out minor aches and pains, for others, it can mean massive psychological breakthroughs and relief from chronic pain. How does massage therapy allow for the release of trauma blocks?
S
What motivates me the most in my massage therapy practice at the moment, is the notion explored so long ago by Avicenna in his work – describing that massage involves the evacuation of unnecessary substances from the body – which had in turn corresponded to explanations he had learnt in Ancient Greek medicine. Much like Avicenna, I feel I have recently arrived at a junction where a new level of lived understanding awaited to be explored. What excites me at this junction now, is that the touch that our hands are capable of, allows therapists to gently penetrate through the many layers of our existence, starting with the most elemental and exposed of all – the skin – and travelling to the most sensitive, and deep, and personal.
I’m grateful to now have my own opportunity to explore my belief that the release of trauma blocks is much like that journey of the hands across the skin.
I often hide behind poems and I have learnt to love that about myself, haha – they always seem to come to my rescue. Rumi, in particular : “The tambourine begs, Touch my skin so I can be myself. Let me feel you enter each limb bone by bone, that what died last night can be whole today”
SA
How have you seen massage therapy benefit some of your clients with deep seated traumas?
S
That is a question and a conversation that I hope to be having for many years to come, for the benefit of all of us. Let’s keep this conversation going forever Prinita : )
On a personal level, I feel I am now at a junction where my ‘my old work on myself’ and ‘my new work on myself’ have a playground where they can dance safely. I now see Rumi’s verse ‘The cure for pain is in the pain’ in a shinier light.
Professionally speaking, I view myself now as an ’emerging practitioner’ therefore I generally feel a certain prematurity in vocalising my observations perhaps. But I already sense that in this new level of understanding, my own healing has the potential to become my clients’ healing- and theirs, my own.
SA
Do you believe western medicine could benefit from a more holistic approach to therapy?
S
One of the most exciting aspects of becoming a massage therapist for me was studying Anatomy and Physiology. It felt like a breakthrough on many levels, and I imagined that on a much larger scale, the process of anyone becoming a doctor would feel similar, or as exciting, as my discovery that all of the structures of our modern medicine are built on ancient foundations that no one can really forget. That would literally be dangerous! If all electricity was to go out in any city tomorrow, the doctors and nurses who still remember their traditional intervention and treatment methods will be the superheroes. And as our world is showing us at every beat, we need our superheroes strong now more than ever, and we need all of us to remember how to be healthy in a wholesome way.
Western medicine should not be waiting for patients to have to take their own initiatives to integrate natural therapies into their treatment plans.
SA
What are a couple of your go-to grounding practices?
S
As a dancer I will always find a lot of grounding at the Centre of my dance. The whirling meditation at the heart of my dance practice asks me to connect with my body’s centre in every moment and to stay there – However fast or strong the gravitational pull of the movement gets, the head is unaware of the feet, and the feet are unaware of the head. ‘ Neither cares, they keep turning…’
Another important grounding practice for me as a massage therapist is my daily routine of self care – it spans the whole day, much like my best companion ( Joey, my red heeler puppy ) , and involves a variety of little practices and rituals in and around my therapy space and the home.. I also spend a significant amount of my time in water ( in the shower, bath or Ocean) self-massaging different parts of my body.
It’s also grounding for me to share my lived knowledge and experience during the sessions with my clients, and to learn from their experiences and bodies. I hope there will always continue to be a sense of shared inspiration between us as a result, and I hope to nurture that in my practice for many years to come.
Also, I chase the Sun! ‘Shams’, the Sun, is my fuel…… : )
is a dancer, visual artist and massage therapist living and working on Gadigal land. His work explores the infinitely spiralling conversations between the human body and its environments: molecular, earthly and intergalactic.