The gift of touch did not come from my mother.

My sweet mama does not touch much and since we were separated so young, my need for physical comfort came from dogs which - thanks to the Lady of the Beasts - we had many living with us.

Later, I experienced a sort of addiction to intimacy, which from the outside could have looked like promiscuity.
I was craving touch!
I did not know how to cuddle with sisters and I had been touch-deprived as a child.

But my grandmother had the gift of touch.

Her long fingers knew.
How to calm, how to release.
How to presence, to reassure.

When I joined the Rosen Institute under the mentorship of Marion Rosen, one of the very first pioneers of psychosomatic therapy to learn this utmost holistic healing modality, I was 25.

I learned to touch without expectation; to read the body like a treasure map or a haunted house and to understand where the big and small traumas were hiding, disguised, or buried.

I became an expert at watching the breath and translating its pace, its length, its hesitation, tracking where the human under my care was traveling in her/his psyche.

I learned to trust my kinesthetic intuition and to ask the right questions. The questions that start the profound unwinding of years of posturing against the tender truth.

The questions that unlock the chains guarding against the pain and keeping the poison in. The chains that keep us from expanding into our unique and powerful freedom.

Sometimes a detective, a midwife, a nurse, a mentor, a guardian, a priestess, this sacred work has made me whole again. It delivered me and expanded me like no other.

At the center of the myriad of spiritual and healing practices I was blessed to learn during this life of devotion, this psychosomatic holistic jewel I’ve had the chance to share with many cultures of this gorgeous Earth, anchored in the wisdom of Marion Rosen, this Bones of Freedom as I renamed my integration of it, informs all my other offerings.

The compassionate dimension it holds is like no other, and the depth of understanding of the human body, mind, and heart, keeps carrying me forward with hope in times of chaos and ignorance.

Yemaya Indira ~