Totally Stoned
Interesting I thought! I’d heard about it, been vaguely curious about it but I think it makes all the difference in the world when you actually know someone who’s doing it or going to do it in this case. You get keen to know what’s what. My friend Mary Anne is looking to do a course relating to Hot stone massage. “It’s a specialty massage that uses smooth, heated stones. They’re often basalt, a black volcanic rock that absorbs and retains heat well. It’s a deeply soothing, relaxing form of massage. The heat helps tight muscles relax and soften.
Massage is the practice of soft tissue manipulation with physical, functional, and in some cases psychological purposes and goals in mind. The word is derived from a number of sources including from the French, massage: “friction of kneading,” or from the Arabic massa meaning “to touch, feel or handle” or from the Latin massa meaning “mass, dough”. An older history of the word may even have been the Hebrew me-sakj ‘to anoint with oil’.
It involves acting on and manipulating the body with pressure – structured, unstructured, stationary, or moving – tension, motion, or vibration, done manually or with mechanical aids. Target tissues may include muscles, tendons, ligaments, skin, joints, or other connective tissue, as well as lymphatic vessels, or organs of the gastrointestinal system. Massage can be applied with the hands, fingers, elbows, forearm, and feet. There are over eighty different recognised massage modalities. The most cited reasons for introducing massage as therapy have been demand and a perceived clinical effectiveness.
Hot stone massage is an Ayurvedic massage treatment designed to anchor the root or muladhara chakra (the sacred energy centre located at the base of the spine) and the second or svadhisthana chakra (located just beneath the navel, and related to our sexual and reproductive capacity) and to relieve bodily tension. My interest is not so much philosophical so much as a wish to experience the sense of well-being as a result of having had one.
Ayurveda (Devanāgarī: आयुर्वॆद, the ‘science of life’) is a system of traditional medicine native to India and practiced in other parts of the world as a form of alternative medicine. In Sanskrit, the word Ayurveda comprises the words āyus, meaning ‘life’ and veda, meaning ‘science’. Evolving throughout its history, Ayurveda remains an influential system of medicine in South Asia.
The stones are used in two ways during the massage. The first is to impart heat onto the body by laying stones under you with a layer of fabric between you and the stone (a sheet or towel) and/or on top of you, again on a towel. The stone layout will typically be along both sides of the spine, or along the chakra centres on top and baseball sized stones may be placed in the hands. While these layout stones are delivering concentrated centres of heat, the masseuse is simultaneously massaging you with oiled, heated stones held in the palm of the hand with firm strokes along the muscles of the legs, arms, and torso areas.
An authentic hot stone massage is not simply the “gliding” of heated stones lightly upon the surface of the skin, but rather the stones are used as tools to deliver effective tissue and muscle massage at a pressure level comfortable to the you. You can request light, medium or deep pressure, which is the beauty of the hot stone massage technique. It can be customised. The hardness of the stones makes for a deep tissue massage and is easy on the joints of the masseuse’s hands.
The heat from the stones relaxes the muscles, increases the blood flow to the area being worked on which further accelerates the healing process. This increase in circulation and the relaxation of the muscles also aids in mental relaxation. Mental relaxation is key when a masseuse is attempting to work into deeper muscles of the body.”
In a completely unconnected diversion of thought I’m reminded of a wonderful exhibition of Orientalism I saw many years ago in Wellington. I was completely drawn to the rich, vibrant colours of the odalisque painters. It bothers me (only sometimes) when my mind wanders along such unconventional pathways from a place completely set in an opposite direction. It can be annoying to my erstwhile logic left at odds with the change in direction. I sympathise completely! Perhaps the unseen connection is the human form. HUGE jump I know but form, massage, odalisque!
Perhaps the most famous Odalisque right now is Matisse’s 1937 oil-on-canvas work titled “L’Odalisque, Harmonie Bleue” that in November 2007 sold to an unidentified buyer at a Christie’s auction for a very cool baby blue sum of $33.6 million. Personally I thought there were historically better looking Odalisques around but we’re fickle we humankind. We like what we like and we get what we want when you have that kind of cash sitting in your back pocket for a Christie’s Tuesday in New York! Stunning events!
For now, I’m looking forward to one of those fancy massages and if you’re keen too, you find Mary Anne at Puriri House. It’s a great little place Onga Onga. The locals know her, infact everyone knows everyone out there. Mind out for Stinky the cat as you walk through to the massage room, he’ll probably be hogging the sofa and sending out purrfectly timed snozzings in time with your own breathing. He leads a charmed life.
Give Shaggy the dog a friendly pat (though she’s not all that shaggy at the moment she got a haircut last week). The haircut took at least 10 dog years off her face, she’s looking like a pup and a friendly pat will be instant permission to head off down to the local pub (a mere 50 metres give or take a couple) down the road to say hullo to whoever.
I don’t know about you but the sound of a massage followed by a nice glass of something sounds like a great way to tickle up a day I’d say. Like I said, ask for Mary Anne Reidy even if she hasn’t done the stone massage course when you call, her Puriri House massage is worth the country drive. It’s divine!
