On September 20, 2006, I decided to expand my part-time home massage and bodywork practice into an office space in Uptown Minneapolis. What started as one day per week grew quickly to 3-4 days per week. In January of 2006, I assumed the lease of my space at 3249 Hennepin Avenue South.

In the last year, I have given over 300 hours of massage and bodywork sessions, have expanded to sometimes four days per week, implemented an online booking system, and will soon expand my practice by adding one day a week in Northfield, MN.

I want to take this time to thank all of my clients, who continually give me the energy and drive to do this kind of work - the work I find most fulfilling in my life! Thank you all for a great year, and for many more to come!

Blessings,
Scott

I will be on vacation September 1 - 16, returning on Monday, September 17.

Please Call for Friday, Aug. 31 appointments.

If you have an immediate need to schedule a massage during the days while I am away, please contact Janet Fisher (she shares my office with me) at 612-590-0481.

I will be singing with other folks from Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre this Saturday at the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary.

The event, which is FREE, is to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Garden. I will be singing in a “Floral Chorus” that will sing a song cycle about birds, bees, and pollinators. We will perform three times throughout the day on Saturday, August 11, at approximately 11am, 2pm, and 4pm.

The Eloise Butler Garden is nestled in Theodore Wirth Park, in Minneapolis, MN, just to the south of Theo Wirth Parkway and Glenwood Avenue.

Come out and enjoy the day, and celebrate this wonderful treasure in Minneapolis!

Paper Cranes

Originally uploaded by holisticgeek

This evening I attended a remembrance event for the 62nd anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While at the Lyndale Park Peace Garden in Minneapolis, we were led on a procession by the Women in Black, learned the story of Sadako and folded paper cranes, then witnessed a commemorative Tea Ceremony.

Hiroshima Day is very special to me, as it is the time to remember the over 210,000 people who died in the nuclear blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the past, I have participated in chalk drawings of body outlines to remember those who became only “shadows on pavement” as they were vaporized in the blasts.

Nuclear weapons have been declared illegal by international law, yet the United States maintains the largest, and ever increasing, arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. Today, the smallest nuclear bomb in any US arsenal is over five times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The largest nuclear device ever tested, a 50 megaton bomb, would have a blast area of 30 miles, sending out further fires from the blast, over 140 miles further from the blast area.

As we work for peace in the world, we should remember these 210,000 lives that were lost in a moment, and say “Never Again!”

This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace in the world!

My deepest thoughts, hopes, and prayers go out to all who are affected by the tragic collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis.

After coming home Wednesday, I rode my bicycle toward the area of the rescue efforts. I think it’s a human thing to do - be close to where tragedy has occurred, as if to offer some kind of hope or empathy to a situation where one feels helpless. We all want to “do” something or be present.

After gathering briefly with some of the onlookers, I felt the need to leave to let rescue workers continue their work, as the crowds of onlookers seemed to grow. Some came to take pictures, and others just to look to see if this very “unreal” event could truly be real.

In times of tragedy, we all feel the weight of grief, loss, longing, despair, or helplessness. Some of us imagine what we might have done in that situation, and others of us try to visualize the thoughts going through the minds of those caught in the midst of the unthinkable event.

In the midst of all of this, I wanted to offer up some ideas of what we can do, to both help, and to heal.

1. If you are inclined and able, The Twin Cities American Red Cross depends on donations to help in situations of disaster. Your dollars can go a long way to help them!

2. Take time - to talk to people, to children, to neighbors, and to any persons of support. Because we are all affected emotionally, taking the time to be present in these moments can be of profound help to one another.

3. Understand that we all react to crisis in different ways. Some people cry, some become angry, some withdraw. Every expression of grief and loss is appropriate. Again, take the time to be present with another person.

4. Reach out if you need support. Talk to a friend, family member, pastor, counselor, etc. If you have no one to turn to immediately, contact a local crisis center. In the Twin Cities, you can contact Crisis Connection, a 24-hour crisis hotline, at (612) 379-6363.

5. Take time for yourself. Remember to eat - and to REST. Strong emotions like grief can take a lot of emotional and physical energy. Even if you are unaware of the stress on your mind, body, or spirit, you may need the extra rest and nourishment.

I wish everyone the deepest thoughts of healing and support at this time.

Video: The Blue Bird (15 MB - Requires Quicktime)
Click the image to watch in a pop-up window.
Click here to download

I took a mini-vacation this weekend to Madison, WI. I lived in Madison from 2000-2003 and did massage out of a small office on Bedford Street, just a few blocks from Lake Monona. I love to return to Madison to bike the trails and to just peer out at the lake every chance I get. Unfortunately, I don’t think I ever biked in Madison when living there. Coming back and riding a bicycle helps me to discover it all over again.

I also did a bit of “geekery” and created a short quicktime movie of all of the bodies of water that I’m fond of just peering out at. I hope you like it. The song is “The Blue Bird”. Click the image above or the download link below the picture to watch the short video.

No, I haven’t just been lounging at the lake. I’ve been working away creating a new site, it’s true! After adding online booking as an option for people to make appointments, I decided to also incorporate a new design and a “Blog” into my website. Spending 9 years in the technology world before deciding to dive more fully into massage and bodywork does have its advantages! I’ve also created a few other blogs previously. You can visit my Peaceride Bicycling Blog to read about my experiences since last year, as I ventured into biking more fully.

For those who may not be in the know, the word “blog” is short for “web log”. It is a web diary of sorts. I plan to continually add content to my site now by offering insightful news, ideas, holistic healing tips, pictures, and items just for fun - right here on the front page of my website!

If you’ve followed my monthly newsletters in the past, I thank you for reading! While I won’t be doing away entirely with my email list, I do plan to post more information here on my website, and make contact by email less frequently. For now, I have placed an archive of my previous newsletters on the sidebar to the right.

So how does one read a blog??

The choice is yours! If you like, you can come back and visit this site at your leisure, and peruse past postings that you may have missed. Otherwise, you can add my blog’s “feed” to an RSS reader on your computer. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. With an RSS reader program, you can subscribe to a blog and receive only new articles as they appear. If you have an RSS reader, you can simply paste my “feed address” into it to start receiving updates as they appear on the site!

For a list of free RSS readers for Windows, Linux, or MacOS, click here.

Oh! And the great part about a blog is it’s interactivity! You can comment on postings! I welcome comments and further insights to the things I post, and you are welcome to share your ideas as well!

I’ll be posting more entries soon, hopefully on a weekly basis. For now, I hope you enjoy the new site!

When deciding to open a holistic practice in the Twin Cities, I wanted to create a space that was as unique and heart-felt as the ideals I hold in my personal life. I believe that healing comes about by getting in touch with the core of oneself. Just like emotion, expression, art, and passion, healing comes from a deep place in each one of us. As whole beings, we cannot disconnect our body from our emotions, our mind from our spirit, or our learning from our experience.

My approach to massage, acupressure, and reiki is just like that. It is integrated. It focuses on the whole person, not just a muscle ache, a stressor, or a symptom. As human beings, we experience our life on many levels. Healing should be focused on all of those levels as well. It should be a journey with deep meaning, not just a quick fix.

I hope you enjoy my website, and find it both informative and inspiring. In addition to highlighting my services, I plan to include news, tips, and articles about holistic health and healing through this weblog and sometimes podcast!

Thank you for coming along on this journey with me!

Scott Schumacher