Benefits of LaStone®

LaStone® sessions are tailor made and unique to the client. The wellness potential of this bodywork system goes beyond measure. Benefits include:

• The encouragement of a natural healing response within the body
• Thermotherapy brings supports healing, balance and rejuvenation
• The use of warm basalt stones helps to create relaxation through a combination of stone placement and massage
• The procedure helps to restore balance on a physical level. Alternating between hot and cold flushes the body of toxins, cleanses the lymphatic system
• A combination of temperature through massage helps to tone muscles
• The application of cold temperatures helps to relieve muscular tension without the painful after effects of sports massage
• The application of cold helps to reduces inflammation, scar tissue and promotes mobility
• Alternating temperatures helps to release emotions
• LaStone principles can work on a spiritual energy level

LaStone® goes beyond the physical experience of typical massage, and enters deeper dimensions of relaxation, health and well being, creating a positive approach to ’Body-Mind-Spirit’ philosophy.

Taken and adapted from lastone.fr with credits to LaStone® Therapy, Inc 2010

Season greetings and reflections

All my stones and crystals, on the floor
enjoying their midwinter vacation.

With Winter Solstice yesterday, Christmas and New Year coming up soon, it is time for my stones to be on a small vacation, and for myself and my family to celebrate the season.

My stones have done an incredible job these last months after I started working at élément in Paris. Many people have been introduced to stone massage. None had tried the hot combined with the cold before and they love it.

I am learning so much from working with different people and expectations. Many of my new clients have a high body-awareness and can really feel the difference from the massage.

Several are highly sensitive to the more energetic and spiritual aspect of the work. For them a massage is not just a physical manipulation, but also an emotional and spiritual experience.

One client, instantly booked one massage a week after his first treatment. One aspect of the stone massage he really enjoyed is how mind and body connect during the treatment with the stones.

He could really feel how the stones were charged and asked if they were magnetic. He even mentioned to me just before the holidays that my stones needed to be recharged. It is really touching to receive such comments and acknowledgement from an "outsider".

One amusing situation is when I am asked about the stones and the background for the massage I give. Some think LaStone is from Denmark, since I'm Danish. Most find the Native American aspect fascinating and all love the deep work of the proper massage therapy that they receive. It is very hard to find the good deep style of massage in Paris, which is common in the US and elsewhere.

It is very humbling to work as a Hollow Bone and facilitate wellness in people. Especially when they really notice the energy work and small details. I look forward to exploring my stones further. To see what they can bring into people's lives and what difference they make.


All the best wishes to you and your loved ones for the upcoming year.
May you prosper, live in love and happiness be on your path.

Thank you.
Ah ho

Healing Hands

Healing Hands the Native American version of healing and energy work. Using hand placements and working with intuition; comfort and healing is offered to the receiver. It is unobtrusive, deeply relaxing and caring. A safe practice for anyone to receive. Some even report how they feel tingles through their body, see colours and seem to float.

I have written about how important touch is for our health and wellness. Healing Hands is touch taken further, with intention and ceremony. It is a way for the practitioner to focus and bring even more to the client on its own or in combination with other forms of bodywork.

Becoming the Hollow Bone and offering Healing Hands is becoming ceremony. You carry on ancient traditions of the Native Americans and offer humbleness and respect to Mother Earth, Creator and the world we live in.


Anybody can learn Healing Hands and you can give yourself and others. There's a strong emphasis on healing ourselves first so we then can serve others.

When you work as a Hollow Bone, letting the energy/healing/whatever-it-is from Creator flow through you. You are the tool and not the one directing or controlling what is happening. This is an important aspect, and also why there are no secret symbols, set patterns you have to work in or specific things you need to do.



This is what the Hollow Bone is about. By us becoming entirely humble and emptying ourselves of our pride, arrogance, precognitions, ideas, wants and thoughts, we become the Hollow Bone and can then serve as a tool to facilitate wellness and healing. We don't ourselves give healing or heal, we're only the tool who facilitates it.

As an instructor of Healing Hands, I have learned the ceremonies, which includes the alter and smudging. You become ceremony, and you are taught how to lay the alter and the symbolism behind the directions, how to tie prayer ties and how to smudge yourself and your clients. And you learn how you can give yourself Healing Hands and how to offer it to others.

The actual initiation is a beautiful ceremony done in the circle where everybody participates. There's nothing magic or mystic about it. It's just a reminder and confirmation of the skills we already process.

Healing Hands is for everyone. The bodywork who wants to enhance his skills, the mother who wants to care for a sick child, the caregiver who wants to give comfort to elders, the couple who wants to become closer.

Giving Healing Hands an approach to serving as a channel for the love and healing provided to us by Creator - by whatever name we give him/she/it. It is spiritual, but not religious in its original form. You serve as the tool of Creator, simply facilitating the healing and letting the energies flow through you unobtrusively.

It is a beautiful way to give a respectful, caring and healing touch.

The Three Relations

A The Three Relations layout

The full treatment, The Three Relations is a combination of gentle facial massage with hot and cold stones, energy work and emotional boost.

With ceremony the stones are used and placed in accordance with ancient Stone Medicine traditions. Protection, empowerment, connection to Creator, removal of the old mask and applying a new mask to face the world.

On a physical level, you lay on the table, supported by warm stones around you. It's a position of relaxation and comfort, a place where you can let go of stresses and worries and open up to the treatment offered to you.

With warm and cool stones your face is massaged, removing tensions and stress. After each stone has been used it is placed on you or around your head, creating beautiful patterns.

If you want the Stone Medicine practitioner may photograph you so you can see how you looked like. The picture with this article is of me from our The Three Relations class.

When the stones are removed, they are placed on the floor in a Sacred Symbol which is offered to you for inspiration and enlightenment. Going through all the aspects of The Three Relations, it becomes a strong spiritual experience, which leaves you empowered.

Often I include elements from the Three Relations into my other massages. When I give a facial massage as part of a full body session, I often visualize removing the old war paint and applying new to the client, placing some of the stones as a protective breastplate and as a necklace. It all depends on the situation and what the client needs at that time.

We might speak of the spiritual aspect to the massage, or The Three Relations might simply become a subtle part of the massage that the client is not even aware of. They just notice how great they feel and that they had a wonderful time on the table.

Balancing the Water Fall

Image via Wikipedia

Balancing the Water Fall is a a treatment which aims to balance the flow of energies in the body. Traditionally it is thought that the water in the body is balanced and aligned. Looking at it from an Eastern viewpoint, meridian points are stimulated and the flow of chi in the body is balanced. No matter how you describe and think about it, it is the same thing going on. Dear child has many names, as a saying goes.

A session is a combination of cold stone pressure point work and journey ceremony. You lie upon a table, covered and warm, without anything to bring discomfort. You are guided into a visualization and actively take part in the treatment as the practitioner stimulates various pressure points with cold stones and ask into your visualization.

This isn't just some treatment to feel good and relax, though those side-effects certainly appear. This is a treatment focusing on neurological imbalances, related to difficulties with communication. This can be both of physical, emotional and spiritual nature.

While Balancing the Water Fall can't cure any physical disorder, it can give symptom relief and aid in making the person feel more balanced. I have with good results given this treatment to a friend with MS (multiple scleroses) who is used to energy work. She can tell the shifts in her body and how blockages seem to dissolve and her energy flow more freely. The effects are not lasting due to the nature of MS, but the short term ease of symptoms is very welcome. Ideally we need to do a full treatment series of 12 treatments over 6 weeks to get profound results. Hopefully we'll find time to do so in the new year.

People having emotional problems communicating clearly can benefit from Balancing the Water Fall. I myself has found it much easier to communicate on the telephone after receiving Balancing the Water Fall. I used to have a phobia to answering the phone which just seems to have disappeared without any cause except learning Stone Medicine and receiving treatments during classes.

The treatment can be good for those with nervous stutter, tendency to freeze during public speeches, or inability to clearly communicate to others. Essentially anywhere where it feels like there's a disconnection between what the brain wants to do and what words are spoken (or not spoken in some cases).

As we are working on pressure points, meridians and energy in the body, I believe this treatment can also be good for those who wishes to remove blockages for an overall wellness and
balance.

Amazing changes has happened to the water fall recipient visualize. At first the water might be murky and the fall full of boulders blocking it all. The water fall might be almost dry and the water just a faint trickle. And by the end the water is clear, fresh, a strong steady flow, obstacles disappear and sometimes there are even rainbows or golden riverbeds. One client described how the colour of the water instantly changed with each stone placement. Another could tell how a big dark murky hole to one side disappeared and allowed for water to flow freely into formerly dry parts. One was left with a vision of a beautiful water fall that she could call upon in days to come to bring a smile and calm.

The visualization work is a powerful tool and naturally becomes unique to the person receiving the treatment. Some people don't really see the vision - myself included - but instead feel nerves twisting and reacting in different parts of the body, letting the Journey take a physical expression instead of visual.

Balancing the Water Fall is a very fascinating treatment and I am really curious to see what I might experience with my clients in the future. What things I might discover and understand of how it works and when it is especially powerful to use. Right now I am much studying the effects and playing with the stones. In the future, who knows where I might be with this treatment.