Patrick's love for science, nature, and spirituality has been apparent since early childhood
1970-1976, Oregon
After church one misty day in Brookings I asked my Dad, "How do we know our religion is the right one and all the other religions are wrong?" I was seven. Two years later we moved to Salem, where I was attended Saint Joseph’s and Sacred Heart, taught by Nuns for grades 4-8. Here I was an altar boy and first considered the priesthood.
I joined Boy Scouts at age 10. We camped every month for four years--snow, rain or shine (mostly rain)--and completed two "fifty milers." By age 12 I had earned the rank, "Life." Through Scouting, I branched into "Order Of The Arrow," also called"The Brotherhood of Cheerful Service," using Native American dress and customs. The "Ordeal" for membership included doing hard labor to prepare Camp Pioneer for the coming Summer events, remaining silent, eating the simplest scant meals, and sleeping without a tent between melting snow patches in the rain.
1977-1981, Snoqualmie, Washington
At my Dad’s urging, the whole family attended theSilva Method Training in Seattle. The four-day course included meditation and visualization for the purpose of re-patterning one’s brain with the hope this would change reality outside, which would in later decades be called "manifesting." Day four was spent entirely on healing others, by imagining what it would be like to be inside their body, seeing through their eyes. I believe Jose Silva, the Catholic developer of the method, stumbled upon things the Nazorean himself taught about two thousand years before. The idea of actually seeing and feeling what the other person perceives, still boggles my mind and inspires my research. I repeated the Silva training once a year from age 14 to age 24 for a total of 320 hours.
I played football for Mount Si High where I received several knock-outs. These added to numerous other blows to my head including falls, motorcycle accidents, snow skiing, waterskiing, and other boy’s fists, for a total of twenty one TBI injuries. (I was unaware of the additive effects of knockouts until I read Laura Bruno’s book, If I Only Had A Brain Injury in 2007.) In High School I began drinking coffee regularly, as many people in the NorthWest do, who live in almost continuous shade.
Junior Year I was asked by Math chair Gary Odman to begin tutoring others in Math. This was my first paying Math teaching job, which I held for two years.
High PSAT scores earned me fun a trip to the U. S. Naval Academy for a week-long Science and Engineering seminar. I was encouraged to apply but I leaned instead toward becoming an ambassador of Love, enjoying the audio and video recordings of Leo Buscaglia. I privately re-considered the priesthood, including Mount Angel Seminary in Oregon, before choosing a rare college that had an unheard new major called "computer science."
1981-1986 Math Degrees
I completed a BA in Math from Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA and began a Master’s degree at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. At Western I had my second teaching job, teaching Business Algebra for one quarter. I spent more time lovingly grading the students’ papers than I did on my own studies, and did not complete my Master’s degree.
1978-1995 Construction
I began working construction during breaks from High School and College. I started at the bottom believing it would be inefficient to begin an apprenticeship since I would only be in the trade temporarily until I became a Math Teacher. But rapidly dropping test scores, defensiveness, and inability to study, forced me out of college. I was knee-deep in mud and rain for over a decade. Did you know a Union Laborer ironically earns far more than a Math Teacher? Toward the end of my construction "career," I had switched into Carpenter’s Local 131, taking classes, studying at home, and then challenging the Journeyman Test. At the Evergreen Hospital Medical Center Addition (see satellite view) I "wowed" all the engineers by plotting the circular edge of the building using repetitions of the Pythagorean Theorem. After that stunt I was able to literally rise out of the mud to "layout" using instruments like the Theodolite (Transit).
1982-1989 First Fiction and Music Writing
While at Whitman I wrote my first short stories, which I gave away. In Advanced Music Theory, I wrote my first one-page score, which a visiting composer looked at and said, "It isn’t even music." This made me sad until decades later, when I heard the same chord progression in a song on the album Get Down by Soulive.
In 1986 I took a combined Senior/Graduate level Creative Writing course at Western. The next class after turning in my second story (about the only survivor of the third world war, living on the planet alone with the bees), the teacher physically lead me out of her class for good, in front of the other students, saying "It isn’t even a story."
In 1989 I stayed home for a year to bond with my newborn daughter, during which time I handwrote a 200 page novel in a spiral notebook that I later burned. It was an Ironic Comedy following a crazed evangelist named Reginald Kenneth Cheese who wanted so badly to meet Jesus that he instigated a world war and other environmental disasters to end life on the planet, believing that Jesus returns at "the end." I called it, Judgment Day.
1986-1996 Buddhism
In 1986 I began reading books by Tarthang Tulku and D.T. Suzuki. Both authors recommended finding a Guru so I went to the yellow pages and became a member of Sakya Monastery of Tibetan Buddhism in Seattle. There I received Medicine Buddha attunement for Healing, Manjushri for Wisdom, Vajrasattva, Mahakala, and Padmasambhava from Jigdal Dagchen Sakya. I also received the Green Tara attunement from his wife, Dagmola Sakya. In June, 1993 the Dalai Lama came to Seattle and from him I received the Chenrezi attunement of Compassion. Buddhist Attunements sometimes include a commitment from the practitioner. Chenrezi Attunement was given to those who vow to daily repeat the prayer, "As long as space endures/ As long as sentient beings remain/ So too may I abide/ To dispel the misery of the world." A few months after the attunement, I had a dream: I saw the Dalai Lama in a coffee shop in a hidden room that I saw through the glass of the pie display. I went to him. He recognized me from the attunement. He said I had generated merit from keeping my commitment. Then he reached into my chest and held my heart. It was a sensation of pure joy. I was so relaxed I fell to the ground. His hand was still holding my heart, as he dragged me out of the café. Each pebble and grain of dust under my back was sheer pleasure. He dragged me to the left, and left again, 3 lefts in all around the building. He said he only had two minutes to give to each practitioner, so the dream was over. About this time I left construction and entered massage school. Arriving at school with short, buddhisty hair and sitting cross legged with a straight spine, I introduced myself as a Buddhist who wanted to end the suffering of mankind through massage.
Massage Training 1992
Before I left construction, I was exposed to a Physical Therapist Randy Nakasone, who showed me Strain Conterstrain and got me excited about the idea of becoming a massage therapist. He recommended the Brian Utting School. I was accepted there in December, 1992 to Ruth Werner’s 800-hour program. This school was intense and rigorous, specializing in Medical Massage, but unique in its liberal arts style of integrating each lesson in the hard sciences (anatomy, physiology) with the subjective dimensions of bodywork and communication, always in the same day. This was the most fun I ever had at school, and my brain was in second heaven with all the challenging subjects, presented in a digestible way. Within the first four months we had all memorized the major and minor muscles, a feat owing to Brian Utting who made us palpate others, have our own poked, and draw them on the body with china marker as we memorized them for repeated testing. We tested orally, practically, visually, and in writing, on cadaver anatomy, differential diagnosis, creating therapeutic goals and treatment plans, technique, and the philosophies of therapeutics. Compared with the muddy, dark, wet, dangerous construction sites one could see from the second story windows of the school, this was paradise. I couldn’t have been more motivated to making this career change work.
My Medical Massage Period 1994-1997
Before my undergraduate massage training was finished, I enrolled in Rich Phaigh’s Treatment Of Pain continuing education series. Within a year and a half, I had completed and repeated the series (120 hours), memorized all 400 pages of his manuals and four VHS videos, and completed a one-week internship with Rich in Eugene. I also used techniques developed by James Cyriax M.D. and Ben Benjamin LMT for differential assessment and treatment of tendinitis and other ligament, bone, bursa, and muscle lesions.
In 1994 I applied, trained, and became one of the first group of Preferred Providers (of Massage) for Blue Cross, Blue Shield, and Group Health. I was also able to bill car accidents and on-the-job injuries for massage treatments. I was self-employed from the beginning, renting an office within a Chiropractor’s building for my first year.
A typical session would include an interview, assessments in sitting, standing, forward and back bending positions, them hopping onto the table for treatment, hopping off for reassessment, more treatment, more assessment, etc. My feedback forms showed that people were indeed improving, but many just wanted something warmer and more nurturing. So in 1996-97 I completed 112 hours in Cranio Sacral and Emotional Release classes with the spiritual and gifted Bruno Ducoux, D.O. This ultra-slow work satisfied another segment of my clientele but there was still something missing.
1996 Lessons From Stephen Bruno
With a partner I opened a center in North Bend, Washington in October 1996. Soon after I built the 8’ x 12’ sign on the roof of the building, the business name "Natural Essence" attracted healer/educator Stephen Bruno to visit, because he was looking for a place to teach his "Embracing Your Essence," and "Being Natural," workshops. He found our huge sign like a beacon saying, "You’re supposed to be here." We became immediate friends. I began attended his workshops totaling over two thousand hours by 1999 including: a weekly personal discovery workshop, a weekly writing group aimed at publishing, and fun, one-day courses in; energy healing, shamanism, emotions, spirituality, and of course, being natural and embracing your essence. No matter what content he presented, he always came back to 7 things: unconditional compassion, non-judgment, non-self-importance, presence, patience, vulnerability, and curiosity. Later he added an 8th thing, generosity.
I also received counseling and energy healing from Stephen, focusing on my professional goals of becoming a more compassionate and effective healer, teaching, and publishing.
1995-1998 Teaching Again
A private elementary school in Snoqualmie needed a math teacher to cover their addition of grades 6, 7, and 8. There I was able to accelerate the learning of two prodigy children, Ravi and Jill, both 4th graders whom I taught high school level algebra for one semester, before the school decided to go back to K-5.
Soon after meeting Stephen, I sort of "discovered" that people’s scapula move with cranial rhythm and in 1998 I presented my first self-designed course in "Cranial Palpation," a precursor to Melting Muscles.
1999 Phoenix Massage Scene
Having been damp since 1970, in Arizona I finally dried out, in more ways than one; at first I wondered why there were no espresso drive-throughs in Phoenix, until I realized that with clear skies and direct access to what is above, mood-altering beverages have less appeal.
The Massage climate in Arizona however, was muddy compared to the clarity of purpose in Seattle. Besides the abundance (and toleration) of illegal massage, the Phoenix area abounds in Pampering Destination Spas and Franchise Discount Clinics but lacks Independent Single Operators and Provider Co-Ops. In Washington, I had been licensed through the Department of Health. In Phoenix, I was licensed in the department of Adult Entertainers, including fingerprinting. With few choices for employment, I applied and was one of the first six therapists hired at the Spa at Gainey Village in Scottsdale. There, I would ask my massage clients, "What is your chief complaint today?" and try to create a treatment plan, but they would look at me funny and say, "Just give me a massage." The Phoenix-area public had no concept of medical massage or Osteopathic Techniques. In this environment, doing up to 30 massages per week of the same strokes over and over, my mind began to go numb with boredom.
2001 Discovery and First Publishing Melting Muscles
Feeling stagnant in Scottsdale, I grasped the opportunity to fly back to Seattle to receive Reiki attunements from Stephen. I now recall him saying that he put "something extra" in the attunement. When I returned to Arizona, my first massage back at the spa, I was doing a long slow stroke on the person’s right hamstrings when I was amazed to really feel the muscles melting. That night I wrote down my findings which I sent off to Massage&Bodywork magazine. From the attunement date, to the time my article, Melting Muscles was purchased for publication, took exactly three weeks. If you’ve ever submitted work to publishers, you know this quick response is unheard of, and to have one’s first work accepted in a paying market has an improbability factor of "infinity minus one--against." Three weeks, just happens to be the length of the adjustment period after each Reiki level attunement. Maybe it was my predetermined path to publish and teach, and the Reiki attunement opened the secret shortcut to this.
Another way to look at it is, being cooped up in the spa for 30 massages a week—them wanting "just a massage" and me wanting to give something that exercised my brain—was like a pressure cooker. When it finally blew, it blasted a new hole, a new possibility, a new technique. This is just another example of: Things We Dread Become The Best Thing That Could Have Happened.
2002 First Teaching Melting Muscles and Reiki
At the end of my first published article, in the short Bio I mentioned a workbook. I hastily finished the first version and sold many copies. On a map of the U.S. I pushed pins to represent book sales. Harrisburg, PA, and LaCrosse, WI sat center of the two highest clusters of interest, so I called ahead to rent hotel meeting rooms and notified the book buyers that I’d be coming. From readers of the original article I was also invited to teach at Tahlequah, OK, and the Holistic Massage Training Institute in Baltimore.
Though Reiki helped to birth Melting Muscles, Melting Muscles is not "energy work," but a physical connection to the person’s brain by way of the muscles. Many people attend my medical massage classes because they seek someone more spiritual to learn science and technique from. Many people seeking Reiki training attend my classes because they want their energy training from someone who is well-grounded in physiology, math, and hard science.
Atlas And Axis Aha
Rich Phaigh said that the only part of the body where his technique did not work more than half the time, is the atlas and axis. He did teach two techniques to treat Atlanto-Axial Rotation and the best techniques he could find in his extensive research, but told us not to expect anything. Fortunately Rich showed us how to do "motion palpation" for this joint and stressed our understanding of how the bones move on each other. For bones to move freely, their attaching muscles need to relax. In Bruno Ducoux’s classes, I asked him if and when the atlas and axis should be treated in relation to the head adjustments and he replied, with a heavy French accent, "yes, the neck should be clear before addressing the cranium." He admitted, however, that whenever he attempted to unwind the neck, it appeared to move every which way, randomly, forever with no conclusion. That hour I began doing Rich’s motion palpation using Bruno’s ultra slow motion.
At home I pored over my notes from Brian Utting and found the exact muscle that needs to relax to allow full AA Rotation—the Obliquus Capitis Inferior. The article I published in 2003 in Massage Therapy Journal outlined my new discovery.
Accelerating Education
Looking back, the first articles were clunky. I have rewritten the descriptions several times a year for more than six years now. At first a challenge to teach, I have found that people learn it very easily now. I believe two things have happened—one, I can explain it in much simpler terms now, and the students seem quicker to grasp it. Maybe it’s like Rupert Sheldrake’s Hundredth Monkey Theory: once enough people have learned a skill, it becomes part of the common heritage of all people, by way of our DNA resonating with each other. Someday we won’t have to teach Melting Muscles anymore, it will be common knowledge.
2006 Treating Deserving Runners
In Phoenix I began volunteering my hands and my table at First Fridays Artwalks and at the Saturday Morning workouts of a running coach named Bill Strachan.
I made an amazing discovery; if I set up my table or chair to give free massage at arts events, nobody would lie down, but if I set up my table at the finish line of a 10-mile training run, people would line up. People finishing their workout feel they deserve a massage. More importantly, because ongoing running activates a ongoing deservingness, runners heal very quickly (often in one session) and permanently. Coach Bill said I was "second only to Jesus himself." The runners seem to agree that my hands are magic but I keep telling them the magic originates within them. I’m currently working on another article about the deserving factor.
2007 Laura Bruno, Medical Intuitive and Brain Injury Healing
I continued coaching by IM with Stephen Bruno until 2007, when Lyme Disease threatened his life, forcing him into retirement. I continued coaching with his wife, Laura Bruno, a gifted Medical Intuitive, and author of the book, If I Only Had A Brain Injury.
In 2008 I bought Laura’s book. As I read how Laura’s brain injury had caused her to lose 30 points of IQ, increasing her defensiveness and light sensitivity, it suddenly dawned on me that my history was similar. My brain was knocked around … (I jotted them down on paper and counted) … twenty one times by the time I was mid-way through college. Laura also emailed me a link to a video by Jill Bolte Taylor which I deeply identified with. Seeing my life as a long pattern influenced by brain injury, gave me a feeling of relief—"hey, it’s not my fault I didn’t finish that Eagle Scout and that Master’s degree. It’s not my fault my test scores dropped from 98th percentiles to 50th. It’s not my fault I couldn’t get a Math Teacher career going… My brain was injured!" I see in writing this biography that my life dipped into a low point, literally down in the mud, and has been climbing up, slow and steady since then. With Stephen and Laura’s help, my healing continues to accelerate. Now that Laura has given me a very accurate picture of my past, I admit it is tempting to see myself as who I was then. But I see health challenges as a way to receive something even better than things were before the challenge.
I am now doing brain sessions for others and teaching brain healing classes. I have also attended several of Laura’s classes on Animal Communication, Angel Healing, Creative Writing (her MFA), Reiki Topics, and Medical Intuition.
Laura also helped me discover my soul-mate, Traci, and encouraged me to return to the novel I’ve always wanted to write. Thank you, Laura!
2009 Stephen Bruno Returns to Life
Stephen would have died of Lyme Disease without Laura’s healing gifts. He is now offering coaching/healing at http://moon-rock.com I consider Stephen my mentor. None of my discoveries and teaching would have been possible without him. I couldn't recommend his services more highly!
Current Lifestyle
I married Writer Traci Moore in January, 2008 and we moved to sunny, spiritual Tucson in November, 2008. On our property I have my own free standing office where I give therapy sessions, phone and IM coaching, teach small groups, and write articles and fiction. My novel uses the character Simon Peter to explore how a person can release his attachment to the past and move forward in healing and forgiveness. I am the Stand-Up Comedian and MC for Traci’s Live Literary Magazine, Monsoon Voices, and together we read, select, and edit the submissions. I occasionally write poetry, some of which has been published in A Night Of Summer Rain. Traci and I like to do free-form dance, jogging, live food potlucks, eating at Chopped, going to the library, lectures at UA, poetry and literary events, and sharing each other’s writing. I read voraciously.
Future
I intend to finish my first novel by the end of 2009
I’d like to invent a face cradle that takes 51% of the weight of the head onto the zygomatic arches, and the rest evenly distributed around the face including the jaw.
I believe Melting Muscles will eventually become common knowledge, taught as basic curriculum in massage schools.
I see the human race as evolving quickly with much hope for our future.
I have many ideas, innovations, and inventions to share beyond the scope of bodywork.
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