By Renée Tillotson

“Lightning Strikes” Part 1

We do not know what rays from how many quarters of the heavens are focussed on the burning point of consciousness. – George William Russell

I once saw an original Van Gogh painting, open, with no glass. Through that painting came pouring a rush of light and color, with intense emanation of love for life.

Oh my gosh, I wondered. Where on earth is this energy coming from? The artist who painted this picture has been gone for more than a century! But this energy streaming through is almost palpable….

What is the source of creativity? That question has long tickled my philosophical and practical curiosity. Seeing that Van Gogh flashed this suggestion into my mind: The act of creativity opens a portal into the unseen universe for something of a certain frequency and intent to make its way into the physical world. When paired with the George William Russell quote above, I get the image of the creative mind acting like a lightning rod, ready to receive inspiration like “rays from how many quarters of the heavens”. 

It’s not a smooth, rounded dome that attracts the creative lightning bolt. No. The artist, visionary, ground-breaking scientist or mathematician needs to mount that lightning rod – that burning point of consciousness – upwards, through their intense training, meditation and effort. It’s a molding of their will, mind, and heart energy over a sustained period of endeavor. 

Sometimes I think of Still & Moving Center as a community field in which individuals can collectively harness their energies to send up such a lightning rod and receive precious downloads from the universe to benefit the greater whole.

Let me suggest the first of at least three examples of creative “lightning strikes” here at Still & Moving.

Ever since we opened in 2011, Jivatma Messageur was a big part of Still & Moving Center’s creative process, taking major roles, for example, in our Ramayana enactments at Diwali.

By trade, she was one of our talented massage therapists. Within a few years of our opening, both Jivatma and another of our body workers, Daniel Tsukayama, were each doing a fairly new massage practice called Ashiatsu that focused on using their feet more than their hands. They were aware of the risks of carpel tunnel syndrome in the wrists, tendonitis in the hands and arms, muscle strain from leaning over a massage table, and repetitive stress injuries from giving deep tissue massage as commonly practiced. They were both looking for ways to take care of their bodies as they helped other people’s. I approved, knowing that our lomilomi massage therapist Mālia had originally come to Still & Moving with hand and arm injuries from a decade of full-time massage work.

Daniel and Jivatma next decided to team up and asked me to allow them to install parallel bars close to the ceiling of our small massage room at that time. Wanting more of a portable setup that would still allow them to utilize their feet for massage, Daniel and Jiva next tried setting up two low-standing parallel bars on the floor for the client to lie between to get worked on. That setup was too confining. What to do?

Still & Moving was already experiencing a lot of cross-disciplinary inspiration and growth across our teaching modalities. I was incorporating aspects of hula and tai chi into my Nia classes, while Malia was incorporating Feldenkrais, martial arts and yoga into her hula. Within this collaborative setting, Jiva and Daniel looked up at the ceiling of our Barefoot Ballroom and saw, dangling down for aerial classes, all our aerial silks and hammocks. As these lengths of strong, somewhat stretchy fabric got a bit worn, we would retire them. 

By that time, Daniel and Jiva had each been doing various forms of body work for years, striving to find ways to meet the needs of their clients as well as their own bodies’. They asked to use our discarded aerial silks. “Of course,” I answered, curious. They put their inventive inclinations to work.

After several iterations, they eventually came up with a device that attaches to the underside of a massage table, holding the fabric sling in place. The massage therapist stands on top of the table, sling wrapped around their back or over a shoulder, comfortably giving them the support and leverage they need to give their client long, smooth strokes and glides with their feet. 

Eureka! They found their answer. Their collective musing and experimentation seem to have honed that “burning point of consciousness”.

Soon Daniel and Jivatma patented their equipment. They established a new company to provide and especially teach this new massage technique, which they named SARGA. By 2017 SARGA was certified to offer CEUs (Continuing Education Units) to licensed massage therapists who took their training. Hana Hou magazine featured Daniel and Jivatma’s new bodywork method in 2018.

They soon received international recognition for their new, highly unique style of massage. For the last few years, they’ve been traveling the world — throughout North America, Europe, India and Bali — teaching other massage therapists their new technique. At the end of December this year, 2025, they will bring SARGA “home” to Still & Moving Center to provide a training in this technique that they conceived here! It’s SO exciting to share this healthy bodywork and its creators with you!  SARGA BODYWORK® 30-Hour Massage Training with Daniel Tsukayama & Jivatma Massaguer

Conception and creation — two similar, perhaps identical, and certainly equally mysterious processes

I’ll leave you with that final thought to muse upon, my dear readers. Please note: You have at least two other installments of Lightning Strikes to look forward to in future editions of this Life at the Center letter!

As always, we love hearing from YOU, so kindy send your Lightning Strikes experiences of creativity to renee@stillandmovingcenter.com.

Resting in stillness and moving in Joy with you,

Renée