A bit about leslie

Since 1984 I’ve supported women’s health and innate wisdom through wilderness rites of passage journeys, birth guidance, and bodywork.

In addition to offering ultra-relaxing therapeutic massage for women, I also focus on the “forbidden zones”! Womb & belly health, Fertility concerns, Pregnancy & Postnatal care, Breast health, and Sacro-iliac and Pelvic floor issues. 

I’ve offer the following approaches:

  • Arvigo Techniques of Mayan Abdominal Massage™
  • Holistic Pelvic Care ™
  • Fertility Bodywork
  • Integrative Pelvic Bodywork
  • Pregnancy Massage
  • Massage & Acupressure for Birthing
  • New Mother Bodywork
  • Breast Massage
  • Abdominal Massage
  • Moontime Menstruation Massage
  • Bodywork for Moon-pause
  • Watsu™

MY BODYWORK STYLE

With over 26 years experience and thousands of hours of training, I integrate various bodywork approaches including:

  • Swedish
  • Myofascial Release
  • Stretch-Resistance
  • Cranial Sacral Therapy
  • Acupressure
  • Energy Awareness & Reiki
  • Reflexology

MY TeACHERS

I’m grateful for the teachers who have helped me deepen skills, knowledge, compassion, and humility!

Chris Olson. Steven & Meredith Foster-Little. Elaine Marie. Rosita Arvigo.  Terri Nash. Martin Prechtel. Carol Gray. Jennifer Mercier. Tami Kent. Tom Myers. Til Luchau. The whales and dolphins of Maui. My mother. Terri Nash. Martin Prechtel. Wild Earth. 

LESLIE’S BACKGROUND:: EARTH–BIRTH–DEATH  

EARTH: In my early life, I lived with a small band of children and two adults in the woods of Maine, homesteading, and traveling by horse-cart through Greece with gypsies. This followed with living alone in the wilds,  foraging wild plants and developing old-ways skills. I studied rites of passage work with Stephen and Meredith Foster-Little, learned tracking skills with Tom Brown, and explored Aboriginal Life Skills at Boulder Outdoor Survival School. These experiences nurtured a spirit-root that has carried me through my life and weaves into my bodywork style.

 

BIRTH: Bridging eventually into mainstream society, I became a Registered Nurse and worked a decade with birthing families as a labor & delivery nurse, childbirth educator and doula. I also became a massage therapist and developed MotherTouch Massage Certification programs, which I now teach worldwide. In 2008 I published Nurturing Massage for Pregnancy,  co-produced MotherTouch educational videos about touch and birth and taught for the DVD by Real Bodywork: Mastering Pregnancy Massage.

I see myself as a rites of passage guide–escorting those in need through spiritual and physical encounters with earth, birth, and death–and as educator– encouraging professionals to support women with safe  and caring touch throughout the perinatal cycle while honoring the dynamic cyclical realities of women’s bodies. 

“DEATH”: After 7 days and nights walking and fasting alone in the desert, I understood my life’s work to be about Earth, Birth, Death. Death gains more focus as I age, always aware of the imminence and certainty of my own mortality . Currently, I work as a hospice nurse, and aim to help people approach life and death consciously and reverently.

 

CURRENTLY: I teach worldwide, have a private bodywork practice in Nevada City, CA, am a nurse with the local Hospice. I study with Martin Prechtel–continuing to appreciate the subtle and dramatic energies of birth and death, and practicing living fully during this experience on earth.

OTHER INTERESTS:

I love to write, paint on silk, dance tango, and have always been a wild foods enthusiast.

Click for MORE INFORMATION ABOUT RITES OF PASSAGE AND MY ART & WRITING