Students in Cancer Clinic Training listen to Connie Smith share about her experience with breast cancer and how receiving massage and Reiki in the clinic provided her relief, calm, and a sense of well-being.

     Ms. Smith has been coming to the Healing Arts Center’s cancer clinic since she started receiving treatment for breast cancer in 2016.  She shared with the students in the Cancer Clinic Training about how restorative it was to come to the clinic and feel cared for and nurtured in contrast to her experience of beginning cancer treatment at the hospital.  Connie provides a personal perspective in the training for students to understand what cancer clients are going through and the difference that the Cancer Clinic makes. Contributing to the student’s training is only one of the ways in which Connie has demonstrated her commitment to the clinic.  She has become a very energetic advocate for Cancer Clinic because of the unique care that it provides for people dealing with the effects of cancer treatment, chemo, radiation, surgery.

     Over the past three  years, no one has entered the student body at The Healing Arts Center without the help and encouragement of Rocela Ginther.  Not only has she been part of a management team that has increased enrollment at HAC by nearly 31% since 2014, she has greeted prospective students with openness and ease, allowing them to find an educational path that fits them.  The Healing Arts Center does not "sell" its education.  Because its unique and highly transformative program requires students to be ready and willing to learn and change, it is important that students find and choose HAC rather than the other way around.  The school has a long standing policy of refraining from talking prospective students into enrollment.  Rocela is well known among our students for giving them the space and the encouragement that they needed to choose and begin a life-changing journey.

    The Order of Twin Hearts (OTH) takes its name from the Meditation on Twin Hearts for World Peace originally taught by Pranic Healing Grand Master Choa Kok Sui.  Master Choa was one of the most important teachers of HAC Headmaster, Tom Tessereau.  Tom was a member of Master Choa's inner circle of disciples and it is the teaching on Twin Hearts that has become the foundation of the spirit of The Healing Arts Center.  The Twin Hearts meditation links the crown and heart chakras (the Twin Hearts) to draw down divine energy into a human being to empower compassion and healing on a global level.

     The Order of Twin Hearts is HAC's honor society.  Fittingly named after the Meditation on Twin Hearts for World Peace, The Order represents the highest acknowledgement that HAC gives to students.  Students are selected by the faculty for this honor and are considered to be those who best reflect the commitment to skill and compassion taught at The Healing Arts Center.  On December 15, 2017 in addition to five massage therapy students who will be inducted, we are proud to announce that six graduates from our first Advanced Energy Medicine Master Track will join this esteemed body of HAC alumni.

     On December 15, 2017, The Healing Arts Center will hold its second biggest graduation in history.  HAC is expected to graduate sixteen massage therapy training program (MTTP) students and twenty-three Advanced Energy Medicine Master Track students.  The faculty has selected five of the MTTP students to be inducted into the Order of Twin Hearts, HAC's elite honor society.   The Order takes its name from the Meditation on Twin Hearts for World Peace originally taught by Pranic Healing Grand Master Choa Kok Sui.
      Order of Twin Hearts inductees are nominated by the faculty.  Each faculty member is only given two votes.  Inductees must receive nominations from at least two faculty members.   Every inductee must have at least 90% original attendance for every class and clinic that they take throughout their education.  While the selection criteria is undefined, the faculty nominate students who best represent "the spirit of The Healing Arts Center" meaning that they exhibit compassionate practice of massage therapy and devotion to using their skills for healing. 
      "It takes your breath away to see The Order of Twin Hearts grow each level session with addition of amazing people.  They are the best of the best and we are very proud of them", said HAC president, Dave Kenyon.   "OTH members completely get what we are doing here and while their sense of service requires them to go last during the graduation ceremony, they will all step out front to lead this profession."   
     Congratulations to our newest Order members and to all our graduates.  We are very proud of you and take great solace in knowing that you will be stepping into the world to relieve suffering and promote well being.

In ancient times lomi would go on for hours or even days.  Then the Kahuna, a healer, and the recipient would go to the ocean to be restored by the gods.  They would drink herbal remedies, be pounded, pinched, rolled, and sleep on the beach wrapped in kapa cloth(a traditional cloth made from pounded bark).  The recipient would then be covered in sand and warm stones and watched over all night by their family. In the morning, there would be more ocean therapy and lomi.  The process would continue for three to five days.  Upon completion of the ritual, the kahuna would consult with the Spirit of the body.  If all was in balance, Spirit would speak to one of the Kahunas and the lomi was "pau” (finished).  Huge celebrations would ensue, and all the village would come to witness the re-united body and soul.  A luau would mark the recipients complete body and spirit reunification.  The reunion of body and Spirit would affect the entire village.  One person’s healing was a healing for the entire tribe!

    The excitement was palpable at The Healing Arts Center on Thursday, March 16 as one-by-one all twenty-five students took their places in an very large meditation circle.  The River Room was packed. Some students had just graduated from HAC's massage therapy training program the week before.  One had graduated from The Healing Arts Center in 1997.  Some had trained in massage therapy in other schools, while several were not massage therapists at all.   As one HAC graduate put it, "you might come to The Healing Arts Center's massage therapy program for vocational training so that you can get a job, but you come to this class because want to go as deep as you can.   This class is for the committed."   And so it is.  Twenty weeks.  100 hours of instruction in a breath process that changes lives and blows consciousness wide open.  
     For HAC headmaster, Tom Tessereau, this is the culmination of decades of training with some of the pioneers of breathwork like Judith Kravitz.  Tom is an avid practitioner of breathwork and considers it to be his most important health practice.  In his career, he has taught thousands how to release emotional trauma and gain deep personal insight into parts of consciousness not easily accessible even for accomplished meditators. The health effects are outstanding.  As Tom likes to say, "no one ever died from breathing to much."  Basic Transformational Breathwork is a required subject in the Advanced Techniques course, part of HAC's legendary massage therapy program.