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Getting "Stoned" in Berkeley Springs

by Jeanne Mozier

Two of my favorite bodyworkers in Berkeley Springs called recently to offer me a free trial of their latest technique. They insisted I needed to try it from both of them, to appreciate the subtle differences. "Come and get stoned," they said. How could I refuse?

Hot and cold stones, black and white, shaped marble and sleek basalt are the key ingredients of a body therapy called LaStone, developed by Arizona-based Mary Hannigan less than a decade ago. Although the use of heated stones for healing is ancient, Harrigan modernized the process, integrated it into standard massage therapy and created a technique that could be branded and taught. Packaging is the key concept here.
Let me attest to its effectiveness. Getting stoned in Berkeley Springs works. Not only is it relaxing and induces a level of giddiness that usually accompanies the illegal process (which is totally unrelated to La Stone) but it's good for the massage therapist. You can imagine how tough all that kneading and poking is on a therapist's hands and wrists. In this technique, the stones do some of the heavy work as well as transmitting their healing warmth back to the user as well as forward to the receiver.

Evelyn Garcia administered the stones to me first. Hers is a subtle and gentle touch with a distinctly spiritual tone. An earthy and nature oriented soul, she was immediately attracted to the process. "I heard about it, then had a dream where all the techniques came to me. When I went to be trained, I found out that what I had dreamed was what I was shown in the training," said Evelyn. She emphasizes balancing energy in her massage work and finds the stones extremely effective in this arena. We began in the usual fashion, with me draped in a sheet on the massage table. Evelyn's soft voice explained the process as she extracted the sleek black stones from a white Hamilton Beach turkey roaster sitting on a nearby table. It's the tool of choice for heating the rocks to the recommended 120 to 140 degrees, at least until some chic entrepreneur takes the per pound timing table off the front, has it manufactured in purple and renames it La Stone cooker.

" There are 54 stones of varying shapes and sizes," Evelyn said, "each with a different purpose." There are toe stones which are tiny enough to fit between your toes. There are large and solid tummy stones. And there are spinal alignment stones which are what she used first. Evelyn had me sit up, arranged the black stones on the table in a double line then eased me back down on top of them. Carefully selecting each stone from its warm bath, she placed additional ones on the various chakra points, locations on the body believed to be centers of whirling life force.

While working on my torso, the stones were placed on the sheet over my skin and Evelyn was careful throughout the process to check with me as to the degree of heat. "Is that too hot?" she asked placing a stone on my forehead, in the palms of my hands, on the soles of my feet. It never was too hot.
The stones are volcanic in origin and collected from various places. They are purchased as a set although Evelyn plans to collect her own. There is ritual involved in their care; they need a lot of labor as pet rocks never did. The stones are cleaned daily. They must be warmed ahead of time. They require recharging which means putting them out in the sun, preferably in contact with the earth so they can gather energy. "Setting them out during thunderstorms is an especially good time," said Evelyn. The theory is that the stones have inherent energy that is released into the person on whom they are used.

For me, Evelyn's subtle energy work did not have the head smacking effect that Michael Pushkin's more physical massage with the stones did. I actually felt dazed when Michael finished. He used cold stones along with the hot for an invigorating effect. There is nothing for release like a slab of white marble taken directly from a cooler packed with ice and placed on a tight shoulder that just had hot rocks worked into the tension points. "Cold stones get the blood pumping" said Michael. In other circumstances, this could be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Laying on a massage table with stringed music in the background, it's a cutting edge health treatment for which clients are clamoring at a cost slightly higher than the standard massage.

Michael's training is in medical massage and he uses the stones to do deeper work releasing tension points and loosening myofascia -- the sheath of tissue that covers muscles. While Evelyn trained in Miami with a teacher who emphasized the energy aspect of the work, Michael went to Manhattan and learned from someone who did deep tissue massage.

During the active massage part of the treatment, both Evelyn and Michael used the stones as if they were an extra pair of hands; and it was difficult to tell the difference from my point of feel. "Very tight areas immediately suck heat from the stones," Michael said as he switched a stone he was using. When I asked why the stone on my sacrum not only did not lose heat during the time it was sitting there but actually got hotter, he was honest. "I don't know. Sometimes they just do that."

While Berkeley Springs honestly earns its title as the country's first spa from a historical perspective, it has to work to keep a top position on the contemporary spa circuit. And that means encouraging massage therapists to learn and use new techniques.

Go to www.berkelesyprings.com/spa for more information on all that Evelyn and Michael can do to your body.