Hello, my name is Sam Deraeve. I’m 35 years old and am passionate about water: my source of life and healing. This element has been a central focus in my professional journey for many years. I am increasingly dedicated to awakening the life forces within people and nature. Emphasizing the significance of touch and nurturing the body as a warm sanctuary for the I is becoming increasingly important to me. My motivation for mastering the therapeutic art of Rhythmical Massage Therapy as indicated by Dr. Ita Wegman for both myself and my clients lies in utilizing directed touch and rhythmical movement to stimulate the body’s self-healing ability using these life forces within and around us.

‘The longer I work with water, the greater my awe for this element.’

My holistic practice, based near the Belgian Sea, is named Holy Well – your source of vitality (www.holywell.be). This name symbolizes both the non-physical source from which each individual derives their essence as well as water’s role as a carrier of life force and consciousness.

I developed a strong interest in the healing properties and life-giving forces of water. Since over 9 years, I have incorporated energetic technologies based on quantum physics from AQwaTech, a Belgian company, into my practice to stimulate the self-healing abilities of humans, animals, and plants. My therapy also focuses on making tap water and the environment free of radiation and filled with vital energy. Using this technology, I have extended my services to schools, businesses, organic farms, and private homes. I have successfully transformed stressful environments into supportive and vital spaces at the local Waldorf school.

‘Water taught me that the energetic component is much more important than the chemical composition.’

Engaging in artistic activities such as clay work, soapstone carving, form drawing and painting has become a regular pursuit for me. These art forms have taught me how to infuse life into inert materials according to spiritual principles.

This spring (2024) all of the rivers I followed come together and make a bigger stream more strongly. I started the 2.5 year training in Rhythmical Massage Therapy as indicated by Dr. Ita Wegman at Emerson College, UK.

My whole being knew this training would bring profound changes in my experience of life.

During the first module the teachings and, most profound, practice and exercising the rhythmical movements day by day opened my whole being for a much deeper, much more lively way of experiencing my body, time, relationships, … I could clearly experience how step by step, stroke by stroke my body became and is becoming more of a home to live in. A great new dimension to my research on water and formative forces opened via the Rhythmical Massage Therapy Training. I literally dived into a much deeper way of connecting to the healing properties of water, from inside out, which I’m excited to share with you.

‘Hands have the greatest capacity for change.’

Water listens. Water receives. Water fills the space in which it streams. Water takes the shape of which it touches.

Practicing Rhythmical Massage Therapy my hands, and my whole being are becoming water, listening, diving into the unknown, centering in the heart. Surrendering to the healing flow and rhythms of watery movements. These qualities, combined with my awareness and intentions become the alchemy of healing via therapeutic touch in Rhythmical Massage Therapy.

Water carries all of the history of the person I touch. In our body the fluid realm is the carrier of these past processes. In my mind the song ‘River’ from Geoffrey Oryema resounds: “When I dip my hands into your water, I feel your soul…”.  Via this Art of Massage I discover a concrete way to balance the four bodies of an individual. It is an exciting step towards supporting myself and my clients to master the four elements.

Water as an elemental force and substance is a mediator, a bridge between the invisible and the visible world. It is the solution in which life becomes caried in time processes. ‘Dead’ substances are subject to gravity. The moment water enters in play, life starts to happen. Parts become connected, they inter-act, take part in the timestream of Life. In the words of Nobel prize winner Albert Gyiorgyi: “Water, the Hub of Life. Water is its mater and matrix, mother and medium. Life is water, dancing to the tune of solids.” Substances are elevated into an new dimension: Life.

“We are columns of water”, Steiner described the human body. Touching a person, we are dipping into a structured pond of patterns. Water, by it’s nature has the tendency to restructure and recharge itself, being able to receive information from the surrounding and provide energy. “When water is healthy it has a complex structure that enables it to communicate information, carry energy, nutrients and healing, to self-cleanse and discharge wastes”, Victor Schauberger quoted it.

Observing the intrinsic movement dynamics of water out in nature, reveals us a lot about healing properties in (human) life.

Dipping into the body, adapting to the ‘pond’ you enter has effects, comparable with those of restructuring water as we observe it out in nature. The skin and muscle tension, the shapes, the temperature, the colour, … reveals a lot about whether physical and etheric, astral and I are in a healthy relationship.

Depending on the part of the body that is treated, different movement qualities and intensities are needed to stimulate the whole embodied human being to rebalance him/herself according to it’s ideal shape.

Water, passing a stone, changes the hard surface into a soft, moving shape.

The gestures evoke a healthy dance between gravity and levity.

Every movement, like in healthy water, adopts to the surface in a light, uplifting way.

Giving the body space to restructure and reshape itself. Binding where structure is needed, loosening too dense area’s.

‘Water teaches me life is embedded in rhythm.’

Every body is a unique piece of music. Every organ is. Schooling oneself in the therapeutic, flowing movements used in Rhythmical Massage Therapy one can become receptive to the power of, using the expression of Dr. Girke, ‘Touch Medicine’. A whole treatment on the body gives recognition to the receiver about the song which he/she is build of. Like in the depths of the unconscious, the depts of the water forces are moving us. Shaping us from inside out, from outside in.

Water is a constant stream of rhythm and flow. You act as if you are in water.

To do so one has to train oneself in becoming water-like. The more the practitioner is in a state of healthy rhythm, a state of connectedness to oneself and the other simultaneously, the more one can truly create an intimate, therapeutic and individual treatment.

 As a result people who have received a treatment report to have a much deeper relaxation and sleep and at the same time feel enlivened, more upright and aware of their body.

Making the gestures and sequences purely mechanically will reduce the effects dramatically.

The Rhythmical Massage Therapy Training is a path to knowledge of higher worlds. Water is the bridge. A treatment is an act in this deep state of etheric activity.

‘Your body is a piece of art, an ensouled miracle. Don’t try to make it a machine.’

Water is the most connecting element of the four. The gestures and movements honor that principle deeply. Every gesture follows another in a smooth and streaming way. The attitude and the movements the moment one does not touch the body and make a transition are as important. They are part of the rhythmic dance you are having with yourself and your client.  

The lemniscates and vortexes found in water movement, and thus in life forms, also play an essential role in the hand movements. Lemniscates have a great capacity for rebalancing and reconnecting. Bringing poles back in connection, into a rhythmic flow. As can be observed in the beauty and vitality of water ‘lemniscating’ in flow forms. Vortex movements in water have great mysteries of carrying and releasing energy in their directed and powerful stream from outside in, upside down and from inside out, downside up. Their dynamics are used to release tensions and blocked energy in area’s of the body, such as specific organs.

Warm hands, warm heart

The scientist Gerald Pollack, receiver of the first Emoto Peace Prize, dived into the water inside our bodies. He discovered that water inside living beings is, in a healthy state, chemically H3O2, a 4th phase of water, 10% more dense than H2O. A state in which the water molecules structure into hexagonal fields of molecules, row by row, and full of energy, functioning like a battery.

The water inside our cells, ideally is in this structured, charged, clean state of H3O2. And guess which quality facilitates the water to return to this state: Warmth. No coincidence Antroposofic Medicine is often called a Medicine of Warmth.

The hands of the practitioner need to be warm. Preferably from inside out. Expressing the warmth of the I-presence in the treatment. A Rhythmical Massage Therapy treatment has a warming and soothing effect on the whole being. People can experience the same feeling of protection, care, surrounding and enveloping as bathing in warm, vital water can give. Allowing the water inside the cells to restructure, cleanse and reshape. Allowing the I and the astral body to reconnect or disconnect, depending on the need.

The moment you touch water it moves in all directions. The moment you let go, it keeps on moving for a long time still. The rest period is an essential part of the ‘song’. Where the whole being, packed well, in it’s own warmth can deeply rebalance and restructures. Floating on the echo of the treatment.

The sacredness and preciseness of this way of communicating with one’s body is literally moving me into states of consciousness, connectedness and vitality as I have never experienced before. I find myself developing, diving deeper, day by day into the realm of surrender and trust in life. Continuing the ‘Riversong’: “You have the power to deliver, so let it flow, just let it flow…”. My whole being is deeply grateful to be in this training. I revere the impuls Dr. Steiner, Dr. Wegman and later Dr. Hauschka and many more have given, and are giving today.

Rhythmical Massage Therapy feels like alchemy on a body. With etheric rhythms and intelligence as my guide, and water as my carrier.

Sometimes in life, doing something of which you just know, and feel, with your whole being: This is what I’m here for. Every step I made in the past has let me to this point. I feel I have reached my purpose in life, my Dharma. I’m coming home.

In Rhythmical Massage Therapy as indicated by Ita Wegman I find one of the greatest answers to today’s challenges. It is clearly part of a stream which renews the old wisdom traditions of healing.

The world needs this enlivening way of bringing care, gentle touch, warmth and healthy rhythm back in order.

We are now taking applications for the next cohort of this course, module 1B commences in August 2024.  Click here for further information.