Since the spring, I have been exploring the use of essential oils as a way to maximize life. Never in a million years did I imagine I would be traveling this path.
Exploring the oils began tentatively with the background question of wondering what I was getting into. Well, as it turns out I got into something that has dramatically improved the quality of my life.
Last month one key oil changed everything. It brought JOY into my experience of life on a level I had never experienced or even knew was possible.
Other oils have brought other kinds of openings and are helping me address areas where I feel I am not being all I could be in this one short life. I am also currently noticing how more frequent use of the oils has an effect. It has come to my awareness or understanding that the oils help to recalibrate our ‘energy field’ which, based on my many years as a Shiatsu energetic bodyworker, accounts for the shifts in states of being.
If any of this piques your curiosity–even just a little bit–I would love to talk with you and share my discoveries and possibly provide tools to connect you with your own joyfully fascinating journey of life. I hope you will take me up on this as I would love you to experience what I have experienced: An awakening of joy I did not know possible for the price of a movie for two. Only this ‘movie’ can run for the rest of your life (-:
To reach me, message or email me your email or phone number so that we can arrange a time to talk.
Journey to Joy
The exciting lightness of being
A fascinating Shiatsu + Bars session today. Completing the Shiatsu, the hara (where I sense the condition of the acupuncture meridians or pathways) felt so much more harmonious than at the beginning of the session. I then asked my client if she would like me to run her ‘Bars’* for a bit since I knew she had missed her weekly session. What happened next was quite a surprise.
After running the Bars with great focus and awareness, I checked back in on the hara and was quite surprised at the transition of the hara since running the Bars. The hara felt a multiple of times lighter**. Where before there had been a nice harmony and sense of being settled, after Bars there was a lightness that I was not expecting.
What does this lightness mean? All I really know is that it is something good. Also, it seems that energies feeling light somehow allows for greater and more wonderful possibilities to enter our lives.
What will happen for me and my client as a result of this work? I know I am along for the ride as well since a shift in her energy affects my own!
Stay tuned!
*Learn about Bars at http://www.accessconsciousness.com
**Awareness of ‘light’ and ‘heavy’ as a tool for choosing is a power tool encouraged by Access Consciousness
Are we energy?

Copyright 2003
Today I had a transformational experience of body energetics. Wow. Wow. Wow.
Today I realized that our energy has infinite capacity. We are powerful energetically beyond anything most of us have conceived. As a 25+ year energy bodyworker, I have a unique perspective of energy. My awareness of energy is always expanding and what happened today took it over the top.
Here is what I learned:
The focus in Shiatsu sessions is the flow of energy along the acupuncture pathways. What shifted today was the understanding that this energy has infinite capacity and is infinite.
Think about this: Most people have some awareness of an energy in their bodies and can imagine that energy beyond the boundary of their skin. Once that awareness is established it is only logical to ask where our energy body ends. This is a great question because it seems logical, too, that our energy body is infinite and as large as the Universe, known and unknown.
Maybe who we are is Huge Energy.
Why be aware of energy?
What if expanding our awareness of our Energy Bodies was a part of everyday life? Could this alter our experience of reality and give us the tools to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges?
What if everything, literally everything, is energy? Lets pretend for a moment that this is true because if it were true, changing reality just became a whole lot easier. All we have to do is learn how to play with energy which is really very easy if you come with an open mind.
Would you like to learn and become more aware of what you already know about manipulating energy? If the answer is yes, go to AccessConsciousness.com and find the menu button taking you to a Access practitioners in your area and get your ‘Bars’run. If you would like me to run your Bars, I would be delighted to do so.
What are the ‘Bars’? They are simply and weirdly 32 points on your head that free the energy that is you to play in the world.
Does that make sense? Questions? Comments?
Finding Your Body Voice
Giving our body a voice is a doorway to more ease and joy in our lives. It is also a way of tuning in to our inner voice which can lead us to a smoother experience of life and protect us from problems that might otherwise entangle us. Honoring and listening to our bodies can be a daily or moment by moment practice to check in to while we are making choices throughout our day. These choices can range from what to wear, eat and do. The ‘how to’ can be as simple asking a question and then trusting the answer that comes.
Here is a way to begin giving your body a voice: Next time you have a choice to make about where to go, what to wear or eat or who to spend time with, ask your body if she/he would like to vote. Then give your body a choice by trying this simple question “Body, what would you like in this moment?”. The sometimes seemingly small course corrections that can emerge from this question may yield surprisingly beautiful outcomes.
In the last few months asking this question had me try a new form of exercise–and then return to it again and again as I became aware, to my great surprise, that my body LOVES the experience of an intense strength building form of exercise that I discovered at a local Barre studio, Barre and Beyond (www.barreandbeyondstudio.com). It is as if my body loves giving muscles I did not even know existed a ‘voice’ by becoming the strength and power that they are meant to be. This experience was totally unexpected and has added an energy and aliveness to my life that I did not know was there for me. Your body may desire something different than mine did, all I am saying is that there may be an exciting adventure waiting for you once you begin to allow your body to have a voice in your life.

Mighty Mirth at Barre & Beyond Studio
Your journey listening to your body voice will be different, I only encourage you to stop, ask, listen and then see if good things happen. I hope you will experiment with this question and see what shows up in your life—and let me know what you discover.
Benefits of Shiatsu (+Bars)
Here is a short list of possible benefits of two energy treatments, Shiatsu and the Access Consciousness ‘Bars’. This is a short sampling to illustrate the potency of these healing modalities. Depending on the needs of the moment and other variables, results will vary.
Shiatsu Benefits May Include:
Being in touch with and Being who you truly Be through relaxaton.
Relief from emotional or physical stress or pain.
Clarity about next steps.
Releasing emotional overwhelm and smoothing raw emotions.
Connection with one’s intuition.
Flow stagnant or blocked energies.
Nurturing touch.
Etc.
Bars Benefits May Include:
Relaxation without massage.
Less mind chatter.
Better mood.
Better sleep.
Connection with nature.
New coping tools.
Fun surprises.
Shiatsu offers nurturing, soothing and connecting touch that I have seen precede a person finally get over a lingering flu, breaking through a creative block, softening the rawness of an emotional upset, women finding relief from monthly pain and more. These are common examples illustrating what is possible though everyone has a different experience. I believe these results occur with the release of negative or conflicting emotions or energies thus allowing the body energy to flow smoothly and support well~being–kind of like traffic flowing smoothly on a highway when there are no accidents. People often report feeling lighter after a session, more ‘themselves’, or that their energy is now flowing–all of which leaves one feeling strengthened and empowered.
Bars are quite different. My observation on Bars is that they offer a lightening of heavy energies and create an opening for good news to show up in the person’s world (weird but true). Combined with Access Consciousness tools, getting one’s Bars run can lead to unpredictably good things happening in your life–do I get a YES on good things happening in our lives! Yes!
I also practice Shiatsu and Bars together! A longtime client now cannot imagine her Shiatsu sessions without Bars and prefers her Bars run with Shiatsu.
Please call me or email me about anything on your mind about Shiatsu or Bars.
To more wellness, well~being, balance–and laughter–in our lives.
Annemarie Marti
773.551.4506
annemariemarti@yahoo.com
Current Reflections on Shiatsu + Bars
Shiatsu + Bars has become so basic to my work. Though a Bars session would be just fine without Shiatsu, a Shiatsu session would be less amplified without Bars. Needless to say, adding Bars has been the best addition I have every made to my practice of Shiatsu and the goal of great sessions and great results.
Adding Bars is noteworthy to me because I have always focused exclusively on Shiatsu. Other than my own personal explorations of the Chakras, I have never mixed other healing modalities with Shiatsu. Until now.
This new bodywork ‘cocktail’ is my kinda magical healing potion (:
Liver Meridian Mysteries
Shiatsu is a never-ending journey for me. Each person, each session, a new adventure. As the years go by, the meanings of the meridians clarify, as well as their relationship to one another. Long standing mysteries suddenly become clear.
A first sudden clarification still stands out for me. It was with the Liver meridian which I had learned relates to anger. Yet I also learned that it relates to the Soul and for many years was very confused about how the two could co-exist in the same meridian. The Soul, to me, was an exalted place of purity and purpose—and anger? Well, anger was something emanating from a baser place in our selves!
Then one day, in a session I suddenly saw the connection: Anger is the protector of that exalted place of purity OF purpose*! When a wrong has occurred, whether to ourselves, or another, an animal or our planet, it is an affront to our Soul, that place of exalted vision of who we are, what we can be and where we are going. If something gets in the way then of course we are angry!
*New clarification as I write! Liver is about purity OF (not AND) purpose. Hence, its’ role as detoxifier in our bodies! Also, associated with vision, Liver is about who we are, our Cosmic Task on the planet and being able to SEE and plan for the execution of that Cosmic Task so that the Gallbladder meridian can do ITS’ job, fulfill om its’ Cosmic Task (next topic).
Shiatsu+Bars~~An unexpected journey
As of November 2014, a new energy has become part of my work with Shiatsu. The process by which this energy is contacted is called ‘Bars’ and is being made known through an organization called ‘Access Consciousness’. Though I had heard of Bars two+ years ago, my skepticism was (unfortunately) stronger than my curiosity. Below is a beginning to describing this unexpected journey after 20+ years of practicing Shiatsu(!).
Weaving a new tool called the ‘Bars’ ( https://vimeo.com/72778672) into my Shiatsu Work has been an unexpected and joyous adventure. My Shiatsu Work has ALWAYS been a source of fascination, amazement, interest and joy for me—all of which has been amplified by weaving in the Bars. It feels that the Bars takes the practice of Shiatsu to another level of accessing and empowering the bodies’ energies in ways that I never imagined possible. Even if I only “do” only a small amount of the Bars, the effects on the session are palpable to me as a practitioner from an energetic standpoint but, more importantly they are appearing as noticeable by my ‘Shiatsu-ees’ who have said things like, “that was the best session you ever gave me” (after 10+ years of Shiatsu). As it is often said in the Access Consciousness world—how does it get any better than that?! Another beautiful evolution since adding Bars to my work, is that my experience of the energy as I work has completely transformed into something almost magical. It feels sometimes as if I am moving through a guided meditation that has taken me into a trance-like experience of energy that is not accessible through normal everyday awareness or consciousness. Yet, there I am having a conversation with my Shiatsu-ee AND experience explosions and openings in the flow of their energy. After all these years of practicing Shiatsu (my first class was in 1987), this is something I never expected even as my work has always evolved and changed in ways that were exciting and interesting to me. Please stay tuned for more about Shiatsu, Bars and Shiatsu + Bars! Love, Annemarie