W ounds into Blessings was first written, in 1998, as an adaptation of Fred Mitouer's doctoral

thesis, White Silk ~ Black Leather. Back then the field of Bodywork and Somatics was in its nascent

form, not unlike the Internet. Since then, much has changed in our socio-economic world, especially in

technology and in our scientific understanding of the relational dynamic between consciousness, molecular

biology and psychological states of awareness. Yet with all the "change" in technological literacy and

somatic awareness, one must question whether substantive transformation in the modern human's inner

life is really possible without a sincere, dedicated intention to grow the full capacity of what it means to

be human.

This book chronicles this inquiry into what it means to grow one's humanness -- both as a recipient of the

hands-on healing work and as a practitioner. And it is also an historical portrait of a healing artist's

initiation into the discovery of how healing works and how it is capable of uniting the soulful and messy

depths of human suffering with the transcendental heights of redemptive spiritual valence.