aRISING GAIA

Hello. My name is KC McLean and I've been a certified holistic health practitioner, massage therapist and yoga teacher for over thirty years. I also have degrees in Critical race, gender and sexuality, Liberal arts and Dance. I believe in a holistic/ bigger picture approach and that we can not be seen separate from our world. I integrate my social studies with my holistic practices. To borrow a quote from Cornel West, I believe "Justice is what love looks like in public"  I offer yoga classes and private instruction, meditation, wellness coaching, consciousness raising groups, massage therapy and other practices to connect mind and body that I have learned over the years. A list of some of my offerings are on the services page here. If you would like to explore other offerings please contact me through the email below. I co-own and direct a non-profit called Arising Holistic Community Center in Arcata California. Most of my work happens there. For more information about the center and a current calendar of classes and events, please check out www.arisingcommunity.com. You can message me below if you are interested in workshops, classes, working with me privately or for an event. To learn more about my specific offerings and what I do please click on the Services page at the top. All first time consultations are free to make sure we are a good fit to work together.

     Arising Gaia came to me after a series of prompts from the universe. I originally wanted to connect the name of my holistic center and the work I do there in health and wellness with my other interests and degrees which include sociology, environmental studies and intersectional analysis. Then I had a profound breathworkexperience in which I understood that the name was also connecting itself to my mother and all I have learned from her and her experiences with western medicine. I realized that I hadn't been sharing her powerful story. One reason was that after she died I felt like the story was too heavy even though the story has uplifted so many. I also received a deep knowing that it would be so healing for myself as well as others to share her story.

     Around 1972 my mother was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease and was treated with radiation therapy. This burnt her skin and caused scar tissue in her throat which prevented her from being able to swallow. She was given a tracheal tube to breathe and a feeding tube to eat. Years later she had a breast removed because of a tumor and then another tumor removed from between her ribs. These were among other surgeries and a constantly irritated stoma where her feeding tube would degrade because it was not made to last. She was considered a medical anomaly and lived twenty years longer than her diagnosis  or diagnonsense. During this time she was a teacher, a physical therapist and got a masters degree and became a MFCC. She lived a very full and happy life and was constantly talking to me about gratitude. She was the most grateful, gracious, loving, giving and happy person I ever met. I believe the constant awareness of what limited time she had made her treat each moment as something really precious. Toward the end of her life she was reading books like Bernie Siegal's "Love Medicine and Miracles" and telling me that I needed to listen to my own body. My journey with holistic health started from these years, from growing up visiting too many hospitals and watching this incredible  woman transcend her circumstances. I learned many things from these experience such as death and illness are not failures, the journey is important, we can know ourselves better than anyone else and we need to listen to our bodies.

     The holistic health field feels like a destiny, a calling and the a path that has lead to incredible insights and healing in my own life. I love the term holistic which means "characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole" I love this as it is traditionally understood in the wellness industry as including mind and spirit as a part of physical health but also as a person in community in the world in the universe. In my work I try to see the biggest picture possible, looking at a person as an interconnected being. My intention is through our work together that we not only see ourselves and each other with love but also recognize we are love and the true power of that realization..

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