Alvina's Founders Day 2024 Editorial

Insight Acupressure: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Founders Day Edition 2024 in Celebration of Dr. Aminah Raheem’s December 5th Birthday

Aminah’s birthday is December 5th and over the years many of us have been able to celebrate with her and each other in her beloved Borrego Springs or other locations where she taught. 

Process Acupressure had a Patron Saint Our Lady of Guadeloupe. We would go to the Shrine of Our Lady in Borrego Springs where there was also a labyrinth. We would walk nestled in between mountains and hills over Badlands. We would explore on Vision Quest Days and before breakfast during class times, hike to an oasis in the desert past the skirted palms and millions years old shoal craggy paths, and see the plant known to heal women’s issues — the Ocotillo whose rich red flowers and needled, green petalled branches reached up to the open skies from the cracked earth, welcomed us to our healing place among the earth and the stars.  And we gathered.  We studied, We Played, We practiced, We swam, We Cavorted. Some have memories of flowers bursting everywhere in a carpet of wildflowers that changed their life, some remember karaoke from the most staid one of us!,  and celebrations of birthdays and gifts galore, gathering together to cook and treat each other in the highest personal regard, our community, our healing, our trust, the power of the deep earth in Borrego and the celestial stars of meteor showers that lasted all night long and into the day, hummingbird nests on pool hooks and snow capped mountains, the ram (borrego), snakes, and other critters like the road runner, coyotes, and more. 

Aminah brought PA around the world to Switzerland, Italy, India, England, planting seeds and strong branches (Thanks Jackie May!!) to our satellites —  Hadas in Israel,  Terry Haag in Haiti, more!!!  Christopher Reeve Foundation Special Needs groups and so much more (Girl Scouts Badge??!!) with Gina Rosenthal, our nurse teams at the first ever face transplant in Washington D.C., Cardiac assistance with Liz Monson, And colleague and hospital self-care with Claire Howell in Ohio and all the Corvalis, Oregon & Cleveland nurses, The Good Points Self-Care Program stimulated by Sue Lovett, where are our seeds popping up now?  What do you bring to the table?

Dr Raheem was formidable and she was also our friend.  She was a force who created a magnificent piece of work that we use and teach today for self-awareness and health that can be shared the world over.  That’s no mean feat.  It takes heart and that’s what Aminah had a good and loving heart as well as a sharp as ever mind to help the world and to help us to help the world.  Starting with ourselves.  Consider yourself gathered and blessed by this amazing acupressure world.

Almost a year and a half ago Aminah went to her most high place of service from the ethers.  As her husband Dr Fritz Smith , founder of Zero Balancing said, “It’s where she will do the most good as she’s wanted to do for so long”.  Within the year Dr Smith joined her in their prayer pyramid of love. We are surely blessed to have them both working with us on the truly spiritual level now.

This edition of our Insight Acupressure Newsletter will offer some stories of our community from our past times together, current work and perhaps a glimpse of what’s to come.  At this time the IA Faculty is managing the website, teaching our program and developing some new offerings both in self-care and advanced acupressure work.  We look forward to seeing you in one of our classes and to communicating with you should you have a story to share or a request for a class in your location or anything that brings us together.

Enjoy!!

Alvina Quatrano, L.M.T.

IA Faculty & Newsletter Editor

How I Met Aminah

In 1998 I was attending a new class called The Art of Zero Balancing by Dr Fritz Smith at Baltimore School of Massage.  I was also anticipating completing my Zero Balancing Certification personally with Dr Smith. My roommates were taking another class called Process Acupressure with Dr Aminah Raheem.   We all shared our impressions of each others work.

Immediately, after I was officially certified by Dr Smith in front of a whole class of teachers taking this new class, I came out of the room and met Dr Aminah Raheem who was sitting right outside the door.  I realized that her PA work was the Yin to the Yang of ZB.  It was just what I was looking for in my relatively new practice because in my massage business folks were always processing and I needed to now how to do that effectively and authentically.  I had found my new teacher!! 

Insight Acupressure in Transition 2024

Alvina Quatrano, L.M.T.

Insight Acupressure has been moving with the wave of change since 2019.

Currently, we are enjoying our new website and opportunities that come with the changing tides.

Prescient Teacher Training 2019

In 2019 the Insight Acupressure Faculty commenced a Teacher Training including some new faculty members as well as seasoned teachers.  We all were experimenting with the online form of teaching which seemed to be required to reach everywhere that we wanted to reach.  We were using Go To Meeting at first and pretty quickly we chose Zoom for a better accommodation.  Most of us went kicking and screaming into the new technology and some of us still are going kicking and screaming with it.  But we all considered ourselves quite amazed when March 2020 rolled around and due to the COVID Pandemic no one was leaving their homes and everyone for everything was on Zoom!!!  Well!  We were amazed that we were a little bit ahead of the curve.  But not too much.  We all scrambled that whole year to formulate programming which included getting Webinars approved by massage and nursing boards.  We used our newfound skills immediately,  “feet hit the ground running” and we never stopped. We are continually learning how to do the things we want to do via Zoom;  to make our classes better and more accessible to those who would like to learn Insight Acupressure.

Soul Lighting International Non-Profit Ends 2023

The non-profit organization Soul Lightening International lasted 25 years. After the COVID Years although we did amazingly better than we had in previous years due to our due diligence offering the computer classes, we were really down in class numbers and volunteers to accomplish projects and tasks.  The Board of Directors had all reached the end of their terms having worked tirelessly for years.  The BOD requested replacements but there were no replacements.  As a non-profit there are certain regulations and one is that you need a BOD.  So the decision was made to dissolve the non-profit status of Soul Lightening International. The work could continue but the name Soul Lightening International would be discontinued according to Non-Profit Statues in State of California.

New Name; New Website

In 2024 with the dissolution of Soul Lightening International non-profit we again scrambled.  This time to create a new website so that we could continue the vision of our founder Dr. Aminah Raheem.  The faculty came together and agreed on a new name for the community — Insight Acupressure.  It took three months.  The first name we chose had already been taken so we had to go back to the drawing board.  Deanna Waggy chose a virtual assistant Rosane Pires to help her to get the website up and running.  The faculty all pitched in to finance the project for the first year.  We have been building it in stages according to our needs, talents and financial capabilities.

Future of Insight Acupressure

We continue to develop both in-person and online classes.

The two-day Introduction to Insight Acupressure was created as an in-person class — a celebration of coming out of COVID Years.

Cathy Miller has developed an Acupressure for Acupuncturists class and is updating her Clinical Acupressure 3: Extraordinary Vessels Classes too.

Insight Acupressure is moving forward with anticipation in the Mid-West with a lot of new students from Cleveland Clinic, and the Wisconsin and Indiana areas thanks to Deanna Waggy.

Jackie May has taken on the SEVA Teacher Meetings with a 5-Element Theme.

Sue Lovett has created Yoga and Self-Care Acupressure Classes both online and in-person.   It’s thanks to Sue that our Good Points Program was launched during the COVID Years (still continuing).  She has a new AcuYoga card deck for self-care.

Deanna Waggy, Sue Lovett and Alvina Quatrano have been organizing the website and newsletter outreach.

You!!

All Insight Acupressure Community Members are welcome to submit articles to be considered for the newsletter to Alvina.  We would love to hear about your classes.  Please reach out to share any of your expertise with us.  We look forward to hearing from you and to collaborating in any way we can.