My Body Remembers, By Debbie Rosas.

Words don’t just inform me, they transform me. They awaken the part of me that knows healing is more than medicine, that movement is more than exercise, and that anatomy is more than parts with names. Wisdom, voice, gesture, gaze and thinking are spells best cast with intention and shaped by sensation to choreograph a body and life and experience.

Human beings don’t just speak; they create with language. We are each poets of presence. And when presence deepens into awe, not performative or fleeting, but holy, and life altering, then something miraculous happens and we don’t just learn, we remember. To be in awe is to be rearranged. A sensation of falling to our knees and rising into the Cosmos at the same time.

It’s a pulse, a breath, a revelation in our bones. In awe, every cell in me becomes aware. Every gesture becomes a prayer and I witness something so profound, it rewires what my eyes see, what my voice hears, and the movement and touch of my hands. That’s what happens to me in the lab with Gil Hedley, anatomy teacher, collaborator, and seer of sacred structure.

To me, Gil is not just a teacher. He’s a sage and a sculptor of presence. His work isn’t just about dissecting the body; it’s about unveiling it. With childlike wonder and seasoned reverence, he reveals and reminds me what has always been sacred. Even after over forty years of studying, and living in this body through The Nia Technique, I step into Gil’s lab.

There, I know I will leave changed every time, because awe doesn’t just happen once, it accumulates. It builds layer by layer until suddenly it expands. And in expansion, I glimpse the truth again: I live in a genius body. Standing in the lab, guided by Gil, I descend through the body’s layers as if on a journey of wonder and I remember: this is where I live every day. 

To help me relate to the body on the table, I turn to The Nia Technique method I developed to help deepen the relationship we have with the body, “Look–Listen–Imagine.” This is the practice that brings me back again and again to my own body and its inner landscape. It’s how I translate anatomy into intimacy and look into the body’s terrain, seeing the complexity.

I let my eyes see not just form, but feeling. I listen not with my ears, but with my skin, my breath, and my bones. I hear their voices. The voice of fascia, ripples through me as a language of vibration; a reminder of connection, movement and pulse. And then I imagine. I imagine tendrils spiraling inside me, tugging at the memory of every motion and emotion.

The tissue I hold may no longer be alive, but it echoes my dance, my breath, my life. I see threads pulling and swirling, reminding me of the undercurrent of life force in motion. In these moments, I don’t study, I become and step into the sacred story of anatomy. And that’s when Gil speaks and his words land not in my ears, but in my cells. “Skin is the brain exteriorized,”

And then he says. “Fascia is not just tissue; it’s a whole system.” His voice becomes a thread in my own spiral of knowing. I shift from remembering my words to re-seeing, from knowing to a veil lifting and learning more that makes me a better partner to my body. As Gil continues, his reverence becomes a current that deepens the entire field of every new awareness.

He speaks not just of structure, but of sound—how tissue conducts vibration, how the body is not only architecture, but instrument. A receiver. A resonator. His words move through the room like music and suddenly, I feel it: a tremble in my chest, a vibration of truth rising through my core. I remember the Sanskrit phrase: “Nada Brahma”— the world is sound.

And just like that, what I’ve always sensed intuitively now reveals itself anatomically. The body begins to sing. Touch becomes tone. Movement becomes music. Sensation becomes a symphony. My language deepens. My tools expand. I now have more somatic vocabulary—more ways to help others access the anatomical magic and genius of their own bodies.

Then, Gil steps forward. He stands before the donor body, a sacred teacher he tenderly calls “Mama.” A goddess in her fullness. His voice lowers in reverence. His hands speak in silence. I watch him hold both death and devotion in the same breath. I watch him speak life into stillness, honor pathology with poetry. In that moment, something holy opens inside me.

The room is drenched in sacred stillness. Time stops. Presence becomes eternal. I cry, not out of sadness, but recognition. Because in her the luminous body of the woman before us, I see myself. I see the places I’ve judged for decades: the parts I’ve tried to tame or hide. But Gil reframes it all. Nothing is a flaw, because everything is necessary. It is wisdom. It is holy. 

And just like that, I break open and where there was critique, I find tenderness. Where there was resistance, I feel reverence. I reclaim my body—again. My learning shifts into something sacred. This is no longer education. This is devotion. In this space, we are not memorizing facts or labeling parts. We are peeling back beliefs. We are returning to what is true.

In Gil’s lab, as in the sanctuary of my own body, the sacred and the scientific are not separate. They are one. Every cell hums with meaning. Every motion becomes a mantra. Every spiral brings me home. And then like a vision it appears: The Monad. That radiant center of all centers. Not as a concept, but as a felt truth pulsing in my belly, my bones, my breath.

I don’t just see it. I am it. I am the dancer inside the dance. The whole within the whole. A Debbie inside the Universe. And the Universe inside me. When I leave the lab, my heart is leaping. My breath always seems deeper, wider, and fuller. My tissues seem to vibrate to a new frequency of aliveness and health-ease. I don’t feel undone, I feel peeled.

Moreover, I feel more in relationship with my body than ever. I carry Gil’s words with me like a sacred mantra: “We do not change without love, appreciation, and acceptance.” And so, I pass that on to you. Come back. Come again. Use your courage. Return to your body and its anatomical genius again and again. Look inside. Peel away the layers. Sense the magic.

See the genius. Know the infinite wisdom. Touch the gift. Move with gratitude. Teach differently. Touch with greater reverence. Listen with presence. Dance with your skin, your organs, your bones, your muscles, your light. Dance with sound. Dance with stillness. And come again, no matter how many times you’ve come-come again. Experience awe.

Coming Soon: A Groundbreaking Course!

I am thrilled to announce a sacred journey of sensation, structure, sound, and somatic wisdom. Together we will explore the landscape of our body. We will learn anatomically, energetically, emotionally. We will move. We will listen. We will remember. through a transformational collaboration with Gil Hedley and Sabine Schacke:

The Body’s Way + Integral Anatomy

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