There are moments in life when touch reveals itself as a doorway.
For Nora, that doorway first opened in childhood. Watching her father receive massage, she felt something stir — a quiet pull she couldn’t yet name. “From then on,” she recalls, “I always wanted to give little back massages to my family at the beach to earn my ice-cream money.” What began as simple curiosity would later unfold into a lifelong path.
From London to Esalen
Years later, while living in London and working as a makeup artist, Nora encountered “The Artist’s Way”. As she worked through the book, something essential reawakened. She realized she longed to work with people in a deeper way — and her early love of touch resurfaced.
That inner recognition ultimately guided her to the Esalen Institute. Her first visit was in October 1999.
The experience that shaped everything was her first Esalen Massage, a session with Ray Swartley. “It deeply, deeply moved me,” she recalls. “It brought out all the feelings I’d been holding on to. It was such a blessing.”
Through receiving bodywork, Nora was able to touch into grief she had carried since her father’s death thirteen years earlier. “The skill, the touch, the presence of the practitioner really allowed me to open up,” she says. That opening became a path.
When Touch Becomes a Homecoming
“I felt I had received such a gift,” Nora shares. “Being able to open up to the feelings I’d been holding — and with that, opening into so much more aliveness and joy. I thought, this is what I want to do. I want to pay it forward.”
Living within the Esalen community for three years and working on the massage crew for fifteen, Nora deepened through an immersive learning environment. Yoga, dance, and massage became pathways of homecoming - which supported the cultivation of presence — refining her capacity to listen through the body and touch with clarity and attunement.
Learning Within a Living Lineage
Nora speaks of her teachers with warmth and gratitude.
“Definitely, Ray and Vicky were my first teachers,” she says. “Ray worked a lot in the sidelying position, which was very supportive for my own process — and is what I’ll be offering in Switzerland.”
She studied with Esalen lineage holders Vicki Topp, Deborah Meadow, Brita Ostrom and Peggy Horan, as well as many others Esalen massage teachers. “I felt blessed to receive their wisdom and learn from them — both through receiving work and through being in class with them.”
Teaching emerged organically for Nora. By 2005, Nora was assisting and eventually leading classes at Esalen Institute and elsewhere.
Touch - A Shared Language
“Touch is like music,” she reflects. “Musicians may not speak the same language, but they share the language of music. Touch is our communal language.”
Nora sees the Esalen Massage Global Village as a living space of exchange — across cultures, practices, and spoken languages — where touch becomes both the meeting ground and the creative medium.
“I just taught a workshop this weekend with one of our newer teachers, and it was really important to me that it felt collaborative,” she shares. While collaboration doesn’t come naturally to everyone, she believes that when it works, “two people come together and create something greater — something neither would come up with alone.”
Offerings at the Gathering
At the EMGV Gathering in Switzerland, Nora will teach a one-day sidelying massage workshop.
She describes sidelying as a deeply nurturing position — safe, intimate and nurturing. “The first part is really learning how to get someone comfortable in that position,” and “Being skillful with draping, she explains. Then a whole new possibility opens up.”
From sidelying, practitioners can access both the front and back of the body simultaneously. “It’s almost like a fetal position, so it can feel very safe,” she says. “It’s wonderful for pregnant women, for anyone who can’t lie on their back or front, and for anyone needing to feel held and looking for a more internal experience.”
Her teaching reflects the heart of Esalen Massage itself:
“Through long strokes, we bring awareness to the totality of the body. It’s like meditation — guiding the attention to the field of awareness loosens fixation on what’s wrong and allows discomfort to be held within a larger sense of well-being.”
A Celebration of Community
What Nora looks forward to most in Switzerland is simple: being with people who love Esalen Massage as much as she does.
“Meeting people from all parts of the world — it’s such a beautiful melting pot and exchange.” As she speaks about the Gathering, she smiles. “Just talking about it, I feel a sense of celebration.”
She’s also drawn to the shared practices that deepen collective presence. “I’ve always loved the morning practices at Esalen,” she says. “Movement, meditation — supporting our practice of touching with presence.”
Invitation to the Global Village
When asked what she would say to those considering the Gathering, Nora offers a gentle invitation:
“Come join us to share what we love, to learn more about our common practice, to discover new ways of working — and to receive.”
Receiving, she reminds us, is something practitioners don’t always get enough of. “Here, we have the opportunity to fill our own cup with the practice we love.”