Quaker Healer & Certified Massage Therapist, Teacher, Author
Listen to John Calvi’s keynote address “Laying Down the Weapons ‘Round our Hearts” to Friends General Conference 1990, Macalester College, Northfield Minnesota.
Pendle Hill presentation: preparing for new circumstances
New England Yearly Meeting discussion: pastoral care during COVID-19
QuakerSpeak interview: the necessity of John’s work
A massage therapist by training, John began with women survivors of sexual assault. Later, he worked with people with AIDS, inmates, tortured refugees, ritual abuse survivors, addicts, veterans, and hospice.
Certified by the Boulder School of Massage Therapy in 1984 and recognized as a Quaker with a spiritual gift for releasing the physical and emotional pain that follow trauma, John is faithful to his leading. John’s calling is consistent with other Quakers, who have a long history of healing work. Given this background, John’s work has been embraced by many different kinds of groups, individuals, and their caregivers.
As a teenager, John began with teaching young children how to swim. He later taught Montessori 3 – to 6-year-olds. He now teaches people working in crisis how to avoid burnout.
John has taught in four countries, five prisons, and ten yearly meetings of Quakers. His workshops are attended by people working in extreme conditions, including health care professionals, clergy, and families where pain is abundant and resources are few.
Looking back on decades of witnessing extreme experience, John writes in order to understand. From this personal desire to seek meaning has come two books, The Dance between Hope and Fear (2013) and How Far Have You Traveled? (2019)