As a young girl growing up in a small town in southern Vermont, I became very interested in our state insect, the honey bee. With my name meaning honey bee in greek, I wanted to educate myself and get involved with these amazing creatures. I knew we were connected, and wanted to know how and why.  Bees became my first love.  I soon discovered my second love, music. Even though my first two passions were bees and music, it was not until much later I discovered my true purpose and how they were both going to be so important for my future.

I remember really getting into music around the age of eight. My uncle was a d.j at the radio station, my favorite thing to do was go to the radio station and he let me pick out songs to play on the air.  If I was in the station you would most likely hear Sweet Melissa by the Allman Brothers. The Grateful Dead and the Beatles were also in heavy rotation while I was in charge. I have fond memories of being so amazed by all the cd’s and books, and posters and  I wanted to know everything that was involved with music, I even got my first taste of the music business in high school when I booked my cousins band their first gig at my junior prom.

My first and only job(besides the tye-dye factory I worked for one winter) as a child and into high school had always been on the local organic vegtable farm. In high school I took the horticulture program through the vocational center. In my senior year I became the vice president of the Future Farmers of America(FFA) for my school.   When I graduated from high school in 1998 I went on to study agriculture and self sustained living at Sterling College in northern Vermont. I was so sure agriculture and farming were my passions and going to be my future.  While I was attending Sterling College I learned very little about agriculture and I became an expert in the Burlington music scene!

I soon got a BIG itch to get out of Vermont, I spent 19 years here and it was time to go explore out on my own! I started traveling with my boyfriend at the time all over the east coast and then him, myself and some other close friends found ourselves in northeast PA. While I was living in northeast PA, I was hired at a greenhouse, pretty much the only thing I knew had to do at this point was grow, harvest, and sell vegtables. I worked for this greenhouse for one morning in the rain, and I was fired. The man looked me straight in the eye and in all seriousness he told me "you are not going to work out here, you don’t have planting hands" I was so mad and scared. PLANTING HANDS? I thought to myself "if I don’t have planting hands what kind of hands do I have?"

I was working one horrable job after another and knew I was capable of more and more importantly I wanted more for myself. I thought about going back into the agriculture field, but decided against it.  I saw a commercial on tv for massage school, and thought maybe I could be a massage therapist. I do like to work with my hands, and I like alternative healing methods, and I love to help people…..hhhmmmmm?  Could I trade in my green thumb for healing hands?  I enrolled and started massage therapy school. I really had no idea what I was doing when enrolling, but I thought I would give it a try.  Well in this trying I ended up graduating with the highest grade in my class. In 2001 I graduated with a certification to practice massage therapy. I had found my skill in this world, only I did not know it.

At this time in my life, I did not care about massage. I only cared about music. I wanted to go to every show, I wanted to be involved with every show, and I wanted to help the bands I really liked. So that is what I did, I spent all my time going to shows.  With this passion for music I started promoting and traveling with local Philadelphia bands. I started building relationships with bands, talent buyers, promoters, merchandise people and anybody I could network with.

All of this networking finally landed me, my dream job. I returned to Vermont and got the job as the Entertainment Coordinator for the music venue, Nectar’s in Burlington VT. I stayed at this job for about two and half years, and then decided to move back to Philadelphia and work for the bands again, I began doing promotion and road managing for a couple bands, which brought me back on the road.

It took me a little over a year to get tired of life on the road with rock and roll bands. My body was unhealthy, my wallet was empty, and my soul was in search of something deeper and more consistent.

In my quest for this deeper meaning in life, I started working at a health food store in Philadelphia.  I started working in the produce department, but quickly moved to the nutrition department. This job opened my eyes again to a lifestyle I had known as child growing up, but had not thought about as much as I should have!  My focus moved to my health, my body and my love for life.  As life would have it my fate brought me back to practicing massage therapy. I had been giving massages to my friends here and there and to the bands on the road, but it was time to take my massage talent seriously. I started working for a clinic in Philly and I was receiving amazing, positive feedback from my clients.  After about 2 years of working for this clinic, I finally had the confidence to go out and work for myself.

With the knowledge I was getting from trainings through my job at the health food store, as well as my self taught education, and all that I knew and was learning about massage, and alternative healing, I knew it was time to take it to the next level. I felt it was my place to incorporate massage with alternative medicine, and specifically the role bees play in this aspect of life as well the importance they have on our planet as a whole.

Alternative healing and massage therapy became my whole life! I started working on my health, and still each day try to maintain a healthy lifestyle. However the more I was getting into massage,  and my health the less I was getting into music. I started to really miss the shows, my friends, and even the business, but I knew it was not for me. I somehow wanted to get involved again, but I was to nice for rock and roll and I was enjoying how I felt and where I was in my head and soul, yet still something was missing.

I thought how can I combine all that I love? They say if you love what you do, the money will follow. In 2006 I started www.beewellmassage.com to bring awareness to my massage practice as well as the unbelievable bee. In October of 2007 I took my vision to the next level and became the owner of Bee Well Massage. The purpose of this business is to cater my massage service to you, bands, events, festivals all while helping to educate about the bees. Please join me on this journey for balance, peace, music and love!

Thanks for reading!

Bee Healthy, Bee Happy, Bee Well,

Melissa