Sara Griscom, LMT – Proprietor

Intuitive Healing, Reiki Healer, Bodywork & Massage Therapy, Intuitive Consultation, & Reiki Master Teacher

Born on Saint Peter and St. Paul’s feast day in Malaga, Spain and raised in her early life in central Mexico with paternal ties to Maine and maternal ties to upper East Tennessee. Sara Xochitl Griscom never doubted the path that led her around the Earth in search of appropriately specialized tools for her innate gifts. When questioned for her reasons for offering her renown work as a healer in Knoxville, TN, of all the possible and potentially more lucrative cities she could have chosen, she often offers no more than a smile, with the simple explanation that “the wind blew me here”.

Griscom graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1990 Summa Cum Laude with a bachelors in psychology and anthropology, a minor in Spanish, and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She continued on to Tulane University working towards a Doctorate in Ethnomedicine with a concentration in Mayan midwives and was accepted into a program that immersed her in a remote Guatemalan villages for linguistics research.

While there, Griscom was embraced by the indigenous people, who immediately revered her as a Shaman- though the role was not among her scope of pursuits. Oxlajuj Tijax, the healer for the region, stayed close to her during her residency and surrounded her with increasingly less and less subtle hints and as to the nature of her gifts. Eventually expressing deep remorse and pained grief as her plans stayed consistent with academia, Oxlajuj Tijax eventually explained to Griscom that she was, regardless of her wishes, required to follow the path of a traditional medicine woman, and that her life would be made difficult, if not completely endangered, otherwise- a truth he knew from his own attempt to avoid his role as the Shaman.

Griscom continued her research and recording of the Mayan language for four consecutive years, and spent her spare time abroad engrossed in training with Mayan midwives, learning traditional bodywork techniques, and permaculture practices. Upon completion of her graduate work, she returned to the South East, attended massage school, and studied with Ina Mae Gaskin, known as the Matriarch of Midwives, at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee. Soon after, Griscom accepted a position as the co-director of the Mayan studies program at Tulane and was offered a FLAS scholarship for publishing her research. Not long after returning to Guatemala for her new career, however, Griscom became the sole victim of an isolated explosion, implemented by a stranger in a small village, and suffered a ruptured eardrum that left her stranded at her altitude and contained to a hotel room away from wind and noise, for months of painful healing. By what was medically deemed a miracle, she recovered 98% of her hearing.

Soon after being cleared to board a plane, Griscom flew home and was immediately presented with an opportunity to work with Habitat For Humanity in India. Taking all of her immunizations in one day, she boarded yet another plane- this time, pointed East. Again, Griscom’s work became a means for her to immerse herself in the local culture’s traditions, healing techniques, and studies with esteemed teachers. She eventually found her way to the Mustang region of the Himalayas on the border of Tibet- deemed insane by tourists’ standards of preparation for going into the mountains with no more than a wool sweater, gloves, and blanket, Griscom successfully sought out the only midwife for the region, and was accepted by the local hospital to be the midwife’s assistant. With tumult growing within the Nepali government, however, the process for Griscom’s paperwork to clear was put on hold, and she returned to her base in India. Before leaving India again, Griscom learned traditional palmistry, traditional Indian temple dance, studied with Buddhist healers, studied traditional Indian music from a sarod Guru, and, perhaps most significantly, was emphatically inspired to create a center for healing arts that would foster the deep spiritual, traditional, and interconnected ways of life and healing that she had come to experience first hand on her journeys.

Upon returning to the States in 2001, Griscom opened Gypsy Hands Healing Arts on North Central Street in Knoxville, Tennessee and has been continuing her studies, teaching the many who come to her for ancient knowledge, healing people in many types of pain and fostering a healthier community since.

Griscom’s long list of highly esteemed and divinely connected teachers and mentors – beyond those she worked with in Guatemala and India- include Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz, Bobby Drinnon, Zoe Jakes, Rachel Brice, Onça Baraka Mundi, Iris Waimania Davis, Ojasvin Kingi Davis, Kathleen McGowan, and, perhaps most notably, Atarangi Muru, Manu, and “Papa Joe”, Johepa de la Mare- traditional Maori healers who traveled to Griscom’s Gypsy Hands Healing Arts center in Knoxville, Tennessee over a decade ago- purely by their own accord, to train Griscom in their techniques of the deepest form of bodywork practiced by any culture.

Griscom is the only person in the Western Hemisphere with their knowledge, training, and blessings. They continue to visit annually.

Griscom has more recently been asked to carry on teachings and practice of the Haka, a sacred, traditional Maori dance.

As Gypsy Hands Healing Arts, Sara Griscom now been in practice for over 19 years and offers traditional bodywork, energy work, traditional dance instruction, intuitive consultation, reiki instruction, past-life regression hypnotherapy, health and nutritional counseling, mentoring, midwife and hospice services, and provides space for healers and educators from all over the world to share their knowledge and light.