The 58-year-old Scarborough resident has 33 years of experience in various healing techniques and, through extensive first-hand apprenticeship, has studied with some of the grandfathers of holistic medicine and Eastern health practitioners. With early roots in engineering studies, Lemire says he has been a student of mechanics and structure since the very beginning.

A college boxer and runner, Lemire graduated from the Maine Maritime Academy in 1972 with a Bachelor of Science in marine engineering. He left the shores of Castine and worked his way up the nautical ladder – from an able seaman to a chief engineer – on tankers, freighters tug boats and seismographic vessels. He spent nearly three years aboard ships, earning enough money to pursue what would be a life-long passion.

“Everything I learned about the structure of a ship seemed to be bringing me closer and closer to something more important. On my own I began studying the suspension mechanics of the human frame and realized the similarities between a ship and the body,” he says, comparing the controls, electrical systems and engine of a ship to the brain, nervous system and stomach – respectively – of a human body. 

In 1977, astronomers discovered a giant comet and named it Chiron after the half-man, half-horse centaur of Greek mythology. Lemire says Chiron was an herbalist, a practitioner of medicine, an astrologist and had been a teacher to Achilles and a healer to Hercules. As Chiron the comet soared across the universe, so too did Lemire, traveling from a life on the sea to Boulder, Colo., where he says a movement was beginning to take shape.

“Chiron came into the public sphere at the same exact time this renaissance of alternative medicine started to emerge in America,” he says.

Lemire remembers yoga clinics, massage centers, health food stores and martial arts dojos beginning to emerge around the late 1970s and says the age of Chiron found its hub in Colorado.

“Never in my life had I imagined such a place. There was so much color, art, music, juggling, freedom and life – I was hooked,” he says.

He studied acupuncture and oriental philosophy, homeopathy and herbalism, massage and yoga, among others.

He recalls watching a press conference with body-builder and iron-pumper Arnold Schwarzenegger. Lemire says he made a realization upon watching Mr. Olympia try to sip from his coffee.

“He tried to bring the cup to his mouth but his arm was just too inflated, he couldn’t make it happen without using his entire neck and back,” he says

Lemire began training in Aikido, Chi Qong, Tai Chi and other forms of martial arts. He studied meditation and yoga as well.

“I studied and realized that strength and fitness can come without these top-heavy frames. The Eastern world was changing our perception of fitness completely,” he says. 

Lemire traveled back and forth from Colorado to Florida to apprentice under Professor Tomedzo Hoshino, who developed a method of pain relief soft-tissue hand-massage technique practiced by chiropractors worldwide, Lemire says. While in Florida he also graduated from the Gainesville School of Massage Therapy where he received his massage therapist license.

“Alternative medicine was blowing up, and I was right in the middle of things, learning from the big names,” he says.

Lemire says he began studying the foundations of alternative medicine in America with the people who would be later looked upon as the grandfathers of the movement.

He says he studied the massage technique “rolfing” with the woman who invented it – Dr. Ida Rolf. From Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais he says he learned the movement therapy known as “feldenkrais,” and he was a pupil of the founder of Green Mountain Herbs – Kim Stearn. More and more he began to teach others and work on his own patients when, in 1980, a patient of his had a special request that would shape the next stage of Lemire’s life.

“He asked me if I would treat his friend for some back problems he was having. His friend turned out to be John Denver,” Lemire says.

Folk singer, songwriter, nature guru and poet laureate of Colorado John Denver met with Lemire in 1980 and Lemire says the two hit it off. Denver was working on Windstar, the Colorado-based environmental education foundation he had developed, and asked Lemire to go on the road with him.

“I was his manager of security and personal health director,” Lemire says, laughing.

But to Denver, holistic health and wellbeing were no joke as he took Lemire on tour across the country for the better part of a decade. Cooking was no problem for Lemire, who says he studied macrobiotic nutrition with Michio Kushi the founder of the Kushi Institute health clinic and author of “The Macrobiotic Way.”

“All of the health food stores in America – they turned up because of Kushi,” Lemire says.

Lemire set up his portable stove and laid out his ingredients in the corner of every hotel room Denver’s crew would file into. 

Throughout the course of a decade Lemire says health food stores grew increasingly more common, but in the beginning it was oftentimes a hassle to find a shop with the right foods necessary for the diet Lemire made Denver adhere to. 

To purchase the food, Denver would hand Lemire a handful of concert tickets.

“It was great, I could buy everything I wanted and hand the cashier some tickets – they would be so excited,” he says.

As a self-proclaimed “fly on the wall” to the unfolding music scene of the 1970’s Lemire rubbed elbows with a host of famous figures including Burl Ives, Buckminster Fuller, Neil Young and Neil Diamond.

But the tours ended and after the years spent on the road Lemire migrated to Hawaii, where he met his current wife Christina. The two married in Bar Harbor in 1991 and have two daughters, Sophia, 17, and Lilly, 12.

Raising his family, Lemire took a job as a structural therapist for the Indiana Pacers Basketball team. He says his hands were able to help Olympic Gold Medalist player Reggie Miller overcome a swollen ankle.

“Conventional medicine couldn’t treat the problem, there was a lot of swelling and blockage, I had to dig deep,” Lemire says.

After working on Miller, Lemire says the symptoms cleared up within a week and the Pacers went on to win a franchise-first 47 games. They also won their first playoff game in history.

In the following years Lemire says he began to use his training in craniosacral therapy – an alternative medicine practice used by massage therapists and chiropractors where the practitioner uses massage to restore “balance and harmony” to the nervous system of the body, Lemire says. 

Using this technique as well as others he learned in his 33 years of studying alternative medicine, Lemire currently works at a Scarborough office and from his home, treating patients with chronic pain, osteoarthritis and other disorders. He says his biggest challenge at this stage in his life is cooking for his family.

“My girls don’t like my cooking,” he says, laughing. “But they eat it, they understand I use food to treat the body. Every aspect of your health can be tracked to what you eat and how you move.”

To contact Stowell P. Watters call 282-4337, ext. 219 or email news@scarboroughleader.com.