[I SHED THE BLOOD OF A SAXON MAN]
So today, I went to see my mother's kooky massage therapist. She set up the appointment for me last week, presumably just because she is my psychic mother and could tell that I was getting too tense for my own good.
This sounds like the beginning of an episode of a sitcom. It kind of still feels like that. |D
My mom's massage therapist is very good at what she does. She works from home, and her card advertises "Integrated Body Work: Reiki, Tuina, Massage, Breathwork, CranioSacral, and Raindrop Therapy." (I still don't know what the hell Raindrop Therapy is. I didn't quite find time to ask.) "She's... pretty odd," Mom said as she scribbled down directions to her little duplex off the highway, "but she gives a damn good massage. You'll like her."
I knew I had the right place by the statue of Kwan Yin in the front garden and the Om in place of a door knocker. I rang the doorbell twice and knocked once, with no reply; I had this mental image of the woman whose picture I had seen on her website, sitting in front of a shrine with crystals on her head in deep meditation, deaf to the sound of the paying customer on the front step. But no! That was stupid! Clearly her doorbell was broken or something. I was getting ready to try to call the number on the card when she came around the corner of the house, barefoot and carrying a tub full of water, with grass clippings clinging to her legs.
"Whoa!" she cried. "Is it 11:00 already? Oh, man. Just let me finish watering the garden, and we'll go right in - I'm recycling the water from my dehumidifier!"
We made polite conversation, and then she led me inside. "Please remove thy shoes before entering the house. Thank You, Blessed One" was written on a sign on the inside of the door. In the living room and taking up most of one side of the room was a shrine - complete with crystal globe, prayer beads, incense, a collection of feathers, a few colorful stones, a prayer shawl-as-altar-cover, and a string of star-shaped lights. I tried not to stare as she sat me down in an overstuffed armchair and said, "Now - please tell me what you are experiencing in your own personal universe right now."
"Uh," I said.
"You don't know what I'm asking, do you?" she looked very sorry for me. I had to confess that no, I had no fucking clue what she was on about. But she managed to pull out of me that I was tense, I worried too much about the future, and cello and Internet made my shoulders tight. It was, apparently, enough of a starting place, because she allowed the massage to begin after this brief awkwardness; she promised to help me move my negative energy. I thanked her, because I have no idea how you respond to someone telling you that they are going to move your energy. There is probably an accepted response, but I cannot fathom what it might be.
She had me undress in the tiny bathroom next to the massage room. On the shelf in the bathroom was an icon of Saint Michael. On the sink was an icon of Parvati. In the massage room was a crystal star hanging in the sunlight; a feathered staff leaning against the wall, resting against a chunk of uncut amethyst; more feathers in jars on the shelves, more crystals tucked into baskets. Krishna and Buddha were on the walls, Chinese knotwork hung from the ceiling fan, and underneath the table was a foil-and-herb effigy of a person, surrounded on all sides by colored stones. (I asked her what this was; she informed me that they were "Bio-vibration stones. We are all infinite beings, and we have to realize that, even when we are in this form. These stones will help all your chambers resonate." Again, I had no socially acceptable response ready, so I made good use of my politest "...Oh.")
Her massage was incredible! This I will say! It felt amazing. She used beautifully-smelling aromatherapy oils, which normally I dislike, but which she chose so well they really enhanced the experience. She took all the knots out of my neck, which never happens. I managed to relax completely, which never happens!
However, I get the feeling she was taking away from it something a little different than I was. She told me, as she massaged my back, "I want you to visualize something. Can you do that?" At my hesitant "Uh... yes," she said, "Visualize yourself surrounded by circles made of different colors. All different colors. Now I want you to breathe. Breathe in the colors that facilitate your connection to your oneness."
".....my...?"
"Your oneness." And then she started breathing, perhaps to show me how to do it properly? Or maybe it was just something she did. I DON'T KNOW. But I realized I am not very good at the whole visualization thing, because I lay there thinking, "Okay, so here are these circles... what sort of colors are good? Or... related to my oneness? What is my oneness? Er. Well, I guess I'll just try a blue circle. I like blue. Blue is... kind of relaxing. ...But how do I breathe a circle? Is it, like, a sphere? Maybe if I go inside the circle.... but then what if I want another color? Am I allowed to go in and out of circles like that? What if they're not spheres?" BECAUSE EVEN IN MY OWN SUBCONSCIOUS, I AM HYPERCRITICAL. SIGH.
And then she started twitching. I lay on my back and she moved to my feet, gently picked them up - and then out of nowhere threw them up in the air with a mighty cry of "WHUP!" I very nearly had a heart attack, as I had been in the process of Zenning the fuck out; she must have felt me all but leap naked from the massage table in fright, because she said, "Sorry - you can always tell when the energy goes right through me!"
"Energy?" I had to ask.
"Yes. I am channeling the energy from the top of your head, through your feet into my body, and out the top of my head and beyond."
"...Oh."
She did this again from the head side, and I must have had a shit-ton of energy to expel, because she was twitching like a Pentacostal with a finger in an electrical socket. I attempted to figure out what energy she was talking about, but... wasn't too disappointed when she went back to the massage.
The strangest part, though, was when she did my right arm. I don't know what it was, but it was tenser than all the rest of me; after three attempts to move it against which I involuntarily jerked it away, she demanded, "What are you holding on to?"
"No idea," I mumbled into the pillow.
"The energy is telling me there is self-judgment here," she said, and my stomach did the guilty flip of one who knows they are being told the truth while my head did the irritated flip of not wanting to admit it was that obvious. "Lots of self-judgment. Let that go. I'm going to help you let that go."
I think it will not take feathers and crystals and icons of Krishna to make me let go of my self-judgment. I honestly only went to her today because she is a fucking wizard at massage, and the breathing and the crystals and the twitching and the visualizations were something I put up with because she was so good with her hands. Anyone as neurotic as I am is full of self-judgment, I told myself. Of course it was obvious. But really, I think it bothered me a little that it was so obvious. Maybe it even bothered me a little that she saw it so quickly - whether she was guessing or not, whether her ~energy~ told her or it was just swimming all through my brief description of myself, she saw it. The small part of me not quite convinced it was all bullshit wondered what else she saw and just didn't mention.
On the way out, she showed me a stone she found that looked just like a foot, down to the wrinkles on the bottom of it. "In the Hindu faith, the feet of the guru are sacred," she said, "and I have a guru." She pointed to a picture on the wall of an Indian woman embracing a man in a teeming crowd. "So it made me think of her. The Native Americans believe that whenever you take from nature, you must put back something in return; so I cut off some of my hair and left it there, and took this stone for my altar."
"...Oh," I said, and then she embraced me warmly (I have the feeling more ~Energy~ happened while this was going on, but really it was a very nice hug so that's fine), I paid her, and I left, feeling relaxed and kind of noodly. It was a terrific massage. And, well - I came away from it thinking. She's kooky, but I have a feeling that's all she really wanted from me.
In conclusion: HI IT'S BEEN TOO LONG SINCE I POSTED. 8D
This sounds like the beginning of an episode of a sitcom. It kind of still feels like that. |D
My mom's massage therapist is very good at what she does. She works from home, and her card advertises "Integrated Body Work: Reiki, Tuina, Massage, Breathwork, CranioSacral, and Raindrop Therapy." (I still don't know what the hell Raindrop Therapy is. I didn't quite find time to ask.) "She's... pretty odd," Mom said as she scribbled down directions to her little duplex off the highway, "but she gives a damn good massage. You'll like her."
I knew I had the right place by the statue of Kwan Yin in the front garden and the Om in place of a door knocker. I rang the doorbell twice and knocked once, with no reply; I had this mental image of the woman whose picture I had seen on her website, sitting in front of a shrine with crystals on her head in deep meditation, deaf to the sound of the paying customer on the front step. But no! That was stupid! Clearly her doorbell was broken or something. I was getting ready to try to call the number on the card when she came around the corner of the house, barefoot and carrying a tub full of water, with grass clippings clinging to her legs.
"Whoa!" she cried. "Is it 11:00 already? Oh, man. Just let me finish watering the garden, and we'll go right in - I'm recycling the water from my dehumidifier!"
We made polite conversation, and then she led me inside. "Please remove thy shoes before entering the house. Thank You, Blessed One" was written on a sign on the inside of the door. In the living room and taking up most of one side of the room was a shrine - complete with crystal globe, prayer beads, incense, a collection of feathers, a few colorful stones, a prayer shawl-as-altar-cover, and a string of star-shaped lights. I tried not to stare as she sat me down in an overstuffed armchair and said, "Now - please tell me what you are experiencing in your own personal universe right now."
"Uh," I said.
"You don't know what I'm asking, do you?" she looked very sorry for me. I had to confess that no, I had no fucking clue what she was on about. But she managed to pull out of me that I was tense, I worried too much about the future, and cello and Internet made my shoulders tight. It was, apparently, enough of a starting place, because she allowed the massage to begin after this brief awkwardness; she promised to help me move my negative energy. I thanked her, because I have no idea how you respond to someone telling you that they are going to move your energy. There is probably an accepted response, but I cannot fathom what it might be.
She had me undress in the tiny bathroom next to the massage room. On the shelf in the bathroom was an icon of Saint Michael. On the sink was an icon of Parvati. In the massage room was a crystal star hanging in the sunlight; a feathered staff leaning against the wall, resting against a chunk of uncut amethyst; more feathers in jars on the shelves, more crystals tucked into baskets. Krishna and Buddha were on the walls, Chinese knotwork hung from the ceiling fan, and underneath the table was a foil-and-herb effigy of a person, surrounded on all sides by colored stones. (I asked her what this was; she informed me that they were "Bio-vibration stones. We are all infinite beings, and we have to realize that, even when we are in this form. These stones will help all your chambers resonate." Again, I had no socially acceptable response ready, so I made good use of my politest "...Oh.")
Her massage was incredible! This I will say! It felt amazing. She used beautifully-smelling aromatherapy oils, which normally I dislike, but which she chose so well they really enhanced the experience. She took all the knots out of my neck, which never happens. I managed to relax completely, which never happens!
However, I get the feeling she was taking away from it something a little different than I was. She told me, as she massaged my back, "I want you to visualize something. Can you do that?" At my hesitant "Uh... yes," she said, "Visualize yourself surrounded by circles made of different colors. All different colors. Now I want you to breathe. Breathe in the colors that facilitate your connection to your oneness."
".....my...?"
"Your oneness." And then she started breathing, perhaps to show me how to do it properly? Or maybe it was just something she did. I DON'T KNOW. But I realized I am not very good at the whole visualization thing, because I lay there thinking, "Okay, so here are these circles... what sort of colors are good? Or... related to my oneness? What is my oneness? Er. Well, I guess I'll just try a blue circle. I like blue. Blue is... kind of relaxing. ...But how do I breathe a circle? Is it, like, a sphere? Maybe if I go inside the circle.... but then what if I want another color? Am I allowed to go in and out of circles like that? What if they're not spheres?" BECAUSE EVEN IN MY OWN SUBCONSCIOUS, I AM HYPERCRITICAL. SIGH.
And then she started twitching. I lay on my back and she moved to my feet, gently picked them up - and then out of nowhere threw them up in the air with a mighty cry of "WHUP!" I very nearly had a heart attack, as I had been in the process of Zenning the fuck out; she must have felt me all but leap naked from the massage table in fright, because she said, "Sorry - you can always tell when the energy goes right through me!"
"Energy?" I had to ask.
"Yes. I am channeling the energy from the top of your head, through your feet into my body, and out the top of my head and beyond."
"...Oh."
She did this again from the head side, and I must have had a shit-ton of energy to expel, because she was twitching like a Pentacostal with a finger in an electrical socket. I attempted to figure out what energy she was talking about, but... wasn't too disappointed when she went back to the massage.
The strangest part, though, was when she did my right arm. I don't know what it was, but it was tenser than all the rest of me; after three attempts to move it against which I involuntarily jerked it away, she demanded, "What are you holding on to?"
"No idea," I mumbled into the pillow.
"The energy is telling me there is self-judgment here," she said, and my stomach did the guilty flip of one who knows they are being told the truth while my head did the irritated flip of not wanting to admit it was that obvious. "Lots of self-judgment. Let that go. I'm going to help you let that go."
I think it will not take feathers and crystals and icons of Krishna to make me let go of my self-judgment. I honestly only went to her today because she is a fucking wizard at massage, and the breathing and the crystals and the twitching and the visualizations were something I put up with because she was so good with her hands. Anyone as neurotic as I am is full of self-judgment, I told myself. Of course it was obvious. But really, I think it bothered me a little that it was so obvious. Maybe it even bothered me a little that she saw it so quickly - whether she was guessing or not, whether her ~energy~ told her or it was just swimming all through my brief description of myself, she saw it. The small part of me not quite convinced it was all bullshit wondered what else she saw and just didn't mention.
On the way out, she showed me a stone she found that looked just like a foot, down to the wrinkles on the bottom of it. "In the Hindu faith, the feet of the guru are sacred," she said, "and I have a guru." She pointed to a picture on the wall of an Indian woman embracing a man in a teeming crowd. "So it made me think of her. The Native Americans believe that whenever you take from nature, you must put back something in return; so I cut off some of my hair and left it there, and took this stone for my altar."
"...Oh," I said, and then she embraced me warmly (I have the feeling more ~Energy~ happened while this was going on, but really it was a very nice hug so that's fine), I paid her, and I left, feeling relaxed and kind of noodly. It was a terrific massage. And, well - I came away from it thinking. She's kooky, but I have a feeling that's all she really wanted from me.
In conclusion: HI IT'S BEEN TOO LONG SINCE I POSTED. 8D