Tales From the (Massage) Table: "Doing" Love

No, it's not a typo.

I didn't mean "making love." I'm not that kind of blogger.
And I didn't mean "doing what I love."

I'm talking about what it feels to give a massage. I'm certainly not falling in love with my clients, or really even getting to know them enough to truly love them. Somehow, I feel that to love someone, I have to know them. But I am "doing love."

Recently, a return client came in (I've just seen her a few times over a year or so), and said that she just needed to chill the heck out. Stress! Frustration! Tension! She was frazzled.

You know that I grew up in a family of artists, right? So even though I'm a musician by trade (and, of course a massage therapist), I think in images often. As I stand outside my massage room, waiting to enter, I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths and empty my mind of images, of words, and I stand with my palms facing the door, letting myself focus on the feeling of my own energy in my hands. After a few moments of this, sometimes I feel the skin on my face prickle a little, sometimes my tongue. I have no idea if it's real or my imagination, but it's become a tradition for me. Focus. Empty. Wait. Feel.

The moment I walked into the room, I could feel her zingy, frayed breath. I stood by her head and centered myself again. My palms warmed and felt sparkly, and as I began the massage, she sighed and settled in. Eyes closed, it felt like she was a black velvet jewel box.  All I could feel on the outside was the fuzzy surface, but there was something inside.

Halfway through the session, I had her roll over so she was face-up, and I began luxuriating through the scalp and shoulder massage. I love this part, because by then, the client trusts me and can deeply relax. A thoroughly relaxed person is beautiful in the way no one can be when awake and alert. It's a pure beauty, a simple, glowing shine.

Working through her hair, I closed my eyes again, and and image began to form again.  The jewel box was opening, and inside was a star. The star was shining through the cracks of the jewel box, and I felt it like sunshine on my face, warm and healing. Her skin was fizzing with life, and my hands rejoiced. Her hair was energized and springy. Her shoulders were pliable. She let out a long, gusty sigh and fell into sleep. I could feel it when it happened. The floating thoughts and worries and wonders and busybusybrain fell away, and there was just space and serenity and childlike contentment.

When I finished at her feet a half hour later, I spent a moment suspended between her energy and mine. I hovered my fingertips over the tips of her toes and breathed deeply, feeling the double current running through me. Silently, I asked her to release me to my own self, and thanked her for trusting me. As though a magnet had been turned away, my hands floated away, and I breathed again. Just me by myself, in that breath.

Flicking my fingers at the sky just in case there were lingering threads connecting us, I opened my eyes and whispered to her that it was time to rejoin the world. She smiled and sighed happily.

That, to me, is "doing love." It's finding my own spark, my own current, and touching another's with the intent of doing good, and then separating again, each better off than before.

Tales From the (Massage) Table: Doing The Work Of Angels

Recently, I met with a mentor massage therapist woman who is one of the most grounded individuals I've ever encountered.  She lives a completely different life than I do, in that she does not have the same reference points as I do.

I have kids, and am a teacher to kids, so my words and actions are being watched by them (and their parents), and I try to keep things PG.  She does not.

I'm into the modern world of TV, Netflix, cell phones, Facebook, blogging, etc.  She does not even own a TV, and just recently figured out how to text.  She's pretty bad at it.

She finds it easy to believe in many things that I can't yet bring myself to entertain, such as plant spirit healing, all kids of alternative and holistic therapies, lots of 'crunchy' hippie-ish stuff.

However difficult I find some of that stuff to believe, I can't dismiss the experiences I've had, and so I have to try to understand.

For instance, I've had the experience of being in a near-hypnosis state during a massage (giving one), and suddenly notice that I'm experiencing a thought or an emotion that was utterly out of the blue and not me-like at all, then the client will say or do something that reveals that the thought or emotion I had been feeling had been theirs.  Was I just picking up subtle clues from their still, quiet body?  How?  I have no idea.

So, getting to the title of this post, I was recently working on a lovely woman who was a new client for me.  She was holding lots and lots of tension in her upper back (which is typical for most folks), but as I worked and became more relaxed myself, I started thinking about children.  Toddlers.  And cold houses.  And fear.

Then the client shifted and started talking. She is a social worker of some variety, and she works with families with children from birth to age 3, and one family in her care had recently revealed to her that they had lost the heat in their house, and the mother was afraid to tell people for fear they would take her children.  So she was keeping them all in the living room around the fireplace, bundled in blankets.

This client had immediately begun to make phone calls, and within a day, they had their heat restored, had a social worker visit the house to make sure everything was ok with the kids, and they had been given vouchers for a local food pantry. But she was running that scenario over in her mind, being disturbed.

As I put hot stones onto her back, I found my mind repeating "you do the work of angels" to her (silently).  She gradually relaxed enough that she fell asleep, and woke refreshed and relaxed and feeling cared-for.

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So, how do you explain that?  Is it magic?  Psycho...something?  Telekewhatever?  Does it matter?  Maybe not, but this stuff weirds me out sometimes. And other times, it seems as normal as anything else in my everyday life.

What do you think, though?

Dreaming Of Eagles

Remember how I recently documented some dreams?  I'm gonna do it again.

WARNING:  Dream recap here.  Might be boring.

It was night.  I was with some good friends (no idea who).  We were outside, the stars were shining.  Then I looked up and saw what appeared to be a chevron of light moving through the sky with sparks falling in a trail from it.  It moved left, then right, then up and around.

I pointed it out to my companions.  We watched as it became larger and more defined.  Then I saw that it was an eagle.  A bald eagle.  And all of its feathers were aflame.  It kind of looked like there were fiber optic lights on the edges of the wings, and all the feathers.  It was ON FIRE but not being consumed!

As it neared, I could see the flame and the sparks.  I knew that I needed to place my brand new handmade crystal earrings out on the hood of the car we were all leaning on for the eagle.  We knew to get out of the way because the flames might be too much.

So we walked backwards, away from the parked car and the crystal earring offering.  We didn't see the eagle as it landed (it was too bright to look at), but it landed, took the earrings, and then cried out in triumph.  Then -- I think -- it flew above our heads.

In the dream, I felt excited, not scared.  I was sure that it was coming for me, to get my offering of my craft.  It came from the heavens, and was fueled by heavenly celestial fire.  It was not afraid of the flames, nor was it.  My companions were frightened and didn't know what to do, but I did.

I awoke from the dream feeling incredibly full of ... promise.  Of awe.

Ok, armchair psychiatrists, GO.