I’ve worked as a massage therapist for the last 30 years, licensed in both the USA and in Europe. I reckon I’ve probably touched 1,000 different bodies. [1] I’ve massaged the following people:
- A helicopter crash survivor. His back had turned into a mass of trigger points. He felt like they were on fire. It took four intense, 90-minute sessions over a two-week period to hunt down and treat the triggers one at a time.
- An elderly neighbor with recurrent cancer. I went over once a week for years. A few weeks before she passed away, after her massage Gerda surprised me with a huge bouquet of flowers. She hadn’t forgotten that it was my birthday.
- Tri-athletes at competitions to keep their leg muscles from cramping.
- A dear friend with muscular dystrophy. She handles her disease with a grace that inspires and warms everyone lucky enough to know her.
- My sister Barb and brother-in-law Javier. Both are potters, and their arms are like ropes of hardening clay.
- My mother-in-law as she lay dying.
- Two war refugees.
- A woman with a cleft palate right after her corrective surgery.
Yesterday morning I did my final massage of the year: a return client who is now 4½ months pregnant. Kristi is the daughter-in-law of a German woman from my town. I’ve massaged three generations of that family. Today I got to meet the fourth generation, still in her mother’s belly.
We chatted through the massage. Like me, she’s an Ami married to a German. The two of us talked about the holidays, our cross-cultural families, what the year had been like. Kristi lay on her side bolstered with huge pillows. I placed my palms on her belly and imagined the little child inside. And, because so much of massage therapy involves directed intent, I turned my focus inward to tenderness, and a welcome, and hope. My last official hour of work couldn’t have been gentler. Or happier.
It’s been a long and somber year. I’m so glad to be ending it with a post dedicated to a promise of joy for the future.
Thanks to all my readers and followers for your support! As the Germans say, We will meet us again in 2017!
NOTES: [1] They say for true mastery you must perform a technique 1,000 times, on 1,000 different bodies….
Photos Copyright © 2009 Uwe Hartmann. Photos of the fireworks taken from our balcony on New Year’s Eve! More of our trip to Kuala Lumpur and Uwe’s photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.
He passed a large skating rink and a children’s train track. When he wandered under an arch, Guy discovered a Christmas Market. His inner child gasped with delight.
Rows and rows of wooden market booths had been set up to create lanes.
At last distracted from visions of doom and gloom, he watched a gigantic nutcracker swallow a continually rotating nut.
A larger-than-life music box twirled on a roof top, the ballerina and her dancing bear partner going ’round and ’round. Real fir boughs and even little trees bedecked the stands.
The roofs were wrapped in shiny paper with tinsel ribbons and bows that transformed them into oversized gifts. Big Saint Nicholases drove twinkly sleighs pulled by reindeer whose heads bobbed.
Guy looked at their pale flames and shivered. Flames, like those of a crash site….
We hired a driver and sweet young man named Ley to guide us around. We made an outing to Paksong on the Bolaven Plateau, home of small, superb Laotian coffee plantations. 
On our drive back we stopped at a market hall. Taxis were filling with local workers who stopped to buy groceries. 
Rows of vendors sold grades of rice, 
eggs, fresh fruit, coffee (natch), bolts of cloth, dried fishes, 
vegetables and herbs, freshly cooked food and plastic bags of marinades and sauces.
The variety of fresh produce is tremendous: alone in these photos I can identify three different sizes and shapes of eggplant, tomatoes, cilantro, parsley, Thai basil, oranges, peppers in every size and grade of hotness, cucumber, bitter melon, carrots, zuccini, onions, garlic, bok choy, green and Napa (Chinese) cabbages, ginger, limes, long beans, shallots, spring onions, chives, squash, rose apples.
Women from the hill tribes had wares for sale. An older woman had set up a stand away from most of the others. Curious, I walked over.
She had images of the Buddha, and items for religious and medical purposes. Talons, hooves, 
deer skulls, 
bundles of herbs and animal horns. 
The pairs called to me on some strange level…. “What are they for?” I asked. Ley explained to me that they are placed in a home to protect it and the family that lives there.
The Virupaksha temple was a pyramid topped with a spire and a red flag. Impressive from a distance, up close the temple was gargantuan. It towered a hundred and fifty feet above their heads.
“Tonight this chariot will carry the god Shiva to the river for the Nandi Purnima,” Nupur informed them. “It’s a Nandi full moon. Nandi’s the bull who attends Shiva, so this is extra auspicious.”
The garter snake is Massachusetts’ official state snake, and is endemic to most of North America. It’s the most common snake species, and closely related to water snakes, the genus Nerodia.
I find snakes fascinating. [2] Sacred snakes were used by the Oracle at Delphi and in ancient Minos. Recall the cobra, who spread its hood to shelter the Buddha. St. Patrick supposedly drove the snakes out of Ireland. [3] On a practical level, the garter snakes in Barb and Javier’s yard will eliminate any pest threat from rodents. (They also eat snails and slugs, common garden problems in the wet Northwest.)
As I admire the yard and go look from time to time for the two snakes I’ve seen in different parts of the garden, I think mostly about the fact that the presence of snakes means the small biosphere of my sister’s home is a healthy one. It’s not a coincidence that garter snakes are often referred to as ‘garden snakes’.