“Anna’s Touch”

By Ron Stultz

2 July 2006

Touching between 2 humans: the handshake; that touch on the arm or back during conversation; hugging; cuddling; the intimacy of love making; holding a small child or baby in your arms and then there is the massage. Of all the forms of human-to-human contact, perhaps the massage is the strangest. 

Over the past 10 years or so, I have probably had 20 massages and although everyone has been different in some aspect, all have also been the same. A person, usually a woman, has laid her hands on my body and worked various muscle groups, getting out muscle lactic acid knots. The touch was not sexual and did not conveyed any sort of affection but for some reason, I seem to always pick up something about the massage therapist from his or her touch, as if their hands speak for them to me. 

My most recent massage was from a 40-year-old woman named Anna. As with all massages I have had, the massage was performed in a small room with low light, candles, and soft music. 

It is not that I try to listen to the therapist hands, as I don’t, but perhaps it is the environment, which lets my mind, soul, hear what is conveyed via the touch. 

In the case of Anna, she had not been working on my back very long before I had the distinct impression that she was a very old soul. Young soul? Old soul? Not sure where I got that concept but believe it is from my Buddhist readings. Buddhist believe that at death, if we are not pure enough, or clean enough, we must be reborn to work out issues that we have not resolved in the prior life. Thus, some souls are very old as they have been around the wheel of life and death many times and I think that any soul that has been around the wheel enough times becomes cleaner and cleaner or more pure of nature. From Anna’s touch, I got the distinct impression that she was an old soul with much wisdom. 

As my wife was in the massage room with me, I did not ask my usual 20 questions of Anna as I thought it might embarrass my wife or otherwise make her uncomfortable but if I would have had the opportunity, I would have ask Anna many questions to learn more about her. From her touch, I could tell there was much there to explore and learn from. 

As she worked various muscles of my back and neck, it was very hard for me not to say something to her. Her hands, her touch: again, not sexual or affectionate but conveying something, messages, meaning. 

Finally, she could stand it no longer and spoke to me and it allowed me to speak and ask her about her soul. I told her I perceived she was an old soul and was that true? “Yes,” she replied as if the concept of young and old souls was well known to her. “Older than I am,” I replied and “No, I do not think so,” she responded. Then her voice got very quiet so I could hardly hear. “You are wiser than I am,” she said and the conversation stopped. 

The massage ended in silence and after getting clothed to return to the room my wife and I had, it occurred to me that Anna was more than a massage therapist, she was a healer: one of those few people who can heal by the laying of hands on you. Once in my room, I turned around and went back down to the massage room but Anna was gone. Missed it. Opportunity was there but I too slow at picking up on it. 

There have been other massage therapists, the names of, I cannot remember but I remember our conversations and how some question I posed or some statement I made startled the therapist. Once I asked about acupuncture and yes, he was trained and could do it in another session. Once I asked about her grandmother and yes, she had become a massage therapist because her grandmother had been one. Another time, the whole session was a highly spiritual experience for me as the lady therapist was of such high spiritual purity and we connected at so many levels. When I got up to leave, she hugged me and I her and we knew we had shared something that is not common. 

Anna’s touch: just a woman paid to work my muscles and help me relax but for me, at least, the touch of a massage therapist sends signals into my body and mind I cannot ignore. Such a strange communication medium.