“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.