Heal Thyself

From my original blog, "Elementals" Apr 2005:

I'm a good healer. And at best a mediocre businessman.

I've always been good at doing what I'm good at, at plying my trade, whatever the trade was at the moment. As with all of life, though, there are layers of good, a hierarchy of subtleties that separate the 'merely good' from the 'amazingly accomplished'. Getting from the first to the second is the worthy work of a lifetime.

As time unfolds, I begin to see more complexity where before I saw none. Before, a scar was just a scar. Now, I wonder how old it is, what stage the triple-helix of collagen molecules are in - are they new and pliable, easily remodeled? Or are they old and resilient with many, many hydrogen bonds between their strands and between neighboring molecules, making their new form more or less permanent? How many layers are involved? How far into the body does the distorted surface form pull its tensions in the connective tissue fabric? And, knowing all these things, can I help this person, this soul cloaked inside this wondrous fleshly body?

Ignorance is bliss. Fresh out of massage school at the tender age of 37, I knew I could conquer the world with my hands. Now, approaching 43, I wonder if I've left damage in my wake, if I've actually helped anyone, if, being so imperfect myself, it is even possible to help another. Do I transmit my imperfection? Does that meme propagate via morphogenetic fields of memory from me to my clients? Do I entrain them into my small-mind world? Or do they blessedly leave my massage room feeling better, blissfully ignorant of the storms raging in my own psyche?

Having found massage, I realize that it is integral to this person I call "me". I suspect that there are other fundamental elements to me that I haven't allowed out yet that will surface, making themselves known to me so that I can cherish them, too, hopefully before the end of my short life here in this body. Young, I thought that I could mold myself into whatever I desired. Now I find that my more fundamental desires, the cries of my soul, have molded me.

Embracing them has made my life so much easier. When I do what I was truly designed to do, my soul sings. Trumpets play, Angels shout.

And as the song says, "how can I keep from singing?"
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