The Massage That Changed It All

February 22, Tucson — saguaro in the snow, 11am.

The wheels in my mind spun! My spirit had that morning downloaded an immediate call to action to change my life. Pressing. Undeniable. Illogical! Amidst the snowfall, I began to parse through it — I realized my experience that winter morning in the low desert delivered unto me consequence.

Consequence is most often considered to be negative: “As a consequence of having a free spirit and suddenly finding myself living in the desert, I struggled to find my purpose.” Really, consequence simply conveys the result or effect of a particular action — a consequence can be positive: “As a consequence of struggling to know my purpose, I developed a free spirit and found myself living in the beautiful desert”. Some days, I felt the heaviness of negative consequence. Other days, I was weightless in consequential bliss.

I had just received my very first therapeutic massage. In the stretch of sixty minutes, as snow met the sand, I was utterly swept away. From the moment I walked through the door, throughout the intake conversation, during my massage, sitting stunned in my car, I was just wrapped in this comfort and love – it felt like going to a home inside me I didn’t know existed.

I have this lucid memory of the massage therapist’s low voice, the way she gently and confidently cradled my left arm, and a soaring of my consciousness – as another human – a stranger! – guided me through this incredibly loving and supportive bodywork. It was a moving and empowering moment in my life to be so unexpectedly, deeply gifted with a knowing of what I wanted to develop in myself and share with the world. “Whatever this is, I need to do this.” I had never really been a massage person; I had several before this one, and they were pleasant enough. It wasn’t so much the physicality of this massage. It was the deep presence this person shared with me, alchemized through kind touch. My shy, pained, lost self found a sail, and by the time I was home, I was navigating the waters of the next part of my life'; the late morning sun melted the snow.

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Space maker, heart holder, friend. Life is enriched as a massage therapist — the people, the stories. Their beauty. Lives laid on the altar of the table. The world is FULL of meaning. The world is also full of needing. We need one another! We need community, connection, belonging. We need quiet arcs of deep time shared with the other. I believe massage is often affirmation in subtle conversation: “You belong here. Thank you — Thank you.”

A month after that ethereal massage, I ended the relationship I was in, packed all the belongings I could fit into my tenacious hatchback, and made the three day stretch home to where I grew up (Dayton, Ohio). I enrolled in the local massage school three days after I was welcomed home by my parents, who had greeted me with a muffin from the local café.

Wading through Diving beyond consequence.

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Someone who sees me every other week shared about the Third Body she experiences during our sessions — she speaks to the mystical art of soul connection and the comfortable feeling of truly being with another person. This meaningful thing, tangible during massage. This Third Body she (both of us) feel comes from poet Robert Bly, in one of my now favorite pieces:

A man and a woman sit near each other, and they do not long
at this moment to be older, or younger, nor born
in any other nation, or time, or place.
They are content to be where they are, talking or not talking.
Their breaths together feed someone whom we do not know.
The man sees the way his fingers move;
he sees her hands close around a book she hands to him.
They obey a third body that they share in common.
They have made a promise to love that body.
Age may come, parting may come, death will come.
A man and a woman sit near each other;
as they breathe they feed someone we do not know,
someone we know of, whom we have never seen.

-“The Third Body”

The love letter I have towards massage will always be open-ended. To be so touched as I touch! That soft snow in the valley of the desert brought a magic with it that indeed changed me, forever.

~Kate Thomas, LMT