When I started printing again, here on Substack, I wanted to explore what I had done before and see what would happen if I brought it back to light. Well, dream life continues strong, new writing emerges, and the urge to speak is with me, once again… So it is in this spirit that I bring my account of a session in acupressure. It is deeply personal and yet it is necessary for me to talk about that which has been suppressed, repressed, and relabeled… for centuries and maybe for millennia. The power we all have to quiet down and heal ourselves. Ourselves, not the world…
Back in January of 2023, I said that
“Any theory that insists elsewhere is the place to be, is no longer a very pleasant theory for me.
The dream - the falcon and the dog
“N. is here. He has a falcon on a chain with him, or maybe an eagle. Not an eagle, perhaps a hawk. Majestic creature, enormous. I am so happy he came to the party, an extra, unexpected delight with his visit.
The bird gets loose and flies over to the fig tree. Or it could be the guava tree. The yellow Labrador I know so well has taken refuge in the tree already.
So, I watch the Falcon and the Labrador, in a great impasse. N. talks to the falcon, gently, telling him to disengage. The Labrador stands his ground, up there on the branch, not making any noise and waiting it out. I see his eyes, pleading, a bit startled and afraid, but holding his strong ground. The faces of the Labrador and the Falcon are, for an instant, the same, meshed, dark faces, mouth, and nose, covered in fine hairs. N. manages to disengage the falcon and take him back to his arm and wrist chain. Breathing relief from the suspense. A happy ending and a great sense of wonder.
(Once again, the wild and the domesticated, a dream the night after my session with Cathy, where I entered, for the first time, the amazing energy fields inside and around my body, 2/2/18, Oxford Day)”
The session
Shingles changed my life, back in 2016.
Diagnosed as a toothache just a few days too late, it became some stubborn version of trigeminal neuralgia and introduced me to unexpected, sustaining, prolonged pain, mostly on the left side of my face, followed by headaches that never really quit, even now. Trigeminal ills, the suicidal diagnosis because it hits you when you are not expecting it. When you are not open nor prepared for the unknown…
I had no choice but to treat the initial pain with chemicals. I remember clearly how my cat, Hobbes, stayed with me through the nightmare, laying his paw on the left side of my face.
But then, all chemical, Western medicinal attempts to help me, made me feel like I was losing my mind. The pain killers changed me into a zombie, barely able to live. So, for a couple of years, it was difficult.
Then, in a progression in linear life, I found acupressure sessions and training available near me, and started studying and practicing it, a joyous learning process that will not ever end…
I share here my notes from one of the early sessions that helped me lessen the pain, helped me to understand I live in my body, not only in my mind of the intellect, and that I am of this timed earth. Yet, I am immersed in deep mystery.
This is a pivotal point in my life where I begin to understand that “my body and my mind “are the same. I also connect some of the dots to the searches for soul and/or spirit… No, I do not become a visionary saint, nor do I gain access to heaven… I am not born again, and I am not from California.
Much simpler – all my experiences in life are united in the knowing of my body as a main presence in life. A moving connection that was lacking from my lifetime of fun intellectual understandings…
Cathy follows a protocol that I know by now, placing a gentle fulcrum on a sequence of energy points that are associated with the movements of what we understand in the West as our organic systems.
Points in back, excess baggage at the shoulders, points in front, the knees, the hands, the legs, the head, the grounding feet.
My legs feel restless, there is momentum gathering, my eyes twitch, I grimace, shut my eyes, rub them.
A lilac light comes from afar and envelops the left side of my face and shoulder. Diffused and gentle, permeating, spreading across my head, on my left side.
My left-hand lifts and turns up towards my face, then I bring both my hands up to my face and head, sensing the fields. I slowly begin to poke holes, openings in these fields to release the minute pressures, to release the denseness of the fields near my jaw, teeth, head. There is a movement (my movement?) to equalize the pressure, to bring the right hand and a quieter field of my right face to the left, to mix it, so as to balance it.
I experiment, moving my hands farther away from my body to the extent of my arm almost. It is a highly charged field. This is all new to me!
Also, a clear understanding that it is all self-contained. The vibration and energy from the fingers and whatever fields they represent are all present, bringing resources to the hands, from the body, from all organs of the body.
The lilac light, though, does not come from the fingers. I remember thinking if I should cover my face to intensify the light, as has happened before in sessions. But the light is just there, in right (left) field, higher up. I remember hearing the high frequency sounds way up in the left field above the head. (Note: The location of the fields is reversed, once again.)
Cathy asks me what I see there. I say: Nothing. What I mean to say is “ether”, a “substance” as light as nothing, a clear field, devoid of, compared to the fields I sense, I mean. When my hand reaches out there, like in the picture I so love, there is nothing, clear clear nothing. Retreating a tiny bit, inside this field, there is a sensation of boundaries, and as I experiment in wonder, the boundaries expand and retract. The boundaries that my hands reach are ephemeral, a very thin membrane in difference, but they exist…I can change the boundaries with my intention (?) or slight movement of my hands. I remember thinking vaguely that maybe I am wrong in condemning movement as a desirable outcome. Like in development work or evolution, expansion, growth, or hierarchies. Must go back to this and write about it more.
I am the boundaries, and I am the nothing space, all at once. In awe and afraid.
My body is entirely charged. Not goose bumps, tingling everywhere. My hands are in high vibration and so is my body. All fingers contain a high charge of energy, vibrating at the highest frequency.
Cathy continues with the basic protocol and swipes my arms down, vigorously, not even stopping at Immune point. I help with my arms and hands, swiping, literally releasing fields of energy down the fingers.
She works at the Chi Door, also vigorously. Then a head stretch, the caring, the unconditional love.
I remember feeling great wonder and curiosity at what is happening. Also remember thinking and wondering that there were no people with me there. No animal images, just shapes and sensations. A certain hesitation that it would end if I move abruptly but it is all overwhelming and fantastic. I have to explore and try it out because I am and it is entirely certain. This is real and this is my reality.
The other sensation is that the entire “Self” is engaged in what is happening. If the meridians ended and started at the tip of the fingers, then all the meridians and systems are engaged in the movement and a bit later in the release of energy. It seems appropriate to release it but I remember thinking – where does it go? Is it wasted energy? How to capture it to heal others… very fast track thoughts that did not detract me from what was happening.
I open my eyes then, quite tired…and we talk a bit, or rather I try to verbalize what had just happened. Cathy’s words or words similar to “release gently and with great respect – for all that it has taught you, for what it served you”, these words resonate deeply within me.
My early writings on transparency have to do with this – I entered the space, the field, the in between… the lines, if only for a second. Amazing though to enter the field in my own body, with so many sensations, thoughts, emotions. A long time in search…
I still have headaches, but the pressure and discomfort on the side of the face and in the ear diminished considerably.
Comments
1. How interesting that I would not see people (nor angels) in the fields.
2. “Since time immemorial, complementary and alternative medicines (CAM) have played a significant role in human health care. CAM is known to have a strong reputation and reliability within every culture to provide basic health care treatment for patients.” The article then goes on for pages of reduced explanations about acupressure and its direct effect on various parts of the body. Historically, as I understand it, it was during Mao’s rule that acupressure (and acupuncture) was accepted as traditional Chinese medicine, as official to the entire nation, with one caveat, all mention of soul was completely removed.
3. Important to note is that these wellness practices were relabeled, in the now famous “West” as alternative and complementary – the main show was and continues to be in the literal hands of dominant culture males and females… Chinese men (and women in power), Egyptian female rulers, Celtic pagan ones in myth and whoever else wishes to claim the throne. And this is not a joke.
I recently watched a most amazing ad on Instagram, my new addiction, where a very tall, lean, Bali like good looking American guy tells us that his Guides told him to buy that fancy car. He hesitated, of course, but went and bought it anyway… because he trusts his Guides. And he was so satisfied, truly fulfilled, and happy! On a highly spiritual level.
And I wonder if he found a loophole to have his Guides covered by his health insurance policy?
Sounds like exactly the healing modality you were meant to experience, and share!
i need to find an acupressure practitioner…