Healing Touch

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I was on a road trip with my host family, traveling from the Midwest to the Deep South.

The Man and the Lady of the House were taking turns driving. I didn’t have a driver’s license, so I was relegated to the back seat, stuck in the middle between The Boy in his booster seat to my right and the surly teenage brother of the Man of the House on my left. For over 850 miles, my feet perched on the hump in the middle of the floor, keeping my knees bent and closer to my chin than comfortable.

When we stopped at a motel for the night, I could barely walk. My knee hurt. My knee hurt badly. My knee hurt terribly. My knee hurt when I flexed it. My knee hurt when I walked.

Up to that point in my life, hurt had only happened because of something I had done. I’d hurt my back in ridiculous ways: sneezing, reaching for a towel. I’d hurt my ankles by twisting them while walking. But I’d never hurt myself by sitting still.

I hobbled into the motel room and got some sleep. My knee didn’t hurt when I kept it still; it only hurt when I tried to use it. Of course, my instinct told me not to move it if moving it hurt. I didn’t realize my best bet was to keep moving it until I worked out the kinks.

The next morning I hobbled back out to the car and folded myself again into the middle seat. I guess the surly teenage brother got the window seat because he was taller, with longer legs. As a shortie, I’ve always taken the seat with the least leg room, so it didn’t occur to me to ask him to switch places or even insist upon it. I was his elder, after all, and I was in pain, but the middle seemed to be my destiny, so I went with it.

By the time we arrived at our final destination, I was in A LOT OF PAIN. I hobbled into the house. I lay down on a bed and told the Lady of the House how much it hurt. She looked at me with sympathy. I asked her to put some healing touch on me.

Healing touch was something I’d learned from a midwife at an infoshop. In the workshop, she taught us to mostly hover our hands over the body of the person we wanted to heal. When we felt a change in energy, we were to keep our hands above that area and concentrate on smoothing out any roughness we found in the energy. If the healer and the person with the pain both felt comfortable, the healer could do some actual light physical touch.

My mistake came from forgetting that the Lady of the House had not attended the midwife-led healing touch workshop. My mistake came from forgetting that the Lady of the House had not attended any healing touch workshop ever. My mistake came from failing to define terms or otherwise using my words to explain what I wanted the Lady to do.

As far as I know, the Lady of the House has never been trained as a chiropractor. I’ve never been treated by a chiropractor, so my ideas of what they do is shrouded in myth and legend. But in my mind, what the Lady did next was closer to a chiropractic manipulation than a gentle laying of hands.

I was lying on my back with my knee bent, leg raised, with my foot and buttocks lifted off the bed. The Lady of the House grabbed my foot and in one swift motion, straightened my leg. She didn’t stop there. Oh, no, she didn’t. She hyperextended my knee, not drastically, but enough to make me yell in pain. That shit hurt!

However, as I looked at her in disbelief and suspicion, I started moving my knee. It didn’t hurt. She had healed me.

She probably should have enrolled in chiropractic school as soon as she returned home. She seemed to be a natural.

About Blaize Sun

My name is Blaize Sun. Maybe that's the name my family gave me; maybe it's not. In any case, that's the name I'm using here and now. I've been a rubber tramp for nearly a decade.I like to see places I've never seen before, and I like to visit the places I love again and again. For most of my years on the road, my primary residence was my van. For almost half of the time I was a van dweller, I was going it alone. Now I have a little travel trailer parked in a small RV park in a small desert town. I also have a minivan to travel in. When it gets too hot for me in my desert, I get in my minivan and move up in elevation to find cooler temperatures or I house sit in town in a place with air conditioning I was a work camper in a remote National Forest recreation area on a mountain for four seasons. I was a camp host and parking lot attendant for two seasons and wrote a book about my experiences called Confessions of a Work Camper: Tales from the Woods. During the last two seasons as a work camper on that mountain, I was a clerk in a campground store. I'm also a house and pet sitter, and I pick up odd jobs when I can. I'm primarily a writer, but I also create beautiful little collages; hand make hemp jewelry and warm, colorful winter hats; and use my creative and artistic skills to decorate my life and brighten the lives of others. My goal (for my writing and my life) is to be real. I don't like fake, and I don't want to share fake. I want to share my authentic thoughts and feelings. I want to give others space and permission to share their authentic selves. Sometimes I think the best way to support others is to leave them alone and allow them to be. I am more than just a rubber tramp artist. I'm fat. I'm funny. I'm flawed. I try to be kind. I'm often grouchy. I am awed by the stars in the dark desert night. I hope my writing moves people. If my writing makes someone laugh or cry or feel angry or happy or troubled or comforted, I have done my job. If my writing makes someone think and question and try a little harder, I've done my job. If my writing opens a door for someone, changes a life, I have done my job well. I hope you enjoy my blog posts, my word and pictures, the work I've done to express myself in a way others will understand. I hope you appreciate the time and energy I put into each post. I hope you will click the like button each time you like what you have read. I hope you will share posts with the people in your life. I hope you'll leave a comment and share your authentic self with me and this blog's other readers. Thank you for reading.  A writer without readers is very sad indeed.

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