After a moment of lying with my head in the face cradle, I felt the tears. Not a flood of salty streaming tears, but the kind that just well up in your eyes, the kind that come with a full body sensation of emotion as if to say, "You're safe now. You can exhale." So exhale I did. My body whispered, "You remembered." It was a reminder that receiving bodywork is how I remove layers. Yoga is great. Breathing is wonderful. In combination I'm practically happy go lucky. But bodywork is the deep connection. The one that prompts all the dimensions of my self to reunite and support me. I was craving it before this treatment. I was having trouble, feeling frustrated, disconnecting from the hectic world I came from prior to this place in the forest on the mountain. I couldn't taste the food like I wanted. I couldn't take in the view like I needed. My mind was churning against my rhythm when I needed it to flow with ease. Sleep wasn't feeling as restorative as I needed. I wasn't in the driver's seat.
Something divine takes place when receiving bodywork from a well-trained, grounded practitioner who makes contact with more than just hands, but intention. Touch delivered with loving kindness is blissful if you're able to surrender to it. And yes, even that takes practice. How do you know you've surrendered? How do you know what you've lost has been returned? When you leave your treatment, breathe more deeply than before and the smell of jasmine on the vines is sweeter. When the breeze does more than just blow around you, it dances on your skin and feels like nature's medicine. When you look up at the world sprawled out before you with more clarity than before, deeply knowing, deeply sensing without words that it conspires harmoniously in your favor. And you feel loved.