Hi I'm Danielle Johnson and I want to talk to you about massage as a sacred practice.
So I am in my 60s now and my body has various aches and pains.
I have particularly difficult lower back and I've now got golfing elbows apparently.
So whenever I can I go to a weekly massage appointment and I'm noticing the whole experience as a deep practice.
The other aspect that's kind of interesting and different is that I often meet with Jessica for two to two and a half hours and the way that she works is extraordinary and there are certain things that she's doing and I'm doing which I think contribute to the experience itself being extraordinary.
So I want to talk about both of those.
So being the receiver of the massage I invite you to bring all of your attention to the contact boundary between your body and the masseur's hands and every time you notice your mind wandering and thinking about other things or getting distracted just invite you to gently bring your attention back to the contact between your body and the masseur's hands and I want you to bring as much presence and breath to that contact.
So deepening the breath,
Filling your lungs and your belly and really slowing the exhale down and extending it and lengthening it.
When you notice some intensity of feeling,
Get curious.
Dive into the experience.
What do you notice at that point where the masseur is pressing?
What do you notice?
Feel the sensation at that contact boundary.
I find if it's painful I can bring more breath and I'm surfing the very edge of what we call my workable edge.
If there is pain I invite you to get curious and bring more breath to your experience of that point.
Really notice the sensations where the masseur is pressing.
See if you can really surrender into the experience so fully,
All the way breathing deeply,
Falling all the way through and as the masseur's hands move forward and onward notice what sensations arise.
You may feel a tingling vibration,
The release of energy from that contraction.
Breathe that through your whole body.
That is your vibrational nature.
That is what is available underneath and beyond all the painful contracted parts and moments and all the contracted points in your body.
You imagine being with a baby and being with a baby who is hurting or sad or lonely and cries and fully expresses the feeling right through the whole body until it dissolves back to its original nothingness.
The massage is asking the same of us to be so fully present with our direct experience.
We fall through it,
We release it into the vibration,
The energetic field of our truth,
Of our essence.
So my physical experience in the massage today was initially on the table feeling Jessica's warm hands on my bare skin and then slowly as she moves around my body,
My back particularly,
There are points that are extremely painful and she meets them with her fingers and her elbows and her presence and her love and she invites me to meet them myself.
So we all dive into the experience of what's arising inside me between us in the field so totally.
We dissolve.
There is no experiencer,
Receiver of the massage.
There is no masseur,
Only the vibration.
Continuing to breathe into that experience.
Resting back in that vast emptiness.
And then we go on the floor for some Thai massage.
And the experience is completely different and yet so similar where she moves my legs,
She moves my arms and the best thing I can do is completely surrender and let her do whatever she wants to with my limbs.
Like when we were babies,
When we could totally surrender into being moved around.
It's like the training that's required for us to take our hands off the tiller.
And the edges I went to,
Can I give her the full weight of my legs?
Can I really let my shoulder drop down?
And surfing the edges of those inquiries with breath dropped me further and further into the light.
And as we finished,
She asked me to go into a child's pose,
Which I thought was extremely appropriate and synchronistic in many ways because it felt like I was embodying the divine child in that moment,
Bowing to life,
Bowing down,
Praying.
Show me,
Guide me.
And as I got up,
I could still feel the vibration working all over my body.
I could feel my fingers tingling as I walked to get my stuff and to leave.
So as a receiver,
I invite you to drop down into the experience as much as you can.
And for the masseur,
Whether you are massaging a partner or a friend or someone that is paying you professionally,
Your depth of presence,
Your breath is what will guide the session into depth.
Your attunement to the other person's breath and the letting God work through your hands on this body.
Thank you.
