Table Talk: Heart

After a Cherokee petroglyph by Phillip Hoyle

     Well-known people come to the spa for massage. We are instructed to treat them as we would anyone else who is a guest. One day I asked a celebrity client if he had any places that hurt or needed special attention. “My brain,” he said. I laughed and told him about Richard who, when I asked him if he had any particular pains, replied, “My heart.” I told Richard I don’t do heart massage, but I would be mindful of his heart while I worked. My celebrity client smiled at the story. I wanted to bring this man deep relaxation through massage so he could set aside, if only momentarily, the things that were causing him mental pain.

     One client wants brain work; another, heart. I can only give a loving, attentive massage to their beautiful and important bodies. One of them is an international pop star, the other a simple though lively guy surviving with AIDS. I appreciate what and who both of these men are. I rub their skin, knead their muscles, and say calming things as I perform a tactile ceremony over them. Sometimes the simplest touch can help soothe a sore muscle or a broken heart. A well-timed and well-placed palpation can ease a ligament or a stressed mind. My goal is to usher them into a sense of presence with their bodies so they can value and adore their very real selves.

     People come to me with headaches or tired muscles, and sometimes both. Others arrive at the table with troubled minds and broken hearts. I give them massage. The touch to their bodies helps them relax. The words create acceptance. I sometimes ask for details related to their pains and extend my sympathy when it seems helpful. I strive to bring perspective whether the issues relate to child rearing, relationships, or information about the body. But important as my words may be, the main feature of the time together is my touch--its quality and the concern it communicates.

     Asian massage modalities use compressions on the surface of the skin to impact internal organs. This external-to-internal effect is sometimes cited as the primary distinction between Eastern and Western massage. However, Western modalities also accomplish an external-to-internal change. For example, Swedish massage affects skeletal muscles by increasing circulation. The increase in turn affects the heart as an organ. And, through the relaxation of the body, Swedish massage can affect even Richard’s broken heart. Surely similar things can be said of massage’s effect on the brain, both physiologically and psychologically.

     Massage appeals to several common denominators of human experience: sore muscles, headaches, feeling stressed, and more. It brings its simple or profound relief to rich and poor, healthy and ill, famous and unknown in equal measure. A sage of the Hebrew Bible pointed out that all persons come into and leave the world naked. They show up on the massage table in the same condition, and whatever the externals of their livelihood and general experience, they share the same body pains and need the same relief.

Divine healer, like you, may we hear the deep groaning 

of others and of ourselves. 

Teach us to touch and affect one another as we open ourselves deeply to your love. 

Amen.

Mixed media collage by Phillip Hoyle

Table Talk: Headache

     Last year I read The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, in search of interesting characters to use in conversations, collage icons, and written meditations. I read the book two ways simultaneously, from front to end keeping track of my place with a bus transfer slip, and by consulting an appendix that listed the calendar of feasts for the saints of the particular day I was reading. I found characters to discuss with a friend and ideas to enrich the visual detail of my collages. Also, I found my attention captured by various ills related to massage, especially headaches and the saints appealed to for their cure.

     The lives and experiences of several saints seemed connected to particular kinds of headaches. For example, St. Stephen, a deacon in Jerusalem in the earliest years of the church and one of the first martyrs, was killed by stoning. In the later Middle Ages he was invoked against headaches. The headache connection was not immediately clear to me. Perhaps it was related to the saint’s social-work responsibility as a deacon in the church. He was assigned distribution of food to indigent church members and dealt with the conflicts that arose when one faction thought their widows were being shorted in the daily dole when compared with the handouts to others. I’ve always thought being yelled at by people for doing nice things to help them would give me a stress headache. Of course, the saint may have been prayed to because of the image of having a rock strike one’s head, for he was martyred by stones thrown by an angry crowd. What a headache that would surely cause.

     I read with fascination about St. Gereon, a Fourth Century martyr of Cologne and one of fifty soldiers of the Theban Legion who were put to death for the name of Christ. Like other saints who were beheaded, he was invoked against headaches and migraine. Surely, prayers to Gereon and the others were for help with headaches of the sharpest variety, the ones that feel like they are going to take your head right off your shoulders.

     Then there was St. Armel, a martyr of the Sixth century from South Wales. He was invoked to cure headaches, fever, colic, gout, and rheumatism. Hospitals sometimes made him their patron. One could pray to St. Armel for relief from a headache that accompanies some other malady.

     The accounts and traditions of these saints and others suggest some ideas and images. A clinic in my neighborhood advertises massage for “Headache Relief.” I imagine the main hallway there as being lined with icons of headache saints. These bruised and beheaded patron saints receive the requests of the hurting clients as they make their way back to the therapy rooms. The saints also may remind the therapists of a variety of ways they can treat their patients.

     At school I learned that the trapezius muscles--upper, middle, and lower--are sometimes called the headache triangle. Perhaps someone could invoke the three persons of the Trinity (were they Trinitarian) as they work these three muscles. Another therapist may wish to invoke the trio of Saints Stephen, Gereon, and Armel. Such a massage could serve nicely as a meditation, but one must watch out and not get so enthusiastic in the work as to increase the pain. Headaches are tricky things to heal.

     Most headaches respond to massage therapy. The palpation of muscles changes what happens chemically within the muscles. The stress is reduced both by muscles coming out of spasm and by the effect of having one’s body touched. The communication calms the whole person and stimulates the release of hormones or other chemicals that make one feel better. Of course, there are headaches related to serious underlying pathology. In such cases, massage may not be helpful. A doctor should be called for and many prayers made to the headache saints.

Table Talk: Trauma

     Melissa came to my practice at the suggestion of a friend. She was looking for a massage therapist near her home who would help her recover from an accident. We set a time for a first session in which to evaluate one another and decide if we should work together.

     While walking across an alleyway, Melissa was run into by a moving automobile. The car was not moving very fast, yet it hit her on the left side and dragged her several yards. She then landed on the asphalt on her right side. Her terror turned to anger as she confronted the driver who then, freaked out by what he had just done, drove away from the scene of the accident.

     For three months she had been working with a massage therapist and a chiropractor. Her masseuse left the practice, hence her search for someone else to continue therapy complementary to the chiropractor’s. As we talked, I observed Melissa’s anger. Three months after the accident she was still angry with the driver. The focus of her fear, though, had changed. At age 21, she was afraid she would never recover fully and would live in pain for the rest of her life.

     The initial session went well. Melissa scheduled several more. In the subsequent months of therapy, I discovered in practice what my teachers had told me over and over: integrative massage techniques can address issues resulting from trauma to soft tissue. Thus I used deep tissue massage, neuro-muscular therapy, and connective tissue techniques wrapped together in an organizing package of Swedish massage, and complemented by verbal therapies. I chanted, so to speak, a prayer of recovery as I worked deeply between her ribs, and inched my way into the anterior hip muscles deep in her abdomen. I stretched out shortened muscles in her neck and shoulder, speaking all the while about the body’s amazing power to heal itself. I released trigger point after trigger point in the tissue around her knees while engaging her in conversation about school and the direction of her artwork. I was pleased, even impressed, as I watched her heal.

     Certainly her healing was enhanced by massage. But this independent young woman didn’t need to remain dependent on others for pain relief. I demonstrated and encouraged her to practice some self-massage techniques for muscles in her face, neck, ribs, and abdomen. She did them at home and started setting her appointments farther and farther apart as she mended.

     I suspect Melissa will feel some pain in her neck, ribs, knees, and hips for the rest of her life. She will remember her accident whenever she is tired, and occasionally, she will revisit her feelings of terror, anger, and fear. But also, she will carry with her the memory of healing and of the simple, but not insignificant, part massage played in helping her muscles to mend. She will be able to apply simple techniques of self-massage when the pain is slight or seek further help from a massage therapist when the pain persists. 

God, help us see the complexity of the healing process. 

May we learn how to balance our acceptance of pain with our doing something about it. And in so doing, 

may we recognize your voice and touch. 

Amen.

Buffalo Ceremony by Phillip Hoyle after a group of Kansas petroglyphs

Table Talk: Great Performance

     Yesterday, at the spa, I massaged a man named John. I showed him to the room where we would be working and asked whether he had any special needs. “Neck and shoulders,” he replied. Since one’s work often impacts particular muscles, I asked what he did. “I’m in town for a performance tonight.” I wasn’t sure whether he was an actor, a singer, a guitarist, or in charge of lights or sound. From something he said, though, I thought he might be connected with a musical performance.

     The massage went well. I established a comfortable rhythm as I worked his body thoroughly, massaging each muscle group. With loving palpations, using long, gentle strokes, I responded to the changes in his body. I paid close attention, working deeper where the tissue was tight and lighter where it was already supple. John began to relax. We talked very little, but he seemed pleased with the massage. Afterwards, when John came out into the hall, I handed him a glass of water and asked how he was doing. He smiled, said he was fine, and told me, “That was a great performance.”

     His assessment matches one of my favorite ideas about my employment, for I consider massage therapy to be a performing art, one with similarities to music, dance, and drama. Like other arts, massage communicates a message, develops a style, and involves the therapist in various roles. I find mastering massage techniques similar to learning piano scales and arpeggios. When I work around my client on the table, I feel like I am dancing. I love the free, improvisational movement of my whole body when coaxing muscles to relax. It reminds me how I used to dance for my choirs to get them into the mood of the anthem we were learning. Now the accompanying massage music invites me into a rhythm of beats and phrases. A dancer’s half turn on the balls of my feet changes the direction of my stroke, and I glide.

     In my artistry as a massage therapist, I take chances as I create or elicit feelings in my audience of one. I want to move my clients into a relaxed state, a reduction of stress, a sense of pleasure, and an experience of letting go. I hear their sighs and moans like applause and am spurred on to create within them a sense of well being. I play a tune on the body, or I sculpt a new relationship of muscle and bone. I introduce my themes, develop them as I engage the muscles, and invite the deepest relaxation with a reprise, a recapitulation at the end that will continue to assert itself like a tune one remembers when leaving a concert. I want the client to come to a full cadence, to a feeling of rest and completion as I lift my hands from their body when the performance has concluded.

     I am always excited by the improvisational challenges related to different environments and different types of massage. I like the street performance feel of chair massage in a coffee shop, lunch room, or exhibition hall. I even enjoy constantly changing rooms at the spa and meeting its one-hour time limit. By contrast, work in my own studio gives me more control. I find myself responding to my selection of music and to the aromas of various oils. I like being free to extend the massage when it seems appropriate. Massage offers me no script but, rather, a recipe I can follow or alter. While I must meet particular requirements to designate a massage as Swedish, deep tissue, integrative, Thai, or neuromuscular therapy, the style in which I deliver them is my own. Mostly, I love “jazzing” an old massage theme, improvising in response to sights, sounds, smells, and feelings in my sessions with my clients.

     From time to time I receive compliments: “Nice massage,” or “That was the best massage I’ve ever had,” or “I’ve never had a massage like this before.” While I appreciate these comments, I liked most what John said: “That was a great performance.” My preference for his compliment doesn’t surprise me since I see life as art. For me, God is the great artist; my work is a reflection of the Creative One. And always I want to give a great performance, “for the glory of God,” as the old theologians said it, and for the benefit of my clients. So be it.

Chorus Line Bears by Phillip Hoyle.
Enjoy their enthusiasm. Great Performance!