Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/68012
HONORING THE BODY The day-to-day experience of giving a massage, its familiarity, may dull our sensitivities to its poignancy, presenting it as a mere routine of flesh. regulation of temperature—but on their age, weight (less is better), and definition within the arena of cultural attractiveness. But, I argue, that if bodies are disfigured by the relentless passing of the years, the use of food as sedative, the Caesarean scar, then they are thus also disfigured by their humanity. As massage therapists, I wonder if our exposure to so many kinds of bodies is an opportunity for us to rewrite cultural standards about bodies, approaching them with reverence rather than judgement. But what are the possibilities for relating reverentially to bodies that massage therapy actually gives us? Are we more commonly removed from the bodies we treat? Are we ultimately a little embarrassed by lines, scars, and cellulite? Do we use judgement as a coping mechanism when presented with bodies? Are we gentle, treating each body as if it were our own child's body? Are we intuitive, guided by the rhythm of each contour, heartbeat, breath, and tuning in to the vocabulary that stretches between form and feeling? I remember my first massage with an obese client, when I was a student. Her body was a mass of textures and shapes and quite unfamiliar to me. I was concerned that I would be too gentle because I couldn't detect any muscle tone. I felt ineffectual: maybe she'd fall off the table. I felt like a new mother with a tiny baby, unaware of the limits of its body and my ability to confidently connect with it. But as time passed (and the client returned) I gained an increasing connection, not just to the materiality of her fleshiness, which was far more responsive than I had presumed, but to its holiness. This had (and has) nothing to do with God, but everything to do with the pulsating universe of her body, a body reviled by society, but which lay under my hands and which could be revered and venerated by the respect of my touch. Accepting our clients' bodies as material dimensions of a wider, more holistic matrix may come some way to reinstating the reverence to bodies which is their due. Although a massage that relieves the muscular tension of a client may prove of benefit, our ability as therapists to weave the problems of muscular tension with the profundity of the bodies we treat will surely produce a more nourishing and empathetic experience, both for ourselves and our client. CONNECTING When the light filters through the drapes and I lean down to massage more oil onto my client's arm, hand, foot, back, I connect skin to skin, listening to the murmurings of these bodies with a sense of reverence that they are here at all: skin bags of blood and water, corporeal beings full of hopes and dreams. It is a wise person who understands that while in goes Coca-Cola and cabbage leaves, out comes love, hope, fear, grief, and joy. Such an understanding illustrates the profound capacity of our bodies, all bodies. The day-to-day experience of giving a massage, its familiarity, may dull our sensitivities to its poignancy, presenting it as a mere routine of flesh. But we need to jolt ourselves regularly, bring ourselves into balance as we remember again and again, the extraordinariness of form. We must foreground, repeatedly, the sacredness of bodies. and writer. She has a bachelor's degree in English studies from Oxford Brookes University, a master's in gender studies from the University of Leeds, and a doctorate in women's studies from the University of York. She practices massage at Miller's Yard, Center for Positive Living, in York, United Kingdom. Contact her through www.millersyard.co.uk. Lee Ronald is a holistic massage therapist visit massageandbodywork.com to access your digital magazine 39