Chapter 18
"John, please come into the office where there's a little more space and a lot more light."
"Thank you, Abbot. I'd like to tell you that I'm feeling a good bit more comfortable now that we've had a couple sessions."
"That's good news. Please sit down and let's talk. How are you and your patients?"
"Well, my patients are healing me. It is good to be able to do what I've been trained to do and help a few lives."
"I couldn't agree with you more. Your real healing will come with the passage of time, the time you need to go through the mourning process in your own unique style. Don't let anyone hurry you or tell you that you are young and will re-marry. No one will ever replace Beth. People mean well but often retard the mourning process by such comments. And when we can get this murder solved you'll be even freer to heal. Research shows that while litigation of any sort is going on, it is difficult to get on with healing. Some studies, for example, were done on accident victims who thereby became pain management patients. They made some progress before court, but much more after the legal issues were resolved one way or another. Sorry for rambling on, my friend; I used to be a teacher."
"What you say is helpful and fascinating, Abbot, and I know that there is a method to your madness. Everything you do is calculated to help me heal and I appreciate that very much. You said murder a moment ago. Are you convinced that Beth did not commit a very bizarre type of suicide to make some kind of statement which still eludes most of us?"
"I'm working on the hypothesis that Beth's life was taken from her, John, not the other way around. I have some reason to believe that but the police won't allow me to share certain information, so let's just keep a good thought in that regard, okay?"
"I'm happy to, Abbot, but also very curious and I know that you can understand why. My respect for you, however, helps my self-discipline."
"The respect is mutual, John. And now onward. We've spent a good bit of time processing some of your thoughts and feelings and we've tried to come to terms with the 'two steps forward and one step backward' of the mourning process and how it sneaks up on you when you're feeling pretty good and clobbers you. We also discussed the fact that those moments of feeling pretty good can gradually stretch over the months from moments to hours and days and then to the rest of your life."
"I know we did and I believe you, but it seems so far away and it doesn't feel as if I'll ever get there."
"Well, John, let's take another look at it. Let's look at it through the vehicle of your body. I think it's time to calm down that restless gut of yours."
"Okay, but I'm not sure what to do or what this process is all about."
"Oh, you mean the Therapeutic Touch. Well, did you read the literature I gave you?"
"Yes, I did. It was extremely interesting. I respect the scientific studies along with the philosophical foundation on which Therapeutic Touch rests but you're not using any EEG machines or any EKG machines or stethoscopes, and I guess I still need some instruments because that's how I was trained."
"Well, let's just use the instruments provided through the energy of all life which I see as Christ and you can see in any way you like, perhaps higher power would fit you at this point. I'll use my hands to read your energy field, as it were, and to cleanse, replace, and free up your energy."
"Human hands as instruments of healing, somehow that seems more appropriate than electronic gizmos of steel and plastic. As for the higher power issue, Abbot, I was raised Catholic and I do resonate with the concept of Christ, although right now I'm in such pain I'm not sure what I believe."
"That's no problem. Jesus can handle confusion. In fact I believe that he had to deal with his own confusion while here on earth. Scripture tells us that he was like us in everything but sin. But enough of that."
"Now, I can do Therapeutic Touch with you simply sitting on a bench but I think you will find it a little more restful to lie down on a massage table, listen to the taped music I put on, and just kind of drift off."
"Fine by me. I feel like I am already starting to drift off, as you call it."
"There's no need to take your clothing off, especially since you are in shorts and that comfortable looking tee-shirt with the stone work and masonry ad on it."
"A gift of my cousin Vinnie."
"My tee shirts all have ads on them too--usually for a school or a professional association. At any rate, you can take off your sandals and hop up on the table, lying on your back please. Now just pray a little to yourself in any way you like. We call it centering. Just choose to be open to the energy of God, of goodness, of healing, the energy that flows through all of creation--trees, rocks, plants, animals, people, and I'm going to scan your body with my hands, that is, I'm going to move my hands slowly from the top of your head down to the soles of your feet and tune in to your energy field. There--I sense it very easily right here, an inch or two above your head. Now please turn on your side for a few moments while I scan your back."
"It is easy to pick up a lot of negativity dealing with the illnesses and problems of others and, of course, because of your wife's death. It stays with us like static cling. To rid you of the negative energy or toxins, I'll do a little back, neck, and foot massage to loosen up your field, Okay?"
"My soul is in your hands, as is my body. I trust you."
"Now, on your back again. I am opening my hands like two rakes or combs and letting the negativity cling to my hands which I'll shake periodically to get rid of the poisonous energy I collect on them as I pass through your energy field. I am passing my hands through your energy field and breaking up what you are emitting as well as what I have shifted around, changed the frequency of, whatever you want to call. I'm going to massage the bottom of your feet a little more just to kind of loosen them up and I'd like you to think about negative energy that is going to flow out of your feet. Just think of the poisonous negativity leaving you primarily through the soles of your feet. I'll do a little massage of your spine and neck and I'd like you to just think of the word "flow." You can use it as a mantra or prayer word and just gently say to yourself, if you like, "flow, flow, flow" or just kind of space out and relax. Just don't get too weirded out by all of this."
"I was going to say, Francis, that I hope I'm not messing anything up by talking at this time, but you have me laughing and even with that possible distraction I'm still beginning to feel some sensations as you are doing whatever this is with me."
"We call it unruffling the field, John, and people sometimes feel intense feelings from the past during bodywork. The practitioner sometimes has to deal with transferred anger, pain, whatever as a result. But, that's okay; it comes with the territory and Jesus had the same type of thing to deal with in his own way."
"I'm understanding your theological musings pretty well, thanks to being married to a theologian. Also, Francis, as you unruffle my field, I'm beginning to feel--it's hard to describe--a sensation of cleansing, a sensation of almost electrical changes in my body."
"I understand what you're saying, John. People experience and conceptualize this in different ways. Stay with me and just allow the junk to flow out of you. Remember that it's leaving through your feet as well. I've just moved my hands down--now over your chest and stomach and now over your hips and your legs and your feet. If you roll on your side again I'll do the same thing down your back. I'll unruffle the field there as well, cleansing you from the negative energy you've picked up. That's right."
"As you move downward, Francis, I feel it even more intensely, especially down my back and specifically along my spine and around my kidneys."
"That's fine, John. Remember that people experience this in a variety of ways. Just have your own experience of it and I'll move all the way down to your feet, and while you're in this position I'll return to you head and put some energy into you now. Once again, try to remember that we are all part of a huge energy pool and that I think of the energy of Christ, I think of grace. You think of this energy in whatever way is comfortable for you and I'll more slowly now move my hands gently through your energy field with the intention of letting God's energy pass through me and into you, not my energy, it's energy from someone else. I'm just an energy conduit. That's right, just be with the process. I think something just happened there, John."
"I think something happened there too, Francis. In fact, I know that it did. It happened to us both at the same time. I sensed a deeper connection, or you kind of poking through my field somehow right around my kidneys."
"John, as you know, above the kidneys are the adrenal glands and they are sometimes very sensitive to a need for more energy and I'm just going to stay there for a little while and let the adrenals suck up this energy. I can feel a type of a drawing or pulling through my hands and we'll just take a little time and you can listen to the music I have playing in the background as you drift of and internally strengthen and grow."
A few minutes passed and Francis moved his hovering hands on down through the body to the feet once again and had John turn on his back and experienced himself becoming intensely focused on John's eyes.
"John, I'm putting the palms of my hands lightly over your eyes and my intention is to give you some energy but I'm also going to move my hands around in a kind of waving motion over your eyes to allow energy to flow. There's a block there. It feels like there's a void right around your eyes. I'm going to move that and yet I get the feeling that this is the only part of things that you're not comfortable with."
"That's right, Francis, I'm not and I can't seem to explain why--to you or to myself. Just before you moved your hands to my eyes, perhaps when you began to feel drawn to them, I became filled with terror for a moment. Much of it has passed, but I'm still feeling up tight."
"I have some idea as to what is happening, John. I think there's something in your life which you don't want to see."
"Do you have any idea at all what it is, Francis?"
"Not yet, John, but it's something very traumatic and it's probably not something in the present tense. I might also mention that my intuitions are often one to two days behind my encounter with a patient and come when I am least expecting them. At any rate, you seem blinded to something out of fear."
"What in the world do you mean by that, Francis. I'm really trying hard to follow you here but it's getting more and more challenging."
"Just let go of rigid logic for a little while, John, and enter into a deeper kind of logic. In clinical hypnosis we call it trance logic. I have an intuitive sense that there's something you have seen that you don't want to recall so you're blinding your mind's eye to it. Do you follow that?"
"Yes, I do, Francis. It makes me a little uncomfortable and I don't like to admit it, but I do follow you."
"Well, good. Be with that. Try to absorb that insight and don't work at making it happen; just let it happen and it will. Now, you seem awfully tight in a few places. I'll just give you a little more energy and get your energy to flow a little more around your eyes, and down around your feet, and then we had better conclude for today."
"I feel frightened and confused, Francis, but I also feel
encouraged and liberated."
Fright, confusion, and compassion hung in the air like the graceful branches of a willow tree not sure where they wanted to move in the breeze.