Do you do energy work?

Well -- yes and no. All bodywork is energy work. I'm not trained in any of the energetic systems currently taught, and frankly I'm skeptical of the value of much of it (though not of the work done by people so trained.) But I think any good therapist "sees" their client's spirit with their hands. There are times when I know I'm working with grief, or anxiety, or depression. I "see" obstructions, blockages, and disturbances.

And it's clear to me also that nothing good comes of massage until the connection is made -- both the connection between the therapist and the client, and the connection of both to -- well, whatever it is we connect with. It's not useful, even if it were possible, to say much about this connection, but it's fundamental. Opening myself -- "plugging in," as the Trager people put it -- is the first task to be done in massage. In a sense it's the only task: everything else unfolds from it.

What's with the Moon?

No, I'm a Buddhist, actually, and it's supposed to be a new moon, not a crescent. I love the ghostly dark-of-the-moon disk --

...the new moon winter-bright
But overspread with phantom light
With swimming phantom light o'erspread
But rimmed and circled by a silver thread...

-- as Coleridge put it. To me it's about all the things massage is about -- downtime, yin time, transition time, time out -- bardo, as we say in the Tibetan tradition. It's about closing the eyes and letting go.