I took a three day Shiatsu workshop, a couple weeks ago -- great fun, I learned lots. (And forgive me: no, I still don't believe in energetic meridians. More about that anon, maybe.) I ate lunch with some other participants, the first day, and when asked about my practice, I said, "Oh, I do in-home massage. I've been doing it ten years, now. I love it." And then the demon of self-deprecation got hold of me, as he will, and I added, "Just relaxation massage."
That's the way we massage therapists often talk about it, among ourselves. Just relaxation massage. The lowest common denominator. Swedish; spa massage; fluff n buff. The stuff anyone can do.
But I've resolved to stop talking that way. The thing we call "relaxation" isn't trivial, and it isn't easy to do well. In fact I think it's the most important part of massage, and probably the active ingredient in most of our successful "treatments." It's what I personally get massage for. But it's hard to talk about clearly. It's an experience that does not lend itself to words.
I wrote recently to one of my own massage therapists: Thanks so much! That was a transcendent massage. Changed the quality of the sunlight coming through the leaves.
It didn't fix me. No particular issues were addressed. I'm still the same sorry messed up mortal I was before: working at a desk all day will still make my neck stiff, and dealing with obnoxious people will still annoy me, and I will still want to eat more than I should at the end of a long day.
So what's it for? What's the point?
The point is going to another place, where the quality of the sunlight is different, where everything is clear and luminous and spacious, and nothing needs to be done. We don't stay there. And an hour afterwards maybe it won't make any obvious difference in our lives. But really forgetting that other place is there -- that would be a catastrophe: that would set us up to be dislocated and uprooted in hundred different ways. We need to go back periodically, to be reminded: it's still there.