In my last post (which feels like a small lifetime ago) I wrote about my desire to offer some sort of mothering energy to a small community. I had no idea what that might look like, or how I might create it. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to think about it too much – the opportunity was presented to me in the shape of a 4m by 1.6m room, with two windows that frame two palm trees.
In the past seven days, I have cradled eleven naked, soft, beautiful bodies in my arms.
Only one of them has been a baby.
The others have been a delightful mixture of humans, and an even more delightful mixture of bodies: a yoga teacher, a retired veteran, a warehouse worker, an aged care facility manager, a new mum, an advertising executive for an international fashion brand, a disability support carer. All ten strangers have entered my 4m by 1.6m room, promptly removed their clothes and lain prone on the bed with their eyes closed.
What an obscene and bold act of vulnerability!
I move to the top of their heads and place my hands on their shoulders. I breathe. And then I commence an hour long meditation. A conversation – actually – between my body and theirs.
There is something inherently erotic about massage. I don’t mean this in a sexual sense – I’m not sexually aroused by the bodies on the table under my hands. But I am very turned on, in what I suppose is an energetic way, and I am very, very aware of the two-way pleasure that this kind of bodywork elicits.
There is a dance, in the warmth of my 4m by 1.6m room, and it is deeply sensual. My “babies” can’t see me, as I move my arms and wrists and fingers over their bodies, and so they must trust that I am going to take care of them. And for my part, working with what in essence are consensually blindfolded people, I must trust that the communication will come through their bodies – that the muscles and sinews with their pings and pops and crunches will direct me to what release is needed next. It is a huge act of courage from both parties, and I do not take the privilege lightly.
I’ve been massaging both men and women, but I prefer working with the women – it is easier for me to ascertain what might delight them; easier for my fingers to intuitively know where release and pleasure might be palpable. When I am massaging women, I’m thinking about the places our bodies are rarely touched. The places that we have been conditioned to store shame.
Our armpits, for example. Our armpits, which we have been told we must keep hair and stubble free in order for them to be acceptable to the world. When was the last time someone deliberately and lovingly stroked your armpits?
The thighs: all the gorgeous thighs with their cellulite and veins and stretch marks and stray pubic hair. The thighs that have walked these women through adventure and misadventure, thighs that have opened to bear children, thighs that have clenched closed around trauma (yes, I can sometimes feel this in their bodies too).
I pay special attention to the pinky toe. At a party a few weeks ago, a woman half seriously suggested she might chop both hers off – ugly little demented things they are. Who the hell taught us that our baby toes were ugly? And at what point did we start believing it?
The women who have laid down on my bed this last week have been consistently and pre-emptively apologetic: they are SO sorry for their dry skin/rosacea/veins/hair, so mortified that they didn’t even get a chance to shave! One woman emerged from the hour and explained that it was the first time she had been naked in front of someone since the birth of her second child. She said she had gone in feeling incredibly vulnerable and nervous.
So when these women (and men) trust me – a complete stranger – enough to surrender to my hands, eyes, and possible judgement, it becomes my mission to make them feel held, seen, and safe. I take their soft limbs into my arms and hold their hands and feet. I use whispered tones, like I did with the newborn I cooed over at a dinner party last night. I hold their heads in my hands in the last few minutes of the massage, and I look at their beautiful, peaceful faces and I think
I love you.
Which is so odd. I don’t even know them. They could be absolute arseholes, despicable creatures outside of my 4m by 1.6m room. They could be racists and homophobes, misogynists and narcissists. I can hesitate a guess that at least one of these people has probably committed violent – possibly even murderous – acts upon other humans. But I don’t see him like that in my room. All I see is a grown-up baby with a beard, eyes closed and cherub lips open, trying – in this culture that relies on us being deeply afraid – to access a sliver of peace. So I do, in that moment, after 60 minutes of communion, feel something transcendent: something that feels akin to a synchronised high. And love is the closest word I have to describe it.
(I’ve just delved into the inter-webs to see if I can find some alternative language I can wrap around this feeling, and the term entheogenic merge comes close… it is derived from the Greek entheos (“full of the god, inspired”) + genesthai (“to come into being”). Merge suggests a dissolution of ego boundaries, and implies coming together, a blending – either with another person, the universe, or divine consciousness…
Cool.)
It is unlikely that this business venture will be financially lucrative. At the moment, after rent and expenses, I’m losing money – I suspect this might be the case for a few more weeks as I am starting up. But I can already start to tally the other riches this work is rewarding me with. And they are vast, and strange (I met a breathwork practitioner on Saturday who suggested that with guided cannabis assisted meditation, he might be able to release me of my subconscious fear of death: which sounds like it might make this whole “living” part a lot more fun.)
So I will hold onto my 4m x 1.6m womb-room for as long as I can, and keep inviting strangers into it to receive its offerings. And I will be patient – I will wait and see what blooms,
what grows,
what fructifies.
*A note to my other beautiful little community at B&B. Thank you for holding space for me last Thursday. I rarely get nervous when performing these days, but I was so emotional reading that particular piece that I could not even look at Captain BB (I would’ve lost my shit). Every time I looked up into the audience and caught someone’s eye, I found gentle encouragement. That place is its own little womb-room, and I am so grateful for all the people who show up month after month. I’m very excited and honoured to be invited to perform a feature set for you all next month.
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