This was the first psychic fair that I have worked this year. What pushed me to it were several reasons. The first was that I was missed. The second was that I checked out to make sure there was a legal way I could do it. The third was that my teacher was behind it 100%.
Setting things up was a bit different. First, I needed signs stating that massage was being done for love offerings going to the Church of Divinity (where I get my ordination). The second was that I had learned so much about the importance of health problems. There are a lot of reasons to do massage (they call them indications). At the same time, there are a lot of health problems that can be reason not to do massage (called contraindications). To deal with this, I recreated the health questionnaire that the school uses for people coming in for bodywork. It seemed like a lot of very personal information to be asking of someone coming to a fair, but in a couple cases, it was a good thing I had it.
The day started with my leaving late and meeting Bev on the way in and leading her to the fair. Traffic was not as clear as I like it and it took longer than I had expected. It was a good thing that someone else was there and had things set up before I got there. She was then second to get a reading from Kay, and commented on how right on she was.
She then came to see me, and asked which I thought she needed, Reiki only or, massage with Reiki. I closed my eyes and ‘looked’ at her. I then started listing off the problems I saw and decided that she needed bodywork. A little over a half hour later, she floated out of there.
While she was getting her reading and massage, her six-year-old son was getting his portrait done by Julia. Julia was just so masterful at keeping his attention. He wanted a picture of himself on a motorcycle, so Julia gave him a crystal to hold to get his hand positioned like he was working the throttle. She got his face and body beautifully, then drew in the motorbike underneath him.
My next victim was a man that was born in 1928. Looking over his questionnaire, I saw that he was subject to strokes. My mind immediately went to “strokes??!!!”. I talked to him and we discussed his problem. Because of training in class, I knew this was a contraindication. After hearing what he had to say, I told him that I would do massage on him, but I could not to anything deep. So I worked slower, using a lower number of different moves with a lot less pressure. He loved it a lot.
Next, I worked on his wife who was of similar age. I did her differently. I used more pressure and added strokes that I hadn’t used during the previous massage. She enjoyed her massage as well.
After that I had another lady that told me she had had back problems, and had had surgery, and started to read off to me that her problems were at C7, S4, and so forth. She wanted me to be careful at those places so that she didn’t have more problems. Hmmm, no stuff! I wanted to be more careful there too.
What she was giving me with the numbers (C7, S4) were specific points on the spine. (Quick anatomy lesson, and I’m not looking in my books either.) There are five sections of the spine. Starting from the top, they are cervical, thoracic, lumbar, sacral, and coccyx. The cervical part starts at the skull and has seven sections. The thoracic part has 12 sections, the sacral five, the lumbar five, and the coccyx four. When she told me C7, she was telling me that her problem was near the last vertebrae of the cervical section of the spine.
While I was working on her, she mentioned that she had to look for something to learn. She was having problems being around people. She kept picking up things that she didn’t want to pick up. This led to an impromptu shielding exercise with everyone that was there once the massage was done.
For my last victim, I worked on Chris who has missed me since I haven’t been there. She melted into the table and had to be oozed up when it was over.
One of the other things that I had done was to create a form to be filled out once each massage was over. This was feedback that told me how I did as a massage practitioner. I had actually asked more questions that the one that the school gives out to the people that get massaged by students there. Everyone that I had worked on, told me I had done wonderfully.
That was a nice feeling. It was also nice showing the forms (health form and critique) to my teacher. It showed that I had worked on a five people of varying ages and sexes.
It was a great feeling working on the people I did. I started out trying to do my version of the school massage routine, or my version which throws out the stuff I don’t like to do that is clumsy, and things that I throw in that work very well. As I went through the day, I dropped moves in and out as the need required. It was very neat to just feel my way through each body, to change moves or invent moves as needed.
The sad part is, is that I was more comfortable working on these strangers than I am working on some of my classmates. Well, I guess you can’t win them all.
I am looking forward to the next fair on January 12th. I enjoy working on people and changing what I do to match their needs, and I enjoy helping them. At the end of January, our class will be in clinicals. That means we will be working on people off the street. We need to do 60 hours of that before school is out in May. The problem with being a night student is that the last massage is scheduled at 7:00. That means we will have to be scheduling times on Friday nights and weekends.
It doesn’t matter. I am looking forward to working on people off the street. This is what I’ll be doing at some time in the future. This is what I want to do. Cool.