(Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China)
After a long day of battling with period pain, woozy head, stuffy nose, dry throat, feverish eyes, aching legs… all while conducting a training this side of China… I am gifted with more than two hours of the most fabulous massage! It is a wonderful ritual… it begins with your feet being soaked and scrubbed in a wooden tub of hot (scalding hot, but it feels wonderful once you get through the initial shock), black colored, chinese-medicine treated water. This while you sip hot tea and feast on spoonfuls of black jelly made from medicinal herbs. Then it is an hour-long foot massage where pain and pleasure hopscotch among thin lines but leaves you unquestioning with the tidal wave of relaxation that overcomes your tired brain. At some stage in this timeless moment… I open my eyes (I never even noticed that I had already reclined and my eyes had closed) and look out the window to see a picture perfect full moon staring back at me. The clouds rolling in slow motion behind it, giving it an occasional moment of added glow as the moonbeams find surfaces to bounce from. Music plugged to my ear, sensations being massaged into my weary body, moon shining on me… how can one fail to recognize a moment of grace?
It doesn’t end there… but now I have to sleep… a part two is in order…
