Esalen (day seven)

Massage: I lay down ~ shut my eyes ~ and on the back of my eyelids, I see images of ocean water moving between the rocks below ~ it’s more than just an ‘after-image’ ~ I’m right above the beach ~ and the images are moving with the sound of the water ~ strange ~ I lift my head and shake it from side to side ~ and watch other details of the bathhouse flash by ~ I figure it’ll fade shortly ~ and settle in for my massage ~ it was going wonderfully ~ then Chloe pushes in on the heel of my foot and suddenly I can see the outer edge of my heel ~ glowing ~ filled in with colored concentric circles ~ I stay focused on the image ~ it dissolves and in it’s place swirling colors appear ~ like someone taking an eyedropper of color dye and dropping some of it on the surface of dark water ~ creating glowing bubbles ~ on whichever side of my body Chloe is working ~ then, when she squeezes my foot ~ it feels like it goes on forever ~ I am shocked when she places her hands somewhere else ~ because it still feels like she’s squeezing my foot ~ and hard too ~ things continue this way until the massage ends ~ and I tell her how wonderful I feel ~ and that her massage is like a ‘synesthesia’ experience ~ she says she’s never heard of that before ~ I explain it’s like ‘hearing’ a color ~ or ‘seeing’ the music ~ only this time ~ I could ‘see’ the sensation of her hands pressing on me ~ and she goes “wow” ~ I figure it’s a term more familiar to folks in my ‘generation’ ~ so I tell her that I bet her older clients will know what I mean ~ and they’ll agree..!

Workshop: We’re sharing some of the things we wrote this week ~ previously we had only read in small groups ~ I read the piece I wrote about my trip up here (day one) ~ and the baths (day five) ~ then I got lazy and read an old entry from my blog ~ about my neighbor Aria ~ it was relevant though ~ it was one of the places I went to while going down the ‘memory chain’ ~ [waves ~ pelicans ~ Karla ~ Andy ~ Fred ~ Aria ~ car crash] ~ everyone seems to likes it ~ facts are sometimes stranger than fiction ~ then Randy reads a chapter from a book he’s writing ~ I like it a lot ~ sounds like a tale of American gothic ~ then Bill reads a piece about Lorraine ~ Wade ~ and himself ~ in a coca cabana in Havana ~ and I hear echoes of Ken Kesey and Jack Kerouac ~ which are my heroes as well ~ James reads a story about his autistic son Taylor ~ from Taylor’s point of view ~ as Taylor describes his father James ~ and I am moved.