Where we left it at end of previous delivery:
Our married life had begun. Summer turned into Autumn. I continued with my freelance work at home, Aleena commuted to her office most days, the leaves fell down around our little front garden, and slowly winter returned.
Souls Need a Very, Very Gentle Touch
Now that we were living together in the same house rather than spending time in each otherʼs apartments, Aleena seemed a little more willing to open up about her life before she met me.
She had always evaded my questions about her past relationships with men.
On an unusually early winter sunny afternoon we were sitting on our balcony with chardonnay and figs. We had been silent for a time, appreciating the break from clouds. We were taking in the vista of ocean in front of us, with day-trippers walking along the sand. Some were taking their shoes off to wade in the shallows. One man had laid a mat on the sand and was practicing some yoga positions.
Aleena turned to me and said, “I did yoga for a few years before I came to the
mindfulness evenings, where I met you”.
I had not known that about her before, so, being curious I asked, “Oh, how did you
come to yoga?”
Her face turned a little dark. Not as dark as I had seen her a few times before we were married, but she did turn her head away as if she knew she was heading into revealing something that she was not quite sure she wanted me to know.
I felt her hesitation in telling me more about yoga and I did not press her.
“My massage teacher recommended I do yoga.”
“Your massage teacher?”
“Yes, I learned massage about 5 years before I met you. I was quite young. I was 20. I wanted to break out of the world that my mum and dad lived in. Very respectful, as you know. And very… boring. Also they had the view that women should not work, but rather wait on a man to marry her and in the meantime do some charity work.
“So I thought, well, letʼs learn massage. I did not tell them of course. I will still living at home, I just told them I was involved in the church. Also I’d never had a real job. No need. My family was able to support me comfortably. More than comfortably. As you know.
“But I wanted to be alone with my own potential. And I saw that the women around me could never relax. Always protective, never really free. So I began to think I would get a job in a beauty salon and massage ladies. My friend told me about a Korean man, a doctor, who taught massage classes, and I took 10 lessons from him.
“After the final lesson he sent me a letter. Do you want to read it?”
“Yes of course.”
She went to the spare room where she had put some removal boxes, still unopened.
She returned with the letter.
Dear Aleena,
When you left you wanted me to tell you how your massage skills were developing and I did not say much, but now I want to be honest and convey what I saw and felt.You have the techniques now. But there is still something missing. Your hands do not so much relax the muscles, as order those muscles to behave.
We need to bring the softness you know in your heart out into your hands. This is something that cannot be taught. I recommend some sort of practice that leads your mind into a timeless zone. There are various practices like that: meditation, Tai Chi, Yoga.
Any of those will encourage the Chi to move through your body – like a gentle – but irresistible – mountain stream – and soften your hands. It is the timelessness that does it. And the consequent presence in builds up in you.
As our Taoist colleagues might say, “You have too much Yang in your hands, and nothing wrong with Yang , but now we need to enhance your Yin.”
And when your hands are soft, and yet, your strength is also there in your hands, your client will say: “However did you do that? My body feels so wonderful”.
When they ask me how I did it, I often say: “I did not only massage your body, I massaged your soul.”
And, Aleena, souls need a very very gentle touch. Otherwise your strength will be refused.
I hope you understand, and take my advice kindly.
Hajun
As I finished reading the letter I asked, “So you took his advice and started doing yoga?”
“Yes. I…”
She did not finish whatever it was she was about to say. Suddenly she grabbed the letter out of my hand and took it back to the spare room. I thought it strange. She returned with a sheepish look on her face and started to talk about something else. I got the impression she had shown me the letter spontaneously and now regretted it. Or she was just not quite sure. Something she wanted to tell me but was worried about revealing. So I agreed on her direction and we spoke again about the people we could see on the beach. Then she returned to the letter.
“I replied to the letter, and told him I would begin yoga. He rang me a few weeks later and asked me to come to his house. I thought he wanted to discuss yoga again. But…”
She looked at the ocean and then at me.
“Turns out he had other things on his mind.”
Of course I knew without asking, what the other things were.
“It was nothing. We were together only one night and then he just, disappeared out of my life.”
I felt a pang in my heart, and wanted to deflect it for both of us, so I asked: “And yoga?”
“Yes, I went to a community hall and did it every week for 2 years. I liked it. I learned to relax my hands, I think. But then I got sick of it. And I never did go and get a job in a beauty salon.”
I was quiet again, but the pang was throbbing now so I returned to the subject I had not wanted to enter immediately.
“Only one night?”
“Yes. He did not even contact me again. I rang him, and he never answered. I was too
scared to go back to his house. So, I decided to move on.”
“It was your first time?”
She looked away. “No. In high school there was Pete.”
The pang grew. Again we sat silently for a few minutes.
Then she spoke: “He was older. Already 18. In first year uni. Had a car even. Yes, we did it in the car. A few times. Maybe more than a few. Over 3 months. In the end I told him it was not working for me. He just did not try. Never tried to please me. Just him and his joking around and his urges. Never even tried to find out what was going on in my mind. Like you do.”
Truth and Transcendence
We were walking on the jetty where we had first spoken our intention to marry. We held hands. We had not mentioned her previous intimacy history again. I had reached inside myself and found I could see it as not such a big thing, as I had felt it when she first disclosed. She seemed not to want to talk about it again. In the keeping it quiet, we held it, and it became part of the bond between us.
We sat on a bench, and she said: “I feel very good with you now. Our lives are heading in the right direction. But I want us to be even more free. I want us to transcend the limitations that we still hold onto.”
I cringed a bit. What limitations was she thinking about?
She continued: “Iʼve been reading about bliss and I think we deserve more of it. We must be limiting our own immersion. A Tantric Sage I read about can emanate bliss to the people around him. Just by sitting there. I think we can learn to give that to each other.”
I sighed inside. Here we go again. I thought we had all this spiritual stuff settled.
“Where did you read all this honey?”
“Truth and Transcendence Magazine. Somebody left it by mistake in the lunch room at work.”
I looked at the ground between my feet. “And so, how do you propose we immerse ourselves in bliss?”
She must have caught my faint sarcastic undertone, for she just replied, “Forget it, it’s not so important.”
We continued our walk, and spoke about other things. She kept herself a little bit distant. I could feel it. Or perhaps it was me.
Waiting for Weak People Like Me
We never needed to be concerned about money. The investment fund my uncle had signed over to me gave me ample income each month and Aleena had her own investments left to her by her family. As well her job in an office and my own freelance work, allowed us to not need the money of the other. We just put in a pot a housekeeping amount from each of us each week. I actually did not even know how much Aleena had in her bank accounts. It seemed to be none of my business.
We continued to feel very privileged. And even I felt a sense that my mind had improved its state, and consequently the universe was supporting us. Mostly Aleena seemed to accept that I had improved out of my anxiety state that she found in me from the beginning. But, occasionally she seemed to be expecting more immersion in some sort of spiritual journeying with me.
I could not quite fully trust that she was as committed to our relationship as I was. I was afraid I did not quite meet her expectations. Sometimes at night next to her I had bad dreams, often involving being abandoned in a desert, or searching for family in a huge house, or walking through the city and somehow wandering into streets where gangs hung around waiting for weak people like me.
Next Delivery, Mid November:
A business card – on it was written a name “Malvern Brahma Soul-Dancer”, and the information “Consultant Mystician. Private Studio or House Calls” and a phone number. The text golden on a black background with the very faint impression of rain drops filtering down through the words. On the back of the card, a handwritten note: “Aleena, Call me, you wonʼt regret it”.
I put the card back down into the letter box. I came back inside. I sat at my desk unable to work. Around 6pm I heard Aleena come in the front gate, and the letter box open and close. I composed myself, and began typing randomly on my keyboard.
If you prefer to read contiguously, from the opening sentence forward, here are links to the previous 9 deliveries onto 2 Rules of Writing.
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