A few steps
of dance.
To allow oneself to move toward oneself… No two fingerprints, two ear shapes alike. No two sexual organs the same. No two histories, two families, two lineages that resemble each other. Our bodies and our energies are different, unique.
Drawing — Bruno Deck-Aimé
There are no two identical irises.
And there are no two tantric massages that unfold in the same way…
And this energy is not carried by the masseur or the one being massaged, but by something that goes beyond both of them. That encompasses both of them. That resonates. Between the one and the other, but also with everything that each has traversed and lived in this life. And before this life. The one being massaged arrives with their entire background, everything that constitutes them. So does the masseur. The field is wide, the combinations multiple. The paths of access to oneself are definitively infinite. Yes — to allow oneself to move toward oneself…
She, and her dialogue with herself…
This woman comes with questions about her body, about her life. She is never touched, or barely. Her body is a mystery, an unknown with which she composes daily. More in mental interpretation than in the body itself. A body with which she barely dialogues. Of which she has a very distanced representation. She does not know herself, has no particular sense of feeling. Her body is a mystery.
An hour spent talking over tea before the massage only allowed us to sketch the outline of this relationship with herself. At the moment of moving into the massage room, a whole series of elements come to her in flashes: her vulnerability to be exposed through nudity (which is in no way a requirement during the massage, editor’s note); her active mobilisation of her capacity to trust; the acceptance of visiting her zones of discomfort, the questioning of her capacity to move toward her body in non-intention; the temporary setting aside of the societal framework within which she evolves daily; the invitation to listen to herself, to take care of herself.
She who never listens to herself. Who has built her life in work. The step to be taken is significant and I am acutely aware of it. If she is here, it is on the recommendation of a friend I previously massaged. This helps her take the step. This first massage unfolds in meditation, in absolute calm, in connection with an energy that comes from far away.
We are accompanied.
I feel accompanied, and there is no doubt that she is too. That she is taken by the hand to simply allow herself to be there. We all have our guides, benevolent, and they are there. Mine as much as hers. During this massage that resembles a slow journey, with a powerful movement, she comes gently into contact with herself. Like a vessel initially tossed by the waves before the shore, that steadies its movement before docking softly. Some touches evoke nothing in her, others move her deeply. She moves little, her eyes are closed or half-closed, she is attentive. Not in the mind, but in the body. Attentive to my touch, to the alternations between light caresses and deeper gestures, attentive to the contact, to the energy, attentive to the invitation, sometimes, to movement. And this invitation, she accepts or not. According to the moment. Accepts to drift, to move, to respond. Or to let go.
Suddenly.
Like a cord releasing after having been so tightly drawn. One hand beneath her belly, the other on her sacrum, make her vibrate. Hands cupped like shells, welcoming and answering each other. A hand elsewhere leaves her cold. In appearance. In questioning. A cartography in the process of being drawn. She is in discovery of herself. I feel beneath my fingers, my palms, her skin trembling, her belly awakening, a muscular contraction. Infinitesimal. I see her back straightening, every muscle mobilised, only to fall back again, tension delivered. Her fingers bear witness to a passing inner tension. Whether of questioning or of the pleasure of listening to herself. I see a hand reaching for mine, to hold it for a few moments. To accompany an emotion, a sensation, something that takes hold of her. Then this hand falls back and the slow journey, stirred by the stars, resumes.
Why aim for a particular awakening, or a state of transcendence?
At the end of this first massage, we will be far from a finishing banner crossed, far from a stage completed — we will be on the path. Simply on this path that she had the intuition, the courage, the simple desire, to project herself into. Like a pilgrim walking in search of themselves. She is far from an awakening of the wild woman, of a femininity transcendable by the grace of a single massage. Of something that, at this stage, is beyond her.
Always and again, to allow oneself to move toward oneself…
Another person, another energy.
This other who comes to see me a few days later has a different energy. Already in movement before the massage has barely begun. A smile on her lips, eyes closed, turned inward. This movement will not stop for a single second throughout the two and a half hours of massage. (Each massage has its own dynamic, its own temporality. And it is an illusion for me to imagine containing it, stopping it because the clock ticks. Some tree seeds are designed to fall directly beneath the branches, others are calibrated to travel. Sometimes far. And this dynamic does not belong to me. This massage therefore lasts two and a half hours.) Movement like that of a skier who, all curves, descends a slope through powder snow untouched by any trace. Swaying, lifted, alive. Intoxicating, perhaps. A sailboat with all sails out, steered by its skipper through the hollow of the waves, hull pressed against the rising mass of water as it rears.
A slow choreography that never rushes because she senses that speed can be a source of disconnection. And both she and I are conscious of this movement that catches and accompanies her. That makes her straighten up, move, come searching for me, my hands, my forearms, in a full impulse. I move too, calibrating my movements to hers, accompanying her in this surge of life that passes through her body. I am a dancer at her side, in support, to allow her her leaps — the doe, the cat, the Basque — her demi-pliés, gliding steps and other escapes. At play in this dance is her permission to say, to express, to be. At play is the connection to her vulnerability in trust, the experience of non-intentionality… the liberation of a sexual energy all the more fully released for having no goal, no expectation, no response to bring. Because it is, first of all, an energy of expansion and of life.
Massage and journey.
This journey seems to require no fuel, no relaunching. It is perpetual movement, with a few inflections, according to the crossroads, the perspectives traversed. More or less intense — a few plains soared over where the gaze carries far, before entering dense and sharpened forests where sensation becomes acute. The massage is a journey where the suitcases can be set aside for a time, or lightened, because the fears and other life precautions they contain are no longer relevant. A journey of approach to life, of attachment to life. And this woman dancing on this futon, in connection with every part of her moving body, vibrates in symbiosis with the Universe.
A man in his improvisations…
This man who comes to see me is also a poet of movement, and the massage with him resembles a choreography underpinned by a logic that is his own, inscribed in grace. No complexity with his body, his sex, the representation he has of himself. The dialogue he maintains with his body. This dialogue seems fluid, and the energy that passes through him is beautiful. He comes here seeking a freedom he perhaps does not allow himself in daily life. Within his family framework. And this freedom of the instant is beautiful, nourishing. To accompany with all the centredness I know myself capable of. The yin and yang of one and the other intertwine, responding to each other in ricochets, in echoes. His voice is clear, the path to take rich in meaning and energy. The framework established beforehand is solid, intangible, reassuring. It forms a stage frame within which all improvisations seem possible.
And these improvisations are, at this moment, astonishing. Again. Always. To allow oneself to move toward oneself…
Venus.
This young woman who also comes to see me has an athlete’s body, tensed in the effort she deploys daily simply to live. After a long time spent talking gently, she will find in this space of the massage — all welcome, all kindness, all attentive listening — the shell where she can finally set down a deeply buried secret, a pain that reaches far back. One of those that men sometimes, often, inflict. And this shell becomes in the instant like that of Venus, where she is welcomed, in which she can begin to imagine straightening up and letting the sun come to gather her, very gently, to say to her simply: Welcome.
And this murmured welcome is the most beautiful word of this week — that of her opening to herself, of her welcoming of herself, of the emergence of her light.