Hands of Snow

“Advice is like snow, the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.”

-  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

We offer advice to our clients, not primarily with words, but of course through touch. How may we, as Coleridge suggests, make our touch like snow, so that it dwells upon the bodymind longer and may sink in deeper to the psyche and soma?

We need to realize that touching with positive human presence itself is the therapeutic element, not our pressure. This is why the spiritual history of touch in the Bible and elsewhere describes light touch (if any) but coming from a place whose source is not your ego; possibly originating from a connection to - whatever you want to call it - higher self, an angel, the divine, highest positive regard. Names are one thing, however we all know that what is most powerful has no name and is not subject to our “will.” Maybe our skill facilitates transformational touch - but it’s not up to us or even to our clients - like the snow, it comes when the time is right for it.

Dante refers to “snow falling without wind.” What if we have faith that without the wind of our preoccupations, our touch may contact this person and, like the most influential words from a friend or teacher, provide an occasion and a fulcrum that sinks into their very essence , nourishing them and tapping into the source of life?

“Be water, my friend,” said Bruce Lee. Consider also - being like snow.

The Tow Path at Argenteuil, Winter, 1875 - Claude Monet