POLITICS AND MASSAGE THERAPY
From an individual standpoint one might say massage therapy and bodywork are about various kinds of liberation. Often it is liberation from pain and tension, sometimes from stress, trauma, fatigue of all sorts, and disconnection from one’s body, from one’s lower self. We help support a more pain-free, less stress-filled life, healing from trauma, deep rest, re-connection with one’s body and higher self. Plus heightened sports performance, quicker recovery, healing of injury, and sometimes resolution of emotional challenges.
For all these liberations, we can and should be thankful.
At the same time, massage and bodywork live in a larger world and have a variety of impacts within it. Therefore, it can be worthwhile to think about massage and bodywork within the context of liberation in the larger world.
It is considered controversial to link up politics and massage, just like it is to identify theology and government. It is challenging! Yet it is also strange to think that the principles underlying spirituality should not be taught in schools. Swami Yogananda said, “an educational system that does not present Spirit as the central Fact of our existence is offering “avidya”, false knowledge.”
The wisdoms that underlie massage are ones that the world needs more badly than ever.
Doing massage we honor the psychobiological potential for each client’s health of body, mind and spirit. We hope that this respect for the natural miracle that is each client spreads to a respect for all of earthly nature, our miraculous substrate, our common origin.
So advocating for world peace, and an end to wanton profit-seeking at the expense of the environment should not be controversial! Equality without regard to color, country of origin, gender identification, religious beliefs is fundamental. So, though massage is not in itself political, ultimately I believe we are working for the health of all.
Therefore, I am for the first time in this newsletter, recommending that we consider all this as we go to vote. Personally I am voting for Democratic Party candidates. The Republican party has been hijacked by extremists, sadly. The restoration of some semblance of unity within the United States is imperative.
Most important is that we all let our voices be heard. We don’t need to drown out opposition.
Everyone is entitled to speak up. Let’s just see what happens when love, peace and respect for the miracle of earthly life are honored and cultivated.
