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Page of Swords & The High Priestess, vol.8
Today I would like to tell you about the events of August 19, 2005. It was the day when the Wheel of Fortune, the 10th of the Major Arcana, appeared for me, if I may use a tarot card analogy.
I was on vacation in New York City, and a friend of mine who was conducting an investor meetup invited me to The New York Buddhist Church to attend a workshop on "TAO Shiatsu/Acupressure". It was a weekend, Friday morning at 9:00 am. "TAO Shiatsu/Acupressure" is an oriental medical treatment started by a monk named Ryokyu Endo of Jodo shu the Pure Land Sect of Buddhism. One day he began to see "Ki" (vibrational energy) and human meridians, and began to treat them with his hands. That is "TAO Shiatsu/Acupressure," and we participated in the workshop to experience the rudiments of "TAO Shiatsu/Acupressure". By the way, Mr. Ryokyu Endo is the abbot of Wada-ji temple in Kyoto, Japan, but he lived in New York from 1966 to 1969.
This was a fascinating workshop, but for me, it was more shocking to meet my future husband there. Would it be more accurate to say that the way I met him and what happened when I met him was more shocking? At the time, Masato Shiraishi was a DJ on FM radio in New York City, doing a show called "Far East Rare Groove," which featured interesting and danceable music from Asia. What kind of music is that, you ask? P. Ramlee and Saloma from Malaysia, Rhoma Irama, Elvy Sukaesih, Waldjinah and Hetty Koes Endang from Indonesia, and others that were unfamiliar to Americans.
Of course, I was not familiar with this music, but I learned it later when I heard him playing CDs in our home. Other than them, "Far East Rare Groove" also featured songs called "The Rice Dumpling Vendors (Sio Bah-tsàng)" by international stars like Teresa Teng from Taiwan, for example, or the early jazzy stuff of Hibari Misora, who has a status like Aretha Franklin in Japan.
He was born on February 7, 1963, so he was 43 years old at that time. He was from Hokkaido, Japan, and later moved to Kyoto. And since 1994, he has been living in New York City. He is a music geek, especially a big fan of Prince, as he is a radio DJ by profession.
The "TAO Shiatsu/Acupressure" workshop began with a preparatory exercise. It aimed to activate the meridian. Since the workshop was probably intended for beginners, we did "Seated forward bend stretch" instead of advanced physical exercises such as "Haṭhayoga". This is that stretch where we sit on the floor, stretch our legs forward, bend our back, grab the tips of our feet with both hands, and put our head on both knees. You know the stretch, right?
We need a partner for this stretch. Another person pushes the other person's back and assists in bending the back. Since Masato Shiraishi and I were the only Japanese, we became partners for the preparatory exercise. So I had him push me back, and it was a marvel because my back bent more easily than I had ever experienced before. Not only was my head attached to my knees. My chest and stomach were completely attached to my legs, and there was no pain at all. And, very strangely, I felt a sense of oneness with him. I could only think that he was the cause. So, I asked him.
Why? Why? My back, it's so crooked, but it doesn't hurt, at all! What did you do to me?
His reply was the following:
You and I are one. With that thought in mind, I pushed your back with the image of the light enveloping us and the two of us being one.
Aha, so not only did my back bend effortlessly, but I experienced a sense of oneness with you!
He later explained to me why he had imagined this. He had terrible difficulty communicating with others, especially women. On this particular day, he was with a friend named C. J. Raymond, who plays bass in a Funk vocal and instrumental group, and C. J. Raymond was his best friend and mentor. He had always been advised by C. J. Raymond to think "you and I are one" when he had difficulty communicating with others, and to imagine the other person and himself surrounded by light, which he actually did on this day. He was very afraid to touch my back. I will tell you another day why he had trouble communicating with others.
Later I understood more about "Ki", about vibrational energies, because I became a Reiki healer. So, I can now explain what happened to us at this time. I mean, the high frequency vibrational energy emanating from our hearts mingled with each other, became very large, and enveloped us both. And this was such a happy feeling that I was very impressed and interested in him. I thought, "Maybe, just maybe, this is the man of my destiny?"
So, I continued with the "Seated forward bend stretch," a preparatory exercise, focusing my attention intensely on him. Next it was my turn to push him. As a result, I detected a very subtle but strange, rather unpleasant sensation coming from his body. My palm detected the strange sensation, and it soon spread throughout my body. Soon I felt a pain in my stomach. It hurt, but I knew for sure that it was not my body that was hurting, but his. Insight came shortly after. This man has cancer in his esophagus area.
I, of course, thought I was losing my mind. At that time I did not know that Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa or Swami Vivekananda were so empathetic that they could feel the pain of another person being hit in a distant place. They experienced so much that the same spot where others far away from them were hit became red and swollen. I was so focused on him that I empathized with him intensely. But you can't say, "You have esophageal cancer," can you? If any person were to say such a thing to another person, he/she would think that person was crazy. But there was no time to be lost.
After the workshop I asked my friend who was giving an investor seminar to leave first and invited him to tea. Of course, the tea was just a pretext, and my goal was to get him to undergo a thorough examination for esophageal cancer.
Continued story :Screwball Comedy? - I forced him into a cab by way of "Man-Hunting film" -
©Mitsuhiro Toda@Screenwriter Group Aquariusera
