OYM Day 63: Susceptible to Cults — Part 2
Yes. I missed yesterday. I don’t feel bad about it, though. I’m still going to make it to 100, don’t you worry. Feeling excited as ever. Big things ahead!
“Well, my name is Cassie and it’s my first time at a reiki circle… And I guess the last time I felt deeply was just a few seconds ago when I shattered glass all over a floor that people put their bare hands and feet on. Deep shame, but still deep I guess.” I felt a sliver make itself known in my heel. Nobody laughed. I felt even deeper.
Betsy asked for a show of hands. Who were the practitioners and who were the receivers in the room this evening? The practitioners got up and walked to the front of the studio. They sat down and started laying out crystals and other wares I could only assume held magic powers. Wait a second, I thought. These people are going to heal me? There was a woman that looked just like my Albanian next-door neighbor, the one with a bad hip and a tendency to forget about her laundry hanging on the line out back for days at a time, resulting in a nice wardrobe of sun faded hues. There was a man who looked like he might work at State Farm during the day. Another woman sat with her disabled daughter, sharing a mat and quiet hushes. The woman who had sat next to me, with long chestnut hair and giant bags under her eyes, had also migrated with the flock of practitioners. She rubbed her hands together and touched her forehead, then the beads around her neck. She looked to be 6 feet tall and nearly as tired as I was. Her knees cracked as she moved from kneeling to a seated position. Her name was Donna, I recalled from the introductions, but I couldn’t remember what she felt deeply about. I was too busy feeling for glass.
The only story of “feeling deeply” that really struck me as bizarre was from a woman named Catherine. I would guess she was in her early 60’s and I knew for certain that she smoked at least 8 packs of cigarettes a day. The smell emanated from her like a warm cheese. She had jade jewelry on each finger and a scarf around her neck that seemed to collect more cat hair than keep her warm.
Catherine said she felt deeply just yesterday when she was picking up her grandson from school.
“He’s 8 years old and just a joy. An innocent, precious joy. I was driving him home from school and we passed a black woman sitting at the bus stop. He gasped and frantically begged me to roll down the window. He just had to ask her a question! So I rolled it down and he yelled as loudly, but as politely, as he could.”
‘You need to get out of the sun, ma’am! You’re going to melt! It’s too hot out here for people like you!’
Catherine started laughing and I felt a tepid wave of white guilt mixed with nausea wash over me.
“See, he thought she was made of out chocolate and would melt in the sun, so he wanted to warn her before it was too late!”
I’m pretty sure I knew black people weren’t made out of chocolate at 8. Catherine was also sitting next to a beautiful black gentleman from Nigeria, with the most perfect, ebony skin. He just smiled and laughed. Catherine laughed the most.
Us regular folk were instructed to lay down on our mats in a comfortable position. The room went almost completely dark and Betsy turned on a playlist of music that she probably listened to all the time: singing birds, a bubbling brook, and sloppy wind chimes. As I lay there with my eyes closed, thinking, “Why the fuck did you think this was what you needed, Cassie? Just go to a therapist like a regular person and stop wasting your money in $25 increments,” I could hear Betsy assigning the healers their victims. I mean, receivers. I mean pupils? Patients? You get it.
“Donna, you take this woman here, the man next to her, and the girl that brought the jar.” Come on, Betsy. Let it die.
Part 3 — tomorrow
