Mandy Meyer-Hill is a healer, a massage therapist, one of the remarkable people who have come into my life in this community on my journey in search of love, spirituality, health and purpose. Mandy knows something of all of these things, and she has become a dear friend to Maria and me. I did not understand the power and purpose of massage until I began to explore health care.
Mandy is a healer, and massage is about healing on many levels. It is important to me spiritually and physically. As an older man, movement and circulation is important to me. As a diabetic, it is critically important. Mandy is an integral part of my new idea about health care, what it is and what it means. I don’t always grasp her notions of chakras and energy, but I know how I feel and I know Mandy is helping me to stay healthy and feel healthy. She has helped me with sleep, nutrition and focus. She helps me with my back and legs too.
Mandy and I always talk for a few minutes before the massage. I rarely speak while it is underway, I go off into the quietest and dreamiest space. We talk about my sleeping, stress, aging, sometimes about the anxiety I have experienced. Mandy is an important part of my greatly expanded idea of what healing and health means. My nurse-practitioner got me straightened out about diabetes, Mandy is a valued source of so many other ideas. The best healers, I have found, are on the second floors of buildings, they rarely have a lot of money or charge a lot of money.
Health care does not need to be intrusive, expensive or frightening. It can, I am finding, actually be nourishing and nurturing, something I love to do and need to do. There is a spiritual dimension to massage that has surprised me.
Money is not the fuel for people like Mandy, she loves what she does and does it quite professionally. I saw her sitting on the windowsill as I was getting ready to leave and I just took this photograph of her, somehow it captures something of her energy and spirit. I am grateful for the healers in my life, they make it possible.