The last few months of this year have been very mild. So mild that I feel as though I’m living in a different state. North Carolina maybe, or Tennessee. Just not Michigan. I have few complaints, except for a bit of worry about the plants and trees that need cold and snow. I harvested the last of the kale and Brussels sprouts from my garden a few days ago, a very generous, healthy and economical extension of the growing season. The grass is still green, although a few fingers of snow now clutch at the ridge of edging between the mulch and the yard. The ground still gives a bit under my feet. The air may stroke instead of slap. A most unusual winter.

It reminds me of how pleasant it can be to have an altered experience of something quite ordinary. It may suddenly have a different focus or emphasis, elicit an extra sensation or new response because it is thrown into sharp contrast from one’s normal awareness or memory of it.

This can happen during reflexology, too, both for the practitioner and the client. I often become aware of a deep connection with a reflex zone, heat, energy, softening, a release of tension that blurs the boundary between my fingers and the foot. The client may breathe deeply, tell me about a tingling sensation in their arm or experience a sudden movement, smile, fall asleep. And when the session ends, they experience a relaxed state that feels altered because the body has been released from its habitual patterns of tension into something that feels new.