Energy Workers Reach Out and Touch Wilbo

You never know where you'll meet an energy worker who wants to lay hands upon your body. Wilbo had bought a bicycle with brakes with superior stopping power. The brakes were so effective the man who sold him the bike warned him to apply them carefully. One night Wilbo was riding south on Woodward in the dark. He was cycling on the sidewalk, and the sidewalk had bike ramps at every driveway and intersection. He confidently cruised along, running down ramps and up ramps. He cruised until he ran down a ramp and noticed a firm curb where an up ramp should have been. If he had been in practice, Wilbo could have popped up his front tire and jumped over the curve and onto the sidewalk. Wilbo wasn't in practice on his newly purchased bike, so he hit his brakes and his momentum tossed him onto pavement. He laid on the sidewalk stunned and his right elbow hurt so badly, he had a hard time getting up again. When he did get up again, he felt too much pain in his right arm to steer his bike. So he walked his bike home from the sidewalk without an up ramp. A few night of painful sleep later, he was tired of not being able to sleep on his right side. The doctor at the clinic diagnosed his elbow pain with an x-ray picture of it. Wilbo had a slight fracture in his right elbow. The doctor explained that elbow fractures would heal on their own, and he gave Wilbo a sling for his right arm and sent him off with a recommendation to take aspirin for pain.

Not long after, Wilbo checked out a Presbyterian church in Royal Oak that was holding alternative services. For the first hour, the congregation of ten or twenty people sat around a collection of candles burning in a centerpiece holder, and Wilbo meditated with all of them. A minister named Harry directed them all to allow words to come to the fore of their meditative minds. When every worshipper had a word rise to their consciousness, Harry asked each one to share it with the circle. Wilbo's word was ouch.

After meditation, Harry invited all to proceed, in a chanting procession, to the holy of holies area behind the altar and before a wall-mounted cross. Harry had already trained half the congregants in Reiki energy work, and one woman stood behind Wilbo, seated before her, and she encircled his head with her hands close to his skull, but not touching it with her palms or fingers. Wilbo thought he was feeling some force flowing from her body and out through her fingers into his head, but he wasn't sure what was this force. After the energy work, the congregation met in the fellowship hall and ate coffee and doughnut-holes. When he saw her, Wilbo thanked her for her gift of energy work, and after leaving the church, Wilbo walked ten miles around town before making his way home. When Wilbo fell asleep that night, he could feel less pain in his right elbow, he could fully extend his right arm, and he slept soundly on his right side.

At a church that was at that time being led by Marianne Williamson, Wilbo met a woman who was training as a Reiki master. Wilbo liked to sit by her at church services, and she like to have tea with him at the Townsend Hotel in Birmingham, Michigan. One service, Wilbo was focusing on a sermon shared by a visiting Unity minister. His right elbow was giving him a strange sensation, as if it were connected to a weak battery or as if a faint blowing of a hair driver was pointed at it. He looked right towards his friend, and she was directing the palm of her right hand at his elbow. Her left hand was wrapped around the base of her right wrist, perhaps adding extra spiritual current to her right palm. Wilbo raised his eyebrows and his Reiki friend began laughing, happy that she had drawn his attention.

Wilbo remembered staying up late one night watching a show on HBO called Real Sex. He watched a segment where a beautiful Japanese woman undressed to a bra and panties and reclined on a narrow bed. A man she didn't know well began applying energy work with his right palm to her gential area, without making flesh on flesh contact. Hovering over her covered pubic area, he made a small circle with his palm and in a few moments, the woman's face lit up in genuine sexual ecstasy. Soon, she was writhing with joy and screaming, and the man continued his touchless massage. He might not have been a Reiki master, but his hand gestures definitely reminded Wilbo of energy work. The episode came to its end, and Wilbo turned off the television set, very impressed by what he had witnessed, and Wilbo fell asleep. The next morning, driving to work, Wilbo wondered if he had enough life force in his body to replicate the experiment during his next hot date.

Last week, Wilbo went into a bar, and the bartender was serving Jaegerbombs to a couple, and the couple went down the hatch with them and ordered another round to pour down the hatch. Fred, a fellow Wilbo had met that night, spotted Wilbo a pair of cigarettes, and then Fred went to say goodbye to the couple now enjoying a round of beers after their Jaegerbombing. Instead of hugging him or shaking his hand goodbye, she laid hands upon him, but in a fashion different than Reiki as offered at the Presbyterian church. She put her hands upon his forehead and temple as if she were attempting a Vulcan Mind Meld. This looked like full-contact Reiki, and Fred smiled as she filled his noggin with her energy.

After Frank had gone his way, Wilbo struck up a conversation with the woman, who had a good sense of humor. She had the name Niobe. So Wilbo told her his two Reiki jokes.

"Niobe, What does a Reiki master say to a potential client when she gives him her card?"
"Umm, what?"
"Reiki, don't lose that number."
"If the throat charka holds the energy for speech and song, what is another name for that chakra?"
"I have no idea, what?"
"It's called the Chakra Khan, Niobe."

Wilbo was surprised how fully she laughed at these ludicrous jokes, and he was amazed that her date didn't seem to mind all her healing and outreach and psychobabbling. She slugged at her beer, and then began to treat Wilbo.

"What sign are you?", Niobe asked.
"I'm a Libra, born on the cusp of Virgo."
"Give me your left hand, Libra!"

Wilbo did as he was told. Niobe took his hand in her two hands, leaning over her date's lap to reach him.

"Your hand is cold, Libra. Why is your hand cold, Libra?"
"I dunno, I've been handling my cold, icy drink, maybe?"
"No that not it, Libra. Let it go Libra, be here now Libra."

She began messaging Wilbo's left hand as if she were trying to bring a cadaver to life with CPR. She turned her concern to Wilbo's breathing.
"Breathing is life, Libra", she said as she kept kneading his hand. "Look forward. Breath inward deeply. Turn your head fully to the right, and exhale your breath completely. Look forward. Breath inward once again. Turn your head fully to the left, exhale every ounce of air. Exhale it all, exhale it all, be here now."

Wilbo tried, but he had a suspicion that he was breathing wrongly. He attended acting classes in California, and the teachers spent copious amounts of time showing him proper breathing technique. He attend a seminar at Esalen in Big Sur, California, and his guides went to work on his breathing too. Every body was concerned with the way Wilbo inhaled and exhaled, and that's why Wilbo smoked. The exhaled smoke traces how completely he exhaled his tobacco-spice breath. Inhaling on a cigarette indicated proper inhalation with a glowing red tip. Even the tobacco companies were helping Wilbo breath his way to inner peace, or at least, warmer hands.

Maybe Niobe thought she was losing her patient. She bounded off her stool and applied her Reiki mind meld grip to Wilbo's temples and skull. At least Wilbo could keep his head still now. She got really close to him, and sitting on his bar stool, he felt her thigh close against his hip. He closed his eyes, as if he was kissing, and he tried reaching out with his senses for a flood of energy flowing from her touch. Some process was working, but Wilbo couldn't comprehend it. He remembered the closeness of his mother, on a good day early in life.

She whispered in his ear, "I've done a small thing, but it is a big thing. It is small, but so very big". When Wilbo opened his eyes again, Niobe and her date had left the bar.

You Can Take the Wandering Out of the Wilbo, But You Can't Take the Wilbo Anywhere.