“My Multiday Massage-a-thon” from the New York Times

John Jeremiah Sullivan of the New York Times, was tasked by his editors to get as many massage therapy and bodywork sessions as he could and then write an article about it. Coming from a skeptical point of view, Sullivan goes to several different spas, practices, and offices to check out the many offerings of bodywork – finally coming to the conclusion that “…maybe that’s what massage is to a lot of people, those who don’t have chronic pain or migraines — it’s enforced meditation for those of us too distracted to meditate. You’re paying someone to meditate you. It’s not anything they’re doing, necessarily. It’s that they open a little window. They give you an excuse to lie there in silence and pay a deeper attention to the fact that you exist. The true value of shamanism may be a concealed one, that it holds us in place and says this.”

We agree.