‘I feel it is good for my clients to be able to sit quietly and relax before we have a healing session otherwise we waste time while they’re trying to get their breath back.’
Martha had to agree as they climbed a short flight of stairs and Catherine led her into a beautiful sunlit room which overlooked a narrow garden at the back of the house. ‘This is my sacred space,’ the healer told her.
One wall of the room was lined with bookshelves and Martha ran her eyes over the huge range of titles which seemed to cover every aspect of the human body and soul and mind, and included books on Indian mystics and shamans and healing.
‘I see you are looking at my library,’ said Catherine. ‘There is much to study and learn about the human heart and soul.’
She sat down at a cream-painted desk, Martha noting her flawless skin and fine bone structure and lean angular frame. Catherine Morgan was dressed simply in a loose denim skirt and a simple cream linen blouse, her long hair swept up in a carved floral hairgrip. Reaching across she took out two sheets of paper, which she passed to Martha.
‘Would you mind filling these in, please,’ she said.
Martha took out her pen and wrote in details about her life, medical history, interests, aware that Catherine was studying her, the blue eyes almost looking through her. Martha took her time, amazed by the perception of the questions which asked not only about her physical well-being but also about her attitudes to life.
‘They are rather probing, I’m afraid, but I do find a degree of honesty is needed when I am to perform a healing. You do want me to do a healing – or would you prefer to just have a chat?’
Martha could feel herself blushing, and couldn’t believe the other woman’s chuckles at her embarrassment.
‘Please don’t feel awkward, Martha dear. I am well aware who you are. News of your gift has already reached the circle.’
‘The circle?’
‘I mean those of us who have an interest in the special abilities, energies, of others.’
‘I see,’ murmured Martha, wondering if Catherine might ask her to leave or perceive her as a threat or rival.
‘We are all friends here, my dear, pilgrims on the same long path, this journey through life. I have read of the great work you have already done and I’m enchanted to meet you. I truly mean that,’ she said, stretching her long arm and hand out to clasp Martha’s, her touch warm and sincere.
‘Already I can feel the energy within you and see the strong colours of the aura that surrounds you and those that guide you.’
Martha hesitated.
‘I think a little healing might be nice,’ suggested the older woman, ‘and then perhaps we can talk.’
Catherine asked her to stretch out on the long narrow bed in the middle of the room. Taking off her sweater, shoes and beige corduroy trousers, Martha wrapped herself in the thick white fluffy towel Catherine had passed her. She watched with interest as the woman took two scented candles and placed them in a ceramic jar close beside her. Pouring a trace of oil onto the curved lid, she lit the candles. At once the room was filled with the aroma of a strange essence, the scent assaulting her as it drifted through the air.
‘Please, Catherine, would you mind putting out those candles! The smell affects me and makes me feel sick.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry! Most people need the precious oils to help them to stimulate their senses, but with someone like you, why, your senses are already overdeveloped. Here, let me open the window and let some fresh air in.’
Martha nodded gratefully. The sharp sense of nausea and unease she had felt disappeared as fresh air filled the room. Catherine took her place at the bottom of the table by Martha’s feet, catching them firmly in her hands. She could hear the healer’s breathing change as she ran her hands along the bones of her toes, feet and ankles, pulling her legs towards her.
Martha closed her eyes as the woman walked around her laying her hands on her body, her breathing at times slow and deep, other times sharp and panting. Glancing sideways at one stage Martha almost cried out as the figure around her seemed younger with long jet black hair plaited down her back, her skin tanned, a look of concentration in the strange face. Perturbed, she was reassured a moment later by the swish of Catherine’s familiar denim as the woman worked around her. Laying her hands on the areas of her chakras, the healer worked. Sometimes Martha could feel the weight of her hand rest quiet and still above her womb, on her hip; at other times Catherine’s fingers and wrists made a flurry of movements as if she was trying to draw something toward her. Martha felt warm and sleepy and was totally enjoying the experience. At the end the healer stood above her head and Martha felt as if the crown of her head had opened and light and energy were running from it, beams of it connecting herself and the healer.
Afterwards Catherine sat back in the swivel chair with its purple velvet cushion as Martha slowly sat up and stretched herself, like a drowsy child waking from slumber.
‘Well, Martha, did you enjoy that?’
‘Yes, it was so different, I felt like I was lying here connected with you, but in a strange way in a different place.’ Truthfully she had enjoyed this new sensation, and the sense of release of energy and cleansing.
‘You have a powerful gift with immense energy powering through you. The connections within you are strong and your ability to see through to the core of a person is unique. It has taken me thirty years of study and search and work to arrive where I am, where I can help those that need help and train those who have an interest in healing. You have found a quicker path, a short-cut. I sense the goodness within you, the reason you have been chosen.’
Embarrassed, Martha pulled her shoulder-length hair from her face, her mind racing and trying to take in what this woman was telling her.
‘It is this goodness, this pureness,’ insisted Catherine, ‘that has drawn the spirit to work through you, to choose you to become a channel for this healing, this work of miracles as the newspapers like to call it.’
‘Catherine, I’ll be honest. I don’t understand why any of this has happened to me, but I do know that I now find myself wanting to help and heal people, and when I lay my hands on them I can feel a strong energy flowing from me to them.’
‘Where do you think this energy comes from?’
‘Sometimes I pray when I touch them, it seems to help. Other times it’s as if the power or energy comes out of the air or sky around me, or the earth itself.’
‘The spirit is strong within you,’ said Catherine, hugging her. ‘And I am blessed to have met you.’
Martha began to lower herself off the table and reached for her clothes, the older woman watching her all the time.
‘You have a slight stiffness on the right hip, Martha, just watch it over the years, also you must be careful of your glands.’
‘They always swell and get sore when I’m tired or run down,’ she admitted. ‘I had a really bad dose of glandular fever when I was a teenager.’
‘Well then, you know to watch that. Listen to those warning signals and don’t overtire yourself. People will demand much of you, but do not let them exhaust you or drain you.’
‘I never feel tired after a healing.’
‘That’s because you are not using your own energy but there will come a time when the demands on you will be such that you’ll have to protect yourself, must protect yourself.’
‘Has that happened to you?’
‘It happens to all healers, at times. We sometimes have to surround ourselves with light, create a buffer zone to protect ourselves from those that make huge demands on us. The self is important, Martha, you must remember that.’
Martha could see the woman was genuine, and had developed an immense wisdom over the years. She had read so much, studied so much. How could Martha even begin to think she would ever attain such knowledge and understanding of the healing gift!
At the end of the session Martha felt slightly awkward as she took out her purse to pay Catherine. The p
rice had been clearly denoted in the waiting room, and as she passed over the $80, Catherine smiled warmly.
‘Martha,’ she scolded. ‘The exchange of money is in return for exchange of service; that way neither of us feels that they have been taken advantage of. Do you understand?’
Martha nodded. It was what Kim and Evie and the rest of them had been saying to her about charging some sort of fee, but she still wasn’t sure about it.
‘Well, now I’m finished for the day,’ smiled Catherine, putting away her folder and leading Martha back down to the hall. ‘Would you like to join me in the kitchen for a cup of tea?’
‘Thank you, Catherine, that is really thoughtful of you.’
She led Martha down to a simple Shaker-style kitchen which also overlooked the small back yard where a collection of wooden birdfeeders hung from the cherry and maple trees. Two or three small stone and ceramic sculptures stood enticingly along the back wall and path and Martha couldn’t imagine a nicer spot in the city to sit out and read a book or relax in.
‘It’s my oasis,’ admitted Catherine Morgan. ‘My place to “chill”, as my sculptor son calls it. My husband and I live about an hour out of the city, and I use here for work when I’m in town. My son Chris has his studio and living space upstairs.’
She made a pot of tea and produced homemade banana bread studded with walnuts. ‘You should take it easy for the rest of the day,’ she advised. ‘People usually feel a bit tired and sleepy after a healing, so don’t take on anything too exhausting today.’
‘I don’t plan to,’ Martha admitted, yawning despite herself.
‘I know I read a bit about you in the papers, Martha, but who knows what is truth or not when you read those things? Still, I would genuinely like to know how you discovered your own healing gift.’
As Martha told her about Timmy Lucas, Catherine listened, fascinated. ‘Suffer little children,’ she said softly. ‘Funny but it is often a child that triggers this ability, this wondrous new sense! You called on the spirit to help you in a traumatic situation and he answered.’
She didn’t seem at all surprised when Martha told her about the journalists and the letters and constant phone calls and people outside her home.
‘I don’t know what to do! What in heaven’s name do they all expect from me?’
‘What do they expect? You know what they expect, Martha. They expect magic, they want you to wave your hands and make their pain and cares and woes disappear. They want miracles, they want to be healed and for all their pain and suffering to be lifted from them and blow away like sand in the wind.’
‘But I can’t always help,’ sighed Martha, cradling the warm mug in her hands. ‘The healing doesn’t seem to work that way.’
‘I know,’ agreed the older healer, ‘but that won’t stop folk from expecting and hoping. I can tell you that for nothing.’
‘I guess I just wasn’t expecting people to be so . . .’
‘Needy!’ smiled Catherine. ‘That’s the word you’re searching for.’
‘Has it always been like that for you?’
‘Well,’ Catherine confided, ‘I suppose, like you, I had no intention of being a healer. I was working a summer job in the Fleur de Lis hair and beauty shop back in Frostburg, my hometown in Maryland, and seemed to spend most of my time sweeping the floor and painting people’s nails – can’t abide the darned stuff myself!’ she joked, flashing her own bare cut and buffed nails. ‘The rest of the time I was on the basins washing hair. Funny, just rubbing and scrubbing the customers’ scalps and lathering in the shampoo and conditioners and treatments, I began to get a sense of their troubles and ills as I massaged their heads and touched them. I was majoring in art and music and that fall when I went back to college, I dropped the music and took up psychology instead. I guess that was the start of it and in some peculiar, roundabout way I’ve been studying people ever since.’
Martha was fascinated by the origins of Catherine’s healing gift.
‘The healing has created a great quest for knowledge about humanity itself, for there is nothing as complex as the human being, as I’m sure you’ve already discovered. I studied and researched for many years in New York and Baltimore and San Francisco, worked in some fine hospitals and research centres and met hundreds, no thousands, of people that in some way I tried to help and heal along the way. I’m not getting any younger and when my husband got offered a professorship here in Boston, I found myself setting up my stall here in this house. I guess I’d begun to realize that I was stretching myself too thin and decided the time was right to help others to develop their own healing gifts, and their knowledge of the subject. Those that need my help somehow or other still always manage to find their way to my door. My referrals are usually by word of mouth. I do not advertise.’
‘I heard about you through a friend,’ said Martha, ‘and she was the one gave me your number.’
‘I’m so glad she did and that we had the opportunity to meet and have our paths cross,’ smiled Catherine. ‘Any help or advice I can give, just ask! Honest, that’s all you need to do.’
Martha could tell the other woman genuinely meant it and found herself telling the more experienced healer about Cass and her growing fear for the child’s life.
‘You are already involved with the child. She has bonded with you?’
‘Yes,’ sighed Martha. ‘She trusts me, talks to me.’
‘Then you cannot let her down,’ confirmed Catherine. ‘Perhaps there will be a miracle, perhaps not. We cannot save all those that come to us, Martha. Part of the healing gift is accepting that. Often we are lucky and can help relieve pain or suffering of the body or mind, but at times the true healing work is to help another living soul accept that their time on this earth is nearing its end, and lift the fear and anger from them. For a child and their parents it is even more complex. Cass and her family need you, so you will suffer too alongside them.’
Martha could see the sense in what Catherine said and realized that she had already chosen a difficult path by involving herself with the Armstrong family.
‘If you should ever need to talk to me or get in touch, here are my private home and cell phone numbers,’ offered Catherine, passing her a piece of paper. Martha couldn’t believe the older woman’s generosity in offering her good will and support and she hoped that in time the two of them could become friends.
‘I travel quite a bit, lecturing and visiting Europe or the West Coast, for it’s always good to meet others and share our experiences and learn from each other. But I do hope that you and I will keep in touch.’
‘Of course,’ she promised.
‘Balance is all important, Martha, and is something you will learn in time, but for one with a gift like yours there will naturally be immense demand and pressure.’
‘That is what I’m worried about.’
‘You are young and strong and have your husband and family and friends around you. Surround yourself with those who will help and protect you and your gift.’
‘I will.’
‘Martha, you are a good person, but still you must be careful! You are vulnerable to those who demand and expect too much of you. Remember what I told you about protecting yourself.’
Martha nodded.
When they said their farewells in the hallway, Catherine Morgan embraced Martha warmly before she stepped back out onto the street. Her head was reeling with all she had discovered as she made her way to the nearest T station. Her mind was already filling with plans as she walked back towards the Common.
Chapter Twenty-four
THE UPSTAIRS ROOM above Golden Threads lay empty, a jumble of packing cases and junk scattered across the bare floorboards. Martha was amazed by her best friend’s offer to let her use the room for her healing.
‘It’s so darned obvious, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before,’ said Evie Hayes, glancing around the spacious area which she’d barely used over the past two years except for storing old sam
plers, cushion covers, runners and unpopular patterns in the vague hope that they might in time become fashionable again, and a whole range of odds and ends that she hadn’t got the heart to part with.
‘The only way I could get the shop was by agreeing to rent the whole building,’ she explained. ‘All this extra space is a luxury and a total waste for a small shop owner like myself. It’s a shame not to be using it, but I was reluctant to sublet as I was nervous about another tenant. It’s not everyone I’d let it to, but if you’re interested, Martha, the place is yours.’
‘Are you sure, Evie?’
‘Of course, I wouldn’t offer otherwise.’
‘It’s ideal.’
‘With the long windows, it’s good and bright: you can see right across the street and it’s close to everything. There’s a small bathroom at the back and another bedroom or whatever beside it.’
‘Hmm.’ Martha walked all around the top floor trying to imagine it cleaned and painted and herself working there, running her healing centre from this simple setting. There was something nice about the building’s orientation and the way the light hit it. She could see now why Evie had been excited about the ground floor and had snapped it up for her shop.
‘Come on, Martha, what do you think? Isn’t it just so right! This place would be perfect for you.’
Martha said nothing but concentrated on the atmosphere around her as she walked in and out and up and down. The original owner had lived above her hat store with her family and it still showed signs of having once been a family home. She liked it and every instinct told her to take it, but she felt she should involve Mike and her family in the decision. It was a big undertaking to start renting out a space of her own, and to agree to share the lease even if it was at Evie’s generous rock-bottom price.
‘I love it, Evie, and having you downstairs would be just great.’
‘Think of the fun we’d have!’ laughed Evie. ‘We’d be bound to have the most eccentric clientele in the whole of Easton. Seamstresses in need of healing!’
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