FUNK-SOUL SPIRIT

Not to be mistaken with Chaka Khan, I’ve been educated that we have these things called “chakras.”

But for the purposes of this exercise, we will be calling our chakras our Chaka Khans. Ms. Khan simply does not get enough airtime these days and I’m going to send some energy her way.

Chaka Khans are energy wheels, if you will, that correspond to different body parts and their functions, like your pooper, your hoohaw, your tum tums, your swallower, your breather, your thinker … See illustration above. Those are where your Chaka Khans reside.

You may have read an earlier post about the first Reiki practitioner I met with, Raye, and how Raye introduced me to Sara, the party girl wreaking havoc in my noggin (that’s my “thinker”).

Well, I just met with another Reiki practitioner, Marie Manuchehri.

A former oncology nurse, Marie said she came to Reiki as her patients’ bodies started speaking to her. Now, when my body speaks, it tends to clear the room – but I kept that information to myself as I thought how my increased raw food intake has my body speaking a lot more lately.

Anyway, nestled in her perfect Kirkland home on a street that was uncannily similar to Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives, Marie announces that she doesn’t know anything about my situation but that she’s highly intuitive and she senses I’m afraid and I’m in denial. To which I think, No shit, Sherlock. Yeah, I’m afraid! But what use is that emotion? And denial? Meh. I dunno. Perhaps I’m banishing potential outcomes to a dark corner and not letting them approach me as I brace to fight them. Is that bad? I don’t think so.

Then she lays me down and starts placing hands on me and hovering over my lower sacred Chaka Khan and humming in some funny little bird-like way and making motions with her fingers over my body.

She still doesn’t know I have Brain Candy. Then she announces she must go to my head, it’s calling her.

She cradles my head in her hands and says, “You have a brain tumor.”

BINGO!

“Yes,” I answer.

Marie explains that she is going to “move things around in my brain,” or whatever that particular Chaka Khan is called. I’m thinking, Like, are you going to slide the cerebellum next to the window and put some new curtains on the cranium? And as I’m making jokes in my head and Marie’s moving things around, she announces that a woman has entered the room.

She’s petite, well-dressed, blond, and one of my grandmothers. And I think, Oh, that is just cheap bringing my grandma Rosemary to this situation. Just stab me in the heart already.

And I start to cry.

And cry.

And cry.

And I think how happy this makes me feel that my darling grandmother Rose could be in the room with me.

“She wants you to know that she has flowers waiting for you, but she doesn’t want you to claim them yet,” says Marie. “Oh, now she’s kissing you on the cheek.”

Then, Marie says, “A gentleman has just joined us. He’s very large and has a white beard and he’s related to the lady. He’s holding her hand.”

And now, I really lose it.

“That’s probably my dad,” I say.

“He’s kissing you on the back of your head,” she continues.

A stream of snot pours onto the carpet beneath my face, which is slung in the head cradle of a massage table.

And so it went. Marie did some interior design on my Chaka Khans. Fred and Rose attended the housewarming. And I felt strangely settled by my new digs.