Day 2 of a 10-day silent meditation course. I was sitting in the hall with about 50 other meditators, when a brief but vivid scenario played out behind my eyelids. I was on a massage table, in a Bowen Technique class, and another student was practicing a move on me. I didn’t like what he was doing. I was up off the table and bringing him to his knees in one smooth move as I bent his pinky finger back, standing over him and hissing “Try that again and I’ll break it.”
!
It is common for people to experience strange sensations, memories and fantasies during a 10 day Vipassana retreat. The subconscious burps up some ugly and wonderful things. Sometimes they make sense and often they don’t. This one did.
I began Traditional Chinese Medicine college at 20 years of age. I was very idealistic, with a natural gift for healing, and like many other young women in my class, had severely underdeveloped boundaries. Also in our year were two men in their early forties. I’ll call them Alpha 1 and Alpha 2.
Alpha 1 was a former dairy farmer from just outside Edmonton. He was tall and broad in his cowboy hat and cowboy boots, which elicited veiled snickering classism from his classmates. I’d like to be able to say that I admired his individualism as a fish out of water in Victoria BC, but before long, I’d decided he was a dickhead. He posted a web-sourced tirade entitled “Just Facts” about the virtues of factory farming on our school bulletin board, pointedly concealing the Vancouver Island Vegetarian Association newsletter. He positioned himself at the front of the classroom, spoke loudly and often, interrupted everyone especially the female teachers, and almost instantaneously locked horns with Alpha 2. They were fairly evenly matched, and fought each other for position of Pack Leader for 3 long years.
Alpha 2 was a classic Sensitive New Age Guy. He spoke in low controlled tones that encouraged you to lean closer to hear what he was saying. He had at a slight height disadvantage, but made up for it with a ripplingly muscled gym physique. Alpha 1 was already familiar with most of the course material, having read many of the textbooks before beginning first year. He made exaggerated shows of concern about Alpha 2’s ability to keep up with the reading, and subtly mocked Alpha 2’s use of aromatherapy without ever quite openly questioning his sexual orientation. Alpha 2 had a learning disability, but he could and did speak middle class fluently, and had years of experience of energy work and meditation and so was able to hold forth on qi gong and tai chi, condescending to Alpha 1 in his own oily way.
For all their outward differences, they had much in common. Alpha 1 made a habit of congenially asking young women in the class about their menstrual cycles*. He also asked our Western Physiology teacher which genetic defects were responsible for homosexuality. Alpha 2 congratulated me later on correcting the teacher on his homophobic response (“I honour your courage,”) but then he also took me aside once to tell me – warmly, intimately – that as my girlfriend and I weren’t with men, and therefore missing out on that yang energy, we should really consider sunning our yonis** regularly.
Both men practiced their massage skills on the women in the class with the exact same sense of entitlement.
Alpha 1 was fairly straightforward in his racism. He often corrected our Chinese teachers on their English with the air of someone bestowing a favour, while happily mangling the Mandarin tones in his endearingly tone-deaf manner. He was immortalized during a live seminar, videotaped to be used as an instructional video, demanding to know why the licensing exam was being offered in Mandarin and Cantonese, since “If you’re practicing acupuncture in Canada, shouldn’t you be able to speak English?” Alpha 2, on the other hand, was utter courtesy to our teachers to their faces, and complained bitterly behind their backs about how controlling the Chinese were, how money-motivated. Critiqued their scarcity issues.
I’m not sure that the contest was ever resolved. Alpha 1 didn’t come back for a 4th year of college, so perhaps Alpha 2 won by default.
Funny thing is, although it took me less than a month to develop an aversion to Alpha 1, and well over a year to grok that Alpha 2 was not my friend (I told you I was young and naïve!) it wasn’t an Alpha 1 in my finger-breaking daydream. It was an Alpha 2. (My thinking isn’t crystal here, so bear with me…)
At this point I have a certain confidence in my ability to deal with dudes like Alpha 1, especially when the interaction is only as long as it takes to get my gear outta the truck and into the helicopter. I don’t intend to romanticize working-class men or suggest that Alpha 1 is less complex or problematic. White hetero male misogyny is creepy and gross, period, and especially when you’re trying to explore something as intricate, intimate and vital as HEALING. But Alpha 1 never really passed. Alpha 2 kinda did. There’s a thicker hypocrisy behind door #2, somehow.
I’m not 20 anymore and I will not accept another massage from him, ever, but I still don’t know how to deflect an Alpha 2.
Unfortunately, in alternativemedicineland, Alpha 2 is the more common species.
TCM school was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. I got really sick, had my heart broken, got stressed out to the point of near immune system collapse. That had only a little to do with the 2 older males who contributed to a toxic classroom environment. But evidently, my subconscious is telling me, I’m still pissed off. And now that I’m trying earnestly to enroll in courses at the Vancouver Bowen College, to learn another healing technique which so inspires me, that shit is bubbling up.
Still waiting for the admin at Bowen College to confirm my registration.
*A dynamic that develops in alternative medicine schools. As many previously mysterious and wacky symptoms begin to make sense, as the workings of the human body unfold and form fascinating and cohesive pictures, you naturally want to discuss your own body’s experience. You want to discuss your classmates’ bodies. And, since appropriate boundaries are rarely taught (to my knowledge) in schools, this can lead to some invasive questioning, combined with the unspoken implication that if you are reluctant to discuss your body with a classmate (who’s only asking to expand their knowledge base and become a better healer) then there’s something wrong with you. A lack of generousity at the very least, and at worst, an unwillingness to Work On Your Stuff.
**Yoni means cunt. In Sanskrit.
