This experience was one of my first experiences with something akin to the healing arts. I don’t know if it is actually the first instance of this kind of thing, but it is the first time that I recognized my ability to “feel” energy associated with injuries.  Maybe it was actually a hot spot since it was injured and my hands were sensitive enough to the heat to detect it.  Maybe it was something else.  I have no way of knowing, but I do know it was something that was very strong and very obvious.

It was sometime around 2001.  I was attending a spiritual gathering with some Toltec acquaintances of mine.  It was a group that I didn’t really know very well – although I did know a couple of the folks from previous meetings.  The meeting was in the evening and we had “warmed” up by meditating a bit, saying some prayers, playing drums and other instruments, and generally enjoying ourselves.  The leader had us do some energy exercises.  We paired off in twos.  I was pared with a lady that I slightly knew.  We were asked to sit cross legged on the floor facing each other.  Then both persons were to close their eyes and one would “feel” the energy, or aura, of the other by feeling the space between them and around the other person with their hands.  I was the first to be the “feeler,” she was to be the person who I felt. 

Being basically a non-believer in this kind of weird thing, I found this to be a very unsettling exercise.  I consider myself to be an engineer/physicist and was convinced that there is no energy that can be felt in this way because it didn’t exist.  However, since I had made an agreement with myself to do as asked as long as it isn’t too dangerous, I played along with the game.  I allowed myself to be blindfolded, and reached out with my hands to explore the space between us.  We were positioned so I wouldn’t be able to get closer than about a foot, maybe a bit more, from her with my hands.  For quite some time this went as expected, I waved my hands around and felt nothing.  I didn’t expect anything more and wasn’t disappointed. 

Then I started to notice a warm sensation in the palms of my outstretched hands.  As I moved my hands around I could feel it getting warmer and cooler, depending upon where they were placed.  There was a certain place that they felt very warm.  The feeling was very much like moving my hands toward and away from a hot clothes iron.  In fact, I finally stopped because I was a little worried that it would actually burn me if I got too close. So I just kind of played with the sensation, moving my hands closer and further away from her, and up and down – feeling the boundaries of the heat.

After we were done, we took off our blindfolds and talked to each other about the experience.  She told me that I was hurting her by pressing too hard on her left shoulder/breast area.  She said that I was pushing in and out too hard, and that it felt almost painful, but not quite painful.  Then she said that she had a serious medical problem in that area.  She didn’t say what it was and since she didn’t offer that information, I didn’t ask.  She just said that she had a problem, and that I was pressing the energy in that location and causing significant pressure and warmth to the injured area.

The experience stuck in my mind because it was the first time that I had an independent agreement with the experience of feeling the “energy” of an illness or disease.  I was very sorry that I made her feel uncomfortable; if I had known that I was actually impacting her I would have been much more careful and gentle.  As it was, I had no idea that she would be able to feel what I was doing, more or less that I might make her feel pain or be ill at ease.

I have never seen that lady again since that time.  I have often wondered if by some weird magic that experience might have helped her to heal.  I have had no feedback since then, so as far as I am aware it was just an experience of the two of us feeling some kind of hot, powerful energy.