Mystical Adventures in Manhattan

Many years ago, I used to travel often from upstate NY to Manhattan, to see massage clients. These trips were very long days for me, but they paid really well. And I since I also enjoyed my profession, I was grateful for the work, even though these excursions to NYC could be challenging. I thought of it like an adventure, and this particular day, it really was!

After my early morning workout and smoothie, I drove to the bus station early to get a good parking spot, and got ready to board the 8am bus to Manhattan. Once the bus pulled up and I loaded my massage table in the lower hold, I boarded. As I entered the bus, I started looking for a comfortable seat, and boom, I hit the jackpot… two empty seats side by side! I sat down and got comfortable with all the leg and elbow room. The bus began to move, and we were on our way.

But wait..... The bus suddenly stopped, and then the door opened. It seemed there was another passenger boarding late. I peeked around the bus seats in front of me and saw a large man headed back towards my direction, and before I knew it, he sat right next to me. As I adjusted my energy to be around another in the space, I heard an odd noise right next to me. At 8am in the morning, it was the sound of a beer can popping open. Wow, I definitely wasn’t expecting that! And when I peeked over to see a bit more, the man with the newly-opened beer can started talking to me. Caught off guard, I was no match for him. As he started to blather away with whatever came out his mouth, I felt paralyzed, and felt he had a straw and was siphoning my energy right out of me. This went on and on, with at least three more sounds of beer cans opening within 30 minutes. I felt lifeless in this interaction with this man, and it looked pretty bleak!

But something unexpected happened. He got up to go to the bathroom, for apparently the beer went right through him. And in his absence, I quickly opened my knapsack, digging intently for my journal. In this moment, it was like looking for a treasure. I had written inspiring words from the night before, and I needed a dose of sanity quick, for I felt like I was drowning in insanity!

As I found those words and focused my gaze upon them, I was able to tune into myself again. Those words were inspiration embers that were able to rekindle my connection to Spirit again. And when I did, again something unexpected happened… I felt my breath breathing me, and started to relax and feel grounded again.

As I started to reconnect to myself, I grabbed my pen, and asked the Holy Spirit why I was in this particular situation. Like magic, I immediately started writing answers down in my journal. The Holy Spirit was sharing with me that my energy field wasn’t grounded. And as long as I was ungrounded, I would feel like a victim of what was happening to me instead of seeing that I was actually creating that situation to show me that I wasn’t grounded. As I started to feel the understanding come in, I relaxed even more and connected totally to this magical energy of where the answers were coming from. And I started to feel empowered again.

Soon after I had found this “living water,” this man came back, and plopped down in the seat next to me, cracking open another beer; but it didn’t faze me at all. I just kept focused inside myself in the comfort and peace of feeling grounded and being with my breath. And then the strangest thing happened. I noticed that he wasn’t talking to me anymore. And as I noticed that, I realized that I could feel him try to, but somehow he couldn’t. Just being with this, I saw that my energy was different and was no longer attracting that blathering energy into my field. And for the rest of the trip, he never spoke a word to me again. For once I rebuilt the energy field around me, I felt free inside of me, and somehow his energy responded naturally with the is-ness inside me and aligned with what I wanted for myself inside that is-ness.

But wait, this is just the beginning of the story!

Once the bus arrived at Port Authority, I grabbed my knapsack and heavy massage table from the lower hold, and headed out to the road to wave down a taxi. Soon after, a taxi pulled over, and after I put the massage table in the trunk that he popped open for me, I hopped in the cab, requesting him to drive me to a specific uptown Manhattan address. As we got under way, we started to talk, and I can tell you that I immediately felt this guy’s sweet energy. In fact, I liked this guy so much that I felt like I already knew him, almost from a past life. It was remarkable how much ease was between us. It felt magical.

And I feel that he felt the same way, for we shared about our lives, our struggles and our dreams. He was from Ghana, and he had moved himself and his family to New York, after getting hired as an engineer. But then his new “employer” changed the rules and told him that some of his college classes that he took in Ghana, didn’t transfer, and that he needed to go back to college in order to work there. This is after leaving his other job as an engineer in Ghana to come to New York, only to be caught in limbo. So to cover his expenses for his family, as he went back to college to get these credits, he worked as a taxi driver.

I empathized with his situation, and as he shared his story, I admired his fortitude in doing what he had to do to fulfill his dreams, and take care of his family. And after he finished talking, I shared about my life, and how I got into doing bodywork, and how it helped me heal myself by helping others, and helped me develop my intuition and confidence. Our conversation felt like a really honest exchange, in which we both intently listened to where each other was at, like two brothers opening up to each other without pretense or defenses. It was remarkable to me to share about our lives in such an intimate way, for it felt so healing, timeless, refreshing and pure.

And before we knew it, we arrived at my uptown destination, and started to say our goodbyes. And wow, I felt a definite connection and appreciation for this being. We exchanged each other‘s contact information, just in case we felt to get together again, and parted ways.

The first bodywork session went really well, and all the sessions and day seem to flow timelessly, even though it was a very busy day. I did five sessions, at all different locations in the city, traveling by taxi and subway. And the last two massages I did were all the way down in Tribeca, the furthest most downtown part of Manhattan.

During the last few minutes of my last session, I was pondering on how I was going to get back to Port Authority. I could go taxi or subway. A taxi would cost me twenty bucks, or I could hop into a cheap but packed subway with my awkwardly giant and heavy massage table, which would be kinda a drag. One option meant money out of my pocket, which I didn’t want to do because I was in New York City to make money, not spend it. And the other wasn’t very desirable either. So I weighed these options in my mind. I was also pondering what to eat, for there was a gnawing part of me that wanted some greasy comfort food; yet another part of me, wanted something healthy and nutritious.

I finished up my last massage and cleaned up, and then walked outside into the unusually warm winter air right outside of the apartment building. My craving for something unhealthy started pulling me in the direction of a nearby pizza joint. As I walked with my extra heavy massage table and knapsack towards the Pizza Place, my feet stopped at an intersection. They stopped because my mind was arguing whether I wanted to eat greasy food or try to find a healthy place to eat. And as this confusing argument was going on in my head, a taxi honked in front of me, temporarily knocking me out of my mental food argument. I looked at the car in front of me… It was my friend from Ghana, the taxi driver... How could this be?

This was an impressive moment, for he dropped me off in uptown Manhattan around 10am, and it was now around 7pm, and he was all the way downtown. I mean what are the chances of that happening, right? I mean how many taxis are there in Manhattan? He stuck his smiling head out the window, shouting out, “What are you doing here?”

I replied “No, what are you doing here?”

We both laughed, and I explained to him that I was not sure if I was going to take a taxi or a subway to Port Authority. He told me to get in the taxi, and he would turn the meter off! I still couldn’t believe that we bumped into each other again. I got into his taxi and we started driving back towards Port Authority. Then, he turned his head and looked at me saying, “Are you hungry? I know this very healthy place to eat that I like.”

And it’s at that moment that my mind was blown.

For all at once, everything connected back on itself in this huge circular feeling, like I was the universe and the universe was me. I could no longer chalk this up to coincidence. The last thread of ordinary perception was blown apart and I surrendered to this feeling of the bigness and oneness of I am. I realized that I was creating my own reality, and he was a part of this magical adventure too. For I wanted to get back to Port Authority in an inexpensive way, plus I wanted something healthy to eat, which he offered, which by the way, I didn’t tell him I wanted something healthy to eat. Plus the chances of us connecting are like ten million to one. For Manhattan is a very busy place, plus he dropped me off uptown and I was downtown.

So when all these puzzle pieces started to come together, and I recognize that my mind created the situation, and I attracted this person to give me a ride back to Port Authority out of my appreciation for him, my mind shifted and I was catapulted into a profound cosmic reality. Everything slowed down, and I was able to see metaphysically the creative process of cause-and-effect, and how I create every single detail in my life by seeing what I want inside myself first. It was like cracking the code of the matrix… like a mathematical equation that I created and that was coming back to me. It was such a powerful experience, and I will never ever forget it. In fact as I write this experience even now, I have goosebumps all over my body, for it was profoundly supernatural!

And as my mind was magically floating in this sense of gratitude and wonder, my new friend and brother pulled up along a lively Mediterranean deli, for some “healthy food.”  And since he was paying the cab ride, my heart opened and I offered dinner as well.  As we ate our grape leaves, couscous, tabouli, with our fresh warm pitas, we laughed and enjoyed our company immensely. It felt so sublime to connect in such a magical way. And as I pondered my day on the bus ride home, I gave thanks to this magical universe and for the ability to co-create what I wanted in my life. For this ability is the good news that our Master Jesus spoke of, for what we desire is what we shall have.