Namaste

I was visiting an elderly woman who felt to impress upon me the need to fulfill the Word of God in the form of marriage. I reminded her that it’s only if our desire has us in Hell, if we are burning, that we should get married. I’m not about to self-combust. Nevertheless, it is her feeling that I should marry because it is honorable. She advised that she is blessed with an Apostolic Ministry; meaning she is tasked with helping the Believers to stay on the path and be vigilant until Jesus Christ returns. Quite a task for an old woman. In the fulfillment of her responsibilities she has been counselling…especially couples at her local Church. She is concerned about massive defrauding going on. Some of the Christian wives feel that their husbands are perverted because they seem to require sex more often than they are willing to give. She confessed that she had felt the same and did damage to her marriage because she did not understand how important it was to feed this need of her husband. She had called him perverted and insisted that he prayed more to reduce his cravings. Now she identifies this refusal to give it up as ‘defrauding’ and is diligently trying communicate the rightness of submission and joyful participation each time, and every time.

One of the counselled couples had a baby about a year old. They have been together for about ten years and married for about five. The wife is defrauding the man more than a year now. The Apostle felt that having waited so long to have a child they should be hastening to have another as one child is no child. Her concern grew more when she heard the wife’s statement that she is leaving the marriage. Leaving? What do you mean? Don’t you know that divorce is a curse? Why would you want a curse on your family? She inquired. It turned out that shortly after conception, she noticed warts appearing on her husband’s genital. From then to now she has had no sexual relations with him. They’ve attended Church as normal, smiled and greeted as normal, returned home as normal, then veered off in their different directions once inside. He does not want to talk about it. He has concluded that his wife does not trust him and what she calls talking about the matter is merely accusations. He insists that he has never cheated on his wife and claims that the current evidence is the effects of a relationship he had prior to their encounter. She did some research and science is on his side. She learnt that genital warts could have a long incubatory period so it could be attributed to the period before they got together. So while we’re stressing about not contracting AIDS we should really be preening ourselves to see if any genital warts are now emerging from that roll in the hay we had back in Noah’s ark.

I’m all for the honour of marriage and the non-defrauding of each other and the un-defiling of the bed in which I can seek out my husband’s G-spot even as he discovers mine. But it’s the cute little tests that are common to so many yet unique to each relationship that leave me in awe on the outside. A single person has their own cross to bear, when the weight of the cross is doubled because marriage is entered into then one of the married party justifies slipping out from under the cross, the remaining party is all but crushed. Well, some are crushed. The marriage dissolves and the cross remains, marking the spot where its latest victim buckled. Ain’t that something? So the nice young couple with much potential gets shafted by warts, thus the faithful husband is deprived of sex. Funny he gets to be the victim… Isn’t she deprived too? Maybe not…I did hear that a suckling baby can incite an orgasm, so she should be fine once the baby is kept on the breast. But she’s coming around to a more Apostolic view that entails staying in the marriage, making condomized love with her husband, and consideration of artificial insemination to facilitate the continuous growth of the family.

I have a client who has been married for almost forty years and her husband has decided that someone fifteen years her junior is the ideal mate for his mental and physical wellbeing. In fairness, his time is almost equally divided between the two locations and she has decided that celibacy, defrauding him, is the way to go as she does not know what he is bringing home. So here we have a mature husband who gets to have youthful sex while his wife looks the other way. Well, she did ‘quarrel up wid he’, but she lets him be having concluded that it’s not fully his decision; the other woman did him something to make him go with her. The young wife blamed the woman before/during her time, and my client is blaming the woman he slept with during/after her time. Is it ever the men themselves? I told her if she believes a woman can make a man go with her. Yeeeess! Aammm, wuh de ting name wuh dem women does do? I have no idea. And just like that, the conversation shifted. Prior to that, when I was massaging her abdomen, we discussed the scar she developed following surgery to remove her gallbladder. The scar had no density or darkness. She actually had two surgeries; one to remove her gallbladder, and the other a few days after to remove some gall stones that went awry while the bladder was being removed. After a 2-month hospital stay, and being discharged at a remarkable 80lbs having gone in there with about 130lbs, she was basically sent home to die. Rehabilitation had a natural flair which included rubbing fresh aloe on the scar daily resulting in it maximum recovery of regular tissue.

Now, having ventured onto the unusual path, she looked at my ring and asked if it was real silver. It being a gift, I couldn’t swear it was, but it has the appearance. I told her I think so. She heard silver protects from negative forces, and ‘as how’ I do massages, having the ring on can help protect me since I don’t know what’s on the people I touch. I guess she didn’t realize the ring was off when I massaged her. Anyway, she pulled at the silver chain around her neck. Said she had it made after learning of its power. As these things go, she teaches at a private school where it was long rumored that the Principal/Owner does ‘things’ to get students and the ‘things’ affect the staff and students. For example, all the students would be downstairs, yet they would hear students running upstairs. When a check is made, no one is ever found upstairs. Teachers come early and leave late. In the silence they hear singing in the walls. Things get physically moved too. Having locked up before leaving, they would come to find windows that were bolted from inside wide open. And there is a certain classroom noted for experiences such as headaches upon entry, or feeling that one has been struck by someone who is never visible. One Teacher went into the classroom to retrieve something and came back out dragging one leg. A fellow Teacher suggested arthritis might be catching up with her. She insisted that it had to do with whatever was in the room. My client is due for retirement this year and she plans to consistently wear her silver chain until then.

I asked her opinion of the other Teachers’ response to their environmental challenges. She said a few pretended that they don’t know anything about anything, but the likes of those are the ones always going for readings. One young one said her grandmother fixed her when she was a baby so she’ll be alright. A few others have adapted the proactive method – a bottle of salt diluted in lime juice and water which is kept in a strategic place and appropriately sprinkled depending on who gets in the earliest. She said one morning they showed up and saw what appeared to be blood was sprinkled on the floor. It was brought to the attention of the Principal who advised all present to refrain from cleaning the floor within the next three days. While my client is no stranger to the unusual, she thought that the workplace, where so many intellectuals are gathered, would not be the place for such displays. But apparently disbelieving intellectuals are incapable of ruining a good hocus-pocus moment. She then volunteered a home-front experience. Years ago they had hired a Carpenter to build their house and he recommended that they visit a particular Pandit/Pundit because he got an unpleasant vibes during his site visit. They understood. No kitchen garden would grow on the land. The creole chickens they had would lay eggs, but none would hatch, and no dogs survived. They’d get them nice and rosy, and in few mornings they’d be choking on their own saliva with eyes rolling. Oh, it must be the colour…one black dog did live, but not his full dog years. So they went and were advised on how to proceed. House was built. A brown dog is making the rounds in the yard. Seems healthy.

Her mother later wanted to extend her house and my client recommended the Carpenter. He went to spy out the place. Felt no threat. Her mother arranged for the materials and he got started. A stairway with a platform at the top and one midway was part of the plan. He set up the board work to cast that, and did cast it. That evening he collected the first installment of his pay. Next day he was not at work. The mother started cussing how he gone and drink rum and left her work hanging. He was a no-show for the next two day. This was too much. She went to look for his house and encountered his wife who asked if she didn’t hear he was in the hospital. She felt ashamed at her accusations. Went to the hospital to visit the Carpenter. He had a fractured shoulder. Well, he didn’t fall at her place. He said he did not fall at all. The night after casting the steps he went home and someone came in his dream and give him a lash. The person claimed to be buried under the step and said the weight of the concrete was putting pressure on his chest. An eye being appropriate for an eye, the Carpenter was struck in the chest in his dream, and awoke with a broken clavicle. The lady has heard all kind of madness, but acquiring a fracture the way he did and this nonsense of a person buried in her yard was extreme. She disclosed this to her family and some of the male relatives decided that they will dig. Sure enough, under the step was a white marble tomb. It remains there to this day.