Was it the long needles plunging into almost every orifice of my body that led me to obsess over my acupuncturist’s house? Possibly. There wasn’t anything else to look at. I also figured I should say nice things about her place. (Just a feeling. Needles.) I had come to lose the tobacco, but instead I was converted over to her design viewpoints. I began to wonder whether there was a design “area” on the body and whether she was accidentally stimulating that with her needles, not the nicotine-addicted one.
At $60 an hour, I contemplated why I seemed to feel no intellectual resistance to paying that outrageous price. I finally decided the environment was so relaxing that it had been engineered precisely for that purpose; to lull my rational brain into paying these exorbitant rates without complaint.Her house was the most soothing place I’d ever been — now, I wanted to know why.
So I did a reverse-engineer and tried to figure it all out. For $60, I could at least pick up some design tips.
The house was an average cottage on a small tree lined street, nothing to write home about. The strange feeling that caused me to fall asleep each time on her work table seemed to begin a few feet from the door. What was there?I retraced my steps.
Aha! Windchimes.She’d heavily salted the area. Not the obligatory single set of chimes, but at least three sets so they interacted and created a symphonic sound that came in through (open) windows.
Assault of smell/sound/flickering candles on entering.My senses were immediately engaged in her waiting area.Small mirrors strategically placed told me I was in the clutches of a Feng-Shui master; incense burned in a small dish; several inexpensive tall religious candles burned in brightly colored glass.The chimes mingled with a very faint CD playing some natural sounds like waves or crickets chirping. Wickedly clever.
Getting naked. Putting on a robe indicates a formal or ceremonial change of status; every time I slipped into something “more comfortable” for treatment, I was cuing myself to expect the same soothing result.The mind can be so pathetically predictable.
Natural fabrics. I lay down on a linen covered soft work slab, for lack of a better term. Gauzy fabric breathed in and exhaled out of the house with the breeze while that perennial windchime concerto played through my subconscious. While I dozed, the acupuncturist would cover me with a light cotton blanket. Bliss.
How to recreate the acupuncturist’s pleasure palazzo
CD of classical music, new age, or rain sounds
Several windchimes hung strategically
Incense (try something exotic like myrrh)
Mexican religious votives
Tiny mirrors to move chi (place in corners of room)
Kimono or robe for lounging
Gauzy fabric or cheesecloth to drape on curtain rods. Let excess puddle on floor.
Keep windows open whenever possible.
