the willow has fingers

Jane Kemarre Doolan

The gentle breeze moves the long green branches over the water,skimming it gently, making slight ripples.I miss weeping willows.There are a few here in the deep South but nothing like the giants that grow and flourish up North.The slight swaying of those green downward hanging branches makes me think of summer and all good things.Peace,fingers and hands.

I have a wooden statue that I have written of before,the chipped red angel with her hands together in prayer,eyes closed,complete.It seems to me that when the palms are pressed together,all the energy that swirls throughout the body , is held inside this circle of contemplation and none dissipates.The full prayer emerges from this pose.I wish I could see it as it goes.

Once, there was a miracle of hands that amazes me still.Several years ago ,when I worked at BellSouth, I belonged to a prayer group of about 10 ladies and one young Cuban man.We met to pray every Wednesday and what happened on this special day,I cannot adequately explain. A strong feeling came over me that we needed to pray over Danny,who had hepatitis and many life restrictions because of it.We prayed,laying hands, and then continued our regular joyful meeting.There was a warm spot in the middle of my palms during this that I noticed.

A few weeks later, over lunch, Danny mentioned that his doctor had found that his liver, unaccountably, was 99% healed .Many jaws dropped and we were speechless.We never again prayed over anyone and why Danny was to die of AIDS a few years later, I cannot know.

When my second son was born, the doctor listened to his breathing and said with certainty,"This one will have asthma."My Mother had debilitating asthma and this diagnosis scared me.A book on touching by Ashley Montague led me to massage his chest almost every day for months.As I rubbed ,I told his lungs that they were clear and perfect.He was a cross-country champion for many years in high school and never a wheeze has been heard.He is now forty years old and still no breathing problems.Misdiagnosis?

In the fall,we will be traveling to Australia for a wedding.While there,we will fly to Alice Springs, a place on the map that as a child always seemed to draw me. Today, I found out that the Ngangkere Aboriginals live near there in Central Australia,they of the healing hands ,depicted in the art attached.