Foot Rabbit, Part 2 and a Spell for Finding Gentle Hands

My foot still hurt.

The rabbit, for all her quiet wisdom, had apparently not cured plantar fasciitis. I continued straddling two worlds - the world of the hospital pharmacist and the world of the witch - trying to find some way to stitch them together into a life that felt like mine. I was tired of feeling like a poorly assembled Frankenstein monster with a badge scanner in one hand and a crystal in the other. I wanted to feel less like a contradiction and more like a badass sorceress with potions instead of pills and a cauldron instead of a computer.

The trouble is, there isn't much of a roadmap for navigating the pharmacist witch career path.

So I did what anyone would do. I went looking for other weirdos. I figured even if no one was doing exactly what I was doing, surely someone else had wandered off the main trail before. Since I'd been experimenting with my voice as a writer and daydreaming about eventually moving to the seacoast, a writers' night at a haunted retreat center built in the 1750s in York, Maine felt like a perfectly reasonable place to begin.

When I arrived at Rivermede, I met Leslie. She told me she'd grown up on the property before eventually returning to make it home again. She practiced myofascial release, offered sound healing, and spoke about the ghosts roaming the old house with the same matter-of-factness most people reserve for the weather. She also had something I've started recognizing in the healers I trust. A presence. It’s not the confidence of someone who believes they have all the answers, but the quiet assurance of someone who has spent years getting things wrong, learning, trying again, and discovering that they survived anyway. It's an energy that says, "Whatever walks through that door? We'll meet it together."

I knew immediately we'd be friends.

Over the course of the evening I met a retired physician and former medical examiner writing historical fiction about a woman accused of murdering her children in the 1730s. I met a dentist writing crime thrillers involving stolen human eggs. I met a writer with three completely separate literary identities—one for Christmas romances, one for fantasy romance, and one for literary fiction. And somehow, my subconscious foot rabbit magical realism no longer felt like the strangest thing in the room. For the first time in a while, my weirdness had somewhere to land.

A few days later, I found myself noodling around Leslie's healing modality. By this point I'd become fairly convinced my foot pain was plantar fasciitis—which, hey-oh, is inflammation of fascia. It seemed only right to meet the fascia. So I booked an appointment.

When I arrived, I was first greeted by Leslie's dog, Maxi, who wandered over and enthusiastically licked my knee. If there's one thing I've come to trust more than almost anything in life, it's that dogs improve nearly every situation. It felt like an excellent start.

Once inside the treatment room, it suddenly occurred to me that I probably should have researched what myofascial release actually was. I had not. Didn't look it up. Just followed a vibe. Leslie asked if I'd received the preparation email. I searched my memory. Had I received it? Almost certainly. Had I read it? Absolutely not.

For reasons I still don't entirely understand, every time I go somewhere with the intention of healing, I do essentially zero advance preparation. It's as though my subconscious insists on arriving completely vulnerable, carrying nothing but pink sunglasses and a sincere willingness to admit I need help.

I confessed that while I had probably received the email, I had neglected the radical act of opening it. She smiled and handed me the intake paperwork, which, unsurprisingly, had also been attached to the email.

I sheepishly filled it out.

Then she explained that she'd like to begin with a visual body assessment and asked me to undress down to my underwear.

Now, I'm more comfortable in my body than I've ever been. Unfortunately... I was wearing a thong. I did an internal facepalm for making my bare ass part of this kind woman’s Tuesday.

"I'm sorry," I warned her. "You're going to see my bum."

Forewarned is forearmed.

"It's okay," she smiled. "I've seen everything."

During the assessment, she quietly described what she observed. The way my feet naturally rested. The slight pitch of my posture. One shoulder sitting just a little higher than the other. She was reading the story of my body before I'd spoken a single sentence.

"What brought you in today?" she finally asked.

"It's my left foot," I said. "I think it's plantar fasciitis. It's been bothering me for seven or eight months."

"Sometimes foot pain actually begins in the hips or calves," she said. "We'll see what your body's trying to tell us."

I settled face up onto the treatment table while she gently slipped her hands beneath the sheet and rested them beneath my glutes. Her hands were warm.

She gently tested the movement of my legs, noticing how they responded, how they resisted, how they settled. Again I was struck by how much I was communicating without opening my mouth. Eventually she placed one hand beneath my left calf and the other around my aching foot. Then...she simply stayed. There was no rushing toward the next technique. No urgency to fix me. Just quiet attention. The sort of attention that says, "I'm here. We have time."

"Do you feel the healing pulse?" she asked after several minutes.

I thought about it. I'd occasionally felt something during Reiki sessions with clients that I might have described that way, but I'd never known what to call it. "I don't think so," I admitted. "Honestly, I'm not always very good at feeling my body's sensations." I laughed a little. "She usually has to yell before I pay attention."

"That's okay," Leslie said softly. "You're doing great."

A few more minutes passed.

"My fingers are getting really hot," she said.

For one brief moment, I was a little proud of my fiery foot. "My foot is giving off a lot of energy?"

She nodded calmly, "Things are unwinding nicely."

Perhaps it was the warmth of her hands. Perhaps it was the relief that came with the possibility that my foot already knew how to heal itself. Perhaps it was simply the feeling that someone was willing to stay with the hurting place for as long as it needed. Whatever it was, I found myself becoming curious about Leslie.

"I have one son," she said. "He's nineteen." She smiled. "I can't believe it."

"What's your favorite thing about him?" I asked.

She didn't answer immediately. "He knows himself," she finally said. "And he's learning how to ask for help. It hasn't always been easy."

As she spoke, I felt a pleasant chill ripple through my body. Not cold. Just...there. I don't often trust myself enough to confidently declare that there's a spirit in the room. Usually I assume there are at least three more reasonable explanations. This time, I didn't. "There's someone here," I said quietly. "A loving presence."

Leslie smiled. "It's probably my dad."

The chill moved through me again, almost like someone had quietly turned on an electrical current. "Yep," I said. "It's your dad."

I lay there wondering what he thought of all this. Of his daughter. Of the work she'd chosen. Of the strange privilege of watching two women quietly listen to an aching foot.

"What was his name?" I asked.

"John," she said. "But sometimes people called him Captain or Doc."

"Was he a doctor?"

"A radiologist." She smiled again. "He never understood why I wanted to touch people."

I laughed softly. "Interesting." I thought about all the moments I'd spent with Reiki clients. "I actually think it's one of the greatest privileges of my life...to hold someone."

She nodded. "Yes." She paused. "It's an honor."

A few moments later I felt a little twinge in my left knee. Perhaps my foot had finally convinced the rest of my leg to join the conversation. Or perhaps Doc had quietly wandered north and was conducting his own energetic physical exam. Whatever the explanation, I let Leslie know.

"I think it's time we changed positions," she said.

She settled onto a small stool while I sat in a chair across from her. Then she invited me to rest my left foot in her open hands. It looked less like a medical treatment and more like she was cradling a baby animal.

Somehow we got to talking about insects.

"I got stung by a yellow jacket earlier today," I mentioned.

She looked up. "Interesting."

I laughed. "Stinging insects have had a surprisingly significant role in my life." "I call them tiny spicy angels."

She laughed. "Tell me."

I thought back through the strange little trail of wasps and yellow jackets that had somehow become landmarks in my life. "The first one happened when I was two. I was walking barefoot across this wool carpet when a wasp landed in front of me." I paused. "My toddler curiosity—or perhaps my tiny destructive streak—decided the obvious course of action was to step on it."

She laughed again.

"My dad scooped me up afterward and put his hand on my foot." I stopped. Something occurred to me. "Actually..." I looked down at the foot resting quietly in Leslie's hands. "It might have been this foot."

She didn't say anything. She just looked at me. For a moment neither of us seemed interested in explaining what, if anything, that meant. It simply felt important that we'd both noticed.

When the session was over, Leslie invited me to stand. I carefully placed my weight onto my left foot. It felt... better. Not miraculous. Not perfect. Just…quieter.

I walked around the room waiting for the familiar whisper of discomfort. It never quite arrived. I suspected the real test would come the next morning—that first step out of bed had become our daily negotiation—but something had undeniably shifted.

"Let me see your sandals," Leslie said.

I handed them over. She turned them upside down and pointed to the uneven wear on the soles. Another story.

"You should stop on your way home and buy a new pair."

I nodded eagerly. Babe, you don't have to tell me twice that buying cute new shoes is healing.

Before I left, I asked her something I'd been wondering all afternoon. "Do people usually tell you stories during sessions like this?"

She smiled knowingly. "Oh yes."

On the drive home I found myself thinking about that first wasp. About my father holding my tiny foot all those years ago. About the often lonely path he walked as an energy healer whose gifts were never fully appreciated. About how every generation seems to inherit not only eye color and cheekbones, but unfinished dreams.

I wondered whether my foot had been carrying some of that story, too.

When I got home, my mom asked whether I'd like to borrow her heating pad. This time I didn't hesitate. "Absolutely."

I wrapped the warmth around my foot and thought about the rabbit. A few weeks earlier I'd imagined I was the only one holding her. Now I realized something different; sometimes someone else knows how.

The next morning, I stood up. The ache was still there, but it had softened. Not gone, just...less alone.

Maybe my foot needed different shoes. Maybe it needed fascia unwound. Maybe it needed time. Maybe it needed all of those things. I honestly don't know. What I do know is this: I can ask for help, I can find gentle people, I can let them hold the rabbit with me, and for now, that feels like enough.

***

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