I said in a previous post that it's a world of wonders, and here's a small example.

Over Memorial Day weekend, family and friends gathered for an evening barbecue in the Port Angeles backyard of my brother E and wife L. We sat at a long picnic table under the spreading branches of their lilac tree, which was headily in bloom. Ah!--I love the scent of lilacs on a spring evening. But midway through our dinner, family friend L was reminded that she's strongly allergic to lilacs. Her face had begun to swell, her eyes to water, and her nose to run.

As of last fall, I've been taking classes in reflexology. If you know about this alternative health practice at all, you probably think of it as a sort of foot rub. But I've learned that it's way of applying pressure systematically to specific points on the feet, hands, and/or ears--much as an acupuncturist applies needles to acupuncture points--in order to treat ailments.

In a recent class, I'd learned some of the major reflexology points on the ears. I explained to L that one of those points, Allergy Point, is at the top of the rim of each ear, and that applying pressure to it is a way to address allergic reactions. I volunteered to do that, and she accepted. So I stood behind her, and used my thumbs and index fingers to firmly but gently compress Allergy Point on both ears. After about eight to 10 minutes, T, across the table from L, exclaimed, "It's working!" She could see that L's eyes had cleared and her color had changed. Others looked and agreed. After perhaps 15 minutes, I released L's ears--by then, her symptoms were gone and she was feeling fine again.

The speed of L's response surprised even me, though I've already seen many instances of reflexology's effectiveness. I trained for many years in Western biological science, and nothing I learned then can explain what happened in E and L's backyard. While there are various theories about how reflexology works, the mechanism just isn't known at this point. Its efficacy seems clear to me, though, and I'm enjoying the mystery of it.