There are moments powerfully laden with thought which compress time a<br >hundredfold. Such compression can happen with a glimpse of a most in-<br >consequential gesture， as it did to me one midsummer morning quite<br >recently. The gesture caught my eye as 1 leaned against a tree while sur-<br >veying seven former students， each of whom was teaching a. small cluster of<br >workshop participants how to do Therapeutic Touch， a method (derived<br >from the laying-on of hands) of using the hands to direct human energies<br >to help oc heal someone who is ill. At that particular moment each of the<br >teachers was using her hands in an attempt to translate to her group some-<br >thing of the interior experience one has when playing the role of healer.<br >As I scanned the seven group teachers， these gestures froze in my mind as<br >a progression of living statues， and for a moment 1 felt a sense ofd~jl vu.<br >