SPROING!!

Spring has been spoinging here where I live. Just opening the front door is a scent-sory rich experience. Soft flower fragrances are floating intoxicatingly on the breezes, as are the actual plum blossom petals on the “hummingbird” tree. (I’ve hung a sugar water feeder in the plum tree that is in full view while I'm standing at the kitchen sink.)  It fascinates me to watch the little territorial terrorists dive bomb one another and to hear their chitter chatter of what are surely four letter tweets. 

Warm sun and cool rains make the whole world come alive!

Overnight, it seems the green edges of the front garden increase, taking over the bark cover. Low-growing weeds are fairly easy to up root since the ground is so saturated. (Nine inches of rain fell during the last storm!) The back yard is a different story. Waist high grasses have been sproinging up IN the rain. Too wet and too steep out back to pull them out in between storms. I give up. Weeds win. 

Last week during two dry days, my beloved and I got out there with an on-loan weed whacker. Swiftly, the waist high sticker-ball-burrs, mallow, wild oats (fox tails), and clocks went from vertical jungle to “lawn.” How it all grows out of the weed retardant (ha ha) black cloth and bark cover is a mystery. I'm simultaneously impressed and depressed by the amount of work involved in taming weeds. Who needs a gym?

May the joys of spring, in all its glorious fullness, be yours.

Mushroom Soup, Not Clouds; Weddings, Not Cancer

Having dreamt of a mushroom cloud over the Pacific, I went on to dream about being part of a soup brigade transporting nourishing food to the beleaguered people of North Korea. 

What if we could find our way to the hearts of the Korean people through their empty bellies? Clearly, their leader is feeling like a trapped animal, making himself as big, angry, and dangerous as he can get. Surely the way ahead is  best paved by kindness, not nuclear threats and enlarging the already ghastly and over-stuffed arsenals in too many parts of the world. We've been down this road before. No one is made to feel safe with atomic bombs at the ready. Huge sleep disrupter. Am I alone in this worry?

I say:    Illumined Platonic Relationships trump Illogical Plutonium Reliance. 

My worry is that Trump favors the latter. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *       

The first traditional Indian wedding we've been to in our forty-five years together united Rebecca, a young woman we've known since she was barely three years old, and her beloved husband Jateen, this past Saturday. Her family moved from New Orleans to California forty years ago. His family emigrated from the West coast of India one hundred years ago to the East Coast of Africa. His people are multi-lingual, speaking several dialects from Tanzania, Uganda, Gujarat, Goa, and Mumbai, in addition to English. Several of his relatives came to the wedding from the United Kingdom.

The groom's father Manesh is a Brahmin Priest and conducted the exquisitely colorful ceremony at the Livermore Veteran's Memorial Hall. How lovely to be included in the celebration. And, it was ten minutes down the road from the camp where we spent the rest of the weekend in support of lovely families challenged by pediatric brain tumors. (Love kids. Hate Cancer. Love weddings. Minimal drive a bonus!)

Friday afternoon, as my hugsband (oh, I like that typo) and I made our way from home in Oakland to camp in Livermore, the bride and her mama phoned. They were also on the road, but from Los Angeles to San Francisco, where the bride now lives. They wanted to know if I'd be willing to offer a blessing during the ceremony. YES! Of course, I said, I'd be honored.

When the time came on Saturday for a few of the women from both sides of the family to offer blessings and words of wisdom to her, Rebecca was seated on stage to Jateen's right. Rice and rose petals scattered the floor. All were barefoot. Backstage, three old friends of the parents were instructed to remove our shoes and follow what the sari-wearing older sisters of the groom were doing. I was the first of the "aunties" to go forward. I dipped my right ring finger into the pomegranate-red blessing paste and put a dot on Rebecca's hand. (Her forehead was already covered with similar bindi dots.) Then I sprinkled her hand with rice and fed her a bit of sweet candy. Following the sisters' lead, I took another bit of rice from the tray of ceremonial components and walked behind the bride, sprinkling the rice on her lap as I whispered a blessing and words of wisdom into her left ear. I wonder if Jateen could also hear my wishes for happiness, bliss, truth, and lots of laughter for them. 

The entire afternoon and evening were a blend of elegance and homespun cozy. Gold-trimmed silk saris dominated the fashion mix. Children were running and playing. The couple had asked a friend and her team to be servers at the fabulous buffet of Indian delicacies. There was a Swing Dance Lesson and a wonderful mix of music, including traditional Indian and New Orleans jazz. 

One of my favorite parts of the day involved practicing the rock step,  s-t-e-p,  s-t-e-p  of the lesson while rocking a five month old in my arms. I put him out cold. After his mama and papa navigated the long buffet line and settled to eat their dinner, I put the baby gently in his car seat next to them.  Love babies! Hate ear-splittingly- loud music.

It was also amazing to be able to carry on a conversation with our friend Henry, the father of the bride, despite the din. This father of three is becoming politically active in his retired years. His three grandchildren are of mixed race, one son-in-law is African American, his new son-in-law is from India by way of Africa, and the partner of his youngest child, who is gay, is from Australia. Henry's family has much to fear and possibly lose if the current administration has its way with immigration laws and notions of the far right as to what family should look like. I'm grateful for his stepping up to the plate.

May we all find the courage to do what will serve the whole of humanity while resisting division, scare tactics, environmental degradation, moves to increase only the highest strata's bank accounts, and the founding of The Oligarchical States of America.

May all be well and the only mushrooms we get from this (not my) Presidential (not) Fun Guy are the kind we can eat. 

Journey: July 2014

About four months before moving to Oakland, I traded sessions with a colleague. Amanda Foulger is a gifted guide for Shamanic Journeys. She’s on faculty with Foundation for Shamanic Studies founded by Anthropologist Michael Harner.

Arriving at Amanda’s for my first session ahead of schedule this July evening, I sit in her garden, while she prepares the indoor space. Huge Pacific oaks surround her Topanga hillside hidden-away home.  Dappled sunlight creates dust moats between the rustling leaves. I take my shoes off and lean back in an old-fashioned bouncy lawn chair. I am content.

A few moments later, she beckons me in, and motions me to sit on the couch. She perches comfortably in a chair just across the small room, and points to a purple plastic tumbler of water for me on the table. She asks me what I want to focus on for this session. I’ve been thinking about it for a few days. I want clarity on four issues:

1. Sharing stories and songs I’ve written so they can be of use. 
2. Coalescing any still fragmented pieces of my soul so I can complete the above.
3. Finding the best possible next home for the coming adventure of being hands-on grandparents in the Bay Area.
4. Finding ease in downsizing and moving.

Amanda has me lie down on the couch, and explains that she will be moving around, using rattles and other instruments. I might hear a drumming tape. She might touch me, and is that OK. Yes, of course, I tell her.

She puts an eye shade over my eyes, saying that it can be deluxe, as it is when she places it on my eyes - Kleenex first, bandana over that, and a flax-seed bag scented with lavender for the final layer, or pared down to only one or two layers. I ask for the deluxe. The weight and coolness feel soothing, and I sigh deeply, releasing more of the tension from driving the long, steep, and twisty canyons to get here.

She does a simple “breathe into your heart” guided visualization with me. I am relaxing with every breath and see my heart like a circle picture of a cozy campfire. About one quarter of the image is clear.  I can see the fire, a couple of chairs, and something cooking. Three quarters of the vision is incomplete. Later the picture begins to come completely round... a satisfying gestalt of trees, hills and campsite. I tell her later it looks like one of the circle paintings on an old box of Celestial Seasonings Roastaroma Tea, circa 1972.

As she begins to whistle, chant, and whisk me with feathers, I smell sage burning. Pretty quickly, I see a huge lion’s face - big nose, mane and mouth, soft eyes. I know this guy. He’s long been a familiar to me - starting in the mid 1980s when I did a lot of shamanic work with Chris Faulconer, my mentor at Healing Light Center. The Lion’s  smell is a comfort to me. His face morphs into the face of an old Native American man with a single feather in his long braid.

Pretty soon, gray-green underwater canyons appear. The foliage of spiky gray-green morphs into other faces. Mostly the visions are in color, except for this underwater gray-green scene with occasional black and white faces in the foliage. I smell something sweet... lavender-ish… but not quite.

Parts of the journey took me so deeply in, that I don’t have words to describe what happened. It’s a visceral sense. I do remember a sense of my body being sprinkled with refreshing water from toes to crown. It rouses me. 

Although I have not been “sleeping,” it feels as if I’ve been far away for a long time.  I stretch and feel HAPPY as I lift the eye shade, roll to my side, and slowly sit up. Blinking in the dim light and reaching for my notebook to jot some ideas and visions.

I gulp down water from the purple cup. Amanda tells me, “This was very clear. It’s good to work with someone who has done so much work already. There were three soul parts. Two came together accompanied by a big lion who’s been their protector for a long time.” 

I get goose bumps of recognition. Amanda has never met my “Aslan” ally before.

“As soon as he knew that’s why I was there, he turned over the two-year-old and the six-year-old. It was not difficult. As long as they were together... there was a deep bond with the lion and between the two girls - the older protecting the younger one. You’ve already done the work, Melinda, making the connection with them energetically..."

“In the enforced promise of secrecy, was another soul part - stashed away.” Amanda continues, “I sensed that I met your father. He took me to where the other part was. He knew there were no more secrets. She was nine, ten, or maybe eleven years old.” 

Amanda got my older soul part, thanked my father Howard, and brought her back to one of HER (Amanda’s) teachers called “Gran’ma.” Gran’ma works with women. Amanda says she put some healing salve all over me, wrapped me up, rocked me in her arms, then put me in a cave to rest. I rested a long time. When she came to get me, Gran’ma washed me and set me near the fire to warm up. (Maybe it was her sweetness I smelled during the journey.) While I was with Gran’ma, Amanda traveled to another spirit - a male who resides in a temple-like building. Skeletons were dancing around a fire. People took off their skeleton costumes. They were laughing and talking. There was a cleansing pool in front of the temple. In one room a wise elder receives people. He doesn’t usually do healing, per se. He is a teacher. He has me lie down and some kind of visions are being imparted to me by him. Amanda doesn’t know what they are. She tells me that I get up and go to a wall where the visions are ... which is a visual representation of what he’s imparted to me. It’s not a soul part. But if I connect again with my heart space, the visions are there. I have everything I need to know, Amanda reassures me. 

Sitting in this ordinary reality on her couch, I laugh until the tears come. 

“You will make & tell stories. You will write. You will write more songs and sing them. When you move, you’ll have the time you don’t have now,” she tells me

"I really will have the time and energy to do what I need to do?" I ask Amanda.

Amanda’s teacher says to her... “Tell her don’t worry. There are no blocks, no problems... just go do your work.  Songs... book...”

The final piece is this: A deer presents itself to Amanda. "Mama deer and her fawn are your allies," she tells me. "She walks with you in your life. Journey with her. Journal with her."

Another of Amanda’s teachers washes me with water. Perhaps this is what I felt at the end of the session - that refreshing sprinkling.

I lie down again and am still for a few minutes. I feel so happy. Then I am giggling again... especially about the writing part. There are no blockages. There will be time in the new home to write. I won’t have the encumbrances I’ve created for myself here... too many commitments, too many tasks, too much energy expenditure. 

Before I depart, Amanda gives me a citrine crystalline rock formation. Calcium white with goldish orange crystals protruding from the top like a little island city floating in a white sea. To me, the crystals form a face. She says it’s a goddess stone. Before I leave for Oakland the next day, I tuck it into a small beaded pouch someone gave me years ago. The goddess seems happy there. I like wearing her close to my expanded heart, which is filled with my newly returned, formerly lost parts. The beaded pouch is gold & black. I wear it as I head north to see my daughter, and grandie, and to meet with our realtor at 4:00 pm to look at houses. 

Nearly a week later, I still feel the difference of having my soul parts back. There’s a settled, at-ease feeling, and much less... well... less of a sense of being fragmented and scattered. I feel coalesced... as if an after-image has come into focus with my body. I feel like smiling just because I’m home. No Ruby Slippers required!

For more on the experience of shared reality in Shamanic work, see this conversation between Ram Dass and Michael Harner on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FvjrBvJ9CQ 

Tooting, Not Tweeting

My head is spinning with the rapidity of absurdity flying from an adept tweeter's inept brain. HOW did the current Commander in Chief devolve into this paranoia? How did he come to the conclusion that his predecessor ordered The Tower Telephone to be tapped? Is this smoke screen number 47? What is he afraid will be found if the investigation goes forward into his connection with Putin - with or without Jeff Sessions? The business man is squid-like in ejecting black ink behind which he's accustomed to hiding. I want to root out the truth.

In order to create order in my own mind, I am turning away from the Trumpeter and attempting to give him the silent tweetment. Hard to do. I've already given him time and real estate in my brain for these sentences. I'm left only with questions. Who? Why? WTF? How did we arrive here? How do we move forward from here?

Indivisible... with Liberty and Justice for all.

May these real and possible concepts be manifest... for ALL.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   

Retirement creeps in stealthily. My calendar is freer of client hours and fuller with political and social interactions. Sometimes, I write. In reminiscing about when I was working quite a bit, I find that some memories pop up like welcomed stepping stones across an ooshy pond full of scummy mud, slimy greenish strands, and suspicious mouths and scales of slippery flashing fish.

I remember working one day, with a client whose story I'd heard before, but as she lay on the table, I heard beyond the words the terror lodged in her body. It appeared as an apparition of a tape-worm-like creature which was sapping her energy about the level of her solar plexus. Energetically, I grabbed hold of it just below its head and applied some traction, testing how much fight was in it. Quite alive, but not bucking and diving to prevent its own removal from my client's gracious hosting flesh, so I kept hold of the sucker and addressed the terror stricken child whose life had been shaped by this life-force eating creature.

I sang to her. Who knows how these sessions get choreographed? How did the song come to me?

It's a song from a musical by Lucy Simon called The Secret Garden, which is based on one of my favorite childhood books by Frances Hodgson Burnett. In it there is a song sung by nursery maid Martha to young Mary. "Hold on... it's the storm not you that's bound to blow away."

Somehow, that song reached my client's scared child within, soothed and empowered her. Meanwhile, above her solar plexus, was this shadowy, wraith-like thing, now lifeless in my hand. I opened the window and threw it out. Handy to have my neighbor's trash cans just below my treatment room window, eh?

We talked some about what she experienced, and what I sensed, then the client left. We communicated later that week and she told me she felt different in her stance, in her actions, in her own work... with a new sense of belonging in her life... having agency to do what she wanted to do. Next session, her posture looked different to me.

I'm imagining a yoga pose: Warrior or Virabadrasana. Feet planted wide, bow drawn, arrow aimed... now, follow through. Endorphins flow where body postures reflect our indomitable spirit.

Aim high. Gravity sucks.