Journey

Arriving at Amanda’s early, I sit in her garden, while she completes preparations. The oaks surrounding her Topanga hide-out rustle in the twilight breezes and scatter the last rays of the sun.

She beckons me in, and motions me to sit on the couch. She perches comfortably in her chair, and points to water in a purple plastic tumbler on the table in front of me. She asks me what I want to focus on for this Shamanic Journey-Work session. I know exactly what I want. 

1. To share the songs I’ve written so they can be of use. 
2. For my writing to be shared and to be of use. 
3. I want to coalesce any still fragmented pieces of my soul so I can complete the above jobs which I seem to have come into this life to do.
4. Find the best possible home for the next leg of our/my journey in the bay area.
5. Easy downsizing and easy move.

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, is that OK. Yes, of course.

She puts an eye shade over my eyes, explaining 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 the tension of driving the long, steep, and twisty roads 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... only about 3/4 of the vision is incomplete. About 1/4 is clear, and I can see the fire, a couple of chairs,and something cooking over the fire. Later the picture begins to come completely into focus… a satisfying gestalt. 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. His smell is a comfort to me. His face morphs into the face of an old Indian man with a single braid.

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

One of the finishing touches is a refreshing sprinkling of water over my body from toes to crown. I stretch and feel HAPPY as I lift the eye shade, roll to my side, and sit up slowly. Blinking in the dim light, I reach for my notebook to jot some ideas and visions.

As I gulp down the water in the purple cup, Amanda tells me, “This was very clear. It’s good to work with some one 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. 

“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 Howard, and brought her back to one of HER (Amanda’s) teachers called “Gran’ma.” Gran’ma works with women. 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. (I think 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 outside. They took off their head dresses. 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 cannot see them. I get up and go to a wall where the visions are… 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, she assures me, the visions are there. I have everything I need to know, Amanda emphasizes. I laugh with joy, until tears come. 

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

I will have the time and energy to do what I need to do?

Amanda’s teacher tells 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 my allies. They walk with me in my life. Journal with her.  Journey with her. 

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

I lie still for a few minutes and get up and we share our experiences. I feel so happy. I am laughing and laughing... 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. 

Amanda gives me a citrine crystalline rock formation. Calcium white with goldish orange crystals protruding from one end 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, I tuck it into a small hang-around-my-neck beaded pouch someone gave me years ago. The goddess seems happy there. I like wearing her close to my newly re-formed - reunited with my lost parts - HEART. Plus, the beaded pouch necklace is gold & black and goes well with my traveling outfit  as I head north to see my daughter, grandie, and meet with realtors at 4:00 to look at houses here. I’ve come for a week long workshop in Berkeley, and to house-hunt.

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 afterimage has come into focus with my body. I feel like smiling just because I’m home.

The Breath of LIfe

On a flat sheet of embryonic cells, a ripple is barely visible - as if an exhaled breath has blown across it - disturbing the surface and creating a shallow valley. The Breath of Life moves, and the movement stirs the flat sheet such that the cells begin to coalesce around the imprint of that ripple.

The trough deepens; the top edges meet to form a tube. This is the neural groove which becomes the rudimentary spinal cord for the new human forming inside his mama’s dark and quiet. She doesn’t yet know she’s become a vessel for new life to flow through her. But life has begun and it moves.

Mother moves; conceptus moves. Her dark and quiet is anything but still. Her breath, her  belly gurgles, and her walking gyrations keep the embryo in constant motion. The exponential growth of rapidly multiplying cells has a movement all its own. 

Life is Movement; movement is life. 

Soon, a heart pulse begins - too faint yet to be heard, but it’s there, lub-dubbing away. With luck, that ticker will last a hundred years or more!

Life is a dance. 

Mama rocks her baby; daddy swings him up in the air so blue. Before long, he’s running and sliding, and skating, and swimming, and swinging on ropes, and dancing, and dancing, and dancing.

I was lucky to figure out at a very young age, that dance kept me sane. Angelika and I were two years old when we met. Her parents and mine loved fine music. We lived across the way from one another, and choreographed intricate routines to Franz Liszt’s Rhapsodies, which included running at each other from across the room, and virtually flying, as hooking our arms stopped our forward momentum hurling us skyward. Perhaps each of us had a masochistic streak, but it was great fun to move all out - as fast and hard as we could play or dance.

When Angelika and I weren’t dancing, we were climbing trees, roller skating on our Eucalyptus pod littered patio, sliding down Echo Park’s steep and weedy hills, or riding bikes in Elysian Park. We were always on the move. 

How fortunate we were to keep the rhythm of life moving within us.

The stagnation of bodies in this digital and virtual world is worrisome. What doesn’t move cannot be fully alive.

How wonderful that my mom and dad allowed me to take dance lessons - first ballet at age nine, with Carmelita Maracci, and later, at twelve, modern dance with Anne Barlin.

By the time I was sixteen and my father had died, I went back to study ballet in earnest with Carmelita. She was the one my dad had chosen, and I felt some weird loyalty to his pick. She was a tough cookie, but I stayed with it - attending five classes a week and two on Saturdays. I learned quite a lot about the joy of movement, the lyric line of the foot just so in arabesque, and the discipline it takes to be a ballerina. I didn’t have the discipline, but I loved to dance. 

At eighteen, I added Classical Spanish Dance to my repertoire of learning. Digging into the earth with zapateado (foot work), while simultaneously reaching for the stars with crown and breast bone created a pleasurable lengthening of the spine, as castañuelas clacked a contrapuntal rhythm to the clattering of my 1920’s red Capezio Spanish heels.

On our hard-wood dining room floor, if you look closely, you’ll see the faint impressions of those breath-of-life red shoe’s exhalation having disturbed the surface of the flat wood, and curling my lips into a distinct smile of contentment and utter JOY.

Yo-ga-ta DO This!??

Am I being lured back into teaching yoga?

In the paste two weeks, there have been several calls about private classes. 

“When will you be teaching a meditation series again?”  

“Could you just teach us a refresher course on the Magic Four poses, please?”

"My back is out, and Svaroopa® yoga is the only thing that's helped me in the past. Are you still teaching?"

While I no longer have space in my home to hold class for more than two folks at a time, I still enjoy teaching, and the satisfaction I feel when students, who are new to this yummy “bliss of your own being” style of yoga, GET it and leave taller, glowing and embodied.

One of the recent callers said, “I’ll find the meditation students, let’s make a date.” And so we did. 

Let’s see if it all comes together.

It will have to be Svaroopa® Style yoga, if I do. I've let my certification lapse in the seven years since I was actively teaching five classes a week.

Let's just see what ever comes of the calls.

Gratitude reigns. I am so thankful for a practice that sustains me.

Melon-collie Tale

Walking back from the Farmer's Market Sunday,  my beloved Punster and I noodled around with the following story:

Honeydew you love me?

Yes, but we cantaloupe… even though we make a berry lovely pear.

Asparagus, (I'll spare a guess) you think that even though I go bananas for you, and you're nuts about me, your celery at the Apple Store, and mine cannot produce enough bread to sustain the relationship.

Orange you glad we can understand one another peasfully? Lettuce be glad of that. Do you carrot all for me?

Mmmm hmmm. My sentimental friend Artichokes up when he hears me say it, Olive you berry, berry much.

And I yam in love with you too!

*******************************

Big and ancient feelings have been percolating through my system this week. It's as if the cork of shame, which I thought I had removed from my throat, has been reinserted and glued in place. Perhaps the lodging of it there happened on the signing of final escrow transference of my childhood home to new owners. Perhaps it wedged more tightly when I declared, out loud to a witness, that I choose not to be at the effect of what happened in that house. Events which sent me running to my closet for safety seem to be playing in my mind and body once more as if to sneer, "You'll never be safe if you're seen and heard." What ever the cause, it's clear the Shame Bug done bit me,  leaving marks on my flesh. 

Incubating courage to try again, I write and write what may or may not be brought to light. Only time will tell.

Mish Mosh II

Bees are dying and have chosen the walkway under the clothesline for their hospice. Dear neighbor Jay planted a hedge of Carolina Star Jasmine between our homes. The bees love it and this is the height of its fragrant season. Is it because there’s so much work to do this spring that the bees are dropping dead from over work?

I have to put on shoes to hang and retrieve the clothes from the line, for fear of being stung on the toes by the poor bumblers in the throes of their death writhe. Dozens.

What could be ailing them? Fungus among us? DDT-like substances?

Our FDA does NOT seem to be protecting anyone’s interests but Big Agra’s. I’m afraid their interests are NOT in the best interests of the natural world.

Keep a good thought for the bees, please.

*********************************************

Bone Broth seems to be a wonderful way to increase nutrition in a yummy way.

What you’ll need:

• A large stock pot
• Several pounds of bones – these can be from scraps in your kitchen, the carcass from one or two roast chickens, or specially bought grass fed beef bones from your local butcher. Make sure you include the joints and ligaments – these are important.
• Veggie scraps (use onion peels and ends, garlic peels and ends, carrots, celery, peppers, etc – you can use just about anything that isn’t bitter). We like to throw in any veggies that are looking a little “sad” in our veggie bin at the end of the week – not moldy, but the ones looking a little too soggy to eat fresh.

• Very important: 1-2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar. The acid helps to draws the minerals from the bones. 

• Optional: fresh herbs and spices. We’ll often throw in some fresh rosemary or sage, or other herbs that are floating around. Get creative! Once you’ve tried this a few times you’ll find what you like.

The process:

1. Put the bones, veggie scraps, vinegar, and herbs into the stock pot. Cover with filtered water.
2. Bring to a boil and skim any foam off the top. The foam is just any impurities coming out of the bones. Sometimes it’s there, sometimes it isn’t.
3. Reduce the heat on your stove to the lowest possible and gently simmer your broth for at least 8 hours, up to 48 hours. The rule of thumb is the bigger the bones, the longer you need to simmer your broth. Make sure not to cook the broth at too high a temperature! It will denature some of the proteins and create natural MSG. We put the stove at the lowest temperature and just leave it for a couple of days.
4. Strain out the bones and veggies, and either use immediately, or store in a big glass jar in your fridge. It keeps up to a week.

So you have a gallon of broth in your fridge. What now?

I drink it like I would a cup of tea every evening; sometimes multiple times a day. You can use it as base for soup, stews, pulled meats, or sauces. Use it instead of water for cooking grains such as rice, quinoa, or millet. If you make it gelatinous enough, you can cut it into cubes and eat it cold, like jell-o (fun and super nutritious food for kids!) And I’m sure there are plenty of other uses for it.

Grab some bones, dust off the big old stock pot, and get cooking!

Our local Farmer’s Market has some yummy grass-fed beef bones and chickens that taste so different from grain fed. Yummy! Thanks, Lorie!

**************************************************

Dads and Grads duly celebrated.

Hallmark rakes in the bucks.

Trader Joe’s has cards for cheap

They work just as well so WTF?

**************************************************

Eager to begin the Turf Removal Project in the front yard to save water and enjoy a wider driveway. Parking for our local private school is oozing into our neighborhood. Some days, we can’t even get out of our street, the traffic is so bad. Forget about parking. The High School kids are so cute and right on schedule. They’re primping in the rear view mirror for final checks on their appearance while maneuvering mom’s Mercedes or Lexus SUV to take up precisely two parking spaces. 

Wider drive will save on frustration AND be permeable so any rain (is there any rain out there?) may percolate down into the water table.

Won’t it be lovely when the L.A. River is really flowing through an EARTHEN water course way? Cement channels funneling all that precious liquid out to the sea seems a tragedy to me... not to mention the fertilizers, petrol, and insecticides are not fish friendly food!

 **************************************************

Welcome to the new Poet Laureate of the United States!

Charles Wright’s poem Body and Soul II (for Coleman Hawkins) was shared by my lovely writing teacher, Andrea Beard, on Friday...

The structure of landscape is infinitesimal,

Like the structure of music,

seamless, invisible.

Even the rain has larger sutures.

What holds the landscape together, and what holds music together, 

Is faith, it appears -- faith of the eye, faith of the ear.

Nothing like that in language,

However, clouds chugging from west to east like blossoms

Blown by the wind

April, and anything’s possible.

Here is the story of Hsuan Tsang.

A buddhist monk, he went from Xian to southern India

and back -- on horseback, on camel-back, on elephant-back,

and on foot.

Ten thousand miles it took him, from 629 to 645,

Mountains and deserts, in search of the Truth,

the heart of the heart of Reality,

The Law that would help him escape it,

And all its attendant and inescapable suffering.

And he found it.

These days, I look at things, not through them,

And sit down low, as far away from the sky as I can get.

The reef of the weeping cherry flourishes coral,

The neighbor’s back porch light bulbs glow like anemones.

Squid-eyed Venus floats forth overhead.

This is the half hour, half-light, half-dark,

when everything starts to shine out,

And aphorisms skulk in the trees,

Their wings folded, their heads bowed.

Every True poem is a spark,

and aspires to the condition of the original fire

Arising out of the emptiness.

It is that same emptiness it wants to reignite.

It is that same engendering it wants to be re-engendered by.

Shooting stars.

April’s identical,

celestial, wordless, burning down.

Its light is the light we commune by.

Its destination’s our own, its hope is the hope we live with.

Wang Wei, on the other hand,

Before he was 30 years old bought his famous estate on the Wang River

Just east of the east end of the Southern Mountains,

and lived there,

Off and on, for the rest of his life.

He never travelled the landscape, but stayed inside it,

A part of nature himself, he thought.

And who would say no

To someone so bound up in solitude,

in failure, he thought, and suffering.

Afternoon sky the color of Cream of Wheat, a small 

Dollop of butter hazily a the western edge.

Getting too old and lazy to write poems,

I watch the snowfall

From the apple trees.

Landscape, as Wang Wei says, softens the sharp edges of isolation.

**********************************************

Good Summer Solstice! Longest Day comin' up! Enjoy!

Asleep on the Job

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz……..

Body worn and tired

My heart is light and free

I've been to see the Grandie

Her love's a tonic to me.


Her Dada hosted swimming,

Her Mama made gorgeous cake

The girlfriend bought some gloptious

Rude creations for all to taste


Why does store-bought trump

Things that are made with love?

What makes things that ought to last

Turn to dust and people gruff?


The time spent in preparing place

Quadrupled what we had

Grandie's first school chum arrived

Without his mom, but with his dad


The harsh reality these days

Is that homes are broken

Sad hearts register the breaks

'though the hurt's unspoken


Grandie's Dad served up Sangría

We put on Eagle Eyes

What a perfect set up

For drowning kids who're five


Only two of them went under

Only one girl cut her head

We're oh, so very lucky

Not one of them is dead


Gran'Pun's Magic won the day

Forty folks enjoyed the show

The girl who'd bumped her head missed out

She's okay now, we're relieved to know


Tension thicker than the sweet cakes

I wished I'd had a knife

To cut the animosity

Surrounding Grandie's life


On Sunday, some solutions

Presented by a realtor

Gave us hope of living nearer

To our dear granddaughter


Saw lots of houses, none quite right

But narrowing the field

To areas and prices

More to be revealed


On the late-night drive back

We discussed all that we had seen

Homes and love and play-times

Danced on my dream-screen


Will we ever make the move?

Only time will tell

Meanwhile, may clear thinking,

Love and Peace prevail

Mish Mosh

What’s in a name?

Our first dog was found on Beverly Boulevard, near the intersection with Fairfax, while my husband, was working at CBS in 1973. Since the pup was a boy dog, we named him Fairfax, not Beverly, and bought him a yard, which the house we were renting, in the hills of Laurel Canyon, did not have. A home came with the yard we bought for the dog… so when a stray white female cat chose us, we brought her in and named her Beverly. 

Next came Pico, an all black, knobby-tailed Manx, who was always on the wrong side of the door, and he was VERY vocal about it.

With all these through-way names for critters, when our first born daughter arrived, we thought for a moment of calling her “605”, because the pediatrician gave her a “free-weigh.” (Mark made me do it!)

****************************************************

Save water... shower with a friend, or tear out the grass... or both

In trying to do the “right” thing by the environment, we’re contemplating a turf-removal project. Did you know that the DWP will give you two dollars for every square foot for grass you remove from your property? Google DWP and water conservation rebates. Cool beans! Not yet sure what the financial costs will be, but we’re working with a top notch xeriscaper (native plants expert) in our neighborhood, and I love the plans Kathy Glascock has drawn up. 

We’re already in the habit of filling empty gallon juice bottles with shower water while it’s heating up, and using it to flush the toilet, or water the plants. Turn water OFF while soaping up in the shower, or while brushing teeth. Definitely got the hang of slow trickle of the precious stuff while rinsing soapy hands or dishes. Orange is the new black? Our cars are fashionably dirty. Bird poop, insect and rain splatter is the new standard of “clean.”

We’re gonna need to get really creative soon... have you driven Highway 5 through Middle California lately? It’s scary! Dust bowl in the making!

***************************************************
Loss and opportunity…

Dr. Maya Angelou is in my heart and in my brain. I cannot get enough of her cadence, rhythm, tone and diction as she reads several of my favorite poems... When Great Trees Fall, and Still I Rise are among my favorites. Worth googling her to see her animated countenance speaking directly to you... via youtube.

****************************************************

Dinner tables, water tables, and nourishment…

Sunday evening, I attended a salon (discussion group) for body oriented psychotherapist types which was heap-big lotta-plenty NOURISHING - even before the pot-luck portion of the night. A couple of dozen folk met and got to talking about what nourishes them; what resources they draw on while being with clients who bring BIG SURVIVAL ENERGIES into the room. At least three of us spoke about being mirrored adequately, and loved unconditionally by grand-parents. Mine saved my butt and I’m forever grateful.

I’m feeling the draw of a very special almost five year old granddaughter who has a HUGE magnetic field emanating from her throbbing heart center. She’s drawing us north, north, north. 

Which part of California do you suppose will fall into the Pacific first? North or South? After Sunday night’s shaker, I’m guessing bottom first... or maybe over time, SF and LA will be on the same latitude! That’ll save on gas! Maybe San Andreas’s only fault will be to uncover a huge as yet unknown water table... and we can pull up our chairs to that table and feast in the Garden of Eden once more. Pass the apple, please, I want to know EVERYTHING… snakes, worms and all. I can take it, my grandmother loved me, and that meant EVERYTHING.