In my dream, I had the assignment of doing one massage each for Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain. I was quite nervous about this in the dream. In "real life" it would be a fascinating opportunity. One of the things I believe about my profession is that in a literal way, I am "enriching the earth" when I put my hands on people. Who knows what kind of archeology would be revealed if I had a chance to work on the two potential first ladies? What species of fossil, rock, or skeleton lies buried underneath the skin? What myths are layered into their tissues? Wouldn't I love to find out?
Today I get to go back to work with regular clients whose archeology I'm familiar with and very fond of. I'm so looking forward to it! Interacting with other human beings! Being productive! Making money! I even have an excuse to wear lipstick again. I am jazzed. Sitting around doing nothing, even when really sick as I have been, is deadening. I'm ready to rejoin the world of the living. Oh yeah!
ENRICHING THE EARTH
To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds of winter grains and of various legumes, their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth. I have stirred into the ground the offal and the decay of the growth of past seasons and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. I am slowly falling into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth, not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness and a delight to the air, and my days do not wholly pass. It is the mind’s service, for when the will fails so do the hands and one lives at the expense of life. After death, willing or not, the body serves, entering the earth. And so what was heaviest and most mute is at last raised up into song.
--Wendell Berry
6 comments:
Exactly why I got the hardware job. Glad you're back among the living!
I dreamed of airplane crashes all night. Am I thinking "survivor?"
lovely lovely photos - reflections and shadows. So glad you are back on your feet again. yay. Definitely you are enriching the earth. enjoy :-)
Intriguing dream! Nice pix! Glad you are feeling better.
Love the dream! And love that - archeology of the muscles and tissue. I'm afraid you would find ancient, barely moveable rock sculptures in my shoulders. SO glad you are feeling yourself again.
Somehow your post makes me think of a beautiful story by Ursula le Guin - the Potter of Bones. Do you know it?
Take it slow, now!
At the risk of sounding mean, it's hard for me to imagine massaging Cindy McCain. She looks like she might break!
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