It's good to be back.

I've been on a journey to the underworld. That's what the flu feels like to me. The chills and fever, the throbbing sinuses and sore throat, the muscle pain, also the inability to think straight in the "real" world - yeah. The flu is a trip to the underworld, at least in the Reyaverse.

In the sickness underworld, my immune system fought valiantly and skillfully, dispatching the attacking virus (or whatever it was). I tossed and turned, dozed off, woke up with a start a few times, blew my nose, shivered and shook, had some crazy dreams. You know. This morning it came to me that shamans, when journeying and fighting demons, dance a similar dance. It's interesting to think about.

A cousin of mine, with whom I'm acquainted only on Facebook, is a political rabble rouser. She said this morning that to wage peace, we can not be peaceful. Hmmm. The term wage peace really bothers me. It's clever, but what is the meaning underneath the words?

But the rest of what she said makes some sense at least in terms of human immunity. We are not peaceful beings. Achieving homeostasis involves battling, violence, the killing of viruses and bacteria. White blood cells gives their lives every day to keep us alive. When sick, we wage war internally.

Even me, the biggest pacifist you have ever met, wages war internally. At least I did yesterday.

I'm sure my cousin was not referring to human immunity when she said that. I think what she meant is that she wishes to wage justice by being very vocal, obstreperous even or maybe she believes as many do that getting out in the streets and causing trouble will help. Does it? You tell me.

I don't believe peace has anything to do with what she said, but it sounds nice, doesn't it?

Today my body is cleaning up in the aftermath of the battle, hence nose blowing and coughing, but just to move stuff around. The battle is over. The fever is gone and the illness is vanquished. Thank god for my immune system. Following the internal war-mongering, I'm feeling very peaceful. I'm waging productivity right now, washing clothes and used teacups, picking up the empty kleenex boxes and such. The war is over. Yay!

Peace is good. I like peace. Shalom.

Detail from one of Thomas Cole's paintings of the Voyage of Life.

Be the elder

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What does it mean to be an elder? I'm thinking about it after the Voice in the Shower yesterday said BE the elder. BE was emphasized. Hmmm.

I didn't have a lot of time to contemplate because I had clients all day yesterday. As it turned out I had to work at the top of my form all day.

There was no such thing as a clear-cut session yesterday. I apply myself to the situation at hand, of course - no matter what's happening. I'm grateful that for many of my clients, a session of massage is nothing more than an hour of peace on the table, or a remedy for a stiff neck or whatever. But yesterday all my clients were facing extraordinary situations that involved their bodies, minds and spirits. I was cut no slack as a healer yesterday.

It was a great day of work! Satisfying. At the end of the day I was tired - yes - but in such a good way. It wasn't the fatigue that comes from frustration or failure, or after boredom - no, it was the happy fatigue that follows good work.

Is that what it means to BE the elder? That I can step up to the plate as it were, address these complicated sessions capably is the result of years of study, practice and experience. No way I could have done yesterday's work when I was forty, for instance. I still had so much to learn then. I have no doubt there is yet still so much to learn.

I'll be thinking about it for awhile. It's interesting.

One thing that came to me this morning while I was allegedly meditating is that part of BEING the elder involves becoming even closer to the ancestors than I already am. I have been listening assiduously to my ancestors of blood, spirit and karma lately - more so than usual.

Below is a pic of the ghostly throne I inadvertently created the night before last. I draped the sheet over the rocking chair because it wasn't quite dry. Then I sat across from it on the couch, looked up and realized what I had created - a place at the table (as it were) for the ancestors.

May the ancestors come closer, may I listen carefully with respect and love. I will remember and honor them. In exchange, I believe they will help me BE an elder. This is today's theory.

Shalom.

What came before this

Before this blog, I had another blog for three years. It was just like this blog, also quite different. It was very personal. During that time I was working through something - my departure from the spiritual communities I had been a part of for so long in San Francisco. It was a difficult divorce, full of rancor on all sides. I was appalled, waking up to what our magic had become, they were furious with me for leaving and writing publicly about it. It was not pretty. After I started this blog, I slowly took down everything I'd written on The Gold Poppy. It was therapeutic and I'm glad none of those essays is available online anymore.

Ah the early days of blogging. It was like the wild west. No one knew for awhile what was appropriate to write about. Mistakes were made, blog posts were taken down. People took offense, boundaries were breached, all of us blundered about content in the early years. Many of us remained anonymous on our blogs because that was before Facebook. It was a different world in which the dream of privacy still held sway.

Before I knew about weblogging, I wrote my essays and emailed them to a listserve. I felt about those posts just like I do about blogging now - if people want to read them, they should, but if they aren't interested, they shouldn't bother. I love the liberation of self expression with no strings attached.

Good god I would never email essays to a listserve now! That would seem invasive because email now is a much more formal way of connecting than blogging or Facebooking or texting. But at the time it was the only technology available for my favorite self expression. At the time it wasn't inappropriate.

Before email what I did was rent ad space in a weekly San Francisco newspaper. It was a very small ad space - the size of a yearbook picture. It wasn't cheap, but well worth the money because I never had to submit what was published to editors. I drew cartoons, or filled the box with text - whatever I was in a mood to do. Sometimes I did a series that built from one week to the next, other times my "ads" had random themes. Once I left it blank - of course! How predictable. But I enjoyed the expression. At that time in the 1980s I was way into Keith Haring and Jean Basquiat and the other graffiti artists. I loved the way they transformed public spaces into their own art galleries. By buying ad space in the SF Weekly, I was not curated, not edited - just like Jean Basquiat in the subway. Also just like here on this blog.

You see I have always been a blogger, awaiting the technology.

For a long time, the blog world was the place where I engaged in relationship over the internet. I had a long blog roll on the side of the page. But these days I do my every day relating on Facebook. My posts here are offerings. If there are comments, I love that, but if there aren't, I'm far less concerned than I once would have been. I am very relational on Facebook - it works well for me. I no longer need to be as relational here.

And though I still read many blogs, I rarely comment. For me the blogosphere has become more like literature. At the end of an essay in the New Yorker, there is no way to comment or "like" what has been written. I read posts differently than I did even a few years ago. I take them in, rather than figuring out how to respond to them.

Clearly I take blogging more seriously than I used to. I watch it evolve with great interest. As it changes, the way I participate shifts. That's why I removed the blog roll from the page recently. Many of the blogs that were listed are either defunct or no longer public, or the blogger rarely posts. It was time to make a clean start.

I love blogging. I love non-curated, unedited artistic expression - I always have. Long live our human urge to express artfully, to share our expressions even when they are not Great Art. It is one of our best qualities, if you ask me. It surely is.

Shalom.

I am what I eat

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I am an ongoing science experiment. For instance, there's always something I'm not eating, also something I'm enthusiastically eating. I'm always trying to find balance for my dodgy (since I was a colicky baby) stomach.

A couple of weeks ago I cleaned up my act (again) - cut out coffee, wheat, and cheese. I know from experience I do better when I live on a diet of meat, fish or chicken, with fruit and vegetables. I know that but - wheat is so easy to eat. I'll be doing really well, then I have a bite of someone's scone. A few days later I have a bagel for lunch, probably with a schmear, then next thing you know I'm eating cupcakes and buying baguettes - and feeling like crap. Eventually I stop, and feel better. Then - a bite of someone's scone, etc. It's a cycle.

Today I ate wheat in the form of bluebucks (blueberry buckwheat pancakes). A friend suggested I sit down at the Market Lunch counter at Eastern Market on a Sunday morning, see why all those people wait in line for the blueberry pancakes every weekend. I'm always mystified - a pancake is a pancake, yes? But he was right that I should try the pancakes to see for myself if they're worth waiting in a terribly long line to get. I'll admit - they were really good.

One fourth of 3 pancakes equals approximately one pancake, yes? Also, that's the Eastern Market skylight reflected in the syrup. 

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Though I only ate one of the pancakes, the wheat immediately had its evil effect on me. As I get older I become more determined than ever to return to eating foods that agree with me in the aftermath of falling off the dietary wagon. As we age, the life force becomes thinner within us, more porous. We older folks have to be more careful with ourselves. At least I do.

As long as I'm confessing I might as well admit that wheat has not been my only transgression. I drank a cup of coffee the other day, too, just to see. Of all the forbidden foods, coffee is the worst for me. I am very sensitive to it.

Do you hear the tiny violins playing for me? Poooooor little Reya, forced to eat so beautifully. Do you feel sorry for me? Me neither!

To your health! There's an expression for that in many languages. All languages? Below is how it looks in Yiddish.

צו דיין געזונט

Pitcher plants in the yard of a crazy Capitol Hill gardener. Crazy great I mean. I peeked inside one of these, saw a spider and what I think was a fly. Creepy cool.

From last year's ridiculous to this year's sublime

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Last summer was unrelenting from May until Thanksgiving. It was hot, humid and the air was way more toxic than usual because we had insufficient rain.

Likewise it was unrelenting in terms of stress factors for yours truly. Being stalked was by far the most nerve wracking thing about last summer. I was always looking over my shoulder. It was not pleasant.

There were traumas I chose to undertake, like getting my tattoo, like walking through the Holocaust Museum the very next day. There were inadvertent traumas, too, such as when my clothes mildewed and had to be thrown out. All my clothes. Everything.

Oh.

It was a hard summer.

Recently I realized that in the midst of the sturm und drang of last summer, I let go of some of my devotional behaviors. I didn't mean to - it just happened. I didn't give up prayer, meditation or ohmming - no - my morning practice is a foundation on which I can rely for whatever form of stability I believe myself to have.

But I let lapse a number of devotional behaviors that bring me great pleasure, that cultivate joie de vivre. An example: I stopped dancing for fun. I didn't do it on purpose. I couldn't muster the energy, or didn't muster the energy. Or I couldn't access the joy that dancing brings to me, so I didn't bother. None of this was conscious. I didn't even notice I had stopped dancing until I attended the Folklife Festival last weekend where I danced my ass off.

Behaviors are habitual, therefore should be examined now and again. I broke the no dancing habit last weekend. I have danced to music for fun every day since then. Yes! This morning I broke the habit of thinking it's too hot to take a really good walk. Yes it was hot but I have developed multiple strategies over the years. I'm not at all averse to pouring a bottle of cold water over my head, when needed, and I'm great at dodging from tree shade pool to tree shade pool.

I know how to duck into an air conditioned museum when I need to cool off a little bit. Somehow last summer with all those Code Orange days, I couldn't take the heat, I couldn't force myself to take the long walks that keep me sane and healthy. But this summer - so far - I can! It's a wonder.

A sweaty walk is a great thing. I forgot, I surely did. Also forgotten until today is the cool glass of water after a summer walk, followed by the cool shower. I forgot about being willing to sweat, in all the trauma of last summer, that important aspect of summer walks slipped out of my mind. I forgot about the cool glass of water, the cool shower, the feeling of happiness and pleasure in being alive and healthy at this moment in time/space.

This summer is a rebirth for me on many levels. I'm dancing, I'm walking and sweating, drinking and bathing in cool water, popping in and out of my favorite locations again. This is a very good sign.

Life is good and I am grateful. Shalom.

Time to swelter, y'all

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The fourth was a lot of fun, as it has been for me ever since I moved to Capitol Hill. It's our summer feast of abundance, the secular summer solstice.

As usual I went down to the neighborhood parade. It gets bigger and fancier every year. I remember the first Barracks Row parade, not that many years ago. It was plain, even rag tag. I loved it. The parade is evolving, of course - like everything does.

I saw many neighbors and friends who had no qualms about walking out of the parade for a hug and hello. Cheerful! I saw several kids whose mothers I worked on while they were pregnant. Those kids are big now! Good lord.

After that I cooked for several hours, then shuttled my offerings to the house on Tennessee Avenue where we feasted, toasted, laughed and danced - at least Manuel and I danced.

I saw only the locals in Lincoln Park shooting off chintzy fireworks. I was tucked inside the well insulated chateau by the time the big fireworks took place. There was no anxious dog to try to soothe. I read my book about the reindeer herding people of Siberia for awhile, went to bed early. A perfect day.

As if in shamanic alignments with the secular solstice, today and for the foreseeable future, it's going to be hot and humid. Ah, summer in the swamp. It's brutal, but it's a part of the landscape here, and here is where I live. More than where I live, Washington DC has become my home.

Those kids - whose moms I worked on before they were born - those kids are BIG. Wow. I've been here a long time. My blood is the Potomac River, my bones are local granite. I am part of the landscape.

Onwards into the sweltering summer. Shalom.

Happy days

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It was a wonderful weekend. I had a blast at the Folklife Festival Saturday, but Sunday, too was great. I worked on Sunday; it was satisfying. Afterwards I had dinner with friends at the Matchbox. I felt jolly and uplifted. What is not to love about such a weekend?

I was happy and clear headed and clear hearted all weekend. So clear and happy, in fact, that I completely forgot yesterday was the anniversary of Jake's death. I remembered this morning at last.

This is a sign of healing, it surely is. At last I am letting go of that damn dog. I'm not saying I don't miss him still and probably always but life goes on and time has softened that deep sadness. I am grateful.

Tomorrow and Wednesday I'll work a little but will also be planning and preparing for the traditional July 4th celebration with my old housemates and neighbors on Tennessee Avenue. I'm going to marinate some chicken for the grill, make a zucchini salad with almond pesto, a salad of watermelon, feta and mint and a fruit crisp of some sort.

John will make his world famous coleslaw. Actually it's not world famous, but it should be. He said he's also making a Jameson infused watermelon timbale. I have no idea what that means but I will steer clear of it. I feel a headache coming on even imagining such a thing.

The 4th is a big deal in Washington DC. It is a major feast day for my nears and dears on Tennessee Avenue. I look forward to it.

Onwards & upwards.

Shalom.