Monday, December 3, 2007

Life Among the Subterraneans



A client came in today for the first time in weeks. She's been in Argentina and had many fine stories to tell. The whole time she was on the table, I was wracking my brain, trying to come up with even a mildly entertaining anecdote from my own life these last three weeks, anything I could share in response to her question, "So what's up with you?"

Could have talked about Mongolian shamanism, I guess, something I'm currently studying, along with the history of Traditional Chinese Medicine. TCM arose from shamanism in extremely ancient Manchuria, which is part of Mongolia. The two traditions are deeply entwined. Wow. Even separately, these subjects fascinate me at the moment, though, for most folks, all my thoughts about ancient China would be completely:

B-o-r-i-n-g-.

Oh well.

In shamanic alignment with the season of inwards and downwards, I've been virtually 100% internal of late. Not all of it has been uncomfortable. I'm healing now, a kind of private affair, isn't it? Thank God for Otis Redding.

8 comments:

Lynne said...

wow ... looks like a DC fossil to me ...
you find the most interesting things to photograph!

Barbara said...

The leaf looks artificially natural in its bed of cement. Is this the 2007 version of a trilobyte?

Steve Reed said...

Actually, you never know -- she might have been really into Mongolian shamanism! People never cease to amaze me that way.

Glad you're healing with Otis. :)

Bobby D. said...

I just had a friend return from her native Greece, I ran into her by chance --I just sort of wandered into her path. and she had just returned after being away for a long time. I asked her about it, and it turned out her husband had died while they were there, and she stayed much longer --she was griefstricken and unable to travel back to the states.
She just needed to talk about it, and have me listen. She told me all the details, and talked about her grief, told me funny poigant stories about her husband, worried about the empty life she feels she is facing... We decided to meet later to go to a movie. As we parted, she said "I prayed this morning for some angel to come along and help me get through the day-- The angel sent you."

she is a very sweet person.

Bobby D. said...

It is weird because with my above friend, I made a decision as soon as she told me--not to wrack my brain for the right thing to say-- of course it is a very different situation, but still, sometimes it's just enough to hear a story. --it is tough when someone asks what you've been up to and you don't feel up to it.

Unknown said...

Ooh, please share some of your learnings on TCM with us - I for one, would love to understand it, and its roots, better. I've been going to a TCM doctor, who uses Japanese acupuncture techniques for three years now and as much as I know it works, I don't know how it works - but then a part of me says well that doesn't really matter, so long as I intuitively "get it".
And yes, healing is a private kind of affair, and all too often a bit uncomfortable. Keep going with the flow, keeping working, the external will reappear when the internal is satisfied.

mouse (aka kimy) said...

great picture & enjoyed the post - but do go on about tcm some of us won't find it boring at all! and if folks do then they can just skip the read!

lettuce said...

she talks during treatment? wow. I don't think i could. the physical is so much communication in itself and theres always so much inside....

thats a really fab picture.