Corporeal Intelligence

The body is not a thing, it is a situation. It is our grasp on the world and a sketch of our projects. --Simone de Beauvoir

I'm a bodyworker, so it makes sense that I am a big fan of all things corporeal. I'm an anatomy nerd; I even enjoyed memorizing the names of the ligaments, muscles, bones and such in massage school. For heaven's sake.

Was thinking this morning that the body never lies. Like the weather, like the land, it always speaks the truth. Hey - I'm not calling the heart a liar, but ... well ... the heart is so changeable, so darn moody. And the mind? Forget that! The mind whirls, swirls, soars and dives, makes up stories, disposes of some stories, hangs on to others, all so fast it's impossible to keep up with it. I don't know about yours, but my mind is a dizzy babe, spinning out at all times.

Though the body is dense and slow, and harder to comprehend, it speaks very clearly, if we're willing to listen, that is. In this culture, we're not supposed to feel anything with the body. If you doubt this truth, go to a pharmacy and check out the pain killer aisle. There are so many ways to make sensation go bye-bye, turn us into zombies who can't feel a thing. When our bodies are fighting off viruses, instead of getting in bed to rest as the body asks us to do, we are expected to take some symptom killing meds and carry on as if nothing was happening. Whoa. Symptoms are messages. But we aren't supposed to listen? What is up with that??

Even before I was a bodyworker, I studied sensate intuition. I've spent many years listening to the deep, dense, dirty, bloody music of the body.

What my body is telling me these days is great. Every time I walk through the door of my new apartment, I feel lighter, my body relaxes, my shoulders let go. Every moment spent in that space, even though surrounded by boxes and mayhem, I am smiling.

My new apartment is calling me home; my body understands this perfectly. I yield to its wisdom. My body, and now my new apartment: home sweet home. There's no place like it. Oh yeah!

Life is a Sitcom

In front of the waterfall underground at the National Gallery

It has been weeks since it rained here in DC. It's been hot as hell. I've been petitioning the weather gods for rain every day, doing my shamanic rain dance, carrying my rain stick everywhere. I've been begging, imploring, demanding rain. Yesterday I spoke to the clouds. I said, "Can y'all gather yourselves together, give us some rain? C'mon." Perhaps I went too far when I challenged them to rain on me. "Go ahead, DRENCH me, I dare you!" I said out loud, shaking my rain stick at the sky.

That was yesterday afternoon after work. I heard rain during the night, but assumed it would taper off by morning. Ha! Just a few minutes before the guy with the truck arrived to help me move furniture into the new apartment, the skies opened and the rain came down. Occasional showers were predicted, but we got a whole lot more than that. It was/is a good steady, hard rain.

OK.

So my loveseat got soaked (even though we covered it with a tarp). My overstuffed rocker: drenched. Me? Completely sopping wet. Have you ever been so thoroughly doused that your clothes feel like they weigh ten pounds and your shoes make that comical squish squish sound every time you take a step? Think I Love Lucy, oh yeah.

Don't you know those weather gods are having a good laugh at me right now? It is funny, it is. I couldn't stop laughing through the whole process. When will I ever learn the wisdom of Be careful what you wish for ?? Ha ha. Weather Gods: 1, Reya: 0. Again. The joke's on me!


Nancy (of the blog Science Girl) takes her pink bunny Maurice whenever she travels. He seemed very happy to sit with us as we had lunch and traded stories. No, Nancy and I had never met - she lives in France! But as these blogger meet-ups always go, it was easy, comfortable and so much fun.

Constellations

It makes me sad every time I think about the truth that there is a whole generation (maybe two by now) of urban people who have rarely - if ever - seen the Milky Way. Every time I find myself away from most of the ambient light of the city, I am in awe of the sky above me. The stars are such a presence! No wonder we humans have always looked to the stars for guidance and inspiration.

Just as we humans adopt each other, I believe we are related to the stars. They adopted us long ago. The stars sing to us, at least that's my experience. I believe that's why, when we look up at the night sky, we automatically see patterns. From those patterns, big, essential stories arise: myths, legends, tales of heroes and lovers and gods.

When I look at photos of the night sky, it's a lot harder to see the constellations. There are, after all (as Carl Sagan always said), billions and billions of stars. But anytime I get out of the city, take the time to let my eyes adjust to the dark, lean my head back and gaze, I see all kinds of evocative shapes. The dots connect. I feel that I am literally drinking (with my eyes), the songs of the stars. Whenever that happens, my relationship to the ancestors of long ago, who had exactly the same sense of awe and interest that I do, is literally palpable. Oh yeah.

I just made arrangements to spend some time at the end of August with a friend in his W. Virginia cabin. In order to see the stars there, you have to either get out from under the forest, up to a meadow close to his house, or get out on the Potomac where not only the stars and Milky Way, but their reflections, are visible.

Yes I love this crazy city where I live, I do. And I am an urban person in so many ways (not in every way). But. I love the stars. Can't wait to see them again. Happy Friday, y'all.


That's the east side of the Capitol on the right side of this pic.

Running with the pack

It's no wonder that canines and homo sapiens get along so well (for the most part). Both species are social predators, pack animals. Dogs who live with other dogs adopt each other, become family. The dog walkers I know say that even dogs who are regularly walked together adopt each other. Once dogs become family, they care for and defend one another as if they were related by blood.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? We humans, too, adopt one another. Some of these adoptions are long lasting, such as when two people marry, thereby binding two families together till death or divorce do they part. Other adoptions are shorter lived, though just as powerful - such as the kind of connections that form within spiritual communities, in classes and clubs, in working environments, on sports teams, in the military, for instance. Right now on FB I am part of a very powerfully related family of people I went to high school with. There is so much trust and love among us, it truly blows my mind.

Certain adoptions only last as long as it takes to have dinner, like the scene last night at the Matchbox, a restaurant on Barracks Row. After drinking too much coffee, then packing boxes all day, I just had to get out, even though it was still 100 degrees at 7 pm, even though the air was hazy and poisonous. Sitting at the bar, I befriended the people around me. I love bar culture, so casual and friendly. That kind of connection never happens among tables of people in a restaurant. My fellow bar people and I temporarily adopted each other, talked about the weather, shared stories from our lives, confided in each other (such as folks will after a drink or two, don't you know?)

What amazing and generous hearts we have. I know I'm supposed to loathe my fellow humans, but I feel just the opposite. I love my quirky, clever, generous species in spite of all our faults, all our flaws. We're adorable, adopting each other so willingly, with so much trust. We make mistakes but our hearts are pure gold. I'm proud to run with my pack, I am. Shalom.


The Capitol looks ghostly in the haze.

Nomadics

Lord, I was born a ramblin man [sic].

Well, I was. I am a restless soul, apparently. I've lived in every time zone in the U.S., inhabited dozens of different apartments and houses. I've lived in cities, suburbs and out in the country. I've lived by the ocean, up in the mountains, on the plains, the Pacific Northwest, now the midatlantic swamps. I've lived alone (not for a long time, though), and with a variety of co-inhabitants. In spite of all the hassles involved with moving, I find the process exciting. I like reinventing my "lifestyle," finding rhythms that suit the shape of whatever new space I inhabit. There is a way in which, when I move, I become a brand new version of myself by virtue of the difference in how I cut through time/space. Does that make sense? It does to me.

The past nine+ years here on Tennessee Avenue are an anomaly in the life story of a Bedouin such as myself. I rented this space in a state of desperation, assumed I would only stay a short time, maybe a year or so, then move on. But I was so wrong. Whoa. Or should I say wow? Why have I stayed so long? That's easy: everything works, in the house, with my housemates, and on the block where I live. For so many years, every time I got restless, the guidance that came to me was If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

But everything has a lifespan, everything. I'm bearing down hard now on what is to come; the life I've lived for the past decade is fading, unwinding. It's spectral now, barely visible. The old world is passing away, oh yeah.

I should be packing right now! Onwards and upwards. Shalom.



I absolutely love these ancient tv videos from the 60's. The quality sucks. Sweet, isn't it?

The Weather Predicts Me

Hibiscus seems so tender, but those flowers are tough!

The sky is metallic gray, the air is thick, hazy, heavy and toxic. It's going to be a Code Red day in DC today. On Code Red days the air is so poisonous, everyone is advised to stay indoors, not just the "sensitives." A Code Red day is summer on steroids. Yikes.

Though I tend to enjoy tilting against the weather, I might skip the punishment today. It's best not to tangle with a Code Red day. There's still a lot of work I need to do to get ready for the move and anyway sometimes I need to break my own rules, just to remind myself I can.

I remember that after fifteen years in San Francisco, the drastic weather in DC was such a shock, but I've been here awhile now. I love the dramatic seasons, love all the extremes, oh yeah. Drastic weather is an intrinsic characteristic of this beautiful, powerful, wounded city. To be honest, I find it charming, I do. I bow low before the weather gods, I succumb, I surrender.


Friends Effie and Andrew yesterday morning, before it got so damn hot.

One or Two Things

In April of 1991, at my first initiation, one of my initiators read this poem aloud to me. I have been reading it ever since then, over and over again. I believe I am finally beginning to actually understand. I love this poem. Happy Monday, y'all. Shalom.

ONE OR TWO THINGS

1.
Don’t bother me.
I’ve just
been born.

2.
The butterfly’s loping flight
carries it through the country of the leaves
delicately, and well enough to get it
where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping
here and there to fuzzle the damp throats
of flowers and the black mud; up
and down it swings, frenzied and aimless; and sometimes

for long delicious moments it is perfectly
lazy, riding motionless in the breeze on the soft stalk
of some ordinary flower.

3.
The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,

and never once mentioned forever,

4.
which has nevertheless always been,
like a sharp iron hoof,
at the center of my mind.

5.
One or two things are all you need
to travel over the blue pond, over the deep
roughage of the trees and through the stiff
flowers of lightning — some deep
memory of pleasure, some cutting
knowledge of pain.

6.
But to lift the hoof!
For that you need an idea.

7.
For years and years I struggled
just to love my life. And then

the butterfly rose, weightless, in the wind.
“Don’t love your life too much,” it said,

and vanished into the world.

--Mary Oliver