healing circle

We meet quarterly, a circle of healers, we heal each other.

I drove nearly an hour, through forests, past farms and ponds. I brought ocean rocks for my friends, and a bowl of salad to share: greens from my garden mixed with rice and lentils, seasoned with garlic and lemon juice, topped with seared asparagus and cherry tomatoes.

We took turns on the table. I saw us as circles of colored light. I couldn't feel my hands but I could feel our energy. We smudged with sage, sprayed a moldavite mist, made crystalline grids around the person on the table, played drums and rattles, and did hands-on energy healing.

During my time on the table I saw myself as Fort Popham. I was a circle of living breathing stone. I was dandelion fluff blowing against the walls, the stone foundation, and the soft ocean waves. They said they saw and heard a cyclone of wind blowing through my chakras, one at a time.

I felt the power of the other healers. I felt stardust, fairy sprinkles, floaty cosmic and grounding earth energy.

Then we had lunch. Cold salads, because it's been so hot the past few days, but today is cold and rainy. 53 degrees F. I drove back home and am curled up in my warm wool shawl. 

dark as dusk

It's morning, but dark as dusk outside. Expecting four days of rain and drizzle. Good gardening weather. I'll transplant seedlings into the garden: hot peppers, basil, and eggplant. I'll pull weeds. Wander and putter in the cool mist. Sit in the summerhouse and listen to the rain.

changes in the neighborhood

Out back beyond the fence the swearing fighting couple moved out. A sweet young family moved in. They knocked on my door a few minutes ago; the young boy needed to retrieve his soccer ball.

Out front, across the street, the old man died. Funeral last week. The widow stays, but doesn't come out much. Her kids check on her frequently.

Kitty corner neighbors' trash blew all over the street on Tuesday. Greasy paper plates, Burger King and potato chip bags, and lots of plastic bags. Blew down the street, onto our lawns and driveways.

The lilacs are going by. Every afternoon I hear lawn mowers.

be concise

Why say "signage" when you can say "signs?"

orange

Reiki.

It's everywhere and everything. Not separate. Difficult to describe or measure.

It's like love. Not like the color orange or a refrigerator.

browntail moth caterpillar

Went to a coastal state park today. I brought a murder mystery and New Age magazine and planned to spread out on a sunny rock and have a good read. I had my sun hat and reader sunglasses. Ready for sun and summer and a beach read. Waves, islands, and ospreys. Beach glass, shells, stones. Hikers, bird-watchers, tourists.

The ranger met me at the gate with an 8 x 10 glossy printed warning with colored illustrations. She spoke to me for 10 minutes about the high population and dangers of the browntail moth caterpillar. They generate toxic fibers. Said she was extremely sensitive to them and was on restricted duty. She spit a little when she spoke.

Said the caterpillars' fibers drift in the air and land on our skin; we breathe them in. Most people get a poison ivy-type rash, some experience trouble breathing, and a small percent go into anaphylaxis, (a hypersensitivity over-reaction of our immune system). She wore long gray pants; her tan long-sleeved ranger shirt was buttoned up to the neck. She had short coarse grey hair, stuck up from her head like the fuzz on a caterpillar.

Poisonous caterpillar hairs.

Said the risk will persist until July when they pupate, but that doesn't end the danger. It will take several good rainstorms to rinse the air and leaves. She shook a little. Keep your car windows closed, close your sunroof, if you have one. She inspected my car. No sunroof.

Go home and shower. Wash your clothes in very sudsy water. She spit again when she said sudsy.

Warned me not to linger under oak trees. Don't sit at picnic tables under oak trees. I looked up. We were in an oak forest.

I parked under an oak tree and jogged to the rocky beach. High tide. No itch, could still breathe, no throat-tightening. Was surviving so far. I walked out on the rocks. No people around anywhere. Wonder why. Saw the famous osprey settling into her/his flat nest at the top of a tall tree, on a near island. Looked at the islands, at the patches of blue sky. Still no itch.

Jogged back to my car.

Browntail moth  Euproctis chrysorrhoea (L.)

Reiki

Feel it, be it, share it.

Some feel heat, others coolness. Sometimes a tingling, almost an itch. Sometimes there's a great gathering and release of emotion.

When I exercise I know I took care of my body, when I write a paper I know I took care of my mind. When I share Reiki I know I took care of my spirit.

Blossoms, birds, and bees.

Where did it all come from ?

Just a few weeks ago my backyard was a frozen Arctic wasteland. Spring happened, life exploded, and it's all color, noise, and biodiversity. There's a huge hot pink bouquet of blossom, commonly called crab-apple tree, and it's so full of buzzing bumblebees that I feel the buzzing and bumbling in my bones when I stand beneath the branches, which are loaded with bees and blossoms.

The lilac is blooming too, keeping a hummingbird busy sipping nectar and hosting a home-building cardinal couple.

The crab-apple, lilac, and cherry blossoms scent the backyard stronger than your mall soap shop.

Also fragrantly blooming are lilies of the valley, narcissus, and creeping phlox. Less perfumey are violets, bleeding hearts, and dandelion.

Meanwhile it's a cacophony, a jungle of sound, as birds ghetto-blast their songs: cardinals, robins, chickadees, sparrows, and nuthatches. I filled the birdbath and crab-apple petals drifted down onto the surface of the water, so they get a flower petal bath.

Monkeys. It's gone from Arctic to jungle. Just missing the monkeys.

repetition

All the things worth doing are things you must do over and over again.

Love, forgiveness, Reiki. You don't do it once and bang done. It's the repetition that makes a life worth living. 

neighbor drama trauma

Last night the ones out back had a backyard bonfire and huge fight. Windows open to chill spring air I could hear them yelling, swearing, and accusing each other of infidelity. Their house is for sale. They've been cleaning up and clearing out.

The neighbors across the street in front are ill and elderly. Their children stop by several times a day to care for them: yard work, groceries, etc. The couple takes turns in the hospital; he's there now.

The lady to the side has a new van. She works nights and walks with a cane.

They tore down a house, down the street. I never noticed the work, but noticed it's gone now, just grass.

teenage weirdo

Remember how bad it used to be? How you felt like the weird one: the dork, unpopular, ugly, stupid. Those teen years: high school.

A morning radio show, question of the day: What made you the weird one in high school? So many calls. All these average, self-deprecating, ironic, insightful, now fine people shared their traumas. "I wore thick glasses." "My mom made me wear purple pants." "I had a horrible haircut." "My dad was a pathologist." "I was short, tall, lonely, poor, glasses, weird clothes, weird haircut..." on and on. Everyone had a story.

I listened and thought: Well, that's not so bad. Glasses? You suffered from glasses? Now I was weird. I was shy and read thick books at recess: War and Peace, Anna Karenina, the complete collection of Sherlock Holmes. Sometimes I read during class too, and got into trouble. I wore odd hand-me-down clothes. That's suffering.

Or is it?

I listened to the people on the radio as they told their stories. Their stories sounded like nothing, just amusing anecdotes, but I remembered how it felt, to be a teen, in high school. It was horrible, excruciating, torturous. I was desperately unhappy then; wanted to run away, escape, die. I suffered.

But really, what was so bad? And what would have made it better?

Maybe Sherlock Holmes got me through it. He was a loner too. He used his intellect to make order from chaos and tragedy. How nice to sit by the fire at Baker St with Dr. Watson, and have Mrs. Hudson bring tea as we discussed the latest puzzle. And life lessons from Anna Karenina: things not to do. What's better: money, safety, comfort, and boredom or wild crazy love which ruins you both in the end? I escaped into books, somehow survived, discovered the good bits, life got better.

Still a dork, still escape into books; but now fine.

built like a teapot

She was built like a teapot, with delicate wrists and ankles.

"I'll just have another," she announced, snagging a pastry from the top of the pile. "I don't usually treat myself."

buzzing

Sitting under an enormous blooming crabapple tree. So many blossoms, so sweetly fragrant. Loaded with buzzing bumblebees.

the line

"Where is the line between Reiki and Christianity?" a student asked me today.

It was the first meeting of our 8-week summer Reiki class.

"The line?" I responded, "There is no line."

I think we both felt confused.

"Use your religious faith when you practice Reiki. Access your faith, use it. One can believe in any religion and still practice Reiki. Reiki is not a religion, it's a spiritual practice. We accept people of all faiths, or no faith. You can be Reiki, share Reiki, and pray. Pray to whomever you wish. Just be. There is no line," I continued, hoping this made sense.  

Max

Max is dying.

He's shockingly thin, and tumors bulge. He's too weak to stand. He seems comfortable though, and his eyes are still clear. He drank some water.

I shared Reiki with him today.

Max, the first time I met him, bit me precisely, neatly, and quickly on my labia. Twice. I was startled, of course, and afraid of him for months. But we made peace and I loved him.

After the bites I brought him biscuits, and offered them fearfully into his jaws, his sharp white teeth. He liked to sit on my lap, as much of himself as he could get there, which was about a quarter. One haunch. He liked to be scratched in all the usual places.

Today I gently stroked his ears and belly, shared Reiki. Loved him. Said goodbye.

He's got two paws on the Rainbow Bridge.

morning lions

Ran into an old friend today. Said she lives in an apartment in town now, but used to live in a camp on Parker Pond. Mornings she'd take her coffee out to listen to - not the birds- she said, the lions. She sat by the pond with coffee and listened to the lions. Said she loved and misses those mornings. Julie Miner's lions, of DEW Haven.