today's Blogthing

You Are 56% Open Minded

You are a very open minded person, but you're also well grounded. Tolerant and flexible, you appreciate most lifestyles and viewpoints. But you also know where you stand firm, and you can draw that line. You're open to considering every possibility--but in the end, you stand true to yourself.

How Open Minded Are You?

cloudy days

so unusual for us to have cloud cover 2 days in a row, much less 3! it is wonderful to experience the grayness, as i know it will soon pass.

(hmmm--i should cultivate the same attitude about my gray moods!)



there is a really special place that i sometimes take the dogs when we go to the river for our walks. i know i lived there in a past life, and a pretty recent one at that. maybe you know that Cochise's oldest son's name was Taza?

i was pondering that today, as i walked the hills just north of the river, finding bits of potsherds on the ground. how unlikely that i would change my name to Mumtaza, shorten it to Taz--and then, 10 years later, lengthen it to Taza at the same time that i moved out to the boonies and met the folks who had that book on Cochise and Geronimo.

one evening in the summer of 1995--just after i had moved to Cascabel--i was at their house, leafing through that book. and there it was, a picture of a woman with the caption, "Dos-teh-seh, wife of Cochise and mother of Taza."

my mouth hung open in disbelief. the man and his wife were watching me intently. i gestured to the picture and said, "Hey--do you know about this?"

their reply: "Oh, yes, we know. What we are wondering is, did YOU know?"



there really is no way of knowing whether Taza, Chiricahua Apache, once lived on the property that Taza, Massage Therapist, walks today. but i sure get an overwhelming feeling of familiarity and poignancy when i walk that ridge and view the landscape all around me--and the roofs of the expensive houses that now occupy the nearby hills and dales.

i often find decorated potsherds there, and once found a coin from 1805 ('1/4 skilling' from Sweden--look at one HERE).

every time something like that happens, i can almost hear the voices of the ancestors in the background. sometimes they are laughing.

dreaming again

OK, this is getting strange!

last night/this morning i was dreaming again. i was in a large crowd of people--we were all gathered for some specific reason, and were joining hands to sing a song. some man's child was being fractious, so i engaged him (the child) in conversation, diverting his attention and calming him somewhat.

later on, after we had sung our song, i was sitting outside at a picnic table, and the kid's father came up on my left side, nestling the bell of his clarinet into the crook of my neck. he then proceeded to play Clair de Lune (Claude Debussy) for me. it was sooo beautiful--not that i have ever heard (or imagined) this piece played on the clarinet!

and it was odd, because i didn't really hear it, but 'just knew' (in that dream-way of 'just knowing') that it was that piece of music.

i got shivers in the dream, it was so otherworldly but surely wonderful.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clair de Lune was the first piano piece i played for a recital, when i was about 8 or 9, so it has huge significance for me--but i haven't heard it or thought about it for a long time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOW HERE IS THE TOTALLY WEIRD PART:

i did an outcall for a couple today. i worked on her first, as he was out when i arrived. she put on a cd of a boy's chorus called Libera (check it out HERE) and told me she had heard one of the songs on the radio when she was in Wyoming on vacation, and was so moved by that one song that she wrote it down and bought the cd as soon as she got back to Tucson.

the voices were incredible--i have not listened to this kind of music before--and as we listened, she said, oh this is the one i heard on the radio!--IT WAS A VOCAL ARRANGEMENT OF CLAIR DE LUNE!!!


this is beyond bizarre--how did the Universe arrange all this, and, more curiously, to what end?

mellow drama

hee, hee, hee, couldn't resist that title, especially after yesterday's post.

i felt the hangover from that dream kiss all day. luckily i was able to go to a sweat last night and purge, pray and sing.

immensely blessed, extraordinarily lucky to be where i am in this life, i still manage to find things to complain about. the human condition, i guess?

so, nothing special to report--just wanted to have something more normal come after that poetically hysterical, dramatically understated, embarrassingly personal bit of pith.

oh, and if any of you know of a gifted Native American artist who is currently unattached, send him my way!

:)

i've seen too many movies

in my dream this morning, i was looking at the artwork of a talented Native American.


his work was powerful, over-sized, melancholy. it spoke of great talent, and great pain.


i started discoursing to him on the nature of True Art, and whether all True Art necessarily arises from Deep Anguish, blah blah blah, and....






was silenced by the pressure of his lips on mine






which opened an inner channel, firing and uniting all my chakras simultaneously






...awoke in tears.

raw recipe

first sprout yourself some mung beans and lentils.
i use about a 4:1 ratio (lentil sprouts have a more intense flavor than the mungies)

then take about a cup and a half of sprouts

add 1/2 generous-sized cucumber, diced small (include the peel if it's organic!)

add 1 nicely ripe avocado, cubed

then, shave the raw sweet corn off of one ear (don't forget to use the back of the knife to press the corn milk out of the rest of the ear)

mix well

add your favorite dash of saltiness (Bragg's, Spike, gomasio, tamari....)

yum!

:)

rattle and hum

i am not sure what is going on with me, but something sure is!

maybe it's the fruit smoothies, maybe it's the raw salads, maybe it's the daily QiGong exercises--but something seems to be plumbing the depths of my being--and spewing out some pretty gross stuff.

my dreams have been vivid and powerful as well. the other night i woke with the remnant of a phrase in my mind: "Live on the border between emptiness and meaning."

(in Buddhism, "emptiness" refers not to a void of nothingness; but instead to the fact that things, in and of themselves, do not have their own meaning/being [i am probably botching this up, so forgive me]. our minds project and assign meaning to all things, based on our experiences.

("seeing emptiness directly" is another way of talking about achieving enlightenment, and means that we transcend the limits of our this-life mindstream and see all things as empty of meaning, shining with pure potentiality.

(at least i think that's sort of how it goes.)

at any rate, that is one cosmic phrase to decorate my brain with. i think there is a massive redesign happening, and it's uncomfortable as hell.

raw foods are really powerful cleansers. this i know. the QiGong guy spent a couple of hours the first day talking about the importance of raw foods to keep our immune system well-armed. and it's true, raw foods do contain everything in the proper ratios. in his opinion, juicing (since it removes the fiber) strips foods of much of their essential phytochemicals, which are in the cellulose.

i've been blending up wonderful fruit concoctions every day since the seminar: peach, plum, blueberries, strawberries, kiwi, a little water and sometimes a fat dollop of plain yogurt. they taste wonderful and are having a good cleansing effect.

i sure hope the cleansing of my mind and attitudes is just as effective (and over soon!).

let's see how this works

test your internet upload and download speed here!
(then email your reps to complain about it, hyuk hyuk hyuk.)

QiGong!

just attended a 4-day QiGong (say: chi-Gung) seminar. the guy leading it is young, charismatic, committed to his goals, and very inspiring!

(not to mention he has a really cute fanny--lol)

his name is Jeff Primack, his site is www.qigong.com, and his organization is called Supreme Science Qigong Foundation. if you are in the San Diego area, the last tour of 2008 is happening later this month. it is incredibly affordable at $70 for all 4 days. nurses, MTs and PTs can all get 32 hours of CEUs as well. i highly recommend it!

i'm really glad i went, and have made a vow to do the first form daily for 30 days. i feel great and my knee did very well and is getting stronger every day!

hope all are well, sorry i've been such a lackluster blogger this summer.