Last Sunday was the Black Dance, which has been a thing here in Sac at least 15 years.  Maybe more.  The room was draped in darkness and Meaghan Williams was laying down the beats.

Two days in a row, two patients with the oh-so-common complaint of foot pain. In treatment we always begin with the loudest complaining body part.  And feet were the screamers. 

Last week on retreat at Green Gulch I heard this oft told dharma tale.  The story goes like this: before Buddha was Buddha he was a Nepalese prince.  A privileged young man who stepped from a life of ease into full on spiritual practice.

The bed is so warm.  My heart feels so chill.  Not a single bone wants to rise and meet this day. Eventually I drag my butt onto pillow, set timer, sit upright. 

That mystery was a non-negotiable signal: time to let go.  Let go of any harbored agenda about what needed to happen.  Let go of any particular practices to teach.  Let go of any and all expectations.  Because by now I know this one thing to be true: there are certain times I need to land in the space, feel what is needed, offer that and only that.  And this was one of those times.

I knew Gabrielle had mapped the path of the wounded healer.  I had read about it but this past week I had the opportunity to dance it.  To embody it.  To feel into the utter truth of it. 

Life imitates art imitates life imitates art.  And I absolutely count on that.

The word "cure" came from the Latin "cura," meaning "care" or "concern."  When the French incorporated cura into their lexicon, it morphed into "curer," which meant "to care for" or "to heal."  That leap---from concern to heal---feels like a philosophical  bridge I’ve negotiated over a lifetime in the healing arts.

It was a Palm Springs conference in the 90’s when anthropologist Angeles Arrien, spoke directly to my soul. Her lecture topic:  commonalities across indigenous cultures in the art of healing.  There was one custom that connected several cultures.  A person seeking medical attention would go to the village shaman who opened the healing session with this inquiry:

Insight sometimes materializes in chapters.  Know what I mean?  Themes show up this way and that.  Connective threads emerge in your face.  Sometimes it takes several aha moments to anchor insight into reality.  Today, with gratitude, I write about a wisdom kernel received from you, my physical therapy patients. A recurrent theme all summer long.

This is a month dedicated to stopping. I have been very quiet, mostly at home or camping. It is not my usual state of being. And it feels good. Feels right. Feels needed. And this emerged today:

Back in 2020-22, with Covid raging away, I taught “not your standard” yoga weekly on line.  An interesting interlude we were grateful to share.  The final 55 classes, became an ambitious dive into experiential anatomy.

Calendared as a day of remembrance, July 20, 2023: The Big Fall. A day to recall what it means to suffer trauma, how healing happens in fits and starts, how at times life lessons get delivered in uncomfortable ways. It got my attention and these 3 reminders have played out with consistency over this ensuing year.

Mary Oliver opens her poem Wild Geese with these poignant lines:

 You do not have to be good. 

You do not have to walk on your knees 

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 

You only have to let the soft animal of your body 

love what it loves. 

I’ve been clear about the medicinal benefits of low dose cannabis for years. Actually more than 50 years. But here’s the deal: I’m firmly on the elder side of life and even though younger folk assure me times have changed, I feel a bit of trepidation writing publicly about this topic.

A perfect example of prajna paradha, Sanskrit for crime against wisdom. This word actually names what we all gut-recognize: our natural, organic human tendency to turn away for what we know is best for us.

Curiosity about this unique body in motion. Cultivating fascination about every emerging impulse. Ruminating mind pales in comparison, so boring.

This is what I want to say about my feet lately. I trust them like never before. They seem to know what my heart desires more than my head does. And I am following.

I looked at him and said, “Do I really have to do this?” To which he replied, “Did you really want to get better?” I bit the bullet.

There is nothing but liquid turbulence tossing me hither and yon. No sense of up, down, sideways. I hold this precious breath as long as humanly possible.