Last year at this time I was entering “body not operating as expected” zone. Know that one? Pain in my left hip increasing in severity and everything I knew not creating the shift needed. I was yet to travel to Italy, seek out physical therapy from someone other than me and obtain that illuminating X-ray. I had no idea the hell I was going to go through from Labor Day through Thanksgiving, before things would begin to shift for the better. I am recalling this right now and remembering that the potential for change---good or bad---is alive in every moment. Wondering what life has in store.

I had radar-anticipated a personal nice easy slide into July and it was just not happening. For ten days my post-Texas homecoming churned a nightmarish stew of daily new computer “issues” mixed with a raspy hanger-on bronchitis. I was at a personal nadir when the Dallas news splashed all over my breakfast table. I had just fallen in love with people in Dallas so these familiar scenes and déjà vu phrases were tinctured with immediate poignancy.

We’ve all heard this one. Think you’re enlightened? Spend three days with your family. Just back from quite a large gathering of the clan, so I can attest. Though I’m really not sure exactly what enlightenment is, I’m pretty sure I’m not. Same situation twenty years ago? There has been evident evolution. Stay tuned as I follow a thread leading us from this family reunion all the way to the devastation in Orlando.

Feet. They have so much of my attention right now because five patients in the last month have come for treatment with variations on the same theme. Sometimes God works like that in my studio, honing my attention for a specific purpose. And I am listening. Three of the five had done the mainstream medical run-around. Podiatrists, orthopedists, sports medicine docs. Diagnosed with plantar fasciitis and treated with anti-inflammatory, rest, ice, night splints, orthotics and, the final blow, roll your foot on this ball. By report, those who sought medical care had barely been touched by medical hands, if at all.

I remember 2009 as our 5Rhythms semi-homeless year. Difficulties with the City of Sacramento at McKinley Park Clunie landed us in these dire straits. The YLI space wasn’t working and we floundered along at Deep until year’s end. I was understandably wary when a random call from the City tempted us back. But we took the leap; Coloma was not Clunie and the administration seemed to bend over backward making up for previous bad behavior.

Most mornings I have a mini-conversation with my ego. Initially flattered by the attention, he (yes, it is a “he”) usually slinks away in embarrassment when he sees the nature of my musings. This daily moment is sponsored by The Enneagram Institute who brilliantly light up my inbox with a message based on my “type” each and every day. Things like “What would it be like to explore really being fully yourself today? Can you reveal some hidden part of yourself, at least to someone you can trust?”

How do you create a container safe enough to literally dance like no one is watching, unfold, unravel, let the truth become visible on the outside? For sure, the quality of the space and facilitator is important. But in a Thursday night circle a couple weeks ago, I wanted to flesh out the significant contribution of every single person present. How stepping onto a dance floor is akin to entering a sacred contract, an agreement to help hold this so-called container. The quality of our individual presence is the ultimate glue that knits the space together.

From the time I could wrestle a newspaper open, I was an avid reader of Dear Abby. Kind of embarrassing. Yet there was something reassuring about this daily drop into the human condition, knowing she would always provide a pat answer. When I figured out that “pat” didn’t cut it in the real world, I outgrew Abby. So when the Bee starting carrying Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax, I figured it would be Dear Abby Re-dux. But she’s not. She is always spot on, real deal, cut to the chase and deliver. Who would believe I would glean totally pertinent self-care advice from this writer?

Maybe you already know this: we have a brain in our belly---literally, scientifically, experientially.   Our heads, in this intelligence-biased, information-intensive era are super-loud. So it is quite easy to bypass this rich fertile more quiet region. This Sunday we spent all day belly-rooted in the SF Tending workshop. A student there reminded me about Philip Shepherd and an interview in Sun Magazine April 2014. What follows is pulled from this fascinating source.

When it came to those college level non-life science classes like physics and chemistry…well, I scraped by. But I totally get this Gabrielle Roth basic physics quote:

“Energy moves in waves. Waves move in patterns. Patterns move in rhythms. Human beings are just that, energy, waves, patterns, and rhythms…nothing more, nothing less…a dance.
”

Remember Joe Montana? I am so NOT a football fan. In fact, I’m thrilled the movie Concussion is outing the incredible damage this violent past time incurs on the gladiators who give up quality of life for our insatiable entertainment need. Sorry if I am offending. But incredible damage and Joe Montana played a big role in my professional life.

For twenty-five years my morning ritual has held fast. I sit in meditation. The commitment has not wavered though focus and technique have varied. If meditation success is measured via reduced thoughts, longer periods of quiet mind, this practice has been utter failure. But improvement has been vast if favorable outcome points to a snowballing ability to witness what is happening moment by moment. And that spills off the cushion in so many ways, some of them less than pleasant. Gone are the days of unconscious, less than optimal behavior. I have the skilled privilege of watching myself f--k up. Like using the F word in a newsletter. Really? Yup. Because labeling behavior as f—king up is exactly what I want to talk about.

The Mohawk people, in their indigenous wisdom, practiced condolence ritual, “where they tend to the bereaved with an elegant series of gestures, wiping tears from the eyes with the soft skin of a fawn.” This poignant image and so much more from an interview with Francis Weller, author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief. He told of the Southwest Pueblo tribe with their “crying songs to help move grief along.”

Just off the phone with a local yoga teacher calling for an appointment for her ailing body. She talked about what it was like to stand in front of her class last night and name it. What it was like to watch the class do what she could not. What it was like to have a hard time accepting the sympathy extended after class.

Sixteen hours of airline travel, coming home, excited? Yes...and surprised at this feel of reluctance, the tug of Paris still strong, time carved from the norm, daily adventure, wandering with abandon. Wondering about "the norm", the possibility of not falling back into it, the magnetic pull of habit, the comfort of the familiar. How to maintain freshness, awaken each morning wondering what might happen, do something different. 

Break free, drop the same old same old, move out of the box.

Buddhist teachers, existential philosophers and hard knocks college all hammer away on the same topic: old age, ill health and death are coming to us all. If we are lucky. If you're like me you might hit the delete button right now; I wouldn't blame you. I like the sand. Especially when my head is in it.

There was something about teaching every Thursday night that kept me grounded, providing an anchor in a strange and variable schedule. Unhooked for more than a month now, I find myself never quite sure what day of the week it is or whether it is the weekend or not. Factor in travelling east and west on 80 for the past week and it adds up to a bit of very welcome befuddlement. Just returned from San Francisco and looked at the next few days: patients to treat and teaching to do: Rock & Roll Tuesday morning (wow, loving this…) and my last time to hold the Sweat this season at Coloma on Sunday.

There was something about teaching every Thursday night that kept me grounded, providing an anchor in a strange and variable schedule. Unhooked for more than a month now, I find myself never quite sure what day of the week it is or whether it is the weekend or not. Factor in travelling east and west on 80 for the past week and it adds up to a bit of very welcome befuddlement. Just returned from San Francisco and looked at the next few days: patients to treat and teaching to do: Rock & Roll Tuesday morning (wow, loving this…) and my last time to hold the Sweat this season at Coloma on Sunday.

Back in the day, I taught a mat class in the clinic called Loosen, Lengthen, Strengthen. When the opportunity arose to collaborate for a six week series focused on strength at It’s All Yoga, I perked right up.

Power Up! ( https://clients.mindbodyonline.com/classic/home?studioid=4333) begins today: Tues/Thurs 12:00-12:45 six week series. You can drop in anytime and check out this high energy opportunity for "personal training" without strain. No mirrors, no meatheads. This is territory I know and love and have a pretty unique spin on.

Wanted coffee. Walked into Chocolate Fish. My window seat was taken. Took the middle seat I didn’t want. Didn’t even notice the gorgeous ocean photo on the wall. Decided what I really craved was a latte. The music is too loud in here. Hate that. So wrapped up in myself, I didn’t spot the full-in-bloom white oleander out the window. Didn’t even notice when the guy in the window seat got up and left. And so it goes. Want, don’t want, doesn’t even register.