Barrelling Ahead
time's relentless dance bakes another sidewalk
Happy July, friends.
It’s been a sweet June.
My community garden plot is poppin off, friends are abundant and sweet. Everything is constantly rearranging around the lava lamp that is reality. And the air is lava and the air is lamp. Here are some themes of late.
Expansion and constriction: I’ve been trying to do more… work in the hospital, build my business. Expand my in-person healing arts practice and expand into virtual prenatal movement coaching work, using my Body Ready Method® skills. Make time to train my body and build strength, stay organized, clean my house/not leave a flurry trail of sandals, tote bags, journals and books on marketing/short story compilations wherever I go, go to physical therapy for my too-tense pelvic floor, take a pottery class, show up to work at the hospital on the correct days, open my mail, have a functional vehicle, do my various paperworks, keep all the systems and stuff tended to. Sometimes it all feels like a house of cards. Sometimes it feels like life is speeding up, or I’m speeding up, and my body is barrelling ahead but my feet are still ten, twenty feet behind. Watching the news, I feel like that girl Miss Trunchbull spins around by her pigtails.
It feels like I’m trying to open my mouth wider, to take bigger bites of life, but my TMJ is clamping my jaw shut. The ADHD meds I’ve been trying arent’ really helping the ole TMJ but theoretically they help me manage the life I’m already chewing on. Jury still out.
What is the opposite of addiction? Based on conversations with friends. Various answers present themselves. What do you think? Freedom? Connection? Play? enrichment? (thinking of that famous rat cage experiment thing) Choice? That which is processed/digested? Liberation. I think liberation is where it lands for me, at this time.
Cooling and Soothing inflammation. Sivasana. Red Raspberry Leaf. And ibuprofen, lmao.
Rites of Passage and moving between the worlds: My family’s been honoring the life of my maternal grandfather, Ralph Chick. He was funny, he could fix anything, and he made tons of friends wherever he went. (I’m paraphrasing the obituary my mom wrote, with help from my dad, and did a beautiful job on.) I’ve been burning a Blessed Virgin of Guadaloupe candle for him. And for us, I guess, in grief.
And then of course, I’m always hanging out on the threshold of life at the other end. It’s crazy how it can become mundane. But I look for ways to honor that and keep the reverence alive. I am always on the move towards more reverence for reality and natural process and more irreverence for society’s conventions and power dynamics. That work continues.
I supported folks on the table in my healing arts practice for about 12 hours. I did like 5 IG posts to grid and 18 posts on threads which has been fun to try out. I opened up a new avenue in my work, alignment-based prenatal movement coaching, and have taken on my first couple of clients there. The experimentation inside that container is: How to make movement practice, playful, not a drag, curious, experimental, loving, and fun? The experimentation on the outside of that container is: how to explain wtf alignment has to do with labor and birth? And why working with the body is the best way to get yourself together in terms of mindset and vibes? That work continues too.
How July’s looking: according to conversations with my tarot cards, and the quiet hum of cicada summer. It will be crazy at work, as the new resident doctors come in. We all gotta keep giving each other hella grace. themes so far:
The eternal child: getting out of linear responsibility brain and into play and possibility without limit. Feeding the spirit as antidote to addiction. (see also beach vacation)
Personal practice in study, healing, and being with mystery.
Getting out of rigid thinking and the traps that are all in the head.
Holding with a loose grip: generosity, receptivity, and letting go.
via pinterest
Lots of travel in July, hoping to submerge myself in as many bodies of water as possible (AMBOWAP) and take it easy on myself and basically just work hard, stay safe, have fun. not necessarily in that order!!
Sending massive blessings and love, thank you for being here.
More on my mind
hosting your friends will heal your soul! do it!
Craniosacral- my nervous system healing arts practice- booking is here
Prenatal Playground, my virtual, alignment-based, movement coaching program, is here too!
I need to remember to be more like Indiana Jones. Intellectual, surrounded by treasures, learning from the past, & always ready to kick nazi ass.