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Oh how I have missed my Korean TCM Doc. The discomfort, the healing, the intensity, the soothing 30 minutes of lying on a heated bed pad on a comfortable treatment table with soft music overhead, and the reassurance that my body heals itself with a little help! All for $7 per visit!
I visited Dr. Zhang last night and awoke feeling tired and cleansed. Although Dr. Choi is Korean and Dr. Zhang is Chinese, I couldn't help but comparing treatments, and my visit with Dr. Z reminded me of those healing visits with Dr. Choi, but for $120 more! Whoa! But worth it. The needles went in without any pain at all, I could only feel his fingertips on my skin. I received some herbal meds to take, and the prescription that I should be healed and perhaps not even return! The toxin coating on my tongue this morning was thick with ama. I feel very tired and yet slept nearly 8 hours. I think the combination of steroid and acupuncture is working to heal this allergy. My beautiful skin is returning! I used to look in the mirror and feel distressed by wrinkles. Now I look in the mirror and am grateful for my smooth, clear, pink skin! Fresh and new and I am looking normal again! Yay! I want to visit Dr. Z again, maybe once per month, just to reminisce and to get a health pick-me-up! "You can build up your strength to the point where you are not influenced by your surroundings; in fact, you can influence the surroundings instead. You can change the environment if you have the strength of mind; but even if your mind isn't that strong, you can still have the strength not to be affected by the environment.
Learning not to be affected is an important step. If you were influenced by a situation, how can you change it? If 15 people are crying and you go there and join them in the crying, you're simply added one more miserable person; you have not done anything to benefit people. Instead, if you're really strong and can maintain your own equanimity, all 15 people will be benefited by your strength." -Swami Satchidananda Don't give your power or peace of mind away. To anyone! Retain positivity and don't engage in negative conversation! "What I know for sure is less and less:
that a hot bath won’t cure loneliness. That bacon is the best bad thing to chew and what you love may kill you. The odd connection between perfection and foolishness, like the pelican diving for his fish. How silly sex is. How, having it, we glimpse our holiness. What I know is less and less. What I want is more and more: you against me-- your ferocious tenderness-- love like a star, once small and far, now huge, now near." "What I Know" by Lee Robinson from Hearsay. © Fordham University Press, 2004. Once again, hearing exactly what I need to hear, having something profound reflected back to me... I was thinking throughout the day that I would do my best to sit with Swami Hamsananda today at lunch, so that I could glean more wisdom and continue my line of questioning from the talk on Saturday. The topics of our discussion ranged from a movie with Brendan Fraser, to her visits to the various Yogaville Ashrams around the world, fasting, traveling, and what I do for a living and abit about me. When I described what I do and how much I love it, and how I get to come here, her comment was: "It sounds like your life is perfect!" She continued with, "What do you need...do you need anything? It sounds like you don't." I answered that I need a more consistent practice because I "fall off the wagon", and get back on--though now I'm getting back on. "Why?", I need more discipline, but it is returning. "Well, that's good," she smiled!
She inquired about my comment of staying put for at least two years, before I move abroad again, and as to why I move around so much. I reminisced in a split second about always running away, and how that started very young, (in the literal sense of running away from home); how I have moved around so much since I was 17, never really grounding in one spot for too long. I explained how in my past most likely their was a subconscious reason for running or that I was running from/to something, but after much self-analysis, I now understand that the reason behind my sojourns is that I truly love to live in different countries, experience various cultures, and learn from those cultures; it broadens my view and opens my mind. She stated that I don't really need to think about two years yet, when I have Now and Now is good. She reminded me how lucky I am to have the freedom to live abroad because of the work I do. Yes! My eyes filled with tears as she reflected back to me that yes, my life is perfect! As I acknowledged that realization and held it close, I felt so happy and full of gratitude. I felt grateful for the knowing, and I felt grateful to have someone to help me recognize it. Really and truly, my life IS PERFECT: I have everything I need right NOW, I LOVE my work, I have transportation, I have money to visit Yogaville when I wish to, I have freedom to express my creativity at work, I'm running again and returning to radiant health, I have time and ability to express my creativity through drawing and writing and music, I have time and money to enjoy my favorite passé temps, my sense of security and grounding increases daily, I have returned to my "home" of yoga lifestyle and practice, my prosperity is increasing, my surroundings are Hygge and I feel good in my home space and life space, and ... it's all really perfect and I'm perfectly happy. I'm in that Space of Equanimity--Middle Way-- I have sought to create. My Light is shining again so that I can be a beacon to others and most especially, my students. I am fulfilled in offering my service to others. I am creating inner peace and happiness inside and in my world. I am living the Tao, satisfied in myself, without need to search for the answers outside myself or in another person. I am achieving my life purpose and it is good. I am so, so , so infinitely grateful! Making Lucky Stars on the way back to Texas... hands-free...driving???? The most reflective and logical statement I have heard during this election came from a 5-year-old. The upper grades held mock elections on Tuesday; some of my 5-7 year olds had been inculcated by their parents about who the "right" person to vote for would be, others had no idea who Trump and Hilary were. One of our more thoughtful and observant 5-year-old voters explained his rationale in casting a vote for Trump: "If he becomes President, he will learn to be a better, kinder person."
Amidst all the "awfulizing" in which adults love to partake on Facebook (I'm guilty!) and in their "water cooler" conversations, I want to stand apart. Perhaps this office will help Trump to evolve into a better person, perhaps this is part of his life path toward self-realization. Who are we, as others, to say it is not? Even the human beings we consider the worst were all innocent children who were inculcated by parents, friends, and culture; who went astray, and were/are doing the best they can with what they know and have been taught. Wife-beaters, murderers, nepotists, and politicians are no different from you or I, excepting the fact that they are further down the Self-evolutionary ladder. Let's hope that Trump is on his path toward change and that some of his ideas will benefit this country. There's no need to like, respect, or agree, but vitriol and hate (and teaching children to be afraid), puts us at his level. Let's stay at our level and remember we have power over our own lives and happiness. If you don't like the state of the country, do something about it or move. Refuse to pay taxes, don't participate in our robber-baron insurance scams...find another way... or just leave the country. I promise you, there are much better places to live than in the USA, but they are going to have their own political issues as well. To paraphrase Kurt Russell in Tombstone: Throw down boy, don't just stand there and bleed. Let's hope Trump does make America great again, or at least brings everything to a crashing and burning end quickly so we can start to rebuild sooner rather than suffer longer. Attached to specific cultures, creeds, religions, dogmas, we humans become so entrenched in our thinking; so intransigent... Due to our inculcation, or rebellion against it (as in my case: anti-religion, anti-culture). Although this quote is referring to the utilization of the Scientific Method in the West, I think it applies overall to our thinking as human groups of specific cultures, creeds, and religion; that there is only one way to see or do:
"Perhaps unaware that many logical systems of knowledge exist, most Westerners consider this to be the only valid way of understanding the world." On the basis of this thought we have divided ourselves, instead of unifying, as humans. |
iGallivant...... Loves to lie amongst the warm rays of sunshine and read, read, read, learn, learn, learn, and live, live, live, vicariously between the pages! Archives
August 2021
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