the shortest distance

Noticing my preference to find the shortest, most direct route between here and there. 

I was massaging recently, finishing up the 60 internship sessions that I am required to do as part of my certification process - I thought I would be feeling relief. Instead, I felt confused. I've been moving through my training thinking I was on a straight line, thinking I knew where I was headed, thinking I just needed to keep my eyes focused on the goal. Even while I couldn't articulate exactly how massage and psychotherapy would come together for me professionally, I was under a spell of believing that, eventually, the logic would reveal itself. But the further I go, the less clear I am.

Wilmot, NH

In fact, the more I open and the more I learn, rather than seeing the road that lies ahead, I find myself staring in wonder at the terrain around me. And rather than relaxing into the vastness, I get tangled up in possibilities. Because there's this voice inside my head that directs me to stay focused. "On what?" I reply. "On the course you set a year ago when you set out on this path!" "But back there, I didn't know all this existed."

It took me many, many years to find something to do in this life that felt like it had traction for me. Business school, Native Studies, raft guiding, Law School, health food store, demolition derbies and monster trucks . Through nearly 2 decades of exploration and experimentation, when I came to Transpersonal Psychology there was a sense of arriving back to a place I knew but to which I had never been. I kind of wanted to rest there, go vertically into the depths and heights of understanding - I didn't feel inclined to venture away again. I didn't want to risk again feeling lost.

Ben on straight path

And so, as I look back at the stance I held while undergoing massage training, I noticed one foot was fixed in place, firmly attached to the ground of familiar. I was unwilling to leave behind a belief that I had found something firm, professionally, to stand on. I see, however, that the more attached I am to being focused, the less able I am to seeing possibility. My need to know where I am going and find the shortest distance between 'A' and 'B' is squashing my amazement and awe in the process and bringing me more into contact with my neurotic attachment to outcome. Security and stability trump rapture and wonder every time.

I've spent years priding myself at how efficiently I could get between here and there on the road systems of Canada and the US (17 hours straight between Boulder, CO and Fernie, BC - one driver, one dog). Roads that meandered through mountains and valleys, towns and communities, along breathtaking rivers, massive stands of forests, infinite fields. Likely I'll never take that drive again. Shame I wasn't there the first time.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Does a straight line make a life?

contagious

Perhaps there is no one here now. Perhaps all have gone. That's okay. I've been quiet from this place. I've been busy-ing myself, pre-occupying myself with activities far from this medium. Yesterday, working away at a final project required for graduation from my massage program, I stumbled back to "The Journey" - this writing process I began over 2 years ago and I caught its contagiousness. I had told myself that my final project took precedence over writing my blog entries - on top of accumulating hours of internship bodywork and working as a counselor and visiting friends near and far and teaching and walking and running and preparing food and eating and sleeping and dreaming and buying a new car after trying and trying to repair old June, after all of this busy business, somewhere along the way I found myself back on my cushion. And the cushion has helped me to remember how insane I can be, part of a bigger and larger insanity to be sure, but insane all the same.

This morning I was reading Kabat-Zinn, 600+ pages exploring the importance of returning to one's senses, returning to a ground of mindfulness and awakeness. I found the poem here by Mary Oliver and it captured for me the essence of this relentless call to wake up, to notice the noise that beckons, beckons, beckons - to see the ways that the Collective Unconscious seduces me to return to a sleepy walk through my living and to stubbornly persist at waking up. Not so different from the call I answered over 2 years ago when I began this blogging, in part to mark my own journey from one way of living to another.

Wakefulness is just as contagious as sleep. Knowing this buoys me. Others are clearing sleep from their eyes each and every time they follow their commitment to the process of mindful living, whether it be to the cushion, to the synagogue, to the temple, or to the forest and fields.

Good morning.

The Journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice -

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations -

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

throughout the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice,

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do -

determined to save

the only life you could save.

- Mary Oliver

the space between

It's a quieter Wednesday morning. In the middle of this week, I feel as though I've found a gap - a place to breathe for a moment or two, a place to allow some integration of the fullness in which I've been swimming. I'm aware that I haven't been writing much these days, not in my paper journal, not on this screen. Mostly I'm good with the falling away, compassionate to myself and my present circumstances of continuing to land on my feet in a new line of work and find my hands with a new endeavor of passion.

Thinking about how to convey my experience of working with Counseling Associates has been challenging. Maybe it's the same with sharing my experience of massaging. There's this steady pull to the surface each time my thinking moves towards conceptualization and articulation of what is happening. At the surface there are these ready-made, prefabricated ideas of what therapy is all about. From my readings and learnings, however, the therapeutic relationship is described in ways that leave me feeling flat - not that they're without value but that each fails to capture the essence of what I feel within the experience, how I feel so utterly moved and altered.

I wrote a while ago about disassociating as part of my survival strategy to get through 8 sessions of 50-minute therapy a day, 4 days a week. I don't think that's so true for me these days. If I was disassociated I don't think I'd find myself smiling so fully when I see a familiar face in the waiting area. If I was disassociated, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't feel so warm, wouldn't be in awe, wouldn't be laughing and crying during those 50 minutes. If I was disassociated, I'd be watching from a separate place, disconnected from the mystery of what is unfolding within and around me. Instead, I'd be reaching for my DSM-IV TR manual and leaning into the codes that strive to classify the human experience.

And I do have my manual beside me. I do have hours of classes in therapeutic ethics in my bones and blood. I have engaged discussions and writings of the nature of the therapeutic relationship and how to manage appropriate and healthy boundaries for both the practitioner and the client. I want to protect us both. But then a part of me asks, "protect from what?" From abuse. Absolutely. But do I want to protect my heart? Do I want to model that for my client?

It's not so different, in fact it's basically the same in my experiences of body therapy. I was massaging a client over the weekend who recently lost her dog to cancer. While working on the fronts of her legs, I began crying, quietly. I connected with sorrow in my heart. I felt a quality of grief which, when welcomed as a guest in my being, can only be described as delicious. I felt a moment of tightness around my sorrow, asking myself if it is okay to feel something while holding a safe place for another. My body overrode my constriction and I gently continued to weep, continuing my movements, connecting from my heart through my hands into the place of dizzying mystery that holds the human story.

Weep. What a wonderful word.

I feel nervous to touch the fullness this way and put it out for others to judge. If you asked 100 clinicians what they thought about being moved by the intimacy of the therapeutic encounter, at least 99 of them would warn against it - fear of losing perspective, the danger of blurring boundaries, the potential threat of abuse and misuse. I understand the compulsion to buoy back to the surface to the concepts and constructs of what is happening in the space between a client and a therapist. At the same time, I feel an invitation to trust the contact, trust my body and my ground of being, trust the movements that stir me, and stay present to the possibility that something very powerful happens in the space of a genuine meeting.

meet Rumi!

Riverdance's Red Rumi - born 30 May 2011 to Gazelle

here's the newest addition to Jane Mitchell's herd. For more information you can check out the farm's website:

www.jane-mitchell.com

I encourage you to play the video on the home page - very lovely, very grounding.

pacing the cage

My sister, Jane. I got to see my sister, Jane, this weekend and while the circumstances were a bit tiring (illness, exhaustion, long periods of driving, not much sleep), the experience was uplifting. Jane related to me how she is feeling unsettled in her professional life, how being a teacher in the public school system feels out of sync with her soul, how she is working through a process of discovery - discovering what moves her, what alights her soul and enlivens her heart.

I've been tracking these wonderful women in my life - noticing how many women I love are finding themselves in the process of change. It begins with angst of some kind - an awareness develops that things don't feel good, something is off, not quite right. Maybe all the details of life appear to be okay but something is off. For some it could feel like something is missing. For others it could feel like they're not plugged into something bigger. For still others there could be pain, or even misery.

I was working with a couple in therapy last week. They were lamenting about their teenaged son who isn't demonstrating much motivation in his life, little energy is put forth into accomplishment or achievement. Both of these people worked their way "up in the world from dirt" - to quote. Now here is their only child seemingly oblivious to all their role modeling, encouragements, threats, bribes, and lecturing - to do something with his life. I asked them, cautiously, if they related at all to the notion of evolution or whether they believed the world was created in 6 days (it's hard for my own beliefs not to creep into the work somedays). They replied that they believed in evolution. I then asked them what they think caused those first few fish to crawl up on dry land, leave behind their home in the sea. They thought about it. They looked at each other. They looked at me. Then the husband said rather cautiously: "Something wasn't right in the water?"

There's another story which I learned as part of my contemplative education in mindfulness. In this parable, a lion is kept in a cage, pacing and roaring. For a very long time, she is fed as needed but she is not permitted to leave the cage. She is kept as part of a circus for people to see. One day the lion is rescued. The rescuers release the lion from her cage, expecting to see this mighty creature move freely, to run away, even to attack. Instead, the lion continues to pace the area around her, the area that once was maintained by bars but now is open space. And she continues to pace the cage that exists only in her mind and in her body's memory.

I often think about the inspiration to change, to unfold, to grow. I've thrown around the word "ripe" reflecting my attraction to the notion that change comes from a place of inner readyness - a readyness that might not be observable to outside eyes and which may be gestating below the surface. I kicked off this blogging process nearly 2 years ago at a time when my inner sensations and my external life circumstances were coalescing in what felt to be intolerable discomfort. I knew something was needing to change. I could see that what I thought were secure structures of my happiness (work, finances, relationships) were disolving before my eyes. Looking back, I guess I could have toughed it out. I could have tried to hook into the system around me in a new way - built a private practice as a psychotherapist in Boulder, looked for a new relationship, leaned into a community of friends there for whom I still care deeply. However, when I felt inside my body, there was no traction for the idea of reconfiguing "the show" in this way. Instead, I felt a combination of fear and excitement swimming around within a pool of stillness. I knew, inside, that the way forward was not a reconfiguring of the current storyline but a willingness to put one foot in front of the other in a direction that felt both enlivening and threatening.

Not a quick process, a long unfolding. Boarding the plane to Portugal this past January to begin a 3-month training in integrative bodywork was but one more branch of my expansion. Back in 2009, I never could have imagined myself taking this step. And from where I stand now, there's no way I can anticipate what is coming down the road. But feeling into the sense of 'something's missing' or 'something's not quite right' - listening to our insides, paying attention to the external flow - these are essential beats in the rhythm of unfolding. Sometimes life is tragically abrupt in the way change comes down the pike. Sometimes there's gentle movements, nudgings from within and without. Sometimes the bars that keep me feeling stuck cease to exist, except in my mind. And it's time. And it's scary. And it's still time.

My love, admiration, and affection to a bunch of folks with whom I walk in various ways and who inspire me: Sue, Winger, Anemone, Jane (x2), momma, the women at the shelter, Corry, Alexandra, Jenny, Jenny's grandmom, Laressa and Mr. B. And to Gazelle, Jane's horse, 365 days of pregnancy is more than enough!

leaving normal

For Christmas, Bradford bought me gift cards to spend at The Gap (or one of its affiliated stores) mostly because the state of my underwear is, well, let's just say is thin. I laughed when I was in Portugal, hanging my clean laundry out to dry because, if the sun was shining just right, I could make out the shapes of things on the other side of my suspended panties. Anything too athletic and my underwear just headed south, the elasticity to support the waistband long gone. But I digress.

As I was driving through a small, New Hampshire town between home and the site of the nearest Gap, I was remarking with sadness on the state of some communities in this part of the country - this once proud site of business, trade, industry, and commercial activity, looked desperate and abandoned. I then thought about how the face of my counseling clients has changed over the years. When I lived in Boulder, Colorado (surely voted at one time or another the city with the most gorgeous people on the planet) I worked at Monarch and my clients were affluent. While their issues and stories were no less painful, they were buffered by their financial solidity, able to pay $400 a day for help.

Mostly, the clients I get to sit with today just don't fit into 'pretty' - I sit with many people who live in the outlying areas of the American Dream. Not so gorgeous. Not so wealthy. Not so fit. Not so likely to be portrayed as a success. I was thinking of the stories I gather in a given week and some of them are edgey. I hear things that cause me to take a breath and swallow a bitter taste of judgment which rises in my throat. I notice harsh thoughts sometimes - how did you let yourself get to this point? why don't you do something to 'better' yourself and your life, your children's lives? why not get with the program and get on the conformity lifeboat with the rest of us?
At times I feel myself wincing. Underneath these experiences is a basic feeling of dread - fear of falling off the lifeboat, fear of losing my marbles, fear of being pushed to the margins and scorned. I think many people want to surround themselves with 'pretty' because it quells our inner disturbance that we might be 'not quite right.' Or maybe some of us like to 'help' those who are not-so-beautiful because we are reassured that we're okay ourselves. Who knows? Those answers live in the stillness and not too many of us touch into the stillness that holds our lives.

Driving through this one town, I noticed a strange figure in the distance, off to my left. Two people, one who caused my eyes to blink and re-focus. This figure was shrouded in a dark, hooded cape - the hood was peaked and, even with my refocusing attempt at clarity, I had the sense I was looking at the back of a character from Lord of the Rings. Driving by I wanted to look more closely, see the face and body of the soul in this strange, cloaking garment. And there it was, but too outside my realm of familiar - with a head too large for its body and a nose too large for its face. I use "it" because I don't know if I was seeing a female or a male. I type, ashamed but feeling a drive towards honesty and realness. I was simultaneously wanting a closer look and needing to turn away, repulsed, scared.

Traffic moved me forward and away. I realized that I didn't even see the second person other than registering them as a female. I was drawn into trying to understand what I had glimpsed: a birth defect? a disease of some sort? And then I began thinking about what it would be like to walk through the world with such an undisguisable deviation from familiar. What is it like to be so obviously far from normal? I noticed that I wanted more and yet I was terrified. I was both acutely attracted to and frightened of what this being evoked in me and what she or he carried for most of us. I wondered about the sharply-peaked cape and the magic and mystery wrapped therein.

And I continued with the movements of people in traffic with somewhere to go, myself on my way to The Gap.

Super Martha!

A friday night here in the metropolis of Wilmot Flat. Ben and I are holding down the couch as the sun setting in the western sky is cutting a breathtaking swath through the newly-hatched leaves of Spring. I'm feeling myself exhale a bit as I feel the closing of my fourth week of work as a therapist with Counseling Associates.

What's been emerging for me is an awareness that an old ghost continues to haunt me as I work with people. I'll explain.

I've been waking up a little bit as friends and family have been asking me how I am - I'm beginning to notice that this is such a complicated and huge question. Overall, I'm great. Frankly, I still feel incredibly grateful for things like laundry facilities and dishes that are washed rather than piled in the sink or on top of the stove (a la 'the ghetto' in Praia da Luz). I'm in awe of the unfolding life that permeates this season. I feel so lucky that I really enjoy my job, that I have a job, that the people are so..... so good - such warm and caring and funny souls. I'm delighted still sharing a home with Bradford and Ben (although Ben is revealing himself to be the ultimate 'designer dog' and had his 3rd trip to the vet's today because it's been discovered that he's "allergenic"! - poor boy. He has the only health care in the family.).

But a friend mentioned to me a week or so ago that she was watching the TV show "In Treatment" and she was curious what it must be like to spend much of a day sitting and listening to people who are suffering, lost, confused, and/or in pain. I was at a loss for an answer. The quick and easy response is: "You get used to it. You don't take it to heart. You keep a healthy distance so that you are able to be a source of clarity and perspective for people."

That's not true for me. Stuff hits me. I don't think I show it all the time but I think it accumulates somewhere in my psyche, somewhere in my soma, both bruising and bursting my heart. And so I pause, take a breath and check inside. I realize there's a little bit of disconnection or disassociation happening in me. I think I do this by the way I work through a daily schedule, checking off my client's from the list after our meeting, after I file their paperwork - readying myself for the next couch-inhabiter.

And every now and again a client presents a clear opportunity for my ghost to rise up and take the reins. Every once in awhile a client presents a set of circumstances or an issue and I see a doorway into a passage, through to a room where I might alleviate my own build-up of collected client debris. I look for the nearest phonebooth (not so easy to find in this day of cellphones but nonetheless) so that I can change into my superhero costume and rush in to save the day. If I can rescue them from their pain, clearly I can release myself from my own.

This week I was working with a couple who were struggling because each of them watched the other wrestle with life circumstances and felt helpless to make it better - a very nice pattern to see emerge in couple's therapy. And so we began to explore the difference between "rescuing" and "supporting" - worlds apart. Rescuing requires a cape of some sort and some kind of special superhero ability (my personal preference is my cutting intelligence and insight). It's a short-term intervention and the results, though seemingly uplfiting, are disastrous - essentially undermining the suffering party's resiliency as well as their ability to be in contact with themselves and another person as the pain of living rolls through. Supporting, on the other hand, is a demonstration of deep love, true compassion, and absolute courage. Supporting someone in pain or confusion requires that I stay present and roll through all of the sharp and tender places which arise for me as I resonate with another who is suffering. Stay open. Stay in contact. Breathe. And listen for the still and quiet voices from within to guide my interactions.

Attempting to "fix" or rescue someone from their experience it's like a drug for me. It allows me to alleviate my fear that I'm a ninkempoop at my job and it releases me from the bonds of humanness which, in my line of work, are replete with shitty feelings. I don't have the answers, really. Hell, I don't like feeling helpless either. Sometimes all I can think to myself (or say outloud) is "I trust you. I trust life. I believe in your courage as you breathe into these dark and scary places. And I believe in my abilty to stay with you."

I'm not sure that does anything to resolve the issue of how much debris I'm accumulating (or personal stuff I'm triggering in myself) through the therapeutic process but it feels more true.

And spandex just looks plain bad on me.

picturing changes

So, here are a few shots from the last couple of weeks.

Bradford in front of the 26' Uhaul as we prepare to leave Franconia.

A couple of shots from the new home.

Ben retrieving sticks from a trail system nearby that was established on an old railbed.

Pictures from our weekend hike up Mt. Kearsarge just across the road.

home

A little delay on my weekly blogging. But not as delayed as my luggage. I type from a sunny day in the Sunapee/New London area of New Hampshire. I'm happy to look down at my legs and see that I'm wearing a pair of favourite pants - a pair of pants I had with me during my time in Portugal and that were returned to me with the rest of my luggage 9 days after the fact, during the middle of the night, by a courier service based out of Boston.

Since last weekend it's been.... busy. TransAtlantic flying. Packing up one house. Opening up to a new home. Reconnecting with my love. Falling back into life. Entering a new frontier of professional life. Meeting new co-workers. Settling into 50-minute hours with clients of all shapes, sizes, and ages! Saying goodbye to faces in Portugal. Recognizing that my connections in northern New Hampshire will take on a new shade - visitor rather than neighbour. Change.

Some of the details.

The move went ridiculously smooth. Bradford certainly found an incredible home for us, lovely in so many ways - from the amount of space within the home to the quiet of the surrounding area, the proximity to work, and a sense of community in the people that we meet as we wander around. On Monday, we walked to Ben's appointment at his new vet and it was amazing. Within 5 miles, there are lakes and ponds, mature forests of mixed trees, a state park and wildlife management area, lumberyard/hardware, fly-fishing shop, micro-brewery & pub, post office, gas station, grocery store, and all the amenities that go with a population of about 5000 people. Our furnishings and stuff simply fell into place within the walls of the house. Bradford has space for tools. Ben has a new run from a doghouse/toolshed to nearby Spruce trees.

The size of the Uhaul was laughable - 26 very long, very tall feet. I'm not sure I've ever been part of such an inefficient packing job but it worked - we were light on time for getting organized and things poured into and out of the truck with ease (though a few bruises and scabs tell a different story on my skin). It was lovely that my employer gave me the day off on Friday so we had a very luxurious and low stress, 4-day weekend for getting settled. It feels like home. And the space felt ready to hold life. And now it does. It feels to me like a space that will receive friends and family.

Work is thrilling and gentle, both. I'm in awe of my co-workers, particularly the administrative folks, the way that they move with and around each other managing and moving information. I'm also in awe of the clients I've gotten to sit with thus far. It's taking me some time getting used to the paperwork and the systems that help the organization run but I'll find my flow, my own rhythm with time. I'm working with a few clients who challenge me in exciting and uplifting ways because of their age - they fall between 9 and 11 years and I find myself somewhat panicking about meeting them where they're at, noticing that I need to adjust my use of language and developmental sense (no 'f-bombs' that seemed to have a certain presence working with adolescents in wilderness therapy, fewer multi-syllabic words that show up working with adults).

I haven't had much time for massage in the last week. I gave a session to Bradford over the weekend and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that it felt kind of like the first time. Maybe like riding a bike, as I get my hands back into the practice, it will come back.

All in all, a very cool ride. At the same time I was thinking to myself that one of the more interesting experiences I had in all the movement and change of the last week was this dance of the missing luggage. I once thought that life was about putting the pieces together in such a way so as to maximize comfort, security, stability, happiness, and ease. I laughed with Bradford, at myself, as I looked around the new home space, remarking on the way that I try to keep a house in constant readyness for a photo shoot - there's something about my dialing and neurotic ways where I'm calmed when everything is in its place and there's a place for everything (preferably with no cords showing). I think my big sister, Corry, can maybe giggle at a shared spirit here - or maybe not.

Anyway, I was thinking that I used to think of life as a process of minimizing mess and maximizing order. I happen to love my life. I love my work. I love the possibility of growth in what I do, particularly bridging psychotherapy and bodywork. I love my family, both my family of birth and my family of choice. It's not because everything is in its 'place' that I love my life. In fact, as I moved through the dance of the missing luggage, I loved the life that flowed through that experience: noticing the holding on, the constriction and tightness and noticing also when I could let go, laugh, enjoy the ride. It was particularly hilarious to notice that in one moment I might be pining over the potential loss of a favourite sweatshirt while unpacking bags of unworn clothes!

I'll attach some pic's when I hook up my camera to the computer.
It's good to be back.

"Obrigada a todos."

My last day in Portugal. What a very big time this has been. I recall walking Ben on a snowy road in December, consumed by the idea of doing this 3 month training in massage therapy. While it made no sense to my mind, I felt already in the grip of possibility.

And here I am sipping coffee not 50 meters from the sea in southwestern Portugal. 90 days of massage education and experience now live in my cells. My hands hum. My imagination runs wild with ideas and dreams for what else is possible.

I have had experiences which have changed the way I see massage as well as altered the way I live in and move with my own body. Massage feels to be an art form between two - between their bodies, their minds, their hearts, and their spirits, simultaneously opening a door to behold the Holiness of Life.

I have been embraced by life in a small Portugese community. I have been humbled by the

way that strangers have enfolded me into their hearts, sometimes without language - a different sort of moving art between people. Just as profound. Revealing the brilliance of the human spirit. Revealing another doorway into the Holy.

I love the practice of psychotherapy, whether with words or touch. Connecting deeply with people and exploring the human spirit is my passion. I admit that, for me, it's less about trying to be helpful, more about tapping into that quality of contact which defies language but which moves worlds, opens the imagination, dissolves delusion.

I'm very pleased to return to the world of talk therapy on Tuesday. I wonder how 3 months in Portugal in massage training will manifest, how I will engage with clients and how I will let myself be moved by the souls I meet across the room. To touch without touch.

I'm ready to be home. I'm excited about becoming tangled up and enlivened by a new place, a new geography, a new community of people, and teachers in myriad forms.

Muito obrigada Portugal. Muito obrigada.

people and places of Portugal, cont'd

pictures for now....

Pedro on his bike.

Laressa being... Laressa.

The group on the beach.

A local classmate's dojo.

The sea.

week 13

Some news....

I'm in my final week of the massage training program. This is the last Sunday I'll sit here at Lazuli Bar drinking coffee (though, I imagine I'll be here many or most of the next 7 days either for coffee and be

er). This week includes some final theory, some more practicing (our last 2 sessions with members of the general public), and, of course, some written exams.

Overall, I'm not too bothered with the testing process - I feel pretty solid on much of the theory we've studied with the exception, still, of Anatomy and Physiology (unfortunately, this makes up 2/3 of the content of the exams). It's tough to settle into the studying because the sky has been clear blue, the sea welcoming and warm, the temperatures pushing into 80+ degrees (24-26+ degrees Celsius for my Canadian cousins), and it matters to me to make time for faces I may not see again - over beer, or coffee. Alas, I've not been sleeping much past 3am for the past week and this affords me some quiet and dark hours for hitting the books.

I am thrilled by the idea of seeing Bradford and Ben next Sunday - from beautiful faces here, to beautiful faces at home. I am also very excited to be starting my new job with Counseling Associates of New London in just over a week (no rest for the wicked) and feeling what it's like to be back in the world of talk therapy after

being immersed in body therapy for 3 months and feeling so profoundly affected as a human body by my experience. Even better, Bradford informed me yesterday, via email that we were accepted as tenants for a home. Not a moment too soon, I might add, we agreed that we wouldn't panic in earnest until tomorrow.

While I haven't seen any photo's of our new home (we take possession on the 15th), I have formed images in my mind based on what Bradford has shared - 4 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, 2 car garage (2 of the bedrooms are built separate from the main home above the garage with a separate entrance for guests and a massage space), large lot, new renovation (we're the first to live in the renovated space - can you say "no mold!"), 5 miles to work in New London, 3 miles to a brewpub (www.flyinggoose.com) in Wilmot, NH. I'm grateful that Life always seems to pull through in ways more astounding, more intelligent than I.

And so, this last week is causing me to begin to assimilate my learnings - a process I'm sure will continue for years. Some things I know:

- I will keep drinking coffee. And beer;

- I can be both graceful and a little terrorizing when I'm ejected out of my comfort zone and into a new experience;

- I am resilient;

- I can love someone whom I can't stand living with;

- touching another is a Holy experience, moving beyond words;

- I can wear a dress;

- Ian Rankin is a life-saver;

- I like having my own computer and look forward to becoming a Mac girl one day;

- sometimes it's better to let go of the need to be right and make my point. Sometimes I can simply take a breath, go with the flow rather than rip out a plant that took so long to take root, a plant that one day may bear fruit;

- Portugal is beautiful;

- there is so much to learn and so many teachers;

- I'm a very lucky duck.

Some pic's today. A few of the faces that have sustained me, challenged me, made me laugh and cry, and buoyed me through this time. My housemates (Jesse, Cameron, Geraldine) from the ghetto; Katerina who cooks my dinners; Pedro who greets me each morning with a smile.

More faces to be clipped onto next week's entry!

dreaming into being

Sunday morning. There's a light rain falling outside the window. I sit, perched, drinking coffee, watching waves roll in softly. I breathe in, take a look around inside and check out if there's any words I have to share - feel into whether there's something figural in my field that is reaching towards the keys on this MacBook. One thing I recall is that I was awakened in the middle of the night, my mind called to thoughts, thoughts which had the power to pull me out of my slumber and into a dance with a partner I could not touch.

I could feel the lumpy pillow under my head. I could feel the light balance of warmth and softness of my sleeping bag. I could hear the waves washing in on the beach a block away through my open doors. But as real as my thoughts felt, as demonstrated by their ability to pull me from rest, I could not hold them, turn them over in my hands, explore their texture, taste, sound, or colour.

The theme of my thoughts is the life that feels to be constellating thousands of miles away in New Hampshire and awaiting my return from Portugal. Or so it seems. The weight of thoughts. The weight of imagination. The gravitational pull of a life formed in my mind from wee bits of information, little facts - clients await me at my new job; Bradford and Ben driving the New Hampshire countryside seeking a new home

for us to rent; people I don't know keening to move into the cottage that I haven't seen for nearly 3 months but that continues to hold my 'stuff'; a course to teach with Granite State College; contemplating how I can complete my massage internship and get licensed in New England. And normal 'life stuff' like Ben's veterinary care, reconnecting with family and friends, figuring out health insurance, balancing finances. And all the time, as I continue in this massage program, I'm wondering how this will training will be woven into my world back in the real world.

My time in Portugal with this training has had a surreal quality. Dreamlike. Not dreamy-comfy all the time. The sea and the sunshine, the flowers, the warmth of people have been lovely and buoyed and held me through some of the rockier experiences. The dream state has also been edgy, disquieting. There have been moments of upheaval bordering on overwhelm. Many times I found myself reaching to the telephone (and later to Skype) to connect with Bradford's grounding voice or the laughter of Kirsten so that I could continue putting one foot in front of another through my confusion. The simultaneous weight and lift of 'just this moment, just this breath' became a lifeline when my homeostasis seemed to be rocked beyond my capacity to hang on and all that was left was to let go.

Coming into the last two weeks of Portugal I can feel my worlds merging. I am compelled to

attend to facets of life in New England and I remain mindful of being here as fully as possible. Holding both. My gratitude for the opportunity to participate in and engage this program is beyond words. I have yet to comprehend or synthesize how my being has been altered. Similarly, my gratitude that there is another world unfolding to receive me from this experience leaves me breathless and bursting. Emerging from one dream state and entering another - it's all rather beautiful. Maybe a part of the human experience more universally - to be altered by each moment and, in turn, moving through the dreaming ready to be awakened.

Who knows?

hands on

Reporting from a good place this mostly sunny Saturday in Portugal. I've been able to connect over Skype with Bradford and see Ben with the video option. I also connected with Lynne ("hi Lynne"), a dear friend from my good times working at the shelter, and with my partner in crime from Boulder, Kirsten. A day of reconnecting, some stillness and quiet - assimilating the learnings and experiences of the past week.

The training has encompassed a great deal of terrain. I've mentioned a few areas of study and practice in previous posts. I'll mention a few more. Recently, we've been working with Polarity Therapy, Ayurvedic Massage, studying the Central Nervous System, Virginia Satir communication theory, working with the body's energy and chakra systems, the muscles and other soft tissues, and Sports Massage. This week brings us further into Reichian theory, the Endocrine and Reproductive systems of the body, Trigger Point massage, and probably more pieces of which I'm unaware. We continue to begin most days with T'ai Chi and

other forms of movement. It's very luxurious to be in a program so focused on the body. At the same time, I'm aware of how numbed-out I've been to my body - to pain (and, therefore, to pleasure), to the ways that energy moves to make me and bring me to life, the ways that I'm affected by my choices (food, action, non-action, thinking, breathing, connecting, touching, being touched).

We've moved into the period of the program that is structured around practicing more full and formal massage sessions outside of the classroom environment. We are each assigned a 'client' from the student cohort with whom we will complete 6 to 8 sessions. Later this week, we will begin to work on members of the public. Stand back!

With all this practicing on others, I was struck by a strange fact; one can never know or feel what it is like to be massaged by one's own hands. Similar to not knowing what we look like (we can only see ourself captured in a reflection of mirror or photography), it's a twist to realize that I cannot feel my own touch. I made a comment to this effect to an instructor and he gave me a very powerful insight from which to grow. He encouraged me to consider that there is a connection between the experience of sensing another through my touch and the feeling which that quality of touch evokes.

There is something very moving, very intimate about physically touching another with sensing as the ground for contact. I came into massage training with the idea that I was 'doing' something to another or giving something to another - it's common to use the phrase "giving someone a massage." Sensing through skin to skin contact, however, is a very different focus. Sensing is a dialogue between me and you - my body, my energy, my system (be it psychological, physical, spiritual, or mental) and yours. I'm not necessarily sensing from any one intention but I can weave together qualities of curiosity, nurturance, acceptance, as well as assessment and intervention. Even as I migrate in my touch towards helping a muscle to relax or release, it's very different to come from a position of sensing rather than knowing. A dialogue. A conversation. An exploration. Very nice.

I say "very nice" because it feels rather delicious to sense into another's skin, another's body and energy. In some ways, there's no limit to what one can feel, what my hands can hear. One time, I had my fingers near the collarbone of a classmate and I felt that I could sense all the way down to the smallest toe on her left foot. And I had a sense that I could connect with that toe from a time when she was 7 years old. Trippy, I know. Trust me, this whole sensing thing is a bit of a mind-warp for me, too. Listening hands are active as well as still, feeling as well as doing, engaging and receiving - dancing and conversing - moving and being moved.

I guess I've always thought my hands were, well, handy. Typing, gesturing, catching balls, paddling, cooking, gripping, cleaning, holding, lifting..... on and on. I've never known that hands could be so communicative and responsive and conveying of presence. I never knew that my hands could bring me so much pleasure by being a conduit of contact and connection.

In my conversation with Kirsten, I shared with her that I was beginning to research massage tables for purchase - so that a table would be waiting for me on my return from Portugal. In our dialogue, I realized that I'm feeling somewhat squeamish about buying a table. It's not so much about the investment of money. It's that buying my first table is a clear statement of my commitment to this field. At this stage of my life, considering my age and the distance I've already covered in becoming a psychotherapist, I feel strange admitting that I practice bodywork. At the same time, as I pondered budgeting for the investment, I surprised myself when I heard myself say, "I'd stop eating before I stopped massaging."

fresh

Today not only marks the first day of Spring - the Vernal Equinox, the Sun is moving, relative to the Earth's tilt, directly over the Equator and balancing light with dark - it's also Nowruz (pronounced "no-rooz"), the Persian New Year, translated "new day."

Last night a 'Super Moon" heralded the Sun's return to the Northern Hemisphere - the largest Moon in over 18 years, the closest the Moon will be to the Earth this year, a mere 356, 575 kilometres away.

In the last week or so, we students in the massage program have begun to remark that we're into the final stages of our training (beginning our third of three months). Michael, one of the facilitators, asked us to consider that a month is a very long time - indeed, it's unlikely that any or many of us will ever again take a training of such length, many programs being held over long weekends. It got me thinking about psychological time.

While it's common to believe that time exists, time is actually something we humans constructed, a false idea we continue to perpetuate in our thinking and acting. While I do not have a full grasp on the history of how a clock or a calendar was conceived, I understand that it was devised - it was devised to correspond to the cycles of the Earth, the Moon, the Sun.

Time is not real, it's a way of making sense of the sequence of life, the way that events follow each other. Ironically, we created Time to help us understand our existence and map it so that we could communicate more easily with each other. We are a species that is now a prisoner of its own creation.

In the cartography of time, I am generally more in contact with my psychological sense of time (how long will I be waiting in line? how much longer until I retire or vacation or get home so that I can relax? when will I get to where I want to be?) than I am with the eternal Now. We have collectively traded our human experience of this precious moment - just this - for a sense of sequencing, a way to understand and conceive our reality rather than experience it. It's not about being where I am, right now. It's more about how long will I be doing this in order to get somewhere else - experience is a means to an end rather than an end in itself.

And so, rather than watching the impressive Moon rise over the sea last evening, I was attempting to photograph it, all the time wondering if I'd ever see such a Moon again ("you're not seeing it now" said a quiet voice within me).

Likewise, rather than being fully in the unfolding process of this training, sometimes I'm mapping it/me in my mind according to where I am in the sequence of psychological time.

Sometimes, however, I am walking the mile between my apartment in the ghetto and the classroom down the coast and, instead of mapping the 20 minutes in my mind, my senses are caught and captured by the experience - a young man turning countless spirals on his tripped-out bike, the combined weight and lightness of my sandals on compact red earth, a breeze bringing a scent of new blossoms across my skin.

And so, recognizing that I am not guaranteed anything in life - not another 40 years, not another trip to Portugal, not another extensive training in bodywork, not even another full breath - I decided to make today the "first day." Maybe it's the first day of training. Maybe it's the first day in this skin. Maybe it's the first day to meet myself, to meet an 'other'. Perhaps it can be a day in which I do not need to carry heavy suitcases of endless stories and beliefs of who I think I am and what this living is all about. The calendar and the clock, afterall, were likely devised not so much to manage Life but to move with it.

new post

.... is dated 25 February 2011 ("les portes de Portugal"). Me and technology still dancing with each other!

a week of stormy winds and high waves has given way to a sunny Saturday here in Praia da Luz. I'm off to swim, to sit on the beach and spend a few hours with Detective Rebus c/o Ian Rankin.

hope you're well and that the weather in your corner of the planet is yielding to Spring.

when two rivers meet

As a raft guide in British Columbia, I learned the term 'confluence,' the place where two rivers, two bodies of water meet. As a Gestalt therapist, I learned that 'confluence' referred to one of the 'contact boundary disturbances' - how two individuals might forego their respective experiences of autonomy so that they can merge. I looked online and noted that the term is used more generally for any coming or flowing together, a meeting place.

On the river, I recall the feeling of readying myself and my craft to hold steady and stay upright with the swelling of force that happened when the Thompson River merged with the mighty Fraser. The eddy line, the place of encounter could jolt, twist, spin, and create chaos for me if I wasn't prepared - eventually I learned that the biggest part of prepared is being relaxed, ready to respond and receive and adjust. I wondered if the Thompson, itself, wasn't also preparing upstream for the inevitable meeting, as though the wisdom of the Whole whispered a kind of intelligence into the seemingly separate parts. I remember being in awe of the way the textures, colours, rhythms, flows, temperatures, and sounds danced and mixed at the confluence.

Some days I imagined that the Thompson was attempting to hold its distinctness for a mile or more downstream. Eventually, it's clearer, warmer, slower blue would yield to the larger, colder, muddier, and more forceful Fraser. I did not realize until this moment that the Thompson River 'ended' at the Fraser. The larger river continues south to Hope, British Columbia and then swings west to Vancouver, itself eventually surrendering its energy to the larger Pacific Ocean.

This week I spun, twisted, danced, and dropped into the confluence which marries psychotherapy and bodywork. There are many more metaphors I could mix in attempt to articulate my experience: I simultaneously had a feeling of landing and recognizing that my feet were firmly underneath me as well as the sense that the resultant force of two such immense energies coming together was more than I could ride - like rocket fuel. I felt both peacefully 'at home' as well as buoyantly born into a wild and wonderful new land that was awaiting my arrival with excitement and anticipation.

Somewhat uncharacteristically, prior to coming to this program, I had not researched the theory (landscape, history, language, practices, and rituals) of this new territory to any great extent (sorry, Dad). Before committing to this adventure in Portugal, my understanding of bodywork-psychotherapy was limited to experiences I had personally (as well as witnessed) as a participant in programs at The Haven (www.haven.ca) and some mutations of therapy on a bodyworker's table. I also credit Wayne Allen and the Phoenix Centre (www.phoenixcentre.com) for bridging his own trainings and intuitions and pursuing greater integrity in the field of counselling and personal growth. I have a great deal of respect for folks like Wilhelm Reich and Ida Rolf and countless others who have strayed away from the main trail and cut a path for people like me to continue moving forward. It's striking that even in this age, more than a century after Freud, I feel squeamish when I describe my reason for being in Portugal and the passion I feel for weaving body intelligence into psychotherapy in a more hands-on way.

At 40 years old, I decided it was time to grow up and that, for me, growing up included taking responsibility for my instincts and em-bodying my passions. I've been aware for a few years that my hands 'throb' with energy and heat, that I long to place these hands at the ends of my arms on the bodies of people around me. At times, my hands have surprised me by seeming to have a life of their own, a 'mind of their own,' and a will sometimes in discord with my mind which likes to keep things safer, more controlled, more known.

This week I had my first experience of working with touch and migrating the territorial boundary between massage and psychotherapy. Unlike the upheaval I've experienced on the eddy line of the Thompson and Fraser rivers, the confluence was an effortless merging. And yet the force, the surge of power I felt in the experience was breathtaking; the whole seemingly greater than the sum of its parts - using the word 'power' here not to refer to my power but the power I felt I tapped into riding the alchemical combustion of emotional energy meeting physical touch and movement. Quite a wave.

Anywhoo. I'm stoked. I'm a lot excited. I'm a little intimidated. I don't know where this is going, don't have a picture of how this training experience will manifest theoretically, logistically, professionally, or personally - it remains part of the Mystery, the big Unknown. Yesterday I noticed I got a moving ache in my head as my mind tried to lasso the energy I was feeling pumping through my body, trying to make sense of where it/I was going rather than just ride it through. I'm glad it's the weekend so that I can breathe into a little space, a little time to integrate, get quiet, find stillness to support all this movement.

This week I also crossed the half-way threshold of the program. Six weeks remain in Portugal. On the edge of my seat to learn more most days. Other moments, ready to return to the gentler, more familiar rhythms of home. Guess I'm big enough to hold the confluence of these two rivers also. Everything, afterall, eventually finds its way back to the sea.