Desert Magnolia

Months into this, I find myself just...bone tired.  Tired of the conversations.  Tired of the reality of daily fear layered over the reality of yearning for a quality life.  Tired of the politicization of a terrible health crisis.  Tired of the buildup to an election, the results of which hold our futures in balance - darkness and light are at work, this time.  Tired from being upbeat and supportive and so very very positive with each of my patients each and every treatment, day after day.  Tired from an endless summer of oppressive heat, big wind, very little rain.  Tired of being tired.   I really really want to take a deep breath, awaken one morning without the crashing realization, a few seconds after waking, that life is super complicated, rather dangerous, and without many of the simple opportunities I've come to take so much for granted.  I want to be able to hug freely, meet casually, feel a sense of lightness, and gather in casu...

Is there a rhyme or reason to the actions we take? This question has arisen countless times since humans began to ponder such things. And no matter which theory you subscribe to, no matter how empty or full your consciousness may be at any given point in time, the variables involved in determining true motivation are myriad, and, I believe, impossible to calculate with any scientific precision. After all, motivation can be linked to many things, and if the heart happens to be involved, then all bets are off in terms of applying logic to the scenario. The heart does what the heart does, when it decides to do it, and we generally get to hold on and do our best to navigate the outcome and avoid vertigo, if possible. To all of the big questions, I am beginning to believe, the answer is love. Love is the answer. It takes so many forms it is impossible to quantify. It defies reason, logic and attempts at control. It persists in spite of our attempting to think it through, thank goodness...

Mind, Body, Green is one of my favorite websites. It's spiritual and positive and you can find all kinds of articles that resonate at that moment in time and it just resonates for me. They have one entitled: 30 Things To Do Before You Die , and I realize that I have a whole lot of stuff to work on, in fact I will never ever be bored if I choose to focus on these. And I might end up feeling a whole lot better to boot. You know that phrase, 'leave the past in the past'?  On this list it's Let go of your past. Easier said than done, yes? When I consider how much time in my life I've spent reacting to new people, relationships, opportunities based on my prior experiences, it blows me away. And it's seldom fair to the new person or relationship or opportunity that's in front of me. Ekhart Tolle believes that it is possible to absolutely positively let go of the past, to release it by being 100% present as much of the time as you can. When I first re...

It's hard to imagine the conversation that would have resulted in those ridiculous, oversized bull testicle looking things hanging from trailer hitches on trucks and 4x4's. It really is. What's even more difficult is to imagine someone, now sober, actually executing on the idea. Living in the Southwest means appreciating contrasts on a daily basis. The culture and the urbanism, the breathtaking, arid beauty of the high desert against the lush green of the river valley, the extraordinary ratio of PhD's to high school grads (due to the close proximity of not one but two enormous lab facilities), and so on. And then there's the element of the testosterone charged. That's present in any region, but here it often includes trucks....big ones, small ones, 4x4's, etc., but trucks are a big part of it all. Also boots, but we won't go there right now. I'm assuming the enormous hanging testicle facsimiles are simply an extension of this phenomenon. It...

You know the kind I mean. The ones that natives use to protect their territory. Just a slight 'whoosh' as the dart lets fly, a tse tse fly sting as it finds its mark in the great white intruder, then 'Whomp!' as the big white body hits the dirt for a peaceful little nap. That's all I want. Is that too much to ask? My fantasies employing said blow gun and lots of tranquilizer darts..well, these originate to when our kids first started playing soccer. When parents whose mouths were bigger than their intellects and/or knowledge of the game would spout off. Incessantly. Loudly. Creating frowns of embarrassment on the faces of their children and head shakes as the rest of us witnessed stupidity of a stunning magnitude. I've also fantasized about elephant guns that deliver payloads of tranquilizers sufficient to render offenders unconscious for the entire soccer season. The. Entire. Season. I'm pretty sure if I passed a hat around it would come back full of ...

If anyone had ever told me I'd be in a business where bodyworkers and estheticians work side by side, tossing around terms like 'cranial sacral therapy' and 'microdermabrasion', I'd have told them they were nuts. Me? A medium maintenance, more natural than glitzy kinda girl? Apparently so. I've seen things that non-practitioners should never see. For example, a Brazilian wax demo. On an enormous monitor above the waxee. Gulp. There's also the ceaseless spray tanning,  eyelash extending, cellulite ironing, breast lifting (with tape--I know!), and so on. These things no longer phase me. I can watch all this AND eat my yummy chicken caesar salad with stale croutons without blinking an eye. Took me a few years to completely de-sensitize, but I'm there. Turns out, I'm still immature, though. Middle-school immature. How do I know this about myself? Well, a couple weeks ago I was at a makeup training class to talk to the students about my comp...