Extreme Care: Flight 1895

            

            “Did you see that?” he umpfs.

            “No. What?” I answer as my foot casually pushes my bag under the seat in front of me.

            “Fallen Solider. Just put on the plane.”

            “Ohhh-“

            “F**king cardboard box.”

            “What?” I swivel.

            “They always say, don’t they, ‘Don’t end up in a cardboard box,’ and that’s what he was in a cardboard box,” he looks right through me, continuing,  “Cardboard, and plywood frame. Not a plywood box, but a frame of wood so I guess he doesn’t roll out, with a stamp that says ‘Extreme Care,’ and a baby blue handle.”

            “To grab –“

            “No, just a trimming, just a bit of trimming. The stewardess says that sometimes the captain of the plane will get out and salute him, but they are tight on time today,” his eyes, still moving, meet mine.

            “That is incredible, I –“

            “You should have seen it. I mean on tv they show you all of what they want you to see, but they don’t want you to see that. No they don’t want you to f**kin’ see that. You would think a family member or someone from the service would – “

            “If the government won’t pay for a box, why would they pay for someone to fly with the body?”

            “You’re right,” he laughs uncomfortably. “Ain’t that the truth. You’re right. What a fool.”

            Forty-five minutes later, I discover the man’s name: Michael. He is a successful lawyer, travels avidly, surrounds himself with fascinating people, enjoys financial freedom, blackjack, boxing, cigars and affairs, living in a loveless marriage of twenty years with a woman he compartmentalizes his respect for as a “phenomenal mother, but not my match as a partner.”

            It’s amazing what we will tell strangers, is it not?

            “Now, I’m not judging, but the affairs, really twelve?”

            “If I’m honest,” he sips his Gatorade, “but the last one is the only one I would have left my wife for.”

            “Huh.”
      

Don't Let the Past Badger You

 

 

            Scratching and clawing is never a good start to a new beginning. I mean, maybe for badgers. But it seems that their claws are heading towards something, whereas human claws are chasing away from something, holding onto something, like a concrete weight of the past, or clenching some indigestible truth, or maybe just distressing the Earth beneath without purpose.

            In fact, did you know that badger’s “lower jaw is articulated to the upper by means of a transverse condyle firmly locked into a long cavity of the cranium, so that dislocation of the jaw is all but impossible.

            Talk about one fierce bite.

This enables the badger to maintain its hold with the utmost tenacity, but limits its jaw movement to hinging open and shut, or sliding from side to side without the twisting movement possible for the jaws of most mammals.

           

            Twisting movement. Side to side. Flexibility.

            Funny thing about the jaw, the mandible. Hugh Milne, Visionary Craniosacral Therapist, says that it is the “bone of the visuddha, the throat soul, which represents both expression and absorption” (192). Milne continues to explain that it is the bone most “associated with the individual’s sense of who [s]he is” (192).

            What about that badger? A one-purpose life to the chagrin of honeybees and English archeologists. Apparently, "a lovely manmade mound is just perfect for [badgers], so they're actually attracted to ancient monuments,” including Stonehenge. See, badgers have been digging holes, big holes, such that the professionals are afraid that they are destroying the value of the sites, and quite literally causing safety hazards because they are creating holes so large that the structures could actually collapse. The badger doesn’t stop its path because of the past. Even a really cool past that humans revere.

            Maybe the badger’s job isn’t about being flexible, but teaching humans the same. Things change. We know this, and are still shocked when they do. Pillars of thought and expectations can crumble like a sandcastle on the sand, just ask the Romans or American Homeowners, and we can dig against the tide or we can dig on. Like the badger.

            It’s the movement of our life that trips the script. The “I just got here’s” and the “Where did these come from’s?” that take the wind out of our sails, or the spunk out of our recreating of meaning, one pawful of dirt at a time.

            In animal translation, meaning metaphors or emotional tones an animal may carry, some credit badger with being the representation of a tenacious healer, or a dictator that will suffer no ends to meet with justice or reparation; others say that badger can speak to the need to cultivate a tenacity to fight for your dreams while “aggressively removing the barriers that don’t grow corn” (Sams, Carson, Werneke).

Perhaps badger isn’t a great representation of flexibility, as his jaw is so powerful and straightforward, but he is a great reminder of moving through staleness that prevents growth; of a tenacity we all carry that moves us through, clears the field for the new, clearing a landscape for Self expression.

            How are we ever expecting to be nourished if we simply gnaw on the same piece of deadwood? That powerful jaw and those determined claws are for movement, for moving on. That’s what the badger does. Do you?

Perhaps scratching and clawing is a good way to a new beginning, as long as our claws aren’t collapsing the walls around us, fighting momentum with inertia. Perhaps Longfellow knew it; it’s not that you are happy or unhappy, but further than yesterday. Perhaps that is what we need to unclench our taste for the easy and light, and take hold onto the grit of our growth:

            Life is real! Life is earnest!   

                        And the grave is not its goal;

                        "Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"  

                        Was not spoken of the soul. 

                        Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

                           Is our destined end or way;

                        But to act, that each to-morrow   

                        Finds us farther than to-day.

                                                - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The more disoriented you are, the more you know you are growing,” a coffee compadre told me of his new business, now standing on the molehill of his success. The only movement is forward, remembering that Nature moves in spirals. So as you dig and as you claw, give yourself the space to breathe, to rest, to renegotiate and to turn around, smelling into the moment when you again stand, stretching into the new horizon of you.

                              In Inspiration from and Gratitude to Emily & of course the badger

`ali `ali : a post in progress

Aliali

It took me about twenty minutes to find the word above. It wasn't until I went back to where I started, a text from a friend containing a link for a reliable Hawaiian dictionary to find it. The word means clarity.

In reading a legend about the Mo'o, the lizard, the writer emphasizes the metaphorical need for every human to be grounded, belly to the Earth, front claws open to search and inquire, back claws in solid foundation to support growth, and then there is the tail. The tail that encompasses our growth in the sturdiness of our past. A-ha: The past.

In growth and expansion, it is sometimes easy to shoot to the sky and forget your roots. I haven't forgotten my roots, in fact the collusion of my past and my present often nips at the side of my mind. How do I carry forward the bounties or beings that brought me to this moment, while honoring the individual sovereignty, the perfection of each path's evolution: each path ends at the same destination, you know.

Ginger-aide

Kahili Ginger

“Let me take a moment to digest.”

Please do.

As many, I have been sifting and sorting through my stack of memories and expectations for the next chapter of my life. Normally, this would be attached to a definitive moment, other, or circumstance; rather, I am simply sailing through the peaks and valleys of the last decade and looking for the, well the peaks and valleys. How long does life’s current stay at a neutral plateau? If we are in touch with our life pulse, we know that it is always in flux, a wave, a momentary stillpoint: then resurgence, an expansion.

In preparation for this next movement, I have upped my yoga practice; more carefully considered my daily nurturance – in food and thought – and have turned to my trusted plant Devas for inspiration and support.

As I started to deeply cleanse my diet, I noticed a little stagnancy in my digestion, barely perceivable, I imagine, to the outside eye, but I noticed.

I reached for my Wisdom of the Earth (email if you have essential oil questions) Ginger, a trusted friend of digestion.

This time, I decided to spend more time with her. Curled up on the couch, I read: Ginger assists in the acceptance and movement of Forgiveness.

Wait, what? I thought Ginger was a simple digestive aide.

Forgiveness.  If we are not forgiving of our imperfections, of the flow, we stagnate. We stop movement. We calcify. We have given our system something to hold on to: Here, remember this. We don’t like him/her because he/she has _________________.

And stomach says, are we digesting a delicious fresh market sandwich, with the picture perfect avocado, or am I digesting judgment? I guess both: ouch.

This does not mean to forget our boundaries, our self respect. It means to balance self love and selfless compassion.

Not much of a juggler? Learn.

The alternatives are disrupted ease in the body: dis-ease.

In many healing arts, the belly holds the fire, the resolve, the center for health. If our Agni (digestive fire of emotional, physical and spiritual) is not high and cannot transmute the material (avocado or anger) then we create ama  (“uncooked” or “undigested” in Sanskrit also known, euphemistically as "junk" or "toxins," ) that builds up and spills over, much like our personal quarrels, contaminating and muddying the waters of our clarity.

So, grate some fresh ginger on your salad, or your peanut sauce noodles. Simmer an inch of ginger in fresh and appreciated water to make a tea. Or rub 3-5 drops of ginger essential oil on your belly, and read about Ho`oponopono, the Hawaiian practice of forgiveness, of setting things right, within ourselves and the world around us.

Take a nibble of plain old forgiveness  - without expectation. Feel what it tastes like. Let your body order what it wants, you may be surprised at what is on the menu.

More? Click here to learn what Sally Miller Yoga says about laying on your left side.

My Own Place

Good girls don’t cry. Or is that big girls? Nice women, behave; even though they rarely make history. Women should know their place – and with this I agree. The glitch, or rather, the opportunity being the place, and the time, and the pristine opportunity that is offered in this multitudinous variation. What is the right place, and the right time, anyway?