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I loved the plants that tumbled and swirled throughout Esalen. Our teacher, Eric Moya, pointed out how, as humans, we don't have roots or chlorophyll to keep us alive, we gain life from movement. Anything that makes it harder to move, makes it harder to stay alive. We don't grow old, we just stop moving.
He also talked about when something is at the edge of your skill set it can seem magical or mystical or impossible. Then you get on the learning curve, struggle for a bit, and once you learn it, what once seemed magical and mystical becomes your new normal.
I loved to get up early, sit with a cup of green tea, and watch the morning sun rise on the ocean. Every time I scanned the sea, I hoped for a dolphin or porpoise or seal, but I never saw one. The day before, in class, we talked about intention. It always seemed too simple to me, intention, and often got resistance from that Archie Bunker voice in my mind. But more and more I've been discovering that the more simple it is, the more effective it is, and in the work I do, I'm in awe of the huge shifts that come from subtle movement.
So, one morning I sat at the edge of the sea and playfully set the intention to see a dolphin. Within seconds a fin poked out of water. And then it happened again. Altogether seven blue fins arched in and out of the shimmering pink water. A pod of dolphins swam by right in front of me, as if to say, ha ha, and yes, and welcome to your new normal.
Esalen reminded me of growing up in Vermont in the 70's, before growing and cooking and recycling was being Green, back when you grew and cooked in order to eat and you recycled because you needed that bag for other things.
That, along with craniosacral and its unwinding of tissues, evoked a memory of monkey bars, gym class, and first grade. We were all lined up, the rungs so high and the ground so low that the gym teacher, who was also the principal, had to lift us up to reach the bars. It was a hot, humid, Vermont day and the boys started taking off their shirts. I was hot too with a feeling, a rumble inside.
So I took off my shirt. I knew it wasn't done, girls taking off their shirts, but our bodies all looked the same so I didn't know why. And if something didn't make sense then how could it be right? The teacher muttered "Women's Lib," as I passed by.
At Esalen, that long ago feeling came back in a flash. I knew, even at six years old, that what I had done was not an act of innocence but a great act of being fearless. The glint of sun on metal, the warmth of sun on skin, the feeling of power mixed with doubt as I swung high above a crowd of gasping girls and angry boys. How the only way through was to keep my body moving and trust that the next rung would appear.
She was on my mind so much at Esalen, though I hadn't taken a class with her for years. I remembered the workshop she held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, how amazing it was to dance in the glow of stained glass on dark wood floors, and how Marissa Tomei was in that class.
On my third morning at Esalen I walked past the office and saw a photo of Gabrielle Roth in the window where there hadn't been one the day before. It said "In Loving Memory," and that she had passed away on October 22nd, just the night before.
Last summer, when I went to Wanderlust in Vermont, her class was the first I signed up for. I was so disappointed when it was canceled due to illness. I thought it must be the flu or something but it was at Esalen that I learned she had cancer.
I walked, stunned, to the edge of the sea. The sun shimmered on the waves and I felt her fully. I heard things she said like "It takes discipline to be a free spirit" and "If you want to be fascinating, be fascinated." I felt other things well up from deep inside like "Never give up" and "This is your lifetime." And I thought about how hard it is to be brave, but how it is worth it, probably.
I recently returned from a Craniosacral 2 training at Esalen in Big Sur, California. It was heartbreakingly beautiful, both the training and setting. Morning light on the ocean, the view during breakfast, huge gardens, the walk down the path to the hot springs. I loved being in the hot springs at night, watching ocean waves crash under the light of the full moon.
I had a choice for this training. I could take it in Big Sur in October, or Albany, New York in February. Not a difficult choice, but I was also drawn to Esalen because I remembered Gabrielle Roth, one of my most influential teachers, had lived and worked there. She started as a dancer in San Francisco and, after an injury, was told she would never dance again. She fell into a depression, moved to Esalen to work as a massage therapist, and it was there that she discovered it was dancing that would ultimately heal her. It was where she perceived the 5 Rhythms of movement that she would later write about and teach all over the world.
She was rock and roll and spiritual at once and it wasn't a contradiction for her like it wasn't a contradiction for me. I just hadn't met others like that. It was from her that I first learned about the power of the body's wisdom, how transformative movement could be, and how there is so much more going on than what we can see.
When she spoke about Big Sur, all those years ago, it always seemed so far away to me. Some parts of the world are like that, they feel impossibly far when you first hear about them. Yet here I was, here.
I just returned from an incredible two week yoga therapeutics training in Toronto, Canada that, even after almost twenty years of yoga practice, has profoundly shifted my life. Frustrated by the limitations of working as a therapist in a hospital setting, I've been searching for a long time for a way to help people get out of pain and back to into their lives. And I have found it.
I was one of a few Americans at the training, the only person from New Mexico. I never would have known about this work if it wasn't for a book I discovered at the tiny bookstore next to the Hanuman temple at the top of Mount Madonna in California, a stop along the way on my road trip. I couldn't have known then that this book, a tiny seed, a single gem, would later become a wish fulfilling jewel.
I adored Toronto. I'd never been there before and had no idea it was such a lovely city filled with amazing food, art, independent bookstores, street cars, coffee shops, and parks. I am hoping someone from Canada will adopt me. I felt the same way when I visited and fell in love with Halifax, Nova Scotia many years ago. I had no idea, I said to a Canadian classmate, to which she responded, "Yes, we are so much more than the purple stripe at the top of your map!"
My roommates walk toward class in the early morning light, a woman passes by the photographs of Guy Laliberte on display in the Distillery District, an artist paints on the sidewalk, blue glass and rain at our rental house, Krishna gazes from the window of BluGod Tattoo on Yonge Street.
This drawing of a Navajo mud doll is now on view at the Scripps Fine Art Gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's part of a RISD Alumni show. The drawing is beautifully framed and I chose it because it seemed the most Santa Fe. It's exciting to have my work on this famous road.
I meant to post this a few weeks ago, the show is actually coming down this Saturday, September 8th. If you're in the area this week try to stop by. The gallery is next door to the Teahouse where you can sit under the trees and have oolong tea or chai.
A transitional time calls for a transitional post. I just came across this photo of a sketch I did at the Huntington in San Marino, California during my internship two years ago. I adored the Huntington. I spent the entire day wandering through its museums and tea houses and every kind of garden imaginable.
I thought this was the perfect piece for this phase of my blog. A photo from the end of my road trip then that holds the return to drawing that is to come, of a couple dancing in revelry under palm trees in paradise in honor of my birthday, today.
I've been doing a lot of furniture moving these days, in my new house, heart, and mind, trying to figure out how things will best fit. How much can be left out in order to create space for making art? How much must stay in order to be able to live?
As summer turns to fall and furniture finds its place, drawing comes closer. Like this photo that reminds me of the place between here and there, drawing too is an in-between thing. It becomes not the thing you are drawing exactly, but a thing of its own. And you just have to stay with it to see where it takes you.
