July 21 - The Art of Concious Touch - Denman Island

July 19, 2007

I sail over a vast terrain of clouds. The endless field of white brings to mind the fantasy I often indulge in when driving the scarlines between city and city with wide green fields on either side. You won't be surprised that I imagine I'm astride a galloping horse, drinking in those incredible feelings of freedom, power and kinship with nature that this experience has afforded me on many cherished occasions. So now, the 7-year-old looks through these 41-year-old eyes and sees a mythical me on the tiny dot of a galloping horse, cruising across these clouds, bound for nowhere but the precious moment I'm in. But then the misanthropist in me pricks a hole in that lovely reverie with the admonishment that we humans have no business being up here among the clouds, roaring through this pristine beauty and leaving a wake of poison. How's that for a dubiously well-balanced sense of perception! It's a common experience for me that the joyfulness and appreciation that often fills my heart clashes with the grief that accumulates with the tragic deaths that have affected me and the calamities I continually witness in the way my kind treat each other, the planet and all her creatures. Alas, there are so many unreconcilable quandaries in this life. Despite my cynicism, I am grateful for this technology which will have me sitting in a bar on Commercial Drive tonight with a dear friend and so much closer to the educational adventure I've been holding a vision of for so long.


July 20, 2007
Denman Island, B.C.


The view from my tent

Here I am at last. Decompressing in the little home I have just set up amidst pine and cedar, facing the serene scene of a large pond lush with water lilies. The wind whispers welcome, my muscles are melting from the stress of travel and my heart is warm from the night and day spent with Onli on the journey here from Vancouver.

Not long after my arrival, Willow, Fiona's partner, gave me a treatment for my tennis elbow ("epicondylitis"). He is a much respected doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) who practiced for years in Victoria and now runs a clinic in a funky old Airstream trailer here on Denman. He applied a herbal mixture to the inflamed area, gave me rather shockingly aggressive accupuncture and performed a procedure called Gwatza -- a smoothing down of the apparently twisted connective tissue in my forearm with a smooth-edged flat stone. Once again, I'm told I have excess heat in my system according to TCM and that I need to nourish my Yin. Willow gave me some Chinese herbal tablets called Huang Lian Su that are supposed to help with that, along with a homeopathic remedy for the pain in my elbow which is comprised of arnica, Dulcamara and Rhus toxicodendron. Interesting to ponder the combination of excess heat with the fact that, as Krysia and Diana pointed out, my Yin (left) side has been the target of various physical complaints in recent times.

July 21, 2007

Day one of The Art of Conscious Touch
Intensive indeed -- our schedule ran as follows:
9-12:30 class with Fiona, which started with some Kundalini yoga and Chi Gong (ancient Chinese art of energy manipulation) exercises (nice follow-up to my glorious early morning run) then a simple massage routine that can be performed as a receiver is seated in a kitchen chair
12:30-3:00 lunch and free time. Biked to a nearby organic farm to pick up some scrumptious produce. We have a kitchen/bathroom building where we fend for ourselves for breakfast and lunch.
3:00-6:00 further bodywork instruction with Fiona, now utilizing her gorgeous portable tables (hint, hint Santa!)
6:00-7:30 dinner time (Meals have been fantastic -- cooked by a smiley, groovy old hippy gal called Gaert.)
7:30-10:00 anatomy class taught by Willow. He has an engaging, entertaining teaching style.

There are six students, all women mostly from the Vancouver area. A very nice group, we seem to have all fallen immediately into an enjoyable comfort with each other.

Each of the next 7 days in a row will follow this very full schedule before I'll have three days off preceding the next segment. That'll be the time to pull out the bass and brush up on all those Random Order tunes for the tour. Hoping my elbow will have recovered significantly by then.

It's been quite wet and I'm actually luxuriating tonight in the dryness and peaceful atmosphere of the gorgeous studio. Apparently we just missed an incredible heat wave and now the locals are all shocked at the unseasonable rain. Hope it lets up soon, but really it is wonderfully fresh and lush. The slugs here must have migrated from Jurassic Park! We are right next door to the famous Denman Island chocolate factory. (Peter, Rebekah and Susanna -- I'll be shopping here for you!) What's funny is that the sign at the driveway entrance actually says "Snake Haven" -- apparently the name given by the previous resident due to the dense snake population. It makes good sense to keep that name to deter any would-be chocolate thieves!


Jurassic Slug (with my finger for comparison)