I can't change the world.. I can change my Self..

yeah that's me.. 

I'm sitting here with a glass of ouzo and three feet of rusty, battered steel. 

I handed it over to one of the first Westerners to end up in Japan, learning budo. Mortified about the condition of the blade, and the sageo.. I got it back without a single extra shaving in the saya, and shook it out, before I cleaned it, utterly embarrassed.. I cleaned it, and bought a new sageo, just so discomfited that my little indulgence had become the instrument of a great teacher.. too late as usual. 

The bones of my hands are dented, you can feel the lumps. 

The veins are broken, where they got hit, again and again. My knuckles are deformed from trying to punch a horse, who ran into me. My body is deformed, and I need help, to not walk in circles. 

My neck is a neurological experiment, my left shoulder has been ripped up twice, and glued back together in three sessions of needle hell. The last one, they drew my own blood, spun out the fibrinogens, and shot it back into me, at the hands of a slender young man, who apologized, and told my husband I was "tough as nails" without ever understanding that the man I love understands toughness on a scale not often comprehended by the living. 

I appreciated the sentiment, and live forever in the shadow of Chuck's perspective, of a simple dumb needle in the shoulder compared to the Mumford, a hip replacement, and everything that ever happened to our military sistren &; brethren. So I got a 3-inch needle in my shoulder. I asked for it. I wanted it. That's different. 

I kill varmints without fear or regret. 

So that's my life, amongst the animals. 

There's not much I need. 

I need a garden. I need some meat.. can grow, trade or hunt. 

I need to work, I need to do my work. I need to make my way, doing this Work. It is bigger than I am, like my training. I went looking for things bigger than me, and boy howdy did I find them. 

I need to train. I need a budo, I need a Way. I need something to do with my Self and my Intention.

There is always some kind of negotiation. 

I must train, but I must also not incur any more damage. 

I cannot tell you, what the new day feels like, but it feels pretty gottamn good to a grrrl who has been looking for her kind of heaven for half a decade, since her teacher lost his groove for good. 

I am here, because I spent 20 years on things which did not suit me. and 10 on those that did, but did not survive. 

I am here, to work on something that survives.

Coming up on a weekend of intense training, I find myself in focus. 


Not so many words, many experimentations in my own attitude. 


I have been doing budo since I was 19 years old. I wanted to study when I was about 13, but my parents just laughed at me. In any case, good teachers of classical arts, were in short supply in Austin, TX when I was 13. 
I will be 43 this year (2011). The Japanese sword was, and has always been, my first love (after lightsabers of course). 


My study of SMR Jodo, is to me, like a study of the opposition. It's a fond, interested study, and I love the depth and range of the art. Like Heinlein, I believe that specialization, is for insects. 
If I had not met the people I have met, who were also interested in this art involving four feet of oak dowel, I might not have found such an interest. 
Interesting people, generate interest. 


I know that my own presence, as a native sword devotee, improves the practice of the poor sods stuck with me. 


I have spent my entire adult life, studying three-foot razor blades, and various types of physical conflict. 


In all honesty, it has made me a far more chilled-out person, than many who have not explored the concept in the depths I have. 


There is no place, like the training place. 
Three feet of razor steel, hone a person to a place of simple honesty, simply because of the difficulty of properly using the instrument. 


If you are in the right place, all movements are both bold and minimal. 
There are no gestures.. no movement means nothing. 
Everything is culturally, ryuha, family, group correct. 
There are no individual movements. 
Everything you do, every movement you make, tells people who your influences are. 
Everything else is an accident, until you make it Work. 
Shu.
Ha. 
Ri.


This is Japanese Budo. 
It is a puzzle, for the Westerner, of embodiment. 
To become so completely spacious and empty, to embody this culture so far from our own, in everything from language, to culture, to strategy, requires an effort from the practicioner, which much come from their very soul. 
This is, if I understand, true of native Japanese, as well. 


For myself, orphaned on several different continental areas at once, I shall strive for curiosity.
That is the lesson I am carrying with me, along with as much empty space as I can bring with me, to learn more. 

in the arms of the angels, fly away from here.

Wish I could.
Wish we could.

Thanks Sarah, most of what I find in comfort here, is your voice, and friends who think like you do.

The best I can do is..

bring the reality I knew..
to the reality I am now trying to overcome.

I would rather be in the arms of your angels.. but they don't come around here..

My reveries involve silence and enlightenment, few and far between.

Even my strategies in Texas, were easier to deal with.
Now, I just have to work on me.. I can't blame it on anything but me.

As a budoka, these days, most of my thoughts appear to me, to be in past tense. I live in a cultural maelstrom of past, recent past, and more recent, so it's all blurry, at best.

It's not that I am no longer doing budo.
I just feel like I am.. at some kind of halfhearted neutral right now.

This grrl used to show up for 3-6 days a week of mat pounding and abuse, and I picked on the instructors intentionally, to make it worse. If I could move after class, I was disappointed.
The instructor I mention later, used to mop the floor with me for at least 30 minutes after class twice a week, if I was lucky. I showed up at 4:30, he showed up at 8:30. I trained straight through. This is aikido and judo training, not a lot of standing around, generally.
I really thought I could get him, once or twice. I landed on his head once. He thought that was pretty funny (so did I).

Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying Shinto Muso Ryu.

It's just that..
A few weeks ago, Chuck and I did something from Kokoro Ryu, and I trained on that level, for the rest of the evening. Pat, ever alert, cranked it up for me.. and we ended up negotiating.. I don't know how to tell these guys who I am and how I roll, without making an ass of myself. After almost two years, and we have all been working so hard on trusting one another, and I do love the jodo boyz, but still there is something that needs to get kicked over, to get to the level of training we all need.

To their credit, they are figuring me out, they are testing me, ever so gently, but always asking for more, which I could not be more flattered by.
But I am guilty of hanging back, I am guilty of not pressing forward.

Because of who I have trained with, and who I am, quite simply, I am always operating with the kid gloves on. I understand that we all do that, for one another, it's just the trick of finding that terribly scary, sweet sweet spot, where we can scare the crap out of each other, trust each other, and we drive each other to that Higher Ground.

I had a long, sweet, deep conversation with the person I consider my closest original teacher for aikido and judo.. the bond we have is truly incredible. There are not many people I will tell my troubles to, he is one, and we always have a laugh, however rueful. Regardless of anything, he will always be a touchstone for me, simply for the honestly of his approach.
I have literally placed my life in this person's hands, with the manic sincerity of my attacks. The only other person I have done that with, is the man I married, but we haven't trained for the last three years.

Our conversation made me realize, that I need to get to this level, with anyone I train with, for any kind of intensity.

I need real intent. I need real salvation.
I need for the people I train with, to really know what they are doing, to really trust their technique, to save them from a minor wacko like me. I can stop anything, I am a technical expert, but I need training to bring be beyond that, and through it.

I need people who are going to stop me, and say, If you really want to kill me, you will do it This way.. they will also express their expectations of control.

Because those are the people who really love you, and those are the people who really trust themselves and their technique.

Those are the people I need to train with.
I train with liberated men, who don't give me unnecessary breaks.
I would hate them, if they did.

I am going to go ahead and say it.

Women in martial arts, are mostly women on their own.
We are annoyed by the limitations imposed on our gender, in general.
We don't have time, or interest, in the opinions of small-minded people, about what we are capable of.  It's not any of your business, so leave it alone.

We will do what we want, and there is nothing you can do, about it.
We can, we will, and we are able.
You may not be.
That's your problem.
'Nuff Said.

Hold on, hold on to yourself
For this is gonna hurt like hell
Hold on, hold on to yourself
you know that only time will tell
what is it in me that refuses to believe..

this isn't easier than the real thing..
My love for you is strong and true..
Am I in heaven here, or am I..
at the crossroads I am standing..
and now your're sleeping peaceful, i lie awake and pray
that you'll be strong tomorrow,
and you'll see another day and we will praise it.
and love the fate that brings another smile across your face.. 

The nitty-gritty becomes comical..
I am darting down the alleyway to get a license number of a car engaged in truly odd suspicious behavior at the criminabe's.. it's snowing, I've got my snow boots on and am in my warmups, basically my PJs, otherwise. I greeted a suspicious character on the porch, and ran around the back to catch the license plate number.
The good neighbors called me after I got back, sort of to compliment me on my nimble sprint down the alley.
We keep trying to tell them.. who we are and what we do.. but it took my little trot down the alley, to see that this middle-aged chickie can move a bit. Granted, I'm in bodywork for a reason, and I was so beat-up at age 30, that I was Jackie Chan in the morning, cracking and creaking to the bathroom.
Now, thanks to the bodywork I've gotten involved with, I can get up cold, and trot out in the snow to check a license tag, and just worry that I might slip around the corner (which I took like Scooby-Doo on meth) and the neighbors are wondering what the hell.
Well, we keep trying to tell them, and old Possum Whacker has made it up out of the basement, to find a place amongst the possible whacking implements.
Meanwhile I am skidding on my snow boots around the corner, memorizing a plate and writing it down on the top of a local Chinese menu card..
The basics of this kind of thing are so very basic, that it just makes me laugh in a rueful kind of way, and not mind getting out on a snowy night, because our neighborhood flatfoots are out in it all the time.
Having Possum Whacker out comforts me, in a way.. that thing was so indestructible, through so many varmints, I am comforted to have it in my hands again. Three feet of battered, warped red oak, in the shape of the Japanese sword, bought in 1985.. almost a quarter century ago.
Possum Whacker was my weapon of choice against the legion of opossums who raided our compost and our chicken coop, back in Texas.
I came up with a "two-stroke" system with the warped, battered wooden sword after my trusty Marlin 22 failed to kill a particularly recalcitrant "Possum" after 7 shots into its furry body, and I had to do it in with butt-strokes from same 22, as it charged me.

I learned to walk up to the offending marsupial in a kind of wake-game, edge ever closer, and go from a brief hasso-gamae to two snap strikes: One to the neck, the second to the skull. This double-tap immobilized the animal, and allowed for the only strike capable of killing these prehistoric critters.
I've got nothing personal against them, it's just that they threatened our personal economy. As long as they didn't transgress, they were safe.
If they did, and I caught them, they were dead.
Pretty simple equation.. one I still live by. As much as Maryland allows.

I was awarded a "Hard Bastard" by the late Bill Mears, for this.
Not sure why, but I do drink a toast to the late, great Bill every time this story comes up.

Things get darker, and lighter.

Sometimes my flashbacks take me over entirely.
I spent last night in a cat and mouse with some kind of sentient interdimensional catfish, chasing through water, mountains, halls and sky. All four of my limbs were alternately cramping and going numb, as I tried to set them into and out of the covers. It was an incredibly uncomfortable, painful night.
It's a wonder I feel rested at all today, but I am curiously intrigued.

Many times, I am not sure where I am from, or where I am going.

This is a rare admission of the personal dislocation I live in.
Sometimes, if I seem a little disoriented, just keep in mind, that I am not entirely sure where I am from to begin with. Besides a part of Texas, that does not belong in Texas.

Sometimes there's a lot of ugly, sometimes a lot of beautiful.

When you decide to take the high ground, there's a lot of people think it belongs to them already.

People like me, little people with big ideas and big hearts, we end up cannon fodder, if we aren't smart about it. We end up diving into the meat grinder, with good intentions.

I so often feel like some kind of space alien, with knowledge from another planet, looking for a leader to talk to.

I have yet to find a rational group with something resembling national leverage.
There are so many divisions, so many delusions, so many different directions.

I feel the same way, in my personal life, but then I always have.
America's idea is that you sell out, to get by.
I have managed to get by without selling out, but I also work my ass off.

I have found the limit, and I have found the wall.
Perhaps I can forge it a little deeper, but this level of influence, is not enough for me.

I change things, life by life, but I would like a more organizational approach.

I am not satisfied, by any means, by any organization I currently belong to, though I am encouraged.

What the hell do I do with that..

The cold and snow, and listening to KGSR online, sends me into Time Travel mode.
Cold nights in Austin, Texas, are few and far between, and the times we all spent shivering and talking by our cars, are few and far between, but memorable.

I remember showing up at 5:30 pm Aikido class for special study with Jim P, working through the beginner's class, working through the Advanced class, and then Brendan taking me on for a good 30-45 minutes after that.

I walked into that building full of butterflies, taming them in the ritual of dressing for class and warming up, and then facing them again and again, as my teachers tested, and re-tested me.

I will never forget the rampant butterflies in my stomach, as I got into the elevator of the Belmont gym. I also remember the ritual of dressing, and warming up, bringing me to my center.

I also remember quickly re-dressing and recovering, to my regular shirt or sweater, hakama, and cowboy boots, just to save time. I drove home so often, in that outfit.

I am feeling that sense of exhaustion, satisfaction, and SEEK mode in a cooling body, dressed in this wack cultural rift, dealing with everything I was learning, all the shifts I undertook, with those boots on my feet, the hakama round my waist, and some random thing around my  shoulders. I just walked out and drove home like that, figuring that no one would know the difference.

They never did.. but I miss that sensation of learning and transition..

I miss needing to wear cowboy boots with my hakama.

I miss really training with intensity and intent, on a regular basis.

I intend to do something about that.

The lower education level in America, particularly for Rolfers, is something which hits very close to home for me.. as a person who struggled for a college degree, and was never able to make it, for economic reasons.. finally my training in Europe, with the ERA and with Peter and Christoph's group, and the Supervision with you where I had fortunately already read all of your material, your research, and could follow it all auf Deutsch, I finally felt like I was on a course of study I could keep up with, and that mattered to me.
I was also finally able to afford it, thanks to a new life situation.

I will be pursuing the study of nerves via Barral, as this seems to be the next big breakthrough in manual therapies, and something I can do and study with little damage to my body.
Finally in 2007, I separated my left shoulder again, in aikido training (which I have since given up, with great mourning), and my body was in crisis for another year and a half, and I went into the Advanced training here on the East Coast of the US with Tessy Brungardt and Jane Harrington.. I made friends with Tessy early, but Jane and I had to negotiate (we are so much alike) but we all came out crazy about each other, and Cosper Scafidi audited the class, and we are now very good friends- there is a real resonance there, with this brilliant, slightly crazy individual. Cosper had us to his home, cooked for us, and made sure we felt "gemuetlich" which Cosper does in a very special way.
He also introduced me to a prolotherapy doctor, who has done some very effective work repairing my torn AC joint with organic "glue".

The move back to America was a real crisis.. you know we didn't really want to go back, but there was a very important election, and finally our votes were counted.

We both fell apart, and it was the Advanced Training that held me together.. we could not afford it, and sold many of our things to make it happen.  I worked very hard, and got an article in the local newspaper.

My body was in real trouble, and my soul was truly displaced and disoriented.
Now I am working on myself as the foundation of a kind of bridge- anything I can do, to bring the wisdom we have so forgotten here, in to our practices in the US, from the heart of Europe, I am interested in doing so. I am working with a dear friend (also an Upledger instructor) to create a space in the rural heartland of the MidAtlantic for studies and adventures in the improvement of the human condition.

I can't make it back to Dear Old Europe nearly as often as I'd like, so I like to leave the light on and the door open, for teachers and colleagues from my "Zweite Heimat".

Most of the time, I just want to go Home, and quietly walk around..
Just to listen, soak the beauty and uniqueness in..

A letter from one of my original Aikido teachers, hand written.. telling me about his new kitten.

Listening to Seal, from that time when he was everywhere..

I was training with a group in Near East Austin, one guy who held a kind of study group in his back yard (this was the basis of my early training, talented guys with big back yards), the house always smelling of ginseng and herbal remedies.
I will never forget the smell of that place, and lapse into deep, sweet recollection with the smell of simmering ginseng and ginger.

It was a time of real exploration for me, as I searched for my martial identity.
I remember trying Escrima, so dyslexic that two of my martial arts buddies stood at my front and back, one holding and guiding my arms, the other providing the other side of the contact. Of course I was madly in love with both of them, in that immature, transferred state.
I knew what was going on, I was letting all of this pass through me, and just blissing out on the contact and the experience.

Eventually, and partially through the convulsions of my breakout from Austex, I found my real bliss in classical Japanese martial arts.

The simple truth, of putting the sword in my belt (learning how to tie it) sitting down (learning how to sit) taking it out (learning how to take it out) using it (an endless exercise) and putting it back (my greatest challenge, on so many levels) is one of the best study sets I can approach, to make myself a better person.

Encountering the sounds, scents, and sensations which set me on my way, fill me with tremendous nostalgia for that whole set of experiences, which can never be repeated, and will always be cherished.

I was such a Hometown Girl.. Austin is, and ever will be, my hometown, and any year passing, that I don't go home for the wildflowers in spring, is one that hurts me deeply.

Pulling up my pins and moving on was the single most painful thing I have ever done.
My compass will ever return, to Austin, Texas, though I can't survive in that environment.
Well.. I could.. if I decided I liked that oven heat, and absented myself late Dec-March, deadly cedar season.

But no.. I love Fall, here in the Mid-Atlantic.
I love cool springs, crocuses, cool June nights.

July and August, I can travel (not to Texas) and then there is actually some fall going on by September. They don't really have a handle on hot, here. This year, it got to 106, and that was miserable, with the local humidity, but it ain't no 110, ain't no 115.

I listen to Guy Forsyth's Hometown Boy, with the lines about the bloodsucking metal mosquitoes, the shotguns, the dead kids who wanted to do good, and it all hits me center square. Suzy was my best friend, and I never thought of kissing her, even though she would have liked it.

No, I will never leave my hometown.
Not in my heart.
My body just can't stand it.

But I am not at an end.
Just another, new, strange beginning.

I'm really homesick for the European Rolfing community.

For one simple thing, we have an ongoing relationship with the manual osteopathic community, that is absolutely outstanding. 

I have had very in-depth training, from European osteopaths, who know my teachers, and know what I am capable of, in some very advanced subject matter. 

I stand in deep humility of what I have been given, and I also stand in the responsibility of it. 

I have been trained in manual thermal diagnosis, which means that my hands are sensitized to inflammation, and the signals of the body, and my ability to interact with the human body is basically changed by my extra sensitivity to it. 

Where would you put me, consumer of manual therapeutic modalities, if I can read and palpate galbladder dysfunction, and either perform a gentle manual techique to relieve the problem, or send you back to your GP for more radical treatment if that doesn't work

This is far beyond the purview of 'Massage Therapy" don't you think?

Having paid my dues, under protest, we all ask for sentient review.

It took one mountain apple for me, and perhaps my feeling is that a handful of wild apples and rose hips can play the temptation of the wild adventure of wisdom and experience for another. 

When wisdom is evil, so will I be.
Greece needed both Artemis and Athena.

I ain't gonna be, baby, a fool no' mo.

I ain't gonna be your fool no 'mo'.

So tired, so tired, bein your slave night & day.

Tryin' so hard, so hard baby, rockin these blues away.

Lawd have mercy.

Walking into our third year in Frederick, Maryland.

We are voting, we are participating, we are part of the neighborhood (including action against the criminabes and their landlord Tom Heilman, narcissist idiot prince of the Ceresville Mansion, who does nothing while his property dissolves into a wreckage of dog poop, Oxycontin sales, and tenants who spit out windows and off the porch,  and cigarettes, thrown out windows and off the porch, right next to us) which is mostly full of decent, hard-working people just looking for the next step up in life.

Why ever did we come back?
We had to. Neither one of us, given any stable bridge to a future in Europe, would have bothered to come back to the US.
However, our vote, as we were actually HERE and our votes had to be COUNTED, as opposed to on a US Army base and absentee vote, counted only "if needed" perhaps got our New Hope into office.

I still think of President Obama as the New Hope.
I thought of young black men dressed in suits and ties, headed to college, instead of the dead man's uniform of "dumbass pants" (if they can see your underwear, they think you want to "catch" in jail, BTW) and ugly hoodies.

I was hoping that his bidding to call the "brothas need to pull your pants up!" was going to echo more than it did.

My father was raised by the black help around his family's house in East Texas, and tells me that he didn't know he was white, until he was about 10 years old. I spent time in the kitchen with Jessie May, his mother's maid, and not with my own grandmother, because she wasn't fond of small children. I sat by the kitchen table on the floor, as she told me stories in an unintelligible local dialect, deeply affected by the snuff she kept in her lip, and possibly lax dental care. I will never forget it, and listen for it sometimes.

My father drove her home once- she never drove, one of her kids always picked her up. We saw the little white, neat house, and the round, healthy children running all around.
It was then that I understood that this woman was a kind of aristocrat in her own culture, because she worked for my grandmother. It was then, that I understood that I was part of a kind of "underclass aristocracy" that is the American blue collar upper class.

So when it comes to black culture, I am deeply at home in it, but somehow mute, unable to interact as effusively as is required. So I am still white and uptight.. until I start to dance.. then the reggae boys ask me out, and the white girls ask me what I am on.

I have this umbilical connection to black culture, and I make a direct point of greeting, personally and politely, everyone I encounter in Frederick.
The black folks who seem surprised, just break my heart. I understand, that there are generations of abuse present, but I mean to reach, at least a little, across them.

My ancestors were Irish, who were also discriminated against, had their only escape in this country.

Now, I feel so sorry for them, that this criminal, dangerous, filthy, antisocial place is what they signed up for.

I have lived in a place where I can walk, dead drunk, into a subway station and end up safely back at my own place, if I maintain those faculties for myself.
I have lived in places, where children can take public transportation safely, to school and back. There are no school buses in Europe or Japan, kids just take the bus or the train, like everyone else, because everyone takes care of them, and the public health system keeps the crazies maintained and restrained.

We will have as good and safe a society, as we are willing to pass laws to maintain.

So far, in the US, we are at Massive Fail.

This criminal, dangerous, filthy, antisocial place, at nearly three years of trying to adapt, is still criminal, dangerous, filthy and antisocial, with an extra special dose from Super Negligent Landlord Thomas Heilman.

No one would put up with him, back in Germany.
We aren't putting up with him, and the fact that it takes personal risk, persuading the neighbors, and special effort, is not heartening.

This guy is the jerk, he made the mistakes, and doesn't care enough about anything other than his own problems, and won't bother to  fix mistakes he has made in any other location.

This is my blog, and I can say what I want.
Review the First Amendment, before you talk to me about anything else.

I would like to be able to stay in Frederick, but it has been increasingly painful.
My practice, is the only orienting force.

The rest of it, including Chuck's employment, has just been a wall of annoyance and pain, the neighborhood is a pain (though we intend to pay that back directly to the causor, Tom Heilman) and there is a huge squirrel problem..

I really like this part of the country, from a naturalist perspective.

From the perspective of dealing with the mass of humanity... I can only hope for an epidemic.

If I were to sit up, and take a drink, between all the interesting events around me, I would probably be drinking more than I really should.

Back home, it's still 80 degrees.

It will go down to 66, and everyone will be opening their windows, and piling on quilts with great gusto.

It's getting to be chili season in Texas, and I would miss that, but my man makes kickass chili, like an adopted Texas son should.
Tomorrow it will be up to 90F, and that may continue through winter, except for cool fronts.

Here, it might top out at 79, and that's a hot day, this time of year. After the storms blow through, we will be at 45 overnight, probably wanting to fire up the wood stove again.
Highs will be in the 60s, lows in the 40s, for the rest of the week. That's what I signed up for. I don't mind being cold so much (the logistics are kinda annoying) but I do mind too much of any one kind of weather.

Last year we had a lot of snow here, but I had seen more, in Germany (though Germany had the wherewithal to deal with it). We had a lot of heat, but I grew up under way, way worse than that.

Somehow, coming from all the extremes of my experience, this place tried me, and I found it amusing. Coming from the extremes of my experience, I find most of life amusing.

Back home, the cicadas and other buzzy beasties will still be fizzing and whizzing their way through the night, but the crickets will keep up their steady chirp through the slowly cooling nights.

When the temps finally do dip to 65F or so, the crickets will swell to a pulsing, orchestral velvet chirp. The summer wall of sound, so oppressive, if you didn't grow up falling asleep to it, transitions to a kind of violin concerto of cricket sound. Not the faint, rhythmic random "cricks" of the Northeast, but a real tidal wave of tiny cricket wings, rocking natives to sleep on tremendous swells of sound.

Once upon a time, I couldn't imagine my feet outside the Texas state line.
Truth was, from my first step outside, I couldn't stay in, any more.

Frank Bedicek used to say, that once a Texan slept under a blanket in August, it was over.
One freezing evening in Yellowstone, and more in the effortless high cool of Glacier National Park, and this Texas girl was a fugitive from the relentless, stinging, pollen poison cauldron of the Texas climate. It turns out that three scorpion stings (attained in bed or otherwise innocently occupied) and chronic bronchitis from cedar allergies leading to chronic asthma, on top of a catastrophic allergy to poison ivy, was enough to dislodge the hometown girl.

My love of my friendsandrelations there, brings me back, as often as my health will stand it.

We all strike out, seeking our way, given the opportunity.
I am still on that journey, seeking a place I can follow my practice, help others follow their practice, and create a place for clear vision and innovation in my own life, continues.

Our recent time in Japan, the deep clarity and focus with which some of the those people live their lives, affected me so deeply.

I go back to the song by Nickel Creek, which I have listened to since the beginning of my time of transition.

"Others have excuses, I have my reasons Why."

I am striving to live a rational, grounded, yet inspired life.
Somewhere between the ground and the sky, is the path to heaven.

In Texas, the sweetest sound, is the crickets between 60 and 50F. The other bugs and frogs have gone back to sleep, and the crickets have the stage.
Their rhythm is slow and melodic, with room for individual improvisation. We get it earlier here in Maryland, we keep it longer, and the crickets probably make sweaters or something, to keep going.

I have a hard time killing crickets.. like many influenced by Eastern thought, they are too lucky and too blessed.  I tend to "relocate" them instead. I like to pick them up, I find them rather cute and fat and "pettable" and love their habit of cleaning their antennae, in difficult situations.

Tiny motions, in a beautiful melodic universe, lull my Southern mind to center, to peace, to sleep.

This is a photo of me demonstrating the Seitei set of Shinto Muso Ryu Jodo with my dear friend Peter Boylan at the Kashima Shrine in Japan, courtesy the sweet folks at Capitol Area Budokai. 

Everything in the photo reflects who I am, and how far I have come, to have the honor of being there. 

Jet-lagged, recovering from a second, 2nd degree shoulder separation in an aikido class three years ago with the help of prolotherapy injections, I look worn but focused. 

I was quite comfortable in the shoulders and neck through the training, except for my feet and legs, which were unused to seiza on hardwood and tatami, and turned a light lavender after much ignoring of pain signals. 

I have spent my entire adult life in love with Japanese classical martial arts, and the opportunity to "go there and do that" is a gift from Peter Boylan and Deborah Klens-Bigman, who were our tour guides for the trip. 

It is also a gift from my sweetie, my soulmate, Chuck Gordon. 

He worked hard to prepare me, he made the connections, and I got to this place through him. 

What a great delight it was, to jump into the deepest of the deep end, breathless and with a sense that, while I had spent in my life in preparation, I was still not prepared. 

Yet, I was welcomed, beckoned even, into the great torrent of information the instructors provided. 

I have some handwritten journal entries I will enter as I have time. 

I have also realized, how precious time is, and how much of it we waste, padiddling around, when we should be focussed on our goals, and our time in contemplation of our lives and how we wish to live them. 

Headed to Japan tomorrow.. a bundle of nerves and anticipation. I will try to send little updates here as possible!

My very favorite season here.. windows open, birds chirping, crickets "crikking".. cool air drifting in, and feeling so delicious.

The days ahead may be humid yet, but I've got my taste of fall!