never to be able to come inside? I am reminded again how fortunate I am not only to have a warm, well-provisioned, pleasing place for me to bring my body inside and protected from the elements, but also for having the sweetness of the practice of going within.
If it had not been for the half off coupon from Green Deals, I might not have gone to Wellbeing Massage in Dupont Circle for an ayurvedically inspired warm organic ginger oil massage after work today. But I am certainly glad I succumbed to the lure of the coupon.
It was absolutely perfect on this windy, bitter day in mid-winter to surrender, in a perfectly heated and softly lit room, to having warm oil poured onto my eyebrow center (ajna door) and having it massaged into my scalp, face, and neck and then poured on and slathered all over. With the quantity of oil used, it is more a treatment than a massage, and and such, an admirable supplement (and never a replacement) for my regular massages with long time Capitol Hill massage therapist and friend Patrick McClintock of House of Hands. For the first time in weeks, my skin feels completely hydrated, and though my house was set at 59F when I got home two hours after the treatment, I still feel warm.
If you decide you want to get one of these treatments to chase away winter cold and dryness, please mention my name (shameless solicitation; if five of you go, I get a free treatment). And if you are looking for a fantastic therapeutic massage from a wonderful person and experienced therapist, give Patrick a call. And if five of you go to get a massage with him and mention my name, maybe he and I can work out a deal donating a portion of the proceeds to D-CLAW‘s next charity of choice (that’s DC Ladies Arm Wrestling for Charity) (more on D-CLAW in a future post).
The two books I read while I was traveling to California (San Francisco for the delight of it and Lucerne Valley to study with Paul Muller-Ortega): Home of the Dancing Sivan, India in Mind.
The first I picked to bring because it was one on the bibliography Paul has given us to read that I had not yet read and was also something that I wanted to read in anticipation for my planned trip to to Chidambaram in December. By coincidence, while we were on this intensive, Paul showed us a video of a ceremony at Chidambaram, so I was glad to have read the book on the way there. The second, I picked up recently at the Bryn Mawr Lantern Bookshop, where I do regular volunteer work. India in Mind is an interesting collection–well-known Western voices writing about India, but collected by Pankaj Mishra, an Indian author who lives part of the time in London. Much in the collection I have read before, but the editing gives a very interesting perspective on how we in the West have related to and imagined India. More reading in preparation for my upcoming trip and for my continuing exploration of what has drawn me to the yoga over these many decades.
The five books I bought while in San Francisco (the first three from my every year or three pilgrimage to City Lights Bookstore; the last two from a used bookshop in Hayes Valley near Yoga Tree’s Hayes studio):
The Essential Tagore (a large and beautiful collection), Great Tales of Jewish Fantasy and the Occult (fantasy and magic from my ethnic heritage–why just concentrate on other cultures such as India?), White Hand Society (more on Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary, which ties in at a deep level to my Westerner’s understanding of Eastern mysticism); Wintering (I was captivated by Sylvia Plath in my teens and 20s; it looked like a nice book), The Violent Foam (wonderful and profoundly important poetry).
