Except for suffering long heat spells, I adore summer. I suppose even a hot streak has its upside, creating hibernation energy reminiscent of deep winter. And it sure forges conversational bridges with random strangers...people really bond over weather extremes. I can commiserate with the best of them. But more than anything, I love the way summer pulls me out of my cozy nest of the school year.

Gauging from your response to “no feeling is final”, many are afloat in the boat of despair. Certainly a comfort to know we’re not alone, yet I’m in need of more than commiseration. Among the many replies was one from my friend Carrie who shared an essay that went beyond misery loves company. Martin Shaw is a mythologist, author, storyteller and general wise guy. His musings lifted me considerably. Highly recommended reading. What follows is inspired by his cogent thoughts.

Have you ever looked at your To Do list and not wanted to do? At all? Those who know me well recognize this as pretty weird and completely atypical. I’ve been blessed/cursed with an energy surplus my whole life. In moments like this, I feel myself yearning for this curse. Instead I am experiencing this pervasive flat-line feeling. An eerie quietness of being sprinkled with moments of resistance. Resistance to what? Sinking into judgment that this quietness is just a cover for lazy, uninspired, bored.

January 2005: trapped in a corner office of my own creation.  Boxed into medical space, clear manifestation of a mid-life professional with thirty plus years of clinical experience, beaucoup continuing education and rock steady community standing.  I swiveled my ergonomic chair away from the wide world windows and, once again, escaped into a ragged scrap of butcher paper covering one wall.  A vast scribbled triangle, three angles pointing me out of the box, a fantasy world I was primed to eventually inhabit: physical therapy, yoga, 5Rhythms dance.  I had no friggin’ idea how-where-when, but I was super-clear on why.  Whenever I practiced any one of these three triangle points, the other two were perpetually leaking in.

Delivering health care. It’s what I do. What I’ve done my entire adult life. This calling has morphed and evolved in such a way that some, as they survey my working field, would not call it health care. I beg to differ. Through this morph and evolution I‘ve been challenged, bent sideways, shaped, pushed, grown….and ultimately divinely supported and nourished. Today I’m writing about three ways women can be pro-active about their health. Not excluding you men readers, read on.

I have this way early childhood memory of a circular creation defining months of the year: December at 11 o’clock, April at 2, June at 5, September at 8 o’clock. No idea at all how this landed in my consciousness, but I was always uber-aware of the orbiting passage of seasons. Years later this sensibility has only deepened.

Thank the good lord ninety percent of folks coming for physical therapy in my current practice are garden variety. Because atypical requires deeper investigation and the prognosis is more dicey, less definitive. We don’t imagine our own pain might follow a predictable human pattern. We’re pretty convinced we’re weird or special. And we are. But luckily most of us are garden variety, presenting with constant or come & go discomfort in hip or low back, shoulder or neck, knee or foot. Maybe jaw, elbow, wrist, hand. Perhaps with accompanying headache or sensation that radiates into arm or leg.

I remember my father stretched out on that burnt orange 60’s couch, my well-worn algebra text in his sturdy hands. Each time I kneeled on the floor by him, he knew precisely where to embark, how to lead without giving away too much, when to halt and let me stumble around on my own. Our relationship was far from easy, but I could always count on his teaching skill. Little did I know that what I was really learning was just that. Teaching, a calling that has manifested in different forms throughout my life.

There’s something about a road trip, evocative of sweet youth, spontaneous wildness, touching what’s tucked away inside, a place that begs exposure. Something about the open road, potential around each bend, brings me alive in a way different than other experience. The way we arrived at road-tripping the southwest for ten days was so random, and grew out of spending time at our favorite Sedona locale last Fall.

Some years pass, marked by a birthday, and just to recall where I was on that day a year ago requires a deep dig. Even pulling up remarkable events that came to pass during the previous year can be baffling. Know what I mean? It’s not exactly same-old, same-old but youth bulges with sizable change: kindergarten becomes first grade, size 10 becomes size 14, marriage happens, degrees are earned, babies arrive, first jobs become second ones. And then, to a relative extent, maybe we settle in and appreciate more subtle evolution: a book leaves a mark, a trip opens new worlds, a practice opens internal doorways, a friendship goes deep. Not that the inevitable shifts in the big stuff---birth, illness, death, relationship---go away.

September 2015…travelling in Italy, overwhelmed with the beauty and having some come-to-Jesus moments with my scoliosis. In the midst of our time, so far from home and community, I learn that Harbin Hot Springs---my deepest spirit home---is consumed in wildfire. So much heartache, so many gut-wrenching tears. This loss created a distinct hole in my heart.

I don’t like to visit doctors. Not big on routine exams. Surely they’ll find something if they start looking. I generally go when I’m in need. And I’ve been in need this year. After surgery, aftermath, radiation, I was referred to Maxine Barish-Wreden, a holistic/integrative practitioner, someone I already knew from my connections with Sutter.

That was one long cold wet winter and, like many of you, I suffered through that lingering cold bug. It came on so slowly and then turned into the cough that never went away. After a month it took a definite turn for the worse: fever, chills, hacking. I had to forgo Wednesday Waves which literally never happens. It takes a lot for me to go to the doctor, but I did. She declared sinus and ear infection and prescribed the big meds. I came home and cancelled a busy two day schedule and did nothing but sleep.

Totally remember 1984. My mom had been gone one tender year and somehow I was finding my way raising two precious little ones, working three days a week in a profession I loved and doing whatever I could to keep the flame alive with the man who was doing all this beside me. What a whirlwind. It is hard for me to remember how moving through that chapter was even possible. And I have so much respect and awe for young families making it happen in this ever more challenging world.

Up top? Journal snapshot from Vancouver’s Leap with Kate Shela in January. This little being has been on my desk since then and I’ve been recognizing her early wisdom, tenacity, courage. Only now do I realize she’s been patiently informing me about destiny. Got it when a library angel landed a few weeks ago: James Hillman’s The Soul’s Code: in Search of Character and Calling. Quotes are from this book.

What is power and why would I choose this term in naming the Fluidity, Power and Release trilogy? I love the dictionary. Remember those big old well-used ones on the library lectern? Well, though Merriam Webster on-line lacks the intrigue and veracity, the definition is clear enough: the ability to do something or act in a particular way, especially as a faculty or quality. And I love this piece: the ability to act or produce an effect. It doesn’t include brawny or tough or struggle. Nope. Just clarity in action. I had a moment like that Sunday.

Our personal growth can be capricious, transformative moments that blindside us, consciousness leaps shrouded in mystique. We land in expanded zones with a thunk, not sure how we arrived, just gratefully amazed. I’ve been calling this the mystery and it has held my fascination this past year. This is one fertile state and the words I just wrote--- capricious and blindside and mystique---I’m challenging them. What is mystery exactly? And can we practice in a way that fosters it’s metamorphosing potential?

Ambushed two weeks ago while teaching. Blindsided by the jackal. The inner critic. The dude in charge of corralling me safely into my comfort zone. So I never go belly up or feel uptight or (heaven’s no!) do something fraught with risk. He’s a panicky beast and though I know he has my interest at heart, he’s also a bit mean-spirited. Surely you have your own version?

Here’s something I’ve noticed of late. When it comes to showing up for practice, we’re so willing to come with our heartache, knowing from past experience we’ll be able to feel in, be soothed or have resolution or some degree of definition. We’re grateful for a place to explore our mental confusion since sometimes a gift of insight or clarity opens for us. When our souls thirst, when our spirits flag---the mat, the dance floor---it’s where we seek sanctuary.

I woke frightened by a crazy dream last night, eyes wide, letting go, breathing. The work shift of our sub-conscious begins in earnest the moment we fall sleep.