Doctortayria's Blog

Trust life. Trust yourself. Love each other passionately and equally. I don’t say this lightly. The day has reminded me of this acutely. The words sound cliché, may sound like just words, but the doing of these requires everything.

The acreage I am staying on here in Mexico is home to lots of animals, of course, but is also visited regularly by lots of people. I am thinking that these creatures must be adapted to human traffic, as they are far less skittish than what I am used to. Normally a lizard, or a rabbit or a bird will scurry quickly when humans charge by but I notice that if I stop soon enough they don’t seem bothered by my presence and I can sit and hang out a bit with them. I sat with a lizard the other day for about a half an hour and it was fascinating. The lizard was hyper-aware of me, of course, but just stood in one spot the whole time. At first it was in a posture with its front legs stretched to hold the front of the body as tall as possible. When I started talking gently to it, instantly it splayed its legs down flat on the ground as its eyes got bigger. I swear it was listening. I have had similar experiences with birds. When I sit really still, they will hop closer instead of further when I begin to talk gently to them.

Before I came here I had a dream in which my feet were planted deeply into the earth, like roots of a tree, and my head was high up in the sky, the height of a very tall tree. My body was stretched like a gumby character between the two positions, and my stomach hurt. I’ve been having stomach problems and I felt the dream was telling me something about the ways I stretch myself between earthy knowledge and sky, or transpersonal, knowledge. Something in my system is struggling to digest it all.

I feel I’m learning something from the lizard, who lives as close to the earth as a creature can get and the bird who lives high above it, and it feels connected to the information in this dream. I can’t articulate what I’m learning yet, but I sense it at a cellular level. I am hoping it will help my stomach!

One thing a spa experience can teach is how much the nervous system is calibrated to a busy life. Even when there is time to breathe, walk slowly and quiet the buzz in the mind, the habit of a normal quickened pace continues. I’m in Mexico, and culturally a slower pace of life is more natural here. Between that influence, and having a spa week, the reminders of slowing and quieting are starting to seep into my cells and psyche. These are practices that can and should be integrated into every day of life. Heart rate, mind rate, blood pressure, everything will benefit.

“Listen to the space between heartbeats.” Those words came to me in a dream once, and their message continues to unfold for me.

I am a guest right now at a very exclusive spa in Mexico. My friend, Donna Sternberg, has a dance company that will be presenting her latest choreography here this week, and her company members are teaching dance to the guests. She gets to bring someone to accopany her for free, and I’m the lucky one this year. I’ve been stunned by beauty and luxuriousness. This place is acres and acres of gorgeous garden with cottages here and there and spa facilities everywhere.

Today I got turned around, a very common experience for me, and managed to get very lost. I found myself at the back of everything where all of the many workers who keep up the grounds, cooks, maids and such have quarters. There were fences everywhere and I could not find my way out. It was like its own village but messy, smelled bad, and nothing was growing or thriving there. The more I wandered the more lost in it I seemed to get.

By the time I finally found my way through dust and withered weed-covered trails back to the grounds where the flowers and people glowing in relaxation and contentment were I saw all of this beauty differently. A lustre came off of it. I have been enjoying myself very much, but this experience shook me up. I’m easing my way back into just accepting and appreciating the gift that this experience is, but am reminded of the shadow it creates. Working at an orphanage outside of Nairobi in Kenya next month will be more of the same. It is a challenge to be grateful for gifts and privilege while staying very present to all sides of these equations.

In my shaken state, I looked up at the bright blue sky, big fluffy clouds, heard the birds and felt the wind and realized what I am enjoying the most here actually belongs to all of us. This is true and comforting.

Having had some treatments recently in massage and body work, I am reminded of the seriousness of touch deprivation. I live alone and am not in any kind of intimate relationship. After having been married for 20 years and having children who were very cuddly and tactile, it was a shock to my system to have all of that removed from my life. I believe strongly that as humans we are meant to live differently than we do in the Western culture in this regard.

When I visited Africa for some time and stayed in the villages I noticed that the people were touching each other all of the time – as they walked along the road, sat around to talk, worked, during nearly everything in life. It was not at all, ever sexual; it was like puppies who pile up together or sit side to side together, breathing together. There are certain chemicals released in the body and brain when healthy touch takes place, and we are deficient in those chemicals when we do not experience touch. Babies who do not receive it will not grow. I believe it is the same in adults, and that the lack of it leads to problems physically, emotionally and psychologically.

Touch has become something in our culture that has sexual connotations unless it is family of origin members touching. Even little children in school aren’t allowed to touch each other. Teachers can’t hug their little students. I think this is a tragic loss and an ailment. I would love to figure out how to help our culture move forward with wisdom in this regard.

Somebody is on my side right now regarding travel. I was invited to Mexico as a guest for a week at Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, a truly extraordinary health spa. We just arrived today. This morning just before we left I got an invitation to co-lead a trip to Africa for 10 days in June, another all expenses paid trip plus some. I’ve been doing most of my work closer to home in North Carolina for a couple of years now, but suddenly the gods seem to want me to break away, and I’m grateful. With the broadening horizons of my sense of village I feel already my heart aligning with the beats in hearts of these countries and communities. The new moon was just a couple of days ago. Its new tide is turning up wonders. Change is coming, I’ve been feeling it for some time, though it is one day at a time stepping into the future that will reveal it.

I remember once reading the words, “If you can see the path you are on, then you are not on your own path.” I can’t see where this one leads, it’s a step into the mystery with every day, but I feel life pulling me toward itself and it is fascinating.

If you haven’t seen the movie Babette’s Feast I highly recommend it. It is at the top of the genre of films about food that speak of its power, least of all nutritionally, but mostly of its ability to lead people into a sort of religious experience, one that breaks down rigidities and borders as a sort of love and bliss take over. I am staying with a cousin tonight who might never describe his relationship to cooking and food in such a way, but my experience of it is as such. Whatever vegetables have been gathered from the local co-op, some of them you have never heard of, meats that were on sale at the market, rices or risottos available, he is a genius at creating a menu and preparing the food with broths and sauces and spices, like an alchemist in his laboratory. The wines he serves are carefully chosen and enhance the foods to melt your heart.

On my 50th birthday, sad over divorce and a life dissolving, this cousin cooked for me a 9-course meal, each plate a tasting size portion, and all of them chosen, lined up and prepared with extraordinary care, even though he makes it all look as natural as breathing. The wines through the courses were suited to the flavors and textures of the foods. Tonight, just a casual meal as I pass through town, was one of these meals – rare and thoughtfully combined foods and wine.

These pleasures are the essence of life, a universal language and religion. I want to learn more and more about how to create such experiences as I go forward in life. I feel inspired. The senses are portals. The gods address us through them.