2700 People

My body hasn't been much of a friend to me this holiday season. Besides the extra pounds (almost unnoticed among all the other extra pounds), I had a nasty lingering cough + postnasal drip. And then on Christmas, while putting together my new gas grill (present from Diana) I pranged something in my back. Just enough to be really painful several times a day, but not enough to keep me from trying to lead a normal life.

The postnasal drip makes me just stuffy enough that when I sleep, my mouth is open. So besides what is probably heroic snoring (thank heavens I live alone), I wake up in the night with a mouth that feels like shoe leather. To help this, I've been drinking a lot of water. So I wake up for other reasons too.

All this is surely more than you wanted to know. But it has led me to sleep lightly, much longer than usual, and to have many and vivid dreams. Actually, I have been having many and vivid dreams ever since I started to study Huna-- lucid dreaming is part of the study, and I find that my dream life is closer to consciousness in many ways. I keep a dream journal, and particularly enjoy looking over the dreams of several weeks ago to see if they forshadowed what was coming (the answer: emotionally, yes--materially, no).

So last night I was dreaming that I was teaching a third-level exorcism class at a school that was kind of like Hogwarts, but had adult students too, and it was the first day of school and they had assigned me the same room as a first year class on taming elementals, and the teachers and I were arguing over who got the room, and suddenly my guardian angel made an appearance.

My guardian angel shows no originality at all--pure white, 10 feel tall, large feathery wings, androgynous expression. No jewelry, mod clothes, body piercings. But when he talks, I listen.

So he shows up in the dream, and we went into a grey void to talk. Being semi-lucid, at least, I wanted to talk to him about getting my body back on my side again. But he didn't want to talk about that.

Instead, he showed me a family--Husband, Wife, four kids ages 5 to 14 or so. And he said "These people are together because of things you have done in your life". I didn't recognize them or have any idea what I had done. He then went on to say "Did you know there are 2700 people living better lives because of various things you have done?"

He then disappeared. I was amazed and pleased. And only later thought to wonder how many people are living worse lives...

Somewhere in that discussion, he also told me how to deal with my body. To do more listening to it, and less telling it what to do. Good advice.

Some of the effects of this dream may have been brought on by the dinner we had Sat. night. As a Christmas present to Diana's folks, I took the 4 of us out to a lavish Chinese meal. The restaurant was almost totally full of what appeared to be a baptism party--lots of baby pictures, mostly Chinese people, and everyone in very very good spirits. We had an outstanding meal--Chinese Chicken Salad, then Corn and Crab soup, then Mongolian Beef, Braised String Beans, and Peking Duck. The Peking Duck was a real experience.

When I have had this dish in the past, the waiter has come to the table, carefully assembled four little pancakes with all the good stuff inside, and then disappeared. But last night we got the "Authentic Hong Kong" Peking Duck. It was the whole duck! A huge platter of duck meat, cut in that traditional Chinese way so there were at least two small bones in each piece of meat. Another huge platter of crispy duck skin. A dish of hyper-concentrated plum (duck) sauce--a little dab'll do ya. And a steam basket of steamed buns that were too small to begin to hold all the other stuff. Then the waiters left, and we were on our own. It had been nearly 15 years since I had last had Peking duck, but nobody else at the table had ever had it at all. So we experimented. Luckily, it was so good that almost anything we did tasted outstanding. We got through the meal without either of Diana's parents (who are in their 80s) choking on a duck bone, and a good time was had by all. As Diana was driving home, I fell asleep in the front seat, visions of Rolaids dancing in my head, but actually I had none of the 'ate too much rich food' problems that sometimes plague me.

Got home to discover that Viv had discovered my site. I hadn't told anybody about it, but she recommended her web hosting company to me so I gave her a referral when I signed up. I figured she'd be along. So fitting that her's is the first journal I read, and she is the first reader of mine.

Today, I'm off to Reiki and Huna practice--hopefully, between the two, my back problems will become a faded memory.

I get totally tongue-tied in person when someone asks me what Reiki is--I usually say "well, let me show you". It's worse trying to describe it on the web. Suffice it to say that the experience is that I put my hands on you (frequently the head or upper back), you feel a sense of warmth from my hands (even if they may feel cold when you touch them), and we stay like this for 1-5 minutes. Then I put my hands in another position, etc. It is very relaxing, very like meditation. Our culture does so little touching! So it satisfies something very deep to touch and be touched in this way.

And Reiki is very easy to learn. You can learn level 1 in a day, and level 2 almost as fast. It gets better when you practice. Reiki is especially good for people under various kinds of stress--many of us have worked with people undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treatments, or postoperatively. At our practices, we have massage tables and take turns getting on the table while 2 to 5 others work on us simultaneously. It is very wonderful and relaxing, to give and recieve.

Huna literally means 'Secret' in Hawaiian. These are some of the teachings of ancient Hawaiians (500-1200AD) which went underground when Hawaii was conquered by a more patriarchal faction around 1200, and went even more underground when the Europeans came. Working with several native Hawaiians, a fellow named Tad James has developed some intensive courses that teach Huna philosophy. The classes are wonderful--people from all over the world attend, and interesting people they are...

I'm sure I'll have more to say about Huna, since it's philosophy is both simple and very challenging. Reiki is so hard to talk about I probably won't say much about it.

Thank you for reading.