fast backward - Elemental Health LLC

I have let this wait far too long. So, readers, I must bounce about a bit. In one hour, I will drive the Senator Highway to Goldwater Lake to receive the evidence that I am a certified massage therapist. This will take place at a picnic and will be much photographed by Allen and I promise to post the photos this evening and tell the whole tale.

For now, I am moving toward reflection and feeling a bit like the woman behind the camera watching and trying to capture things for further digestion in the future.

In the meantime, I have been learning a lot of massage therapy. I have learned ‘modalities’ or ways of giving massage that involve very deep touch using elbows and forearms and feet. I have been learning very light touch using fingertips or just the radiating energy from my hands. I have learned yoga therapy and Thai massage and connective tissue. The latter really turned my clock and created a lot of change in my own body. While the classroom has entertained and educated me, the love and warmth and joy in my life has been experienced more among family and weekend time.

Here are pictures from our many adventures beginning with an easy generous wonderful visit from Stephen and Geoffrey.

Here they are standing above the Colorado River on Navajo Bridge in a LOT of wind and sun. the desert is not for those of faint heart or loose hair.

Stephen and Geoffrey were loads of fun and stories of Manhattan personalities and their excitement about Brooklyn life. And they were willing to go along and see all the things on our ‘wanna-do’ list that we had not yet gotten around to.

On my list was meeting a waitress at a roadside restaurant that became famous for dishing sharp tongued jibes at Allen and his hiking compadres. She gave Geoffrey her best shots and he… well he gave her a run for her money.

They arrived as the North Rim opened and we were there. The Stellar Jays were there. The warmth was not. But it was absolutely beautiful hiking into the canyon amidst the Ponderosa Pines and Douglas Firs and Aspens. If I close my eyes and hold my memories just right I can still smell the trees. You can just see the trees on the edge of the frame, and we are facing the forest we have hiked through and you can see some of its shadow upon us.

We rested on rocks at the end of our descent. I loved seeing the three of them together looking into the cavernous expanse. Perspective.

That was about the only word I had. Perspective.

We saw petroglyphs in Sedona and looked long for elk. I took us on a wild white buffalo hunt to a site outside of flag our guidebook boasted about. Turns out the white buffalo and their feeders moved to Oregon a few years ago. So we hiked a nature trail looking for elk. So far, the only elk I have seen in Arizona have been served up on a dinner plate between hamburger buns. I am beginning to wonder if they really exist.

I am beginning to see Arizona as the time between. Between forging out on a huge adventure and whatever it is that is on the horizon. Much of me is complete with Arizona and with Prescott. There has been a huge controversy in this community regarding an insistence that a school mural ‘lighten the skin color’ of one of the children. Racism is less subtle out here. Demonstrations met their mark and the mural remains untouched (though was guarded by police for a time). In Raleigh, colleagues have been arrested for sit in demonstrations against the re-segregation of the schools. That courage beckons me back.

And yet… Arizona offers this.

I will miss the skies. For now, it is time to climb the mountain to the lake where a tiara will be placed on my head and which I will be asked to throw into the sky once we have all received our certificates. I do not know the meaning of this, but it seems very important to my classmates. It will remind me to take none of this all too seriously. Least of all myself.

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