doors

a few years ago i started noticing that all of the pictures i took from my travel wanderings had some random doors in the mix. usually with some element of oddity
or strange beauty around them. a door of an ancient church in montenegro, a gated door by a canal in venice, 2 mysterious doors in an alleyway in stockholm. i didn't take these intentionally, so obviously something about them struck me enough to photograph them. that's when i remembered that recurring themes in life usually have a universal purpose, so i started paying more attention to them. i won't insult your intelligence by giving you all of the door metaphors, but i will say that something greater than curiosity makes me want to open them all and see what purpose they serve. what's behind there? something to admire? or fear? or embrace? but there's a great wisdom in just observing their closed-ness and allowing wonder to speak.

ellen

i'm not a big t.v. fan, but 2 years ago i discovered Ellen Degeneres' talk show and got hooked. not that i plan my life around it or anything, but when i'm home and it's on, i flick the flick. where else can you dance, laugh, play games, and find out what's up with folks? actually, that's like most of my life, so i guess i like that Ellen has the same values. but the real draw is that she's so super real, speaks her truth, gives generously and has my dream wardrobe (not that i could pull it off). she's made her mark and is carrying the power well. it's so refreshing to see a star that shines.
so next time you're dying to stick your blindfolded face into a giant pizza, but don't really want to get pepperoni in your nose hairs, let the Ellen show do it for you. and hey, i wouldn't mind if they rolled the Gold Digger booth to my house, so i could stuff $2000 into my shirt and pants!
here's one of my favorite clips where Ellen talks to Gladys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83JDXXKzOXg&feature=related
enjoy!!

massage

if you're like me, you've probably mostly thought of getting a massage as a luxury that you can only justify paying for once a decade. but that's changing. i'm beginning to see it as a part of holistic health that can not only aid in healing, but keep one in their healthy shoes so that healing isn't necessary. now, who doesn't like to lay down on a table with a little face-hole in it and get all of their stress, toxins, sadness and demons rubbed out? not to mention getting healing, love, wholeness and angels rubbed in.
though it can be a bit pricey, depending on your insurance coverage and where you go, i'm becoming more and more convinced of the therapy of massage in all of it's modalities. in fact, i've been stirring around a pot of ideas for a long time, and one of them is to become a massage therapist myself. maybe even specialize in pre-natal and infant massage, so as to get some of the fulfillment i would've had as a midwife, but without the blood and placentas (whoa - i get woozy just thinking about it).
so, starting next week, i'm grabbing my lunch box and skipping all the way to the Richmond District to start learning about how to gift out healing to the world through touch. and the beautiful thing is that i get to be a participant in the process and the therapy for this next season.
if you find yourself in SF, be sure to include a student massage from the World School in your tour package (it'll be the cheapest thing you do here). and it's mmmmm...