Moonbathing

You guys, I’m not gonna lie.  I’m coming out of a rough few years.  I don’t even know what it is, but I’ve been really disconnected. It was (is?) likely depression, but not the way I know depression.  For me, depression was always crying and sadness and worthlessness and thinking the world would be better off without me in it.  This was none of that. I felt ok.

I felt…. ok.  Just low energy. Sleeping extra.  Just… fine.

I connected recently with a friend over facebook messenger and she asked me what was up with me.  She said she knew what was up with my kids, because of my regular facebook posts about their antics and accomplishments, but what was up with ME?

Uh, nothing?

Nothing has been new in a long time.  I haven’t been exercising.  Haven’t been wearing makeup. (Not that I need makeup. But it’s an indication for me that I’m sinking into a kind of invisibility that isn’t good for my soul.) Haven’t been writing. My big news and pretty much the only thing that makes it onto facebook from my life is that I have been cooking a lot. So, like, food I guess?

But it felt fine.  It even felt like self care sometimes.  Like I was giving myself down time. Letting myself sleep.  Not demanding too much of myself.  Not insisting that I sparkle all the time. It’s ok not to have to sparkle all the time. I can just be non-sparkly. It’s fine.

Except I’m not doing any of the things that nourish me.  Other than cooking and eating, both of which truly are things I enjoy, I haven’t been doing much of anything. This is my life, the only life I get. Pam, get off the couch! Or don’t, but at least write something from the couch other than witty little snippets on facebook.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to come out of this, and I made a realization.  Part of the problem is that I am a nocturnal human living in a day walker world.  And all of you who are like, “just get up early and you’ll fall asleep earlier,” no.  No I won’t. I had to be at the bus stop before 7am all through high school and I still had trouble falling asleep at night.  My energy starts to rise around 10pm, no matter how early I got up, no matter how tired I am. My energy buzzes from 10pm-2am.  In a perfect world, my bedtime would be 4am.

So I’ve decided to try going with it. 

I got a reflective vest and lights for walking at night.  My neighborhood is safe.  Cars would be the main risk, so I want to make sure I’m visible.  I’ve done post-midnight walks a few times now, and it’s so soul nourishing.  I breathe in the night and feel alive and happy. Plus I’m moving my body, which is good for all of the things. 

Maybe for me, coming out of low level depression doesn’t mean coming out into the sunshine.  Maybe it means coming out into the night. Maybe instead of letting the sun shine on my skin (which no, because my skin hates it), I need to let the moon and stars shine on me, my skin activated by the chill. Maybe I need to run my hands over my cold skin and breathe in the quiet dark, all by myself.  Maybe I don’t need to reconnect with the world at all right now.  Maybe I just need to reconnect with myself, all by myself, in the cool quiet of 2am.

Maybe the next time someone asks me what I’ve been up to, I’ll tell them that I have been dancing naked in my backyard in the middle of the night, to the music only my soul can hear, moonbathing. 

The tattoo

Almost two years ago, a hummingbird flew into my house and had some trouble finding his way back out.  This happened while I was battling a particularly stubborn bout of depression, attempting to self-medicate with fresh air and a beautiful spring day instead of my usual questionable methods, naps and bourbon.  In his struggles, the hummingbird taught me a life lesson that helped me find my way back into the light. 

The lesson was this: When you find yourself struggling hard, try something different.  When you feel like you’re banging your head against the wall, look around for a door.  Also, when you feel like shit, maybe go outside, because that’s where the flowers and air and vitamin D live. 

I knew almost immediately that the hummingbird was my next tattoo.  It had been fifteen years since my first one.  I left the tattoo shop after my first excited to get another. I was totally bitten by the ink bug.  I wanted more.  But somehow the right tattoo didn’t come along until now. 

It took more than a year to find the right artist, but I finally did.  Jim Judeikis at Saints and Sinners Tattoo in Baltimore.  He had done a friend’s scar cover, and when I checked out his portfolio and shamelessly stalked his instagram, I knew he was the one.  He doesn’t do a lot of tattoos like mine, or at least didn’t have a lot in his portfolio, but every tattoo had beautiful lines, even to my picky eye. 

So once we got our tax return money and somewhat recovered from Christmas spending, I called for a consult.

All of my nerves were activated.  My first tattoo had come to me while meditating.  I had drawn it, and simply asked the artist to copy it onto me.  This was different.  He would be drawing it.  I just had ideas. 

I went into the shop for my consult clutching my packet of materials, including similar tattoos I liked, a really bad hummingbird drawing I had attempted, even mirror selfies of the gist of my tattoo inexpertly scribbled on my own shoulder with eyeliner.  I put enough money in the meter for 45 minutes, because I was 15 minutes early and budgeted for a half hour consult.

Don't laugh.
You try drawing on your own right shoulder.

Ten minutes later, I walked out, lighter by a $150 deposit, with a tattoo date in my phone’s calendar, and the distinct impression that Jim and the front desk guy might be making fun of me for Type-A’ing my tattoo consult. 

I was clearly and intensely over-prepared for my consult. And I didn’t fit in.  Forty-one, no visible body mods, wearing mom jeans and a tank top (in case he wanted to…. I don’t know… like, look at my shoulder or something.  Spoiler: He didn’t.)  All the blue and purple hair in the universe couldn’t disguise the fact that I didn’t belong in there.  I don’t even know what the other customers milling around were wearing, but they all seemed a lot more comfortable than I did, and were dressed in ways I envied but couldn’t duplicate on my plus size aging body without looking silly.

I love my body, and I love my fashion, and I love who I am.  But something about being in a tattoo shop pushed all of my “not cool enough” buttons. 

Every time I do something a little bit crazy—dye my hair wacky colors, get a tattoo, wear fabulous clothing, pose on the internet in my underwear—I have this moment.  This “who the hell do you think you are” moment.  In my head, I’m still the dorky kid who did too well on math tests and lied to her friends and told them she got a B, because straight A’s were for losers.  And at the same time, I’m also the “basic bitch” suburban housewife and mother of two and minivan owner.  And pumpkin lattes are delicious, and yes, I do wait all year for them as a matter of fact.

But my insecurities and social paranoia aside, I felt very confident in Jim as an artist.  And I was beyond excited to finally get the tattoo I had been talking about for almost two years.

The day of the appointment came, and I was so nervous I could barely eat.  Excitement and trepidation ran through me until I couldn’t tell which was which, just that my heart rate was up and my hands shaky.  What if I forgot how much tattoos hurt?  Could I really sit there for three and a half hours in pain?  What if it was terrible?  Maybe I should have used that numbing cream a nurse friend had slipped into my purse even after I told her I didn’t need it.  What if I didn’t like the drawings Jim had prepared?  What if what if what if…. And also, tattoo day!  TATTTTTTTOOOOOOOOO!! Tattootattootattootattootattootattoo! Blaaaaagggghhhhh!!!

I walked into the shop pretty much ready to puke. 

Three giggling women and a (non-giggling) man walked in at the same time.  They were apparently there for some spur of the moment (possibly alcohol-encouraged?) piercings.

One giggling blonde asked the front desk guy, “Is it going to hurt?”

And I couldn’t help it.  All of my tension and anticipation and heightened emotion coalesced into a quick bubble of laughter.  Front desk guy met my eyes.  In unison, we said, “Yes.”

I started to feel better.

I had to wait for about fifteen minutes for my appointment so Jim could grab some dinner.  Actually, I think the guy said lunch.  Lunch at 5:30pm.  That is so not my life.  But while I waited, a bunch of people came in and out.  It was a beautiful warm Saturday evening in Fells Point, one of the first pleasant, dry weekends of the season.  Most of the people coming in were just out wandering before dinner.  They weren’t there for ink. 

I was. 

I did belong there. 

Mom jeans and all.

Who the hell do I think I am?  Hell if I know, but I was getting a damn tattoo, and it was going to be awesome. And I didn’t even consider the numbing cream.  Well, didn’t seriously consider it anyway.  Because I’m a bad-ass.

Well, for a suburban housewife.  I mean, for a minivan driver who likes pumpkin lattes, I am totally a bad-ass.

Eventually Jim came down and I followed him upstairs.  We went over his drawings, made some minor adjustments, and sat down to get started.  He asked if I wanted to watch a movie.  I said no because I wanted to be in the moment. 

I didn’t say that in the moment thing to him.  I just said, “No thanks.”

He went to put the music on and I saw he had been listening to comedy before I came in.  I asked him to put the comedy back on.  He looked skeptical, and said, “Are you sure?  It’s pretty nasty.”

“Even better,” I answered.  “I don’t have a line to cross.  Bring on the nasty.”

Several minutes later, we were both laughing out loud at jokes about golden showers.  Now the problem with that is that it made my shoulder shake every time I laughed, so we had to turn it off, but the ice was broken.  We were good.  Bonded over dirty jokes.

The next three hours?  Well…. they were fine. Tattoos don’t tickle, but except for one small ouchy spot, it was pretty easy.  We talked about politics, Baltimore, how he came to own the shop, kids, TV shows, a shared hatred of patchouli.  We talked social media, travel, and schadenfreude.  And ink.  We talked about tattoos.  His.  Mine.  Others he had done.  The time passed shockingly quickly.

A teeny bit excited?  And maybe high on endorphins?

Before I knew it, I had taken my excited mirror selfie and gotten wrapped up in bandages for the ride home.  My husband was still fifteen minutes away.  He was driving me because I have a very strong endorphin response and get loopy and high from pain, and I didn’t trust myself to drive.  So I hung out in the lobby with my shoulder wrapped in a cross between a black trash bag and diapers, waiting for my ride. 

One by one, the artists came downstairs to hang by the front desk and get ready to go.  I was closing the place down.  I was separate from them, over in my chair, facebooking my face off about my new ink. 

But I belonged there.  And all of them, with their intimidating facial piercings and stretched lobes and every visible bit of skin covered in ink… they couldn’t have been nicer to me. 

To me.  The over-prepared, middle-aged, fat, suburban mom.

Maybe it was all of the endorphins, buzzing me enough that an hour later I still had trouble mastering the simple task of filling a glass with water, but I had this beautiful moment.  A oneness.  A dropping of masks.  A releasing of roles. 

I realized that my insecurities and nervousness about being accepted are the things that hold me back from connecting.  That my preoccupation with how others might see or judge me gets in the way of being completely myself. 

Well fuck that. 

I should stop doing that. 

Because who I am?  She’s kind of a bad-ass. 

A minivan driving, pumpkin latte drinking, costume loving, freshly inked bad-ass. 

I spend a lot of time and energy struggling with social anxiety.  And when I find myself struggling, I’m going to try something different.  I’m going to stop banging my head. 

And my beautiful new ink is here to remind me to find the door, and fly.

No, not fly. That's too cheesy. Be a bad-ass. That's what I meant to say.

Walking in the in between

For the last few days, I've been in this in-between state, between depression and not depression.  It’s a weird state, an interesting state, and not one I remember spending much time in before.  Everything is suddenly symbolic.  Like the hummingbird that helped to pull me out the door, everything I see takes on meaning.  It feels like a good place from which to create art, and is giving me theories about the link between creativity and depression.  I bet a lot of cool shit was created in this weird in-between state. 

I walk into the kitchen and notice that the compost canister is full.  OK, actually I notice that it was full days ago, and now there is also a mixing bowl next to the compost canister overflowing with banana peels, strawberry leaves, and dead flowers.  I pick up the canister and bowl and think about taking the rotting cast-offs in my soul and trying to turn them into something rich and life-giving. 

I walk outside with the compostables and a light rain is falling.  I have always loved rain, especially spring and summer rain that’s not too intense or stormy.  Actually, I like stormy too.  If it were safe to be outside in a big storm, I would be totally into it.  Being outside in the rain is weirdly a mood booster for me.  For most people, it’s the sun, but I don’t really like the sun that much.  Sure, I’ll take a gorgeous blue sky on a perfect fall day, but there’s just something about rain.  I turn my face up to the rain and think about my tendency towards tears, about how antidepressants made me unable to cry, about how much I truly enjoy being moved to tears by something.  I like to cry.  Not sad cry.  I don’t like to sad cry, but I’m not willing to give up tears of poignancy and beauty in order to get rid of tears of sadness.  I embrace the rain.  Even the storms. 

As I walk back with my empty canister, I notice that the lawn service mowed down my tiny baby fig tree last week.  The fig tree that I planted outside a little bit too late this past fall, that probably froze too soon and went into shock, that had no leaves this spring.  The fig tree that I had given up for dead, but which was still surrounded by a protective ring of rocks and mulch so the kids wouldn’t step on it by accident and the mowers wouldn’t mow it.  [Seriously, mowers, a ring of grapefruit-sized rocks with mulch inside.  Don’t mow cavalierly over that shit.  That dead leafless stick is symbolic of someone’s soul, assholes.]  But here’s what happened.  From the root of the cut-off stick, new leaves had emerged.  Life.

New leaves grow from the half-dead, frozen, cut off stump of my soul.
P.S. If these are not fig leaves but are, in fact, a weed, please don't tell me.

In this in-between state, taking out the compost becomes a poem.  Or maybe three poems.  I’m not a poet, so I can’t write them.  They would come out unbearably cheesy and overbearing. I’ve tried.  Once I put the word “poem” on something I’m writing, it instantly turns to crap.  Prose is my poetry, so I wrote them my way.  Laundry next.  Hoping I can keep this state going, because chores are a lot more interesting when I’m wandering around with poet brain.  Maybe I should ditch the vacuuming of the living room that is on my agenda and instead go weed the front garden in the rain. 

Oh no, “weed the front garden” just became a symbol for grooming my hoo-hah.  Aaaaaand I think poet brain might be done for now.  

The big D

It has become kind of trendy lately for bloggers to reveal their mental health stuff.  I think that is pretty effing awesome, because no, we don’t all have our shit together.  And because mental illness is still stigmatized, and that stigma reduces the utilization of resources and treatments that can help.  And because the last damn thing you need when your brain is messing you up is to feel alone. 

Many of my favorite bloggers suffer from depression, and they have written about it so eloquently that I kind of want to stop writing right now, because who the hell am I to say anything more?  Recently, Allie of Hyperbole and a Half had a post on depression so true and honest, I could barely get through it.  The Bloggess has been extremely open about her mental health stuff. Here is one of her early posts about it.   Her two word mantra, “Depression lies,” has been enormously helpful to me.  Julie, from I Like Beer and Babies recently did a post that really resonated with me.  Because here’s the thing.  Someone could be depressed and you would never know.  When I gave my best friend a peek behind the curtain, she was completely surprised.  Because I still get up and do all of my stuff and put on the same minimal amount of makeup I usually do.  I laugh, and post funny crap on facebook, and talk about my kids melting my heart.  And all of that stuff is true.  I’m not faking it.  Depression, at least for me, isn’t all day every day.  As much as Hyperbole and a Half’s account yanked at me with that feeling of like calling to like, the complete lack of feeling she describes is not what depression looks like for me. 

I feel everything.  All the time.  I feel too much. 

I’ve talked here a little bit about my history of depression, and one tool that has helped me keep it at bay.  But that was an account of something in the past.  Something I used to experience, and how I kicked its ass.

Crap.  So yeah, no. 

I mean yes, a little bit.  I have been pretty depressed for months, but may not have actually met criteria for clinical depression in that time.  See, before I became a professional boo-boo kisser and lunch packer and kid snuggler, I was a statistician.  And before that, I was a depression researcher.  I have a PhD in Psychology and spent seven years of my life studying depression.  I could recite the criteria in my sleep.  And have I met those criteria lately?  Hard to say.  Maybe, or maybe not quite.  I spent a decade in therapy and even longer with meditation and other tools to try to keep myself out of this pit.  And maybe it all worked a little bit. Maybe I didn't fall all the way down.

Except my brain still does the thing. 

The thing.  The thing where I go from bed to couch and nap a lot.  The thing where my brain tells me I am a failure, and worthless.  The thing where everything just seems really difficult.  The thing where all I see are the negatives.  And when I shake my head, try to snap out of it, and focus on all of the things I have to be grateful for, instead of feeling grateful, I feel guilty for being depressed when my life is so good.  Sleeping is a sweet release from feeling like complete crap, so I sleep a lot.  I read novels to escape, and I play Candy Crush, 15 lives at a time (5 on the phone, 5 on the ipad, 5 on the laptop). 

Self-care goes out the window.  I usually have a regimen of supplements that help keep me feeling good and keep my body healthy.  Calcium and magnesium for bone health, B-vitamins for hormone regulation, Fish Oil for my heart, D for mood.  You can tell me I’m just making expensive pee, and maybe that’s true, but when I stop taking those, I know I’m slipping.  Not caring about future Pam’s bone and heart health.  Not caring about anything.  I shower less often.  I don’t floss.  I eat crap.  I don’t exercise.  I lie on the couch and do nothing and then beat myself up for doing nothing. 

Here are some of the things that could help me.  Exercising.  Going outside.  Writing.  Seeing friends.  Going to see my therapist.  Yup, all of those things would help.  I really should do them.  Ugh, but then I would have to shower, and put on a bra, and get off this couch.  I’ll take a nap instead.  And months pass. 

I was a depression researcher.  I have dealt with and (mostly) successfully managed my depression for decades.  I knew I had slipped, but there is a gravitational field to depression from which it is incredibly hard to break free.  I didn’t go see my therapist, because I knew she would encourage me to do stuff, like exercise and go outside and crap, and the next week she would ask me if I had done those things.  And what if I had to tell her that no, I had just napped on the couch instead and cried into my fourth glass of whisky.  What if she saw what an utter failure I was?  Or worse, what if I had to actually get up off the couch and exercise?  Better just not to see her.  Easier.  Maybe no one will have to know.  Shame.

A few months ago, I wrote this.  I seem really happy with my hibernation, but somewhere between February and May, pleasant winter hibernation turned into depression and a complete disengagement from life.  Like I said, you might not have known.  I still met my friends when they set something up, and I always felt better when I was with them, glad that I went, but when they bailed, I was relieved that I could stay home.  I had moments of joy with my kids when the sun was shining or they were being particularly funny or adorable or just being so themselves that I was overcome with love.  Everything I said on facebook or when talking to people was true.  I just didn’t talk about the part how I was also crying for no reason and not taking care of myself and hiding in my bed all day. 

Here’s the good news.  The fact that I am telling you this means that I think it’s over.  I’m writing.  And while a part of me is still judging every word harshly and wondering why any of you would even give a crap, I’m still writing.  I filled up my old lady 4-week pill container yesterday with all of my superstitious supplements.  I got off the couch and cleaned two bathrooms, including tackling a pile of random crap that had been accumulating for several years.  When my kids made me get up six times in the space of about two minutes to refill their after-school snacks today, I didn’t even snap at them for disturbing my love affair with the couch.  Progress. 

So what got me out of it?  Well, spring doesn’t hurt.  Spring is good.  Flowers and the color green and the smell of lilac and 75 degree days and flip flops and dandelions.  Also, I decided to plan my next photo shoot.  I’m going to do a pin-up shoot.  Now unlike posing in a bikini, plus size women doing pin-up is not exactly revolutionary.  That kind of fashion was made for curves, and plenty of curvy women know it and have demonstrated it beautifully.  But while a pin-up shoot may not be as political or groundbreaking as wearing a bikini, you know what it is?  Fun.   It’s fun to buy leopard print bras and matching panties with attached garters.  It’s fun to buy slinky red wiggle dresses and fabulous corsets. It’s fun to experiment with red lips, and play with crazy rolled up hair, and plan something that will make me feel good. 

From the couch.  I planned it from the couch. 

I’m not sure what the moral of this story is.  In part, I just want to be honest and tell my story, particularly because there was a shame component that kept me from seeking help.  Even me.  Depression researcher. Past board member on not one, but two non-profits aimed at reducing the stigma associated with mental illness.  Person who takes her shame and blogs about it for all to see.  Still.  Even me.  It even happened to me.  That means that even with all of the recent openness about depression, there is work to be done. 

Another part of the story is to say that part of getting out of this depression was meeting myself where I was.  I was on the couch.  Yes, if I were magically in a twice-weekly yoga class, I probably would have gotten better faster.  But I wasn’t capable of making that happen.  I was capable of shopping online, perusing pinterest for vintage hair styles and posing ideas, and getting excited about doing something fun for myself.
 

A week or so ago, a hummingbird flew into my house through my open front door, lured by the bright red glass of my foyer light fixture.  And then he couldn’t figure out how to get out.  He kept banging his head against the white ceiling, thinking it was the sky.  Over and over, it wasn’t the sky. The door was wide open right next to him, but he tired himself out banging his head on the ceiling.  Eventually, he stopped and perched on the light fixture, making the most pitiful sound.  I wanted to help him, but I didn’t know how.  The door was right there.  All he had to do was look over, see the flowers outside, try something new, and the whole sky would be his once more.  But he couldn’t see it and no one else could show him. Eventually, after more than half an hour, after I had stopped watching, he found his way out the door. 

I think I’ve found my way out too.

*Side note: When I posted on my personal facebook page about the hummingbird, a prophetic friend suggested I put on a sexy red dress to lure the hummingbird outside.  As it happened, the arrival of a sexy red dress may have been the tipping point that helped me find my way out.  Never underestimate the power of a sexy red dress.

You know that rhythm thing I do?

I just got back from a blissfully rejuvenating trip all by my lonesome. No kids, no husband, just me and my little carry-on-size suitcase. I ate my fill of all of the things that are harder to come by in suburban Maryland: Indian, Ethiopian, stunningly good sushi, a burrito the size of my head, a Whole Foods smorgasbord, and two “It’s It” ice cream sandwiches. When people asked where I was going, the answer always started with the same question: “You know that rhythm thing I do?”

TaKeTiNa, a.k.a. that rhythm thing I do.

Most people haven’t heard of TaKeTiNa yet, and I haven’t talked about it here before. For me, it was the first thing that helped me to silence my chattering mind, the first thing that opened my door to one-ness with the universe, the first thing that really transformed how I AM in the world. So what is it? For the official word on that, check out the official page, but here’s what I have to say about it. TaKeTiNa is a way to make music and rhythm using your body. It’s a way to bring anyone, even people with no musical background at all, into a complex rhythmic musical experience in a group. So you get deep connection with a group and the magic of being part of creating multi-layered music. There’s something about music and rhythm in a group that is already transcendent for many people. People who do drum circles or chanting are tapping into that same something. If you want music in a group, there are a lot of ways to find that.

But for me, the crucial and perhaps unique element of TaKeTiNa is that you can’t do it with your brain. It all sounds simple. You step in one pattern, clap in another pattern, and do call-and-response singing with your voice. But in my experience, even highly trained percussionists who think that they can hold any polyrhythm with their bodies can’t brain-power their way through TaKeTiNa. The pathway to finding these rhythms is letting go of trying to “get it right.” In order to bring in the claps, your footsteps fade into the background. You forget that you’re stepping, but your body keeps the pulse going. Like new moms, who find that they are rocking a baby even when they are not holding one, your body has the power to hold a rhythm without your conscious direction. And then as the leader’s voice calls evoke a third layer of rhythm, the claps too can fade from your awareness.

I don’t understand why this happens, but giving my body all of that stuff to do, while letting my brain take a break from being in charge, opens a door. I have epiphanies and see myself very clearly. I feel bliss and love and connection to the universe. And I change. All of the places where I am stuck are lit up like beacons. Or maybe they are the only things not lit up. My whole self is filled with love and light, EXCEPT for those places where I am stuck, so it makes them very easy to see.

This is all getting pretty esoteric. Let me be more concrete for a moment. I credit TaKeTiNa with my ability to manage my depression without antidepressants.

I have struggled with my mood since adolescence. Depression was a heavy water-filled blanket that covered me from time to time and made it impossible for me to see, or breathe, or be. The first time I tried Zoloft, it was a revelation. You mean, I could be a little bit sad and not have that feeling take over my entire nervous system? Wow! I felt like I finally understood how “normal” people felt. I thought I would be a lifer. But over time, I found that I couldn’t cry at beautiful poignancy. I became less interested in art and music and… just life. I was fine, and not depressed, and OK, and just fine. It wasn’t good enough. Going off the meds was scary, because I remembered what it was like not to be fine. I remembered how dark things could get, dark enough to make “fine” seem like bliss. But fine wasn’t bliss. I wanted bliss. So (with my doctor’s supervision), I tapered and eventually stopped my happy pills.

The sun was brighter. The grass was greener. I was alive again! I could cry when things were heartbreakingly beautiful. Then the depression wave came again, like I knew it would. But I had new tools. My experiences in TaKeTiNa had opened a door to show me how to be present with negative emotions, to acknowledge and see those emotions without letting them take over completely. How does stepping, clapping, and singing in a circle do that? I have no idea, but it did.

I spent three years in a training learning to lead TaKeTiNa workshops. Twice each year, I spent 2-3 weeks at a retreat center outside of Portland, Oregon learning to play the instruments needed to lead this work, learning the nuts and bolts of how to do it, and by far the most challenging component, learning to get my ego and my dysfunctional patterns out of the way so I could be there for a group and allow the kinds of transformations to happen for them that had happened for me. In the middle of the training, I popped out a couple of kids, and they were quite… distracting. But for three years, I did deep soul work with the same 20 or so people. We examined the patterns in our lives that kept us from being authentic. We looked at the scariest of old wounds and started working to heal them so that we wouldn’t be triggered by people who came to our workshops (or if we were triggered, at least we would know it, rather than reacting unconsciously). We laughed and cried and made music and hugged and drank wine and had deep true talks and became a family.

All of this was to answer the question of where I went last week. Many of the people in my TaKeTiNa family went on to the next level of training, to learn more about how to lead people deeper into rhythm and transformation and bliss. And last week they had their “final exams.” These beautiful people, my family, are scattered around the globe, including several from Australia. And many of them were going to be in one place for a week, stepping and clapping and singing and learning and changing. We don’t have the money for me to be flying around and renting cars and stuff, but some things are important enough to ignore that reality, and this was one of them. So I went.

I stepped and clapped and sang. As I lay on the floor after one journey, looking up at the reclaimed wood beams, I had a deep epiphany about the beauty of imperfection. That it is the things about ourselves that we struggle with the most that make us the most beautiful. That the places inside that are not perfect are what bring depth and meaning to our lives. Simone Siva, beautiful grounded soul, thank you for that. In another journey, a wave came over me, a pocket of sadness and grieving that had been put off and needed to be expressed. It spilled out my eyes in that safe space and a piece of my heart moved towards healing. Grady, wild vulnerable powerhouse, thank you for that. In yet another journey, my steps became a dance and I was suffused with such joy I thought I would burst open and become a being made of pure light and love. Robert, deep authentic trickster, thank you for that.

So that’s where I was last week.

(Well, that, plus seeing a few other old friends, and eating my weight in ethnic food.)


If you’re thinking, “Where do I sign up?” Here are some events coming up:

September 16th-19th in Alameda, CA

Or, the same weekend on the east coast, September 16th-18th near Atlanta, GA

There are teachers all over the country (and all over the world) doing this work. Right now, the North American teachers are not compiled in a handy dandy list, because we JUST (I mean, within weeks) formed an official entity and are in the process of getting a new website up and running. I’ll post that link here when it exists. San Francisco Bay Area teachers have a meetup group for their events.  [Edited to add the link.  Here is the website for TaKeTiNa in North America!!]

Until the North American website is set up, if you are looking for a TaKeTiNa teacher in your area, you can leave a comment here with your general geographic location and I will try to point you in the right direction. You can also join the TaKeTiNa facebook group for event announcements, or to ask about teachers in your area or teachers willing to travel to your area.