Sunday, July 7, 2024

 Sunday, July 7, 2024

   I had a fantastic night’s sleep despite napping a lot yesterday. I had been almost narcoleptic. I would do some writing and feel compelled to close my eyes and sleep for a while. I have no idea how many short naps I took.  Then, I was good and ready for bed by 8:30.  I feared going to sleep that early would mean a restless night’s sleep. I had nothing of the sort. I slept straight through to 4 a.m.  I finally got out of bed shortly before 5 a.m.

   I did my gentle yoga in combination with laughter yoga. I made a small but significant change in the laughter yoga. Instead of doing a gentle “Ha ha, ha,” until I ran out of breath, I did a more intense form of laughter. I opened my mouth wider, which lifted my cheeks. This impacted my abdominal muscles; I used a different set. I ran out of breath sooner. How could a small adjustment in my mouth create such major differences?

      I was tired by the time I was ready to go to church. I thought I would fall asleep during the Mass, but no. I stayed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I lingered after Mass because I planned to participate in a sound bath event at noon at Unity of Kona, a new-age church. I had a two-hour wait.

   I sat on a bench on the south lanai, waiting for the crowd to thin out so I could slip into the bathroom and change out of my dress into shorts and a T-shirt. A couple came up to speak to Paulette. It became a joyful four-way conversation and then a two-by-two conversation.

   I mentioned Mike. The husband, FK, didn’t know who he was. I was surprised because I knew the couple were devout members of the church. How could he not know who Mike was? His wife, NC, said he had memory problems. She was his memory. He had been at the soda fountain at Costco when the security curtain came down and hit him on the back of his head. I reached out and asked him if I could touch him to bless him.

  I engaged in a lively conversation with his wife. She has a powerfully loud singing voice. She said if you watch a rock concert from a particular date in the 70s, you can hear her voice above the roaring crowd.  We laughed together. It was great.

   I asked if I could do some healing on him. I hadn’t done a healing on someone other than occasionally one of my students in a while. I thought I would do BrainManagementSkills, as I did with the kids. It never came to that. I only got to work on the psychological aspect of the trauma, which was considerable. He had been injured previously in a situation where he anticipated physical danger and was reasonably good with that. This event was one where he hadn’t anticipated danger; it was out of the blue, random. That made it all the more frightening. At the end of a fun-for-me session, his headache was better, as was his vision and the numbness in his legs. The psychological impact heightened the physical problems.

   If the session hadn’t come to a natural end, the 11:30 Spanish Mass was starting. Parishioners were gathering on the lanai. I changed in the women’s room. As I came out, I observed young Spanish women coming to Mass dressed in vivid colors.

   I left for the Sound Bath event.  It took me a minute to find it. Unity of Kona meets in a storefront in a strip mall. Most of the floor space was filled with yoga mats when I arrived. I found a good spot. Clyde, who leads the Chi Qigong session on the beach, greeted me. He was the one who told me about the sound bath event.  The sound experience was wonderful.  I did one sound bath with Damon and Cylin when I visited them in L.A.  This was much better; I was more open to it or desperate for healing. 

   The event started with several people walking around the room and sounding something that could be used as wind chimes over each person. The only negative part was that lying on the hard floor hurt my back. That was a surprise. I love lying on the cement at the end of a driveway yoga session, so I thought I would love this, too. I was miserable. Next time, I’ll bring sleeping pillows and a soft blanket to put on top of the yoga mat. 

   Next Sunday, Unity is doing a crystal healing. Again, people lie on yoga mats. Others walk around, placing crystals on the participants and healing them. I’ll take anything I can get. I’ve been having a tough time.

   I thought I’d nap during the sound bath; I didn’t, partially because of my physical discomfort and because I was energized by the healing I had done. It’s a unique gift. Helping people with it is fantastic. Of course, afterward, I worried if I didn’t do too much too soon. I hoped F.K. was okay.

  I had going-into-fourth-grade-M at three. We continued working on Stuart Little. I have to explain a lot. Even some of the vocabulary is different. She didn’t know the word arithmetic. It’s always called math these days. She knew about looking up words in a dictionary, but she will be the last. We all look up words online. No one has to learn the order of the alphabet as I did to look up words in those books.  We worked on the skill of prediction today. She wasn’t that good at it. We will have to do more work.

   I delivered a heavy load of green waste to Darby and Patrick. I wanted Patrick to come out and help. I thought it was too heavy for Darby and me. When he did come, he turned the wheeled trash can around so it rolled down the hill in front of him while he held the handle. That that hadn’t occurred is a sign of my aging brain. I pulled it down the hill, pushing against it so it didn’t roll right over me. Duh!

   Patrick told a joke. He asked what the rooster said at daybreak. “Arise you proletariat, and take your rightful place!” I didn’t get it.  He reminded me that Lutz and I had a long talk on the political ideals of communism. It was a reference to that conversation. A few years ago, I don’t think I would have missed that reference.

   My conversation with Lutz the day before was enlightening. I don’t disagree with those who feel power is becoming more and more centralized, and the voice of the individual is getting lost. The problem is the solution. Marx’s ideal would be great, but it doesn’t happen that way. His plan was for small groups to gather and express their needs. A representative from that group would attend a higher-order group of representatives from these smaller groups. Then, a representative from the group would send a representative to a higher-order group, etc., and the needs of the people would be recognized.  Lutz said that something like that happened in some Western communist nations. But what happens to varying degrees is the ‘representative’ of the smaller groups represented the will of the head of the nation, not the people.  The locals were spied on to ensure they conformed to the dictates of the national leadership.   I have no idea how we will solve the problem of increased international-level politics.