Friday, September 24, 2010

Expressing our Emotions

Yesterday, I had an acupuncture appointment with a young woman whom I have known for nearly twenty years. In the time I have known her, I have come to know her brother and parents as well, although it is her mother to whom I am the closest.

This young woman and her family are people I consider very important in my life and I care deeply for them. During my appointment, we conversed about many things while the needles were in. Eventually, we began to discuss the value of emotion in Healing; not only the emotions of the Healer, but of the recipient of the Healing as well.

Something about that conversation opened a part of me that I felt had to be discussed, and I mentioned how difficult it seems to be in our society to verbally express affection without being misunderstood. There are less than five women aside from my mother and partner to whom I can say “I love you” without fear that they will think I am being too bold or worse, trying to be sexually forward. And in North America, for a man to say that to another man would elicit great homophobic outcries, although there are a couple that I express these emotions to since they are amazingly good friends and understand that my words express my gratitude for their friendship.

My friend and I as Healers, -- she as an acupuncturist, a Reiki Practitioner, and other modalities I don’t remember, and I as a Reiki Master -- both know the value of Love when it comes to Healing. Many of the “New Age” (ancient wisdom) modalities are based on imbuing the client with a sense of being loved, unconditionally. It is this feeling of Love that gives the client a sense of well-being and inner Peace from which to allow the Healing to grow. So often that Love is not articulated verbally rather than implicitly sensed by the client, yet what is so wrong with saying it? All the great religions of the world teach Love and Compassion as the most important principles, and yet we are so reluctant to speak of love to any but the most intimate of our friends, and even in saying that I am reluctant to let it go to print because of the word “intimate.” Why would I be reluctant to use that word? Because I don’t want to give the impression of physical intimacy when the intimacy of which I speak is emotional.

I guess it boils down to language and how it’s used and what certain words have come to mean in our society. Again, I am not too hung up about telling my friends I love them, but only if they can take it in the way I mean it. If it would make them uncomfortable, it doesn’t get said...

Which is a shame.

~Still Wandering...

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Extreme weather and Weekend reflections.

It is Sunday, September fifth, 2010 as I write this. At 7:30 in the evening, the sun has gone down low enough that it would now be dark in the forest, and long sleeves are going to be necessary when I venture outside. It is the first weekend of school season here in Nova Scotia.

As a boy, Sunday evening meant the Ed Sullivan show: I saw all my favourite musical acts there; The Beatles, the Dave Clark 5, The Hollies, The Doors, and Petula Clarke whose music still touches me in a way that no one else’s can.

As I grew older and became a teenager, I began playing music on the weekends. During the summer when there was no school, it was easy to overlook Sunday other than the fact that I had more money than my friends because of the weekend’s gigs, but as September came and school resumed, Sunday meant a restful turning point for me. It was the end of the combined activities of the week and weekend. Friday wasn’t really restful because after school I would have to prepare for the night’s performance. After we finished the gig, we’d often end up at an all night diner a few kilometres from home and stay there literally all night. Saturday there was always a basketball game or other activity at the school and I’d be there with all my friends, then perform again that night and again, spend the night at the diner. Sunday was either more activities at the school or jamming with friends other than the band. Sunday evening marked the end of the partying and activity.

After I finished high school, I worked at day jobs, again performing on the weekends, but even my non-musician friends among you will recognize the pattern: I play music; you listen to it or dance to it, but the continuation from week to weekend really seems uninterrupted and seamless.

Once I became a professional musician, we’d most often be booked in a venue for six consecutive nights before heading on to the next one. Sunday was travel day and upon checking into the hotel in the next town, Sunday night would once again be a time of rest for me.

I began to appreciate the pattern last year while living in Fredericton and working for Los Cabos drumsticks. The weekend was a time of doing the things that didn’t get done during the week; laundry, grocery shopping, and of course cycling and visiting friends and family members.

Yesterday, a tropical storm (what was left of Hurricane Earl) blew through the area, leaving us without power for over fifteen hours. As darkness fell, I sat on the couch, looking out my living room window at the frantic activities of the villagers. Cars left driveways and returned, flashlights bobbed as people walked, or ran, often no further than next door. It was as if everybody suddenly had more to do than normal. Eventually I began to resent all the lights interrupting the darkness. Once the clouds cleared, there were more stars than I have seen since my last wilderness camping trip many years ago. It was hot in the house and I was perfectly contented to sit and do nothing, hear nothing, see nothing.

With no electricity, there was no TV, no computer, no reading, no streetlights... No need... no urgency to do anything other than just BE!

Tonight, as I sit here in my “Zen Zone,” again, there is no TV, no music playing, hardly any lights on in the house. I appreciate these moments of silent inactivity in a life full of doing, in a world full of noise.

~Still Wandering...