The mid-January day I visited Gateway Farm in Plymouth was breezy, and the temperature was in the low thirties with faint flurries falling. At the farm’s small, dirt parking lot off Joy Road, I met Bridget O’Brien who, along with her husband Dr. Charlie Brennan, is the farm’s co-director. After we greeted each other, I said, “Not the best time of the year for me to see the farm, I guess.” “It’ll be okay,” she replied cheerfully. “We’ll be able to see everything because there’s no snow on the ground. Plus,” she added, “The sorrel is still green.”
Posts tagged #Issue #83
Joob Activewear — Ann Arbor Clothing Company — Aims For Fair Trade, Climate Neutral Fashion
The hiking pants swished as I walked, hugging my legs as I squatted, lunged, and brought my knees to my chest. Not as tight as a legging but not as loose as a typical hiking pant, they ghosted over my skin, covering it, but not hampering movement a bit. I pushed my hands in the front pockets, felt the tug at the elastic waist, and checked out the zippered back pockets. A barely-there logo of an elephant shimmered near my left hip on the black fabric. I found the fit comfortable. I could wear these pants all day.
Learning From Our Year Round Birds
Whether you enjoy watching birds flit about casually, are a dedicated birder, or keep a bird feeder going, it is likely some of our beautiful year-round birds have caught your eye on more than one occasion. For centuries, humans have observed birds for signs and omens (called augury or ornithomancy) as well as told stories illuminating the lessons birds carry. Birds have a wealth of wisdom to share with us, and this article highlights several of our year-round winged teachers who can be called on at any time in our hearts and, with some bribing, in our yards. These Michigan loyalists are the Black-Capped Chickadee, the Blue Jay, and the Northern Cardinal.
Kindred Conversations: Maurice Archer and Anne Erlewine
The center of Maurice Archer’s big vision starts with dance. He’s known around town as the premier break dance performer, teacher, producer, and owner of A2 Breakdance. He has been bringing his unstoppable energy and expertise to classrooms, after school programs, rec and ed offerings, private parties, intensives, local festivals, and street fairs for years. If you’ve seen the linoleum unroll and a simple boom-box set up for a crew of kid and adult dancers to step in for six step, windmill, kick-up, flare, or a bunch of impressive acrobatic dance moves, then you have seen an A2 Breakdancers’ cipher. A cipher is a circle of dancers, jumping in to share a small mobile dance floor with their handstands, back spins, and fancy footwork before the next dancer tags in.
Field of the Five Horses
I’d been given some gourmet coffee for Christmas. It was late at night. I’d have to work in the morning, but, feeling impelled to give it a try, I brewed the rich dark potion.
The next day I remembered a night when I was eight years old. I was living in the tropics with my family, where heat thins boundaries and can induce fertile dreaming. I’d been allowed to drink a caffeinated beverage just before going to bed, a one-time occurrence. As I lay wide awake, the aquarium music from Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals played in my brain. It got louder and louder. My room faded into green mist and shoals of golden fish swam through it from various angles and directions, hovering and then dissolving. Having gone to school opposite one of those old, gothic mental hospitals, I was frightened I might be locked up in it when we returned to the States, and I clutched the sheets until the vision dissipated.
Leaps of Faith: Curioser Clay
Zemper made the decision to become an entrepreneur while the Covid-19 pandemic was still looming, and that brave move is already paying off. Curiouser Clay’s reputation has been growing since their first pop up workshop in March of 2022. Since then, they have stayed busy holding workshops and “makin’ parties” in which Zemper and her husband, Drew Zemper, show up to private parties, businesses, and homes throughout the region.
Leaps of Faith: Third Mind Books
When I spoke with Arthur Nusbaum, owner of Third Mind Books, he explained that The Third Mind is a literary collaboration between novelist William S. Burroughs and artist/poet/novelist Brion Gysin that was first published in 1977. The book illustrates how a third mind is created when two people share their individual perspectives through discussion. Their openness of thought makes it possible for a third intelligence to emerge. Nusbaum gave an additional interpretation, saying “Personally, and this is what Burroughs said philosophically about it, an author and the book are two things. And the reader creates a third mind when they translate what the author says through the book. It’s the same with other forms of art.” He adds that his personal interactions with Burroughs inspired him to name the store as “a wink at Burroughs, just like our logo with his silhouette in a fedora.”
The Art of Spirit Guide Messages and Tarot
Like many, my spiritual journey started at a young age, I felt, saw, and simply just knew. I knew there was more, especially when some of my dreams came to fruition. I simply didn’t understand how to interpret how that came to be. I would lose myself in my art, writing poetry and short stories.
The Past Rarely Stays in the Past
Sometimes it’s hard to uncover the truth about past events. Other times the past reveals its truths almost unbidden. Either way, the past rarely stays only in the past.
The Practice Beneath the Practice
By Kelly Kempter
My bodywork practice synthesizing Shiatsu and Thai massage serves as a physical manifestation of a deeper spiritual practice. Both Thai massage and Shiatsu are rooted in Buddhist traditions, and I feel honored and enlivened to be a part of these pathways in the modern world. The principles of Insight Meditation offer guidance for my bodywork sessions, allowing a somatization of the path.
In my mat-based bodywork practice, I utilize a mapping of the body-mind-heart founded in Shiatsu and Five Element Theory and apply methods from both Shiatsu and Thai massage. I studied Thai massage twenty years ago at the beginning of my massage therapy training and fell in love with the approach; performing Thai massage on a clothed recipient on a floor mat feels like a beautiful duet of healing touch, a slow, meditative dance akin to Tai Chi. The choreography of it, if you will, awakens a sense of being fully embodied in the practice of touch.
Some years later, when I began studying Five Element Shiatsu as taught by Frances Farmer, I was able to connect with a foundational theory that makes my heart sing and reminds me of deeper truths. Utilizing presence, reverence, and full body engagement along with a growing understanding of Five Element Theory and being in tune with nature (with the seasons and tides in our bodies) the stage is set for healing--I’m all in. I am listening with my whole being to another person’s pain and honoring the life force within which is healthy and whole. Frances Farmer observes, “Your body has the inner wisdom to heal itself, and I am here to listen and learn.”
Both Thai massage and Shiatsu are mat-based therapies founded on a premise of oneness and that the giver is healed as much as the receiver. The therapist opens their senses to what is present and holds it in a loving light. Holding is the essence of what I do. I hold tissue with my body weight. I hold points with my fingers, knees, elbows, or toes. I hold words. I hold the pain of embodiment. I hold emotions, sensations, and thoughts. I stay with what arises, watch transformation occur, and remain curious. In the simplest way, I am listening, witnessing, feeling, and accepting while holding the physical form.
My spiritual journey is the foundation of this incarnation; it is the ground I stand on and guides all aspects of my life. For me, it is easy to see how it is the very bedrock of a practice that involves touch and healing. Although, I do not limit my spirituality to a single tradition; it is a living practice steeped in Insight Meditation. Also called Vipassana, Insight Meditation is one aspect of Theravada Buddhism, which is practiced in Thailand. The teachings urge us to sit in meditation, study the Dharma, move with awareness, cultivate Sangha, pay attention to the stillness, speak with kindness, walk in silence, and watch what arises. The idea is to honor whatever is present, inviting all of it in for a cup of tea—the old wounds, fear and grief, the harmonious heart, mundane plans, rehearsals spawned by anxiety, inner peace, re-playing of scenes laced with shame, the exalted states, and everything in between. Returning to this moment over and over again, in a spiraling dance of unfolding, we come closer and closer to home. When we sit with our resistance, its grip loosens, and we are brought back to wholeness.
Vipassana practice, Thai massage, and Shiatsu are all founded upon a cosmology of non-duality. They are based on the radical premise that there is nothing wrong, nothing to be fixed, that we are already healthy, vibrant, and whole--that our true nature is one of peaceful aliveness. We can only gain access to this wisdom in the present moment. Since the body is always in the present moment, it makes for an easy entry point into both healing and spiritual inquiry. Connected to our wholeness, we observe ties to the natural world; we begin to see that we are not separate from nature, but a manifestation of its elements. Awareness of sensations in our bodies brings us closer to our elemental nature and invites its own sort of healing.
My bodywork practice is a somatic exploration of Insight Meditation. In both practices, upon first glance, there is chaos. There are complaints. There is pain. There is dissatisfaction. When a client walks into the room, they give name to the details of their suffering. Similarly, when we sit down to meditate, our patterns of suffering become apparent. When we touch or are touched with care and attention, the resistance begins to melt. When we stay with sensations, mindfulness creates an opening in which suffering can transform. Over time, the consciousness of what is happening becomes larger and more powerful than the details of our pain. As my Thai massage teacher, Paul Fowler wrote, “In the Thai way of thinking, illness and disease are a natural part of life and although it recognizes that the body is out of balance when these things occur and need to be corrected, there is less tension around illness and disease because they recognize that these things are natural and impermanent.”
For me, both meditation sessions and bodywork sessions integrate a ritualistic start and finish. When a person walks through my door, utilizing Buddhist principles around compassion and sympathetic joy, I open myself to be a kind witness, one who accepts whatever is going on, hearing the details and honoring the suffering. Taking in the fullness of a human being, perhaps I am able to discern which elemental phases are speaking the loudest and what parts of a human are in need of nurturing. Moving over to the mat, the process of setting up the body of both giver and receiver in a relaxed alignment contributes to concentration and enhances energy flow through the system. This is true as well for tending to our posture when we sit in meditation. This pre-session care creates a sacred space and a kind of healing cocoon. With the first touch, I am reminded of my Vipassana teacher, Susan Weir’s words, “Let awareness do the heavy lifting.” I feel deeply into the very essence of a person, beyond the complaints that they walked in with, beyond their name and the person they experience themself to be. I too walk beyond myself as a massage therapist working on tissues. I open my awareness to our joined life force. I listen with an intimacy that unites two beings via a shared experience. There is nothing to do but be present while connecting with a solid, relaxed pressure. There is literally nothing that needs doing, fixing, changing, or even healing. Our wholeness and vibrancy is already present, it is the essence of us. With a courageous presence, when we are able to pull back from doing and engage in the art of non-doing, we connect with a force that is always in a state of balance. This is coming home.
Kelly Kempter is a licensed massage therapist specializing in Thai Massage and Shiatsu in her Kerrytown studio. She seeks to inspire balance in the community through the practice and teaching of bodywork. Visit her online at kaizenhealingarts.com.
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