Tag: Santa Fe

Ten Thousand Waves

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desert flowers

I always receive some cool insight whenever I get a massage, about once every six months.

“Oh, come on,” my inner child says, “Can’t we do it more? Every week? Every month?” I wish. I cope with my crazy life by writing, working out, going out with friends, traveling, and occasionally indulging in a massage.

Once, in Akumal, Mexico, I had a view of the Mayan Riviera from the massage table in this flimsy white tent set up one floor above the cinnamon rolls in the bakery. Imagine — Cinnamon. Massage. Bakery. Ocean. Bliss. The masseur told me, with Spanish accent, after he’d kneaded me into a pulp, “You have a beautiful soul.” Wow.

I’ve gained several meaningful insights from masseuses and messeurs. Right after I’d moved out of my first marriage, in the early 1990s, Britt at the 10th Street Baths, rubbed my belly, realigning my internal organs. I began to cry. I have no idea why.

Britt said, “Look, if you’ve been with someone for eight years, it will take you eight years to get over them. Don’t rush your grief.” Deep.

A couple of Sundays ago when I went to Ten Thousand Waves, I told the masseuse, R., “I had plantar fisciitis in my feet so they were always sore. And I’m a writer so I carry a lot of tension in my head and neck.”

After the message, R. whispered in my ear, “I will leave so you can integrate yourself. Don’t get up until I leave.” So I stretched and yawned. And integrated. And when R. came back she told me to swing my legs to the side and to lean into her and she swung me up like a baby, lifting me from laying to sitting. I was totally integrated.

“Thank you,” I said, “Being a writer, I live in my head. And you have just placed me back in my body.”

“What kind of writing do you do?” R. asked.

“All kinds,” I said. “I write short poems, long novels, news articles, funny essays, blog entries.” I felt my neck tensing. I breathed. I got back to the deep relaxation I’d felt while getting the massage. “I really needed that massage.”

“Well you dropped in really beautifully. I had a good time too,” R. said.

Masseuses have a good time too? It shows that all kinds of work, even the hands-on healing kind, can be pleasurable.

outside of Santa Fe, near Abiquiu, New Mexico

Another time I’d gotten a massage in New Mexico, I think we were at Ten Thousand Waves, the guy whispered in my ear, “You live in New York? You should try Argentinian Tango. Very sensual.” What the heck! Do I look like someone who need to tango? Wow. Well, okay. Someday, yes.

I want to take this moment to thank every masseuse and masseur who’s ever laid their hands on me.

Ten Thousand Waves is a Japanese-style, many-layered spa, nestled in the cool mountains outside of Santa Fe. We soaked before our massages in the women’s tub, skinny dipping, and then after massages, we soaked, wearing bathing suits, in the co-ed tub in the dark.

I jumped in another tiny tub for a cold plunge. The air was probably 50 and the cold dunk was way colder, but I then lay in the co-ed sauna. Hot and cold. In the hot tub and in the cool night air.

Integrating body and mind. And putting them back into soul.

Ghost Ranch

Published on by mbcoudal6 Comments

I’ve wanted to visit Ghost Ranch forever. I’ve heard it’s a wonderful retreat. I’ve wondered if they need writers in residence. I could report on what goes on there.

Here are a couple of things I would report on from this weekend:

A Men’s Wellness Group

There was an Iron John feeling when we pulled into the retreat center. Maybe 10 men sat in about six circles talking. And it looked, from a distance, although it’s hard to tell, that they were talking about their feelings. Love it! Men talking about feelings. Go figure. So cool and sexy.

The group meets annually, one of the women told us. A previous topic had been Fathers (capital F). This weekend’s session was on Women (capital W). So, for the first time, the men had invited the women to the Men’s Wellness Group to discuss relationships, sexuality and expectations. I would’ve liked to be a part of those conversations.

A Funeral

Another group was leaving. They were dressed in western wear. Yes, this was New Mexico but it was dressy western wear. There was a lot of hugging too. They seemed more familial than the Men’s Wellness group.

It turns out the dozens of dressy/casual folks were attending a memorial.

“I’m sorry,” I told the woman who was loading a saddle into her car.

“No,” she said. “It was his time. He’s in a better place. We’re going now to spread his ashes on the bluffs.”

The Meditative Path

My sister in law and brother in law and I talked about death as we walked down a sandy path.

We walked the labyrinth. At the center of the labyrinth, you can leave a talisman or a symbol. There was a feather, a pin, a tea bag, a rock. I searched my pockets, thinking I had nothing on me.

But then from my back pocket, I pulled out a scrap I had ripped out of the New York Times a few days earlier. I’d been carrying this quote around with me.

If there is any positive message at all in the narrative it is that life is a tragedy filled with suffering and despair and yet some people do manage to avoid jury duty. – Woody Allen

I left Woody Allen in the center of the labyrinth at Ghost Ranch.

***

The sky was brilliant blue in Abiquiu, New Mexico. The one narrow cloud might have been the cloud stream from a high-flying jet. One of my daughters calls that white line in the sky, a skyscraper. I don’t have the heart to correct her. That trail of white cloud looked exactly like it’d been scraped into the sky.