This Week's Great New Thing

While enveloped in my very latest creative rut, it occurred to me that maybe I need to broaden my horizons a bit. So, I've decided to try something new every week, whether it's taking a trip to Tonga or buying that mysterious ugli fruit that I keep passing by in the produce aisle at the grocery store. And, just in case others out there may be interested, I thought I'd chronicle in a blog my baby steps into some of these hot (or tepid) new frontiers. Hope you enjoy it. --S.L. Malone

Monday, July 24, 2006

Reiki Therapy


My aunt is a Reiki artist—or therapist, I’m not sure which appellation she prefers. For those of you who have yet to run across this new sensation, Reiki is a Japanese natural healing art that deals with the re-distribution and utilization of the body’s own energy forces through a laying on of hands to promote physical and spiritual well-being. Like acupuncture (which is also on my list of to-do’s, by the way) and the now-ubiquitous yoga, Reiki is creeping across the nation from the West Coast and asserting itself as a popular and effective holistic medical practice for stress reduction and general health. So there. My aunt’s offer to work me over during my recent visit presented me with an opportunity to expand my horizons a bit, so in the name of the week’s Great New Thing I jumped at the chance to hop on her table and have my energy flow assessed.

Members of my family have very amusing responses to my aunt’s (let’s call her Natalie) chosen profession. First off, Uncle Bob and Aunt Natalie are the only members of the clan to have ventured off to the West Coast, which in and of itself endows them with an air of other-worldliness to the Easterners. As if that weren’t enough, the fact that Aunt Natalie has for many years been working in areas dealing with the metaphysical and Eastern philosophy is a giant befuddlement to some of the more conservative spokes in the family wheel, including my Christian conservative, highly traditional Aunt Maggie and her minister husband. I don’t believe Aunt Maggie is even at the point of being able to process the fact that Aunt Natalie is an energy healer—she’s still stuck on the fact that Natalie and Bob don’t go to church on Sunday. Metaphysical approximation of oneness with the universe may have to wait a while. I’m more like my grandmother—generally open-minded and willing to try anything once. I’m also a proponent of Eastern philosophies, having been a yoga devotee for a number of years now, so was able to approach the idea of Reiki with a belief that there may actually be some perceptible impact involved. Finally, my egregious church record and out-of-wedlock cohabitation with my beloved Sam plunk me down right beside Aunt Natalie on Aunt Maggie’s “tsk tsk list”, and I’ll always go the extra mile for a member of my posse.

So, I skipped into Aunt Natalie’s studio one sunny California day to begin my journey into understanding my cosmic energy. The first thing I noticed in this cheery little room was a treatment table with what looked to be daggers draped around it. Before I had time to appropriately freak out, however, Aunt Natalie bade me sit opposite her in one of a few office chairs (without daggers) and discuss with her what I hoped to accomplish in the session. Having no earthly clue what to expect let alone accomplish in Reiki therapy, I offered a well-prepared Miss America response involving something about learning and feeling. This seemed satisfactory to my guru, for she motioned me towards The Table without hesitation.

She explained that the daggers were actually crystals, and far from plummeting down to gut me in the middle of my energy therapy, which looked to be exactly the case, their role was to promote the flow of energy by blinking in pre-synchronized order while the session was in progress. OK, no impalement, but we still have an issue. I’m epileptic, and for those of you who may not know, we don’t like strobe lights very much. At concerts, on ambulances, or in Reiki therapy sessions, they all suck. But where there is a will there is a way, and I ended up lying blindfolded under the clicking crystal daggers of The Table, trying to release myself to the process.

The entire session was fairly quick—probably around fifteen minutes or so. I could hear Aunt Natalie moving around me, and peeked a few times to see what she was up to. She was making scooping motions over me that looked as though she was gathering bits of flour into piles in the air, and every once in a while she’d brush off the imaginary flour she’d collected into the space behind her. Throughout this process, I tried to pay attention to what I was feeling. For a good while all I felt was that lovely relaxation that comes from a quiet, scented spa with soft new wave music playing in the background. All of a sudden, though, as she was gently moving my right hip and thigh, I felt what I can only refer to as energy form a kind of circuit around my body. It was definitely not my imagination—it was not an electrical shock kind of thing, but just a gentle hum traveling in a complete path around my body. Shortly after the hum began, Aunt Natalie pronounced the session complete.

Dear Aunt Maggie: Reiki therapy is bona fide and real. Pay a visit to Aunt Natalie some time, lie down under the crystals, and see what starts to flow. You may be surprised. And maybe if you give her practice a shot, Natalie and Bob will go with you to Sunday service while you’re in town. Namaste.


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Monday, July 10, 2006

Baby Dance Lessons


First of all, I can’t stand that term—“Baby Dance”. What a ridiculous euphemism. It’s sex, OK? Perfectly timed, traditional, no-frills heterosexual intercourse aimed at depositing an adequate amount of sperm into position to fertilize an egg at the very moment it makes its debut in the fallopian tube (or sometime during the ensuing 24 hours). This is the most natural and perfectly designed of human activities, and one would think that a properly executed embryonic boogie would create fetal foot-tapping in fairly short order, provided that both partners are in performance-ready shape.

One would be wrong. As Eloise and I discussed while she was rip, rip, ripping away during my last waxing session (see previous post—we’ve moved on from Bonnie), well-orchestrated lovemaking between two healthy parties often creates nothing but angst, frustration and $30 per month in ovulation test kit costs. I cannot for the life of me understand why such an elementary human act is proving more difficult for me than learning to write paragraphs in Russian. My beloved Sam has even done this before—he has two children from a previous marriage—so we KNOW his troops know the proper coordinates. Even so, God love him, he good-naturedly signed up for that humiliating “test” that is much more embarrassing than my being probed with a penis-shaped camera to make sure my ovaries are healthy. As it turns out, he checks out not just fine but fabulous (way to go, boys) and after much poking, prodding, and penis photography, I’ve got a gold star as well. So what’s the deal? Well, I’m afraid that when it comes to the Baby Dance, we have four left feet.

This is a family posting area, so let me try to deal with this as delicately as I can. I have historically had a minor issue with . . . well . . . moisture, and often enlist the help of an over-the-counter lubricant to help things along a wee bit. So, Sam and I have developed a routine of using what we call “the juice” during our reproductive and non-reproductive engagements. However, I happened to read on a fertility website about a month ago that, according to current studies, the use of any personal lubricant during sex (K-Y included), markedly decreases the motility and/or general health of sperm. It actually acts a bit like a spermicide, believe it or not. (As an additional note, saliva is bad, too). Of course, I was jubilant to learn this news, as it explained our unrewarded efforts thus far-- and what an easy problem to solve!

Yeah, right. Last night I was in the sweetest of the ovulatory sweet spots with regard to baby dance timing. It was perfect—my womb was all but rolling out the welcome mat. Alas, the complex choreography of getting me ready to provide safe haven to his emissaries while keeping his state of affairs at the right level proved more convoluted than Swan Lake in high heels. In the end, after a good bit of fruitless trying, we just snuggled up in a frustrated, exhausted mass and fell asleep—without completing the routine.

I don’t know if I require special training to surpass this annoyingly minor obstacle, but if we have another experience like this one, “the juice” may just find its way back into the love nest, spermicidal properties be damned. After all, I believe the first steps to a happy family is a happy couple, and maybe if we just keep concentrating on enjoying the groove we’ve got, we’ll get a nice surprise along the way.


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