SÁMARA DIARY - JUNE 4-11, 2022

Every day we find a new sky and a new earth. – Marge Piercy

This year marks my 40th year of teaching bodywork, starting at the Chicago School of Massage Therapy in 1982 alongside Bob King, Jim Hackett and some other wonderful teachers and administrators.

I’ve been planning my first out-of-the-U.S. workshop in 2022, in Costa Rica and just finished it last Thursday. For this one, I prepared for travel and the class with more anxiety than usual.  Because, for the first time, last December I had to stop teaching a class due to a severe case of food poisoning – had been helicoptered by air ambulance to a hospital in San Jose.  So I was a bit spooked by that experience.

June 5 - The first morning in Costa Rica

I went for a walk on the beach at dawn (5:20 a.m. down in CR). I’d had a dream about a young woman who would go invisible if she didn’t see a doctor, get something stitched together. I see her after and try to take her hand, but she pulls away explaining that her hands were particularly sensitive after the procedure. 

I felt that invisibility as I walked on the beach. The ocean doesn’t recognize me, nor do the coconuts – perhaps only the dogs on the beach and more so the occasional person walking along who makes a little wave – I see you.  Where does this desire to be seen come from and what purpose does it have?

 I like to be recognized. The gift of being seen and of seeing -  leading to understanding and appreciation.  In a way humans can be the great appreciators of the planet – conscious of seeing beings and things that themselves may not see us, but are fellow inhabitants of the planet. And we give names to the things.  All over the beach I saw a convention of coconuts, a few small wooden boats, fog and sky, occasionally a person, a dog. My bare feet walked in the cool waves of water reaching up then receding from the shore.

June 6 - First Day of Class

I read on the internet someone who speculated that the common recognition of the gut and enteric nervous system as the “second brain” may not be quite accurate. The gut and enteric nervous system may be equally or more justly regarded as the “first brain” and, if so, perhaps the heart is the second brain and the conscious mind, the third brain. Makes sense to me!

I tried starting my class without a powerpoint presentation. After all these years of teaching, I thought, I don’t have to use those - perhaps I’ll make more direct contact with the students if I don’t seem as predictable as pre-prepared powerpoints can sometimes make me feel with certain presenters. I proudly told this to the class.  But about an hour into my first lecture, I realized I was missing certain key points, and backtracked, resorting again to powerpoint.

After this class I do feel that the theory needs to be spread out more, especially during the first three days of class. Covering most of the theory first, front-loaded, as I have been, opens up the next three days to the danger of being just one new technique after another – with diminishing inspiration for what soulful resources need to underlie mere technique.

June 7 – Day Two 

 I developed a pain in my throat/ soft palate and in the afternoon I went to the office and had my temp taken. It was 99.7 and I was understandably concerned. I ended the day going to a local doctor (“Dr. Freddy””s office) where I had been last December. They said I likely had a virus and gave me medications for the symptoms.  I wondered, not too seriously, if the “big house” I stay in is spooked or carries a curse.

The class went well, nothing extraordinary as far as I felt – but hopefully it is exciting to the classmates. One woman is big into lotion and oil and she is kind of saying she doesn’t like the work because of that. But she does have a sense of humor so I am not too concerned (and, happily, she was glowing by end of the class!).

Frankly this experience in Costa Rica and recent teaching at my school – made me question how much I still love teaching.  My teaching, after 40 years, sometimes feels a bit too much like I’m quoting myself. (But, I’m grateful to say, that, by the end of this class, I felt re-invigorated and looking forward to my other upcoming classes.)

 June 8 – Day Three

I felt a bit better today – was relieved and felt my energy returning.

The students seem to be getting it and enjoying themselves even more and bonding as a group very enjoyably.

June 9 – Day Four, last day of workshop

Finished class! It was touch-and-go there on the 2nd day. Half the class this morning was frustrated that they did not have enough time to go through the new Deep Massage protocol unhurried. I apologized. And after lunch I gave the second exchange an extra 20 minutes. That did the trick!

We ended on a very high note. The class deeply and loudly celebrated each person as I handed out their certificates of completion. I saw how much they really got to bond, enjoy, and know each other. They deeply appreciated learning the work and my teaching style.  I was a bit taken aback because I had been beset by some doubts and a touch of sickness during the middle two days.

It takes stamina to teach!  That it is one of my biggest lessons now.

June 10 – Day off before leaving

Had this day off before leaving for Austin on the 11th. I walked briefly on the beach, greatly enjoying a vast thin layer of water spread out on the sand at low tide, It extended for about a hundred yards before the actual waves gently rolled in. This surface layer of water reflected the clouds above, so it felt a bit like the sky at my feet. I took a video that looked like a Magritte version of a seascape.

Returning to the school complex, I ran into one of the students and felt a deep connection and friendly affection for her. I was surprised, because during the workshop I didn’t feel my usual level of connection (now thinking that was due to the self-preoccupation of anxiety and feeling sick).

She and I had breakfast, sharing enjoyably more of our biographies and stories.  Returning I ran into more students. And with each one I felt a familiarity and happiness, almost like we were meeting as old friends!

I began to feel and realize that this workshop unusually brought home the awareness that the four class days were just the ingestion of the material, the real assimilation begins when the “workshop” is over.  Similarly I really felt, after the class, a deepened appreciation for each individual and the group as a whole.

Other lessons -

Having initially dispensed with the powerpoints, freed me to realize this class needed to be re-organized.  So now I’m excited to revise my presentation and powerpoints before I go to England in August. I will distribute the theory more throughout and interweave stories as well. 

I also feel that, unlike many classes I’ve taught which were intoxicating during the class, this one didn’t settle in until that next day – probably helped by having an extra day before travel. So many experiences, including bodywork and certainly learning, are first experienced, ingested, then assimilated beginning the next day and then over time.  This teaches me to not always evaluate the present on the basis of what I then feel, but to allow time to feel, acknowledge and encourage the assimilation of experience.

Also often during a workshop I’ll connect strongly with each participant or at least commit to connecting. Afterwards I disconnect. The day after this class, each student who I ran into evoked a sweeping feeling of care and acceptance.  It was almost like meeting an old friend - “Hello, again, my friend!”  Maybe we’re not friends until we’ve said goodbye at least once.

I thought again about the dawn event– that thin film of water reflecting the sky, a sky that slightly shimmered because the water there on the sand was still flowing slowly back to the sea.

It felt a little like thought, that thin layer of mind which reflects upon things yet is a separate surface of awareness that sometimes can feel more real than the things I might be thinking about and reflecting upon.

I guess it’d be called a “palimpsest”!

I looked up “palimpsest” and realized I hadn’t fully known its definition. It refers to a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain. It is derived from Greek ‘palimpsēstos’, from ‘palin’ ‘again’ + ‘psēstos’ ‘rubbed smooth’.

Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or goat kid skin and was expensive and not readily available, so in the interest of economy a page was often re-used by scraping off the previous writing.

Modern technology used to examine old manuscript can often detect the earlier layers of writing.

How like life and learning this is -- as was the reflective surface at the beach! The layers of our thoughts and beliefs are washed away by the new day, new thoughts, new beliefs, new learnings and experiences.  At night dreams wash off the day-mind, and then in the new day, the good teacher will help the students’ minds be fresh and to reflect upon inner and outer worlds anew. For me as a teacher, I am particularly grateful for this class that has washed over me and left me fresh and excited for the next waves to come.

And more directly from “palin + psēstos” – our rough spots are “rubbed smooth again” by the bodymind work we do. As Neruda says, “the sacred surfaces are smoothed.”  Our histories are written in our skin and in deeper layers, these living filaments that we are, down to and through the very bone. Each layer, each new day, reflects a new living sky, a new combination of clouds and sunshine that re-constitute this living body of mind, emotion and thought.

July 11 - last day in Costa Rica

Goodbye Costa Rica and the Costa Rica School of Massage Therapy.  I wouldn’t have predicted it at first but you have given me and my teaching a new lease on life!  May it be so for all the students in this class as well – and for the new classes to come – as long as we shall continue to live and learn.