In the seventies, my wonderful parents treated me to a journey through the Yucatan. That was the year those isolated lands opened to outside cultures. As we drove past huts with smoke spiraling mid-cone off the roofs people calmly walked in white cotton clothes with colorful patterns embroidered at hems, loose and comfortable. Eyes would greet ours and smiles shared in the light of shared souls. There was peace in the air. My parents, a Mayan guide, and I hacked our way through jungle scruff once we could not drive further to our sunrise pyramid destination. I climbed up tiny steps then rested atop that pyramid for what felt like moments, climbed down to my parents who mildly annoyed asked “What was up there?” My first experience of meditation, I had quietly sat for two hours with Pond lilies blooming on three sides as the sun rose!
I studied with the best integrative practitioners of the day. Sondra Ray and Bob Mandell taught the experience of “Rebirthing” in New York City during a Valentine’s weekend. Bernie Seager in his thought-is-creative brilliance back in the eighties in Boston. I traveled to hear Ramtha with thousands in Denver. Heard and followed Gurus and sat in Satsang for years, sitting in meditation, meals cooked by my hands next to beloved teachers, our Mahatmas, stirring garlic and veggies for hundreds of those seeking enlightenment. Oh, my eyes tear from memories of cutting so many onions and pungent spices crackling on the massive saucepans! Mindfulness sought from different angles. Yoga and Chi Gong, dance and TRX, walking miles by the Marblehead and other coasts and into forests.
Inner work, realizations of past trauma and its process with an amazing therapist, like sittin’ with Jesus, my adored Garbis Dimidjian, simultaneously working with Karyn Sanders and Sarah Holmes in their First Nation-Buddhist blend. Letting the inner child grow up into me, learning to love my self, this voluptuous body and it being okay to ask for what I really want. Yes, orgasm is a delightful road to nirvana. One more gift of human experience.
I have read brilliant challenging and moving books. I took nine years to write a darn good text book for practitioners. So many books still unread in a rather massive library. Where will that go?
Always I was soft for the sensitive spiritual twinkly-eyed boys. Now wanting a man with intelligence, inner stability, humor, passion and financial security. Ever hopeful.
I truly have lived the best life I could have. I have cared deeply for my family, supported my friends and children, and a number of alternate children. I have contributed to the environment and politicians who espoused kindred thoughts. I have studied with the top herbalists over all these forty-plus years of practice. Rosemary Gladstar, truly the grandmother of herbal medicine, has been a living example of knowing and doing. David Winston offering foundational thoughts of not just study, but human ritual and spirit work. Kate Gilday, yes, I am blinded by her angelic forest glow. Teachers who became friends, for we are an inclusive group. Mindy Green, so scentsational! David Crow. Matthew Wood, my brother bear and best friend. The late Cascade Anderson Geller, Jeanine Pavarti Baker, and of course William LeSassier my special mentor who transferred his brilliant diagnostic skills to me and others. jim macdonald, who hates to capitalize his name, so funny, brilliant and just amazing. Nicole Telkes the youngest brilliant star, she I would choose while starting my path if I were young in these Covid times. Now in The Time of The Great Isolation when we can study with anyone around the planet, hmm, who else, Sajah Popham, Thomas Easley. Such brainy heart centered gifts!
I have begun the era of my own seventies. I have a gorgeous home built when I was a young Mom, bits removed from my parent’s home to add heart to its’ modern lines. Gardens have grown over what was hard packed wormless land. Herbs have arrived from birds flying over, growers at conferences and from friends gardens and the pant legs of all. Patient plant ancestors who teach me so many new bits of use and play, support and beauty. Spirit connection. Music is performed joyously in the bowl of plant energies during sunny months. I am part of my town and the greater community of humans and know I am loved.
Now the journey is about passing on information, Virtual Practitioners in clinic seeing a client who now can be living anywhere with computer reception. Who could have imagined that! I am passing on the accumulation of art created or invested in, passing on the material objects collected over my lifetime that my kids are not interested in. Stay posted for sales of my etchings no longer shown in prestigious galleries!
Do we want to create a Museum of Herbal Practice? Is anyone interested in pursuing this lofty quest?
Now we have entered into isolated times of our own, the journey inward to lands of the self, the perspectives seen after we hack away at the underbrush of all that experience, those relationships, tangles severed in ritual, burnt to create fertile soil for the evolution of us all. The entire planet is processing. We are a part of, not apart from.
I am creating space for change and the newest growth of Margi and what comes after so many moons of isolation. I miss hugs and being close, seeing my friends and students, plants, and waters all over the Americas. I miss traveling to small schools or colleges which fed my heart and filled my need for being loved.
I am creating a home to isolate in for the next lock-down that feels soft and comforting: a nest to hold me. The consultation room is now my gym, with a big ball, a recumbent bike, TRX straps and a Pilates board. The need for creating endorphins through movement is essential for the rest of my days. Seventy years of seasons turning. Wow! As Dona Enriqueta said “I have a very small heart, and room in it for all of you.” Hold me in your hearts and I will hold you in mine. We are all here together on this earth.