Talking with Silk, a Japanese bath, protest letter

Uhn-um....what happened?

Oh yeah.

Last night my great buddy F-- came back from Malaysia, felt lonely and wanted to meet for coffee. At the pancake parlour I got talking with Silk, a buddy of mine from two years ago, about what I was up to, and my brother rang from Singapore. So F-- turns up jetlagged and tired and unaccustomed to English-speaking after three weeks using only Malay day and night. And it's no surprise that Silk and I hold the conversation.

I had brought his some incense sticks and when he excused himself he left them on the table. I chased after him and gave them to him... "Hey are you leaving because Silk is there?" I asked. "No, I'm just tired," he said, with a tired smile.

Silk and Thor work at Pancake parlour raising money for a permaculture farm. We talk about things... dreams, hopes and goals. It is our customary conversation from two years ago, picked up right where we left off.

She tells how she and Thor "stopped doing what wasn't right and true for us, and started doing what was right and true - and the moment we did, coincidences started to happen to us all the time. We took it as a sign."

Considering I spent the day listening to Shakti Gawain, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, and others, this was highly confirmatory. Excited by the meeting I had a late-night pizza and planned a brilliant day today, but unfortunately I missed the train hope and, still buzzing from coffee and conversation with Silk, walked to the tram stop with a bit of entertainment and got home at 11. I had planned to be asleep by TEN...

So to unwind I had a looooong bath, in the Japanese style. I had a cool quick shower to get rid of any dirt, then a steaming HOT bath to get blood flowing with a natural sponge, stroking inwards to the heart to stimulate circulation. The heat got too much for me and I wandered out into the backyard wrapped in a towel. In the cloud-covered moonlight the playing cat and the cool air was amazingly refreshing and stimulating. I slipped back into the reasonably hot bath and with soap manually relaxed my legs and shoulders and neck (I have had a headache for three days now since I started taking ginseng again). Then I slipped out again into the cool and drank a honied camomile tea or two. The indian classical music moaned in the background. I stared up at the stars, dumbstuck with awe. Then I padded over the wet tiles back to the bath, where I vigorously soaped my ears and scalp and feet, trying to stimulate the reflexology points. My arms got tired and I almost feel asleep. I moisturised and towelled off the excess moisturiser then threw the towel on the tiles to soak up the water. Warm in the moonlight, I slipped into new longjohns and a bleachy new cotton t-shirt, wrapped myselfl in the bright orange eiderdown, and slid the armchair out under the starlight. The cat leapt onto my lap. I did a progressive relaxation. A mantra rose and fell into awareness. An hour later I returned to awareness. It was one O'Clock.

So I woke up to my sister ringing thismorning, feeling extremely woozy and dopey. I have been awake an hour.

Someone wants me to write a protest letter so I'm educating myself about the issue the last hour, online. So my careful plans for today are shot, and I'm feeling deeply disappointed. How to embrace the disappointment and make a great day is the prevailing condition of awareness at the moment. We will see!