Acupuncture

I go to acupuncture nearly once a week. A friend of mine says that acupuncture is like having meditation done to you. Certainly having needles stuck strategically throughout your body and then being left to "cook" sounds less appealing than massage or other forms of body work. But it is no less helpful and can do many things that massage cannot.

Community Acupuncture of Mount Airy (CAMA) is a lovely space right on Germantown Avenue in Philadelphia. You enter to a small waiting room where a giant statue of the Buddha sits. There are always fresh flowers near the patient sitting area and on the reception desk and Euro-high-tech hot water dispenser and herbal tea bags encourage you to hydrate. Relaxing music is piped in throughout the building.

The concept behind community acupuncture is to make acupuncture affordable to the masses. This means that your treatment is done in a group setting, on chairs, fully clothed. However, at CAMA, this is not always the case. Frequently treatments are done upstairs in a private room. All treatments are done lying down on a massage table. If you are alone, some disrobing may occur, depending on your treatment. They also have yummy fresh linens on the massage tables instead of the medical paper you see in most offices.

Every treatment room - whether the large group room downstairs, or the smaller upstairs rooms -- are beautifully decorated with Asian spiritual themes.

My acupuncturist is Kim. She has an amazing bedside manner and is able to relax you even before the treatment begins. Kim is a bit of a psychologist and during the pre-treatment interview will frequently offer up metaphors for your current situation that apply to the treatment.

What is acupuncture like? After the interview, Kim decides what you need. You lay on the yummy linens, clothed, with supporting pillows. She might roll up your pant legs or sleeves, or pull up your shirt. Needles are placed in various locations following a prescribed order. Sometimes the needles hurt a little bit going in, but although I am a baby when it comes to pain, I don't mind because I know that in seconds, the pain will be replaced by a feeling of relaxation, calm, and possibly even bliss. Sometimes you can feel the needles acting immediately upon entry. I often feel rivulets of energy coursing down my legs, but most of the time, a profound relaxation settles in after about five minutes on the table.

Last month I came into the office in a very inflamed emotional state. I was upset in the way that takes over your entire body, so that even if your mind gets distracted, you know something is wrong because your body hurts. She did a special treatment that required me to lay on my stomach and take my shirt off to expose my back. She placed several needles strategically on my back -- no pain there, few nerve endings. She may have placed others, I don't remember, because the treatment dissipated the wild influx of emotions and calmed me down within minutes. She noted that around the entry point of the needles, my skin was bright and inflamed -- particularly around the heart (grief) and liver (anger) points. After 20 minutes, the skin was clear and I was clear. It took a night's sleep to fully recover from the emotional onslaught, but the treatment did a lot to relieve the acuteness of the emotions.

And that without drugs or alcohol.

I've had a lot of acupuncture over the years. I consider it to be magical that a few needles here and there can affect feelings and perspective. Personally, I haven't had luck curing long-term ailments such as shoulder or knee pain. But it does affect you nevertheless by promoting healing and natural feelings of bliss. It can also support the body to make major life changes. I love being able to have a weekly acupuncture appointment and CAMA makes that possible.

Bees

Last Sunday I went to the Philadelphia Beekeeper's Guild meeting to attend a lecture on organic beekeeping and apitherapy. Silly me, I thought apitherapy was kind of an occupational therapy - like animal assisted therapy. I was thinking that for some people, watching the bees collect honey, raise their young, cooperate, and so on, would be therapeutic to the depressed and lonely. So I was wrong! Apitherapy is about healing the body by using bee products such as honey, pollen, propolis, and bee stings.

At any rate, I learned a lot and found that a lot of people I know are interested in bees. For example, I went with two others (Ernst & Julie) and each of us knew someone at the event.

I am definitely buying a hive. But it is a confusing world out there. I can place an order with an Amish man, but what to buy?

Soap Workshop

Date: February 20, 2011


Time: 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM

Location: Falls Flowers, 3421 Conrad St., Philadelphia, PA 19129 Directions


Cost*:
$40.00 - working adults
$25.00 - students, seniors, and underemployed


*All money collected will be donated to the Small Art School in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Description:
Who doesn't like to wash with luxurious handmade soap made with all natural ingredients and scented
with healing essential oils? We will show you how to create lovely bars of fragrant soap in your own kitchen!

This class will include:

* review of basic ingredients and equipment
* demonstration - cold process soap making
* hands-on soap cutting
* handouts with instructions and sources for ingredients
* a pound of homemade soap to take home with you

RSVP: Julie Margulies, 267-307-4279 or jamargulies@gmail.com

Cambodia, Thailand, and Japan

I am going to Cambodia. In preparation, I'm reading a novel about Cambodia entitled, The King's Last Song. Although it doesn't seem to be on anyone's A list, I'm enjoying it quite a bit since it takes place in modern-day Cambodia and during the reign of Jaravarman VII. Jaravarman VII built many of the temples in Siam Reap.

You will have to excuse my horrible ignorance about Cambodia's recent history. I remember during the height of Vietnam war protests, in 1970 after Kent State, the news that U.S. forces had been bombing Cambodia for several months broke. I still have the button, "If You Liked Vietnam, You'll Love Cambodia."

And then of course I've heard the stories about Pol Pot. My neighbor Ernst employed a few Cambodians and their stories were of harrowing nighttime escapes with bullets flying. And I refused to see The Killing Fields as way too disturbing.

So, I missed Cambodia's 23 years of warfare. While I was marrying, starting my career, and raising children, a generation of Cambodians never learned to read.

My next book about Cambodia is an eye-witness account about a girl who grew up under the Khmer Rouge, so stay tuned. Thank goodness a few people learned to read and write.

All of this is by way of preparation for some fundraising I will be doing in advance of my trip. A friend of Naoko's volunteers at The Small Art School in Siem Reap. I plan to volunteer a bit when I am there and also to donate some money to the school. To that end, I will be doing a soapmaking workshop and hopefully also a sushi party.

Omega Institute

Here at Omega taking the Lynda Barry workshop. I'm camping, too. Having slept fitfully the last two nights, I am relieved to learn that folks in cabins and dorms are also sleep deprived.

The workshop "Writing the Unthinkable," is amazing. I've met people who have taken it 11 times. Seems excessive, but I think I kind of get it. I can't wait to share the techniques. Certainly would work as an imagination prod. However, hard to replace the Lynda herself, who is hysterically funny and has crazy rules. For instance, we have naptime, on the floor on mats, just like in kindergarten. I love it. Any chance to rest is okay by me. She also sings a song from south park every day and has us do the abcs. And draw spirals. And not look at people when they're reading so they can be anonymous.

It's really really fun.

Oh, and met the woman who wrote my feng shui book. She's in the class. What are the odds?

Jemez Springs

We're staying in a beautiful house next to the Jemez River. You can hear the river gurgling all night outside the bedroom window. Last night we made a New Mexican feast -- red chile enchiladas made with homemade tortillas (there is a whole thing about red and green which I'll explain later), posole (stewed whole corn), calabcitas (stir fried squash with several magical ingredients), and stewed pinto beans.

New Mexican cuisine is different than tex mex or Mexican it turns out. Our teacher, chef Carmen Rodriguez taught us that New Mexico has a state question: "Red or Green?" This refers to the type of chili sauce. Just like at home, red chilis are the ones that have ripened further, while the green ones are -- green.

The red chilis are frequently turned into a dried powder -- instant red sauce! Green chilis are also powdered, but it's best to use fresh. They are just coming into season so we buaght a few pounds (Barbara and I argued over this. She wanted to buy 1 or 2 chilis. I wanted to buy 5 lbs. We comprmised). We bought a chili roaster, too. Very cool gadget that fits over the stove. You can roast your chilis right there, more fun than broiling them and definitely more fun than cooking them over the flame with a fork that gets hotter and hotter.

Venison Chili

Ok so I took some heat for not updating my blog after I returned from Alaska. Since this recipe was much in demand as I described it to my friends in Alaska, here it is. I was in the country this weekend and spotted dozens (really) of deer -- does and twins primarily. But what has that got to do with the recipe?

SPAM chile

5 Green bell peppers, chopped
10 Jalapeno peppers, seeded and diced
5 large onions, chopped
5 lbs venison
2.5 lbs chicken
2 (12) ounce cans Spam
4 teaspoons brown sugar
2 t. each coriander, paprika, cumin, salt, and black pepper
2 quarts strong turkey stock
2 bottles ale
1 lb peeled tomatoes, chopped
8 roasted, seeded dried ancho chiles
5 T. chili powder
4 T. each dried basil, oregano, and coriander
1 T.ground chipotle
1 T.annato paste
4 cups cooked black beans
¼ cup brown sugar


In a larger cooking pot, saute onions and peppers in bacon fat (or olive oil?) until onions are transparent. Remove and drain. Cut meat into cubes. In a mixing bowl, combine brown sugar, coriander, paprika, cuman, salt and black pepper, and rub into venison, chicken, and SPAM. Sear meats in small batches, then combine in pot with peppers and onions. Add stock, ale, tomatoes, chilies, chile powder, basil, oregano, and coriander, chopotle and anato paste and cook for two hours on medium heat,stirring occasionally. Add beans, and cook and stire for an additional 30 minutes. Add ¼ cup brown sugar, salt and pepper to taste. To thicken, add ¼ cup masa harina flour.

Serves 12 according to the recipe. 120 is more like it.