Crippled Chickadee Does Her Physical Therapy

Our crippled chickadee can now hang from a branch with both feet, though her right leg is still wonky and sticks out at an odd angle when she eats sunflower seeds on the railing. 

She likes to perch on the wire surrounding our deck. She perches. She slowly slides backward to upside down. She rights herself with a little flutter of wings. Yesterday afternoon, i saw her doing a dozen pull-ups, strengthening both her legs. She inspired me to get serious about my own physical therapy exercises. After all, if she doesn't strengthen her legs, she's a dead duck. Her goose is cooked.

There's no one to help this chickadee--no one to go to the grocery store for her, no doctor for her to consult. She has to do everything for herself.

You are the only one who can walk your unique spiritual path. No one else can walk it for you. If you don't do your meditation exercises, it's your own lookout.

Take heart from the handicapped chickadee. Nowadays, she is singing "Sweetheart. Sweetheart." Sweetheart, sit down and meditate.

Gardening Feet

I went to the hot springs for a long soak in a 1920s style bathtub. The dim room of a dozen bathtubs for women, separated by white curtains, smelled faintly of Sulphur. After the soak, I wrapped in a large thin towel and walked into the adjoining room of a dozen cots. The bath attended mummy-wrapped me in a sheet and covered me in a blanket to sweat out toxins for half an hour. She placed a cool washcloth over my forehead eyes.  I snoozed.

Afterwards, I felt clean down to the bottom of my pores. As I walked out the door, colors were brighter, sounds were crisper, and smells more fragrant, as if my air filters had been de-smogged.

My April-May-June gardening toenails were clean.

In the spring and early summer, I make my excuse to the masseuse every week.  “I’ve got gardening feet this week.”

She says that most of her Vermont clients have gardening feet in the spring and summer.  It’s just part of the landscape. But women from the nearby city do not. They are much more conscious of their image.

And the point of being image-conscious is...? What? So other women won’t judge us? So we won’t judge ourselves? Or is it that we judge others and then don’t want them to say the mean things about us that we mentally say about them?

If we practice kindness, our self-judging recedes. And when self-judging fades, so does the judging of other people.

Maybe city women prefer clean feet to gardening feet. Who’s to say?