In my dream last night I was going through an old trunk of mine and ended up finding all kind of loot! There was a check for like $1500, another thousand in cash here and there, and I even found a rare dollar bill that was made to look like lace ribbon.
Things going on in my life: I started an internship at the Colorado School of English. I am actually getting paid very little while the internship, but I love the environment- all the international students, and the teachers- one happens to be an old favorite friend of mine! The director is french. Maybe one day I will be brave enough to put my french language training into practice! Languages are definitely a special skill of mine, and it feels great to be in an area that complements this. The position may lead to a full time job! Hopefully it will pay more than minimum wage so that I can stay. I would be an admin, I’m assuming.
Also, I sold a bunch of that Soviet propaganda that was found by a dumpster. It was given to me by a friend who knows I’m czech and interested in these cultural and historical type of things. I was alerted by another friend they were worth some money. He ended up buying some as an amateur collector.
What other riches are lurking beneath the surface??? I look forward to their revelation!
Dreams, Events | 23.09.2009 6:14 | No Comments
I reel from Walter Kitty’s disappearance. There’s a void of absence in my gut, and it squeezes shut tight when I remember him. I wince from the pain that crashes in with the same intensity that my love for him carries. He’s gone.
I seek equanimity. His magnanimous presence– his snuggles, biscuits, love-bites, face-rubs, sharpening claws on the carpet, sleeping on the bed, bringing in mice, soft meows from the other side of the basement window, dignified face with long white eye-brow 
whiskers peering in– all these were a great gift, a bonus. He enriched my life so much. This good life, already. As I experience the other side of this, the missing, I seek to rest in the middle. I seek peace, this moment in it’s perfection…
He died playing his favorite game. He was so attuned to life, to the great Mother Nature of wild things, great nurturer and destroyer. He was an active participant of the predator/prey dance– How many mice that kitty brought in, and ate their head off. and also the birds… How fitting he’d get taken out by a coyote, or foxes– darn 
trickster! I now have an even greater reverence for the animals I eat…
I had a piece of him to bury, thank you coyote… I have his pictures, thank you modern technology. I exalt his memory, I give thanks. I try to let it be. I see him go on his crocodile walk, swaggering like a lion to kitty heaven.
Letting him slip into the other side… somewhere between being and not being….
I’ll always love you, Walter Kitty. Peace~
Cats, Events | 6.09.2009 14:52 | No Comments
Tuesday was our second anniversary. We went back to the place where I found him. The theater was closed, but he got out of the car and hopped up to it through the rain to look in through the dark windows. He turned and waved his arm, motioning for me to come too.
We hung out there on the sidewalk where we first talked about the coolest things, giving each other kisses as the rain poured down, falling outside the awning giving us shelter. Then he pulled the ring out of his shirt pocket and asked me to marry him. Of course! I said and threw my arms around his neck. And that is how it happened– it is happening!
It feels wonderful to belong to somebody. To love so deeply and to be loved in return. I have found my opposite, my one true love, no holds barred, who walks with me into the deep. I feel lucky, grateful, solid. As the shock recedes the emotions swell… I am amazed. It is happening to me!
Events, Love | 20.06.2009 9:23 | 1 Comment
I was invited to a sweat lodge ceremony and it was not something that I wanted to miss. In fact, I had been wanting to experience this for a number of years.
The director of the holistic health clinic where I teach yoga, who is a friend of my boyfriend’s, knows a guy who tends the fire for these ceremonies. We went to this lady’s place in north Boulder. Chris came; we were to arrive no later than 10 am. on the winter solstice. Newcomers, I did not want to be late, and we were almost the first to arrive. Tony, the youngish fire tender, put us to work, clearing away the snow and the leaves from the round lodge and the circular altar with shovels and brushes.
It was barely zero degrees outside, the sun glimmering away like a golden jewel, hanging low in the sky. More people trickled in, bringing bouquets of flowers and pitching in. A couple of dogs sniffed around and played, I met our hosts, and the Mayan Indian who was going to lead the ceremony. Roatia is his name, but I heard “Well-wisher,” which is what he was in effect, and I called him this for the rest of this shortest day that we spent together.
The lodge was made out of a specific number of branches, looped together and tied with purple sashes. It was like a great spider. One by one, we lifted the lava rocks out of the middle, making rows on the outside of tens then four to collect exactly 64 stones. Tony built a wooden platform, upon which we stacked the stones. Roatia provided commentary. The women started the process; women, to whom was given a great honor by the leader of our ceremony, acknowledgment of our creative and destructive powers. The men were deemed the witnesses. The stones, Roatia said, were going to reflect back what we put in them. So, it might be best to leave them blank. However, he guided us to remember all the mothers, and grandmothers. One by one we stacked the lava rocks on the pyre.
The great pile of 64 stones was then wrapped from the south to the east by branches peaking like a teepee. Meanwhile, the alter was decorated by a large staff with a curved end. On this crest paraded a few feathers, below, an abalone shell with a blood red stone, a bowl of fruit: bananas, mangos, blackberries, which slowly froze, flowers, chocolate…
My feet were beginning to freeze in my thin-soled boots on the packed snow. I found a big piece of bark to stand on. I smiled broadly as Roatia caught my presence, and he held my glance, smiling back at me. Where had we met before? he asked. The lodge was covered by great canvases, and they were tucked in snug around the edges.
It was time to light the fire, and the women were given the task by Roatia. We were to ignite it, and the men took over the task of making it big and hot. Smoke wafted from it, as the water heated off the wood. We had a chance to snack and talk together. The fire nice and hot from the front, we alternated roasting our fronts and our backs. The great soft golden retriever Lucky greeted everyone, standing right on the alter and carrying away a flower.
In the freezing air upon the snow the thirteen of us stripped down then when we were given the go-ahead into bathing suits and sarongs, T-shirts/shorts and towels. Shoes off in the lodge, and bring “all the water in the world” to next to the lodge, where it was going to be added to a large wooden bucket. Down to bear feet, women first, we went around from the south to the west. We were smudged by the hostess, brushed down with two great big feathers and we filed into the lodge, one by one, sitting down on our towels in the sand in the lodge. My feet tingled thickly and numbly, I wrapped them in my yellow semi-fuzzy robe, and wondered if it did any good.
The men filed in, Elizabeth sat, Roatia sat, and Tony began to bring in the lava rocks, one by one, one pitch-fork at a time. Roatia held the fork with the glowing red-hot rock, said the first one was for the moon. He commented further, and then place the rock in the pit in the middle. One lady sprinkled juniper on it, and it sparkled like gunpowder. Elizabeth then sprinkled something that seemed to be some kind of golden resin. It melted and went up in smoke, releasing its perfume and blessing. Sometimes it even caught fire, and Roatia would go “mm hm,” and Elizabeth would say “mm hm.” The second rock came in, this time, for the stars, or the sun, or the people. Or the children, for Jeff, for a grandmother, and each time, the juniper and the resin sparkled, smoked and melted.
After ten or so stones went in the pit, Tony brought a bucket of water and some flowers, ditched his shoes, and came into the lodge too. By then, it was getting warm in the lodge from the beaming lava rocks. Tony was huffing and puffing from the exertion and the cold.
When the canvas came down over the small, rounded door, it was pitch black. Roatia said some things, invited us to sing, pray, ask for healing, etc. He began dumping water from the bucket by dipping the flowers. The steam was instantaneous, HOT HOT HOT! I breathed through only my mouth, and joyously letting it envelop me, welcome sweat percolating on my face. My nose started running, it smelled SO GOOD! I huffed and puffed like Roatia and Elizabeth and the others, entering in to the chants and the songs, but mostly huffing and puffing and hooting and wooting. Some of us sat in silence in the pitch-blackness, in the sweat-lodge. NOt me, this time. I’ve been to a healing ceremony before, and although prayers and requests for healings were encouraged, I had sat silent. I didn’t waste much time, and I asked, out loud, with my voice, for healing my tummy.
The door opened, and the short little solstice sun greeted us with cool, crisp winter air. Tony went and got more rocks, pitch-fork by pitch-fork, the ladies sprinkled their medecine. Tony got more water, and a fresh collection of sprigs of flowers.
The second round, Roatia said, was for me. Wow. A whole round just for me. I resolved to welcome it, all the extra special attention, because I deserved it, instead of being mortified. Roatia prayed for all the best for me and my belly, because I deserved it. We all deserved the best. After all the rocks were in place, and Tony was seated back in the sweat lodge with us, the canvas came down again and it became pitch-black, and the steam started again as Roatia poured it on the nearly red-hot gleaming rocks with the flowers, and his chanting came on full force, and he reached over and beat me with the flowers, and I was sopping wet. Ashley squeezed my hand from one side, Elizabeth, the woman with the red healing hands, as Roatia said, squeezed my hand from the other.
We did a total of five “doors,” Roatia quite excited at the best positioning of the door, perfectly letting the sun peak in a little lower each time. The last opened up right after the sun disappeared behind the mountains. Glowing red hot like those lava-rocks, we filed out of the hut and replaced our clothes which had been layed out and piled on benches, drifts, and tailgate. As I replaced my layers, my wool hat was one of the first things on, and by the time I zipped up my boots, the ends of my hair were frozed stiff! Roatia, still barefoot and bare-chested, walked by and gave me some chocolate and a big smile. Big smiles all around, as we rejoined by the ends of the big fire, surrounded by love, loved ones, and the setting sun, and a lumbering fire.
I felt as fresh and clear as a daisy, content and calm.
Events, Spirituality | 28.12.2008 2:08 | No Comments
Nina Lois is a graduate student at the University of Colorado at Denver obtaining a Master's Degree in Humanities with a B.A. in political science. Her passions are broad when it comes to the human condition. She is deeply interested in philosophy, psychology, environmental and social justice, peace studies, music, nutrition, tradition, and progress. 
Upon her imminent graduation, she wishes to contribute to the health, wealth, and happiness of the community through involvement, writing, and research. For goodness's sake, love the body, cultivate the mind and a garden, and feed the soul!
Thanks again