Last week when we went to our local co-op for groceries, there was a car in the parking lot with a bumper sticker that read: HONK IF YOU ARE LETTING THE SOFT ANIMAL OF YOUR BODY LOVE WHAT IT LOVES. This is funny in the obvious way: honking is an angry thing, so honking with Mary Oliver about softness and ease is perverse and charming. Also, though, the title of the poem that famous line is from? Is "Wild Geese"! And, you know; geese honk! This combination of whatever level of culture bumper sticker outrage is and literary allusion cracked me up so fully that after I explained to James why I was jumping up and down and giggling, I asked a stranger walking by with a really excellently tied scarf that somehow made me think she might like poetry humor if she'd like to share the funniest bumper sticker I'd seen in ages. Bless her, she said yes.
(If you're a bumper sticker person, and this is lighting you up, just search for it; there are a zillion variations, none from sources I recognize enough to recommend.)
I'm thinking of this today because I've been thinking about the soft animal of my body, and yours; all of ours. I went to a big public bathhouse recently after years without one, and oh, my heart. When I lived in San Francisco my work schedule was built for years to land me at Kabuki Springs in Japantown every week; on Fridays I taught two early morning private sessions, then locked my bike up at Kabuki just as they opened at 10am. There were two groups of regulars, both consisting of elderly immigrant women, who were also there every week; one was Eastern European women, one was Japanese women. These women have, without ever speaking to me that I can recall, been guiding me my whole adult life. As I head toward elderhood here at 56 I am ever more grateful for their silent guidance.
See, the bathhouses that I've known have mostly been naked places. You sweat in dry and wet saunas, soak in hot and cold water, shower, and lounge. You drift around between these things in a towel or a robe. Different cultures have different traditions: the Japanese bathhouse had big bowls of salt for exfoliating in the steam room and cucumber slices for laying on your eyes as you rested in the wooden lounge chairs. More than once strangers asked me to scrub places they couldn't reach; such a tender intimacy. "Would you be willing to give my back a good scrub, please? Right over my kidneys?" The Korean bathhouse had infrared saunas and spa services where women would scrub you vigorously. The Russian bathhouse had a dry sauna with an enormous ceramic tile-covered woodstove and you could buy bunches of dried leaves to smack your back with to increase circulation and infuse the body with the oils of the leaves.
Recently my town has a new sauna, which is very exciting! It isn't a naked place because Seaside Sauna is on the beach, outdoors: we sweat in a pair of gorgeous woodfired saunas, and if you wish, you can walk down to plunge in the Salish Sea. Heavenly! Most bathhouses will allow you to wear a suit if you prefer, but at Seaside everyone does. I prefer to sweat in skin, but I love that suits make Seaside widely accessible.
All of these places share the same heart: a place to sweat, cleanse, and unwind. to just be human. It is so entirely soft animal to tend your body in community. The inherent trust of flopping around in the heat together is precious and soothing. A place to just be.
The older I get the more grateful I am that me-in-my-20s who, upon moving to California, took a deep breath and then took off my clothes at the hot tubs and springs, at the beaches, at the bathhouses. Because I have seen an extraordinary number of soft animal bodies. Bodies not carefully lit, that didn't prepare specially for this, that had no flattering angles carefully chosen or makeup. I have seen an uncountable number of naked women scrubbing their armpits or crotches while sitting on stools along the shower wall, sinking or floating in the pools, scrubbing each other's massive fleshy or tiny little bony backs with salty washcloths. I know the naturalness of our dimpling and sagging, the common patterns and constant uniqueness of our scars and stretch marks, our lumps and our hollows, and the supreme elegance of absolutely every person who is unashamed in their flesh walking easily, naked, across a room. We are so beautiful.
Recently a friend and I took a day trip to a big Korean spa: old women and young women, women with zillions of tattoos and none, women with complex scars, women of lots of different ethnic backgrounds, skin tones, hair textures, kinds of hairiness. There was a woman with a walking stick, which was not something I'd seen before in a space full of slick wet tiles. (May she be ever be steady and brave.) All of us in our gloriously varied humanness. There is a special invitation toward feeling comfortable in your flesh in a sea of naked people, wonderfully imperfect and wildly varied. Astonishing and unremarkable. For me, the smell of warm cedar is associated forever with unabashed humanness.
I found something that resonates with this on Instagram recently. A woman named Jackie Kelley has a charming little reel which she opens by saying she's "going to do a little normal body exposure therapy to cleanse the feed." Wearing an unremarkable black bra and panties, she points to a pimple on her chin, smiles, and says, "That's okay." She holds the soft flesh of her belly in both of her hands, tosses it around, and says, "It's okay!" She wiggles looser parts and squeezes rounder parts, points to cellulite, bruises, hair, saying over, "This is okay. It's just a body." Here and there she pauses for a sip of coffee. The emotional surety and lack of shame in her normal humanness – this is just what I've found in bathhouses: letting the soft animal of the body be. Her tone and this little phrase became an immediate classic in my heart. The other day my mind presented some thoughts to me for the possibility of anxious rumination, and as I used my meditative skills to choose a different direction for my mind, I heard myself say inside, "That's okay."
I love this part of my work, getting to be the voice of "It's okay." All of my work is built to meet you where you are. Yes, you can come to yoga class if you don't feel well enough in body or in heart to move; I'll set you up in a restorative pose. Yes, you can come to my regular yoga class in your pregnancy; I'll simply give you the options that are safe for you. Yes, you can come to meditation late, in your pajamas. All of my meditation is designed to work for neurodiverse people and people living with trauma because I'm pretty sure that's most of us. Yes, you can cry right on through anything. It's okay. We'll keep humanning along as best we can, making the best of this time in human form, under the stars, insisting upon being soft animals, together.
I'm so glad to be in it with you, precious.
Love,
Dahlia
Resources
We Are the Mystery, Too
This article about paradoxical lucidity, terminal lucidity, and the nature of consciousness blew my mind so sweetly that I read the entire thing aloud to James at the start of our annual two day drive to camp under the old growth redwoods. He kept interrupting me to shout "YES!" I was particularly struck by these lines from Sam Parnia, a brain and consciousness researcher at New York University:
“We are at the cusp of the exploration of a new frontier in science,” he wrote, declaring himself “quite optimistic that the nature of human consciousness — our very selfhood — will be discovered to be a flux of energy like electromagnetic waves that interacts with the brain and body but is not produced by them.”
Here's the whole piece. I hope it enriches your wondering.
Cosmic Grounding
Tonight is the lunar eclipse; the moon will be 96% eclipsed. It's a kind one, beginning at 6:23pm Pacific, 9:23pm Eastern. If you're on the West Coast, be sure to check local moonrise, though, before you begin to watch. For me moonrise will be about 7:53, which means it will already be partially eclipsed upon rising! This will be new for me and I am crossing everything for clear skies.
During eclipses I love to feel out into the body of the cosmos, to think into the scale of it: the shadow of the Earth crossing over the full moon; the vastness of the alignment that makes this so. The Earth, the sun, the moon, all lined up this way. I like to set intentions during eclipses, to affirm for myself the directions I am intending in that moment in my living.
Libraries are Tools for Revolution
And I wonder if you know that your library or university card might be able to get you free access to thousands of streaming films? Kanopy partners with libraries and universities to bring free and ad-free streaming your way. Thanks to my neighbor, the talented artist Anna Moore, for turning me on to this one.
Gentler Protection
Do you know about permethrin-treated clothing? Permethrin is an insect repellent and Insect Shield makes scarves and socks and shirts and so on that are permethrin-treated to repel bugs without having to spray the repellent directly on your skin. The treatment is said to last for 70 washes, which is estimated as probably the life of most garments. James and I got scarves like this when we were living on our boat in Mexico and we adore them. Insect Shield also has a program where they'll send you a bag and for $125 they'll treat whatever you can fit in the bag. They estimate that 10-15 light garments will fit. After my last camping trip I finally took the plunge on this and I'm so excited to have insect-repellent sundresses, socks, and long, loose blouses.
Speaking of insect repellent, an exciting recent study showed that a lotion with 6% catnip oil was as effective as 15% DEET; for comparison, Deep Woods Off is 25% DEET. I imagine we'll be seeing some excellent new products in the next couple of years based on this.
Me!
Registration is open now for my autumn Workshop for Living - The Story of Belonging: Myth, Meaning, and Meditation. There's a wide range of forms and costs for participation, from $250-775. Of course the web listing for the Workshop will tell you more, but I'd be glad to talk to you, too! You can schedule a free 15 minute call with me to discuss whether and how this might be a fit for you. I would share this work with everyone if I could; it is the place of my greatest spiritual creativity. Come play?
I've also got space in my online Morning Series Yoga (Mon & Wed, 7-8 or 8:15 am Pacific). This is a class that people sometimes drop in on for a month or two and often attend for years on end; it's a good central place for practice if movement is core for you.
Resistance
My friend Lizzy, who I love to share book recommendations with, texted me this photo the other day:
Promo for the book says, "Revisit the Salem Witch Trials, the Underground Railroad, and other resistance movements of American history to get a bold new understanding of how resistance shaped our past—and how its principles can change our future." and "An urgent, bracing new look at American history that Ava DuVernay calls 'deeply necessary for this moment.'" Sounds delicious!
There's a resistance action that I'd be grateful for you to consider, loves; this one is dear to my heart and home. The current administration has announced the intention to strip Roadless Rule protections from 45 million acres of protected national forest backcountry. Among these are the South Quinault Ridge & Moonlight Dome Ancient Forest Headwaters of the Humptulips, which are in the Olympic National Forest near me and would affect the drinking water of my town. The Roadless Rule protects very wild lands from construction and logging. We need these wild lands. The Earth needs these wild lands. There is a short comment period, ending Sept 21st.
You could learn more about this from the fine folks at EarthJustice, the largest nonprofit public interest environmental law organization in the United States, fighting good fights for us all since 1971. You could also jump right to sending a letter to the U.S. Forest Service via EarthJustice right here. If you feel moved to join and share this action, I would be grateful.
Supporting me in supporting you
This is entirely human work – my work, done by hand, with my own mind and heart. I do not have an AI and do not use them in what I create for you. The half day I devote to creating this each week is a labor of love for which I earn about $15/hr. You can chip in on giving me a raise with one-time donation, or by upgrading to a paid subscription for as little as $5/month.
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