David Wolfe is alright

So I hate to admit that the guy who wrote "The Sunfood Diet Success System" is right about anything, but he really is right about a lot of stuff. (Just don't read the poems. Ouch.) Oh sure, the raw food stuff, he's got science to back him up, but it's his career advice that's really proven itself.

See, he suggested that to figure out what you should be doing with your life, you should look at the things you enjoyed most between the ages of 7 and 14.

It sounds simple, but the other day, it really helped me think through a crazy idea I've had lately. You see, when I was 11, 12-ish, I started taking karate classes. And I loved them. LOVED them. For the first time in my life, I felt excited about doing stuff with my body. I always wanted to be a dancer or a gymnast or an ice skater, but we lived too far away from a place to learn, and plus, I was always sick and I was always fat. But I started to be really good at karate. And then somebody gave me their second-hand gi, and I started feeling self-conscious (because the pants so noisy and attention grabbing) and then I stopped wanting to go.

The same thing happened when I took karate when I was 23. I loved karate, but I got sick a lot and missed a lot of classes and just felt really self-conscious and awkward and got too ashamed to go. It didn't help that I was still the fattest person in my class. I always felt awful about being fat in karate class.

Lately, I have really missed karate, but I have also been busy exploring other things in my life. But about a month ago the weirdest thought crossed my mind: I'd really like to be a yoga teacher. What? I've never even taken yoga. But the thought started rolling some balls in my head, and they connected with some other balls that were set in motion a while ago by chance interactions at the museum. And now I am really thinking that I want to study Qi Gong and eventually become a Qi Gong practitioner.

Qi Gong is a lot like tai chi (in fact, tai chi is a subset of qi gong) and is connected to Kung Fu. It can be a martial art, but it is also a form of energy work and can be done silently without moving. Qi Gong experts can use the movements of qi to heal people.

I have really been interested in Reiki, which is an energy healing practice from Japan, related to qi gong. I am planning to save some money and take a few Reiki classes. I would like to build my own Reiki practice. But I think qi gong would really help me in many, many respects, and would only build my Reiki abilities.

All of these thoughts draw on experiences I had when I was between the ages of 7 and 14. Not only did I fall in love with karate, but I had a number of strange interractions with sick animals that made me want to learn more about alternative healing modalities. After years of not knowing what to do with my life, I feel really excited to reach back to these dreams that have haunted my memories. I am finally in a place where I can start to work toward making those dreams happen.

Joy from the mailbox

The Seed Savers Exchange catalog came today! Yippee! Hooray!

Do you think my landlord would notice if the back lawn disappeared?