Three (3)

When I was still teaching, some 40 years ago, I had my ear pierced. I did it during the summer because when you have a new piercing, you cannot take the earring out for a month.

I wanted to wear an earring but in those days, my career as a teacher caused me to have to be careful about any kind of behavior that would label me as some kind of subversive. It could cost me my job!

At that time, earrings on a man was a newer phenomenon and was suspect. It probably meant he was Gay. If he wasn't Gay then he was a hippy, or lived some kind of alternative life style or smoked pot and therefore was suspect none-the-less.

Supposedly if the left ear was pierced it meant he was the active sexual partner (the pitcher,) and if the right ear was pierced it meant he was the passive sexual partner (the catcher.)

Fast forward to my 50th birthday. By then I had retired from teaching, was wearing my earring all the time. I wanted a second one in the same ear. The first "hole" was high on the ear (done so the "hole" would not be apparent to students and other teachers in the classroom while I was not wearing the earring in school.)

I chose to have the second one in the regular location of the ear lobe. While I was happy with two earrings, it caused a controversy. Was there to much space between the two earrings or was it OK.

I asked a number of friends what they thought and the votes were evenly distributed. Some thought it looked just right and others thought they were too far apart. That raised the question, was two earrings enough or should I have a third piercing in between the two existing "holes?"

I hesitated and just couldn't decide, two or three? 2 or 3? II or III? What to do, what to do. Looking back, I am not sure why it was such a difficult decision but for some reason it was.

Now I need to digress in the story. I had been to New Orleans a number of times and really love the city. Once I went with Gregory but most often I went alone, on those "solitary vacations" that he and I used to take. We vacationed together often but now and then ventured off solo. New York, San Francisco, Mexico, New Orleans.

While in New Orleans one year, I went into a Voodoo shop and decided to have my "fortune" told for $20.00. The psychic's name was Ilene and for the most part her comments were very accurate.

I didn't tell her anything but she seemed to know a lot about me. I was a teacher, a writer, had a male lover, etc. Her description of what was important to me in life was accurate. And her predictions for the future seemed within reason.

Over the next several years, when in New Orleans, I would visit Ilene, we became friends of sorts, and we would go out to dinner after my readings. Eventually she left New Orleans walking to safety after Hurricane Katrina. We have since lost touch.

At our last reading, which lasted close to two hours, she used several decks of cards to guide her comments. She was amazed that so many "threes" came up. The number three stands for ambivalence and indecision but, as she explained, not inability to decide but rather that I had a hard time deciding because "I wanted it all!"

For example I had a hard time deciding between buying "A" or buying "B" because I wanted both "A" AND "B." Visiting "A" or "B" because I wanted to visit both "A" AND "B." etc.

That helped me decide on getting another earring. With three earrings I would be reminded why I sometimes had difficulties making decisions. And it did describe me to a "T." That is the way I live my life, sometimes unconsciously and sometimes on purpose. I want it all!

So the number three not only represents the number of earrings in my left ear, the reason I have trouble making decisions at times, but also has become my favorite, lucky number.

• • •

As an aside, in the Japanese art of flower arranging, odd numbers of objects are the most pleasing. When possible my curated arrangements are in threes and I like to collect things in threes: like 3 bakelite buttons or 3 Chinese figurines or 3 matching Christmas ornaments.

The Cabin

A brief history.

When I was teaching 5th grade I helped my students through creative visualizations. I created for myself at that time a “forest near the ocean” where I could go when I needed to be peaceful.

When I studied Yoga Nidra maybe five years ago, part of the practice is to create a safe place where you can retreat if you get uncomfortable or fearful of what you are working on in the intention of your practice. After I “recreated” a forest to which to retreat and find peace, I realized that it was the same one I had used many years before. A private, safe haven in my mind.   

When America Martinez gave me her first reading, the Angels and Spirit Guides and Ancestors wanted her to describe for me where they were gathering on my behalf and invited me to sit with them. It was a beautiful forest with dappled shade, flowers growing, and a clearing where we could sit. I felt that it was the same forest that has continued in my life. 

“Your guides were in a forest. The scene that I got was that we were walking down a trail with them. High trees, tall trees. They came to an area of forest where there was a garden that had been created. There were some flowers and through the spaces between the trees there was some sun coming in. The garden was in full bloom.

“It was a sacred space within the forest with its tall trees which of course hold a higher wisdom. The trees accumulate this wisdom through time by watching all the things that take place around them. A forest is a sacred place not only because it is a place of nature but also a place of wisdom. Your guides asked me to detail this for you so that through the power of your imagination you could take yourself there and find yourself walking with them on the trail, and finding the garden.

“In the center of the garden was a space that was clear, earth and some grass, and in that space they sat in circle and they welcomed you to step into the circle too, invited you to sit with them, to breath with them, and to join them in this sacred place in your heart. To think of it as a sacred place in your heart, a temple to visit by way of your breath and to settle there into your heart. And to feel the healing, the nurturance, the breath, and the inspiration that nature brings to you.

America added that I could manipulate the forest in whatever way I might want to, like planting more flowers. So I brought back the ocean from my previously created visualization and put it a little distance away so I could hear the waves and walk over to the beach when I wanted. I also added a bench to sit on near the circle and a cabin across the way in which to get out of the rain or take a nap.

On one of my Yoga Nidra sessions, while in a deep meditation, I went into the cabin to look around and a shadow ran by my legs. I looked around and realized that the shadow was of Mariah, a dear cat who had died a while back. I was so happy to see her and I realized that  I could invite any departed soul back to visit with me including pets, relatives, friends, etc.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my current imagined forest retreat’s cabin, closely resembles the one that Alice used at Ragdale. Some twenty years before I won my two week residency in Creative Non-Fiction Writing by competitive application, I had visited Ragdale when Gregory was doing some pro-bono consulting on how to create a disability friendly space for them in order to be able to accommodate an artist who needed accessibility. While he was working with them, the then director suggested I walk around the grounds and that I could feel free to go into the cabin because Alice was not currently in residence.

It was a magical experience to be in her cabin, to explore respectfully, to sit quietly and think. 

I would love to have a photograph as a visual memory of that experience so I reached out to my now dear friend Susan Tillett who was Director of Ragdale (now retired) when I did my residency to see if she had any that I might have. She was not able to come up with one but I do have these of the exterior: One on a post card from a post card showing the1820s log cabin which at the 1933-34 Chicago Century of Progress was billed as “Abe Lincoln’s Indiana Home.” I will dig through my photo archives for a few other photos of the outside. In a future post I will try to "visually" paint a picture of what it looked and felt like.