Accidentally New Age*

Accidentally New Age is on the letter B in her project to listen to her music library in alphabetical order by album title.

Bad — The Bad Plus 3 Pak — Baduizm — Bag’s Groove

One thing ANA is wondering abou is how to deal with the songs and albums she isn’t exactly in love with (or downright can’t stand).  The tracks she would never listen to unless mandated to by some ridiculous project she’s set for herself.

ANA’s got plenty of space on her external drive, so it’s not like she needs to concern herself with the extra space she would have available if she deleted, say, “Part-Time Lover.” But at the same time she doesn’t like the idea of not keeping whole albums intact. (Do albums have feelings? She doesn’t want to hurt them.)

And what about if a friend is over who is all “What is this ‘Part-Time Lover’ song I’ve heard so much about?” ANA should probably hold on to it, just in case.

Accidentally New Age has to admit she forgot about you. Not each of you as individuals, of course. But the collective you that is the audience of this here blog. Indeed, she also kind of forgot how to log on to post this missive.

So ANA had forgotten about you, but then something happened — as it always seems to.

People have been talking to ANA a lot lately about flower essences. It’s not like she’d never heard of them; they practically have a wall full of them at Scarlet Sage. But she’s never really understood what they were, nor had the gumption to do research until recently. Because they keep coming up in conversation. Then, ANA’s bodywork genius squeezed some into ANA’s mouth during her last session and she decided she needs to know more.

Apparently, and ANA didn’t fact check this (nor does she have an intern to do said fact checking), the flower essences are made by infusing spring water with, you know, the essence of flowers. And they are used to help bring people and their pets back into their natural balance. Apparently they’ve been shown to work on babies and dogs, so take THAT placebo effect.

Anyhoot, what do flower essences have to do with you? Well the other day, when ANA got out her flower essences and squeezed four drops of each directly into her kombucha, she thought “I need to tell someone about this.”

Accidentally New Age hopes you spent a good amount of the last few nights taking moon baths. It’s the moon, in fact, that reminded ANA about this handy little forum she has for writing about the awesomeness of such things as the moon.

ANA told her journal that 2009 is the year of going outside every day to admire the moon. And so it is.

Accidentally New Age loves nothing more than making lists.

Lists of coleoidea and decapoda cephalods in order of subjective awesomeness (1. giant squid, 2. octopus, 3. jellyfish/cuttlefish [tied], 4. all other squids).

Annotated lists of dance movies.

Lists of all the types of bodywork she’s received.

One of ANA’s favorite lists to make, though, is her semi-annual list of all the crap she’s been meaning to do, but hasn’t gotten around to doing. There’s something about putting all of this information into visible, doable chunks that makes the list a great project to do — from the writing of it, to the checking off of each item. (Last item: reach enlightenment!)

Right now, just days before the full moon in Aquarius, seems like optimal list-making time. (omg, ANA just looked at her lunar calendar to make sure she wasn’t lying about that full moon in Aquarius business, and her calendar uses an icon of a big squid to represent that sign. ANA needs to go lay down.)

As promised, here is KK in chakorasana, taken by Accidentally New Age’s camera phone after KK finished eating three cupcakes and drinking a mimosa. ANA feels sad that she couldn’t capture her shakti-filled left toes, but y’all get the idea. Can you tell that her bum is lifted off the floor? Because it is.

Accidentally New Age has been busy!

• She’s been attending weekend-long spiritual workshops.
• She’s been buying items she swore she’d never buy.
• She’s been picking out the perfect teapot within which to brew her favorite Pu-erh.
• She’s been signing up for lots more yoga-type workshops.
• She’s been working some ridiculous hours at her day job.
• She’s been dreaming about poop and about water and friends falling off the edge of the earth.
• She’s been eating raw food and lots of juice and vegan delicacies.
• She’s been getting ready for her Reiki Attunement.
• She’s been seeing deliciously bad dance movies.
• She has been finding an Ayurvedic clinician.
• She’s been waking up early every morning to meditate.

She has been missing all of you.

Some friends are making lists. Here’s Accidentally New Age’s latest.

Types of Bodywork (or Energy Work) ANA has received.

In descending order of frequency.

• Deep Tissue Massage
• Polarity Therapy
• Acupuncture
• Reiki
• Cranial Sacral
• Chiropractic
• Shiatsu
• Rosen Method
• Swedish Massage
• Somatic Psychotherapy
• Aromatherapy Massage
• Thai Yoga Massage
• Rolfing
• Lomi-Lomi
• Hot Stone Massage

Accidentally New Age is glad that the storm seems to have finished storming it up across the Bay Area. When she got home from work on Friday, the power was out on her block. The storm uprooted a very large, old tree on the corner and the tree must have interfered with the wires on its way down. So ANA opened the freezer and realized that the power must have been out for quite some time as the ice cream was all melted and the freezer wasn’t exactly cold inside. And so she did what any Accidentally New Age girl would do — she grabbed the blue ice from the freezer and wrapped it around the bottle of flax oil in the fridge.

We wouldn’t want our flax oil to go bad now, would we?

Things that Accidentally New Age doesn’t like to hear from her Reiki practitioner: “You might detox a little bit.” ANA has been receiving massages of all varieties for many years now and has always shrugged off this idea of post-massage detoxing. She makes it a point to drink plenty of water after a massage, and that’s about the end of it.

Until the first time she went to her Reiki lady. Not one to do things in a small way, ANA opted for a two-hour session, one hour of Shiatsu followed by one hour of Reiki. She walked home feeling blissful, ate dinner, and sat down to watch Prison Break. But toward the end of Prison Break it was apparent that there were strange things going on in the intestinal region. She tried to make it through to the end of the show, but no…the bathroom called.

ANA will spare you the gory and disgusting details, but she would like to point out that the difference between this detoxing event and, say, food poisoning, was that there was an inner vibration of sorts occurring. It was a tinny feeling on the inside, and it seemed like she was shaking all over, but the vibration was entirely internal, like when you can tell that a bell is ringing, but you can’t actually see its movements.

The moral of all of this being that after ANA’s last Reiki session, she heard those infamous words yet again, “There was quite a lot of activity going on in your stomach. Don’t be surprised if you detox a little bit over the next few days.”

Ah, the price we pay for bliss.

My head is so heavy, it’s hanging like the moon. — Tom Brosseau

Last night’s full moon was so bright, all Accidentally New Age could do was stare at it and smile. After tripping over the sidewalk for the third time, Accidentally realized that it is not a good idea to walk down the street staring up at the sky with no regard for the earthly world.