Fifty? I might give you three...

Okay, here is the first paragraph of warnings. I'm going to write about the Fifty Shades trilogy. This means if you haven't read all three books and don't want anything spoiled for you go no further. This also means that I am going to be writing about sex. Graphically. Using language and examples that you might not want to read if you don't want to have to think about having a graphic conversation with me about sex. Are we clear?

Okay, now that the three people who haven't read the books yet and my son have left the blog let's continue....

So Fifty Shades. Where do we begin? I first heard about the books a few months ago. They were talked about in an article I read about fan fiction and then another one I read about "mommy porn". Well I wasn't interested in them. First off I am not a fan of the source material for the Fifty Shades books.  I wrote a little about the Twilight series here. Basically I didn't like them. I didn't like the writing style. I didn't like the characters and I didn't like the story. Such as there was. So reading a series that was based off of Twilight but just with sex added didn't appeal to me.

And then there is the "mommy porn" label. I read a series by Laurell Hamilton that Brent and I have been calling Vampire Porn for years. And she has another one that is Fae Porn. Because see, in the first one Vampires have sex and in the second one the Fae do. So you can see how Mommy Porn might not appeal to me as much. But then I found out that it's just what people are calling it because a lot of women are reading the books and it makes them feel better to call it "mommy porn" instead of..."yes women want to have sex and like reading about people having sex porn." Or just porn. Or erotica, which is really more where I would put this.

But then I was talking with a friend of mine and she said she had read them and actually liked them. There were issues, supposedly they are set here in Portland and then up in Seattle and it's pretty obvious that the author has never spent time here, but other than that she said they weren't terrible. I still resisted. But then more and more more people were talking about them and I just had to read them to see what the big deal was. And why everyone was so scandalized! Because let's all just face it right now, we are human and we are biologically designed to like sex. And be intrigued by sex. If we weren't the species would have died out a long time ago.

So finally I downloaded the first book on to my Kindle and started reading it. After deciding that I would just pretend that the Portland/Vancouver/Seattle areas she was describing were someplace in the UK I got over the odd speech patterns pretty quickly. But then the red flags started going off.  The main male character is damaged. Obviously, severely, completely damaged. And the main female character is all goodness and light and purity and...what the hell? Did I really just get roped in to reading Twilight AGAIN? But then the changes start coming...The female lead, Ana, actually has a personality. When Christian crosses her lines where she is comfortable she leaves him! The questions I had about him, the problems I had with what he was doing and his basic make up she addresses, the book addresses, they talk about the fact that he is broken. And that it's a problem! Wow...and at the end of the first book I found myself heartbroken for Ana for falling for a man with such obvious and serious issues when she was way too young to know how to deal with them. I found myself curious as to how Christian got that way. I was actually looking forward to the next book. Something I could never say about Twilight.

Okay, but you all aren't reading this to find out what I thought of the story, you are here for the sex. Same reason why we all read the books. I kept hearing about how people were SHOCKED at the BDSM angle in the book. Christian is a Dominate and he pursued Ana not for a traditional relationship but as a Submissive. There were rules, hard limits, soft limits, safety words, the Red Room of Pain. He wants to control every single thing about her. What she eats, wears,  how she exercises, who she sees....(now you see why I was not comfortable reading the book at first, this is not healthy) and he wants to punish her. Cause her pain. Like all of the little brown haired girls before her. The fifteen others.

But as this is a romance novel tarted up with erotica that's not the path they end up going down. She doesn't want to be a submissive, she wants to be a girlfriend. And since this is a romance novel at its core, he starts to fall in love with her as well. The first sex scene we have between the two of them is vanilla sex. Well written, hot, completely unbelievable considering it was supposed to be Ana's first time, great sex. We get touches of the more exotic stuff as the books go on. We see his "playroom" which is outfitted with floggers, whipping posts, benches, suspension apparatus, a full "tool box" and so on, but really what we get is just a few glimpses in to that world. The rest we have to fill in ourselves. And that's fine. Because I don't think the author was up to giving much more than she did.

Why do I say that? Well here is where some of my issues with the book came to the forefront. Everyone was talking about the shocking sex, so I was expecting it to be really out there. But I realized pretty quickly that when you read books where the main female character is supernatural and gets her power from the Adour which must be fed regularly or everyone around her will get caught up in a supernatural sex frenzy which could include the weres shifting in to their animal shapes in the middle and vanilla sex for her is having sex with just one, or maybe two, of her steady boyfriends...well...you see...it might be harder to be shocked by an author who seems to not be able to use any other word for female anatomy than..."down there".

And that's where I broke with the story more often than not. That's where I would get taken out of the moment. There was way too much of the "he's so beautiful everyone wants him" and too much describing of his eyes. And if I had to read one more time about how his jeans or slacks hung from his hips "in that way" without ever getting a real description of what "that way" was, I was going to scream. And it was worse during sex scenes. Ana is in a room where there is a cross post she could be lashed to, using butt plugs for anal play and she cannot bring herself to say pussy, or cock, or even erection and vagina! It started to drive me crazy. If you are walking around a party wearing Ben Wa balls then I think you would be comfortable enough to describe oral sex without saying..."And then he kissed me there." Where? In Vancouver? Or have you never been "there" either?

So yes, I guess, if your sex scenes in books have been more of the "And he looked at her with heat in his eyes and she walked toward him...(end of chapter, begin next chapter) The sunlight through the window shades reflected on his beautiful face as he slept..." well then I guess I could see how having your hands tied above your heard while he kissed you "down there" might be a little risque. And how the use of the beads and plugs would really spin your world. Not to mention the spanking. But for me, though the sex was hot, it wasn't all that scandalous. But I'm glad I read the books, I enjoyed them. They were light and fluffy, you knew where they were going to end up. Because they are at their core romance novels and that's how romance novels go. And if you aren't comfortable with words like erection, cock, vagina or pussy then this is way to taste the more exotic side of life without being too terribly scandalized.

Now back to the books themselves...anyone just hear for the dirty talk you can leave again. The first two books are the better ones, in my opinion, the last one felt rushed. She had a lot she wanted to cover and an ending place she wanted to get to and I think it showed. And I honestly think that the fact that she married off the characters shows just how safe this world really was. If she had wanted to be scandalous with them then she would have had Ana come in a little more equal to Christian, rock his world, spend time with him and then they could both leave to go live their own lives. By having them marry, and marry before the series is even over, it was just another safety word. See? It's okay. They love each other and are married. So this really isn't that shocking.

The parts where the Twilight influence really showed through was in the peripheral characters for me. That's where I was really aware that I was reading something that started as fan fiction. She didn't have a lot for them to do, at least the ones in Ana's life. They were mostly there to support that she is beautiful and wonderful...Christian's background people needed a little more sprucing up as well. The blondes in his life, there were a couple that seemed like there had once been a back story (his sister's friend, the woman who worked for his family) that James never went back to. Were they just there to show that everyone was in love with him? Because honestly, I got a little tired of that as well. I've got it, he's supposed to be a good looking man, but not everyone would be drawn to the him just due to his looks, different people have different types, dear. And I think it just showed more of Ana's insecurity than it did Christian's allure. And I didn't enjoy that as much.

And like I said before, I had to really pretend that the place she set the stories wasn't the same as the place where I live. I caught myself snorting at one point where Ana thought she might just run to the hotel Christian was staying in just to see him...well...Ana at that point supposedly lived near the WSU/Vancouver  campus (let's just let go of the fact that she made this a major college when it's really a very small satellite campus) and he was in The Heathman which would be a 16 mile run! The slang they used, the phrases they spoke, not very PNW at all. And the weather, seriously? Outdoor events planned in May and the sun is shining and then you set something in August and it's rained out? Sigh....but I did a pretty good job just telling myself that these were not the same places that I knew. I have done a few events at The Heathman (not tied up to a bed post events! Work events! Get your minds out of the gutter!) and you could tell by how she described the interior she had pulled up their website and done everything by the pictures they have there. Though, props to The Heathman for recognizing a wonderful marketing opportunity and selling "Fifty Shades" packages now. You can get the Charlie Tango which includes a helicopter tour or just one that has a night in the suite. Of course they all come with a tie...

And that ladies and gentlemen is the best thing I can say about the books. Because of the stir and discussions and chats about these books this Father's Day when you hand your honey his customary Father's Day tie you can give him a little wink with it and everyone will have a happy day...down there.

Did you watch that book on television?

I've spent the last few weeks firmly ensconced in Bon Temps, Louisiana hanging out with Sookie and Sam and Eric and Bill and Pam and Tara and.....well a lot of other people. The latest book came out last month but I was in the middle of a few other things so it got pushed to the back burner. Then I got a package from my niece that had ALL of the previous books so I decided as a palate cleanser from Alan Bell's fan fiction on HBO and a reminder on all of the story lines I would read all of them before reading the new release.  Finally the day came yesterday to start the new book. And finish the new book. Okay, that's an exaggeration. I didn't get it finished yesterday, I had 3 more chapters this morning then I finished it.

Charlaine Harris has announced that the last Sookie Stackhouse book will be released next year and you could definitely feel the "wrapping up" in this one. She's said that she has nothing more to say about Sookie and the rest of the Bon Temps crew. No more stories to tell. And I can understand that, but it doesn't make me happy. It's funny how attached we get to our fictional worlds. To the make believe people that live there. I can remember being so excited to get the last Harry Potter book and then so sad to finish it. I had been living with those stories for years. Marking time in C's life with time in Harry's. And I know I will have that same feeling next year when I finish the last of these books.

And I can see where she is headed with the wrap up and I'm not overly happy about it. Well, that's not entirely fair. (bear with me while I sound like a crazy person for awhile) I can see where she is headed and I see that it will be good for Sookie. That it's really a nice way for her to live out her life (yes, I know that technically her life ends as soon as Charlaine Harris stops giving her one) but I still wish it were going to go in another direction. I shed a few tears this book as I watched the door I wanted Sookie to walk through start to close. I know there will be more closing doors next year as well as the one door she will have left open. And I know I will cry for her then as well. And be happy for her as well. Like I said, I can see that the what I think is the direction she is headed is a good one for her. And after reading all of the books again I can see that's it's really been where Ms. Harris has been walking her all along and I won't be mad about it happening. But...well...it's not the way my fangirl crush went.

I thought it was sort of funny that while I was reading the latest book in the series my news feed on Facebook was blowing up with people excited about the season premier of True Blood last night.Two years ago I would have been as well, but last season was my last season for the show. It's gotten to the point where it's difficult for me to watch. Alan Bell has the characters doing and saying things they would never do or say. Friends of mine convinced me to watch one last season last year and treat it as it's own story. Not to try and reconcile it with what they books are about but just keep it as it's own story. So I did my best and discovered...Alan Bell tells a really shitty story. There had been flashes of it all along. The first season was the best, and in my mind it wasn't a coincidence that this was the story line he kept the closest to the books. Every season since he has thrown more and more stuff in there. More characters, more subplots, more of everything. And it's just not good. It's too busy. It's too much. And it's all too fucking weird. Yes, they are all beautiful people who get naked a lot and you would think that would be enough to hold my interest...but alas, I need a story as well. And Alan Bell tells a lousy story. At least in my opinion...HBO and all of the people who were so excited for the new season obviously disagree with me. 

So now here is my latest issue...I started watching Game of Thrones last year. For some unknown reason I had never heard of the books, even though it seems like all of my geek friends have read, re-read and re-read them again.  I LOVED the first season and LOVED the fact that I was surprised by everything that happened and I had ZERO expectations for how the characters would act. So I bought the first four books (they were on a good sale for Kindle) between season one and two but I didn't read them. They are just sitting on my Kindle tempting me...  Now that season two has ended and I am gathering from friend's posts that they are starting to veer a bit more from the books I am trying to decide if this is good sign to read them or a bad sign to still wait. And just to add to the dilemma they have announced that they will be splitting book 3 in to two seasons. So if I want to wait I would be waiting another 3-4 YEARS before reading them. I think you see which way I am leaning in the argument... But what I am so worried about is losing my love for the TV show because the books are just that much better. And you know they will be.

And this is where I realize that my problems are really very small. I am trying to decide on when to watch TV and when to read a book. It's not like I have to worry about my boyfriend marrying the Queen of Oklahoma or how I am going to kill, connive and back-stab my way on to the Iron Throne...

It's a movie review...really

When I was in middle and high school I used to write really awful poetry. Of course at the time I didn't know it was really awful but reading it back now I see how very overwrought it all was. How very dramatic I felt everything was. And I was actually pretty low key for a teen age girl. My need for life to be oh so very dramatic isn't very high. But even so I wrote bad poetry.

I also wrote prose. I mentioned that I thought at the time I would be a horror writer. I wanted to write scary and creepy things. But I just don't have the touch for those. I still enjoy some of it. Stephen King. A few vampire series. Neil Gaiman. He does a fine job of blending the poetic and the horrifying. If I had one tenth of his talent I would be extremely happy.

But my writing seems to be in the "everyday people" vein. And that's also a struggle at times. What can I write that will make it interesting enough for other people to want to read? If I am only writing about day to day things then why would you read what I write instead of just living your day to day? But still I write them down. I polish them up. I put them out there. And for the most part I think people like them. I do have an outline for a teen story line about some supernatural kids. But I'm not sure what to do with them. I got as far as character descriptions and a few scenes with them, but then....well....nothing. What should I have them do? What is their motivation in the book to move forward? Maybe they should all write really bad poetry and then I can get the stuff I used to write published as a sort of in joke....

I also have the grouping of short story like chapters that I have been working on forever that I want to weave in to a book. But they are all just the sort of things I write...snapshots of daily life. The common theme is the people involved. So I write and put them away and try to think how I will work them in to a cohesive book someday. Because if it doesn't make sense I shouldn't try and sell it right?

Wish someone had told Ridley Scott, Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof that before they released Prometheus....

That is so embarrassing...

Okay, so today is a true story day. I don't embarrass easily. I like to see people having a good time and a lot of the time acting the fool is one way they do it so usually I am fine with just about anything life throws at me. But not always...

So this story is from when I worked for the car dealership. When I was still on the front desk as a temporary receptionist this woman walked in and wanted to see Toby. He was one of the brothers that owned the dealership. She didn't tell me who she was just announced to me..."Tell Toby I am here and I want to see him." Umm...okay....So I call back to Toby's office to let him know there was a woman there to see him. I was very hesitant in my manner because I wasn't really sure I should be calling him out to see her. He picked up on the hesitancy and asked me who she was, I had to admit I didn't have a name because she hadn't given me one. He then took a deep breath and said..."Does she look a little disheveled?" "Yes, she does." "Does she have a lot of bags with her? Like maybe she's homeless?" "Yes..she does." "Would you say she looks like she could be crazy?" "Yes, yes she does." "Okay, that's my mother, I'll be out in a second." And you could hear him laughing at me as he hung up the phone.

Okay, seriously? That little shit just got me to admit that I thought his mother looked like a crazy bag lady! I was just waiting for him to tell her.This was Sheila Garcia. She had been out of the country when I started and this would be the first time I would meet her. Sheila Garcia who when her husband *asphyxiated* sold off his entire empire of car dealerships, restaurants and land holdings and rebuilt her own so everything she had was hers and not tainted by him. Sheila Garcia who, I would learn later, tossed a television out of a second floor window when her youngest two children were watching TV instead of doing their chores. This Sheila Garcia. She was an intimidating figure to say the least. Let alone when you knew at any point in time her jester son could tell her that you thought she looked like a crazy bag lady. BUT SHE TOTALLY DID!

Anyway...you think that was the embarrassing story. Not at all. The embarrassing one was a year or so later. Sheila didn't have much to do with the day to day running of the dealership. She had turned it over to Toby and Ed and they ran things. She would come in once a week if she wasn't travelling and pick up mail. Carlos and Pilar the two younger kids would hang out in the office with us quite a bit and share stories about their mom (like tossing the TV out the window or pushing over the ladder that the gutter cleaning guy was on because she forgot they were coming that day and thought he was peeping in her window) so the impression we got about Sheila was that she was not a woman to be messed with. Add that to the fact that she looked like a crazy bag lady and she could fire us if she decided she didn't like us and you can see that we in the office were all a little intimidated by her.

She was also prone to deciding that she wanted things done in a certain way, say the desks needed to be rearranged so she would shout SHOUT at Toby from our offices to get his attention, his office was down another hall at the back of the dealership. He would come out she would announce the change she wanted made he would say fine she would leave and he would tell us all not to do it. So we would worry until the next time she came in that she would get mad at us for ignoring her. Most often she just forgot that she had wanted them moved in the first place.

So it's Christmas time and vendors have been delivering presents to the office, to the boys and for Sheila. Food was a big thing they would drop off. You know the type of stuff, those fancy popcorn things, or chocolates. One of the things left for Sheila was a giant thing of roasted peanuts. She came in to pick up her mail took one look at it and said, "I don't want these, who would send me peanuts? You girls can have them." then left. Okay...great...so a couple of days later I had worked through lunch coding deals and I was starving. We had popcorn and chocolate and all of the things that had been brought in but I really wanted something else. OH! I know...the peanuts.

They were on top of our file cabinets and the only way to really reach them for me was to climb the little step stool. So up I go. I fight with them to get them open, you know how canisters are the first time you break the seal. Get it open, dip my hand in and pull out a fist full of nuts pop the top back on and hear..."OH! There they are. I have been looking for my peanuts for a week." Sheila is behind me reaching up to grab the canister of nuts that I have just opened! That I am holding a fistful of right now! That CLEARLY say...To SHEILA on them. If I could have disappeared at that moment I would have. All of the girls in the office were looking at me with that horrified "she is about to die" look on their faces. I can feel myself turning bright red but I cannot physically move....I was mortified. Sheila took her can of nuts and left the office. I stood on the step stool for what seemed like an hour ... too stunned to move.

Finally I said to everyone else..."You all heard her when she said she didn't want them and we could have them right? I didn't just make that up?" And from the back of the office came the reply from my dear friend Debra..."Yes, Goober, we all heard it." And from that moment on I was Goober (another word for peanut) to Debra and all it would take is someone asking me if I wanted a snack for me to blush all over again....

Tell me a story...

Wiped out down the stairs

I'll bet you there's a song in there

I'm not sure I'm prepared to write it down

-Barenaked Ladies

I'm a story teller. I've always been a story teller. I've talked about getting it from my dad. He would tell these stories that you didn't know were jokes until he got to the punch line. He just knew how to tell a story. So from him I got the bug. I want to tell stories and most of the time I want them to be funny. Sometimes they are sad as well and that's okay too, but usually I want there to be some funny in there even with the sad. But one of the things I've noticed with people who write or people who just like to tell stories, everything is a story. Or at least has the potential to be one. You see something or hear something and your imagination takes over and it's now a story. 

And for me at times it's even worse because I tell true stories about my life as well as make up stories about pretend people's lives. So at any point in time something that is happening has the potential to be a story. I've gotten in trouble a few times with writing a fiction piece that has a piece of truth in it. The person who inspired a catchphrase or a quirk in the character recognizes that piece of themselves then thinks..."Hey! Is the rest of this really about me??" Most often, it's not. It's just that I thought the way you refuse to hold bananas by the stem is quirky and funny and needed to be in a story. The rest of that person is all from my head. I do not honestly believe that your banana quirk means you are a serial killer.  Sheesh....

But sometimes you can't tell the story. Even if it would be a really good one. You either can't tell it because it's not your story to tell. You have heard it from someone else, it's their life not yours. Or it's too raw. The whole "we will look back on this and laugh" situation. Sometimes it's just not time to laugh yet. I was working on a fictional piece recently for a writing contest. It was fiction based on a real life incident. One that I knew while it was happening I would write about one day. And it was good. I know it seems weird to say that about your own writing but you just know sometimes when you are writing something that it's really really good. Beyond your usual level. And this was going in that direction. Until I stopped and realized that it was too real. It wasn't a fictionalized event. It was a true story. And it was too soon to tell it. How did I know? Because I couldn't write the ending. I knew how I wanted the story to end, but that's not how it ended in real life and I couldn't get the fiction to work. I had written too much of the truth. So it's been tucked away in my book notes folder and will stay there for a few more years and then I will take it back out and change some things into a different story. About other people. Not about me. And I hope it will still be just as good.

Get it done...

Today's blog is of the taking up space because I said I would do something every day variety.

It's dark. It's rainy. I'm exhausted. Not a huge pool of creative juices flowing there. One day this month I will write something that will be so brilliant and shining that you will forget that there was a day where the best thought I can put together is....*yawn* wait...what were we talking about again?

Do you woo?

Since I am no longer doing massage I guess it's time to write about massage. Because that's just how my brain works.

When I was choosing a massage school to attend it basically came down to two choices; Oregon School of Massage and East West College of the Healing Arts. Both have very good reputations, both had about the same rate of people passing the boards, both comparably priced. So the decision came down to visiting the school's orientations and seeing what I thought about each one. I chose the less woo woo of the two.Yes, woo woo. It's an actual term you will hear therapists use to describe what they do. Woo woo is the energy work. The cleansing of auras, the use of crystals for healing, sound therapy those sorts of things. I went with the school that was less woo more West. Which funny enough from the names of the schools you would think the more Science based would be OSM but it was E/W.

At OSM I would have had to go to Breitenbush my fist semester and spend a weekend with my fellow classmates communing with nature to center my Chi before really delving into my studies. I would be encouraged to work barefoot to be in contact with Mother Earth's healing properties. At E/W I would take a full semester of mostly science classes before I really got too far in to the massage at all, except for learning the very basic strokes. I would have to dress professionally (though there is a lot of leeway on what is professional in massage) and I would be required to take more than just the minimum science to graduate. There would be the opportunity for woo woo classes as electives but I could take a strictly Western path and not touch the woo at all, except for a brief introduction during Survey of Modalities.

So I ended up at E/W following the extended program to get a few specialty classes under my belt and I was sticking with the science based Western track. Now, I have nothing against woo woo or woo woo therapists. I think a lot of them do a wonderful job and have amazing stories to tell about what they can do help you, but it just wasn't for me. I wanted to learn deep tissue and trigger point and really effect change in the muscle tissues. All of it very scientific and very Western. And then there was cranial sacral.

Cranial sacral was the last of my electives on the Western side of the house. It's one of those therapies that it depends on who you talk to on how scientific it is. It's basically working with the rhythm of the cerebral spinal fluid to effect change in the body's systems. It's also manipulating structures that some believe are fixed and cannot move. It's all very interesting and can either be extremely science focused or extremely woo woo focused at E/W it was taught by Cyr who was definitely not on the woo woo side of the house. So my experience in to the world of cranial sacral took us both by surprise.

So we are about half way through the semester at this point.  We've learned all of the lymph drainage techniques (also part of this particular class, they grouped the two modalities in to one class to give us just a taste of both) and are starting our first work on Cranial Sacral holds. We've learned to feel the flow of the fluid, to bring people in and out of still point, to do some releases and now we are working on our partners doing a CS routine.

In school one of the things you get used to doing is working on a variety of people. You work on classmates, you work in clinics, you work on volunteers for homework; basically you work on anyone who will let you practice on them. And in class you are required to rotate through your classmates so you don't just work on your friends every day. So on this particular day I was working on a classmate that I had never actually worked on before. I'm not sure why, but we had never ended up paired up until this point. I wish we had been because it might have given me a little warning for what was coming next. The way the class works is the instructor lectures and then you pair up to practice. You switch halfway through the class on who is the client and who is the practitioner. I was the client first. Everything was fine. It's relaxing work to have done to you because basically you are just laying there while someone places their hands on you and holds still. In fact it's pretty common for the client to fall asleep during a cranial sacral session, especially when you are put in to still point.

So with c/s learning after your session you talk about what you felt and experienced and saw both as the practitioner and the client and compare notes and then you swap. I did the first few releases on him and placed my hands on his head, took a deep breath and fell in to his brain. That's the best way I can describe it. Or maybe sucked into his head. That works as well. Basically everything around me tunneled out, like when you are on the verge of blacking out, and I was inside his head. And stuck. I know. It sounds absolutely crazy and I wouldn't believe someone else if they had told me it happened to them. But there I was. Stuck sort of melded to this guy. Who I soon discovered I did not want to be melded to. He was not a good mix for my energy. It was dark and cold and not where I wanted to be and it took me a little bit of concentration to be able to get back out. Basically I focused on what I knew was me instead of him. Where my arms were resting on the table. Where my butt was sitting in the chair. Where my feet were on the ground and then there was a sort of pulling and then a popping and I was back out. And freaked the fuck out over what had just happened.

I pulled my hands away from his head ending the session pretty abruptly, pushed back away from the table and put my head between my knees to keep from passing out. Cyr was close to me when the session ended, she had been on her way to check on us because she just "felt" like she should. I guess I was about 3 shades paler than I normally am and I was freezing cold. Most likely I was feeling a little shocky. So I explained to Cyr what had happened and she was freaked out as well. Okay, no, I was the only one freaked out. She was THRILLED! She had heard of this happening before but it had never happened to her and she thought it was really cool and wanted to hear all about it. All I wanted was to know how to make it NEVER happen again. She couldn't really tell me because this wasn't the sort of cranial sacral she practiced. She was strictly science and I needed...you guessed it...woo woo.

Luckily for me my modalities instructor was (still is) an excellent woo woo practitioner. She was very excited to hear about my c/s experience and was very helpful in explaining how to stop it or at least stay in control of it. An arrangement was made that the only person I had to work on was my dear friend Mari since I couldn't control being in someone's head space I wanted to make sure the head I was in was of someone I trusted. I learned how to stay grounded, how to guide myself through what I was feeling and seeing to be able to understand what I was supposed to be doing. And I made it out of the class with my sanity in tact. Or at least with what I went in with still there.

As far as using it in my practice I would work a few holds in here and there, mostly at the feet putting people in to still and bringing them back out to end an session, but I only did full routines a few times. And they were on students that Cyr sent to me for their professional C/S massage so they could experience what a more woo woo C/S routine was like.  Who would have guessed I was strong in the woo?