Cold tightens muscles, especially around the neck and shoulders. I’ve been asked about local massage resources and recommend these people based on my own experience:

* Toni Salluzzi, LMT *
phone: 516.286.7517 / email: tonisalluzzi@gmail.com
Located in Hyde Park and she’s here! at TuiHealthcare / 446 Broadway Street in Kingston.

* Barbara Schofield, Reiki Master *
phone: 203-962-2361 / email: barbaraschof@gmail.com
Located in Catskill and she’s here! at TuiHealthcare / 446 Broadway Street in Kingston.

* Dana Ronnquist, LMT *
phone: 914-420-6965 / email: DanaRonnquist@gmail.com
website: http://www.hummingbirdhealingarts.com
Located in High Falls and Rosendale, and at Birch Body Care in Kingston.

* Birch Body Care / various LMTs including Dana Ronnquist, LMT *
phone: 845-331-7139  / email: info@birchkingston.com
website: http://www.birchkingston.com
Located at 73 Crown St in Kingston.

I like celebrating a day focused on love. Here we are on Valentine’s Day, and I like celebrating it with a poem. Here’s one for all of us by Adrienne Rich:

Power

Living in the earth-deposits of our history

Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old
cure for fever or melancholy a tonic
for living on this earth in the winters of this climate.

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil

She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power.

In these deep snow days, shovel and slip days,
we want to stay warm! And yet,
cabin fever surfaces. We feel stuck.

A few recommendations for your inside-ness:

1. Use the time to investigate yourself with Tara Brach as a guide. I’ve signed up for her podcasts and enjoy a variety of topics on be-ing, as well as guided meditations. http://tarabrach.com/audiodharma.html.

2. Move your Qi. In a focused, simple, and deliberate way.
Bend forward putting your hands on your shins, breathe and hold. Choose one part of your QiGong practice and repeat it three times. Move your hips as if using a hula hoop, both directions. Keep it short and simple and do it every day.

3. Look out the window. Remember that things are always transforming.