LIGHTING A MATCH IN THE RAIN
From the Imagination of a 13-yr-old
![HAWAII VACATION After she go...]()
HAWAII VACATION
After she got home with no picture, just her imagination
Listening to Ian McGilchrist talk about his book, "THE MASTER AND HIS EMISSARY - The Divided brain and the Making of the Western World". He talks about the differences between the right brain and left brain and appreciation of beauty. I like his discussions about the dominance and arrogance of our left brain in the last 100 years because of science and earning a living.
McGilchrist tells a story about building a school somewhere in Mexico. Despite their poverty, what the parents requested most was something beautiful as well as practical. This story highlights the learning children acquire from harmony of form and proportions.
McGilchrist beautifully explains the necessity of the left hemisphere of our brain, needed for acquiring our daily bread. But it is the right hemisphere that interprets and explains the world in which we live.
My own study was of the the differences in the right and left brain and our need to appreciate both in dealing with stress and living our daily lives. Therefore, I’m finding new insight in appreciation of my 13-yr-old granddaughter, Kaori’s, watercolors. She asked for watercolor paints for her birthday in June and has been producing an incredible portfolio.
![Toothache Cure Worked!]()
Toothache Cure Worked!
Annette visited us this summer from Germany. She was a high school exchange student with our daughter 36 years ago here at Mercer Island High School. She gave me a huge hug and commented, “The last time I was in your house, I was traveling abroad with my boyfriend, Bo. Remember how you cured his problem?"
I do remember. Bo had stomach issues and since I’m a nurse, I was consulted. They were passing through Seattle and it was not serious enough to go to the hospital emergency nor was it convenient to find a doctor. My husband, Sam, suggested, “Dee, why don’t you try the ’’Toothache Cure' your Grandpa taught you?”
I had used it once, with seemingly okay results, but I was skeptical and questioned, "Why would a Toothache Cure work for a stomach issue?”
Sam shot back, “I know you won’t tell me exactly how it works, but I can guess and since it’s not ingested and doesn’t touch the person, why not try?”
Embarrassed to be acting like a Medicine-man, I needed to know Bo’s age and Sam went to get a sheet of copy paper I needed. I performed the ritual - cutting pieces of paper and placing them in a glass of water. Sam set the glass of water on our kitchen windowsill. After some more visiting Annette and Bo went on their way and we never knew the results at that time.
Grandpa lived to age 90 and showed me the secret one day in the 1970s before he died. He explained in Japanese, “This is a special secret that no one else knows and I am choosing you to learn this 'toothache cure’. I believe in it, but there is better medicine today so I don’t do it much anymore.
Grandpa explained more about his family. My father was a second son and would not inherit any property. So, I was adopted by this Samurai and his wife that didn’t have any children. I learned this secret from my adopted father. I don’t know where he learned it, but it had been passed down for many generations.”
Sam was particularly intrigued and excited for me to be bequeathed this gift because he remembered a time when he was 4-years-old and living in Renton, WA. His brother, Fred, got a bad tooth ache. Sam recalled, asking Mr. Tsukamaki to perform his ritual, was the answer. I asked Sam’s mom about it and she confirmed that it was known among the Japanese farmers in the Kent, Auburn Valley that my grandpa would help. She explaining, “No one could afford to go to a Dentist in those days."
Between practicing Toothache Cures, Grandpa Tsukamaki was one of the 100 Japanese Dairy Farmers who supplied as much as 1/2 of Seattle’s milk supply around 1920 until they were discriminated out of the business by the Alien Land Law and the big milk companies refusing to take their product. Then he worked at farming until he helped set up two of his sons with the ONTARIO FISH MARKET grocery business in Eastern Oregon, where I was born.
Our families were not incarcerated because Grandpa had migrated several of us beyond the restricted zone in 1937. The Ontario Market serviced many Japanese Americans leaving Minidoka and restarting their lives with the opportunity for row crop farms created by the Owyhee Dam for that Eastern Oregon, Western Idaho community.
I lived with my grandpa off and on until I was11-years-old and I remember the glass of water sitting on our kitchen windowsill a few times. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, science, doctors and dentists considered these ancient remedies quackery.
Now, in the 2020s, more and more of these remedies are being embraced because modern medicine doesn’t have all the answers. Acupuncture practitioner, Nancy, tells me there is a direct path from our teeth to our stomach.
Thanks Annette for sharing with me the TOOTHACHE CURE worked!
![A GRANDDAUGHTER KAORI WAT...]()
A GRANDDAUGHTER KAORI WATERCOLOR
Today is Kirin's 15th birthday. It's raining so the plan for Paddle Boating and swimming are questionable. School friends are here to celebrate this special day and the Blue Angel fighter planes are flying by as they practice for Seattle Seafair and create celebratory clamor.
We are feeling the rain is expressing a tribute to the life of Henry, Sam's brother, who passed this morning around 3am. Henry's daughter, Erica, is noticing a humming bird who came to visit and she says, "Dad loved humming birds."
Sister, Irene, also had a humming bird visit this morning.
Sam's older daughter, Lynette, sends a text message saying, "This may be "woo-woo", but I'm feel Dad was and is with Uncle Henry ."
Humming birds bring signs of hope and good luck, but also have a spiritual significance and means the spirit of a loved one is near.
![LEARNING TO MAKE IT HEART ...]()
LEARNING TO MAKE IT HEART TO HEART
I’m listening to Agapi Stassinopoulos who wrote CENTER YOURSELF: “Find it and give it to the world.”
This chart was created with what I learned with Thomas Gordon’s PARENT EFFECTIVENESS TRAINING class we organized in our home. In the 1970s we used a lot of “You Language” or talking from the “Parent” and that brought a response from the “Child” in our girls.
I remember one day saying, “Lynette, I feel ‘sad’ that you were so rude.”
She shot back, “Oh Mom, don’t use that stuff on me!” But she didn’t get mad and we learned to not express as much judgementalness.
Today, I am learning more than just picking a “feel word” from a list, communicating and learning with myself. As I explained in a previous blog, I am an “adult” with a Parent-Adult-Child inside me. My own “Parent” is consulting mentors like Agapi to give me ideas for taking care of the Child within me.
Today July 2022, my brother-in-law is in the hospital and may be taking his last breaths. Four years ago, my husband Sam died. Those of us who loved and still love them have a new path ahead. We are still in uncertainty with the Corona Pandemic and other uncertainties.
Repeating Agapi’s words to myself: I want to exercise my inner muscles to be grounded in my calmness, in difficulties, learning to engage in uncomfortable conversations , in my learning and my joy.
I just made a phone call to our 95-yr-old Aunt. She is home and available for a visit. I’m taking our dog, Suki, and I’m using my “Golden Key of Therapy” - TALKING!
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HAWAII VACATION
