Ok, here’s another thing about the workshop I went to on Sunday: we were talking about Chakras. Do you know about Chakras? You should at least know that they’re different energy fields in your body. There are seven of them, plus a few more over your head. It’s just a good term to know, I don’t care if you don’t believe in the Chakras, but if you’re at least familiar with the term, you can talk about it at cocktail parties.
Will I ever be invited to a cocktail party? Have I ever been invited to one? I can’t recall. Surely I have. Perhaps the term would more likely come up in a yoga class, although I know somebody who claims to do yoga, and he’d never heard of Chakras. I first encountered them in yoga class in LA, Santa Monica to be exact. My yoga teacher’s name was Mindy, she was blonde and wonderful and never traveled east of the 405. The 405 is the freeway that separates West LA from the rest of the sprawling place, and it would be difficult to stay on the west side all the time, but she did it. I really admired that about her. If I ever live in LA again, I’m going to live west of the 405. If you keep going west, you run into the ocean, which I’d like to do right now.
So, this is the definition of Chakras; I just looked it up online: The word chakra is Sanskrit for wheel or disk and signifies one of seven basic energy centers in the body. Each of these centers correlates to major nerve ganglia branching forth from the spinal column. In addition the chakras also correlate to levels of consciousness, archetypal elements, developmental stages of life, colors, sounds, body functions, and much, much more.
In the workshop, we were talking about the different Chakras, and finally, Judith got to the seventh Chakra. It’s located at the soft spot on the very top of your head, where it’s all fused together. Here’s some information about Chakra Seven:
Chakra Seven:
Thought, Universal identity, oriented to self-knowledge
This is the crown chakra that relates to consciousness as pure awareness. It is our connection to the greater world beyond, to a timeless, spaceless place of all-knowing. When developed, this chakra brings us knowledge, wisdom, understanding, spiritual connection, and bliss.
It’s a good one, Chakra Seven. But this isn’t really about the Chakras at all, actually; that was just some background information for your own personal broadening of your horizons and general edification.
We had to talk about how we felt when we visualized each chakra, and one woman said she started to think of Duck Duck Goose.
I HOPE you’re familiar with Duck Duck Goose. It’s one of the few physical activities I ever excelled at in school. In case you grew up on Mars and never got to play Duck Duck Goose, this is how it works: you sit in a circle, and one person is “it,” and they walk around the circle and touch each person on the top of the head, and as they do so, they say, “duck, duck, duck, duck…” and finally, finally, they yell GOOSE! And then the so-called goose has to jump up and chase the “it” person, and if they catch him or her, then the “it” person has to be “it” again. But hopefully they won’t catch the “it” person, and then they have to be “it.”
It’s a very fun game, and if there was a group of people here, I’d make them play it right now.
Thinking about Duck Duck Goose made me reflect on all the great grade school games I played. Dodge Ball. Kick Ball. Red Rover. Why did we have to stop playing them, that’s what I want to know. I could do all these games. Even kick ball, which involved being able to actually make contact with the ball, and running around bases like softball. But it was easier than softball, because we used those enormous red rubber balls, and you’d have to be even worse at sports than me to not be able to kick the ball. You’d have to be legless, pretty much, in order to miss the Kick Ball ball.
But then came junior high, the darkest and bleakest time of my existence, and it was filled with basketball and tennis, volleyball and softball and even football, all those wretched sports that I couldn’t do and hated and was filled with much angst because of.
And now I ask you, what happened to the grade school games? Why were they all pushed under the rug, shoved aside, banished from our lives? Because now, all the junior high sports are on TV, they’re big business, there are amateur leagues all over the country for anybody to take part in. You can play them, you can watch them on TV, you can go to professional sporting events, you can spend all kinds of money on merchandising as well as actual bats and balls of your own.
But why not Duck Duck Goose? Why can’t there be a National Red Rover League? Summer Dodge Gall games for adults? Kick Ball Championships? I understand there will always be plenty of people who live and breathe baseball and football and all of that, but isn’t there room for games that are just plain fun? They could certainly be on TV; I believe there are now over one million sports stations broadcasting at all hours of the day and night. I haven’t been watching a lot of TV lately, but wouldn’t a game of Red Rover be more entertaining than one of those horrible reality shows? And wouldn’t it be fun to spend an evening playing a vigorous game of Kick Ball, instead of softball?
I also understand that there are plenty of adults who were good at all those junior high sports, and are still good at them, and so that’s why they still play them. But the one time I was asked to play softball (and it was only the one time, of course), I was terrified, and I couldn’t hit the ball, and the whole time I silently prayed that I’d be hit by a bolt of lightning, so I could just die and be done with it. Not really die, but just be shocked and pass out and then I could go home.
There have to be other people than just me who feel this way. I get all kinds of exercise now, but it’s all lonely, solitary physical activity. It would be fun to be on a team, to play sports with others, but I can’t do anything that involves a ball hurtling towards my head, because I will duck.
And I’d much rather Duck, Duck, Goose. Is anybody out there with me on this? I think, if I’m able to somehow pull together some people who’d play these games with me, well, we’d all be on our way to having healthy and developed Chakra Sevens, full of knowledge, wisdom, understanding, spiritual connection, and bliss.
Plus, it’d be a lot of fun.
Let me know.
Ok then,
Grace, Master of Duck Duck Goose