heart to heart

Last Thursday I made the 2 and a half hour drive to Austin to meet up with my friend and spirit sister Reya who lives in Washington DC. Reya, massage therapist, reiki master, shaman, was in Austin for a workshop on bones to further her education and ability to help her clients. I drove to the little 'carriage house' as she called it what we call garage apartments where we came face to face for the first time, both of us wearing pants, t-shirts, and canvas shoes, wild haired and no make-up.

“Reya”, I told her, “you are so much bigger than your pictures”. I wasn't referring to her physical size. We hugged hard and long and started in as if we had known each other all our lives. Maybe we have, this life, past lives, we knew each other.

The neighborhood where she was staying reminded me a lot of my old city neighborhood before the gentrification, only more affluent. The house had pecan trees front and back and a fabulous crop of nuts lay on the ground. I couldn't believe it that they weren't collecting them. It was all I could do to not start picking them up myself.

It was lunch time when I arrived so we walked a short seven blocks or so, stopping repeatedly to take pictures, talk, hold hands. Of course we talked about the election but we didn't dwell on it as we had so many other things to say and stories to tell.

After lunch we had coffee at the carriage house where she reikied the mark of the chicken though she said it didn't need it as the energy was moving off to other parts of my body, though I swear that last hard numb part really feels much better, and continued to talk until it was time for her to prepare for and walk to her class.

It was tough to leave the warmth of her energy and the pool of serenity that we found in the midst of all the angst of this election.


edit: I guess I neglected to say that I met Reya through blogging and while she doesn't blog anymore we remain connected via FB.

face to face

Last Sunday I drove to Gruene (pronounced like the color green), an almost 2 1/2 hour drive, to meet up with my friend Dana who lives in Ohio. Dana flew into Austin a day early on work related travel and since I don't really know anything about Austin and I was in charge of the outing I picked Gruene, a historic small town in the Hill Country about an hour south of Austin. Well, it was a small town at one time. Now it's been encompassed by New Braunfels and has become a designated historic district.

Gruene was established upstream of New Braunfels on the Guadalupe River in the mid 1840s by the German immigrant Gruene family. They planted cotton and built a mill on the river. Other buildings followed as the family cotton farm prospered and drew more families including the Gruene Hall which is now the oldest dance hall in Texas which continues to draw big crowds with live music just about every night. You can read a more detailed history of the town, it's rise, fall, and rescue, here. Nowadays, it's a tourist destination.

Anyway, last weekend was one of their Market Days that they have every month which was basically an art and craft fair so I thought that would give us something to do and then have lunch and then just sort of drive around the area up River Road to Canyon Lake and then back around to Gruene via Purgatory Road (sounds more exciting than it actually is).

This is the first time Dana of Bug's Eye View and I have ever met face to face 

but the visit felt like spending the day with an old friend, which she says, I guess we are. Dana and I have been connected to each other via the blog world for 7 years.

I had to scroll back through my old posts trying to find when Dana first started showing up in the comments which turned out to be August 2009 after just selecting ones at random and man, did I write some great posts! So yeah, Mary Moon, what the hell happened?

We strolled around the market fair with vendors selling handmade items and Texas sourced foods and stuff but it was really hot even at 11 AM which was the time we arranged to meet and I had forgotten to bring a hat and Dana didn't have one either so we retreated into an air conditioned antique/gift store

and then a garden metal art and other doodads outdoor area where I found a kinetic art piece I want and did not take a picture of and then two shops that turned out to be standard souvenir shops and then we checked out Gruene Hall the oldest dance hall in Texas 

and then had lunch at the Gristmill which is located in the old cotton mill on the river.

After lunch and our little scenic or not so scenic drive around the area it was time to part ways.

Dana had commented that the scenery wasn't much different than what she was used to, green, rolling hills, rivers and she was hoping to see what it was like where I lived so I stopped and took a photo on the way home of my neck of the woods...the flat flat coastal plains where agriculture and cattle reign supreme...and sent it to her.