the mineral springs, and a bonding experience - thursday, 6/22/06

on our way back from chuck and linda's property, we stopped off at the grocery store and got snacks. we also stopped at the resort front desk and got tickets to go to the mineral springs that night. while there, pam and i bought tickets to take a hot air balloon ride the next morning. this was something pam had said she wanted to do, so we decided no better time than the present!

we had lasagne and salad for dinner and then it was time to go to the springs. it was the first time in many years that i had gotten into a bathing suit. only with this bunch would i have done it. seeing as they had seen me in a wetsuit 7 years ago, how much worse could it get? :)

there were 18 different pools you could get into at the mineral springs. we first went to one with a waterfall, and ended up at the end of the night back into it. in the interim, we moved from one to the next, all with varying temperatures. it was sort of like the story of the three bears where goldilocks goes from one bed to the other testing it out until she found the one that was just right! we took some really great pictures that night and we laughed a lot.pam discovered really quickly that the mineral springs turned silver a brassy color. i managed to get my stuff off before it really got bad, but pam had one ring that turned immediately. (this led us on a quest for jewelry cleaner stuff which we eventually got in albuquerque.)

at one point i ended up doing reiki and massage on everyone, starting with chuck. i rubbed feet and backs while we were in the pool, and the reiki was flowing pretty good! however, when we moved back to the waterfall pool something neat happened.

it was dusk, and on one side of the pool was a lip where the water flowed over the edge and down into the san juan river below. earlier, we had been down to the water's edge and found that water to be way too cold to stay there. back up in the waterfall, we were all just chillin' and i went over to the lip ledge. suddenly the palms of my hands lit up from reiki! this has happened to me before, usually when i go into a place where the vibes are really good. chuck came over to where i was and was standing to my right and then linda and pam came over and all four of us were hanging over the lip. i told them what was going on with my hands, and i put my right hand over chuck's hand and then my left over linda's. since linda is lst degree reiki, she could participate and pass it on with me.

i don't know how much time passed, but we were all quiet and relaxed and it was just flowing all around us. i wasn't sure how long i should do it, so finally i took my hand off of chuck's. he commented how he could feel it and how relaxed he was. i was reminded that it was chuck and linda who brought me to reiki in the first place 10 years ago. they had been to a fair in ashland, oregon, and a bunch of reiki practioners worked on them. when linda came east the next time, she told me about how they had been able to diagnose chuck's old knee injury, and how she thought i might want to look into it and get trained. i did.

so things came full circle, with the four of us hanging out with mineral water running over us and the sun going down in the distance. pam said later that might have been the highlight for her of the whole vacation. it certainly was one for me.

when we got back we changed clothes and sat out on the porch again. it wasn't as cold as it had been the night before, and we saw shooting stars and pam found a satellite. it was a very peaceful, memorable evening!