We freshen up at Nur Salon
A meeting with David
Beth enjoyed a four hour treatment at Nur Salon that included an hour and a half massage, pedicure and manicure, facial and hair treatment. I went only for a manicure and pedicure. Fun! I had my right fourth finger painted purple, and right pinky nail painted white. The fourth is the healer’s ringer, and the fifth represents loss of form or ego death. Purple and white were chosen many weeks ago as our wedding colors for a number of reasons. White simply represents consciousness and being awake. Purple is the union of our favorite colors, blue and red. It also represents creativity, inspiration, magic, that part of you that believes, that names your car or your house. These values are very important to both of us. Together, purple and white represent the Balinese black/white motif of balancing the higher and lower. This is usually translated as good/evil, but that’s not quite right. Balinese set offerings each day and shoulder/head height to the gods, and on the ground to the demons. We in the west think of this as good and bad, but it’s more complex, balanced, and healthy a concept than that. It’s about recognizing our shadow and about keeping ourselves, the world and the universe in balance.
Beth and I later met with David Patten to review our names. Briefly, my understanding of Oghama is that they (Oghamas) are correspondence systems set about by observing the relationships between energy and trees, ourselves and sounds, of aspects of the world and who we are. For example, A represents strength and sexuality, L liveliness, E rest, and X wisdom. There are many correspondences and many energies associated with each letter, and that’s just a beginning. With David we than mapped our full names and recorded paragraphs of representations from which we would later draw on to create our introductions. This was a fascinating process. David says our names are mantras that evoke who we are, though not in a causal way. Sounds are energies, and whether I call myself Alex or Alexander will evoke certain qualities and strengths.
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| 2-12 Nur Salon, Bachelor Party |