In 1998 I brought home salt rocks I picked out of the dead sea in Israel and have kept them in a glass jar ever since. When I began my internship at Naropa I brought several of them with me to my office to keep on our small table alter. Rather than bringing them back home I decided yesterday in cleaning out my office to place these rocks on the 'transitions' alter tucked back in the naropa green. It's an easy to miss alter exposed to the elements.

The dead sea is the lowest place on earth and the crystals are what remains from the evaporating water. (or so my understanding is though I am not a scientist). It seems to me therapy is like this. 

We are asked to go to the lowest parts of ourselves, the underbelly of our earth. The tears that flow from those places are some of the most salty, the most intense, the most concentrated. If i have helped just one person pull a salt crystal from their consciousness then I feel my time at naropa was worth it in every way. 

To the clients who have graced my office and whose imprints live in my consciousness now forever: your efforts, your challenges, your successes, your tears, your laughter, your screams, all have infused these salts I picked up 15 years ago. They hold you. They hold us. 

And now may the salt return to the earth in its own time. May its transition be as slow or fast as nature intends. May all of our joys and pains go out into the ethers. 

jai jai kali ma

SWAHA.