Friday, 15 October 2021
Baths Context
You can tell you’ve exercised when you get sore muscles and a headache (Day 287). Typically, my body begins to feel twinges at about the 18-hour mark, and the soreness steadily progresses to about the 36-hour mark and then begins to ease. Of course, the soreness cycle depends on my level of fitness. If I’m unfit, at the 36-hour mark, I’ll get the detox headache, and all I want is a luxuriant magnesium salts bath.
The detox headache following exercise, or even happens when I give up chocolate, has a slight pain just up from the third eye on the forehead between where the insides of the eyebrows meet. It’s a pinching pain, not sure if that’s the right word for it. Nonetheless, in the past, I’ve thrown up at the peak. Throwing up is a quick way of eliminating the build-up of toxins that your exercise has loosened from their comfortable little pockets.
Why do I not learn and stay detoxified? Ah. What is the point of detoxing if you don’t have any toxins in your system? This comment reminds me of when I travelled with my father through Hungary, and we stopped at Budapest to visit the Turkish baths.
Our evening arrival meant the baths were closed. While we were inspecting the opening hours, I met a Canadian named Jeff.
In summary, Jeff had been diagnosed with irreparable cancers; his passion for architecture took him to travel Europe and, while visiting Budapest, discovered the reputed Turkish healing baths. When he arrived in Budapest, half his luggage allowance was various medications. Since his discovery, Jeff visited the baths every day and intended to continue to do so after I’d left.
You see, Jeff was feeling better, and he was about to ditch the last of his medication.
The Baths
Consequentially, Jeff’s enthusiasm inspired me along with his recommendation to ensure a visit to the baths before I left. We went our separate ways with Jeff’s parting comment, and I hope Jeff lived a long, happy life thereafter.
The baths opened at 5:00 am and my father, not being an early person and living in Europe, decided to forego his visit. Determinedly, I persisted and got up bright and early to visit the baths. By the way, sore muscles weren’t an issue because I was fit from at this point in my life. So, there was no headache following exercise, but I wanted to feel as good as Jeff did.
I rocked up at 5:00 am and paid my money for the massage and a dip in the baths. There were ladies and men’s areas, and I was promptly handed a towel and pointed toward the massage area, where I received a shock.
The shock wasn’t that I needed to be naked; this I kind of expected. I’d been to Japan, and false modesty doesn’t get noticed, except you look stupid trying to protect it because nobody pays it a second thought. So, I simply pretended I was used to walking around naked like everybody else. Not that I think anybody else was acting; it was a case of “fake it til you make it”, in my case, it was until my mind caught up. 🙈
The next thing you got to avoid doing is staring and at anybody. That doesn’t mean looking down at the floor the whole time; that’s too conspicuous. It’s so challenging when you’re unaccustomed to naked people everywhere.
Sofia
So, now that we’ve established my nakedness wasn’t the issue, what was?! It was the massage bed. Scarily, it was not your average run-of-the-mill Swedish or remedial massage bed. Nah-uh! The massage bed was made of stainless steel and had grooves, very much like sacrifice tables to allow blood to run off!
Waiting for me … Hold on. Wait. First, picture a stereotypical depiction of a strong, tall Hungarian woman with muscles, hair-tied in a bun, white “nurse-like” tunic, and a “don’t argue” look on her face. Second, in her hand, she – whom I’ll call Sofia – held a hose of running water. With a nod and a point at the stainless-steel torture bed, you knew what Sofia expected.
Once in position, Sofia pummelled, kneaded and slapped perfunctorily at my back. All the while with water hosing me down. At one point, a little self-consciously, I’d had my legs together. Sofia matter-of-factly grabbed them and separated them to get to the inner thigh. She was professional, quick, and had no time for false modesty!
Sofia used water instead of oil since you don’t want oil in the healing waters. Mind you, if I didn’t have sore muscles, the massage found some or made some, anyway! 😖
After 10 minutes, I was flipped over, repositioned, massaged and given a final hose down, and within 15 minutes, I was back in the “wilds”. It felt like I was a sheep getting treated with some annual ritual.
There was no point drying off as I made my way, looking pathetically drenched, to the baths themselves. Now, I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to describe this, but it was expansive, but the dark brown architecture made it oppressive as well.
After a swim and an hour, I could say, “been there, done that”.
Erhardt
As if a wet massage and a swim in the baths wasn’t enough water, I showered, dressed and left. There was one thing worrying me; I didn’t feel any different. Cleaner, certainly. Changed? No.
Following the chat outside the closed baths last night, my father, or whatever reason, headed home without me. So, when I came back from the baths this morning at 8:00 am, and I headed to the railway station and bought breakfast to go. On the journey back to Germany, where my father lived, I bumped into fellow travellers. One was an older man who wanted to practise his English; this was fine by me.
Here my I expressed my concerns over the underwhelming wellness feeling I had gotten from visiting the baths. Erhardt (again, not his real name) began to quiz me. Questions went along the following:
Question: Do you feel unwell after going to the baths?
Answer: No. I feel the same as before I went.
Question: Were you sick when you went to the baths?
Answer: No.
Question: They’re known as “healing” baths, right?
Answer: Yes. Doh!
Erhardt proceeded to playfully “lecture” me on how it made sense not to notice anything different because I wasn’t sick. Can you get healthier than 100%? The answer is not. So, I never got to find out if they worked. Hopefully, I will never need to know.
Mind you; it would be handy if you had been exercising and needed to soothe those aching muscles earlier to avoid the headache after exercising.
Looping Back
To loop back after a long-winded explanation about toxifying. Alas, like you need to be sick to feel the healing benefits of the baths, you need to have toxins to detox. Fortunately, in this regard, I’m safe. 😁
Today's Cards
The Cards - Baths Analysis
Carryover Cards
One card carried over from yesterday; We are the World was in the Now and remains there today.
Cross
Is the Breakthrough in the Distant Past about not noticing the difference of healing baths in a healthy person? Nonetheless, I didn’t get to a full-blown detox headache because I’ve discovered wheat packs are excellent. However, you do need time to lie there and have them do their magic! It avoids having to run a bath when you’re suffering.
In the Recent Past, I’ve had some Success in dealing with headaches; yesterday was a challenge but not insurmountable. Today, in the Now “We are the World” is about working together. At present, I have one of my godsons visiting, and he and my husband have been co-ordinating meals; it makes for a nice Change – for my husband, that is 😏.
Meanwhile, Projections is in the Goal position. I’m going to go with Projections being an unconscious desire because I’m unable to make sense of it for you immediately.
Future Energy has Friendliness; it will be pleasant for everyone if I’m not acting like a grizzly bear!
Base
My Feelings on the day and the headache’s journey is that it’s like an Adventure. Admittedly, it’s not always a pleasant journey like a bath, but it’s one nonetheless.
Others’ Views is that I’ve used my experience and applied it to my circumstances to arrive at a purer, cleaner approach to my healing (Innocence).
Conversely, on the Hopes & Fears front, there’s the fear that the Rebirth of my headaches will lead to its more sinister version where I would need a bath. Where, I’d hoped that I dealt with the underlying issue causing the general headache.
Finally, Clinging to the Past is in the Outcome position. I wouldn’t have thought that bringing up the past means you’re clinging to it, but I suppose there are elements of fondness that the memory brings up. Maybe that’s why I relayed the story. You know, it’s “been there”, “done that”, “had a bath” and “wrote the blog”. 🙄
References
- Osho, Osho Zen Tarot – The Transcendental Game of Zen, St Martin’s Press, ISBN 0-312-11733-7
- Tarot Layouts per month
