A few months ago I pried my hands off of $22 and bought a Neti Pot from The Chopra Center's website. (Apparently in addition to be concerned with my syncrodestiny and my ability to grow younger and live longer, Deepak Chopra is also concerned with my nasal cavities.) I had been "Neti Potting" for months with just a juice glass. Now I see that an actual Neti Pot is essential to obtain the full benefits of the practice and saves an inordinate amount of time and dish washing. According to wikipedia, Neti Potting, as I call it, is officially known in western cultures as Nasal Irrigation and is "an ancient Ayurvedic technique known as Jala neti, which literally means nasal cleansing in Sanskrit, where the practitioner uses a neti pot to perform the irrigation. "
This morning I woke up barely able to breathe. I have been stuffier than usual lately, as I have been dedicating my personal time in the morning to more creative endeavors than neti potting. Like so many things that bring me true pleasure in life, Neti Potting is more fruitful as a daily practice. So this morning diverted from my routine by impassable sinuses, I went straight to the mini-day spa otherwise known as my bathroom, poured 1/8th of a teaspoon of sea salt into the Neti Pot and summoned the hottest water my faucet produces. I mixed it up, stuck the spout of my beautiful hand-fired Neti Pot up each nostril and watched the water, snot and mucus pour out of the opposite nostril and voila. With in minutes I could breathe through both nostrils.
The first breathes after Jala Neti are unlike any other breathing I do throughout the day. They are yoga breathes, deep, cleansing, cathartic inhalings of spirit. Inspiration literally translates as the breathing in of spirit. With out full, deep breathes, exactly how creative or productive can I be in the morning?
The first time I did a neti pot I remember thinking, "Oh, now I know the exact location of my sinuses.” As the Neti Pot's elixer fills them I picture my face turning into an anatomy chart with my nasal cavities highlighted by the hot salty solution. The next few minutes are spent in homage to Cameron Diaz's elevator scene in My Best Friend's Wedding where she impersonates the symphonic range of her fiancé’s snoring capabilities with various gargling, snotting, and snorting. In other words, Neti Potting is best done in private. So that the snot, saliva, and salt water that are thrust about in the name of clear nasal passages don’t frighten any small children or potential life long mates. In other words it is a discombobulated unattractive process but it lets me breathe easier than I ever have before.
This morning I woke up barely able to breathe. I have been stuffier than usual lately, as I have been dedicating my personal time in the morning to more creative endeavors than neti potting. Like so many things that bring me true pleasure in life, Neti Potting is more fruitful as a daily practice. So this morning diverted from my routine by impassable sinuses, I went straight to the mini-day spa otherwise known as my bathroom, poured 1/8th of a teaspoon of sea salt into the Neti Pot and summoned the hottest water my faucet produces. I mixed it up, stuck the spout of my beautiful hand-fired Neti Pot up each nostril and watched the water, snot and mucus pour out of the opposite nostril and voila. With in minutes I could breathe through both nostrils.
The first breathes after Jala Neti are unlike any other breathing I do throughout the day. They are yoga breathes, deep, cleansing, cathartic inhalings of spirit. Inspiration literally translates as the breathing in of spirit. With out full, deep breathes, exactly how creative or productive can I be in the morning?
The first time I did a neti pot I remember thinking, "Oh, now I know the exact location of my sinuses.” As the Neti Pot's elixer fills them I picture my face turning into an anatomy chart with my nasal cavities highlighted by the hot salty solution. The next few minutes are spent in homage to Cameron Diaz's elevator scene in My Best Friend's Wedding where she impersonates the symphonic range of her fiancé’s snoring capabilities with various gargling, snotting, and snorting. In other words, Neti Potting is best done in private. So that the snot, saliva, and salt water that are thrust about in the name of clear nasal passages don’t frighten any small children or potential life long mates. In other words it is a discombobulated unattractive process but it lets me breathe easier than I ever have before.
It's Friday night and my good friend Claire and I decided to perform detoxifying foot baths at her place and then go for sushi. I first got wind of these detoxifying foot baths about four years ago at the old Open Eye Cafe. My source was completely unreliable, tweaked out, and about to skip town due to some unfortunate law related circumstances. These were the sort of folks I met hanging around the now retired, closet-sized Open Eye. Anyhow this under-medicated, soon-to-be-outlaw explained to me that his dad was a chiropractor who operated a machine that you put into a tub of water along with your feet and it cleanes out all toxins from your body. I assumed this involved a great deal of pain or a great deal of bullshit. A few years later, however, my law-abiding, sane friend Claire related to me that 
This creates the therapeutic ion field. The metal thingy is hooked up to a 
As the machine runs the tub fills up with yeast, heavy metals and other waste residues. I just wish I saw it come out of my feet or felt some pain or something. I mean how do I really know it's not coming out of the machine? But Claire and her scientist experts are more brainy than I when it comes to ionizing foot baths so I bow to them. I do feel like I've just run a marathon after I do the foot bath. Sometimes I even feel light headed. Honestly, I feel fantastic even as I am writing this 8 hours later. Claire is very generous and lets my feet release the heavy metals and yeast for free. What comes out of my feet looks and smells disgusting. Enough yeast comes out to bake baguettes for all the Frenchmen in Quebec. The heavy metals materialize resembling discarded pencil shavings and the water turns from crystal clear purified water into something resembling urine. Yet again, obtaining beauty looks ugly. But my toes still look cute. And I suppose it's fitting that I'm spellbound by this ionizing foot bath. My feet always have been my favorite body part and I doubt I'd find the whole thing half as interesting if I were expected to sit with my hands in the bath for twenty minutes. 
