Happy Monday!
I hope your weekend was as exciting and interesting as mine was!
I got to visit with a friend of mine this weekend, and as is normal for me, we went out for a little hike. It was night and quite dark. We decided to take a little short cut and walked down a drainage ditch between some houses.
I was in the lead and all the sudden, I could see and feel an animal moving fast right in front of me…
Well, that animal WAS A SKUNK.
We have a lot of skunks around my house and often they will come out at night when I’m laying on the ground cooling off after a sauna.
They are kind of interesting creatures. They are so focused on the ground, they often don’t see what’s right around them; I’ve had skunks walk right up to me and not see me until they practically banged into me. Some have become startled, but I just talked gently to them and they slowly back away.
Fortunately, I’ve been able to escape being sprayed…until Friday night that is!
Well, let’s all hope you never do get sprayed by a skunk. The smell is so strong it overwhelms your senses. It felt as though we were choking.
Fortunately, the wind was blowing and we didn’t realize just how bad we smelled until we stopped walking. I was wearing my favorite sweater my mother hand spun and knitted, and had my cap on.
The sweater was in bad shape. I put it in a plastic bag and left it outside and the next morning, it smelled just like a skunk had sprayed the whole area…
We had to scrub with all sorts of different soaps, including soap for taking engine oil off your hands.
What did the best for us was several drops of Frankincense essential oil mixed with shower soap, and then finally, a salt based exfoliation product with some more Frankincense oil.
I remembered from reading a book that talked about the smell removing spray “Febreze”, and how it would even kill skunk smell. I got a bottle of that the next morning and sprayed everything.
After spraying my sweater thoroughly, and washing it by hand with soap in a sink, it was returned to normal. Whew, that was close.
My friend and I had just finished this piece of art together before we went walking. I was looking at it trying to sense the meaning of the fact that the spirit woman in the background had tears flowing from her eyes.
Well, after the skunk entanglement, I could see that this represented us crying the skunk out of our eyes, and the spiral was representative of the skunk’s tail and smell!
Oh well, I guest we don’t want to see certain things in our art for fear that they may be true… Funny.
Overall, I found the experience quite enjoyable. I got to be very in touch with Mother Nature.
I was inspired to learn more of the significance of the skunk, and found the positive qualities very appropriate for my life at this time.
My soul taught me that you can use Frankincense to effectively disable the skunk smell if mixed in soap. I got to wash my sweater by hand and be reminded of my Mother’s love.
I got to practice seeing the humor in things. That said, I don’t recommend this sort of spiritual inspiration…there are other means .
Tips 4 Pain Free Driving
Today on my vblog, I cover some key tips for minimizing back pain while driving.
I have rehabilitated countless back injuries that have been caused by, or made much worse by driving. Some of the tips I cover in my vblog today are:
1. Seat Position
2. Lumbar support
3. Taking breaks and stretching
4. The McKenzie Press-up/back extension (see my book: How To Eat Move and Be Healthy!)
5. Drinking water
6. Being careful with pain killers!
I encourage any of you who are interested in creating safe ergonomics to read my booklets:
10 Tips for Healthy Ergonomics
I hope you find my video useful today!
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
