#spikegillespie

Hello From Tiny T Ranch, I’m Spike. For the past 24 years I lived in Austin. Then, thanks to some crazy circumstances, which I will explain here over time, I found myself suddenly living on a ranch in Garfield, Texas, about twenty minutes east of Austin. It is really amazing out here. I live in a six-bedroom house that is kind of a cross between The Money Pit and The Shining. But every day more improvements are made. Soon the house will be ready for guests. Then we’ll add a tiny chapel and finish out the barn. The ultimate goal is to host weddings, memorial services, concerts, parties, and retreats for meditation and memoir writing. 

Eventually I will trot out some fabulous website highlighting and explaining in detail all we plan to do here at Tiny T. For now though, I’m just popping up yet another of the rambling blogs I am fond of tossing out there. Today I want to tell a little story and extend an invitation.

A LITTLE STORY

A couple of days ago I checked into an amazing, internationally renowned spa. It’s a place I’ve been retreating to for fourteen years. Technically it is beyond my reach financially but I have arranged a trade whereby I teach classes out there and every once in awhile I get to stay overnight. Such was the case this past weekend. 

The timing was excellent. The kitchen cabinets at the ranch were scheduled to be painted with highly stinky paint. And also, my spa visit marked the final week before my 52nd birthday (which I like to think of as my Full Deck Birthday). So off I set to escape the fumes and reflect on the last year and think about setting some intentions for my personal new year. 

I woke up after sleeping amazingly and at length in a very dark room on a very magical mattress. I put my super fluffy white robe on atop my new pink flannel pajamas. I slipped into my complimentary spa flip-flops and headed down to retrieve a nice cup of coffee. As I descended the ramp outside my room leading the dining room building, I noted it was icy and that there had been a de-icing agent sprinkled about. That is to say, I was not daydreaming, as I so often am, but I was really paying attention, walking mindfully, being careful. 

Apparently I was not exercising enough caution though. Because in an instant I was down for the count, looking up at the sky, thinking about how I’d gone from upright to collapsed so quickly. I mean, obviously I had skidded on the ice, which in turn caused me to lose my footing, which in turn prompted my right leg to twist a direction it wasn’t actually made to twist. Then I bashed my knee really really hard. And it hurt. A lot. 

What I enjoyed though, particularly in hindsight, was how all of my years of meditation practice—and most especially what I’d learned at a ten-day silent retreat about non-reaction—seemed to kick into high gear in the few seconds it took for me to fall down, sort of blank out, then come to. Instead of crying out in pain, I did two inventories—one internal, one external. Yes, I was in pain. No, it did not seem to me that anything was broken. The air felt cold but in a nice way. Off in the distance, a parade of strapping young men were moving heavy exercise equipment around, but they didn’t notice me.

I thought about little kids falling on playgrounds, how often enough when they fall, if left alone, they simply bounce right back up and keep going. It’s only when an adult makes that particular noise—you know that one, the sucking in of breath noise so often followed by, “OHMYGODAREYOUOKAY?” or “OHMYGODYOUREHURT!!”—that the tumbled child responds with a reactive wail. Since no one seemed close enough to my forest to hear or see the tree of me fall, I saw no reason to start crying. I just waited a bit, told myself to take my time. 

Then I got up and I carried on, proceeding to have a lovely day, wonderful food, hot tub soaking, sauna, steam room, and happy reflection. Today was another story—I woke up in my own bed with a rather balloony knee, purple and blue and green and swollen. I decided a trip to ER was in order. But first, because I am loathe to seek medical attention except in true crisis, and because I really wanted to just stay home, I checked in with a friend of mine who has great knowledge regarding the human body.

This friend made the excellent point that should I seek treatment I might wind up being coaxed or pushed down an unnecessary path, one littered with MRIs, “expert opinions,” suggestions for invasive procedures, and a vast mountain made from what might well be a molehill that could possibly be shrunk with ice, ibuprofen, and elevation. The friend suggested waiting a day or two before deciding if x-rays really are in order. I chose to take that advice. I’m glad I did. Already I am feeling better.

What in the hell does this have to do with living at the Tiny T Ranch? Not too much except for falling down and fucking up my leg made me think of something my mom said to me when I was talking to her about the ranch recently. She said something like, “You don’t sound that happy.” It’s true I wasn’t squealing with delight. But that lack of squealing was not meant to suggest a lack of excitement. It was more an indication that here I am, this blue-collar kid from South Jersey, and yes I have busted my ass my whole life working toward what I count as success, and I’ve had many good things happen to me both as a result of my hard work and also some absurd fortune the universe seems to have bestowed upon me. But even still, to find myself here, at this ranch, bigger a dream come true than a dream I ever could have actually dreamed—well it’s a whole lot around which to wrap my head. So the lack of squealing is really about absorption. I’m still letting it sink in. Still wrapping my head around it all. 

That said, there is not a time when I am driving onto the ranch that I don’t think, “THIS IS MY HOME. I LOVE IT HERE!” The feeling I feel goes beyond happiness. It is just this sense that all is right. That I am just exactly where I am supposed to be. It’s an amazing feeling. It is a feeling of relief.

And yet, some sense of caution remains. If I’m lucky and smart, that sense of caution will stay FOREVER. The hyper vigilance that is part of my PTSD symptom set means I will never not worry, I will always be waiting for another shoe to drop. But in this case, I am grateful for the sense of caution, because it is a good reality check. And the Tale of the Twisted Leg and Bashed Knee is a great manifestation of that reality check. It reminds me of a story my yoga teacher once told me, about how we need to be very careful when trying to label something as “good” or “bad” luck. (You can read the whole story here.) The gist of it is that just because something seems one way, you better not be so fast to categorise it that way. I just need to remember, as I did as I lay/sat sprawled out on the icy ramp, to observe and inventory and breathe.

Okay, now here is the invite—

SIT. STAY. HEAL. -- SALONS AT TINY T RANCH

I live in a rambling six-bedroom ranch house with a massive dining room and living room. Eventually I'll host writing and meditation retreats here. Toward that end, and just to sort of get the whole ball rolling for gatherings out here, I want to start an experimental run of salons

The SIT. STAY. HEAL. SALONS will be on Wednesday nights as follows: January 20th January 27th February 3rd February 10th

We'll run from 5:45 pm - 9:30 pm each week. It's okay if you can't be here the whole time-- you can arrive whenever. The schedule will look like this:

5:45 pm I'll lead a 15-minute group meditation (I'll provide pillows and cushions). 6 - 7 pm quiet time -- read, write, meditate, whatever. You can settle into one of the bedrooms for this. 7 pm til 8 pm we'll share a simple meal. I'll cook. Soup, salad, bread. Vegetarian. 8 pm til 9:30 pm we'll share our writing.

$30 per Wednesday session-- that covers everything. I am limiting these to 30 attendees per week. Please let me know if you have any interest in attending one or more Wednesday sessions. You can email me at [email protected] if you want to sign up to be part of these inaugural salons. Would love to have you.