Self Love

I'm finding it difficult to enjoy things these days, since the great summer weather is here and I can't do any of the sporty things I used to do. I find myself blaming my body for these limitations, like I'm at war with this other being which is my body, and because I (the conscious part of me) am stuck in here, I have to suffer the consequences. It's a war I cannot win. Since we're in this together, we need to develop a more peaceful way of cohabitating.

Last year I was given information regarding a plant that held the "antidote" to the poison in my body that is causing my health problems. Scotch Thistle is a relative to Milk Thistle, which is used medicinally to cleanse the liver. Scotch Thistle is no longer used medicinally, but it does carry energetic properties, as all things do.

The other day I was in Woodland Park doing some tai qi and qigong. At one point I looked down to see what I was trodding upon, and found a small Scotch Thistle. Ah, my friend, the most prickly plant alive.

Out of curiosity I came home and looked up Scotch Thistle on the website that lists plant essential essences and their properties: Self-Love. The rose amongst the thorns. For people who feel out of place, and don’t know what to do about it. “I accept myself and love myself, prickles and all!”

Hmm, I have scleroderma, and I've been told that the psycho-energetics of scleroderma are said to be associated with not trusting one's will and/or the need to protect oneself from life. The thistle does a pretty good job of protecting itself. Even cows know not to step on them. The prickly plants grow well and self seed all over roadsides and open fields. It's not afraid to exist even though people and animals avoid them.

Perhaps the thistle has something to teach me about being in the world, about staking out my place and insisting on my right to take up space, even the right to be thorny and "noxious" when need be.

Contraction

Yeah, it's been a long time.

I can't quite say what I've been up to. This phase has been the most difficult so far, where I'm perhaps moving forward with my recovery, but it's so painfully slow that I feel I should be there by now. Where? Well, the place where I am done recovering and reach maintenance mode. I keep trying to push the cart up the hill but those horses just are not moving for me. I'm wearing myself down just trying to get better.

I've been trying to read "The Secret Life of Plants." It's great information, just so dryly written that I have a hard time staying awake. I've been reading it for about 4 months now. There are some gems though.

They write about George Washington Carver and his communing with plants. (This subject came up again on Tavis Smiley's show on NPR this last weekend, interestingly.) Carver led a simple life which mostly consisted of listening to plants. He worked with the plant fairies, and over his career he created many, many uses for plants such as dyes and oils. The plants would tell him what to do to make them grow faster, and how to use them for their natural healing or otherwise beneficial properties.

I also liked the description of plant life cycles in three expansions & contractions. It first puts all its energy into growing up, down and out, the first expansion. It then stops growing and conserves its energy to get ready for the next phase, growing the flower. When the flower has expanded to its limit and performed its function, it too contracts back and dies off. The plant then puts energy into its third and final expansion, the fruit. The fruit holds the seed, which is exposed when the fruit rots and falls away.

This is how I've been feeling. I'm in one of those contraction phases, where the old flower has dried up and fallen away. I'm dropping so much stuff, yet more keeps coming up that needs to be addressed, crusty old chunks that are in my way.

So, I'm trying to be okay with the lack of visible evidence of my progress, and trying to back off from pushing myself out into the world again before I'm ready. It is wonderfully delicious to putz around all day going from one restful activity to another. And even when the old stuff comes up and I wilt into a pile of tears I know I'm working through something. Summer is here, so things can't be all that bad.

Walkabouts

This week I attended a lecture by Kevin Ryerson, Expert Intuitive, author and teacher on exploring Spirit Guides and Teachers. I hadn't known of him before, but was pleasantly surprised by his directness, clarity of presentation, and breadth of understanding of what he referred to as the "maps of the soul." He touches on some of this on his website, but his live presentation was so much more informative and inspiring.

There were many things he spoke about that resonated strongly for me, but I'll focus on just one. In some traditional communities people commonly go on a walkabout. Kevin described this practice not as I had previously understood as going into the outback by yourself and walking until you've found yourself, but as a way of meeting your neighbors. You go out, meet people in your community, learn who they are, what they do, what their needs are, and in doing so you create the village that it takes "to sustain the inner child."

He explained that the communities of people who you're drawn to, whether in your neighborhood or from places around the globe, are people who you've known from previous lives, and in reconnecting with them you are re-membering parts of your soul map. It's a way of remembering who you are, reconnecting to your right way of being.

Since I've pretty much wiped my slate clean this past year, I've been in a mood to re-find myself. I've been wanting to do some kind of a walkabout, maybe doing some traveling, but also I've wanted to reintroduce myself to Seattle. I've lived here for 18 years, and frankly it's grown quite stale. I've grown tired of the crowded streets, over-caffeinated drivers, and the rising cost of living. I've hunkered down and tried to maintain some balance by protecting myself from all the chaos. But since I'm committed to working with my current team of healers, I'm here for a while.

And so, I've started to brave the streets again. I want to visit every neighborhood as though I just moved to town, take in the eateries and shops and, yes, meet the people. By exploring my own town, I'm hoping to find communities that I'm really drawn to, make my life in Seattle more meaningful, find a reason to stick around after I am well again.

Or maybe I'll find a connection that takes me far away. Either way, I love the idea that finding ourselves starts with finding others. It's not just about sitting and listening to your inner guidance, but also connecting with the outer, physical guidances too.

Minor Details

This past week I visited with several bodyworkers that I'd not seen in three months. Their assessments of the state of my body was thrilling. They could see major improvements! From my perspective, it's difficult to see when things have changed. I notice tiny things, but don't always realize how much they add up. Here's a list of a few:

My hands open up about an inch more than last August.
My leg hair is growing back.
The hair that fell out of my head is growing back, fast!
My left ring finger has gotten thinner.
The calcifications on my shoulders have gone away.
I can move my spine more fluidly.
I can step up onto a ladder, and back down, carefully.
I can sometimes step straight down a stair.
I can sit in (and get back out of) the low stuffed chair I've not sat in for a year.
I can wiggle my feet into some of my shoes again.
I can go days without compression stockings and not get very swelled.
I can reach the second shelf in my kitchen cabinets.
I can carry groceries up a flight of stairs.
I can lay down on a massage table and be comfortable with lots fewer pillows.
I can scratch my left ankle.
My feet sweat again.
I can pick small things up from the floor, most of the time, without my tongs.

Here are some things I look forward to:
Getting into the bathtub.
Sitting on the floor.
Cutting my own toenails.
Scratching my back.
Seeing the bottom of my feet.
Pointing my toes.
Rollerblading.
Putting my hands in my pockets.
Making a fist.
Laying my palm on things.
Petting cats and dogs.
Holding babies.
Clapping.

What Horizon?

A friend reminded me that it had been a while since I posted anything here. It's been a strange time. I've been sifting through all my senses for any glimpse of clarity. So many questions are up in the air. So many decisions will need to be made.

Yet, I am comforted to know that nothing has to happen right now. This past year has taught me plenty, but perhaps most strongly it has taught me that I cannot push things along at the speed I'd like them to move. Ten months ago I declared I was finished with this process and ready to move on. But, clearly, this process is not finished with me. It continues to be a wild ride.

I've spent a fair amount of time looking at my life and decided I can improve on most of it. So, for several months I've been purging things -- literally letting go of precious possessions that keep me holding onto the past. I want things to change, so I'm clearing space for something better. I feel like I'm preparing for something, but I don't know yet what it is. It feels like the moment before a big wave hits shore, when all the water gets sucked out to sea, building up strength to come crashing back in.

In a healing session recently I closed my eyes and listened for the answer to the question: What do I see on the horizon? What came to me was initially embarrassing, then made me chuckle: What horizon? Ha! Can I possibly be so lost in the fog that I can't even find the horizon to the future? Or is it that I'm really, really, learning to let go of the future as well as the past? Hmmm.

Moving Towards What I'm Drawn To

Each time I find a clue as to what may be causing my body to freak out, I experiment to see if by changing the situation my symptoms will change. The results have been unclear. Over the past 6-9 months I've definitely seen an improvement in my symptoms, but I have not been able to point to any one thing. The best I can figure is that everything is at least slightly helping.

One reoccurring idea is that my body was overwhelmed by something toxic. I've talked about how I've changed my diet, environment, skin products, and even my friends so that I'm not taking on any new toxins.

This past year has been an eye-opener into the state of the US health care system. My experience has ranged from mere frustration to a fear-for-my-life. There's such a wide variation in working with independent alternative healers to the corporate fit-into-the-box docs, and there are huge variations in people's personalities that effect your experience too.

Recently, I reached a new milestone. I decided to work with a doc that I felt drawn to, not one that had the most experience, or that others thought I should see, but one that I really feel good with. All year I've been diligently chasing down all the possible and logical clues, like a PhD thesis research. That approach has worked fine, but for some reason I now feel like listening to my feelings instead of my head. I think just making the decision to work with someone I'm drawn to has to be a healing, self-nurturing act. It's all mysterious and unknown, so why not follow the intuitive clues to see where they might lead?

So far, I feel good. I seem to be responding to the treatment, and I enjoy the visits to the doctor. If I could cross my fingers, I would, and hope that in time I will naturally move towards what is best for me.

Learning to Listen

I am so good at listening to what others think I should do. I've done this all my life. I'm the best at not-rocking- the-boat. Create conflict? Speak my opinion? What? I never learned that growing up.

About 15 years ago I began studying yoga. Ah, the miracle meditative moving exercise that swept through the western world as the answer to all life's problems. I quickly found the best teachers in town (nothing less than the best) and dutifully attended class weekly. I bought a sticky mat and practiced on my kitchen floor. It was great. I never wanted to stop. And of course I never pushed myself too far, only measuring my progress with myself, as they say.

Well, then there was the pulled hamstring that never healed. And the lower back pain, and the increasing stiffness in my hips. One evening on my way to class my chest tightened up like my heart chakra was trying to tell me something. It got so bad I had to turn the car around and go home. When I got home, it was better, so I got back in the car to head off to class again... and the pain came back. I didn't go to class that night, but I also didn't get the message. Why would my body not want to go to yoga class? This was so counter to the belief that yoga was good for me. I just didn't get it.

I continued my yoga practice, finding more gentle teachers who could work with my increasing injuries. Then one lovely day, sitting peacefully on the mat with my legs in three different directions, I pulled something deep in my hip joint. I spent days flat in bed in immense pain. I couldn't sit up because my muscles were ripped. It took lots of acupuncture and rest for over a month for me to heal.

And when I was all better, what did I do? I went back to class like a dutiful little lemming. This is good for me. I'm supposed to do this, I was thinking. I found myself sitting on the mat in the same hip-stretching position where I left off a month earlier. Relax, breathe. I don't want to be here, I thought to myself.

"Then what do you want to do?"

Huh? This voice was speaking to me over my left ear, waiting for an answer. I want to leave, I thought.

"Well then, do it."

It was very clear and direct, no extra words here. It's waiting for a response. So I thought, well okay then. I got up and left the room, in the middle of class!

I decided to take a break from yoga, and then discovered tai chi so I never went back. But I will say that yoga taught me an extremely valuable thing, to be present in my body, and in turn to listen to what my body has to say. It's a smart thing, that body. I'm still learning how to interpret the signals, since it rarely speaks up with such clear words as on that day. But that lesson changed my perceptions and taught me how to be brave enough to not do what others think is best.

It also taught me something I will never forget. I used to be so afraid to upset anyone that I would endure people, places, things that were just not positive enough to hold my interest. I would stay physically, but my mind would be miles away. When I learned to stay present in my body, I learned that I could - get this - take my body with me when I left the room. I no longer had to leave it behind to endure the discomfort.

Can you imagine? It took me nearly 40 years to figure this out, but at least I finally got the message.