God Everywhere. I know. Its a stretch. Its ethereal. Where are the legs to it? How does it ground? How can we apply that here and now in our day?
That's just the topic of the book I've been writing since returning from Japan this past winter. God, Jesus Christ Consciousness, Oneness, Eternal Indestructible Indomitable Love, showed itself to me in very powerful ways over there. Even in the places I chose to stay for mere economic reasons, God showed up hardcore, holding up divine mirrors I could see myself in, making plain a love so grand no one can escape it, not even me in great pain of Lyme disease. God is in disease. God is in me. God is seen in everything when the veils of fear are stripped away, when the ice on the heart melts and a brilliant Love/God/Jesus/Forgiveness/Welcome-Home-ness becomes mirrored in even the scariest of things.
"Oh yeah?" you say! Have I been hiding under a rock? Do I not know the deeply unconscious and conscious oppression and murder of black families and other people of color have generally been sanctioned by this government from the founding of this country? Do I not know theres a very odd outrageously offensively scary bloated infantile clown up for bat in leading the "free" world? Don't I know people suck and only look out for themselves and their group? Don't I know greed/ego/fear motivates most actions in this country, in the "civilized" world? Don't I know I must fiercely protect what is mine lest I succumb exploitation from someone/something?
Yes, I do mainly hide under a rock (by nature). Yes, I do know and feel the gravity of the state we're in collectively. And of late I oscillate on the pendulum, as you may also, between paralyzing fear and profound moments of Grace/Love coming from unexpected places. And, also I know that when I tap into and see through the Jesus/God/Grace in me, the ride on that pendulum becomes more enjoyable. The Love/Grace/Jesus is the still point of the pendulum, helping us to face those demons that are, dare I say, also God's/Love's creations here to stretch our hearts, stretch us into knowing the wholeness we always are.
Lets try this on for size (maybe have a pen and paper in hand to answer some of the questions or note what else arises):
-put in your mind's eye someone you love beyond anything
-imagine God in them, working through them, residing in them (Whatever that means for you. Do you see God in them? Do you feel God in them? What does that mean to you? What's your experience of them?)
-repeat exercise with others in mind that you readily love
-now put in your mind's eye someone youre having some mild to moderate annoyance with, some active daily/weekly trouble with
-imagine God in them, working through them, residing in them (What does that stir in you? Are you able to imagine God in them? )
-repeat exercise with increasingly annoying/troublesome people and situations
-LETS DO THIS WITH TRUMP AND HIS INCREASINGLY TERRIFYING CABINET-TO-BE
(keep up the momentum from the other rounds of this exercise. Do the same exercise envisioning Trump. What does it look like for God to reside in and be moving through Trump as he is? What does that stir in you? What could that mean for the kind of actions to take in your rebellion and dissent of the election results? How can you act, live, be in integrity with yourself and God and love in regards to a train wreck happening in slow motion? What would it mean to face the incoming administration from a place of love and not hate/fear/panic? How can we engage in a way where our activism, our words, our moves for deep change spring from a place WE LOVE DONALD TRUMP, RACISTS, BIGOTS, KKK, WHITE NATIONAL PARTY and not because we hate him/them (all the while paralyzing their destructive behaviors)? How do we work with someone and his entire team of deeply ill and misguided beings from love and not hate? HOW DO OUR ACTIONS AND EXPERIENCES SHIFT, FIGHTING THE SAME FIGHT, STILL DOING WHAT WE CAN TO EXPOSE AND STOP CORRUPTION, INJUSTICE, EVIL WHEN WE KNOW WE ARE ONE EVOLVING COLLECTIVE THAT MAY ONLY EVER REALLY SUSTAINABLY SHIFT IN ACTS AND POLICIES ROOTED IN GREAT LOVE? How does your experience of loathsome people and practices shift when you see God in them? What does/could that even mean? )
I have yet to answer most of these questions myself in regards to politics. However, great headway has been made in doing this exercise in relation to what's been my more visceral and immediate "enemy" for seven years, severe disease.
Will you join me in this adventure to let love motivate our actions, our being in regards to the scariest of our modern day demons? Will you help me unveil the wholeness we are? CAN WE HELP EACH OTHER SEE GOD EVERYWHERE?
I think so.
Thank you.
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Monday, December 12, 2016
Dying to be Whole
Im telling you. I just cant believe my dad died this summer. Pastor Marvin Lewis Graham left his body on the rays of early dawn on summer solstice. As much hospice support I was for others years ago, as much studying and reflecting and experiencing levels of death before, it feels like nothing prepared me for this. Not a thing.
Now still in the thick of both grieving and continuing body-spirit practices to keep my health optimal, Im finding some gems hidden in his death.
If you were at my dad's funeral you would know a story I shared after my sister and I sang his favorite song. I shared what happened the night/early morning of his passing. Because I had maxed out my health and body energy in taking care of dad half of every week for three months, some deep chest pains and fatigue again arose. My mother saw how worn out I was getting and she encouraged me to take a week off to recalibrate, get strong again. Reluctantly, I accepted the encouragement and stayed home for a week. Little did I know that was the last week my dad would be alive.
The last day of my week of rest, the morning of his passing I had an immaculately vivid brief dream: I was at dad's bedside as I had been for many months. His large pecan-brown heavy hand in my thin same color hands. He lay there looking at me. I said the words to him I couldn't bring myself to say in 'real' life, the words I know from experience in hospice that loved ones need to say for the sake of the dying. "Dad, if you need to go now, its fine. We'll be okay," I said from a still peace and cosmic understanding I only periodically know in non-dream world. In the dream I gave him permission to be as free as he needed to be, do what he desired to do. He looked at me, and with a childlike subtle ripple of joy, like he'd been given permission to go for a walk after being cooped up all day, said, "Okay." Our hands let go of each others. He swung his legs around off the bed toward the window. Dad walked out of the room, like in the movies, but a little different. He walked through the walls but was visible as he did so. Everything was translucent, dad, the wall, me. Dad died into a spacious whole state, out of the fragmented separate self.
Dad died into wholeness.
A few hours later I woke up to a new message: don't worry about anything, theres not one thing worth worry. Then I turned on my phone and got the text from my brother, "Mom says dad stopped breathing." Was that dream real? What's real? Dad cant be gone because I feel closer to him than I did when I went to bed. Dead? What? Just as in the dream, it was like the world was see-through. Reality had shifted and I couldn't un-know what I then knew: even in death, there is something vibrant, full of life, a broadened sense of wholeness.
And over the last month as I haven't been able to write very much or very well I wonder what good can come of ambitions dying, of the sense of purpose fading away, what wholeness can be had in the great void. If I don't write, Im not a writer, right? If I don't do Reiki, I cant call myself a Reiki healer. But as my ambitions die, as my plans turn to ash, as the fog in my head only gets thicker, I've stopped fighting it and allow myself to experience wholeness unveiling itself in any circumstance.
The wholeness I speak of is very different than I had imagined it would be. Instead of a firming up, instead of a sure solidity, Im finding wholeness much deeper and more alive in the void, in the nothing. Its like what I imagine outer space to be. While its a vacuum, its also the most fertile ground of existence. Both the calculable, predictable and incalculable, spontaneous creations arise from this void. The void births and holds all things, including this lush extraordinary gift of Earth we float around on through space.
And what is the relevance to our ordinary extraordinary lives? Who's got time for contemplating these things when bills need to be paid, mouths fed, cars repaired, education to be learned, a sense of security to be gained, diseases to be healed, lives to be restored, justice to be fought for, missions to complete. All I can say is the more core desires die off in my life, including my cunning beautiful ego, the greater the sense of life, wholeness, connectedness. But without an experience of it, these are just philosophies to twirl around in the head.
To move this from the head and into the heart, here's a favorite exercise of dying to/releasing our many identities that you may find helpful:
Imagine all your identities are articles of clothing youre wearing (black/white, woman/man, writer, healthy, healer, sister, daughter, lover, member, beautiful, ugly, scared, happy, sick, athlete, painter, weak, strong, human, etc). Keep going. Get down to your essential identities, your skimpy undies. What are your core identities? Imagine peeling them off and being naked without them. What does it feel like to be a naked spirit/soul? Who are you when all your identities have died off? Who are you when youre not something/someone that can be described? Do you still exist? When whats most important to you dies, what is left of you? (for similar assistance in things like this try www.mooji.org).
Of course you have to wear clothes to be a member of society. Clothing/identities, theres nothing wrong with them. Its fun and necessary to be creative to live a full life as well. But no matter how much you wear, how fine it is, where its sourced, how much you paid for it, what those clothes symbolize and say about you, no matter the clothes, they do and will come off, as eventually will any identity you have.
I die/unveil daily as a practice to remember wholeness. I practice remembering who I am underneath the clothing/identities and I know it is complete and whole without them. This is a truth that sprang up while I was very ill in the body and helped carry me through my day in peace. Now that the body is beautifully feeling well and functional again, Im finding the dying practice to still bring me closer to a fuller life. My dad's death deepened and enriched this practice.
Maybe it doesn't sound that attractive but for those of us with whom illness has spent many years, with whom death and its many layers has paid us a visit for longer than we would've planned or liked, these practices can be a beautiful relief from the suffering that can cloud our very existence.
Living to be whole is just as valid. Dying to be whole is merely the other side of the coin, one we often deny out of fear.
Whether you lean into life or lean into death, wholeness, love, being God's child, is not diminished. We are whole with the stuff of life and we are whole without it. These words guide my own heart back into my day without fear. May it do the same for you.
Thank you, Dad, for dying into the wholeness that is you. May we learn and follow even as we live.
Now still in the thick of both grieving and continuing body-spirit practices to keep my health optimal, Im finding some gems hidden in his death.
If you were at my dad's funeral you would know a story I shared after my sister and I sang his favorite song. I shared what happened the night/early morning of his passing. Because I had maxed out my health and body energy in taking care of dad half of every week for three months, some deep chest pains and fatigue again arose. My mother saw how worn out I was getting and she encouraged me to take a week off to recalibrate, get strong again. Reluctantly, I accepted the encouragement and stayed home for a week. Little did I know that was the last week my dad would be alive.
The last day of my week of rest, the morning of his passing I had an immaculately vivid brief dream: I was at dad's bedside as I had been for many months. His large pecan-brown heavy hand in my thin same color hands. He lay there looking at me. I said the words to him I couldn't bring myself to say in 'real' life, the words I know from experience in hospice that loved ones need to say for the sake of the dying. "Dad, if you need to go now, its fine. We'll be okay," I said from a still peace and cosmic understanding I only periodically know in non-dream world. In the dream I gave him permission to be as free as he needed to be, do what he desired to do. He looked at me, and with a childlike subtle ripple of joy, like he'd been given permission to go for a walk after being cooped up all day, said, "Okay." Our hands let go of each others. He swung his legs around off the bed toward the window. Dad walked out of the room, like in the movies, but a little different. He walked through the walls but was visible as he did so. Everything was translucent, dad, the wall, me. Dad died into a spacious whole state, out of the fragmented separate self.
Dad died into wholeness.
A few hours later I woke up to a new message: don't worry about anything, theres not one thing worth worry. Then I turned on my phone and got the text from my brother, "Mom says dad stopped breathing." Was that dream real? What's real? Dad cant be gone because I feel closer to him than I did when I went to bed. Dead? What? Just as in the dream, it was like the world was see-through. Reality had shifted and I couldn't un-know what I then knew: even in death, there is something vibrant, full of life, a broadened sense of wholeness.
And over the last month as I haven't been able to write very much or very well I wonder what good can come of ambitions dying, of the sense of purpose fading away, what wholeness can be had in the great void. If I don't write, Im not a writer, right? If I don't do Reiki, I cant call myself a Reiki healer. But as my ambitions die, as my plans turn to ash, as the fog in my head only gets thicker, I've stopped fighting it and allow myself to experience wholeness unveiling itself in any circumstance.
The wholeness I speak of is very different than I had imagined it would be. Instead of a firming up, instead of a sure solidity, Im finding wholeness much deeper and more alive in the void, in the nothing. Its like what I imagine outer space to be. While its a vacuum, its also the most fertile ground of existence. Both the calculable, predictable and incalculable, spontaneous creations arise from this void. The void births and holds all things, including this lush extraordinary gift of Earth we float around on through space.
And what is the relevance to our ordinary extraordinary lives? Who's got time for contemplating these things when bills need to be paid, mouths fed, cars repaired, education to be learned, a sense of security to be gained, diseases to be healed, lives to be restored, justice to be fought for, missions to complete. All I can say is the more core desires die off in my life, including my cunning beautiful ego, the greater the sense of life, wholeness, connectedness. But without an experience of it, these are just philosophies to twirl around in the head.
To move this from the head and into the heart, here's a favorite exercise of dying to/releasing our many identities that you may find helpful:
Imagine all your identities are articles of clothing youre wearing (black/white, woman/man, writer, healthy, healer, sister, daughter, lover, member, beautiful, ugly, scared, happy, sick, athlete, painter, weak, strong, human, etc). Keep going. Get down to your essential identities, your skimpy undies. What are your core identities? Imagine peeling them off and being naked without them. What does it feel like to be a naked spirit/soul? Who are you when all your identities have died off? Who are you when youre not something/someone that can be described? Do you still exist? When whats most important to you dies, what is left of you? (for similar assistance in things like this try www.mooji.org).
Of course you have to wear clothes to be a member of society. Clothing/identities, theres nothing wrong with them. Its fun and necessary to be creative to live a full life as well. But no matter how much you wear, how fine it is, where its sourced, how much you paid for it, what those clothes symbolize and say about you, no matter the clothes, they do and will come off, as eventually will any identity you have.
I die/unveil daily as a practice to remember wholeness. I practice remembering who I am underneath the clothing/identities and I know it is complete and whole without them. This is a truth that sprang up while I was very ill in the body and helped carry me through my day in peace. Now that the body is beautifully feeling well and functional again, Im finding the dying practice to still bring me closer to a fuller life. My dad's death deepened and enriched this practice.
Maybe it doesn't sound that attractive but for those of us with whom illness has spent many years, with whom death and its many layers has paid us a visit for longer than we would've planned or liked, these practices can be a beautiful relief from the suffering that can cloud our very existence.
Living to be whole is just as valid. Dying to be whole is merely the other side of the coin, one we often deny out of fear.
Whether you lean into life or lean into death, wholeness, love, being God's child, is not diminished. We are whole with the stuff of life and we are whole without it. These words guide my own heart back into my day without fear. May it do the same for you.
Thank you, Dad, for dying into the wholeness that is you. May we learn and follow even as we live.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Runnin' Free N' Joyful
In the comments section of the last post named Racism, PTSD, and Nature, someone asked, "Does trauma ever go away?"
It occurs to me that the pain may never go away entirely but with grace and heavy dowsing ourselves in love around it, the suffering of the trauma diminishes, and yes, the suffering of it even goes away. How to have pain and not suffer? Pain is pain. We'll never get away from it entirely while still in the body. But suffering is the resistance of the pain, the wrestling with it. Its no easy thing to just divorce the two, but its possible. I've experienced it from time to time thanks to various kinds of mindfulness practices (www.dhamma.org, www.mooji.org), sometimes just moments of spontaneous grace. Also when it comes to emotional trauma like the one I shared, it can really take movement and/or sound, something vibrational to move it out of the body. For me, I needed the cries of that young hawk to stir it up. then allow it to move through me, actually release it out from my body in the form of full body convulsive cries.
Healing of trauma can happen, for sure. But there will likely be scars, scars that with practice and time, when touched, no longer trigger a person into spiraling into the hells like they did before.
Sometimes we have the fear of even giving the wounds any air because we're afraid if we feel the pain, it will be forever, that if we start crying, we'll never stop. But its not true. I thought reliving the pain would never stop when the red tail hawk would start up again. It took months of those spontaneous cries and releases but it did stop. To this day, this same hawk has come by and cried when I need it. No longer do I have knee-jerk full body convulsions from it. Now the hawk cry is a gentle reminder to really honor what Im deeply feeling, my inner softer voices.
Now its a joy to hear that hawk. We even had a time yesterday late afternoon. He flew above circling, circling. I ran out to the yard and flew/ran with him around, around 'til he flew beyond the pines. What was before a trigger for releasing convulsions of pain, is now a trigger for running free and joyful.
That's what happened to me. It can happen to anyone. I was just gifted a disease for many years that allowed me to slow down enough to hear, connect, and release in this way. Maybe we can avoid severe illness and heed the calls of release as they happen for us.
But as I stated here and other places, the disease was a gift. Whatever the path youre on, its a good path. The freedom is fuller after being in suffering-prison. The joy sweeter after high doses of sorrow. The good news is that one way or another, in body or in spirit, like the hawk and me, we will together run free n' joyful.
It occurs to me that the pain may never go away entirely but with grace and heavy dowsing ourselves in love around it, the suffering of the trauma diminishes, and yes, the suffering of it even goes away. How to have pain and not suffer? Pain is pain. We'll never get away from it entirely while still in the body. But suffering is the resistance of the pain, the wrestling with it. Its no easy thing to just divorce the two, but its possible. I've experienced it from time to time thanks to various kinds of mindfulness practices (www.dhamma.org, www.mooji.org), sometimes just moments of spontaneous grace. Also when it comes to emotional trauma like the one I shared, it can really take movement and/or sound, something vibrational to move it out of the body. For me, I needed the cries of that young hawk to stir it up. then allow it to move through me, actually release it out from my body in the form of full body convulsive cries.
Healing of trauma can happen, for sure. But there will likely be scars, scars that with practice and time, when touched, no longer trigger a person into spiraling into the hells like they did before.
Sometimes we have the fear of even giving the wounds any air because we're afraid if we feel the pain, it will be forever, that if we start crying, we'll never stop. But its not true. I thought reliving the pain would never stop when the red tail hawk would start up again. It took months of those spontaneous cries and releases but it did stop. To this day, this same hawk has come by and cried when I need it. No longer do I have knee-jerk full body convulsions from it. Now the hawk cry is a gentle reminder to really honor what Im deeply feeling, my inner softer voices.
Now its a joy to hear that hawk. We even had a time yesterday late afternoon. He flew above circling, circling. I ran out to the yard and flew/ran with him around, around 'til he flew beyond the pines. What was before a trigger for releasing convulsions of pain, is now a trigger for running free and joyful.
That's what happened to me. It can happen to anyone. I was just gifted a disease for many years that allowed me to slow down enough to hear, connect, and release in this way. Maybe we can avoid severe illness and heed the calls of release as they happen for us.
But as I stated here and other places, the disease was a gift. Whatever the path youre on, its a good path. The freedom is fuller after being in suffering-prison. The joy sweeter after high doses of sorrow. The good news is that one way or another, in body or in spirit, like the hawk and me, we will together run free n' joyful.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Racism, PTSD, and Nature, OH MY!
It was about 5 years into my recovery from Lyme disease, Autumn 2014. The trees were just about bare. The skies greyer more days a week, waking up to frost consistently. One afternoon, I heard a cry from the forest just on the other side of the pond. It repeated itself over and over, somehow penetrating my body deeper, my psyche sharply, my heart like an arrow with every cry. By two or three cries in, I found myself on all fours, wailing some primal wail, crying some ancient cry. It overtook me that day as it would for the remaining two seasons. The cry was of a baby red tail hawk and it would cry at random maybe 3 times a week in long successive screeches. When it hit my ears and my heart, it registered as my young teenage self crying the sounds I couldn't utter back then.
Mid-cry I'd be reliving a scene from high school. A scene where many of my white friends whispered and pulled away, my teachers did the same. My teacher had called me a nigger to prove a point that calling homosexuals faggots was wrong. He made a point at my expense with ongoing fallout for two years until I graduated. A wound that would not heal for a couple decades, something I was sure I'd forgotten and let go of. Every time that red hawk cried, I was right back there, 16 years old, in the hallways of a mostly white suburban sprawl high school, feeling something that couldn't even be called alone. I felt like I didn't matter. Despite my own and my family's cries of pain and outrage my experience didn't matter to the community and so somewhere in the hidden recesses of my mind my feelings on this and my experience no longer mattered to me either...until two years ago. I stuffed it down with the community's urging. The red tail yanked it back up to be healed.
It took the cries of a young red tail hawk to awaken the numbed pains in me, give air and sunshine to the frightened places packed away. It took being still, in nature, developing a relationship with it, letting nature in, in deep, letting the conversation transform me. Thank you Red Tail Hawk. Thank you all who rally and support for black voices to be heard particularly in this pivotal sliver of history.
I remembered some portion of my wholeness through Nature. Step outside, remember the red tail, remember me, take in those shimmering leaves, that cool air. Look and listen and feel Nature holding you. Let God/Grace/Love hold you. Let this divine Mother Nature hold you until the veils come flying off and your wholeness is revealed anew.
If you live in the Berkshires or close by, COME JOIN THE MONTHLY COMMUNITY PRAYER VIGIL. INTERRACIAL, INTERFAITH, INTERGENERATIONAL...LETS GET TA HEALIN'. Don't let our youth hold onto to the traumas we're now witnessing and experiencing. Lets hold space on a regular basis to heal this experience together. (BEGINNING EARLY NOVEMBER, TBA. STAY TUNED.)
Mid-cry I'd be reliving a scene from high school. A scene where many of my white friends whispered and pulled away, my teachers did the same. My teacher had called me a nigger to prove a point that calling homosexuals faggots was wrong. He made a point at my expense with ongoing fallout for two years until I graduated. A wound that would not heal for a couple decades, something I was sure I'd forgotten and let go of. Every time that red hawk cried, I was right back there, 16 years old, in the hallways of a mostly white suburban sprawl high school, feeling something that couldn't even be called alone. I felt like I didn't matter. Despite my own and my family's cries of pain and outrage my experience didn't matter to the community and so somewhere in the hidden recesses of my mind my feelings on this and my experience no longer mattered to me either...until two years ago. I stuffed it down with the community's urging. The red tail yanked it back up to be healed.
It took the cries of a young red tail hawk to awaken the numbed pains in me, give air and sunshine to the frightened places packed away. It took being still, in nature, developing a relationship with it, letting nature in, in deep, letting the conversation transform me. Thank you Red Tail Hawk. Thank you all who rally and support for black voices to be heard particularly in this pivotal sliver of history.
I remembered some portion of my wholeness through Nature. Step outside, remember the red tail, remember me, take in those shimmering leaves, that cool air. Look and listen and feel Nature holding you. Let God/Grace/Love hold you. Let this divine Mother Nature hold you until the veils come flying off and your wholeness is revealed anew.
If you live in the Berkshires or close by, COME JOIN THE MONTHLY COMMUNITY PRAYER VIGIL. INTERRACIAL, INTERFAITH, INTERGENERATIONAL...LETS GET TA HEALIN'. Don't let our youth hold onto to the traumas we're now witnessing and experiencing. Lets hold space on a regular basis to heal this experience together. (BEGINNING EARLY NOVEMBER, TBA. STAY TUNED.)
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Ancient Medicine 1.0: Gratitude
I'll keep it short and very sweet: Gratitude. Its one of the most unlikely medicines there is. Every time though, before I start my gratitude practice, the thoughts come swirling, like a strong cold wind to warn and keep me away, "what good is gratitude going to do? You need urgent change, concrete solutions, not the sentimental warm feelings of gratitude!" And I usually entertain those thoughts longer than I'd like to admit. But eventually, though its choppy and tough at first, I begin to list what is going well, who is there for me, what has been lovely, helpful, downright miraculous in my present life, where is the love flowing and overflowing, before I know it something's shifted, I've shifted. Practicing Gratitude appears to widen a path, widens the channel between the small I and the Big (God/Love/Eternity) I. I don't know how it happens, why it happens, or even how far into the process when it actually happens, but it happens, every time. Without a doubt, shifting the focus from scarcity to abundance somehow transports us to abundance. Im not great at this all the time but like any habit, it takes practice, daily if not more.
Lets do this together here and now:
1) Lets acknowledge whats not going well. There's pain, disappointment, something or someone hasn't added up or showed up the way we expected, the way we had hoped and longed for. Its sad. It hurts. We honor and kiss those feelings. We see them. We accept them.
2) Lets now open the door for our old pal, as old fashioned as he may be dressed and speaks: Gratitude. Lets open the door and welcome him in. Lets have a dialogue and list out what has been right under our noses carrying us, blessing us, adoring us, keeping us alive and loved up to this point. Take the time to listen to gratitude, let it flow and maybe even write down all that's shared. Keep going. Theres more. Each time you cant think of any more, give yourself another few minutes to find more to be thankful for.
3) Any shifts? Observe and give thanks for any lightness of heart, any joy that's crept its way into your experience. Bask in the shift small or large. Really marinate in the shift of energy.
4) Any new or old insights into your original problem/puzzle?
5) Still stuck? Lather, rinse, repeat. Repeat the process, until you've felt a veil or more fall away, revealing your shiny original eternal Whole you. (Need more assistance? We all do from time to time, see previous post with "spiritual resources" and/or reach out to me www.unveilwholeness.com )
We'll continue to unveil our wholeness together, one practice, one touch, one moment at a time. <3
Lets do this together here and now:
1) Lets acknowledge whats not going well. There's pain, disappointment, something or someone hasn't added up or showed up the way we expected, the way we had hoped and longed for. Its sad. It hurts. We honor and kiss those feelings. We see them. We accept them.
2) Lets now open the door for our old pal, as old fashioned as he may be dressed and speaks: Gratitude. Lets open the door and welcome him in. Lets have a dialogue and list out what has been right under our noses carrying us, blessing us, adoring us, keeping us alive and loved up to this point. Take the time to listen to gratitude, let it flow and maybe even write down all that's shared. Keep going. Theres more. Each time you cant think of any more, give yourself another few minutes to find more to be thankful for.
3) Any shifts? Observe and give thanks for any lightness of heart, any joy that's crept its way into your experience. Bask in the shift small or large. Really marinate in the shift of energy.
4) Any new or old insights into your original problem/puzzle?
5) Still stuck? Lather, rinse, repeat. Repeat the process, until you've felt a veil or more fall away, revealing your shiny original eternal Whole you. (Need more assistance? We all do from time to time, see previous post with "spiritual resources" and/or reach out to me www.unveilwholeness.com )
We'll continue to unveil our wholeness together, one practice, one touch, one moment at a time. <3
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Healing Resources, Part 1
Here are some of the resources I found most helpful in healing from Lyme disease, Babesiosis (co-infection of Lyme). As with anything, tuning into your intuition is best in finding whats best for you in this moment, at this stage of healing/being.
Diet and Herbs
Afro-Caribbean herbs: Dr. Sebi, www.drsebicellfood.com
Traditional Chinese Medicine: Dr. Quang Van Nguyen, Arlington, VT (inquire with me personally. He may no longer be taking new patients)
Hormonal Balancing: "Woman Code" by Alisa Vitti
Exercise and Bodywork
Qi Gong, 7 Minutes of Magic, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-jSBBwr8Ko
Cranialsacral Therapy
Kundalini Yoga
Restorative Yoga
Reiki (theres no shortage of us Reiki healers, google them in your area. It will yield more than physical healing and insights). Im always happy to do Reiki on you, near or from afar: www.unveilwholeness.com
Spiritual Care and Insight
www.dhamma.org
www.mooji.org
Mental/Emotional Clarity
clary sage essential oil (clarity)
frankincense essential oil (grounding and healing trauma)
Tara Healing Incense (for relieving stress, tension, depression www.jeansgreens.com)
General Handy Go-To's
various herbs, tinctures, books, wellness products in bulk and very affordable www.jeansgreens.com
discounted supplements and groceries galore www.vitacost.com
.
MORE RESOURCES AND MORE DETAILS TO COME
AS ALWAYS YOUR INTUITION IS YOUR GREATEST SOURCE OF GUIDANCE. PRACTICE CHECKING IN THERE TO FIND YOUR WAY THROUGH THE MYRIAD OF OPTIONS. <3
Diet and Herbs
Afro-Caribbean herbs: Dr. Sebi, www.drsebicellfood.com
Traditional Chinese Medicine: Dr. Quang Van Nguyen, Arlington, VT (inquire with me personally. He may no longer be taking new patients)
Hormonal Balancing: "Woman Code" by Alisa Vitti
Exercise and Bodywork
Qi Gong, 7 Minutes of Magic, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-jSBBwr8Ko
Cranialsacral Therapy
Kundalini Yoga
Restorative Yoga
Reiki (theres no shortage of us Reiki healers, google them in your area. It will yield more than physical healing and insights). Im always happy to do Reiki on you, near or from afar: www.unveilwholeness.com
Spiritual Care and Insight
www.dhamma.org
www.mooji.org
Mental/Emotional Clarity
clary sage essential oil (clarity)
frankincense essential oil (grounding and healing trauma)
Tara Healing Incense (for relieving stress, tension, depression www.jeansgreens.com)
General Handy Go-To's
various herbs, tinctures, books, wellness products in bulk and very affordable www.jeansgreens.com
discounted supplements and groceries galore www.vitacost.com
.
MORE RESOURCES AND MORE DETAILS TO COME
AS ALWAYS YOUR INTUITION IS YOUR GREATEST SOURCE OF GUIDANCE. PRACTICE CHECKING IN THERE TO FIND YOUR WAY THROUGH THE MYRIAD OF OPTIONS. <3
Doing Time with Lyme: An Introduction
If you know anyone with chronic lyme disease this story may not sound so strange. This is a very brief version. The full thing along with detailed accounts of treatments/tools/insights of all kinds (spiritual, physical, mental) will be found in the book Im currently writing about the healing path. But here we'll start with the bare bones, how it went down.
I was working full time, in graduate school, volunteering with one of the founders of the hospice movement, about to get engaged, and generally healthy (working out three times a week, eating mostly organic foods made from scratch), I loved to cook, even meditating regularly (vipassana). Some time around spring of 2008 my body began telling me something was off, it started to fight something with all its might. I would come down with something that felt like a severe flu four days out of every four to six weeks. Im talking migraines that started at the base of my neck and crawled their way up over my head, making their home right behind my right eye. Stab, stab, throb, throb. Ouch. Im talking diarrhea. Im talking vertigo, like a hand has got you by the spine and is shaking you from the inside out. Sometimes it was more like the room spinning. Other times like I simply couldn't get my orientation in the world, like the ground wasn't the ground, my center wasn't my center. That kind of thing makes a person nauseous like you wouldn't believe. Im talking fatigue, yall, fatigue like you never knew existed, like someone emptied your fuel out and the reserves too. Every four to six weeks I'd wake up those four days in a row and felt like a lead blanket was on top of me. I literally crawled, inched my way to the bathroom, thankful for the smoothly polished wood floors, the coolness of the small white tiles that reminded me of my childhood bathroom. Never in my life until that time had I become so acquainted with the floors of every room of my country apartment.
You might be thinking at this point, well why didn't you just ask for help? Where was your fiancé? Where were your friends? Where were your parents and other family? It chokes me up a little to this day to write ponder that. But maybe its also not so strange. Im just an average independent, stubborn, prideful kind of being, like all the others that roam this earth, too brave or too stupid to ask for help. I felt scared. Scared at my core. I was a caregiver most all my life. It was my life to care and support others. What is a caregiver to do when her vitality has run from her, her life source made itself scarce, her identity shriveled up collecting dust in a corner somewhere of her suddenly too spacious apartment? It helped that these episodes only lasted four days at a time with several weeks in between. In that time I was able to fool myself into thinking it wouldn't come again, I'd beaten it, this round of the flu again. It wasn't all my own foolery. Maybe two rounds into this cycle I went to my doctor. They too confirmed it was just a persistent flu bug cycling back around. After at least a year of this near monthly cycle my coworker pulled me aside. She told me it was the running joke in the office how Liz takes all her sick days, leaving none to spare at the end of the year. She let me in on the jokebecause she wanted to show me there was indeed something bigger going on. She told me her brother became ill 15 years earlier the exact same way I was getting ill. He had all the same symptoms, right down to the right hip pain and bouts with excrutiating chest pain. Its Lyme disease she said, get checked for it. Even though my fiancé and I had been going canoeing almost every weekend, I hadn't seen any ticks on me, let alone a tick bite, no rash. She told me it didn't matter. Go get the test. I waited another episode or so to do so as I was in disbelief, but for her urging I finally did so. I asked the doctor for the test and they also were in disbelief because I had no bullseye rash or any new rashes. It took persistence on my part to get the test but I got it. Three weeks later I got a message from my doctor, full of condescension and mockery: You don't have lyme disease and you don't have mono. You need to start drinking chicken broth and start eating meat. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps, she said, and move on with your life. Annoyed at the tone but relieved at the results, I did just that. I convinced myself and let the doctor convince me that this was in fact all in my head, nothing to succumb to, nothing of consequence. That was all fine and well, for a while. I had a busy life and quite frankly had no time to be sick. But a month passed by and my symptoms came back for longer than the usual four days. It was going on a week. Because I believed it wasn't anything big, as I was told by the doctor, I didn't take any sick days. Instead I endured the fatigue, the pain, the discomfort, worked at my desk through it as best I could. My boss, a former nurse, came in one afternoon and said, listen, I know your doctor said you don't have anything but youre clearly fading. You can barely keep your head up. I'll have someone drive you home. Go get a note that you need bedrest for a couple weeks. Go home. Youre not dying on my watch.
And so I went to the doctor from there. Taking as many back roads as possible because it was hard to keep my eyes open, hard to stay alert. The doctor was not in so I saw the Physician's Assistant (PA). He was happy to oblige and write me the note for rest having examined my condition. Just before I left the examination room, he came back in a little out of breath. After reviewing your chart a second time I called another supervising doctor to confirm what I found. You have lyme disease. You have several more of the markers required for a diagnosis. I don't know why Dr.** didn't find this, its quite obvious. You need to get on the antibiotics right away, said the PA. I was livid with the snooty doctor who'd made the mistake the month prior, and elated by the news. What I was feeling was real, had a real cause. It wasn't in my head. This is a definable, treatable thing! I thought. I'd be better by the time the month-long prescription ran out, I thought. Yes, indeed, moving on with my life, my health, my plans, I thought. Those thoughts and wishes couldn't have been farther from what would transpire over the next seven years.
That's right. It got bad. Worse than bad.
And this is a blog on wholeness? Reflecting back on this younger version of me, poor thing! Little did I know what was in store for me. The bad and the ugly, you can only imagine right? Body falling apart, broke up with fiancé, dropped out of grad school, lost social life, lost job, lost some friends. So wheres the good in that?! That's the funny thing about life: within the pile of hot steaming doggy doo I was stripped of all my identities, my self of worth, only to find something more brilliant underneath. Something eternal. Something health status, relationship status, job status, and bank account have no say in: the Eternal Being that lies within each one of us, unaffected by good or bad fortune, a sense of Being that holds everything, an unwavering source of love, joy, peace. Sounds too Disney? Too airy fairy? Unreal? Yes. But its the most real thing ive experienced. How does one discover this state, how to get there, this land of experiential bliss? There are infinite ways. Which one will you take? Return next week and many weeks to come to hear the paths that opened up before me, some intentional, some totally spontaneously on the waves of Grace. We'll get there together over and over again.
I was working full time, in graduate school, volunteering with one of the founders of the hospice movement, about to get engaged, and generally healthy (working out three times a week, eating mostly organic foods made from scratch), I loved to cook, even meditating regularly (vipassana). Some time around spring of 2008 my body began telling me something was off, it started to fight something with all its might. I would come down with something that felt like a severe flu four days out of every four to six weeks. Im talking migraines that started at the base of my neck and crawled their way up over my head, making their home right behind my right eye. Stab, stab, throb, throb. Ouch. Im talking diarrhea. Im talking vertigo, like a hand has got you by the spine and is shaking you from the inside out. Sometimes it was more like the room spinning. Other times like I simply couldn't get my orientation in the world, like the ground wasn't the ground, my center wasn't my center. That kind of thing makes a person nauseous like you wouldn't believe. Im talking fatigue, yall, fatigue like you never knew existed, like someone emptied your fuel out and the reserves too. Every four to six weeks I'd wake up those four days in a row and felt like a lead blanket was on top of me. I literally crawled, inched my way to the bathroom, thankful for the smoothly polished wood floors, the coolness of the small white tiles that reminded me of my childhood bathroom. Never in my life until that time had I become so acquainted with the floors of every room of my country apartment.
You might be thinking at this point, well why didn't you just ask for help? Where was your fiancé? Where were your friends? Where were your parents and other family? It chokes me up a little to this day to write ponder that. But maybe its also not so strange. Im just an average independent, stubborn, prideful kind of being, like all the others that roam this earth, too brave or too stupid to ask for help. I felt scared. Scared at my core. I was a caregiver most all my life. It was my life to care and support others. What is a caregiver to do when her vitality has run from her, her life source made itself scarce, her identity shriveled up collecting dust in a corner somewhere of her suddenly too spacious apartment? It helped that these episodes only lasted four days at a time with several weeks in between. In that time I was able to fool myself into thinking it wouldn't come again, I'd beaten it, this round of the flu again. It wasn't all my own foolery. Maybe two rounds into this cycle I went to my doctor. They too confirmed it was just a persistent flu bug cycling back around. After at least a year of this near monthly cycle my coworker pulled me aside. She told me it was the running joke in the office how Liz takes all her sick days, leaving none to spare at the end of the year. She let me in on the jokebecause she wanted to show me there was indeed something bigger going on. She told me her brother became ill 15 years earlier the exact same way I was getting ill. He had all the same symptoms, right down to the right hip pain and bouts with excrutiating chest pain. Its Lyme disease she said, get checked for it. Even though my fiancé and I had been going canoeing almost every weekend, I hadn't seen any ticks on me, let alone a tick bite, no rash. She told me it didn't matter. Go get the test. I waited another episode or so to do so as I was in disbelief, but for her urging I finally did so. I asked the doctor for the test and they also were in disbelief because I had no bullseye rash or any new rashes. It took persistence on my part to get the test but I got it. Three weeks later I got a message from my doctor, full of condescension and mockery: You don't have lyme disease and you don't have mono. You need to start drinking chicken broth and start eating meat. Pick yourself up by your bootstraps, she said, and move on with your life. Annoyed at the tone but relieved at the results, I did just that. I convinced myself and let the doctor convince me that this was in fact all in my head, nothing to succumb to, nothing of consequence. That was all fine and well, for a while. I had a busy life and quite frankly had no time to be sick. But a month passed by and my symptoms came back for longer than the usual four days. It was going on a week. Because I believed it wasn't anything big, as I was told by the doctor, I didn't take any sick days. Instead I endured the fatigue, the pain, the discomfort, worked at my desk through it as best I could. My boss, a former nurse, came in one afternoon and said, listen, I know your doctor said you don't have anything but youre clearly fading. You can barely keep your head up. I'll have someone drive you home. Go get a note that you need bedrest for a couple weeks. Go home. Youre not dying on my watch.
And so I went to the doctor from there. Taking as many back roads as possible because it was hard to keep my eyes open, hard to stay alert. The doctor was not in so I saw the Physician's Assistant (PA). He was happy to oblige and write me the note for rest having examined my condition. Just before I left the examination room, he came back in a little out of breath. After reviewing your chart a second time I called another supervising doctor to confirm what I found. You have lyme disease. You have several more of the markers required for a diagnosis. I don't know why Dr.** didn't find this, its quite obvious. You need to get on the antibiotics right away, said the PA. I was livid with the snooty doctor who'd made the mistake the month prior, and elated by the news. What I was feeling was real, had a real cause. It wasn't in my head. This is a definable, treatable thing! I thought. I'd be better by the time the month-long prescription ran out, I thought. Yes, indeed, moving on with my life, my health, my plans, I thought. Those thoughts and wishes couldn't have been farther from what would transpire over the next seven years.
That's right. It got bad. Worse than bad.
And this is a blog on wholeness? Reflecting back on this younger version of me, poor thing! Little did I know what was in store for me. The bad and the ugly, you can only imagine right? Body falling apart, broke up with fiancé, dropped out of grad school, lost social life, lost job, lost some friends. So wheres the good in that?! That's the funny thing about life: within the pile of hot steaming doggy doo I was stripped of all my identities, my self of worth, only to find something more brilliant underneath. Something eternal. Something health status, relationship status, job status, and bank account have no say in: the Eternal Being that lies within each one of us, unaffected by good or bad fortune, a sense of Being that holds everything, an unwavering source of love, joy, peace. Sounds too Disney? Too airy fairy? Unreal? Yes. But its the most real thing ive experienced. How does one discover this state, how to get there, this land of experiential bliss? There are infinite ways. Which one will you take? Return next week and many weeks to come to hear the paths that opened up before me, some intentional, some totally spontaneously on the waves of Grace. We'll get there together over and over again.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Wholeness, Unveiled!
Dear Reader,
Love on you for getting here! You made it! Maybe you've got a fatal health prognosis, maybe you just feel like it with an inexplicable chronic ailment like chronic Lyme as I had for seven years. Maybe you have a loved one whose tried everything the medical world has to offer. Maybe youre just tired of lugging around this body day after day and not really feeling alive. Maybe you need a boost in feeling turned on, alive, whole. Whatever the case, you've joined this dialogue just by showing up and exposing yourself to something new, this blog on wholeness.
What do I mean by wholeness? While everyone wants a silver bullet fix-it solution to whatever is ailing them, usually chronic pain of some sort (mental, physical, spiritual), and while this blog just might offer something practical that unlocks that kind of relief from pain, wholeness has more to do with your perspective, your harmonious integration, ultimately your experience of your life. So you know Im not blowing smoke up your rear end, let me tell you about my journey with healing from Lyme disease over a seven year period, my "street cred". My symptoms: nearly perpetual sensation of bones on fire, migraines, vertigo (like someone shaking my spine, a personal earthquake), unfathomable fatigue (like you just ran a cross country race moments ago when in reality you've only gone to the kitchen to scramble some eggs), light sensitivity, smell sensitivity, motion sensitivity (any of these things could trigger the vertigo), to name a few. Prior to this onset of illness I was given a crumb along the path, a clue to healing and wholeness when I was a graduate student of transpersonal psychology and volunteering for hospice. In these arenas health is more than the body being able to carry out its normal functions, its the quality of experience, the deep sense of integration, acceptance, and love known at one's core. I got that crumb and offered that kind of wisdom and presence to people who were dying and their families. However, when the time came that I myself felt like I was dying, the daily practice of cultivating such wisdom and presence from the inside out, it was whole other ball game. If I didn't keep the perspective of knowing I am more than my function, what I have to offer the world, if I didn't know I was more than this body that was on fire, I would experience the closest thing I know to hell on Earth. I say all this to relay, Ive had to put my money where my mouth is. Ive had to apply the lofty wisdom I, in hindsight realize, rather flippantly, offered to patients and clients. To deeply acknowledge and whole-heartedly love the body in its pain, to also transcend ones consciousness from only being the body to that of an Eternal Being, one can find true and total bliss, free from suffering. This is the wholeness of which I speak. This is a wholeness that is already you, already your birthright, already here in the now. Can you feel it? What would a whole you look like? How many layers is s/he hiding under? Can you name the layers veiling your wholeness? Im sure the veils are there for good reason. Illness? Pain unceasing? Agony of some sort? General disillusionment with life? Disappoinment with someone who failed you? Maybe your own body or mind has failed you? Does it feel like God forgot about you? Did God fail you? Not that its possible in my view but I know the feeling.
Again, welcome to this blog! Youre in good company. Youre home. A place where wholeness is a God given constant. Lets see whats veiling our experience from knowing its true. Lets explore together.
Here you'll find reflections on the Lyme Years (2009-early 2016). I kept a detailed journal from time to time on various diets, various protocols. I kept a detailed journal of dreams. I also kept a very frank account of what I was feeling, physically and emotionally. This blog will however focus on returning to a sense of wholeness and all the ways Spirit/God/Love graced me with various avenues, pathways to unveil that mystery of the Eternally Whole Self. Also check out my site for facilitating some steps along this path with you: www.unveilwholeness.com .
Its a pleasure to be with you in this way. Write me and connect anytime. Lets unveil wholeness together.
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