Alan Watts weaves together many layers of the human experience in a liberating expression of truth. It’s one of those essential truths I wrestle with more often than I care to admit to myself. But. The more I admit it, the more it’s about the music and less about what I’ve accomplished, where it is I think I’m “going.” The way we’re set up, at such young ages, to look for the grand trophy, the major accomplishment, the big prize…it’s a defeating march. Chronic illness, or any recurring struggle, will either highlight the defeat or push us against that wall, the one we can stand and look at until it melts away and the music is the thing, once again. On with it…
Pause
There are times when life pushes us so rapidly forward everything in the surrounding landscape seems suspended in a freeze frame of such deep meaning. All we can do is strap on the seat belt and hope to not come out of it feeling like hammered refuse. (Ref yoose)
It’s so much and all at once and doesn’t fall on hard soil here, so much to sink in. So…
I feel like hammered um. Yes. But the pound has definitely driven home (deeper/truer) the preciousness of it all and the impossibility of ever really affirming value. We can only live, only flow, only hold and then release, only note the images frozen temporarily as their gold is branded deeply into our hearts, a realization of the depth of treasure at once fleeting and forever.
Like a daughter’s prom details thrown together at the last minute as our relationship continues to morph in the setting sun of her childhood (and I swallow huge lump in throat, grin and grab one more hug, so proud beyond measure of all she is becoming, unfolding) as she expands her horizons, and continues to teach her little brothers great things… the continued meaningful silences from a son who still has few words but a brain alive, a soul running deep and an ability to convey with his body language and eyes beyond what is so often for far too many a flip use of verbal language (nothing flip about this one), as he wields violin and climbs trees, creating maps and adventures within the stillness… and the son with hair afire and heart running fast forward into comprehension and expression, so far beyond his years, holding tight to bonds while learning who his real friends are and how amazing is music, is the outpouring of heart…
Like a body slowly healing and then stumbling and then back up again and pounds gained, then lost, muscles diminished and then trying again, a fine science to this tightrope walk with chronic illness and fitness (insert ironic laughter here), friendships new and renewing, insisting on stretching my mind, my self-perception, my limitations, my pride, my walls, preconceived ideas and notions stripped away as the imagination begins to slowly re-emerge and…
All of this richness of living suspends my writing and pauses my outpourings because of what stews in the cauldron of heart and mind, growing me more deeply settled (and stirred!) but with so much less to say. For now, living is all…further bulletins as life allows…
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Own Your Life
This reaches me on several levels because, for one, it shows a man giving his body, his will, his time to the military. On some levels, this fact alone is upsetting to me. I’m not anti-military or unappreciative of the hearts of those who mean well when they join the military but I do struggle with the choice. These folks are giving their will and good health to agendas so corrupted and obscured by greed and lust for power and control, it’s difficult to see even the potential for positive karmic purpose in the choice so many make to serve. But, I support the human, the person.
I love what is expressed here about “The Secret” and about owning your life. And as one who longs to sprint again and who has some major challenges – not with an almost 300lb weight issue or injury from parachuting out of airplanes, but with the considerably daunting reality of CFS – this rendered me weepy and appreciative. So, Happy Memorial Day to those who find it meaningful. Let this be a memorial to the human spirit, the tenacity both in and out of corrupt agendas and into the ownership of our lives and our power.
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The Dark Mother?
“…to represent the underworld mother faithfully, you have to honor the emptiness and the loss. The nature mother becomes underworld queen. You gain your depth at a price: specifically, you lose some of your obvious maternal attitudes and become more complex. You give yourself both to others and to the quest for meaning and identity.” Thomas Moore – Dark Nights of the Soul
At some point I found myself weary of the perpetual effort for positive mothering, big bright sunlight sweet and gracious. Barf. Truly, barf. Life is dark and night and wounds and all the saddest slights we hoped not to experience. It’s not just the great, glorious swelling precious ooo lah lah we long for in our youth. It’s both/and. Motherhood is the same thing for me. My children have grown accustomed to my snarl, my tears, my invitations to what I “playfully” call the “menu of loss” I am more than happy to provide them when their hubris gets the better of them. We aren’t meant to present ourselves as simply this great bright sun. We mamas embody the forces of nature and life and we do it with a vision to help our children find their strengths, their resilience and their sobriety, their humility. This is where my life is these days and it’s not easy. But the rewards are huge. I have three children who articulate about life on levels that feed the soul. They are not afraid to go deeply into the loss of life itself because at some point I decided my task is to acquaint them with courage not by way of sunny delight but by way of “this is life…this is the shite that happens and we get to love and build beyond it…” See: I wrecked their worlds and faced the truth of my own soul. We’re all re-building. Divorce, financial disasters, complete overhaul. Roles are powerful when they embrace the necessary dark side, the real more real.
In pondering my roles lately and the reality of gratitude especially given these times of Thanksgiving, I see the preciousness of the dark times, of their inevitable giftings. I’ve had some pretty amazing generosities flow my way as we roil here in a tide of potential loss. Times are very tough. Life as my own “mommy” is not being so nice. She ain’t bringin’ me the release I need in some areas. And yes, before the dogma brigade comes along, let me say that I know well the need to make my own release, grow it from within yadda yadda. As true as all the “yadda yadda” is…sometimes some lives do not get the material needful to manifest some amazing things in as timely a fashion as preferred. And, in spite of even that, some lives don’t give up.
But mother, mother life is tossing me the dark with the light. And the light seems to be more and more a result of the hard times. The “dark” times. My next door neighbor, a mother fiercely and beautifully protective, nurturing and probably a good 15 years my junior knocking on my door… “Ruth. If there is ANYTHING I can do for you…please…tell me. We don’t want to lose you…” GULP. We’re struggling to stay in our home. Struggling to make ends meet. Struggling even just to find the energy to do the basics, some of us. Me. But in the middle of it all, in the middle of this rolling tide from the best and worst of the dark mother/life is this wealth of gratitude I never thought I’d know and know so ruthlessly, relentlessly in spite of the ups and down. (And following rapidly on the heels of my mutterings to “god” shaking my head at the sky “you’re such a g.d. mofo…” And that is how joy finds a more authentic work…through the blasting expression of valid frustration.)
I waken daily to joy but it’s not so high. It’s right here in my core, knowing that whether a home is taken, or a job found, or health completely restored or not I can love with vision. I can receive with gratefulness. I can be part of something embracing the dark with courage.
This is where my heart is as a mother during this particular Thanksgiving holiday. The tremendous wealth that follows existential emptying becomes a feast in the night spilling onto tabletops filled with the usual but extraordinary fare…
On. With. It. And Happy Life, Y’all…
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Soul Search
The relentlessness of synchronicity, of the recurring pursuit of soul for deeper meaning and expression struck me this morning as I, once again, “accidentally” opened a book that seemed to be picking up on a conversation I’d left off only just moments before and days before and. The ongoing conversation of my soul and mind, inspecting the state of my health, asking why. Thomas Moore’s articulation in Dark Nights of the Soul chimed in:
“The religion scholar Mircea Eliade explores in his journals what he calls “the spiritual, ‘religious,’ functions of illness.” “Illness,” he writes, “is the point of departure for the process of personality integration and for a radical spiritual transformation.”
Moore continues…
“Illness is also a kind of poetry. It expresses the course of life, but it doesn’t explain it. It invites you to reflect on your way of life, spotting the gaps where your soul is negected and complaining. You can think about where the disease came from and how it reflects the way you live or the ways of your society. Eventually, your sickness may cure you of your misconceptions, as it speaks its poetry on behalf of nature, guiding you deeper into union with the source of your own life. The more you are emptied of your physical abilities, the more you are filled with the strength of soul.”
Over a year ago I began to acknowledge the slam of chronic illness, the recurring fever and its effects, coming seemingly out of nowhere but not a stranger to my world. I couldn’t sustain that acknowledgement because, for one, I didn’t want it to dominate my expression or my perspective. How quickly does “disability” become identity? For fear of that very possibility, I retreated. But my body continued to struggle. I would shove, push, scramble into days that most folks can do without too much reprisal. The benefit of 50/50 parenting delayed my final crash, getting me through my last semester as I spent any “spare” time in stillness, lying around, trying not to feel guilty. But the summer and heat, lawn and life depleted me fully.
I found Dr. Myhill’s illuminating insights. This failure of the mitochondria is inherited from the maternal side, she says. Cracks me up in light of recurring divination screaming…”then one receives great blessing from the ancestress.” Such a tangle of potential meaning. Dr. Myhill? My grandmother, Sugar, gifting me with this curse? She’s the one who suffered and whose heart literally exploded. I was born with my heart murmuring. Truly, literally a heart murmur. Can we say I was born with my soul already needing healing? And my body therefore spoke or murmured? We can say and see anything, really. But I agree with Moore. I agree with the opportunity here.
My own struggles have legitimized my grandmother’s story. She was not taken seriously, had many tests for her health and when you read Myhill’s description of the total body shutdown caused by this failure in energy production on a molecular level you read her story, my grandmother’s. She was not believed. She was looked on with some contempt and seen as “weak.” I see a bit of redemption in this. Her spirit can rest with more ease. Who she was as a person, the perception of her soul, of her essence can be rid of that lack of credibility. She was, in fact, stronger than anyone knew, working to stay active in life while her respiratory system failed her, while her thyroid roiled and her heart – though tested without revealing it – worked with very little fuel.
What is the soul’s work in this chronic illness? What is the pattern? Activity and reprisal for such activity, rest required, punitive pause. Then rev up the engine a bit, ragged but rolling and out the door again. Second-guessing the fatigue every step of the way. Is it that I don’t believe I’m allowed to live without punishment? Is this the first time I’ve faced this possible cause? No. God, no. I’ve covered many a layer, incorporating new vision, new thinking, acceptance of myself on deeper and deeper levels and actions, life changes reflecting the inner work. And yet. My body continues to express itself through limitation. It’s possible I chose this for a specific learning process just as my soul entered this body. But I can never know with a certainty, can I?
What does this illness give me? It requires I rest in feltness supreme on levels deeper and steeper still. It requires I treasure my energy and use it more strategically and conduct my life in even more mindful ways, visionary energy becoming vision more cherishing of life itself. Life. Life beyond “productivity.” Life beyond “legitimacy” earned in our culture’s definition of “living.” Life beyond approval.
People seem to generally be more comfortable either giving extreme medical advice or assuming the illness is caused by a lack of effort to bring the life into fitness on every level. Why is that? Is it that humanity has yet to figure out how to just be with? Be with. Other. Self. Now. Here, let me tell you how I know you’re mismanaging your world ‘though I don’t know you well enough to begin to do so! This, this is what happens most often. Why? No matter…
“Hi. Yes. I have this chronic illness. And I’ve done more homework on my soul than most and I’ve altered my whole world in order to create an environment that honors my requirements. I’m still ill. Deal with it. There’s no one easy answer. And. This. Is. Life.”
When the proof of your “advancement” cannot be revealed in products, the soul brews a most potent stew of creative jive and appreciation for every slice of life. You are more present than ever. Especially when you quit condeming yourself for not appearing to be diligent, active, resilient.
What is this illness giving me? Because of the intense rest and supplement flood, my eyesight is improved, fever reduced. My heart rhythm is more steady, the pause, shudder, spasm, slam, almost-pass-out moments are practically non-existent. My energy is more potently available. My respiratory system is saying “thank you!” My stamina is not yet returned fully but I’m getting there. My respect for my body has increased even more. I’ve learned not to pretend this isn’t a real, valid issue needing measured regard and careful planning. I’ve promised myself that it will become a layer of my daily living I integrate without crashing again. And it will be so effectively managed there won’t be much use for the tag “chronic illness.” It’s going to be about even deeper even more unique perpetual regard in love, tailor-made for honoring my individuality as well as my clan-self. Hey, and one day, I’ll sprint again.
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Butterflies
Months ago, in the summer sun, my heart raw, my mind shell-shocked, my energy barely humming, the sight of shocking monarch glory on the ground stopped me short. Lying on the ground, clearly dead. I stooped down, was she playing dead? They do that. But no. I picked it up. It troubled my heart deeply. I couldn’t let anyone step on her. I might break the wings accidentally. But I knew it would not be an indifferent heart or unseeing eyes scrambling past and crushing something precious. I knew if I let my car moves do their dance, the wings would probably chip. I’d take her home, bury her. But she wouldn’t be trampled unseen. So, I put her in my car and drove away. She stayed there a while. Her colors singing anything but death. I couldn’t bury her yet. (Call the psych experts, she’s begging for a disorder label!! tag her! pin her! mount her on the wall!!! see?! i told you she’s a monarch! and she thought she could fly!)
Things break. People go down and stay down for a long time. Me included. I can’t say how many times I’ve muttered to the sky lately: “you sure you’re not just a mo fo?” Well, really, I say that expletive fully. No shortened clever bit. Just all of it, daring the once-existing patriarchal saturnical snarl. I never do get a response. Invariably something really kind happens and I shrug, realizing I’m suppose to grin and gasp with grateful glee. It’s just not in me. Not lately. I do feel appreciative, joyful moments fleeting. But that long sustained sense of strength, of flight plans sure and true…long, long overdue. It will return…? Must it? I would like even just a bit but mostly I’m just glad to put one foot and then the other.
Life is conspring to bless me, some say. I say life is conspiring to challenge my faith in love, in faith itself, and in life itself while also conspiring to affirm those very things. It’s a sometimes sick twist of contradictions I’d rather not have to contend with. But isn’t that the human story? Ah. It is. (could we catch a bit of a break? please?)
I can’t sleep tonight. When you’re forced to rest often, the days and nights can blur together into a long stretch of a body sighing, trying and then murmuring about football tossing with a son, fun exercise too soon but without regret. Or the lack of nap intended so that the final descent into sleep isn’t 3am, that same lack creating this afternoon zombie state and moments of complete despair. Why did I run a fever today? A bit high again. (Don’t ask me about doctors, ok? I’m not stupid. I promise. This has been with me off and on for over 20 years. No, I don’t want attention. It’s just my story and I’m not trying to hide the fact that, at this point, it shapes my world in blurring lines of fatigue. I won’t pretend to worry that you’re going to know my less “positive” self.)
This is minor. So many tough stories living out their songs of effort and hope and despair all day, every day and nothing like my own managable reality. But there are days I feel like I got put in a car and my wings are chipped and I just need the earth and cool quiet quit and all the time in the world before I crumble all the way, return as tree or weed or something perkier than my current state. (No. Not a death wish. Just a sense of a dying away from a former state of living my life and morphing into something different. And not the first time and wow. Why must it be so intensely unique every time?)
Where does a blog post like this go? It just stops like that butterfly at my feet. It says g’nite and. I hear the best things take a bit of time. And some say that maybe God’s not a mo fo and has even the slightest humor divine. But today, I don’t know. And I don’t much care what people say of this joke divine. I just know I want to float again and sing songs.
But first, the rest.
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Olive Leaf Extract
…is not the typical title on this blog but it’s a glimpse of my world with supplements flooding my system hourly. I’ve been forced to regroup and re-prioritize my vision of “progress” lately. Once a full-blown relapse has occurred, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome becomes this horrifically stubborn monstrosity requiring gargantuan gaps of rest and only mild “exertion” the likes of which rev up my frustration levels into overload. Managing the fallout from that alone is a task no supplement provides. Ok. Maybe Niacin in mega doses (some refer to this vita b-wonder as nature’s valium) and a bit of l-tryptophan and valerian root but I’d rather find an outlet for the frustration that won’t sabotage progress or make me pass out (unless it’s bedtime!).
I discovered olive leaf extract accidentally in my quest to wipe out what had become a regular occurrence for me: daily fever, spiking sometimes up to 100 for months now. No identifiable infection. Exhausting. Olive leaf extract saves the day here. My highest temp for the past two weeks has been 99.2 and while I can feel it, it’s nothing compared to 100. I’ll take every tenth of a degree I can get. And that’s what this illness asks. It asks for appreciation for the finer points of improvement and patience for the long haul. Much to my disappointment, two weeks of supplements is not going to put me in the exceptional zone of early recovery. Experts’ general advice is 3 to 4 months of rest, pacing activity (this means if I go to the grocery store tomorrow, then I don’t sit at the computer and research for 2 hours as well or stand and do a pile of dishes in addition to and well, you get it…?) and heavy supplementation. I thought I could be the curve buster but I only managed to bust my stubborn idea in the fallout of a pig pickin’ tradition. Two days bedrest to recover from a family reunion might not be unusual for some but my whole body hurt all evening and I couldn’t sit up without pain the next day. All I did was walk a bit, stand around and eat, sip a glass of wine and laugh alot. But I did it for hours (including a hammock stint of glorious restful proportions).
But I’m improving hugely and falling into a renewed cycle of researching holistic healing practices, dusting off my herbal remedy books and reacquainting myself with the wonder of nature’s wise provisions. For one – Olive. Leaf. Extract. Supreme. In looking for a remedy for fever, I also found it to be an arrhythmia calming agent. And much else.
It’s a stark shift for me, this heavy focus on my health. I walked up steep steps to my room this morning and realized how different it all feels. I’m not kicking my butt for noticing my fatigue or for dragging. The spiritual tyranny of pride has fallen away and a sense of the influence of society’s ideas of productivity, stamina and endurance is breath-taking. I’m learning that pride ran me ragged and has now landed me flat on my back with new information to validate the highly relevant physical component/cause of this illness. As much as I hated the attitude others had about this particular illness, I embodied it against myself, scorning the downtimes and nagging at myself for not having what I didn’t have: energy or stamina. And my energy recovery process is not functioning properly on the most basic of cellular levels. No amount of boot-strap tough broad bull can change that. Knowing that has made a huge difference.
The good years, when I look back on the long stretch of relative productivity with minor recovery time, came on the heels of episodes of forced rest either via pre-term labor or a measurable illness known and respected by the medical profession. And I’ll never forget the surge of energy won me in the aftermath of a magnesium flush. So many pieces to a puzzle and pride ( a reaction agasint unwarranted shame ) kept it fragmented, disjointed and indiscernible before now.
So, it’s all good right now in spite of the difficulty. Plans are revised. Divorce proceedings are progressing (no minor passage, eh?!), and school will begin again for me in the spring. The preciousness of the moment finds deeper meaning in these times and creativity thrives in spite of the forced stillness. That tension between acceptance and vision with passion and promise keeps me finely tuned in a dance of healing. A strengthening appreciation for the immeasurable value of intuitive living is bolstering the foundation here, filling up the gaps shame created in ignorance made by refusal to trust my sense of things beyond the criticism. I knew. All this time. I knew there was more to this illness than had yet been revealed but I went with the most critical voice, internalizing it and alternately arguing with it for two decades. No more. That alone will free up some energy, eh? Praise God and pass the olive leaf extract! It’s time for my nap.
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Maximum Dosage
“Picture can defend us against image, emotion against feeling, intellect against insight, a dark way of life or personality against soul’s unmanipulable shadow, and, of course, psychology against psyche.” Thomas Moore (Dark Eros)
Once again, and on deeper levels, I’m finding that the life lived in reaction against others’ judgments is a life defending against being alive, being raw, being flawed, being … ultimately? whole.
So. No. More. Open. Every. Door. And. Let. It. In.
And I’m finding forgiveness as magnesium at maximum dosage opens the door for the right nourishment to reach my literal heart muscle. And this discovery came right when I was starting to open my heart up in ways long lost since childhood. I don’t believe it is, any of it, an accident.
Peace, y’all…
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Mito Moments
Mito moments…when your body aches and fever continues relentless, throat sore, brain fog, demands drowning and you think maybe, in that moment, maybe if you just try a few leg lifts and. Maybe if you do just 5 minutes a day of very minor exercises, you’ll get better…? You cringe remembering having asked your son 3 times in a row the very same thing. You cringe remembering aching with longing when you watched the scene where the woman put on the sticker that read: “I’m In Silence” as you watched Eat, Pray, Love. I don’t want to respond to anyone. I can’t want it. My whole body is gone. Will exercise help?
Something in you snarls “go research.” And you go, promising yourself you’ll maybe exercise after you’ve researched.
Third person is the sign of the observer, the one really hoping to help conserve the energy, the one shielding from judgment. If I speak in third person, this won’t be what it is, maybe?
I’ve struggled off and on with CFS for over 20 years, enduring aplenty and grinning perpetually (except for those moments when no one is looking and I can show the walls my complete frustration). I had a moment, mito, where I thought I was the problem. Just this week. I’ve relapsed on levels worse than ever, my body deciding no more band-aid promises, no more bullying me out the door. Sometimes the body simply refuses. So, I sat in the computer chair and researched CFS yet again, thinking my intuitive urge stupidly hopeful. I know the ins and outs of this monster, know the critical “assessments” and the assumptions: “Oh, isn’t that a depression?” Sure, yeah. It’s the whole body depressed and the mind happens to cave in occasionally. Yup. That’s IT. Oh, that’s not what you meant, is it? Hisss…
I was about to give up when I found something about the mitochondria. Ah. ha. ha. A doctor in the UK has published her study on the effects of d-ribose and other wonderful supplements on CFS patients. Her conclusion?
“The central problem of chronic fatigue syndrome is mitochondrial failure resulting in poor production of ATP. ATP is the currency of energy in the body and if the production of this is impaired then all cellular processes will go slow. It is not good enough to measure absolute levels of ATP in cells since this will simply reflect how well rested the sufferer is. The perfect test is to measure the rate at which ATP is recycled in cells and this test has now been developed by John McLaren Howard. He calls it “ATP profiles”. It is a test of mitochondrial function.
Not only does this test measure the rate at which ATP is made, it also looks at where the problem lies. Production of ATP is highly dependent on magnesium status and the first part of the test studies this aspect.
The second aspect of the test measures the efficiency with which ATP is made from ADP. If this is abnormal then this could be as a result of magnesium deficiency, of low levels of Co-enzyme Q10, low levels of vitamin B3 (NAD) or of acetyl L-carnitine.
The third possibility is that the protein which transports ATP and ADP across mitochondrial membrane is impaired and this is also measured.
The joy of the ATP profiles test is that we now have an objective test of chronic fatigue syndrome which clearly shows this illness has a physical basis. This test clearly shows that cognitive behaviour therapy, graded exercise and anti-depressants are irrelevant in addressing the root cause of this illness.” [Emphasis mine.] Link here: http://drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/CFS_-_The_Central_Cause:_Mitochondrial_Failure
The UK, of course. Where some of the more epic influences of my life have originated. And absconded to, apparently. I sat there reading this information, poring over it and have to admit I both laughed and cried. It described me more thoroughly than I’d found thus far. And. There. Is. A. Test. WOW.
Let me back up and say that as much as a CFS sufferer remembers the fact that depression didn’t begin this malaise, as much as the CFS sufferer knows of others with equally daunting or worse histories to heal who never feel a second of chronic pain and have never gotten in touch with the inner demons, as much as the CFS sufferer knows the sneering doctors were ignorant and lazy, as much as the CFS sufferer remembers loving life and activity, that same soul feels guilty. I shoulda done figured this thang out. I should have more energy. I’m lazy. I just don’t….
I ended 2 semesters after 23 years of no formal schooling with a 3.8 gpa. I now have 2 years under my belt. And 3 happy kids and blog posts and a relatively neat(ish) house in disrepair and a load of ideas taking shape and personal growth so rapid and profound as to render me a bit shocked. But my body, including cognitive function, began to unravel in July. And now? Nothing left to unravel, apparently. Lazy?
The protocol for ranking CFS fatigue and debilitation reveals how all my pushing has landed me right here, right now in my occasionally-occurring 3 hours of relatively cognizant capability:
“2. Moderate to severe symptoms at rest. Unable to perform strenuous activity. Overall activity 30–50% of expected. Unable to leave house except rarely. Confined to bed most of day. Unable to concentrate for more than 1 hour per day.
3. Moderate to severe symptoms at rest. Severe symptoms with any exercise; overall activity level reduced to 50% of expected. Usually confined to house. Unable to perform any strenuous tasks. Able to perform desk work 2–3 hours per day, but requires rest periods.”
I’m at 3 today. Often I’m at level 2. Mitochondrial failure. The layers of total system shutdown involved in this dilemma is illuminating, shedding light on why every test on my heart has revealed nothing, why I’ve been, not irritated, but alarmed at the diminished cognitive function, the dyslexia, the clumsiness, the…well, it’s endless. And information reveals that the genetic link for mitochondrial failure is through the mother. My mind reaches back to a redhead named Sugar. My mom’s mom. She had these same ailments. Never found a solution, put up with the same scorn. Died suddenly and unexpectedly when her heart failed.
This in particular blew me away: “In CFS the heart failure is caused by poor muscle function and therefore strictly speaking is a cardiomyopathy. This means the function of the heart will be very abnormal, but traditional tests of heart failure, such as ECG, ECHOs, angiograms etc, will be normal.”
More research revealed a test for free-radicals in the bloodstream of CFS sufferers finds amounts equivalent to those in the bloodstream of people undergoing chemotherapy. Gee, why am I useless right now?!
So. Well. And. The next 8 weeks will be spent focusing heavily on therapeutic, intense healing practices. I’ll haunt my blog friends and comment when some of the fog clears. Posting may happen sporadically. Or not at all during this time. Maybe I’ll post about this particular journey. (Decision-making almost impossible lately!) In the meantime, I sorely miss the energy and enthusiasm.
Here’s to healing and hope…
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Directions To Ruth
Sitting at my pc last night, searching through files my eyes fell across a document titled: DirectionstoRuth.doc. Something in me felt a bit of a surge, maybe I’d find that part of my self currently so flattened there’s no distinction beyond fatigue. Maybe it held words like shovels digging up long-lost inspiration, clearing out the overload, pushing back the tide of exhaustion. I laughed at myself immediately but went ahead to open the document, remembering it was most likely an old file of directions to my home. And it was, but what a telling moment.
From there I found an old IMP outpouring, posted it and went off to bed painfully aware of how impervious I am not right now. Bolstering self and shoring up the energy to put one foot and then the other gets…old. The only truly authentic move for me was to collapse in bed. Gee, I felt so real.
After getting up to face the day, I realize I’m too much spent at 8am. This sounds awfully like whining. It really isn’t. It’s an acknowledgement that I need to pull back, that my struggles with chronic fatigue/fever/aches and the work to be an actual resource for my children while taking three classes is taking a toll. Ideally, I’d get to crash for two weeks literally resting constantly with no stress. That would pull me out of the slump and how luxurious it would be, no? Not possible.
So, words will be fewer here for a while unless some grand surge lifts me out of the flatlands and soon. Maybe a quote or two will haunt this blog until then.
In the meantime…
“God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.”
J. Ruth Kelly 