To say that life has changed for us would be an understatement....and to say that us is just my family would be another massive understatement! Life has changed for pretty much every single one of us on the planet right now....and if it hasn't, then WTF is wrong with you? 2020 came in like a diseased lion and we are all feeling it.
Some of us like me are on self isolation, others on forced quarantine and many others sadly have left us and fallen to this current virus that is sweeping the world...this is scary shit, this is one of those moments we have heard about in history class, you know where we heard about all those people dying....thousands and thousands of people....this is that time for us......for those that don't believe this is actually happening, please do tell me how do you explain the virtual death toll tickers? please don't! each morning I wake up and look at that ticker and send a prayer for all the souls that have left us.....these are sad times....
I wish I knew what to say to make this better, but I don't think there is a way to do that right now...all there is the truth that this moment will change lives. Anyone that thinks that things will look the same when this is over is deluding themselves....no matter what things will be different...there cannot be so much death around the world and it not affect you even in the furthest corner of the world, it will affect you.....breathe, take that in.....and then get ready to get on with it....if you are like me you can't stop there, you can't just sit and think of this over and over, it will eat you alive....so like I said take it in....accept that this is happening around you and you cannot change a thing.....breathe......realize that it is happening to every single person you know too....every single person around you....every single person that you don't know too....in that hugeness and immense reality is the grain of peace that I found for my myself...everyone is coming from the same place right now, feeling the same things, same fears, same realities, same challenges.....we are truly in this together.
We are watching governments working together, albeit somewhat begrudgingly but they are doing it....aid packages are coming....even though many wonder - me included - if they will come in time to help or not...it gets dicey when you live as a low income family with chronic illness...asthmatics, compromised immune systems, brain tumour, diabetes and heart disease and the aged....ding ding ding all in this house.....so many of you out there with us in this boat right now. Breathe, keep going and find something to keep your mind occupied...learn a new skill, take a class online....remember to breathe.....reach out to others....there are so many wonderful offerings on Facebook and other social media platforms for things like virtual meditation, paint parties, coffee with friends and so much more that are all free...use them, join them, make connections with people...Udemy has classes and like them, there are other platforms that do the same....personally I am thinking of how to start a live video to interact with all of you....what shall I discuss? what would you like me to tackle? let me know, it might help it happen faster!
I know I haven't really given you anything to help here, no big words of spiritual advice, more of a practical approach and probably not one you haven't heard anywhere else, countless times....all I am doing is showing you I am there with you, working through my own mental health, lack and isolation....this shit is hard, I know....I feel you, I understand and I am here with you....feeling all the same things and these are the methods I am using to quell the fears that keep cropping up as each due date creeps up....you are not alone....breathe.....nothing you do right now is going to change the course of the next couple of months, other than staying put, practice physical distancing.....enjoy the time with your family.....and when the worry about how to keep food on the table creeps in....stop, breathe....start again.....you will make it through.
Hunker down
Meditate - if you can
Light your candles - if you do
Reach out when you need to
Be patient with people....we are all in the same boat
Remember to Breathe
Sending love, blessings and crooked smiles
25 March 2020
03 March 2020
As Spring approaches
As spring comes near the Sun starts warming up everything around us, the days grow longer as I look out my window and smile...things are good, I mean they are crazy in so many ways but they are good too, you know? My life has never been easy not since the first damn breath when it was almost my last.....but yet here I am 51, still going, still fighting, still surviving and most importantly still thriving.
I do not wake up each day expecting roses and sunshine, no far from it....I wake up every day groggy and shaky, that is just the nature of the beast we call chronic illness, mornings are not so good....it takes time for me to build up that cortisol, but once its going I am grooving! There is always much to do around here, its a full day every day! That for the last almost year have overwhelmed me until I felt like I could do it no more....fast forward to today and here I am sitting munching on some stinky cheese and flax seed biscuits, sipping my tea and writing while appreciating my life, the good, the bad and the ugly...no my problems did not magically disappear, no void opened in the atmosphere and sucked all the oppressors in....nope didn't happen that way....what did happen was a new protocol.
Yes I know I have tried many others, some have worked well enough to keep me here, but I needed more, a more balanced and thorough approach. Luckily for me an amazing herbalist came into my life, by chance or by magic, it happened. A caring, kind, beautiful and very knowledgeable herbalist just happened to land in my life....just when I needed her most. The backslide into full on relapse for me started sometime in the summer....I spent most of it ill, barely being able to make it to weekly markets with just a few events thrown in, not enough to make a difference but enough to make me slide deeper into that agony I know so well....my writing stopped, my wire wrapping suffered and finally I found myself at the beginning of this year in a deep depression after the assault....I was lost in some space that was endless and deep let me tell you! even though I could see logically there were plenty of reasons to feel this way....I mean come on?!? look at it all clearly, my illness, my CPTSD, the flood, the assault.....add to that all the stuff going on with my family of course I was down deep in those dumps, as more just was dumped on me daily.....it was a never ending cycle that I found myself in.....I was functioning but not thriving, just barely surviving inside while I depleted everything giving to everyone else....it had to stop before I was lost for good.
Enter Correne from Spiraea Herbal Clinic + Apothecary , and yes she has a Facebook page, it is available here....follow her! trust me! she gives lots of info and teaches so much through her blog and page! it is worth it to anyone that wants to learn about the language of plants, she is fluent! Although through the months I have developed a personal relationship with her, seeing her in her herbalist capacity well, this was a totally different thing. I arranged to have a consultation with her, and when I went to it I wasn't totally sure what to expect since for me it was really the first time I have gone to a herbalist that actually made the tincture themselves....normally and in my experience with the Naturopaths it was something that they prescribed to me, but did not make themselves. This was different, but different is a welcome thing for me. As I sat there and opened up, of course I cried but yet I felt completely heard, about every aspect of my health, it all contributes to the whole. She spent at least and hour and a half going through every part of my day, what and how my body acts and reacts...how I felt inside, how I see things and how I would like to be, what I see for myself in my healing plan....I felt heard y'all! Can you believe it?
Now here I sit a week later, a whole week, shockingly it seems like it was a month ago for the amount of progress I feel....I have a different overall feeling, I mean the oppressors are all still there, the negative people have not disappeared, they are all still there with their downtrodden attitudes....that is not going to change any time soon but I have changed.....I did not notice at first how well this was working but here, today, I just stood my ground before writing this and left a discussion with my own heart intact and did not allow the ugliness of another to penetrate. I had already sat down to write and had thought that was now not going to happen, but nope, here I am clicking on these keys! I love to write and have felt so stifled not to lay down words and suddenly it feels like they are flowing again....my feeling of being overwhelmed, struggling under the strain seems to have left me. This is a wonderful thing!
Now I am not stupid and have been down the road of feeling better before, I know its not a one tincture kinda thing, its a lifelong commitment to fighting this chronic disease day after day, but it sure feels a helluva lot better to feel supported and listened to as I fight it, not to mention that the physical symptoms of it seem to be getting hit back too! I slept last night and for the first time in a long time, I did not wake up tired even though it was so late when I went to sleep and this I credit to her spring collection, the Iðunna Collection and my tinctures in combination broke through it all, so many changes in my outlook and my heart....then we have my WIRE!!! I crafted new pieces with my wire, all new, a beautiful Amethyst floating heart pendant....I feet like my wire and I have finally made up! Yes my hand still hurts from the assault, well one finger, but its an important one when wrapping! but yet I did it and these are the things that make me happy. Every damn day....never giving up, back to thriving.
Feeling centered and filled with sunshine, even though the problems are still there, even though I still have to figure out how to keep going in practical terms there is a lightness and hope that was lost under that big cloud that was hanging over me.
I am ready for the next phase of this healing! so lets bring it on!
Blessings of the coming spring to you!
I do not wake up each day expecting roses and sunshine, no far from it....I wake up every day groggy and shaky, that is just the nature of the beast we call chronic illness, mornings are not so good....it takes time for me to build up that cortisol, but once its going I am grooving! There is always much to do around here, its a full day every day! That for the last almost year have overwhelmed me until I felt like I could do it no more....fast forward to today and here I am sitting munching on some stinky cheese and flax seed biscuits, sipping my tea and writing while appreciating my life, the good, the bad and the ugly...no my problems did not magically disappear, no void opened in the atmosphere and sucked all the oppressors in....nope didn't happen that way....what did happen was a new protocol.
Yes I know I have tried many others, some have worked well enough to keep me here, but I needed more, a more balanced and thorough approach. Luckily for me an amazing herbalist came into my life, by chance or by magic, it happened. A caring, kind, beautiful and very knowledgeable herbalist just happened to land in my life....just when I needed her most. The backslide into full on relapse for me started sometime in the summer....I spent most of it ill, barely being able to make it to weekly markets with just a few events thrown in, not enough to make a difference but enough to make me slide deeper into that agony I know so well....my writing stopped, my wire wrapping suffered and finally I found myself at the beginning of this year in a deep depression after the assault....I was lost in some space that was endless and deep let me tell you! even though I could see logically there were plenty of reasons to feel this way....I mean come on?!? look at it all clearly, my illness, my CPTSD, the flood, the assault.....add to that all the stuff going on with my family of course I was down deep in those dumps, as more just was dumped on me daily.....it was a never ending cycle that I found myself in.....I was functioning but not thriving, just barely surviving inside while I depleted everything giving to everyone else....it had to stop before I was lost for good.
Enter Correne from Spiraea Herbal Clinic + Apothecary , and yes she has a Facebook page, it is available here....follow her! trust me! she gives lots of info and teaches so much through her blog and page! it is worth it to anyone that wants to learn about the language of plants, she is fluent! Although through the months I have developed a personal relationship with her, seeing her in her herbalist capacity well, this was a totally different thing. I arranged to have a consultation with her, and when I went to it I wasn't totally sure what to expect since for me it was really the first time I have gone to a herbalist that actually made the tincture themselves....normally and in my experience with the Naturopaths it was something that they prescribed to me, but did not make themselves. This was different, but different is a welcome thing for me. As I sat there and opened up, of course I cried but yet I felt completely heard, about every aspect of my health, it all contributes to the whole. She spent at least and hour and a half going through every part of my day, what and how my body acts and reacts...how I felt inside, how I see things and how I would like to be, what I see for myself in my healing plan....I felt heard y'all! Can you believe it?
Now here I sit a week later, a whole week, shockingly it seems like it was a month ago for the amount of progress I feel....I have a different overall feeling, I mean the oppressors are all still there, the negative people have not disappeared, they are all still there with their downtrodden attitudes....that is not going to change any time soon but I have changed.....I did not notice at first how well this was working but here, today, I just stood my ground before writing this and left a discussion with my own heart intact and did not allow the ugliness of another to penetrate. I had already sat down to write and had thought that was now not going to happen, but nope, here I am clicking on these keys! I love to write and have felt so stifled not to lay down words and suddenly it feels like they are flowing again....my feeling of being overwhelmed, struggling under the strain seems to have left me. This is a wonderful thing!
Now I am not stupid and have been down the road of feeling better before, I know its not a one tincture kinda thing, its a lifelong commitment to fighting this chronic disease day after day, but it sure feels a helluva lot better to feel supported and listened to as I fight it, not to mention that the physical symptoms of it seem to be getting hit back too! I slept last night and for the first time in a long time, I did not wake up tired even though it was so late when I went to sleep and this I credit to her spring collection, the Iðunna Collection and my tinctures in combination broke through it all, so many changes in my outlook and my heart....then we have my WIRE!!! I crafted new pieces with my wire, all new, a beautiful Amethyst floating heart pendant....I feet like my wire and I have finally made up! Yes my hand still hurts from the assault, well one finger, but its an important one when wrapping! but yet I did it and these are the things that make me happy. Every damn day....never giving up, back to thriving.
Feeling centered and filled with sunshine, even though the problems are still there, even though I still have to figure out how to keep going in practical terms there is a lightness and hope that was lost under that big cloud that was hanging over me.
I am ready for the next phase of this healing! so lets bring it on!
Blessings of the coming spring to you!
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