Oh yeah, right, "just get over this ASAP." Healing symptoms of fatigue began to build, yet I was still in an active conflict of fear, anger. I felt like I couldn't muster up the energy to cook for myself, to walk outside of the apartment, things just seemed to bottom out for me. I was pushing on my sister to help me out, despite knowing she was already maxed out with her family, work, and the recent passing of her mother-in-law. My sense of abandonment was growing every day.
Chris gave me the name and number of Dr. Katherine Willow, ND, of Carp Ridge EcoWellness Center and Healing House, outside of Ottawa, a healing center which uses German New Medicine as its foundation. Luckily, it was only 5.5 hours away from my sister's home!! I called her the next day, and arranged what I thought would be "a nice convalescence in the country...' Well, let's have Dr. Willow tell her experience with my time there, as she wrote about it in her own blog....
From http://ecowellness.wordpress.com/2011/09/10/healing-house-stories/:
Mariah
When Mariah called me from New York state at the end of June saying she needed two months of rest and good food, I thought this was an easy healing house guest for the summer.
Wrong.
After three days with us, Mariah, an intelligent and sensitive 53 yr old woman, collapsed into bed and needed complete 24 hr care. So began an intense learning process which would deserve many pages to tell properly. It turns out that Mariah had been diagnosed with stage IV liver cancer after prior surgery for ovarian cancer, and unknown even to herself, was waiting for a safe environment to let down into deep healing. Luckily we understood through German New Medicine that it was a healing; from any other perspective it looked like she was dying.
We used every avenue available to us to support Mariah: buying or renting medical equipment, including a wheel chair, for the home; having a lab come to take blood to monitor her progress and our treatments; taking her to see Shannon Rampton, the wonderful chiropractor in Carp, to completely relieve debilitating back pain; having massage therapists Gwen and Amber give her massages and craniosacral therapy in her room when she couldn’t leave her bed; hiring extra help to give care and prevent bedsores; sending her off to a hospital in New York for blood transfusions twice for extreme anemia; having Dr Zhmurko prescribe constitutional homeopathic remedies and Ilsedora Laker consult on the core German New Medicine issues; calling several medical doctors for helpful insights and another perspective; boosting her spirits with various interesting visitors to the centre; letting three year old Felix share his unconditional love (“Are you fixed yet, Mariah?”); inviting Father Jack to offer his spiritual wisdom; using nourishing organic food, vitamins, minerals and medicinal wine to support her in rebuilding her exhausted body; listening with attention while she processed her fears; and most of all, offering constant encouragement that she can do this, pull through and go back into her life with meaning and purpose.
At this very moment, I am sitting in a U.S. hospital beside a sleeping Mariah as she is being given her third and final transfusion before she goes home this Saturday. We had waited with baited breath for the hemoglobin results, as we need her levels to stop dropping in order for her to move forward in her healing. With great exhilaration and high fives we heard that they hadn’t dropped at all in a whole week!! A moment of sheer joy. The gracious and respectful oncologist said Mariah could have a unit of blood, which was thankfully accepted, even though we were hoping for two units. Ten minutes later a nurse announced that two units had been previously set aside and that she could have both. THANK YOU!
So now we sit in a pleasant area with large windows and caring nurses while the life-giving blood drips slowly into Mariah’s veins. I get to write and she gets to relax, eat and watch the cooking shows on TV (she is an excellent cook herself). I will prepare a report on her process with suggestions for the next practitioners she will work with in New York to continue the healing and we’ll be a support from a distance. Mariah is welcome to come back in the future, maybe as a German New Medicine teacher herself, helping others pull through situations that might look hopeless to the medical community.
We have come through an extraordinary journey together and have learned much—both about the possibilities of a healing house in conjunction with all kinds of medicines as well as about ourselves. What Mariah has given us with her faith in the natural healing process will serve many others and help lay the template for how to work with extreme situations. We all thank her, hug her, wish her well on the next leg and hope to see her back.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
New Healing Symptoms
I began having symptoms of bloating last fall, around the time I was beginning to date again, despite actually feeling really good emotionally. It was not, however, the most pleasant feeling, not being able to fit into my blouses and pants normally reserved for school assistantship/internship, and going out and socializing. I thought it was bloating from how I was eating.....student food. Or, was it the chinese herbs being too cloying (sweet) and taxing to my Spleen energy? The woman I was dating was beginning to get both controlling and withholding. We saw each other most weekends, beginning in October, and by the end of that month, I was realizing I wasn't all that happy being with her........and, yet, I was trying to give the benefit of the doubt to her, cut her some slack. She was a very intelligent and congenial woman, but, wow, did she ever have intimacy issues.
November, she came out with her disappearing behavior, then re-connecting via tweets. It was actually a good thing we weren't in a tremendous amount of contact, because the trimester was beginning to heat up for the homestretch to finals. December, well, that was it. She was super-sensitive about everything I said or suggested for connection. After she returned from a scuba diving jaunt in Cozumel , she shut me off, cold turkey, nada contact or response to a phone call or email. It hurt for about a day, and then I was fine with it. Or, so I thought. I would catch myself thinking about how much I had cared for her, despite the disconnect between us. Or, I would ask my friend Janet if there were problems with my ability to be intimate, which she assured me was not the case, because she and I had a fabulous friendship.
The whole dating time re-triggered in me the abandonment I felt from D. It didn't take much, but it was there. The bloating seemed to get worse, my belly was now beginning to expand. I would try to hide it with looser-fitting clothing. I was also losing weight, my appetite seemed to be somewhat suppressed. I wasn't taking as much food with me to school. I was losing interest in school, and my fatigue was building. The Clinical Medicine prof unloaded on me in a very shameful way in front of my classmates when I made a mistake during the practical final. That really cut deep, but at the same time, there was a new and instantaneous awareness in me that this tirade was coming from her sexual issues, and that I didn't deserve to be treated the way she had.
By the end of March, I looked 5-6 months pregnant, April, more like 7 months. And, the leg swelling I was periodically having was now more resident. A classmate pulled me aside and, in a very frantic tone, begged me to go see a doctor, because she thought I looked very jaundiced. Others commented about my weight loss. I was in contact with GNM people, but, honestly, didn't feel like any of them were taking me seriously, or were they just expecting me to "work it out myself." My projection, perhaps. But, I knew this was ascites. One practitioner said to me "what, you don't like the feeling of having an expanded belly? It is in healing...." It felt uncaring to me. My main practitioner didn't seem to be as available. On the one hand, I knew this was a healing phase, on the other, it was kinda scary......
I applied for Social Security Disability. My sense was that I was going to need that support.
I was hating living by myself, by that time. I was hating living in a mildewy place. My sister's mother-in-law Mary was still in the nursing home (fractured pelvis day after Christmas, Parkinson's Disease, Degenerative Joint Disease in both knees), and she was beginning to look like she would not be on this earth much longer. I asked Nancy if I could move into the adjoining mother-in-law apartment, and, after discussing it with her husband and daughter, told me yes. Mid-April, Nancy and I drove down to Isle of Palms, SC for my niece's spring softball training week the middle of April. The ascites was quite obvious, and I looked gaunt, and jaundiced. She was alarmed, I could tell, but didn't want to admit it. It increases her anxiety when she has to directly deal with issues. I was beginning to get worried myself.
I went through the month May of the next trimester with one day per week of treating patients at the VA, hiding my belly behind expandable pants, new blouses, and my lab coat. The day we had to do our practical assessments (tested on our needling, moxa and cupping technique), I was wearing two gowns from the clinic, my left leg swollen to the knee. I could tell the faculty who were there, besides all my classmates, were alarmed. The next day, the dean of our program called me into his office. He was very concerned for me, that what I seemed to be exhibiting was ascites, and that was a sign of endstage. I explained to him the Kidney Collecting Tubule Syndrome, that it didn't mean endstage of life at all. He was willing to work with me, he said, whatever I needed, but that he would tell the professors I was not be needled, or receive Tui Na. He left it up to me to manage myself at that point. He did remark "there is such a thing as 'dirty chi' when someone is sick, and we need to consider that impact on our clients......"
My energy level was flagging, it was getting harder to bend over to needle patients when they were either sitting or on the table. My skills as an acupuncturist were very good and very evident, one patient had significant pain relief when I chose a very unique point combination that I had put together from an obscure remark made by one of my professors in class one day. But, I knew I couldn't keep going. Classes were hard to sit through, I barely studied assignments, I was hiding emotionally from my classmates, isolating myself by sitting way up in the back of the class. Social Security notified me that it had accepted my application.
Mary passed away mid-May. I felt a sense of relief for her, that she had let go, finally. I was also excited that I was moving into the apartment, and that I would have "the living situation I wanted, living with family, and all would be grand, finally, in my life!!" That night, I began to urinate....and urinate and urinate through the weekend.....to the point my Urinary Bladder channels were aching like crazy. I had urinated away 9# of fluid!! My belly girth had decreased by almost 50%! It felt so comfortable!
I moved into the apartment the following weekend......and began to encounter issues......the dog's constant barking, his jumping on me and urinating on anything new left on the floor, the dynamics of my sister and her family.........my ascites began to re-build after a week.
The beginning of June, I looked into my savings account, and there was a large sum of money deposited the day before.....my lump sum back pay from Social Security. I didn't go to classes that week, I called in sick the next day of internship. Later that week, I resigned from school. All I wanted to do was stay at home, rest, and "get through this as soon as possible."
November, she came out with her disappearing behavior, then re-connecting via tweets. It was actually a good thing we weren't in a tremendous amount of contact, because the trimester was beginning to heat up for the homestretch to finals. December, well, that was it. She was super-sensitive about everything I said or suggested for connection. After she returned from a scuba diving jaunt in Cozumel , she shut me off, cold turkey, nada contact or response to a phone call or email. It hurt for about a day, and then I was fine with it. Or, so I thought. I would catch myself thinking about how much I had cared for her, despite the disconnect between us. Or, I would ask my friend Janet if there were problems with my ability to be intimate, which she assured me was not the case, because she and I had a fabulous friendship.
The whole dating time re-triggered in me the abandonment I felt from D. It didn't take much, but it was there. The bloating seemed to get worse, my belly was now beginning to expand. I would try to hide it with looser-fitting clothing. I was also losing weight, my appetite seemed to be somewhat suppressed. I wasn't taking as much food with me to school. I was losing interest in school, and my fatigue was building. The Clinical Medicine prof unloaded on me in a very shameful way in front of my classmates when I made a mistake during the practical final. That really cut deep, but at the same time, there was a new and instantaneous awareness in me that this tirade was coming from her sexual issues, and that I didn't deserve to be treated the way she had.
By the end of March, I looked 5-6 months pregnant, April, more like 7 months. And, the leg swelling I was periodically having was now more resident. A classmate pulled me aside and, in a very frantic tone, begged me to go see a doctor, because she thought I looked very jaundiced. Others commented about my weight loss. I was in contact with GNM people, but, honestly, didn't feel like any of them were taking me seriously, or were they just expecting me to "work it out myself." My projection, perhaps. But, I knew this was ascites. One practitioner said to me "what, you don't like the feeling of having an expanded belly? It is in healing...." It felt uncaring to me. My main practitioner didn't seem to be as available. On the one hand, I knew this was a healing phase, on the other, it was kinda scary......
I applied for Social Security Disability. My sense was that I was going to need that support.
I was hating living by myself, by that time. I was hating living in a mildewy place. My sister's mother-in-law Mary was still in the nursing home (fractured pelvis day after Christmas, Parkinson's Disease, Degenerative Joint Disease in both knees), and she was beginning to look like she would not be on this earth much longer. I asked Nancy if I could move into the adjoining mother-in-law apartment, and, after discussing it with her husband and daughter, told me yes. Mid-April, Nancy and I drove down to Isle of Palms, SC for my niece's spring softball training week the middle of April. The ascites was quite obvious, and I looked gaunt, and jaundiced. She was alarmed, I could tell, but didn't want to admit it. It increases her anxiety when she has to directly deal with issues. I was beginning to get worried myself.
I went through the month May of the next trimester with one day per week of treating patients at the VA, hiding my belly behind expandable pants, new blouses, and my lab coat. The day we had to do our practical assessments (tested on our needling, moxa and cupping technique), I was wearing two gowns from the clinic, my left leg swollen to the knee. I could tell the faculty who were there, besides all my classmates, were alarmed. The next day, the dean of our program called me into his office. He was very concerned for me, that what I seemed to be exhibiting was ascites, and that was a sign of endstage. I explained to him the Kidney Collecting Tubule Syndrome, that it didn't mean endstage of life at all. He was willing to work with me, he said, whatever I needed, but that he would tell the professors I was not be needled, or receive Tui Na. He left it up to me to manage myself at that point. He did remark "there is such a thing as 'dirty chi' when someone is sick, and we need to consider that impact on our clients......"
My energy level was flagging, it was getting harder to bend over to needle patients when they were either sitting or on the table. My skills as an acupuncturist were very good and very evident, one patient had significant pain relief when I chose a very unique point combination that I had put together from an obscure remark made by one of my professors in class one day. But, I knew I couldn't keep going. Classes were hard to sit through, I barely studied assignments, I was hiding emotionally from my classmates, isolating myself by sitting way up in the back of the class. Social Security notified me that it had accepted my application.
Mary passed away mid-May. I felt a sense of relief for her, that she had let go, finally. I was also excited that I was moving into the apartment, and that I would have "the living situation I wanted, living with family, and all would be grand, finally, in my life!!" That night, I began to urinate....and urinate and urinate through the weekend.....to the point my Urinary Bladder channels were aching like crazy. I had urinated away 9# of fluid!! My belly girth had decreased by almost 50%! It felt so comfortable!
I moved into the apartment the following weekend......and began to encounter issues......the dog's constant barking, his jumping on me and urinating on anything new left on the floor, the dynamics of my sister and her family.........my ascites began to re-build after a week.
The beginning of June, I looked into my savings account, and there was a large sum of money deposited the day before.....my lump sum back pay from Social Security. I didn't go to classes that week, I called in sick the next day of internship. Later that week, I resigned from school. All I wanted to do was stay at home, rest, and "get through this as soon as possible."
Sunday, March 13, 2011
No need for anxiety
I do have to admit, not too many people are willing to listen to the truth about health and healthcare. I do experience a tremendous number of people who really are up in arms about our current medical paradigm, and espouse the use of "alternative medicine." Yet, what these people don't understand (and, I was one of these people earlier in my life....) is that they are still colluding with the system they eschew because they don't understand the biological laws. Their experience is a practice, a method based on fear, because deep down they believe the inaccuracies of western medical science, and let fear motivate their "treatments." They continue to fight against something that is actually working for them, is a biologically superior process, albeit a difficult one at times, but is designed to make the organism more able to survive conflict.
I went through a good patch of time without any heart palpitations and irregular rhythms, and was progressing along quite nicely with my energy and emotional level. Pushing myself a bit more over time. Then, I had a series of emotional overwhelms last month, which brought back the healing symptoms of an overwhelm conflict. This gave me a push to go deeper into why I get on this track of Overwhelm. In addition to gently stabilizing myself through coming to understand how I tend to piggyback stressors onto myself, I also continued with icing my head, receiving acupuncture and herbal formula, meditating, getting more sleep.
But there was this underlying anxiety all the time, and that was the subject for me in talking with my mentors Caroline, Chris and Altazar. A light bulb went on in my head "there really isn't anything wrong with me, my body is showing me just how quickly it heals" because everything I was experiencing WERE healing symptoms. It was this immediate "aha" or conversion experience almost.....I am perpetuating this condition by the low level of anxiety I have carried my ENTIRE life, as most people do. And, the energy I had been putting into anxiety was now directed at marveling at how much my body has responded in the healing of lifelong patterns of conflict, I was changing at another layer.
I was changed, especially after a real heart to heart with Chris. I kinda was in this mode of blinking my eyes, looking around, and realizing I was seeing practically everything in my mind and physical existence completely differently. My sleep that night was deep, relaxing and I woke up in the morning....no anxiety, no worry, no wondering what was going to transpire for me that day. That day was also anxiety free. Every night since that revelation last week (March 6 and 7th), my sleep has been sound with the following morning being.....fresh, new. I was communicating in ways which were honoring of myself, instead of anxiety-fueled self devaluation or not able to see my talents and intelligence.
This gave me the realization, also, that my quality of life was in my control. Meaning, how I looked at things. Admittedly, I did have two days the end of the week filled with anger, like a boomerang effect. But, I was also in the presence of people who do very little inner work with themselves, and I tend to be a sponge for people's emotional waves.... By Friday night, after getting away from classmates, it all settled down again to that calm hum, that feeling I was basically happy and healthy, even with living a very different life from what I used to think was "happiness."
A friend of mine and I went to a concert last night.....at one point, the duo sang a love song they had co-written. My friend, I could sense and see, was kinda depressed. She had broken up with someone a number of months ago, and was working through that one yet. The song for her was hard to hear, because she attached "other" to the experience of love. Me, I had a very different experience than what I would have had in the recent past. I heard that love song as a celebration of the love within me, for myself, and for all the love there is in this world. It was the most marvelous experience.
I went through a good patch of time without any heart palpitations and irregular rhythms, and was progressing along quite nicely with my energy and emotional level. Pushing myself a bit more over time. Then, I had a series of emotional overwhelms last month, which brought back the healing symptoms of an overwhelm conflict. This gave me a push to go deeper into why I get on this track of Overwhelm. In addition to gently stabilizing myself through coming to understand how I tend to piggyback stressors onto myself, I also continued with icing my head, receiving acupuncture and herbal formula, meditating, getting more sleep.
But there was this underlying anxiety all the time, and that was the subject for me in talking with my mentors Caroline, Chris and Altazar. A light bulb went on in my head "there really isn't anything wrong with me, my body is showing me just how quickly it heals" because everything I was experiencing WERE healing symptoms. It was this immediate "aha" or conversion experience almost.....I am perpetuating this condition by the low level of anxiety I have carried my ENTIRE life, as most people do. And, the energy I had been putting into anxiety was now directed at marveling at how much my body has responded in the healing of lifelong patterns of conflict, I was changing at another layer.
I was changed, especially after a real heart to heart with Chris. I kinda was in this mode of blinking my eyes, looking around, and realizing I was seeing practically everything in my mind and physical existence completely differently. My sleep that night was deep, relaxing and I woke up in the morning....no anxiety, no worry, no wondering what was going to transpire for me that day. That day was also anxiety free. Every night since that revelation last week (March 6 and 7th), my sleep has been sound with the following morning being.....fresh, new. I was communicating in ways which were honoring of myself, instead of anxiety-fueled self devaluation or not able to see my talents and intelligence.
This gave me the realization, also, that my quality of life was in my control. Meaning, how I looked at things. Admittedly, I did have two days the end of the week filled with anger, like a boomerang effect. But, I was also in the presence of people who do very little inner work with themselves, and I tend to be a sponge for people's emotional waves.... By Friday night, after getting away from classmates, it all settled down again to that calm hum, that feeling I was basically happy and healthy, even with living a very different life from what I used to think was "happiness."
A friend of mine and I went to a concert last night.....at one point, the duo sang a love song they had co-written. My friend, I could sense and see, was kinda depressed. She had broken up with someone a number of months ago, and was working through that one yet. The song for her was hard to hear, because she attached "other" to the experience of love. Me, I had a very different experience than what I would have had in the recent past. I heard that love song as a celebration of the love within me, for myself, and for all the love there is in this world. It was the most marvelous experience.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Evolutions within my understanding of German New Medicine
Our group of people who connect every week on the practitioner call (I am not deemed a practitioner yet, but have finished Seminars 1-4 with Caroline Markolin), are beginning to take a look within ourselves and in the changes occurring energetically with this world. We realized that the basic points we see from German New Medicine are that the individual is the self-healer, there is no disease, only biological programs run by the brain in response to conflicts, and GNM is not a "medicine" per se, ie, a pill or a technique. GNM is solely about empowering the individual to see the power of the design of the body in self-healing. It teaches the individual the confirmed science behind this paradigm, and it provides a pathway by which we take responsibility for our lives.....deal with our emotional conflicts before they get too big or too lost within ignorance.
I was saying to someone the other day....GNM teaches me to not be afraid, to understand what is going on in my body, and my study/treatment of TCM (traditional chinese medicine) is just one factor I use to stay on top of my issues by continually bringing my emotional life back towards a balance so that I can deal with conflicts, emotions.
I am currently taking a Pathophysiology class....it is based on the reductionist view of pathology/disease, microbes causing disease, the body going haywire. Yet, even though the prof is very knowledgeable, from my knowledge of GNM, it is entirely possible in every instance of a disease he talks about to see through the conventional interpretation of the science. In most cases, conventional medical research has taken a narrow view of what the facts are, a slice in time, and missing the big picture.
How can I support this? I see it happening all the time with the cases we discuss in our GNM talk...watching people go through a program of a glandular breast cancer/nest wory, a morsel conflict/tonsilar cancer, a myocardium/overwhelm program, etc. Success is the degree to which a person comes to a place of no fear, understanding that conflict active and healing phases are a corrective processes, former motivating us to resolve, the latter giving us the clues to complete the healing process. Understanding that both of these phases are approached with reverence, acceptance and without fear. Learning to eat well (especially protein), sleep, rest, come into Awareness by whatever means (I personally like Zen and Advaita-type philosophies), love your life....and if you don't...do what you can to change it, without creating more conflict in one's life. It is simple, and it is also one of the hardest trips in the world....that short distance from ignorance to being awake. I am getting to the point that when something comes up for me, I know pretty much what the conflict is, what I need to do to resolve/downgrade, and how to take care of myself....and approach the phases with empowerment and gratitude.
Our world is going to see a big change soon in how it views medicine.....too many people are waking up to the facts that our present day conventional medicine is NOT working, and that the Mind-Body connection is not just some woo woo thing to which to pay lip service. Mind-Body connection techniques, though, based on the old medicine paradigm will not assist the person, because of its basic underlying fear motivation. Energetic medicine, of which German New Medicine belongs, is growing, people are seeing the positive outcomes and are being empowered to drop the old paradigm of fear.
I was saying to someone the other day....GNM teaches me to not be afraid, to understand what is going on in my body, and my study/treatment of TCM (traditional chinese medicine) is just one factor I use to stay on top of my issues by continually bringing my emotional life back towards a balance so that I can deal with conflicts, emotions.
I am currently taking a Pathophysiology class....it is based on the reductionist view of pathology/disease, microbes causing disease, the body going haywire. Yet, even though the prof is very knowledgeable, from my knowledge of GNM, it is entirely possible in every instance of a disease he talks about to see through the conventional interpretation of the science. In most cases, conventional medical research has taken a narrow view of what the facts are, a slice in time, and missing the big picture.
How can I support this? I see it happening all the time with the cases we discuss in our GNM talk...watching people go through a program of a glandular breast cancer/nest wory, a morsel conflict/tonsilar cancer, a myocardium/overwhelm program, etc. Success is the degree to which a person comes to a place of no fear, understanding that conflict active and healing phases are a corrective processes, former motivating us to resolve, the latter giving us the clues to complete the healing process. Understanding that both of these phases are approached with reverence, acceptance and without fear. Learning to eat well (especially protein), sleep, rest, come into Awareness by whatever means (I personally like Zen and Advaita-type philosophies), love your life....and if you don't...do what you can to change it, without creating more conflict in one's life. It is simple, and it is also one of the hardest trips in the world....that short distance from ignorance to being awake. I am getting to the point that when something comes up for me, I know pretty much what the conflict is, what I need to do to resolve/downgrade, and how to take care of myself....and approach the phases with empowerment and gratitude.
Our world is going to see a big change soon in how it views medicine.....too many people are waking up to the facts that our present day conventional medicine is NOT working, and that the Mind-Body connection is not just some woo woo thing to which to pay lip service. Mind-Body connection techniques, though, based on the old medicine paradigm will not assist the person, because of its basic underlying fear motivation. Energetic medicine, of which German New Medicine belongs, is growing, people are seeing the positive outcomes and are being empowered to drop the old paradigm of fear.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Well, it certainly has been a while, yes?
OK, I am back....school definitely puts a crink into keeping up on this blog. It is my intention to spend more time with writing, especially since deciding to quit the outside work I was doing. Acupuncture, and GNM, my main focus now.
And, with that, it is time to go see a movie, relax before classes begin tomorrow.
Lots to tell you, stay tuned!!
Warmly,
Mariah
And, with that, it is time to go see a movie, relax before classes begin tomorrow.
Lots to tell you, stay tuned!!
Warmly,
Mariah
Monday, March 29, 2010
Human Design
This process, Human Design, is a combination of astrology, I Ching, Kabbalah, Chakra systems. It posits that our unconscious self, our "design" is embedded within the person 88 degrees of movement before birth (roughly 3 months). This is our innate way of being in the world..our "strategy and authority." We all know on a deeper level what that is, but many of us are largely unable to consistently access it, because there is the personality side to us....our conditioning (fits in there with Cheri Huber's work.....), which starts from the moment of our birth. Most astrology, I think...someone correct me if I am wrong....begins with our natal chart....the forces around us at birth. The originator is Ra Uru Hu.
My chart shows a couple of interesting things....I am a Triple Split Definition....I have 3 areas of defined chakras (head-ajna, throat-self center, and splenic-sacral), but NONE of the three are connected to each other.....so, for those folks who know me quite while, or those who scratch their heads over what I do....this is why I can be like 3 different people when it comes to making decisions. Often times, when I make decisions from the the top centers (head-ajna), those tend to not work out quite that well. The decisions I make from my gut (flashes of intuition and gut reactions....nonverbal uh huh, or unh unh) tend to be spot on, and draw me to better outcomes.
My chart shows a couple of interesting things....I am a Triple Split Definition....I have 3 areas of defined chakras (head-ajna, throat-self center, and splenic-sacral), but NONE of the three are connected to each other.....so, for those folks who know me quite while, or those who scratch their heads over what I do....this is why I can be like 3 different people when it comes to making decisions. Often times, when I make decisions from the the top centers (head-ajna), those tend to not work out quite that well. The decisions I make from my gut (flashes of intuition and gut reactions....nonverbal uh huh, or unh unh) tend to be spot on, and draw me to better outcomes.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Winter Blues and Lessons in Upstate New York
So, I go through more grief once again. Just way down in the dumps, don't want to get out of the dark apartment or go anywhere kind of stuff for a good week. The adept acupuncture treatments by Darlene pull me through times when I think my own spirit is wanting to leave. My energy bottoms out. School starts up again. It is drab and dreary most of the time in Seneca Falls. My heart palpitations return.
A woman I had known from last trimester pops up in my life now and then. I find her to be very sweet, and I appreciate her idiosyncracies because I can feel she has a deep desire to live life as best as she can. I hadn't felt attraction beyond that appreciation. She and I talked one night, ever so briefly, very innocently, nothing intense, just fun. I walk away from the building happy, but more so from the totality of grace I had experienced that day...my acupuncture treatment focused on the sciatica/piriformis pain I had been having in the left leg....and realized afterwards that my leg felt "whole," there was more to its "beingness" perhaps a reconnection I hadn't felt in years (I originally injured my low back in Alaska, 1983....off and on problems with it). Classes were intriguing that day, Darlene was her usual nurturing and love-sharing self, and then it was topped off with a fun conversation.
Back home that night, I am sitting on my living room floor, it is the night before the New Moon (January 14th), and was aware that I wanted to write out my intentions for the month and meditate before going to bed. Before I do so, I am hit with this feeling of connection to life, feeling full and satisfied, I heard myself think "Hmm, love school. Love my warm apartment. Love how I have space to spread out and do what I want. Love that I am studying acupuncture. Love Seneca Falls' quietness. All that is missing is a significant relationship with a woman......sigh....oh well, in time. I can wait." I do my writing, and meditating, writing the intention that I will have a very good relationship with a special, compatible, loving, nurturing woman.
The New Moon was to occur at 2:15am or something like that......I woke up at 2am from a dream in which the woman with whom I talked earlier that day appeared to me, asking me to "be gentle with me." I am shaking and sweating, and get up, go to my journal and change the intention around to "I release my fears around being in an intimate relationship with another woman again." I am not ready to just jump in.
The end of January I wake up in a sweat, hearing my spirit say "if I want to move on, I need to let go of D." I break into sobs, it really is time to let go....this hanging on no longer serves me. I know it to my core that I have finally released my need to identify myself with D.
That morning, as I take a shower, both of my breasts are tender. I have a back treatment in acupuncture that afternoon, so I am prone for it.....wow...my breasts are really sore! The soreness abates over the week...I even needle myself for breast congestion....it helps! 5 days later, while taking a shower....I feel a lump in my right breast, and more of the fibrous feeling in my left. I know what it is....separation conflict in healing phase....I resolved the conflict of not being able to let go of D. for 2+ years! And, this is the healing response. I call Chris, and we have this great talk about the beauty of understanding the biological laws. No need to panic, and just ignore what is occurring.
I did go through an intense fatigue period about 3 weeks later...coupled with midterms and really overdoing the studying with my energy improving. I just let myself sleep as needed, I never skipped classes, but I didn't do much in the way of homework for about 1.5 weeks. Watched the Extended Version of "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. "Fellowship of the Ring" is SUCH a SPIRITUAl movie....blew my socks off!!!
Eventually, I did tell Darlene about the breast congestion and, sitting on the floor of her office, we talk quite a bit more in-depth about GNM. Planting seeds.
I am up to the present time.....mid-March...I can hear the March Madness basketball game on the computer in the cubicle next to me (I am at the school library).....Two months of dealing with my energy level fluctuating, my heart palpitating, stressful school and personal interactions. My energy is back to normal, the heart palpitations are gone, I have had alot of healing lately, I feel a strength building in me as I learn more about and accept myself. My friend Chris had been encouraging me to look deeper into Human Design, a system which explains the juxtaposition of your unconscious being versus the conditioning we call personality. It shows one how to understand your basic way of existing in the world, responding rather than reacting. I got a reading in January, and found a deeper explanation for why I am who I am, why I have done things in certain ways, and realized why loving myself is really natural.
Through these two months, I watch my monkey mind, my egoic conditioning fights me like CRAZY so as to not be let go of. I am focusing on my strategy and authority from Human Design, the daily tweets from Zen teacher Cheri Huber fit well with this, reading from her books when I can, meditating and doing qigong daily. Starting to exercise more as the weather and my energy improves. Wrassling with my conditioning of desire....holy cow, it is f***ing intense. Started counseling...wonderful to have the weekly time to just talk with John. Two weeks ago, he says to me "Hmm, I was wondering where to take this, but realize that I don't have to...you know what you need, and I am just here to witness." I feel it too....."it's all inside you...." as once told to me by Chi Ling, my spirit guide from the late 80's who propelled me into teaching Tai Chi in Portland. It's always been there. I just forgot to turn my attention to it.
The "it" is my old friend "ShenYi" or "God's Mind." The name I chose (or it chose me) for my tai chi school. Although, at the time, I didn't know it was "God's Mind." I just put Shen and Yi together, because the former means "spirit" and the latter is "consciousness"...I was looking for a name that would imply Body-Mind-Spirit. I had tshirts made up with the yinyang symbol developed by one of my students and on top of it was the chinese characters for Shen Yi School of Tai Chi." An older chinese acupuncturist in Portland took one look at my shirt at the start of my appointment one day in 1993 and asked me if I knew what the first two characters meant. "Sure! My school name!" "In my culture," he replied, "we read those together as 'God's mind.'" Goose bumps! I went back to my school studio in an altered state, feeling that something important was being presented to me.
A woman I had known from last trimester pops up in my life now and then. I find her to be very sweet, and I appreciate her idiosyncracies because I can feel she has a deep desire to live life as best as she can. I hadn't felt attraction beyond that appreciation. She and I talked one night, ever so briefly, very innocently, nothing intense, just fun. I walk away from the building happy, but more so from the totality of grace I had experienced that day...my acupuncture treatment focused on the sciatica/piriformis pain I had been having in the left leg....and realized afterwards that my leg felt "whole," there was more to its "beingness" perhaps a reconnection I hadn't felt in years (I originally injured my low back in Alaska, 1983....off and on problems with it). Classes were intriguing that day, Darlene was her usual nurturing and love-sharing self, and then it was topped off with a fun conversation.
Back home that night, I am sitting on my living room floor, it is the night before the New Moon (January 14th), and was aware that I wanted to write out my intentions for the month and meditate before going to bed. Before I do so, I am hit with this feeling of connection to life, feeling full and satisfied, I heard myself think "Hmm, love school. Love my warm apartment. Love how I have space to spread out and do what I want. Love that I am studying acupuncture. Love Seneca Falls' quietness. All that is missing is a significant relationship with a woman......sigh....oh well, in time. I can wait." I do my writing, and meditating, writing the intention that I will have a very good relationship with a special, compatible, loving, nurturing woman.
The New Moon was to occur at 2:15am or something like that......I woke up at 2am from a dream in which the woman with whom I talked earlier that day appeared to me, asking me to "be gentle with me." I am shaking and sweating, and get up, go to my journal and change the intention around to "I release my fears around being in an intimate relationship with another woman again." I am not ready to just jump in.
The end of January I wake up in a sweat, hearing my spirit say "if I want to move on, I need to let go of D." I break into sobs, it really is time to let go....this hanging on no longer serves me. I know it to my core that I have finally released my need to identify myself with D.
That morning, as I take a shower, both of my breasts are tender. I have a back treatment in acupuncture that afternoon, so I am prone for it.....wow...my breasts are really sore! The soreness abates over the week...I even needle myself for breast congestion....it helps! 5 days later, while taking a shower....I feel a lump in my right breast, and more of the fibrous feeling in my left. I know what it is....separation conflict in healing phase....I resolved the conflict of not being able to let go of D. for 2+ years! And, this is the healing response. I call Chris, and we have this great talk about the beauty of understanding the biological laws. No need to panic, and just ignore what is occurring.
I did go through an intense fatigue period about 3 weeks later...coupled with midterms and really overdoing the studying with my energy improving. I just let myself sleep as needed, I never skipped classes, but I didn't do much in the way of homework for about 1.5 weeks. Watched the Extended Version of "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. "Fellowship of the Ring" is SUCH a SPIRITUAl movie....blew my socks off!!!
Eventually, I did tell Darlene about the breast congestion and, sitting on the floor of her office, we talk quite a bit more in-depth about GNM. Planting seeds.
I am up to the present time.....mid-March...I can hear the March Madness basketball game on the computer in the cubicle next to me (I am at the school library).....Two months of dealing with my energy level fluctuating, my heart palpitating, stressful school and personal interactions. My energy is back to normal, the heart palpitations are gone, I have had alot of healing lately, I feel a strength building in me as I learn more about and accept myself. My friend Chris had been encouraging me to look deeper into Human Design, a system which explains the juxtaposition of your unconscious being versus the conditioning we call personality. It shows one how to understand your basic way of existing in the world, responding rather than reacting. I got a reading in January, and found a deeper explanation for why I am who I am, why I have done things in certain ways, and realized why loving myself is really natural.
Through these two months, I watch my monkey mind, my egoic conditioning fights me like CRAZY so as to not be let go of. I am focusing on my strategy and authority from Human Design, the daily tweets from Zen teacher Cheri Huber fit well with this, reading from her books when I can, meditating and doing qigong daily. Starting to exercise more as the weather and my energy improves. Wrassling with my conditioning of desire....holy cow, it is f***ing intense. Started counseling...wonderful to have the weekly time to just talk with John. Two weeks ago, he says to me "Hmm, I was wondering where to take this, but realize that I don't have to...you know what you need, and I am just here to witness." I feel it too....."it's all inside you...." as once told to me by Chi Ling, my spirit guide from the late 80's who propelled me into teaching Tai Chi in Portland. It's always been there. I just forgot to turn my attention to it.
The "it" is my old friend "ShenYi" or "God's Mind." The name I chose (or it chose me) for my tai chi school. Although, at the time, I didn't know it was "God's Mind." I just put Shen and Yi together, because the former means "spirit" and the latter is "consciousness"...I was looking for a name that would imply Body-Mind-Spirit. I had tshirts made up with the yinyang symbol developed by one of my students and on top of it was the chinese characters for Shen Yi School of Tai Chi." An older chinese acupuncturist in Portland took one look at my shirt at the start of my appointment one day in 1993 and asked me if I knew what the first two characters meant. "Sure! My school name!" "In my culture," he replied, "we read those together as 'God's mind.'" Goose bumps! I went back to my school studio in an altered state, feeling that something important was being presented to me.
The Laughing Brit
Naturally, I go in and out of grief. Chris told me the night Lorene died "she is a huge teacher for you, Mariah....." The acupuncturist I saw after Christmas caught me on a day where I was....high? from the love I was opening to. She suggested I was still grieving....I couldn't understand what she was telling me. Me? No, I am fine! Later that night, I lose the connection, or maybe it is just how the connection is supposed to be...I fall into a deep funk for a week.
Being as how it is Christmas break, I hang in with the ups and downs. And, start to come out of it by the first few days of January. Still sad, but happy, so gosh damn happy for having been given the time to share with Lorene.
I go onto Facebook, and realize I hadn't heard from another healing friend, Ann-Marie...the "Musings of a Mad Brit" author. So, I look up her site, only to read that she had passed away December 30th!!
Ann-Marie and I were fast and close friends the last 6 months I was in Wisconsin. I met her at the GNM seminar she had at her home. The first day of the seminar, we talked a few minutes, and then each said "I feel as if I have known you all my life!" We talked often, she near Milwaukee, me in Green Bay, and manage to get together as often as we could...made easier by my monthly drives to Chicago. Her husband was just the neatest guy, he was just as easy to be with. The three of us together felt like a couple of hobbits dancing around (Ann-Marie was british, and they lived in this cobblestone and big thick beamed ceiling home by the Milwaukee River) everytime we got together. Smiles, laughter, joy in spite of the fact that both Ann-Marie and I were "dealing with cancer."
Sometime in July, I believe it was, Ann-Marie developed bilateral breast tumors, which continue to grow and be very painful for her. She had a history of skin cancer occurrences a few years prior, in the upper Right chest area, if I remember correctly. She had surgeries, and chemo, I think originally, and then had decided to go to Mexico to be treated by the Hoxey Method. This time around, she went back to Hoxey, decided it didn't feel right, and so joined me in seeing Dr. Guo. We talked and talked GNM, but I could sense she wasn't embracing it for some reason.
In August, she decided to work with a healer in the Madison area. Her guru encouraged her to go the western medicine route, as well. These people found "brain tumors." The healer talked her into getting her teeth amalgams removed. She did coffee enemas, chemo, radiation. After she died, I learned from a mutual acquaintance that "the cancer just exploded all over her skin, body." Final separation conflict, everything being let go of.
It's hard, I was surprised she was going the way she was, and yet, I told her numerous times in September and October when she would express concern that I would be unhappy with her for her decisions that she didn't need my approval/disapproval and I wouldn't entertain any of that. I asked her to believe in herself and do what felt right to her. We stopped talking, though, sometime in the end of October.
Ann-Marie was an amazing woman...so filled with love and laughter, ingenious in so many ways. She drew people in to her life, and innoculated us all with her infectious love. She taught Phoenix Rising yoga, laughter yoga...she even had these really cute cards made up with her in funny yoga postures and funny words relating to them (example: she's in what I think is the Eagle Pose...arms and legs all twisted up...and a goofy grin on her face....inside the card read "sorry I haven't connected with you lately, I have been all wrapped up with myself!") She sold these to raise money for her Mexico Hoxey Clinic trips (I found them this morning as I was cleaning up my apartment and putting stuff away...more than anything, this is what finally prompted me to get back to blogging. I also realized I missed writing/working out stuff with the blog...too wrapped up in school....that will be another post.....).
When she passed on, a community of people from all over the world celebrated her life. She touched so many in her 50-some years of life. I am blessed to have had her touch mine.
Being as how it is Christmas break, I hang in with the ups and downs. And, start to come out of it by the first few days of January. Still sad, but happy, so gosh damn happy for having been given the time to share with Lorene.
I go onto Facebook, and realize I hadn't heard from another healing friend, Ann-Marie...the "Musings of a Mad Brit" author. So, I look up her site, only to read that she had passed away December 30th!!
Ann-Marie and I were fast and close friends the last 6 months I was in Wisconsin. I met her at the GNM seminar she had at her home. The first day of the seminar, we talked a few minutes, and then each said "I feel as if I have known you all my life!" We talked often, she near Milwaukee, me in Green Bay, and manage to get together as often as we could...made easier by my monthly drives to Chicago. Her husband was just the neatest guy, he was just as easy to be with. The three of us together felt like a couple of hobbits dancing around (Ann-Marie was british, and they lived in this cobblestone and big thick beamed ceiling home by the Milwaukee River) everytime we got together. Smiles, laughter, joy in spite of the fact that both Ann-Marie and I were "dealing with cancer."
Sometime in July, I believe it was, Ann-Marie developed bilateral breast tumors, which continue to grow and be very painful for her. She had a history of skin cancer occurrences a few years prior, in the upper Right chest area, if I remember correctly. She had surgeries, and chemo, I think originally, and then had decided to go to Mexico to be treated by the Hoxey Method. This time around, she went back to Hoxey, decided it didn't feel right, and so joined me in seeing Dr. Guo. We talked and talked GNM, but I could sense she wasn't embracing it for some reason.
In August, she decided to work with a healer in the Madison area. Her guru encouraged her to go the western medicine route, as well. These people found "brain tumors." The healer talked her into getting her teeth amalgams removed. She did coffee enemas, chemo, radiation. After she died, I learned from a mutual acquaintance that "the cancer just exploded all over her skin, body." Final separation conflict, everything being let go of.
It's hard, I was surprised she was going the way she was, and yet, I told her numerous times in September and October when she would express concern that I would be unhappy with her for her decisions that she didn't need my approval/disapproval and I wouldn't entertain any of that. I asked her to believe in herself and do what felt right to her. We stopped talking, though, sometime in the end of October.
Ann-Marie was an amazing woman...so filled with love and laughter, ingenious in so many ways. She drew people in to her life, and innoculated us all with her infectious love. She taught Phoenix Rising yoga, laughter yoga...she even had these really cute cards made up with her in funny yoga postures and funny words relating to them (example: she's in what I think is the Eagle Pose...arms and legs all twisted up...and a goofy grin on her face....inside the card read "sorry I haven't connected with you lately, I have been all wrapped up with myself!") She sold these to raise money for her Mexico Hoxey Clinic trips (I found them this morning as I was cleaning up my apartment and putting stuff away...more than anything, this is what finally prompted me to get back to blogging. I also realized I missed writing/working out stuff with the blog...too wrapped up in school....that will be another post.....).
When she passed on, a community of people from all over the world celebrated her life. She touched so many in her 50-some years of life. I am blessed to have had her touch mine.
People who need people are the luckiest people in the world.....
The last time I entered a posting was December 6th.....I had had the most glorious phone call with my dear friend Lorene and then jumped onto the blog to write. We talked again a few days later. We burst into this unabashed gushing over each other, just laughing and rejoicing over the connection with each other, so grateful for having each other in our lives. The evening of the 16th, a little after 5pm, I checked my emails....I had 2 emails timed between 1:10 and 1:18pm from Lorene's and her husband's blackberrys, asking me to call immediately. I tried Phil's number first, no answer, then her home phone. I call Chris to see if he had talked with Lorene, which he did not. I sit down in the library foyer, across from a poster entitled "Pray for those who have died...World Aids Peace Day" or something like that....a shiver went through me...I knew it was confirmation of what I felt in my gut. I dailed Lorene's number and reached one of her young daughters who, in shock, told me her mother had just passed away.....in reading the obituary weeks later, it noted Lorene's time of death as 5:21pm. I checked my phone records a few days later, my call was at 5:24pm.
Our friendship was the bright star in my life, showing me pure connection with someone in just the 4 months we physically shared on this earth. We never met face to face, we found common ground through our discussions of life, death, German New Medicine, family and personal issues. An unlikely pair...she a midwest republican, married with children, christian; me a buddhist/pagan/whatever, single lesbian. We understood the midwest upbringing and mindset, we shared a similar path of coming to grips with the reality of this dominant western medical paradigm and its fearing/panic modus operandi, we loved having the GNM connection and talking about how we had seen our lives change with understanding the biological laws.
Life takes its own course. People come into our lives at any given time and slip through and away as well. Some we really have a tremendously positive connection, others it is "negative," many connections are seemingly of no meaning. Yet, with everyone, at least in my experience, there is growth there because of the relationship, if I am open to it.
Lorene's death was very hard. That evening, after the news, I cried so intensely, from my core. And, I also had this feeling of immense love move into me, immense joy for our connection, and knew that she and I had allowed ourselves to see the truth of each other: that we are One. I had finals in two days, and heard something Lorene had told me in one of our conversations...."Mariah, I love watching you grow through this going back to school." I dedicated the rest of my study and test taking to Lorene, in gratitude for the spirit of support she gave me that fall.
Our friendship was the bright star in my life, showing me pure connection with someone in just the 4 months we physically shared on this earth. We never met face to face, we found common ground through our discussions of life, death, German New Medicine, family and personal issues. An unlikely pair...she a midwest republican, married with children, christian; me a buddhist/pagan/whatever, single lesbian. We understood the midwest upbringing and mindset, we shared a similar path of coming to grips with the reality of this dominant western medical paradigm and its fearing/panic modus operandi, we loved having the GNM connection and talking about how we had seen our lives change with understanding the biological laws.
Life takes its own course. People come into our lives at any given time and slip through and away as well. Some we really have a tremendously positive connection, others it is "negative," many connections are seemingly of no meaning. Yet, with everyone, at least in my experience, there is growth there because of the relationship, if I am open to it.
Lorene's death was very hard. That evening, after the news, I cried so intensely, from my core. And, I also had this feeling of immense love move into me, immense joy for our connection, and knew that she and I had allowed ourselves to see the truth of each other: that we are One. I had finals in two days, and heard something Lorene had told me in one of our conversations...."Mariah, I love watching you grow through this going back to school." I dedicated the rest of my study and test taking to Lorene, in gratitude for the spirit of support she gave me that fall.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Experiencing great improvement!!
It's has been a LONG time since my last post......indicative of the amount of studying we do in this program. This past week was intense, with two written assignments, a comprehensive quiz in Meridians and Points, a test in Theory, and my roommate continuing to act from a place of exhaustion and paranoia.
I made the decision two weeks ago that I would move out at the end of this trimester. No more trying to stick this out until April. It feels right to get into a better situation, I have learned my lessons with her......I find myself having compassion for her, for myself, and it is plain as the nose on my face that I have been viewing behaviors similar to those I acted on in my relationship with D. In their full force weirdness.....it has given me a sense of compassion towards what D. experienced living with me while I was very confused, tired, scared, and having grave liver issues.
I met with my advisor, Dr. Zhang, this week at the point where I was feeling unsure if I wanted to continue with the herbal portion of my degree (we have that option....acupuncture alone, or acupuncture and herbal medicine). She was very encouraging, explaining how the herbal portion is actually the majority of treatment in China, whereas in this country, acupuncture is emphasized. She also told me I had an aptitude for acupuncture/oriental medicine, and to hang in there. Nice to get that support. I went back to my herbal assignment, and found that sense of excitement, connection, again.
My intuition moved me to changing my treatment to the Seneca Falls Health Center last month to another one of my professors.....Darlene Easton....an amazing practitioner. Prior to going to her, I was struggling with the heart palpitations, easily drawn down energy. I had the sense that the student clinic/practitioner was not hitting things right with me. Darlene radically changed my herbal formula to that of working on my liver.....as the degree of phlegm accumulation/toxins in the liver were making it overwhelm the earth element, and my heart was then overworking as it wasn't being supported by the Liver. One day of the week, she and her students treat my back shu points.....acupuncture points which boost or tonify the energy of each organ....and place burning moxa on my Life Gate point (over the 2nd lumbar vertebra) to invigorate my essence or basic life force energy. The other day will be acupuncture on front body points, to address liver, heart, gallbladder, spleen issues. And more burning moxa over Stomach 36 Zu San Li or Leg 3 Li points on my lateral lower leg, to again invigorate my energy level. To build what is called Zheng qi......the Right Qi, the qi which forms the basic health and physiological functioning of my body. When this is lowered, Evil qi, Xie qi, can take over more easily......being more susceptible to external forces....wind, cold, damp, heat, dryness....and internal imbalances.
See, I am learning something here.....my body is my laboratory and teacher.....
This approach is all working very well -- I rarely have heart palpitations, and when I do they are very minor and it takes more "efforting" and tiredness to bring it up. My energy level bounces back so much more quickly and abundantly after a stressful week or situation (like, those with roommate.....). I am exercising 2x per week, much more active at school, tolerating entire days without energy crashes, and doing daily qigong, typically 30 minutes, somedays 1 to 2 hours depending on my schedule....which in itself, I experience, is also a big factor in why I am feeling better.
Sing the praises of Eastern Medicine......I would never have been able to heal like this without energy medicine, and the "no panic" mindset/understanding of the healing process from German New Medicine. In fact, I learned last week in Theory class what Dr. Guo meant when he said I would not have survived liver surgery. Liver yin, liver blood and essence from the kidneys are responsible for "anchoring" yang in the body.....keeping yin and yang in connection with each other so that each is capable of contributing their "expertise" to the body/mind/spirit. My liver was so "dried up" and lacking of yin and blood that if I had surgery, the liver would not have been able to heal properly, letting my yang lose connection with my body......which would have then created a cascade of health conditions, leading to death.
Sent chills through me......wow, my Spirit really is/was in tune with wanting to live, to stay on this planet, to heal completely. I cried and cried and cried in April 2007, a few nights after D and I went to Mayo Clinic, where the surgery option was presented to me.....I told her, in the middle of the night, crying, that I could not do the surgery, that my Spirit did not want the surgery. Chemo...hell, that would have just overwhelmed my body/energy, also...... So, I am still alive and kicking and growing and healing and loving, thanks to Spirit.
I know this is my mission, purpose in life.
I made the decision two weeks ago that I would move out at the end of this trimester. No more trying to stick this out until April. It feels right to get into a better situation, I have learned my lessons with her......I find myself having compassion for her, for myself, and it is plain as the nose on my face that I have been viewing behaviors similar to those I acted on in my relationship with D. In their full force weirdness.....it has given me a sense of compassion towards what D. experienced living with me while I was very confused, tired, scared, and having grave liver issues.
I met with my advisor, Dr. Zhang, this week at the point where I was feeling unsure if I wanted to continue with the herbal portion of my degree (we have that option....acupuncture alone, or acupuncture and herbal medicine). She was very encouraging, explaining how the herbal portion is actually the majority of treatment in China, whereas in this country, acupuncture is emphasized. She also told me I had an aptitude for acupuncture/oriental medicine, and to hang in there. Nice to get that support. I went back to my herbal assignment, and found that sense of excitement, connection, again.
My intuition moved me to changing my treatment to the Seneca Falls Health Center last month to another one of my professors.....Darlene Easton....an amazing practitioner. Prior to going to her, I was struggling with the heart palpitations, easily drawn down energy. I had the sense that the student clinic/practitioner was not hitting things right with me. Darlene radically changed my herbal formula to that of working on my liver.....as the degree of phlegm accumulation/toxins in the liver were making it overwhelm the earth element, and my heart was then overworking as it wasn't being supported by the Liver. One day of the week, she and her students treat my back shu points.....acupuncture points which boost or tonify the energy of each organ....and place burning moxa on my Life Gate point (over the 2nd lumbar vertebra) to invigorate my essence or basic life force energy. The other day will be acupuncture on front body points, to address liver, heart, gallbladder, spleen issues. And more burning moxa over Stomach 36 Zu San Li or Leg 3 Li points on my lateral lower leg, to again invigorate my energy level. To build what is called Zheng qi......the Right Qi, the qi which forms the basic health and physiological functioning of my body. When this is lowered, Evil qi, Xie qi, can take over more easily......being more susceptible to external forces....wind, cold, damp, heat, dryness....and internal imbalances.
See, I am learning something here.....my body is my laboratory and teacher.....
This approach is all working very well -- I rarely have heart palpitations, and when I do they are very minor and it takes more "efforting" and tiredness to bring it up. My energy level bounces back so much more quickly and abundantly after a stressful week or situation (like, those with roommate.....). I am exercising 2x per week, much more active at school, tolerating entire days without energy crashes, and doing daily qigong, typically 30 minutes, somedays 1 to 2 hours depending on my schedule....which in itself, I experience, is also a big factor in why I am feeling better.
Sing the praises of Eastern Medicine......I would never have been able to heal like this without energy medicine, and the "no panic" mindset/understanding of the healing process from German New Medicine. In fact, I learned last week in Theory class what Dr. Guo meant when he said I would not have survived liver surgery. Liver yin, liver blood and essence from the kidneys are responsible for "anchoring" yang in the body.....keeping yin and yang in connection with each other so that each is capable of contributing their "expertise" to the body/mind/spirit. My liver was so "dried up" and lacking of yin and blood that if I had surgery, the liver would not have been able to heal properly, letting my yang lose connection with my body......which would have then created a cascade of health conditions, leading to death.
Sent chills through me......wow, my Spirit really is/was in tune with wanting to live, to stay on this planet, to heal completely. I cried and cried and cried in April 2007, a few nights after D and I went to Mayo Clinic, where the surgery option was presented to me.....I told her, in the middle of the night, crying, that I could not do the surgery, that my Spirit did not want the surgery. Chemo...hell, that would have just overwhelmed my body/energy, also...... So, I am still alive and kicking and growing and healing and loving, thanks to Spirit.
I know this is my mission, purpose in life.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Looking at Beliefs......
I had a difficult mid-week this week, after having quite a few days of feeling really grounded, normal, happy. My roommate is a 5th trimester DC student, taking 33 CREDITS!! I have been watching her spiral down into this abyss of over-tiredness, mumbling under her breath, yet her continuing to say "I function best when on the edge!!!" Well, what I was getting, however, was more and more behaviors from an unedited, uninhibited, and tired person. My typical behaviors around my internet addiction, going more and more into the "yikes, it is feeling like I am walking on eggshells here!" and feeling not good enough, as well as my judgemental attitudes about her program and her way of dealing with stress smacked right into her issues. She barked at me a few times. I could take that. Then, she called me on my cellphone to express her "anger" about feeling intruded on one morning...WHAM! I went into my belief of not being good enough and not able to step back and see the whole scenario. I lost the ability to stay present and see the entire situation for what it was. I complained to a couple of classmates.....I ran the scenarios over and over in my mind....I carped about her behaviors......
Then, I saw that this was just dragging me down. There was no point to "winning" this war with her. Our living together was getting more and more uncomfortable. I was starting to think seriously about "getting the hell out of Dodge!" Yet, a part of me knew that this was a pattern for me.....and I wanted to get through it.
I heard her say, during one of her moments of exasperation, something to the effect of worrying about her finances. Bingo....I heard that on a deeper level. This was one more stressor to her that she just could not tolerate (and perhaps was making it more of an issue with all her other stressors going on). I wanted to let her know I cared, and heard her. So, I went to P&C Market and got her a small gift certificate. I gave it to her later that evening, saying "I just wanted to apologize for my insensitivities, I see that you are going through alot!" She was surprised, said I didn't have to do that, and then gave me a hug.
There was such a different feeling in the air around/between us. We laughed with each other that night. She talked loud enough so that I could hear her.
This morning, I received in my gmail inbox a message from Steve Pavlina's "Personal Development Insights".....he introduced a fellow named Morty Lefkoe, who essentially does cognitive behavioral therapy.....helping people look at their beliefs. I went through the process for "I am not good enough." At the end, 35 minutes later, I could tell that belief was gone, or at least had a minimal impact on me.
Went to acupuncture after that. A student in my program was there for observation, and I reluctantly agreed to have her sit in on my program.......concerned that my background issues would not be respected, since I have such a different way of dealing with health. Yet, I said ok, because I knew I would be in that position next week, as an observer, and a part of me DID want my classmate to know that there are alternative ways of looking at healing. So, on we go.
As I told my story, I could feel this belief creeping into the outer layer of my consciousness.....egads, I am crazy! I am sick. I did not sleep well last night, was waking up every 2 hours, and had some palpitations and tiredness. I was letting that experience overrun me, emotionally. I became afraid.....afraid that maybe I really was dying, and was just playing a trick on myself.
I had gotten the message Tuesday (two days prior) from friend Emily that a mutual friend of ours, someone who had gone to Dr. Guo, and at some point this spring had been deemed "healthy" and "cured" from colon cancer. Yet, Emily is relaying to me now that she is in hospice and isn't expected to live much longer!!!! My initial reaction was "holy shit! Am I going to die? We both saw the same herbalist, both had the same pronouncement of health!" It didn't help that this information arrived the day my roommate was going into her dance routine as well......
Intellectually, I rationalized that "I have a different mindset, from GNM, showing me that I AM healthy." I did have an interaction with this woman (K.) this summer, and at one point in our conversation, felt compelled to ask her "are you alright?" I asked her that a number of times......and wondered, "was I projecting there? Am I the one who is not ok?" It was true that I was going through the weird and intense gallbladder pain at the time..... I wonder now if a part of me was picking up something from her.....
Had an astrology reading last night with MoonCat in Missoula.....she confirmed just how psychic I am......she told me to "control the weather....." and "bring it on, now!" when I responded to something she said in the reading that hadn't come to fruition (yet, later on, I realized it had already.....).
Where am I going with all this......oh yeah. After acupuncture, I felt much better, went on to do my workstudy job. Within 1.25 hours, I felt the heart stuff coming back....and got back into the fear mode. I hung on for another 15 minutes of work, then moved on to turn off the projectors in various rooms. My body was dragging.....I decided to respond to my body rather than "think myself through it" and push on, which is my tendency. I stretched out on an adjusting table and took a quick nap, which helped.
As I got up to finish my rooms, I remembered the process I did this morning around beliefs, and so turned the light on to what was going on for me this morning. It became clear to me that I was operating under two scary beliefs:
1. As a child, I could not fathom that I would live until the year 2000......that seemed unattainable!
2. I am kidding myself around my health issues.
As I began to look at those, and acknowledge that these where both repeated thoughts in my mind, and probably reinforced by my parents behaviors, especially my mother's, that I no longer had to believe in them. And, I popped out of the feeling weak, worrying. As I sit here typing, I am aware of healing sensations.....hunger, ready to take a short nap, relief, warmth in my feet and hands.
I do know that mindset is a HUGE aspect to the quality of one's life, and that applies to health besides prosperity, getting your soulmate, etc. I have seen myself come close to plummeting into pits of despair and extreme weakness, just from the quality of buying into negative thought. When I realize what I am doing, and turn my thinking around to that of perfection......invariably, my energy level goes back to normal. Quite normal. Able to function normally.
Amazing turnarounds, just by how I think. Vibrate.
Then, I saw that this was just dragging me down. There was no point to "winning" this war with her. Our living together was getting more and more uncomfortable. I was starting to think seriously about "getting the hell out of Dodge!" Yet, a part of me knew that this was a pattern for me.....and I wanted to get through it.
I heard her say, during one of her moments of exasperation, something to the effect of worrying about her finances. Bingo....I heard that on a deeper level. This was one more stressor to her that she just could not tolerate (and perhaps was making it more of an issue with all her other stressors going on). I wanted to let her know I cared, and heard her. So, I went to P&C Market and got her a small gift certificate. I gave it to her later that evening, saying "I just wanted to apologize for my insensitivities, I see that you are going through alot!" She was surprised, said I didn't have to do that, and then gave me a hug.
There was such a different feeling in the air around/between us. We laughed with each other that night. She talked loud enough so that I could hear her.
This morning, I received in my gmail inbox a message from Steve Pavlina's "Personal Development Insights".....he introduced a fellow named Morty Lefkoe, who essentially does cognitive behavioral therapy.....helping people look at their beliefs. I went through the process for "I am not good enough." At the end, 35 minutes later, I could tell that belief was gone, or at least had a minimal impact on me.
Went to acupuncture after that. A student in my program was there for observation, and I reluctantly agreed to have her sit in on my program.......concerned that my background issues would not be respected, since I have such a different way of dealing with health. Yet, I said ok, because I knew I would be in that position next week, as an observer, and a part of me DID want my classmate to know that there are alternative ways of looking at healing. So, on we go.
As I told my story, I could feel this belief creeping into the outer layer of my consciousness.....egads, I am crazy! I am sick. I did not sleep well last night, was waking up every 2 hours, and had some palpitations and tiredness. I was letting that experience overrun me, emotionally. I became afraid.....afraid that maybe I really was dying, and was just playing a trick on myself.
I had gotten the message Tuesday (two days prior) from friend Emily that a mutual friend of ours, someone who had gone to Dr. Guo, and at some point this spring had been deemed "healthy" and "cured" from colon cancer. Yet, Emily is relaying to me now that she is in hospice and isn't expected to live much longer!!!! My initial reaction was "holy shit! Am I going to die? We both saw the same herbalist, both had the same pronouncement of health!" It didn't help that this information arrived the day my roommate was going into her dance routine as well......
Intellectually, I rationalized that "I have a different mindset, from GNM, showing me that I AM healthy." I did have an interaction with this woman (K.) this summer, and at one point in our conversation, felt compelled to ask her "are you alright?" I asked her that a number of times......and wondered, "was I projecting there? Am I the one who is not ok?" It was true that I was going through the weird and intense gallbladder pain at the time..... I wonder now if a part of me was picking up something from her.....
Had an astrology reading last night with MoonCat in Missoula.....she confirmed just how psychic I am......she told me to "control the weather....." and "bring it on, now!" when I responded to something she said in the reading that hadn't come to fruition (yet, later on, I realized it had already.....).
Where am I going with all this......oh yeah. After acupuncture, I felt much better, went on to do my workstudy job. Within 1.25 hours, I felt the heart stuff coming back....and got back into the fear mode. I hung on for another 15 minutes of work, then moved on to turn off the projectors in various rooms. My body was dragging.....I decided to respond to my body rather than "think myself through it" and push on, which is my tendency. I stretched out on an adjusting table and took a quick nap, which helped.
As I got up to finish my rooms, I remembered the process I did this morning around beliefs, and so turned the light on to what was going on for me this morning. It became clear to me that I was operating under two scary beliefs:
1. As a child, I could not fathom that I would live until the year 2000......that seemed unattainable!
2. I am kidding myself around my health issues.
As I began to look at those, and acknowledge that these where both repeated thoughts in my mind, and probably reinforced by my parents behaviors, especially my mother's, that I no longer had to believe in them. And, I popped out of the feeling weak, worrying. As I sit here typing, I am aware of healing sensations.....hunger, ready to take a short nap, relief, warmth in my feet and hands.
I do know that mindset is a HUGE aspect to the quality of one's life, and that applies to health besides prosperity, getting your soulmate, etc. I have seen myself come close to plummeting into pits of despair and extreme weakness, just from the quality of buying into negative thought. When I realize what I am doing, and turn my thinking around to that of perfection......invariably, my energy level goes back to normal. Quite normal. Able to function normally.
Amazing turnarounds, just by how I think. Vibrate.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Studying TCM
Well, as my title of today's blog notes, most of my time has been consumed by studying. Chinese Medicine is a totally different language, and concept. It is based on sages' viewing of the natural order of life.....how everything is just an aspect waxing and waning energy, nothing is static, everything is from a basic energy source, and health/disease is relative to the balance of all the constituents.....qi (energy), blood, essence, fluids, etc. Not a whiff of western physiological explanations there, either. Totally different.
What is amazing to me, though, is that TCM seems to me that it has evolved into the "integrative" model, the disease oriented model, adopting Pasteur's Germ Theory, the metatasis model, all unproven theories.....my assumption is in order to become part of the westernized business model. Especially these schools in the west.....join or fail to thrive. I do have my reservations about this, and I do find myself contemplating during classes, study how all my experiences have brought me to this moment. I look at Dr. Guo's ability to look beyond the fear of the western medicine, his "different understanding" as put by the campus health center acupuncture clinic director. I am aware of the classification of diseases into cold and hot/warm diseases, and how Dr. Hamer's GNM has shown these to be just aspects of the healing process. I wonder if TCM's roots where these categories arose had more to do with social conditions and the whether people, prior to the Warring States times, just did not survive the sympathicotonic stresses of conflict-active phase, and then perhaps with changing attitudes towards supporting the peasants (for the rulers' own good....to keep them in power), the general populace began living longer, able to resolve conflicts easier, medicine changing to help the process, and thus the "development/classification" of warm diseases.......it will be an interesting point to bring up with my theory prof.
So, my energy level is improving. I am able to exercise more regularly, albeit not an intense kind of workout as done in my past. I am aware of being more sensitive to emotional turmoil in others, and am learning to shut off my "conduit" so as not to take those energies in. I am finding it fascinating interacting with my classmates. For the most part, the group is really a great group of people. More mature, more friendly than my PT classmates as a whole. Then again, I am different....settled, not into the competition thing, much more confident and engaged in myself now. Yet, I do sense categories of people: the sheeples, the brainiacs, the timid, those who don't know themselves, the egoics, and.......a few of us who have dealt with issues around serious health and/or death. I find these categorizations in the faculty as well.
This latter group......I find these few people to be calm, much less affected by grade or status, much more willing to be loners, and, a connection with the heart is easily accessed.
An area of information which has been crossing my path alot lately is that of the Ascension........the raising of one's vibrational level in order to keep up with the changes in the Universe and our Earth. Sites I track are: http://johnsmallman.wordpress.com/ and
http://www.emergingearthangels.com/index.html
A few other places, just can't locate them right now. The basic message is: there is a lot of stuff going on right now. We are even "losing" minutes, as noted by the international scientific group that tracks the earth's rotational speed and how that creates time. The earth is spinning faster.
So, meditate. Do qigong. Rest more. Love more, especially your self! Let go of expecting things to "return to normal." We are where we are. Buckle up, people. Take away the blinders. Trust your body's wisdom.....listen!
Namaste, Mariah
What is amazing to me, though, is that TCM seems to me that it has evolved into the "integrative" model, the disease oriented model, adopting Pasteur's Germ Theory, the metatasis model, all unproven theories.....my assumption is in order to become part of the westernized business model. Especially these schools in the west.....join or fail to thrive. I do have my reservations about this, and I do find myself contemplating during classes, study how all my experiences have brought me to this moment. I look at Dr. Guo's ability to look beyond the fear of the western medicine, his "different understanding" as put by the campus health center acupuncture clinic director. I am aware of the classification of diseases into cold and hot/warm diseases, and how Dr. Hamer's GNM has shown these to be just aspects of the healing process. I wonder if TCM's roots where these categories arose had more to do with social conditions and the whether people, prior to the Warring States times, just did not survive the sympathicotonic stresses of conflict-active phase, and then perhaps with changing attitudes towards supporting the peasants (for the rulers' own good....to keep them in power), the general populace began living longer, able to resolve conflicts easier, medicine changing to help the process, and thus the "development/classification" of warm diseases.......it will be an interesting point to bring up with my theory prof.
So, my energy level is improving. I am able to exercise more regularly, albeit not an intense kind of workout as done in my past. I am aware of being more sensitive to emotional turmoil in others, and am learning to shut off my "conduit" so as not to take those energies in. I am finding it fascinating interacting with my classmates. For the most part, the group is really a great group of people. More mature, more friendly than my PT classmates as a whole. Then again, I am different....settled, not into the competition thing, much more confident and engaged in myself now. Yet, I do sense categories of people: the sheeples, the brainiacs, the timid, those who don't know themselves, the egoics, and.......a few of us who have dealt with issues around serious health and/or death. I find these categorizations in the faculty as well.
This latter group......I find these few people to be calm, much less affected by grade or status, much more willing to be loners, and, a connection with the heart is easily accessed.
An area of information which has been crossing my path alot lately is that of the Ascension........the raising of one's vibrational level in order to keep up with the changes in the Universe and our Earth. Sites I track are: http://johnsmallman.wordpress.com/ and
http://www.emergingearthangels.com/index.html
A few other places, just can't locate them right now. The basic message is: there is a lot of stuff going on right now. We are even "losing" minutes, as noted by the international scientific group that tracks the earth's rotational speed and how that creates time. The earth is spinning faster.
So, meditate. Do qigong. Rest more. Love more, especially your self! Let go of expecting things to "return to normal." We are where we are. Buckle up, people. Take away the blinders. Trust your body's wisdom.....listen!
Namaste, Mariah
Friday, August 28, 2009
Following the message
Well, LOTS has transpired since the last entry. I did indeed get accepted into Finger Lakes School of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, in Seneca Falls, NY. I packed up 9 boxes of books and clothes and special mementos, sold or gave away the rest of my earthly belongings, and drove out to New York with the aid of friend Kathy. My energy level, and my level of calmness improved with each day closer to New York. I told a number of friends "this feels SO right...I have no qualms at all about this move....and is the first time I have felt this comfortable with an intended move."
Here I am...in Fairport, NY right now, at my sister's home. Sleep has been variable, depending on the amount of stress for that day, or food consumption. My heart palpitations have dissipated considerably, much to my happiness. It seemed that the moving process was a help for getting me stronger. I can see how over the weeks my fitness level improved, to the point where now walking 10 to 15minutes at a time does not bother me. Stairs...I still take it easy and keep my mindset calm. I had some descending colon pain last week, which Dr. Guo relieved via increasing the DACH formula.
About 1.5 weeks before leaving, I began to visualize what I wanted for housing....I thought it would be nice to live on Lake Cayuga. A very specific scene popped into my mind....sitting in the front room, at dusk, overlooking the lake which was actually below the house level, and there were 2 trees over to the right, and a fire pit in the middle. The college sent me a listing of housing advertisements, and on a Sunday morning I started making calls, focusing on lakeside or lakeview housing. One in particular stood out, on Seneca Lake, the next lake to the west, partly because the woman was charging so little compared to others, but also because as she described it, it sounded like the scene in my mind. Then she sent me a link to the real estate ad (it had recently been taken off the listing), and, OMG....it sure looked like the vision. Needless to say, I felt very drawn to the potential.
I arranged to drive over and see her place last night, and since I was driving back from Albany (dropped off Kathy at the PineHaven B&B, where Doug was arriving so that they could have a family reunion with daughter Brynne and her fiance Bronson), she offered to let me stay overnight. She also had called me earlier to say that another woman had inquired about one of the rooms, and would have her join us. I arrived first....the outside was neat, the inside was damp/mildewy, cold, drafty, creaky, rooms were very small, 3 large dogs, the boyfriend was a very shy man, the woman was overly talkative but very nice, and spiders inhabited many corners of each room. I was beginning to doubt this vision, things just weren't feeling right. Ida, the other potential renter arrived...I had a sense of familiarity with her. We talked a bit longer after the woman and her boyfriend left, and decided I would call her in the morning to tell her my perception of the place.
Dusk arrived, and, sure enough, I looked out the front room through the porch, and there were the two trees, silhouetted just as I had seen. I had a very difficult time sleeping there....the dogs whined, I could hear the two upstairs talking, the water from toilet flushing/showering went directly overhead, the bed was just not comfortable. I woke up exhausted in the morning. The saving grace was the hot shower in the morning. I ate my breakfast, and left, panicked a bit....I felt drawn to drive down to Ithaca and look for decent housing.
Ithaca was cool....lots of cafes, a great natural foodstore, hip-ness all around. Moosewood Restaurant, unfortunately, was closed. My reflective listening buddy forgot our weekly phone call. Housing was VERY expensive in Ithaca. I felt like shit barely warmed over because of not eating well, driving all day, and not sleeping well. I was beginning to feel depressed. But, I wouldn't let my self go there. I turned north on 89 and drove up to Seneca Falls, not knowing why, except that I was to contact Ida in the morning.
A quick phone call to friend DeAndria..."Hi DeAndria, I need your support right now. This is what happened.......and then asked her to visualize the right living situation come to me which would be of support to my healing and schooling process.
I then called Ida as I got closer to SF, told her all about the experience at the lakehouse, and how I would not live there. She had the same feeling, too, and offered to meet me at the college to show me the housing list. We met at noon. Again, the feeling that being with her was comfortable. She is 47 years old, easy going, drives a Mercedes CL, likes to talk.
It turns out her situation was that she had arranged to sublet her apartment to 2 women, because she hadn't been successful finding a roommate, and would go into a shared housing situation herself. As she talked, I wondered "why don't I move in to her apartment?" So did she. The topic came up, she showed me her apartment...it was nice. It felt right. She called the other women, and told them she had decided to keep the place.
So, with two weeks before school, I do have a place to live. I realized that sometimes a vision is not necessarily the end result.....it may just be the step to take me on the next step, and that it is important to just accept the vision, not get attached to it, and just follow the message, the gut feeling, and be open to where it leads.
Ida and I got keys for me, and I then headed back to my sister's place. I made a great spaghetti dish while Nancy made salad, and we ate with Katie and Grandma Mary in her apartment. Played with Casper, the wonder dog, until Katie scooped him up and settled him down. I felt this content I hadn't had in a very long time....feeling joy over being with people, feeling connected. And, my thought is, hmmm, I have a great apartment with a roomie who is going through school and we can help each other in the process, and I can drive over to my sister's for R&R with them as needed. Life is good. Variety, familiarity, proximity to school...life is full, not just good.
Here I am...in Fairport, NY right now, at my sister's home. Sleep has been variable, depending on the amount of stress for that day, or food consumption. My heart palpitations have dissipated considerably, much to my happiness. It seemed that the moving process was a help for getting me stronger. I can see how over the weeks my fitness level improved, to the point where now walking 10 to 15minutes at a time does not bother me. Stairs...I still take it easy and keep my mindset calm. I had some descending colon pain last week, which Dr. Guo relieved via increasing the DACH formula.
About 1.5 weeks before leaving, I began to visualize what I wanted for housing....I thought it would be nice to live on Lake Cayuga. A very specific scene popped into my mind....sitting in the front room, at dusk, overlooking the lake which was actually below the house level, and there were 2 trees over to the right, and a fire pit in the middle. The college sent me a listing of housing advertisements, and on a Sunday morning I started making calls, focusing on lakeside or lakeview housing. One in particular stood out, on Seneca Lake, the next lake to the west, partly because the woman was charging so little compared to others, but also because as she described it, it sounded like the scene in my mind. Then she sent me a link to the real estate ad (it had recently been taken off the listing), and, OMG....it sure looked like the vision. Needless to say, I felt very drawn to the potential.
I arranged to drive over and see her place last night, and since I was driving back from Albany (dropped off Kathy at the PineHaven B&B, where Doug was arriving so that they could have a family reunion with daughter Brynne and her fiance Bronson), she offered to let me stay overnight. She also had called me earlier to say that another woman had inquired about one of the rooms, and would have her join us. I arrived first....the outside was neat, the inside was damp/mildewy, cold, drafty, creaky, rooms were very small, 3 large dogs, the boyfriend was a very shy man, the woman was overly talkative but very nice, and spiders inhabited many corners of each room. I was beginning to doubt this vision, things just weren't feeling right. Ida, the other potential renter arrived...I had a sense of familiarity with her. We talked a bit longer after the woman and her boyfriend left, and decided I would call her in the morning to tell her my perception of the place.
Dusk arrived, and, sure enough, I looked out the front room through the porch, and there were the two trees, silhouetted just as I had seen. I had a very difficult time sleeping there....the dogs whined, I could hear the two upstairs talking, the water from toilet flushing/showering went directly overhead, the bed was just not comfortable. I woke up exhausted in the morning. The saving grace was the hot shower in the morning. I ate my breakfast, and left, panicked a bit....I felt drawn to drive down to Ithaca and look for decent housing.
Ithaca was cool....lots of cafes, a great natural foodstore, hip-ness all around. Moosewood Restaurant, unfortunately, was closed. My reflective listening buddy forgot our weekly phone call. Housing was VERY expensive in Ithaca. I felt like shit barely warmed over because of not eating well, driving all day, and not sleeping well. I was beginning to feel depressed. But, I wouldn't let my self go there. I turned north on 89 and drove up to Seneca Falls, not knowing why, except that I was to contact Ida in the morning.
A quick phone call to friend DeAndria..."Hi DeAndria, I need your support right now. This is what happened.......and then asked her to visualize the right living situation come to me which would be of support to my healing and schooling process.
I then called Ida as I got closer to SF, told her all about the experience at the lakehouse, and how I would not live there. She had the same feeling, too, and offered to meet me at the college to show me the housing list. We met at noon. Again, the feeling that being with her was comfortable. She is 47 years old, easy going, drives a Mercedes CL, likes to talk.
It turns out her situation was that she had arranged to sublet her apartment to 2 women, because she hadn't been successful finding a roommate, and would go into a shared housing situation herself. As she talked, I wondered "why don't I move in to her apartment?" So did she. The topic came up, she showed me her apartment...it was nice. It felt right. She called the other women, and told them she had decided to keep the place.
So, with two weeks before school, I do have a place to live. I realized that sometimes a vision is not necessarily the end result.....it may just be the step to take me on the next step, and that it is important to just accept the vision, not get attached to it, and just follow the message, the gut feeling, and be open to where it leads.
Ida and I got keys for me, and I then headed back to my sister's place. I made a great spaghetti dish while Nancy made salad, and we ate with Katie and Grandma Mary in her apartment. Played with Casper, the wonder dog, until Katie scooped him up and settled him down. I felt this content I hadn't had in a very long time....feeling joy over being with people, feeling connected. And, my thought is, hmmm, I have a great apartment with a roomie who is going through school and we can help each other in the process, and I can drive over to my sister's for R&R with them as needed. Life is good. Variety, familiarity, proximity to school...life is full, not just good.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Burnout and Rebirth
I am two weeks into a 4 week leave of absence.....I hit my bottom over two weeks ago at work, and could not take one more demand on my energy there. It was scary, I knew I needed to take a break NOW. At first I took one week off, spent two days at home, two days then at the St. Norbert Abbey, one day at someone's house (thinking I needed to be around someone......no, I did not, I found out), then went back to the Abbey. I came home and called work the next day to say I needed more time off. Dr. Aldrich also agreed with me, and I changed my paperwork for 4 weeks of full time medical leave. It has been a week now, and this morning I woke up feeling like I was turning the corner.
Two days ago, I spent time with Debra Eberhardy, of Sacred Medicine in Schofield, WI. She was the woman who did soul retrieval work with me in August of 2007, literally saved my life. Well, she did it again! She assisted me on a journey to the other side, and into the underworld, in native american healing fashion. As I began to let go (that was hard, I was so much in my head, so fearful of experiencing the intense sedation I had during a healing touch session a month ago which made me very groggy), Debra was able to gently let me know that everything was ok, reminding me that she was there, I was protected. I heard the words emanate from inside me "chinese medicine will protect you...." Then she showed me the way into the underworld and there I met Silver Bear, my spirit guide. Debra and I communicated gently during the process, and I saw that my spirit had left me when my mother died. Debra retrieved my soul and blew it back into my belly and my head. I felt a release of the noose around my heart. I cried and cried the pain of mom's death, until I was able to sense I had let it go, finally.
The next piece of information that came to me was that I needed to re-address the goal I had of learning chinese medicine. I had the sense that I was to go east for school.....New England came up for me. I was aware of the New England School of Acupuncture outside of Boston, and we talked about that.....Debra had the strong sense that I needed to follow this intuition. I asked my spirit "when do I move and start this process?" I heard and saw "NOW!!!!" Very, very strong.
I got off the table and felt renewed, no heart pain, no fatigue. Settled. Ready to take the next step. My spirit guide is now with me, and I connect in with Silver Bear throughout the day, honor Silver Bear at meal times, and make tobacco ties to send my prayers to the spirit world.
Debra is studying chinese medicine at Midwest school of Acupuncture in Racine. She travels the 5-6 hours down there and back every week, and has been doing this for almost 2 years now. I was at her home for a woman's ceremony/lodge in December 2007, to do my own letting go ceremony of my relationship with D, when she first told me she was studying. I got IRATE!!! It was explosive, I felt this intense "NO!!! I am supposed to be doing that!!!! You are native american, this is not your medicine!!!" Funny to hear that from a midwesterner.....how am I any more qualified? I made some intensely rude remark to her and left the table. It wasn't until later, after I got home that I was able to talk to her about this, to apologize to her. But, I still didn't get the message that I needed to go back to school. I was too much into self-preservation mode as D and I crashed our way through our breakup.
At this session with Debra, she talked about September of 2007, when D and I went to her for a sweat lodge.....for my healing, but it also evolved into ceremony for D and her ancestry with the Lenae Lenape, embracing her grandfather, and to take in her step-sister's spirit to safeguard it as Nancy traveled (she had committed suicide the previous June). Then she told me about how D and I had given her a white bear pelt. Bear is the totem animal for healers. Two weeks later, she was attending the school in Racine. She said it was her honor to now pass on Silver Bear to me, because it is my turn to go learn. We both felt embraced by Spirit, aware that the world was in order.
My shaman brother Dale was with me again on this journey to Schofield. I love him so much.....he is an avatar, a healer, full of so much love! When I told him what transpired, and that I needed to go east to school, and to do it soon, he was initially concerned. I asked him to believe in me, and asked for his coaching, because he is really good at that. Soon, he was coming up with phrases for me to think of:
"winners keep their head in the game"
"know thyself, look inward"
"believe in myself!"
"everyone has the potential to be great, you just have to expect, demand it of yourself"
and my favorite "I am making myself a topnotch healer by putting more tools into my bag."
When I got home later that afternoon, I began looking up the New England School of Acupuncture.....I saw that the term began August 27th....my spirit said, "no that is too soon." So, I did a search on other schools in the northeast.....and, wow, one stood out in neon lights:
New York Chiropractic College's Finger Lakes School of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Master's in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. 3 years. Term starts September 9th. The campus is on a big lake. The campus health center is staffed by chiropractors and acupuncturists. It is 50 miles from Nancy's, located in Seneca Falls, at the northern edge of Lake Cayoga. Months ago, when I was lamenting to my sister (who lives in Fairport, NY) that I really, really needed to get out of Green Bay, she wrote back to me and said "you know, there are some really neat places around here...around the Finger Lakes..." A few weeks ago, I began to have the feeling that she was calling me to come there. At the time, in my desperately downward spiraling situation, all I could feel was "if I go there, it is because I am dying and I need to be at her place." It felt like throwing in the towel, the last straw. My propensity for initial negativity.
Nope, she was calling me, alerting me to what was possible, potent for me in Upstate New York. There was also something familiar to me about the program. I wrote to Chris Lowthert, DC, my GNM friend, and he wrote back, confirming that this was where he did his chiropractic work! He said it was a beautiful campus, and a good program, and that I would love living in the area.
The next morning I called both NESA and NYCC, leaving a message at NESA, but directly connecting to Kyung Brown, Admissions counselor at NYCC. She and I talked for quite a while, there was still room for me in the fall program, there was time to get everything in place to start in September, financial aid would be available to cover the entire program if needed, housing, testing out of western sciences......It felt so right! I jumped in on FAFSA, my transcripts, the application, the recommendation letters.
NESA called me back later that morning, but it still did not feel like the right fit.
Later that morning I called Debra, she was so happy for me! She also said that she had said prayers for me last night, that everything would go smoothly, easily, and I would find the right program. "It is supposed to be easy" Vimala John Nemick said to me last year. He was referring to relationships, but it applies to any endeavor. Easy yet with its own travails, hard work but because it comes from the heart, it doesn't feel like a burden.
I refer you dear readers to Domo Geshe Rinpoche's blog http://satisfiedbuddhist.blogspot.com/. She is Ann-Marie's teacher. Today's post just happened to be about burnout........
Blessings to all. And, one last parting note from The Universe (just came today):
Look at it like this, Mariah, the more challenging your life story has been so far, the bigger the goose bumps for future generations who retell it to their kids. Who will no doubt add, "And if Mariah Peterson was able to do all that, so can you!"
We've barely just begun - The Universe
Two days ago, I spent time with Debra Eberhardy, of Sacred Medicine in Schofield, WI. She was the woman who did soul retrieval work with me in August of 2007, literally saved my life. Well, she did it again! She assisted me on a journey to the other side, and into the underworld, in native american healing fashion. As I began to let go (that was hard, I was so much in my head, so fearful of experiencing the intense sedation I had during a healing touch session a month ago which made me very groggy), Debra was able to gently let me know that everything was ok, reminding me that she was there, I was protected. I heard the words emanate from inside me "chinese medicine will protect you...." Then she showed me the way into the underworld and there I met Silver Bear, my spirit guide. Debra and I communicated gently during the process, and I saw that my spirit had left me when my mother died. Debra retrieved my soul and blew it back into my belly and my head. I felt a release of the noose around my heart. I cried and cried the pain of mom's death, until I was able to sense I had let it go, finally.
The next piece of information that came to me was that I needed to re-address the goal I had of learning chinese medicine. I had the sense that I was to go east for school.....New England came up for me. I was aware of the New England School of Acupuncture outside of Boston, and we talked about that.....Debra had the strong sense that I needed to follow this intuition. I asked my spirit "when do I move and start this process?" I heard and saw "NOW!!!!" Very, very strong.
I got off the table and felt renewed, no heart pain, no fatigue. Settled. Ready to take the next step. My spirit guide is now with me, and I connect in with Silver Bear throughout the day, honor Silver Bear at meal times, and make tobacco ties to send my prayers to the spirit world.
Debra is studying chinese medicine at Midwest school of Acupuncture in Racine. She travels the 5-6 hours down there and back every week, and has been doing this for almost 2 years now. I was at her home for a woman's ceremony/lodge in December 2007, to do my own letting go ceremony of my relationship with D, when she first told me she was studying. I got IRATE!!! It was explosive, I felt this intense "NO!!! I am supposed to be doing that!!!! You are native american, this is not your medicine!!!" Funny to hear that from a midwesterner.....how am I any more qualified? I made some intensely rude remark to her and left the table. It wasn't until later, after I got home that I was able to talk to her about this, to apologize to her. But, I still didn't get the message that I needed to go back to school. I was too much into self-preservation mode as D and I crashed our way through our breakup.
At this session with Debra, she talked about September of 2007, when D and I went to her for a sweat lodge.....for my healing, but it also evolved into ceremony for D and her ancestry with the Lenae Lenape, embracing her grandfather, and to take in her step-sister's spirit to safeguard it as Nancy traveled (she had committed suicide the previous June). Then she told me about how D and I had given her a white bear pelt. Bear is the totem animal for healers. Two weeks later, she was attending the school in Racine. She said it was her honor to now pass on Silver Bear to me, because it is my turn to go learn. We both felt embraced by Spirit, aware that the world was in order.
My shaman brother Dale was with me again on this journey to Schofield. I love him so much.....he is an avatar, a healer, full of so much love! When I told him what transpired, and that I needed to go east to school, and to do it soon, he was initially concerned. I asked him to believe in me, and asked for his coaching, because he is really good at that. Soon, he was coming up with phrases for me to think of:
"winners keep their head in the game"
"know thyself, look inward"
"believe in myself!"
"everyone has the potential to be great, you just have to expect, demand it of yourself"
and my favorite "I am making myself a topnotch healer by putting more tools into my bag."
When I got home later that afternoon, I began looking up the New England School of Acupuncture.....I saw that the term began August 27th....my spirit said, "no that is too soon." So, I did a search on other schools in the northeast.....and, wow, one stood out in neon lights:
New York Chiropractic College's Finger Lakes School of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Master's in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. 3 years. Term starts September 9th. The campus is on a big lake. The campus health center is staffed by chiropractors and acupuncturists. It is 50 miles from Nancy's, located in Seneca Falls, at the northern edge of Lake Cayoga. Months ago, when I was lamenting to my sister (who lives in Fairport, NY) that I really, really needed to get out of Green Bay, she wrote back to me and said "you know, there are some really neat places around here...around the Finger Lakes..." A few weeks ago, I began to have the feeling that she was calling me to come there. At the time, in my desperately downward spiraling situation, all I could feel was "if I go there, it is because I am dying and I need to be at her place." It felt like throwing in the towel, the last straw. My propensity for initial negativity.
Nope, she was calling me, alerting me to what was possible, potent for me in Upstate New York. There was also something familiar to me about the program. I wrote to Chris Lowthert, DC, my GNM friend, and he wrote back, confirming that this was where he did his chiropractic work! He said it was a beautiful campus, and a good program, and that I would love living in the area.
The next morning I called both NESA and NYCC, leaving a message at NESA, but directly connecting to Kyung Brown, Admissions counselor at NYCC. She and I talked for quite a while, there was still room for me in the fall program, there was time to get everything in place to start in September, financial aid would be available to cover the entire program if needed, housing, testing out of western sciences......It felt so right! I jumped in on FAFSA, my transcripts, the application, the recommendation letters.
NESA called me back later that morning, but it still did not feel like the right fit.
Later that morning I called Debra, she was so happy for me! She also said that she had said prayers for me last night, that everything would go smoothly, easily, and I would find the right program. "It is supposed to be easy" Vimala John Nemick said to me last year. He was referring to relationships, but it applies to any endeavor. Easy yet with its own travails, hard work but because it comes from the heart, it doesn't feel like a burden.
I refer you dear readers to Domo Geshe Rinpoche's blog http://satisfiedbuddhist.blogspot.com/. She is Ann-Marie's teacher. Today's post just happened to be about burnout........
Blessings to all. And, one last parting note from The Universe (just came today):
Look at it like this, Mariah, the more challenging your life story has been so far, the bigger the goose bumps for future generations who retell it to their kids. Who will no doubt add, "And if Mariah Peterson was able to do all that, so can you!"
We've barely just begun - The Universe
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Thoughts from today......
This is an email I sent to my healing partner and friend, Ann-Marie
Ann-Marie, your phone call was a gift from heaven! I went to sleep with the words "my body WANTS to heal" running through my mind, psyche. I slept 10 hours, and woke up without the abdominal discomfort or anxiety. I also think Dr. Guo must have done some qigong to push things along...or I just trust him that much.
You and I, we are healing together.....we are healing buddies. It is fascinating watching how things are moving along.....Thursday I called my friend in Hawaii with whom I have been doing "masterminding" and told her it wasn't the right fit now and I still wanted to keep in touch, her reply was that she was just doing it for me...that's why it didn't click, it wasn't a mutual commitment. Then the reflective listening buddy call cracked open my story around anxiety. Then last night with you and Guo. Waking up to this lotustarot card of the week in my email inbox. Then my sister calling before 8am, she never does that....I told her about how well I slept, you, Guo....she was very happy, also for you, she asked how the session with Guo was for you, she was glad.
Supporting each other is the most important thing right now....keeping each other's spirit uplifted and mind centered on health. I think about that story of the woman with multiple personality, breaking her leg, and another personality getting off the ER bed and walking away without any injury. I am now in my health personality.......maybe it is time for a new name, LOL!!!
Here is the Taurus (that's me...May 3rd) week ahead horoscope from Jonathon Cainer:
Your Week Ahead: Have faith in the future. It belongs to you and it is getting ready now, to welcome you with open arms. Have faith in yourself. You belong to yourself and you deserve the very best you can give yourself! If something now seems wrong or awkward, ask yourself why you are allowing it to become such a dominating factor in your life? In what way are you clinging to a part of the past that you ought to leave behind? There's nothing but hope and happiness ahead of you. To get to it, just drop yesterday's redundant dream and embrace tomorrow's inspiring vision. It's not an escapist fantasy. It's the real way forward.
Fits, doesn't it?
love you, Mariah
Gazing at a star-studded night sky is a truly beautiful and
hypnotic experience.
There is a magic and wonder about the stars and many of us
are familiar with the phrase ‘wish upon a star’.
What would you wish for right now? If you were to wish for
it, would you believe it could ever come true?
I wanted to share with you the magic I have experienced by
focusing on The Star card when it has come up in my
readings.
Wishing upon a star is at the heart of The Star card’s
meaning. It is a card of optimism, hope and unexpected
gifts. When this magical card comes up in a reading for
you it heralds a time of more positive opportunities and
happy outcomes.
This card is welcome almost anywhere in a reading as it is
a good indication that your wishes will be fulfilled,
sometimes not always as you would expect, and this card can
bring one or more unexpected gifts your way.
When it appears it can mean you are being too negative or
pessimistic, and it encourages you to have more hope and
optimism in your heart and mind, which is why I asked the
question earlier – 'if you did make a wish, would you
believe it could come true?'
I have wished upon The Star card many times and my
spirits always lift when it appears in my readings. I
recall in early spring of 2002 making a wish to be
given an opportunity to work with the Tarot with as many
people as possible, sharing a gift that was mutually
beneficial for my clients and myself.
It was a big dream and a big wish for at that time I
couldn’t see how I could achieve it, but I did BELIEVE I
would. Then in May of 2002, I met David, the talented
webmaster of Lotus Tarot, and as they say, the rest is
history :-)
The Star card has been a frequent feature in my readings
for most of the last year and I know why: because I have
received so many unexpected surprises and gifts, not just
in money and material things, but also friendships and
love.
If you haven’t taken much notice of this card before, look
out for it now, and when it comes up, make your wish!!
Remember, a wish made with hope and belief can bring so much
more power and magic to it.
Ann-Marie, your phone call was a gift from heaven! I went to sleep with the words "my body WANTS to heal" running through my mind, psyche. I slept 10 hours, and woke up without the abdominal discomfort or anxiety. I also think Dr. Guo must have done some qigong to push things along...or I just trust him that much.
You and I, we are healing together.....we are healing buddies. It is fascinating watching how things are moving along.....Thursday I called my friend in Hawaii with whom I have been doing "masterminding" and told her it wasn't the right fit now and I still wanted to keep in touch, her reply was that she was just doing it for me...that's why it didn't click, it wasn't a mutual commitment. Then the reflective listening buddy call cracked open my story around anxiety. Then last night with you and Guo. Waking up to this lotustarot card of the week in my email inbox. Then my sister calling before 8am, she never does that....I told her about how well I slept, you, Guo....she was very happy, also for you, she asked how the session with Guo was for you, she was glad.
Supporting each other is the most important thing right now....keeping each other's spirit uplifted and mind centered on health. I think about that story of the woman with multiple personality, breaking her leg, and another personality getting off the ER bed and walking away without any injury. I am now in my health personality.......maybe it is time for a new name, LOL!!!
Here is the Taurus (that's me...May 3rd) week ahead horoscope from Jonathon Cainer:
Your Week Ahead: Have faith in the future. It belongs to you and it is getting ready now, to welcome you with open arms. Have faith in yourself. You belong to yourself and you deserve the very best you can give yourself! If something now seems wrong or awkward, ask yourself why you are allowing it to become such a dominating factor in your life? In what way are you clinging to a part of the past that you ought to leave behind? There's nothing but hope and happiness ahead of you. To get to it, just drop yesterday's redundant dream and embrace tomorrow's inspiring vision. It's not an escapist fantasy. It's the real way forward.
Fits, doesn't it?
love you, Mariah
Gazing at a star-studded night sky is a truly beautiful and
hypnotic experience.
There is a magic and wonder about the stars and many of us
are familiar with the phrase ‘wish upon a star’.
What would you wish for right now? If you were to wish for
it, would you believe it could ever come true?
I wanted to share with you the magic I have experienced by
focusing on The Star card when it has come up in my
readings.
Wishing upon a star is at the heart of The Star card’s
meaning. It is a card of optimism, hope and unexpected
gifts. When this magical card comes up in a reading for
you it heralds a time of more positive opportunities and
happy outcomes.
This card is welcome almost anywhere in a reading as it is
a good indication that your wishes will be fulfilled,
sometimes not always as you would expect, and this card can
bring one or more unexpected gifts your way.
When it appears it can mean you are being too negative or
pessimistic, and it encourages you to have more hope and
optimism in your heart and mind, which is why I asked the
question earlier – 'if you did make a wish, would you
believe it could come true?'
I have wished upon The Star card many times and my
spirits always lift when it appears in my readings. I
recall in early spring of 2002 making a wish to be
given an opportunity to work with the Tarot with as many
people as possible, sharing a gift that was mutually
beneficial for my clients and myself.
It was a big dream and a big wish for at that time I
couldn’t see how I could achieve it, but I did BELIEVE I
would. Then in May of 2002, I met David, the talented
webmaster of Lotus Tarot, and as they say, the rest is
history :-)
The Star card has been a frequent feature in my readings
for most of the last year and I know why: because I have
received so many unexpected surprises and gifts, not just
in money and material things, but also friendships and
love.
If you haven’t taken much notice of this card before, look
out for it now, and when it comes up, make your wish!!
Remember, a wish made with hope and belief can bring so much
more power and magic to it.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Freedom is an inside job
Yesterday, my friend Ann-Marie and I, along with my brother Dale, had gone down to Dr. Guo's office for appointments. For the past week plus, I have been having intense heart palpitations and angina, gall bladder pain (the energy of frustation sets off the gall bladder) and two days earlier had had a stressful situation at work which in the past would not have bothered me much at all....I was panicked and called my boss to say I was going to take off for a week, I feared for my existence at that moment. She was frantic that I had never gone to a cardiologist to get my heart checked out (I told her that I did not respect them and did not want to be evaluated, but relented and made an appointment with my MD who I at least trust much more because she respects and listens to me).
For Ann-Marie, she had developed a breast lump (ductal, in healing phase) about a month ago, and felt she needed to get allopathic diagnostics....which also revealed skin cancer patches in various parts of her body. She has had PET scans, CT scans, and the typical sit-down to discuss the results "Ok, take a deep breath...I am so sorry to have to tell you this........" She also was moved to set up an appointment with Dr. Guo, after asking me about my experiences with him. 30 minutes prior to our leaving for Chicago, she returned the message, and was told that the MD wanted to do a brain scan to determine what type of chemotherapy would be best for her. I was pretty calm about it, I had the sense that all was well, and so did she. Later that afternoon, she came out of Dr. Guo's office beaming, relieved, and anchored in respect for Dr. Guo's life-affirming herbal work and personal demeanor as well as how much German New Medicine makes sense and teaches us to have faith in the health process of our body.
Here's an excerpt from a letter I wrote to Ann-Marie this morning:
Ann-Marie, yesterday was a miraculous day. Starting with feeling so exhausted and my heart in turmoil literally and figuratively, having to concentrate so hard to stay here on this earth and away from the "Dark Side" of negativity while Dale drove me down to your place, my brother's compassion and love sustaining me. Picking up the phone at your place and taking the message from the oncologist Dr. Maul (I laughed driving home remembering his name....kinda interesting message, don't you think? It is like the dentist named Dr. Caries or Dr. Payne), watching you deal so gracefully with the information, noticing that I wasn't freaked out at all by the call....GNM sinking in. Your teachings to me (The Bridge technique, having the power within to heal versus giving that power over to others, friendship, laughter, acceptance). Dr. Guo's mastery, both with herbs and his choice of words. Being able to love what is, understanding why I was in Green Bay.
As Dale and I got closer to Green Bay, the heart palpitations started to come back somewhat.....I looked at it and realized I had started to worry....worry about my life in Green Bay, my work, where to live, etc. I reflected on how peaceful I felt at Guo's, driving back to your place, leaving Thiensville, and realized that the peace was always there for me, it was my worry, and typically the mad dash to "find the right thing" which blocks it. My pattern, and immediately after feeling the heart stuff, I would put it back onto that particular situation "oh, I must have this..." or "I must move here...." etc. Addicted to things outside of myself. And, it dawned on me, too, that I typically make my decisions based on if it made my heart excited, instead of calm. I felt the freedom, that I have always had choices, it was up to me to make them and honor them. I was able to see how the little apartment I am in has been a freedom, a choice, it gave me an inexpensive, reliable, safe place from which to move out of D's life. My job....it has given me the money to survive, thrive, be treated by Guo, it has shown me that I am a good therapist, it has given me the chance to get along well with co-workers. Green Bay.....it is a straight shot to Guo's on I-43. I am closer to my brother and have been blessed by his love and connection. I found German New Medicine and have been connected with life- and faith-affirming new friends.
I watched an episode of 30 Rock a couple of weeks ago....where Jack is in the hospital because of heart palpitations......his cranky mother is there, he is hooked up to a heart monitor, she starts to notice that some questions she asked him made his heart rate go up, others would settle it down....so she started asking him if he loved his fiancee....heart rate went up.....did he love his mother.....heart rate went down......did he want to marry his fiancee....he said yes but heart rate went way up.....was Liz his friend......heart rate went down.... The light went on in Jack's head....... Hmm, there's a message here for me, too....and yesterday sunk it in for me. I slept a solid night and woke up refreshed for the first time in almost a month.
Addicted to things outside of myself, addicted to excitement. Expecting fulfillment from things, moves, people.......which really are not the source of happiness, health and well-being.
Got up this morning, and in my email inbox was someone wanting to buy my bikes (although it looks like a spammer....will see if they respond), and another email giving me inspiration as to how I might be able to sell my Light Beam Generator machine.
Funny how stuff like that happens, when the light goes on and the door opens.......
For Ann-Marie, she had developed a breast lump (ductal, in healing phase) about a month ago, and felt she needed to get allopathic diagnostics....which also revealed skin cancer patches in various parts of her body. She has had PET scans, CT scans, and the typical sit-down to discuss the results "Ok, take a deep breath...I am so sorry to have to tell you this........" She also was moved to set up an appointment with Dr. Guo, after asking me about my experiences with him. 30 minutes prior to our leaving for Chicago, she returned the message, and was told that the MD wanted to do a brain scan to determine what type of chemotherapy would be best for her. I was pretty calm about it, I had the sense that all was well, and so did she. Later that afternoon, she came out of Dr. Guo's office beaming, relieved, and anchored in respect for Dr. Guo's life-affirming herbal work and personal demeanor as well as how much German New Medicine makes sense and teaches us to have faith in the health process of our body.
Here's an excerpt from a letter I wrote to Ann-Marie this morning:
Ann-Marie, yesterday was a miraculous day. Starting with feeling so exhausted and my heart in turmoil literally and figuratively, having to concentrate so hard to stay here on this earth and away from the "Dark Side" of negativity while Dale drove me down to your place, my brother's compassion and love sustaining me. Picking up the phone at your place and taking the message from the oncologist Dr. Maul (I laughed driving home remembering his name....kinda interesting message, don't you think? It is like the dentist named Dr. Caries or Dr. Payne), watching you deal so gracefully with the information, noticing that I wasn't freaked out at all by the call....GNM sinking in. Your teachings to me (The Bridge technique, having the power within to heal versus giving that power over to others, friendship, laughter, acceptance). Dr. Guo's mastery, both with herbs and his choice of words. Being able to love what is, understanding why I was in Green Bay.
As Dale and I got closer to Green Bay, the heart palpitations started to come back somewhat.....I looked at it and realized I had started to worry....worry about my life in Green Bay, my work, where to live, etc. I reflected on how peaceful I felt at Guo's, driving back to your place, leaving Thiensville, and realized that the peace was always there for me, it was my worry, and typically the mad dash to "find the right thing" which blocks it. My pattern, and immediately after feeling the heart stuff, I would put it back onto that particular situation "oh, I must have this..." or "I must move here...." etc. Addicted to things outside of myself. And, it dawned on me, too, that I typically make my decisions based on if it made my heart excited, instead of calm. I felt the freedom, that I have always had choices, it was up to me to make them and honor them. I was able to see how the little apartment I am in has been a freedom, a choice, it gave me an inexpensive, reliable, safe place from which to move out of D's life. My job....it has given me the money to survive, thrive, be treated by Guo, it has shown me that I am a good therapist, it has given me the chance to get along well with co-workers. Green Bay.....it is a straight shot to Guo's on I-43. I am closer to my brother and have been blessed by his love and connection. I found German New Medicine and have been connected with life- and faith-affirming new friends.
I watched an episode of 30 Rock a couple of weeks ago....where Jack is in the hospital because of heart palpitations......his cranky mother is there, he is hooked up to a heart monitor, she starts to notice that some questions she asked him made his heart rate go up, others would settle it down....so she started asking him if he loved his fiancee....heart rate went up.....did he love his mother.....heart rate went down......did he want to marry his fiancee....he said yes but heart rate went way up.....was Liz his friend......heart rate went down.... The light went on in Jack's head....... Hmm, there's a message here for me, too....and yesterday sunk it in for me. I slept a solid night and woke up refreshed for the first time in almost a month.
Addicted to things outside of myself, addicted to excitement. Expecting fulfillment from things, moves, people.......which really are not the source of happiness, health and well-being.
Got up this morning, and in my email inbox was someone wanting to buy my bikes (although it looks like a spammer....will see if they respond), and another email giving me inspiration as to how I might be able to sell my Light Beam Generator machine.
Funny how stuff like that happens, when the light goes on and the door opens.......
Friday, July 10, 2009
The truth is slowly being revealed in the "fight against cancer"
July 9th, msn.com had a report on a study done in Copehagen at the Nordic Cochrane Centre, analyzing breast cancer trends at least seven years before and after government-run screening programs for breast cancer started in parts of Australia, Britain, Canada, Norway and Sweden.
The authors found that overall, one third of the women identified as having breast cancer didn't actually need to be treated.
Their report stated "Some cancers never cause symptoms or death, and can grow too slowly to ever affect patients," "or the cancer will grow so slowly that the patient will die of other causes before it produces symptoms, or it may remain dormant over the years or even shrink." And "Experts said overtreatment occurs wherever there is widespread cancer screening, including the U.S."
Because doctors have no idea whether the cancer will be lethal or harmless, they tend to treat all patients diagnosed with a tumor. But cancer treatment, using powerful drugs, radiotherapy or surgery, causes harm.
Britain was smart enough, and possibly humanitarian enough, to stop using their breast cancer screening pamphlet, when critics complained that it did not explain the overtreatment problem.
The article on msn.com added this quote:, "Mammography is one of medicine's 'close calls,' ... where different people in the same situation might reasonably make different choices," wrote H. Gilbert Welch of VA Outcomes Group and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Research, in an accompanying editorial in the BMJ. "Mammography undoubtedly helps some women but hurts others."
And, this from Canada:
Marianne Tonnelier of Quebec filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of all women diagnosed with breast cancer in Quebec who tested negative for the biological marker that would lead to a prescription of Herceptin. Her concern is that women were misdiagnosed via lab tests, and so, missed out on "appropriate treatment" (my quotation marks). The article cites a government study where breast tissue samples were tested in a reliable lab, and then the samples were sent out to other testing centers:
- Fifteen to 20 per cent of the hormone receptor tests got the wrong result.
- Thirty per cent of tests looking for the HER2 protein were wrong. (The test is used to determine which chemotherapy treatment is best.)
Unfortunately, the government's response is to re-test some breast cancer patients "to ensure they're getting the correct treatment."
Lately, a US study was published showing that 25% of life-threatening test results never got relayed to the patient (which may be a good thing, in actuality.....but it shows how much our medical system is unable to meet the needs of the people).
Tip of the iceberg here....testing is not accurate, overtreatment happens, psychological harm is done. Instead of stepping back and taking a clear look at cancer, applying the biological laws, officials just keep throwing more fuel onto the fire, and when it gets big and hot enough, they take squirt guns to try to put it out. Our medical system is lost, run by business concerns mostly, and does not prevent ill health, it only identifies it and then makes people more sick via their treatment options.
The authors found that overall, one third of the women identified as having breast cancer didn't actually need to be treated.
Their report stated "Some cancers never cause symptoms or death, and can grow too slowly to ever affect patients," "or the cancer will grow so slowly that the patient will die of other causes before it produces symptoms, or it may remain dormant over the years or even shrink." And "Experts said overtreatment occurs wherever there is widespread cancer screening, including the U.S."
Because doctors have no idea whether the cancer will be lethal or harmless, they tend to treat all patients diagnosed with a tumor. But cancer treatment, using powerful drugs, radiotherapy or surgery, causes harm.
Britain was smart enough, and possibly humanitarian enough, to stop using their breast cancer screening pamphlet, when critics complained that it did not explain the overtreatment problem.
The article on msn.com added this quote:, "Mammography is one of medicine's 'close calls,' ... where different people in the same situation might reasonably make different choices," wrote H. Gilbert Welch of VA Outcomes Group and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Research, in an accompanying editorial in the BMJ. "Mammography undoubtedly helps some women but hurts others."
And, this from Canada:
Marianne Tonnelier of Quebec filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of all women diagnosed with breast cancer in Quebec who tested negative for the biological marker that would lead to a prescription of Herceptin. Her concern is that women were misdiagnosed via lab tests, and so, missed out on "appropriate treatment" (my quotation marks). The article cites a government study where breast tissue samples were tested in a reliable lab, and then the samples were sent out to other testing centers:
- Fifteen to 20 per cent of the hormone receptor tests got the wrong result.
- Thirty per cent of tests looking for the HER2 protein were wrong. (The test is used to determine which chemotherapy treatment is best.)
Unfortunately, the government's response is to re-test some breast cancer patients "to ensure they're getting the correct treatment."
Lately, a US study was published showing that 25% of life-threatening test results never got relayed to the patient (which may be a good thing, in actuality.....but it shows how much our medical system is unable to meet the needs of the people).
Tip of the iceberg here....testing is not accurate, overtreatment happens, psychological harm is done. Instead of stepping back and taking a clear look at cancer, applying the biological laws, officials just keep throwing more fuel onto the fire, and when it gets big and hot enough, they take squirt guns to try to put it out. Our medical system is lost, run by business concerns mostly, and does not prevent ill health, it only identifies it and then makes people more sick via their treatment options.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Healing Phase of Pleura/chest attack Conflict
Shortly around the time of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett's death, in coming to realize more my fears around health, I began having more of the symptoms that the pleura was healing.....burning under the sternum, a slight cough, fatigue, warm hands and feet, good appetite, depending on how well I rested myself. I contacted Dr. Guo, who sent me herbs to balance this, talked with my GNM counselor, and relaxed.
It is amazing to me to watch the healing process happen. It unfolds every time in a manner that makes sense to me. And, when I relax through the symptoms, ice my head, take my herbs, stay calm as best as I can, the symptoms dissipate. And, I am left with a sense of more strength. Physically, mentally, spiritually.
It is amazing to me to watch the healing process happen. It unfolds every time in a manner that makes sense to me. And, when I relax through the symptoms, ice my head, take my herbs, stay calm as best as I can, the symptoms dissipate. And, I am left with a sense of more strength. Physically, mentally, spiritually.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Bodhisattvas....
Note: Reading my post "Farrah's Story" May 19, 2009 will shed more light on today's post........
Rest in Peace, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.
In the midst of thousands who died on Thursday, the most noted in the press were two icons of pop culture. Yet, they were "regular" people, just like most people. They both had issues with life, both were deeply afraid of their power, and both were easily swayed and victimized by Big Pharma that the answers to their problems would come from pharmaceuticals, radiation, surgeries, and money.
I still assert that these two, amongst many, were here on this earth not just to entertain us, but to teach us all significant lessons. By being willing to submit to the dominant paradigm of thought/health "care" (I call it "sickcare"), they were showing those who are still living and are enamored of the lies by the dominant authority how these lies and ignorances lead to a crash and burn existence. The reality is: drugs do not a quality of life make. Especially Farrah's story.....calling the devastating effects of chemotherapy "treatment" and then the system saying "she died of cancer....."
I thank Farrah and Michael for their courage, for this profound teaching......
Rest in Peace, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson.
In the midst of thousands who died on Thursday, the most noted in the press were two icons of pop culture. Yet, they were "regular" people, just like most people. They both had issues with life, both were deeply afraid of their power, and both were easily swayed and victimized by Big Pharma that the answers to their problems would come from pharmaceuticals, radiation, surgeries, and money.
I still assert that these two, amongst many, were here on this earth not just to entertain us, but to teach us all significant lessons. By being willing to submit to the dominant paradigm of thought/health "care" (I call it "sickcare"), they were showing those who are still living and are enamored of the lies by the dominant authority how these lies and ignorances lead to a crash and burn existence. The reality is: drugs do not a quality of life make. Especially Farrah's story.....calling the devastating effects of chemotherapy "treatment" and then the system saying "she died of cancer....."
I thank Farrah and Michael for their courage, for this profound teaching......
Sunday, June 21, 2009
An Excerpt from Cheri Huber's latest message....
Note: the bold italics are my editing for emphasis.
"The June 18, 2009, quote from Transform Your Life is, “Fear grows in darkness; if you think there’s a bogeyman around, turn on the light.” (Dorothy Thompson)
How easy it is for conditioned humans, believing the conversation in the head is life, to forget, to get talked out of knowing, that each of us can “turn on the light.” As soon as an individual learns it is possible to end suffering in this very lifetime, and begins to sit and to develop the ability to direct the attention, that person is no longer condemned to live in darkness, afraid of the bogeyman. Once you know what the switch looks like, where it’s located, how to use it, you’re free. The gift, the wonder, of being a human being is that we have the power to turn the lights on and live in illumination.
Last month we had a Precept’s retreat. During the week preceding the “commitment ceremony” we look carefully at just what it is we’re choosing for the rest of our lives. The Precepts are:
Not to lead a harmful life nor to assist others to do so.
Not to take that which is not given.
Not to commit or participate in unchaste conduct.
Not to tell lies nor practice believing the fantasies of authority.
Not to use intoxicating drinks or narcotics nor assist others to do so.
Not to publish other people’s faults.
Not to extol oneself and slander others.
Not to be avaricious in bestowal of the teachings.
Not to be angry.
Not to speak ill of this religion or any other.
And, for good measure, we have what are called the Three Pure Precepts:
The Precept of restraint and religious observances.
The Precept to obey all good laws.
The Precept to benefit all sentient beings.
At one point Jen suggested an Eleventh Precept:
Not to believe or participate in the conversation in the head.
Now that is a true “cut to the chase” strategy! Without that conversation in the head would there be any shoulds or blame or comparison or judgment? Isn’t that conversation there only to perpetuate self-hate and misery? Without the endless droning voices blocking out the light and drowning out the wisdom, a person would live in attunement with life, act on what life brings, make course corrections as new information arises, enjoy, feel good, appreciate….
Sounds manageable, eh? So, why don’t more people do it? Why isn’t it more popular? Doesn’t everyone want to slide in that key, unlock those chains, shrug free of the restraints, flip that light switch, and stroll smiling and humming into the sunset? The obvious answer is “no.”
Egocentric karmic conditioning, ego, the illusion of a self that is separate from life most assuredly does not want to live in peace, ease, appreciation and gratitude. Why? Because it cannot. An illusion of a self that is separate from life must have that illusory life in the past or in the future where there is an imaginary “something wrong” to fear, worry about, agonize over, regret, feel guilty about, be confused over, try to figure out—in a word, noodle. Ego has its fictitious life in a conversation in the head. (If that’s hard to follow, compare the imaginary life of ego to a movie. Those characters in the film, with all their joys, sorrows, triumphs and failures, much as they seem to be real, are not. We pretend they’re real, sometimes even get so caught up with them that we forget they’re not real. We identify with them, feel what they’re feeling—which of course they’re not—and for a while believe they are real people living in real situations in a real world. But they’re not! And neither is that voice of ego in the head, pretending to be worried, fearful, upset, hopeful, etc. It’s all an act. Egocentric karmic conditioning does not live in the real world. And neither does the person duped into giving over their attention and awareness to that fiction.)
To quote Shaw again, instead of being duped, we have the opportunity to be, “…a force of nature.” That’s what we can call the person who lives in attunement with life, acts on what life brings to do, makes course corrections as new information arises, enjoys, feels good, appreciates….a force of nature, an expression of Life.
Choice #1: feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. Choice #2: force of nature. The choice is ours and, blessedly, as soon as we decide to go with Choice #2, we know how to use that key and we know how to flip that switch!"
Gassho,
Cheri
I find this teacher's work to be sooooo instrumental in my practice, helping me to really hear on a deeper level the egoic voices, and to not buy into them. The website is www.livingcompassion.org, it will touch your heart. They help African children, have a free weekly internet radio program, support monastic and lay sangha, have an active social peace stewardship, hold retreats around the country, sell Cheri Huber's books, and other dharma materials.
Mariah
"The June 18, 2009, quote from Transform Your Life is, “Fear grows in darkness; if you think there’s a bogeyman around, turn on the light.” (Dorothy Thompson)
How easy it is for conditioned humans, believing the conversation in the head is life, to forget, to get talked out of knowing, that each of us can “turn on the light.” As soon as an individual learns it is possible to end suffering in this very lifetime, and begins to sit and to develop the ability to direct the attention, that person is no longer condemned to live in darkness, afraid of the bogeyman. Once you know what the switch looks like, where it’s located, how to use it, you’re free. The gift, the wonder, of being a human being is that we have the power to turn the lights on and live in illumination.
Last month we had a Precept’s retreat. During the week preceding the “commitment ceremony” we look carefully at just what it is we’re choosing for the rest of our lives. The Precepts are:
Not to lead a harmful life nor to assist others to do so.
Not to take that which is not given.
Not to commit or participate in unchaste conduct.
Not to tell lies nor practice believing the fantasies of authority.
Not to use intoxicating drinks or narcotics nor assist others to do so.
Not to publish other people’s faults.
Not to extol oneself and slander others.
Not to be avaricious in bestowal of the teachings.
Not to be angry.
Not to speak ill of this religion or any other.
And, for good measure, we have what are called the Three Pure Precepts:
The Precept of restraint and religious observances.
The Precept to obey all good laws.
The Precept to benefit all sentient beings.
At one point Jen suggested an Eleventh Precept:
Not to believe or participate in the conversation in the head.
Now that is a true “cut to the chase” strategy! Without that conversation in the head would there be any shoulds or blame or comparison or judgment? Isn’t that conversation there only to perpetuate self-hate and misery? Without the endless droning voices blocking out the light and drowning out the wisdom, a person would live in attunement with life, act on what life brings, make course corrections as new information arises, enjoy, feel good, appreciate….
Sounds manageable, eh? So, why don’t more people do it? Why isn’t it more popular? Doesn’t everyone want to slide in that key, unlock those chains, shrug free of the restraints, flip that light switch, and stroll smiling and humming into the sunset? The obvious answer is “no.”
Egocentric karmic conditioning, ego, the illusion of a self that is separate from life most assuredly does not want to live in peace, ease, appreciation and gratitude. Why? Because it cannot. An illusion of a self that is separate from life must have that illusory life in the past or in the future where there is an imaginary “something wrong” to fear, worry about, agonize over, regret, feel guilty about, be confused over, try to figure out—in a word, noodle. Ego has its fictitious life in a conversation in the head. (If that’s hard to follow, compare the imaginary life of ego to a movie. Those characters in the film, with all their joys, sorrows, triumphs and failures, much as they seem to be real, are not. We pretend they’re real, sometimes even get so caught up with them that we forget they’re not real. We identify with them, feel what they’re feeling—which of course they’re not—and for a while believe they are real people living in real situations in a real world. But they’re not! And neither is that voice of ego in the head, pretending to be worried, fearful, upset, hopeful, etc. It’s all an act. Egocentric karmic conditioning does not live in the real world. And neither does the person duped into giving over their attention and awareness to that fiction.)
To quote Shaw again, instead of being duped, we have the opportunity to be, “…a force of nature.” That’s what we can call the person who lives in attunement with life, acts on what life brings to do, makes course corrections as new information arises, enjoys, feels good, appreciates….a force of nature, an expression of Life.
Choice #1: feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. Choice #2: force of nature. The choice is ours and, blessedly, as soon as we decide to go with Choice #2, we know how to use that key and we know how to flip that switch!"
Gassho,
Cheri
I find this teacher's work to be sooooo instrumental in my practice, helping me to really hear on a deeper level the egoic voices, and to not buy into them. The website is www.livingcompassion.org, it will touch your heart. They help African children, have a free weekly internet radio program, support monastic and lay sangha, have an active social peace stewardship, hold retreats around the country, sell Cheri Huber's books, and other dharma materials.
Mariah
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