The Gift of Dis-ease

There is a new age belief that illness is a gift because it causes you to discover something deeper about yourself.  What of those people who never do discover something deeper about themselves through illness.  Some people simply resent illness unto death.  It takes diving into the knot of illness with the light of consciousness to be able to receive the “gift.”  I see disease as portions of one’s full being—spirit, soul, emotions—going unlived (energy that is not being allowed its fullest expression because of some twist, some contortion or tension, that has settled into the body, pinching off, cauterizing the life force).  Perhaps that disease has a name—cancer, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis—or perhaps it is simply a malaise with no name.   What if one was to dive into that knot, that unlived portion of self, with the light of sensate awareness and of acceptance.  What if one was to witness that energy pattern bound and suffering, like a small wounded and scared animal, confined in a dark and lonely place.  What if one brought comfort and compassion to that creature; released it out to the fresh air, gave it the nourishment of loving-kindness.  It could thrive, and that would be the gift.   This is how one can deeply heal; how one can begin to live those elements of wholeness, which had gone unlived, hidden from the light of life.  In welcoming those aspects back into livability, back into life, the knot with the disease name untangles, and the energy that had been bound up in the knot is now available to life.   This is how I understood the message of Blue Heron of my last post—“Heron medicine is the power of knowing the self by discovering its gifts and facing its challenges. It is the ability to accept all feelings and opinions without denying emotion or thought . . .”

 

Annie and the Blue Heron

I listened to Donna Eden talk about energy medicine this afternoon.  She’d healed herself from MS after the doctors had told her to get her affairs in order—she was going to die.  She started out by simply holding her leg and patiently being present with herself.  She began to see the energy her body was made of and realized she had the power to heal herself. (She was born with the gift of clairvoyance.)

I sat listless thinking about doing her energy routine to try to get my own energy going.  I’ve had next to no energy for a long time with another type of autoimmune dis-ease.  Tai chi/chi gong helps me maintain a life but lately I’ve felt my energy simply slipping away despite my practice.

But how do I even get started without energy.  Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is a metaphor of courage and fortitude but courage and fortitude require some degree of energy.  It all feels impossible without some kind of help.  I need an “other” to help leverage some degree of movement to get started.

Annie’s been hanging out here this morning and now the clouds are clearing, the sun is shining, it is cold and windy, but the mud is dried.  I head outside to the laundry room and Annie gets excited—a walk.  No Annie, just the laundry.  But she insists—a walk. And before my enervated resistance can shut the idea down I realize she is the instant answer to my, as it were, prayer for help.

Annie moves into we’re going for a walk mode.  Her tail is wagging her body, and she’s making sounds that if she had the kind of mouth that could form words would be saying, “Come on Hannah, you said you need more energy.” So I get my Uggs on and wrap myself up against the wind and move listlessly out to the meadow behind my house, where there are a couple long man made ponds.  Annie is excited and she keeps checking up on me to make sure I’m keeping up with her.  We walk to the end of the first long pond and walk up the slope of the berm that contains it.  Annie’s found some luscious dried horseshit to roll in (I’m sure there is something homeopathic or healing about horse shit, because dogs always love to roll in it).

Suddenly I hear a splash and then a whoosh of air. I look up and see a great blue heron taking off for the other end of the pond.  I’ve never seen one here before. Annie sniffs around a bit while I do one of Donna Eden’s exercises (raising my hands to the sky and feeling that I am touching heaven).  Then we walk the trail toward the other end.  As we approach the heron’s hiding spot it takes off again away from us.

Here is what the “Medicine Cards” by Jamie Sams and David Carson says about Blue herons: “Heron medicine is the power of knowing the self by discovering its gifts and facing its challenges. It is the ability to accept all feelings and opinions without denying emotion or thought . . .

I know that my body is not independent of my feelings and thoughts.  The natural and spiritual worlds seem to be answering my conundrum about self-healing by telling me to go deeper inward.

Deer in the Headlights

Annie is squeezed in next to my computer on my lap, her front legs and chest on the chair, her big brown eyes looking into mine. She has a little black muzzle with down turned lips and sometimes her upper lip gets hung up on a tooth which makes me laugh—she’s a natural clown. She’s the most respectful creature I’ve ever known. She just wants to give love and is never demanding. She does like her tummy rubbed and her little carrots. That’s our sacred ritual. She shows up at my door in the morning after her mom leaves for work. She’d rather be with someone than be alone. Dogs are pack animals. Solitude bores an unquenchable black hole in their hearts.

Not solitude but loneliness is a truckload of meaninglessness in my heart also. Alone, I look to an unfathomable future and feel like a deer in the headlights. Deer eyes are designed for the night, for darkness; the brightness of headlights blinds them. Their instinct says, ‘unknown possible threat, freeze.’ But headlights are not mountain lions or even hunters dressed in kaki camouflage clothing. And freezing is the exact wrong response when a truck is approaching at 60 mph.

The future of this planet is an unknown possible threat. Our senses and sensibilities are not gauged for what we are likely to encounter. Autoimmune disease is a perfect example. The best explanation I’ve read for this strange anomaly is this: Our immune system evolved over millions of years to defend us from bacteria, noxious plants, scratches, insect bites, and parasites. In the past half-century chemicals, electronic pollution, and elements that did not evolve along with us have bombarded our bodies. Our immune systems, responding instinctively, have become overtaxed to the point of utter confusion so that they are now attacking themselves, and in a state of exhaustion.

Probabilities for our future are as foreign to natural human instinct as truck headlights are to deer. I feel the world’s challenge as my own. Yet here I sit, frozen, not knowing what action is necessary to move toward a personal or collective future.

My closest friend had a dream. There was some kind of apocalyptic chaos, engulfed by pain and sickness. She stood before a crowd of people. She was called to speak to them but overcome by the rabble and confusion she fainted. I was there as another part of her. She needed me to say something to quell the tumult. But what can I say. The only thing I’m sure of is the love of a four-legged being who comes to visit me when she is alone. So pure, so true, no agenda, just her natural inclination to not be alone. The times I’ve seen deer leap across the road and not freeze was when there was more than one. Together they glean from one another the correct action for survival.

Dichotomies and the Perennial Philosophy

I was employed several years ago as personal assistant to a lovely elderly gentleman. He was capitalizing a research project to create a vaccine for AIDS.  At the same time I was a supporter of the Yurko Project, http://www.freeyurko.bizland.com/.  A group of international doctors and anti vaccine proponants had gathered around this cause.  Alan Yurko had been falsely accused of murdering his infant son.  In the hearings I attended it became clear that the baby had died of complications created by infant vaccines and other medical malpractice.

My spiritual practice enabled me to suspend judgment, to hold these two polarities in complement to each other.  Though my employer would sometimes be dismissive of my interest in the Yurko project, he was a truly good man who cared for his family and friends in practical ways.  He was not a patriarchal controlling figure but generously honored the individuality and autonomy of his grown children and friends.

We’ve remained friends and recently I received an email from him saying he wants to support my kickstarter project, not because he agrees with my philosophy but because he believes in freedom of expression.  In my new endeavors into the world of blogging I find a headline, a conversation will prompt a written expression.  And then I move on.  So I’m not sure what he read that caused the differing opinion.

Of course it could be about my relationship to Jesus Christ, expressed in Chapter 0 of my excerpts.  He is Jewish and I’m experiencing a kind of barrier to Jesus among some Jewish family and friends.  As if the name itself is a foul word.  There has been so much corruption around that particular life, creating much polarization.

The core truth of my personal philosophy is revealed in the following excerpt from my book, “Love on the Brink of History.”  Whatever I might espouse in a given moment vis-à-vis the realm of politics or society,  I hold the following truth about Love to be the most essential aspect of my philosophy and of life.

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On December 28, 1994, Jan telephoned from Oslo.  His friend Qvell had hung on to life all these months and now was approaching his death—he was in a partial coma.

“He goes in and out of consciousness,” Jan said, speaking through his sorrow and acceptance.  “He told me, yesterday when he was present that he is traveling through many mysteries and that I am always there with him.  He said that coming back to his body is like sucking wide open space into an excruciating contraction.”  Jan was silent for a moment.  I said nothing.  We listened together to the long-distance hum of the telephone.  Finally, punctuating the stream of thought that had gone unspoken, Jan said, “What we thought were his weaknesses, turned out to be his strengths.”  He talked a little about that and then said, “Tonight, just before he went back into the coma, he looked deeply into my eyes.  I felt a deep soul connection with him.  He said, ‘Jan you must always remember. . . Only love and the acts of love matter’.”

Continued in Excerpts from the Book

Thank you Kickstarter Supporters

Thank you friends who pledged to my Kickstarter project.  Though it did not meet the goal I am forging ahead with other publishing options and will keep you posted as to further developments.

Contemplation with Our Lady of Guadalupe

I haven’t believed in God for about ten years.  The whole idea baffles me.  I know prayers are answered.  I see that for other people and I experience it myself.  What is it that answers prayers?

About four years ago I was sitting in my hot tub out on the mesa, looking up at the vast dark velvet blanket of sky, pinholes of light–billions and billions–going on forever.  This vastness felt deeply personal.  I knew beyond doubt I belong to it; we are related; I am in it and it is in me.  But that recognition didn’t ignite any belief in God.  What “belief” is—something the mind creates, and the concept  “God” (also something the mind creates) both seem too small.

This last week I was gifted with a lucid dream.  I was shown how the cosmos is a jumble of chaos when the mind is so.  When the mind is a tangled morass of emotions, random thoughts, uncultivated feelings, uncultivated . . . The cosmos is also.

When the mind, psyche, comes to evenness, like turning a wild random plot of weeds into an artistic garden, the cosmos resonates with that artistry.  And then there is reciprocity—between my will and the cosmos’ response.

I want to hold the intent each day to settle my psyche.  To plant this intention earnestly in my heart, bringing it to a still point, allowing the cosmos to reflect and reciprocate.  I want this not just for my own benefit but for the safety and freedom of women everywhere.

 

Where are you now Tesla?

It’s warming up a bit here in Taos, New Mexico, though a friend just told me she heard a report that Arctic weather is on its way.  We have had a natural gas outage for days—something to do with rolling blackouts in Texas.  Interesting that our new governor, who is funded by Texas oil and gas interests, has the loss of Texas natural gas be her first state emergency.  And she can’t really explain the “natural” cause of it.  This could cause a panic reaction by the state legislature to approve drilling for natural gas in the state of New Mexico?  That is her stated agenda.  She wants to get rid of filmmaking, which brings jobs and creativity to the state, and replace it with arcane forms of greed and arrogance—money for the big guys.

I’m on propane and we have a full tank (shared among the four tenants of this casita complex), but a lot of people in town have been without hot water or heat.  A lot of businesses are closed.  The gas company has been working on restoring the main lines and they’ve called gas experts from all over the country to come and help.  They have to go to each house and business to turn the meters and pilot lights back on.  I’m feeling pretty grateful, basking in the luxury of hot water and a working stove.

Nature lets us know who really is boss.  And yet she is perfectly willing to play, when we play fair.  I can’t help but think of the arrogance imposed when J.P. Morgan destroyed Nicolas Tesla’s research because there was no place to put the meter.  The human race was poised, thanks to Tesla’s brilliant inventions, to have free power for all.  Imagine a world that doesn’t have to create wars and artificial crisis for the sake of survival.  Benjamin Franklin captured the power of nature for the betterment of humankind and nature was agreeable.  The gods of greed and arrogance pinch off that flow from heaven for personal gain.  As the British say, it’s just not cricket.