Sanctuary WEST

Break On Through

Sunday, July 24th, 2011

This Full Moon (Midwife Moon, on my calendar!) has been a gift. I met with my sacred community of women last weekend. It was healing, beautiful, nourishing, lovely. And even better, they all had the opportunity to meet each other. I am truly blessed with amazing friends. And this was only a few of them!

This week, also, my MCS skin allergy rash thing finally disappeared. I have a management plan that WORKS! It is such a relief to have my body back. And it turns out that New Seasons has a TON of lovely soaps with no actual soap and no sodium lauryl sulfate in them. (Two things the dermatologist wants me to avoid.) New Seasons also provided me with a wonderful alcohol-free lotion (tons of yummy ingredients in their Borage Butter Cream by Wild Carrot Herbals– and it feels all lovely going on), and a shampoo I actually look forward to using. My conditioner came from there, too, but all from different companies whose products I don’t find other places. And all free of sodium lauryl sulfate, and most other sulfides as far as I can tell. Which isn’t far.

And this week, many people have taken a few minutes to tell me what a difference I have made in their lives. I am myself every day, so I forget how important my work can be. (Especially when I’m not taking horrid medications that don’t actually help my rash. Which I’m glad to say, the treatment that works does NOT include horrid medications. So I’m back to normal.) I feel like my birthday came early because of all these great insights into how my healing work and Empathic Tarot readings have positively affected peoples’ lives. Lives I care very much about. One client even told me that she still refers to a Tarot Reading I gave her two or three years ago for insights and guidance. Wow.

So thank you. Thank you friends, thank you Dermatologist, thank you clients and even strangers whose lives I have touched– and from whom I learned so much about myself. Thank you Universe, and Great Something that fills everything with Energy. It has been an amazing week.

I’ve also had some insights about how I want to be more present in the world. How important it is to make the healing that I channel and the knowledge that I hold more available. For example, I have some great new workshop ideas. So I’ll be making some changes to my website (www.BeWellMedicine.com) over the next week to reflect those insights. I’ll definitely post a message here to let you know when the changes are done. (For now– I find that Change is one of the few constants.) Let me know what you think!

I hope you experience your own breakthroughs, your own moments of pure joy, your own feeling of having an important place to fill in your community, family, or work this summer. I hope you choose to share those moments with me. Happiness is contagious, you know!

Be Well.

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Gloriously Unintentional

Saturday, June 18th, 2011

Speaking of following your energy and making room in your life for unexpected bliss…  A few days ago, my partner and I drove the hour it takes to get to the nearest DMV. We do actually have a DMV in town, but it is only open from 10-1pm on Thursdays. And this was Friday. So we drove an hour to a larger town with a DMV that was open on Fridays. And we took our hiking gear so that we could stop on the way back at one of our favorite trails. I mean, seriously. It was sunny. It was warm. The birds were yapping at each other, and there were honey bees and flowers everywhere. Strangely, my partner also brought the book he’s currently reading.

But when we got to the scene of the crime (aka, the DMV), there was only one guy on duty, and he’d closed the DMV until 3:30 pm so he could give a series of driving tests that afternoon. So we spent about two minutes being totally bummed out, until we noticed a cute little used bookstore downtown. That’s when I suggested that he could grab his book, and I could find a used book to read (my summer vacation– a whole two weeks of it– had just started, after all), and we could meet up at the coffee shop next door– the one whose entire glass front opened like a garage door.

So we spent the next two hours sitting in the sun with some fairly good tea and a couple of really good books (Have you read “Farewell, My Subaru by Doug Fine? You should.), and managed to enjoy the afternoon anyway. Plus a really great view of a snow-covered mountain that we wouldn’t have seen on our hike.

At 3:30, when we went back up the hill to fetch a pail of water and see if the DMV was open yet, we discovered that this town actually boasts TWO DMV’s, and we needed to be at the other one. Which had been open all afternoon. To be honest, I’m thrilled that we made the mistake. I discovered a couple of great new books, got a suntan, drank tea, and got to hang out with my honey for two hours of quiet bliss. It’s one of the best mistakes we’ve made in a long time. Absolutely glorious.

The moral of the story is to look for opportunities and happy accidents, and not to assume that a change in your plan is automatically a terrible waste of time. Make room in your life for glorious accidents. Because no matter what, accidents and mistakes do happen. And sometimes, that’s a good thing.

Be Well.

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Building Trust

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

One of the keys to enjoying the life you have is trusting that it’s going to work out for the best. Your life. Even if you can’t quite see how it will– yet. But as you  learn to trust that as long as you listen, live with integrity, work hard, rest often, and love deeply, it all works out in the end… Well, you start to calm down about the challenges. There will always be challenges, you know. But sometimes the biggest challenges lead to the greatest joy. The best lifeway moments.

You find out that you have the skills, the resources, the resiliency to work through what comes, and emerge on the other side of that challenge as a better person with even more skills and abilities to help you face down the next challenge. And your belief in yourself and in the world grows just that much more. And you remember to breathe. It will be okay.

My favorite children’s book, by Crescent Dragonwagon, focuses on the same theme. A young child asks her mother, “Will it be okay?” and her mother says Yes. It will. Even if nobody likes the way you dance. Even if a dog barks at you. “But what if there is thunder and lightning?” she asks. And the Mother replies, “You see how special it is, because the loud thunder is calling you, saying: “Look, look! The world is receiving a deep long drink!”

There were a lot of books that my mom would read to me as a child– and a lot of them made her cry, which I thought was really silly at the time. But now, the little girl in my book says, “But what if you die?” And the Mother answers: “My loving doesn’t die. It stays with you… When you remember you and me, you say: What can I do with so much love? I will have to give some away.”

And of course, sometimes theses books make me cry now, too. Because I know how beautiful their teachings are, and I know how deeply Mother Earth loves her children– all of them– the Trees and the Birds and the Streams and Rivers and the animals who drink from those rivers. Even the people. We just have to learn to see that love doesn’t die. That there is enough love for all of us, and that we have to learn to give some away.

And as we love the Earth and are loved by her, we learn to trust that somehow, sometime, it will be okay.

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What Came of It All

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

A week ago, I made a Healing Bag for a friend of mine who was suffering from a lack of sleep– or more specifically, the sleep she got wasn’t at all restful. So I gathered my tools and a few special rocks and candles and string, and went to visit her bedroom. Together, we made a Healing Bag that grounded her sleep in the nourishing Earth, and that really focused in on enough sleep– safe and restful sleep.

It was wonderful to get a phone call from her a few days later– she’s sleeping better, and feeling better when she wakes up. I love hearing back from people I’ve worked with, and finding out what came of it all. (By the way, you can read more about my Healing Bags at www.BeWellMedicine.com.)

I had a similar experience this weekend. A Tarot Reading I did almost a year ago bore fruit. I had seen a new career in the arts, something that really inspired the person I was reading for. She felt she was going to live out her next few decades in her current career path. It turns out that a few months later, she fell in love with a new art medium, and is slowly transitioning from her old career to a new one– in the arts. And she is happier and more fulfilled at her new work than she ever was before. I’m so happy for her! And it’s always good to hear “what came of it all.”

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Friendship

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

This has been a distressing month for many of my friends. Everything from broken sleep to broken bones to broken dreams. And as I am able to share their pain, exhaustion, and courage… I realize again what a blessing good friends can be. I’m honored to be here now, witnessing life as each of these amazing men and women live it.

So today I’m ruminating about relationships.

There are many layers to our created communities. There are the folks we see on a regular basis. The folks we say “hi, how’s your family” to on the street. The folks we’re related to, and the folks we wish were our relatives because they are our chosen family. The strange part is that most of us give vast amounts of energy to maintaining an illusion of social intimacy with people who don’t care anything about us– but they love what we give them. Most of us work really hard to be there for hundreds of people who aren’t working hard to be there for us in return. And it’s exhausting.

The friends I’m supporting and spending my energy on this month are all part of my inner circle. They’ve been there for me, and we hold such a deep trust that we don’t really keep count. It all balances out. I have tons of acquaintances I love to see, and hear “how life is.” But I don’t pour all my energy into those relationships because they are part of my outer circle. Our connection just isn’t that deep. Maybe it works differently for you– maybe you have that extra energy to give. And that’s great. We all deserve love and support. But a true friendship requires a fairly balanced giving and receiving of gifts– time, energy, potluck dinners, talks over tea, running errands for you when you’re sick, etc.

Whatever life journey you are currently taking, Be Well. And appreciate your friends!

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A Moment of Understanding

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

After all that general talk about dementia, I thought I’d share a personal experience of mine. A few years ago, I was working as a “Comfort Keeper.” Someone who goes into an elder’s home and helps them keep some level of independence. We did everything from light housecleaning to running errands, bathing and personal care, dressing, feeding, lifting, you name it. We just couldn’t give medicines or take vital signs.

I spent the day with one of my favorite couples. “Linda” and “Fred.” Fred was living with the final stages of cancer, and of Alzheimer’s. This meant he couldn’t speak, couldn’t really walk, couldn’t use the toilet without support and direction, couldn’t eat much, and spent most of his time in a big easy chair in the living room. Believe it or not, Fred actually seemed pretty content. He’d get some protein shake in his morning ice cream. He’d get a few mashed up pills in his apple sauce. He’d sit quietly while you buttoned his shirt. And I’d convince him to drink a little water now and then. He even had sole control of the TV remote, which we’d programmed to flip between his three favorite channels. And he had his wife Linda there with him.

On this particular day, we’d called in Hospice. They had scheduled a male nurse to help Fred with his weekly bath, and we had an appointment with another nurse to visit the house for Fred’s initial hospice evaluation so they’d know what other help he might need at this stage. It was pretty much beyond what a normal “Comfort Keeper” was able to handle. And of course, everyone showed up on the same day, at the same time, with tight schedules, lots of loud voices, confusion, and right when I needed to give Fred a clean diaper and make him more comfortable.

It took about fifteen minutes to get it all sorted out and get Fred re-clothed and back in his easy chair. It took another twenty minutes to get his wife, Linda, calm again after all the noise and people and excitement. In the midst of Linda’s very vocal concerns about Fred, her worry about all the people and the messy scheduling and what was Hospice going to do anyway, and she didn’t want Fred to be upset, and– I looked over at Fred. He was watching Linda with a little smile on his face. He glanced at me and I caught his eye, and we grinned at each other. We both loved Linda, and were sitting through Linda’s “mother-hen” litany of concerns with tolerance and humor. And in that moment, it didn’t matter that Fred couldn’t talk, didn’t interact with what was going on, couldn’t hold his own spoon, and didn’t like to have me (a female and a stranger) in the room when his diaper got changed.

We had communicated the tolerance and understanding that love brings to lasting relationships– on a deep nonverbal level. Fred loved Linda, and Linda’s worry was a part of her, so Fred loved that, too. With humor and tolerance. I had listened to what Fred had to teach me, and because of that moment, I will always think of my time with Fred and Linda as one of the greatest gifts in my life.

So even though your relationship and your responsibilities will change when someone you love is living with dementia– don’t give up. There is buried treasure there. I know it’s often painful and exhausting. But all that hard work makes those moments of beauty even more important. More precious. Keep listening. The most important of life’s lessons are heard with the heart.

Be Well.

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