Archive for the ‘Staci Says…’ Category

Collaging… with SAND!

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

So I spent a day at the beach last weekend. It was amazing– warm for October, and we kept not-quite getting rained on. In fact, there were definite glimpses of SUN. Pretty awesome, really. We definitely lucked out. And even better, my friend and I each separately decided to bring collaging materials, just in case.

And since we were both so very prepared (except the glue. Only one glue. For two very focused collagers. Not so helpful, really.)… we collaged. And I mean, we did some deep inner work, and then started cutting out images that struck us as related to our intention for the collage. And then we went and had a really yummy rice-pasta-and-tomato-bean-sauce meal (gluten-free!), and a walk on the beach (sand!), and then… we did some serious gluing. And realized that we had the fixings for about six collages between us.

Hers was all about the wonderful things her life COULD include, if she let it. Mine was all about my sense of home– the home I yearn for. And my other one was about what I offer (or will offer) to the world through my lifework. As much time as I’ve spent THINKING about the Healing Sanctuary space I eventually want to build, and the buildings and grounds and forest paths and bird feeders and the commercial kitchen and organic herb gardens etc etc that I want in that space– it was so nice to have the INTENTION of my life work visually represented like that. Because the intention is to create a healing retreat space, and then to retreat into it as much as I can. Another opportunity for my clients to come to me for healing– instead of me going to them. Only in a completely safe and supportive healing space. Right down to home-grown organic meals, filtered water, and glorious abundance. It’s quite a goal– and I hope you’ll be there to celebrate the opening with me someday.

And if you should ever get to Level 3 of The Self-Centering Woman workshop series, I’ll help you create your own collage of a beautiful life yet to be lived. Your life, imagined in color. Beautiful. There’s something about having a visual representation of a life-goal or an intentional life-way, a representation that is in the real world, that holds amazing power to call those possibilities into being. Beautifully.

Be Well.

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Going Green the Mother Earth Way

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

I’ve been working to pull together a workshop on Green Living for about six months now. But it never felt quite READY, so I haven’t actually offered these workshops. And now that I know what I’m doing, I’ve got some serious updating to do on my website. www.BeWellmedicine.com

At first, I had a series of four workshops that functioned as an intro to all things Green– food, cleaning & furnishing a home, building green, etc. But I realized that the folks most likely to attend such a workshop probably already had their intro years ago… So then I added a fifth workshop on the Spiritual element of Green Living… which was more exciting to teach than the other four combined.

And finally, it hit me. I’ve done a ton of research on going green, but it’s become relevant to my life in the past few months because I’ve been struggling with new food allergies and new chemical sensitivities. And as a result I HAVE to go green. From my perspective, its as though Mother Earth decided that if I was going to be serious about protecting the Earth (it’s the only one we’ve got), I’d better live my life by Her standards. Clean UV-filtered water. Local organic produce. No artificial preservatives. No artificial fabrics, either. Natural cleaners and soaps and detergents. And I’m purchasing a cotton-filled Thai Massage floor mat as my new “bed,” because my regular bed gives me hives.That’s the easy stuff.

So, finally, I know what the workshop series is supposed to be about.
I’ll be offering this series for the first time in January/February of 2012:
The Mother Earth Way. And we’ll talk about food and allergies and health. We’ll explore resources and alternatives for folks with chemical sensitivities (or who want to avoid getting them!). And we’ll talk about the building and decorating materials in your home and your furniture that are slowly poisoning you– and what to do about it all– on almost any budget. This is my offering to the Earth, so I’m asking $20/workshop –which is a total steal– the fees cover the basic space and materials for the workshop. While my other workshops might make your life more worthwhile, this series will keep you alive long enough to do that.

And instead of pretending that all this is separate from my real life, I’m making it personal. This is about what I’ve learned, what I’ve tried, and why– and that includes my responsibility as one of Earth’s Protectors. It’s about my physical health, my mental health, my emotional health– and my spiritual health. And now, through The Mother Earth Way workshops, it’s about your health, too. I hope you’ll join me in January.

Be Well.

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On Gluten (or how to get off it)

Saturday, October 29th, 2011

By popular request, I’m writing more about gluten intolerance, food issues, and resources.

In one of the many books I borrowed from my local library, when I realized I was probably seriously gluten intolerant, I found this list (and it explained a lot!):

Foods or Food Labeling Terms that Indicate or Suggest the Presence of Gluten

  • Barley starch
  • Binder
  • Bran
  • Bulgur, cracked wheat
  • Caramel color
  • Cereal
  • Cereal Protein
  • Couscous
  • Dextrin (unless derived from corn, potato, arrowroot, rice, or tapioca)
  • Durum wheat
  • Emuslifier
  • Fillers
  • Flour (unless made with pure rice flour, corn flour, potato flour, or soy flour)
  • Hydrolyzed plant protein (HPP) (unless derived from soy or corn)
  • Hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) (unless derived from soy or corn)
  • Kamut
  • Malt or malt flavoring (unless derived from corn)
  • Malted barley
  • Maltodextrin (unless derived from cornstarch or potato starch)
  • Maltose
  • Modified food starch (unless arrowroot, corn, potato, or tapioca)
  • Monoglycerides or diglycerides
  • Natural flavoring (THIS ONE REALLY MAKES ME MAD– ITS IN EVERYTHING!)
  • Oat bran
  • Oat germ
  • Oatmeal (rolled oats) (AND GLUTEN-FREE DOESN’T ALWAYS HELP!)
  • Pearl barley
  • Rusk
  • Rye starch
  • Semolina
  • Stabilizer
  • Thickener
  • Triticale (a grain crossbred from wheat and rye)
  • Vegetable gum (except carob bean gum, locust bean gum, cellulose gum, guar gum {which some folks are unable to do anyway}, gum arabic, gum aracia, gum tragacanth, or xanthan gum)
  • Vegetable starch

And then came a whole page of food products that are likely to have one or more of these glutenous ingredients in it… It’s a very depressing list, really. It includes pretty much all condiments and salad dressings or marinades, nearly all canned soups, and most low-fat or flavored cottage cheese, shredded cheese, yogurt, ice cream, processed or american cheese products, candy, etc.

Also, “The Gluten Connection” is a great book that talks about a wide variety of diseases and disorders of the mind and body that have been scientifically shown to have a significant relationship with gluten sensitivity and celiac’s disease. ADHD comes to mind. Bloating. I’ve actually had a much easier time fitting into last year’s jeans since I got off gluten. And I don’t skip any meals, either. Skin irritations, adult acne, etc etc. Osteoperosis, too. Which I started developing at a very young age. Because if your body can’t process wheat or gluten, and you eat it anyway, it keeps your small intestine from absorbing most of your food’s nutrients. So you may eat really well, and still be horribly nutritionally deficient.

Check it out. And…
Be Well.

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Inner Workings

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

Basically, the cost of being highly sensitive (as in: empathic, oracle-like, intuitive, etc) is that I’m sensitive in ALL areas of my life. Which is a pain in the ass, really. But when I think about the healing work I’m able to do in the world since I’ve been working to embrace my sensitivity, I think it’s a fair trade.

This month, that has been the weight of my personal inner work. I am working to accept just how sensitive I am –and thus how unique my healing and shamanic/channeling gifts are in the world. It’s scary to become visible to the world at this level, I think. For all of us. To have your personal abilities become relevant, publicly. At one point, I told a friend that the things I’m having to acknowledge that I do– well, they’re things I attribute to the ancient Oracles and Healers of Delphi. The wisemen and wisewomen who live like hermits in stone temples on some distant mountain peak, waiting to be consulted. In Greece. Or Switzerland. Or some kingdom that stopped existing thousands of years ago. I do not attribute these abilities to the modern stumblings of Staci. In the Gorge.

And my wise friend said, “Don’t you want to open a Healing Sanctuary on some mountain near Hood River? It’s just a different mountain.”  Umm. I guess I need to get over my insecurities and get on with my lifework, then. After all, my lifework has nothing to do with soothing (or boosting) my ego. I’m on a mission from God, to quote the Blues Brothers.

And why does it matter? This acknowledging just how big and impressive my gifts, skills, and support system are? Well– I believe in taking personal responsibility for my actions. And I need to know exactly what I’m capable of, and how those skills (etc) might effect the people around me, so that I can BE responsible for my actions. So that I can take appropriate actions. Especially when it comes to my healing work. I channel a lot of Knowledge, and a lot of Energy. Doing so with integrity and awareness is rather important.

I actually hurt somebody once, a while back, giving them a major Chakra Energy Healing that they weren’t actually ready for. They hadn’t finished the personal work that would allow Energy to flow appropriately in that Chakra. It hurt her, what I did by unblocking and realigning the energies in her body… and I had to undo it. Everything in its own time. I am not the expert. I am the Listener. The Channel for something much greater than I will ever be.

And so, while it is easy to honor and appreciate the amazing strength and Energy and presence of All-That-Is and the Great Something, who manages it all (which I connect into, and channel for the well-being of my clients), it is much harder to acknowledge that I carry this rare and extreme gift for channeling, listening/seeing, interpreting, and healing. To acknowledge myself and what I can do as significant. And not just to myself, but significant in the world. And to do so with a humility that recognizes how much spiritual support I have, to be given such a gift. And how much bigger the Great Something is, bigger than I will ever be. Thank goodness.

I’m telling you this, hoping that you will not compare yourself to me. Hoping instead that you will find the courage to see your special skills and gifts, and to acknowledge your own significance in the world. Find the courage to be seen –and to see yourself– as you truly are, at your best. Wow.

Be Well, Wonderful You!
With Gratitude,
Staci B.

| Posted in Blessings, Staci Says... | 1 Comment »

October TripleThreat

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

Where’d the month go??!

For the past few weeks I’ve been focused on three things:
–Doing some much-needed inner work.
–The new workshops and consults I’ve offered this month.
–The rash on my forehead that won’t go away.

Of course, I’ve been eating gluten every day, so that I could finally get the gluten-sensitivity testing done. Maybe the rash isn’t such a mystery after all. And boy-howdy does gluten hide in SO MANY RIDICULOUS PLACES!  …like M&Ms… And vanilla yogurt. And well, anything marked “Natural Flavor” on the ingredients list. Sigh.

In fact, discovering that I’m allergic to basically all preservatives (nitrates and sulfides), and highly sensitive to gluten in all it’s insidious forms, has really been life-changing from a dietary perspective. No more pre-made foods. No more eating french fries and no deli meats. No canned soups. No cheap yogurt. No more Nuttella, either (since I’m also apparently allergic to Hazel Nuts!). No bread. No salad dressings and no sauces or marinades, unless I make them myself– from raw ingredients. Our new, expanded, raw-foods-only grocery bill has also been life-changing.

Did I mention that I’m finally admitting that my skin is unhappily sensitive to polyester and nylon, too? No cozy fleece sweatshirts for me this winter. No UnderArmor long-johns. No dress pants, either, unless they’re linen or something else straight from the earth-plant. Because, oh-yeah, I’m also allergic to wool and lanolin. And rayon. etc. So I’m wearing my all-cotton clothing quite frequently these days, and enjoying the sudden lack of skin irritation in my world.

Basically, the cost of being highly sensitive (as in: empathic, oracle-like, intuitive, etc) is that I’m sensitive in ALL areas of my life. Including what I put into my body, and what I put onto my body, and where I live (city, country, neighbors, building materials, you name it). And when I think about the healing work I’m able to do in the world since I’ve been working to embrace my sensitivity, I think it’s a fair trade.

That’s October for you. And for me. And I must say, I’ve cooked some really awesome meals as a result of these new restrictions. In fact, the restrictions actually mean I HAVE TO EAT REALLY GOOD FOODS. And I GET TO SPEND TIME CRAFTING TRULY DELICIOUS MEALS FROM SCRATCH. And also, I HAVE TO BUY CLOTHING WITH A CONSCIENCE. It makes me very happy, really, because these are the foods and clothing I prefer. Though the three bags of dried fruit (from our home food dryer, since I can’t do sulpher) were a bit excessive last week… Spent a lot of time running to the potty with all that fiber running through me. Live and learn, I guess.

More about October’s inner work tomorrow, since it’s what I really intended to write about when I sat down…
Be Well.

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Being a Seer

Monday, October 3rd, 2011

This weekend, among the client appointments and workshops I facilitated in Portland, I had a moment of coming face to face with my own abilities. I think that most of us have a hard time admitting what we are good at, acknowledging our strengths and our gifts, recognizing our uniqueness. We ask someone else to help us craft a resume because we don’t know what to say about ourselves, and we list only the “how-to” skills needed under each official job title.

I’m certainly one of those number on most days. And because of my willingness to deny my own unique strengths, I almost avoided becoming a Life Coach, and developing my gifts as a Seer, all together. What a loss that would have been– for mySelf, and for the people I work with. This weekend, just for an hour, I saw my gifts through someone else’s eyes. And then I had to face my fears, because what I saw scared me.

I’m at a point in my development where I am so grateful for the gifts, skills, and experiences that have contributed to my life and my lifepath. My responsibility is to keep growing, keep healthy, and use what I know, what I see, and what I am capable of doing and undoing, respectfully and with great integrity. It’s a level of responsibility that worries me. I’m only human, after all. And I sometimes make mistakes.

You see, I’m at a point where I can sit in sacred space with a client, and tell them about their own life challenges, the physical and emotional issues they’re still dealing with, the energy blocks and personal strengths they exhibit, and I offer insights about what they can do about it all. Sometimes, I see this deeply into people who aren’t even in the room with us– demystifying my client’s relationships and unfinished business with the dead, and with people who live in other parts of the world (including the partner who just stayed home to watch TV tonight). Sometimes I know what a person needs to hear so that they can stop the old unhealthy tapes in their head, and see the beauty of their world as it really is. I actually carry a box of kleenex with me to appointments these days, because the people I work with are facing deep life-shifts and deep healing and deep pain. They cry. A cleansing rain of tears that nourishs new and healthy growth in their lives.

For me, this is my lifepath. It’s what I do and who I am, and it’s a normal part of my daily life. It just is. I just am. But for the woman who stayed after the workshop this weekend, and asked me what I could See when I looked at her… She was grateful for what I could tell her, but it scared her and shook her that my Sight and my connection to All-That-Is was so strong. She’d never encountered anything like my gift before. She’d never been Seen so clearly.

I don’t want to be scary. I don’t want to be a frightening person, kept at arm’s length and watched like some changeling in human form. Coming face-to-face with the reality of how different my abilities are, and how wonderfully healing and powerful, and how frightening… It was hard for me to see that. To acknowledge it.

And so when the woman and her friend opened their wide eyes at me, and said “You are so amazing! I can’t believe anyone can do that! It was amazing, what you saw! How could you know any of that?!” … and I looked at them in bemusement and said, “Huh. I guess it was kind of amazing.” They just laughed at me and hugged me, that I could not know how wild and shattering and insanely unique my Sight is. “Kind of!” they laughed at my apparent understatement. And I smiled back, accepting that my normal is not really that normal. Safe Space. For me and for them. I don’t want to be a monster.

I just want to be a healing presence in the world.
And I encourage you– look at the reality of your many skills, strengths, and gifts. You are wonderful and unique, too. Embrace what is normal for you– because I gaurantee that someone else finds what you can do completely outside their experience. Respect yourself. Value yourself. And recognize just how much you have to offer the world. It would be such a loss to the world if you kept your best Self hidden away because you were too afraid of admitting your gifts to develop them.

Be Well.

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Making Peace with Money

Saturday, October 1st, 2011

I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent most of my life dreaming that one day I’ll be a millionaire, while at the same time hating money. Or rather, I saw money as a symbol of corrupted power, and having money made me uncomfortable. It may even have been a class thing– Being part of the educated-but-poor class who stick our  noses in the air because we value something more meaningful than money.

It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with my own worth– and I’m not done yet. But I do want to share a couple of resources that have helped me redefine my values in relation to money, and change my fear of having money into an acceptance that money itself– like any tool or resource– is only as healthy or corrupted as the person utilizing it (or hoarding it). Actual dollar bills? They’re green. As in Heart Chakra green. And the more money I save up (or earn in the first place), the larger my financial resources to make positive changes in my community– and in the world.

In February, I’m offering a workshop that includes some aspects of this “coming to terms with money” process: Outcome Management; A Year of Changes. If you know someone who is struggling to manage their home business, failing to recognize their own value, or simply in need of a way to align what they believe with how they do business– consider joining me in Portland for Outcome Management.

Additional Resources I’ve found Helpful:

  • Making Peace with Money, by Jerrold Mundis
  • Walking in This World (sequel to The Artist’s Way), by Cameron
  • Your Money or Your Life!, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin
  • Little House on a Small Planet, by Salomon
  • Full Moon Feast, by Jessica Prentiss

Work Well. Live Well. Be Well.

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Where’d the Month Go???

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

You know, I thought I was only a week behind, but I finally have something interesting to share, and here it’s been forever since I posted! Grargh!

I agree with all of you– critical mass can sometimes be a health hazard. And yet… When I realize that Critical Mass is the calling card of life-shifts, I discover that it’s easier to hang on by my fingernails for a little longer. Because I  know something wonderful is coming.

Here’s some seasonal poetry that came to me this morning… Along with a sudden frost and some wilty tomato plants…

Autumn Harvest
Glorious the air, and more so the sky, as cold nights crisp
our breath and warm sun soothes our aches at midday.
Rain washes clean the Earth.
Winter is coming. Winter is coming.

Be Well.

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Favorite Books…

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

Here, briefly and incompletely, is a list of my favorite books. I’m sharing because I just reorganized them on my shelf (after spending about an hour yesterday reading about how clutter helped invent penicillin– see book A Perfect Mess) and remembered all over again that I have a lot of really awesome books.

  • This is Just to Say: Poems of apology and forgiveness; by Joyce Sidman
  • Where Cats Meditate; by David Baird
  • Truth In Dating; by Susan M. Cambell
  • Micro Eco-Farming; by Barbara Berst Adams
  • A Handbook of Chakra Healing; by Govinda
  • Wisdomkeepers: Meetings with Native American Spiritual Elders; collected by Steve Wall and Harvey Arden
  • Full Moon Feast; by Jessica Prentiss
  • The Gluten Connection; by Shari Lieberman
  • The Chalice & The Blade; by Riane Eisler
  • Seven Whispers: A spiritual practice for times like these; by Christina Baldwin
  • Walking In The World: The practical art of creativity; by Julia Cameron (author of The Artist’s Way)

And so very many more.

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The Threshold of Change

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

** (I warn you now– you are about to have a very personal encounter with the way my brain works when it isn’t working. Seriously. Maybe you should just skip to the next posting. Or else, laugh with me about this one, because it turned into a perfect and very harmless example of exactly what I wanted to talk about in the first place. Awesomely weird, the way things workout, isn’t it?) **

Dictionary.com says this about one’s threshold for change:

Main Entry: tipping point
Part of Speech: n
Definition: the culmination of a build-up of small changes that effects a big change

There are also several references to a book by that title, whose focus is on epidemics. But maybe someday there will be an epidemic of compassion, respect, and downsizing. I think it’s important to hope for that, anyway. That itself –holding onto hope for something better– seems to be a revolutionary act these days.

And the free dictionary.com’s thesaurus explains that culmination is “To bring to the point of greatest intensity.”

Now, if only I could remember the term that I always use to talk about the frustration that happens RIGHT BEFORE you’ve already made your big change, and are coming down the far side of culmination mountain… sigh…

I even pulled out my pre-production copy of A Perfect Mess, by Eric Abrahamson and David H Freedman (one of my all-time favorite books), hoping that this concept I’m trying to remember had been discussed by name. No dice.

Precipice, brink, maximum insanity, tipping point. Seriously. No bells going off in my head here. WHAT IS THAT PHRASE?!

The phrase that eludes me (for the moment– I’m sure I’ll remember it as soon as I hit “publish” on this blog post) describes the stage we reach when we are making a change, packing up a house, doing something difficult and messy… RIGHT BEFORE we can tell that it’s starting to get clean, organized, changed. Maximum something.

Anyway, the original point of this post was to talk about how frustrating and chaotic and hopeless we can feel when we are working to make big changes in our lives, but we can’t tell that the change has taken effect yet. And usually, that point of utter frustration comes RIGHT BEFORE we start to see a glimmer of hope, an affect for all that effort we’ve been putting in.

What’s really amazing about this point that we reach– the point where you really want to just wash your hands of the whole thing, and walk away in disgust (which is how I’m feeling about this phrase just now)– is that if we just push through or hold on for a little longer, we’ll be there… And that’s the crazy part. It’s hard to see change until it’s nearly done. So when that glimmer finally appears, it’s time to relax– you’re 90% there. In fact, I’ve learned to celebrate even that point of frustration before the glimmer. Because I know that being that frustrated and insane about it means I’m really close to the breakthrough I want. Or the clean, organized space that I pulled everything off the shelves to achieve.

CRITICAL MASS.

Yes. Finally! And once you reach that point of Critical Mass– which is the point RIGHT BEFORE everything explodes (or at least, big changes become more and more obvious after that point)… and tip over that threshold… The threshold of CRITICAL MASS… It’s amazing to discover that you’ve already done most of the hard work, and there’s just a bit of reinforcing and maybe some final dusting left to do.

So don’t give up if you are at this point of frustration where you just want to pull out your hair and run screaming into traffic. Because, really, it means you’ve nearly reached critical mass. You’re more than half-way there. And if you can just hold on a little longer, things are going to start getting better. Really.

I really believe we can make it. Critical Mass is coming. Even to me.
Be Well.

| Posted in Staci Says... | 2 Comments »

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