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Into WEEK 3 of The Artist's Way book: A Spiritual Path To Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. This course is about discovering and recovering your creative self. My way good friend, Jane, suggested to her circle of friends that we all embark on this 12 week course on our own, just to all be doing it in honor of the power of a group intent. I don't know who all of Jane's circle is doing it, it's not about us all having dialog and emails over our progress or thoughts about it. I know Jane is doing it, I know I am doing it.
I've read this book through and have done the exercises before. In fact, I had to search for the book in order to do it again. So here we are at WEEK 3. I dutifully write the 'morning pages' everyday, because, well, I write in my journal every morning any way and have since I can remember. I usually brew up my ritual cup of steaming jo with frothed half and half, sit in my comfy chair, sip and write. This is my morning routine that has started my day for a long time.
This morning was different. OK, so it's a full moon and the Autumnal Equinox. Things are shifting, but then again, when AREN'T things shifting in this universe? We all are, after all, living on dirt plates floating around on a sphere of water that is spinning in an orbit that is orbiting around a sun that is orbiting around a galaxy that is orbiting around God knows what else. So, yeah, I have a cup of coffee to get grounded. Silly, huh?
As I was saying though, this morning's pages were different. I woke up because there were all types of wildlife critter sounds outside my yurt-bedroom, and I felt immediately restless, as did my canine companion. Firsts there were mouse sounds by the door, then the raccoons were on the deck, and all other sorts of critter activities around. I had a slight headache...hmmm, earthquake activity ? Then my mind kicked into full beat-me-up gear. The knots in the poodle hair made me feel badly for not keeping on top of brushing her enough simply by running my fingers lovingly over her, as I do each morning and throughout our days. This fired up the host of thoughts that are carried around rearing their ugly heads and sabotaging any sense of well being or belonging at any given time. The thoughts that meditation silence (but don't). The thoughts that just wreak havoc in a person's life. We all have them.
So I pick up my journal and just start writing. All my feelings of weirdness, restlessness, loneliness I'm feeling at the moment, out-of-placeness in the world-in society-in my life....and it goes on for a full three pages, just the amount of prescribed writing in this course. I don't even want coffee. I hear my daughter's van start up and drive off to the gym. Good for her getting up before the family and the sun and going off to exercise. I wish I were motivated to exercise that way myself....ooops, there goes another berating thought. But I catch it and pick up the Artist's Way book and decide to do a bit of reading in the third chapter.
Page 68 found me bursting into tears and a flow of emotions came out, triggered by the words I was reading on this page. "Wow," I think at this display of emotion and flow of feelings, "this book is really working." Before this page, it didn't bring up any powerful emotions but rather gently validated why I am the way I am. Most artist's are like this, whatever "this" is.
So the egg of my inner workings finally cracked. The yolk of my childhood shame is spilling out and the gooey egg white of all my adult shaming and damaging criticisms are surrounding the yolk and together this potential life, now cracked and spilled can only, if cooked into a meal, nourish with protein to grow, who I now am. That potential little chick is now someone's breakfast. Mine? Am I the egg, the spilled contents, the chicken, the potential chicken that is now the meal or the meal itself? All of the above?
What I am going to do today is simply paint the paintings that I've so meticulously and enthusiastically began and just left sitting to do other 'more important' things for other people. I invite anyone that reads this blog to take a little time to tune in to their creative nature, and if you think you don't have one, treat yourself to purchasing this book and bring out that creative nature in yourself that others might have told you does not exist. It does.
NATURE sustains, nurtures, inspires and FEEDS all Creations on Earth. Despite societal impositions of massive imbalance onto all levels of life who's details are not necessary to list here-- if one simply takes a moment to align with that which is NATUR-All, one will be nourished, inspired and rejuvenated.
In the spring I had the pleasure to walk down the lane of a plum tree blossom extravaganza, pictured above. Mornings found Cheyana and me standing beneath the canopy of blossoms basking in nature's power to rejuvenate simply by 'being'. There was no sense of having to be anywhere else to get anything done in these moments. Color therapy in it's natural state has enormous power to nurture the human spirit.
Now we walk early mornings down this lane to stand beneath a canopy of deep purple foliage laden with plums, one tree with a purple fruit the size of a large cherry, the other with a plumper fruit of golden purple with blush pink overtones. Both varieties are succulent and sweet. I feast on them every morning and evening during our walks, and Cheyana mulls around my feet sniffing the ground with a palatable serenity about her demeanor. We just hang out, basking in the lovely solitude of each others company beneath these amazing trees. As the trees are saturated with fruit, I am saturated with gratitude and I feast upon them.
The other morning beneath these trees, I had the pleasure to experience the refreshing guidance from the other dimension that I had been sorely missing. I 'realized' the rarity of this exquisite communication was due to my own static mind these past months. But with the balancing out of my biological chemistry through the wonders of modern medicine, a calm has come over me that allows me to 'receive' the beautiful 'words' that came to me often while still 'living' the book I was to write, THE CHE DIARIES.
I am stepping into a renewed sense of energetic resonance, complete with the joys of a newly broadened perspective. This renewal is the result of months and months of focused intent to work through the shift that always disguises itself as a perception of crisis, be it mid-life or 'anytime-of-life' event. Life is fraught with these shifts and are very difficult to get through to the other side safely, and not be prescribed a lifetime course of some heavy duty medication (which is sometimes required), incarceration or hospitalization (which are paths some people's shifting results in), or dead (which is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, aka suicide).
I already went through the medication phase at the onset of this shift a couple of years prior, and have gone through the labyrinth of discovery of what the organic issue was and seeking balance of it through a variety of healing modalities. My hard work paid off eventually, but not before I endured long, hard trials, sometimes feeling myself lost to the battle of the darkness that threatened me everyday on all levels of my existence. I won't go into the details of this battle herein, but it is all chronicled for an eventual literary project.
Today is about focusing on the blossoms and the fruit and how sweet life presents itself to be when the perspective returns to its original state of being. My prayers of alignment go out to all who's eyes may come across this blog and take the time to read it...to all those searching for the flashlight they have dropped along their darkened trail of Consciousness Shifting. These shifts are necessary to grow closer to the light....even though when in the middle of it, one may curse the light itself along with the day they were born into this world.
May these words inspire you that the fruit comes back onto the tree after it's long winter of going within. Be as the fruit tree, that is a living example. Keep searching for the flashlight while knowing you can adjust your eyes to the darkness until it is found....and DON'T GIVE UP BRAVE WARRIOR!
OSMOSIS OF NEUROSIS: the passing of neurotic personal behavior onto the unwitting canine companion.
POODLE THERAPY was the conclusion I had come to as a means to resolve my need for companionship and apply focus to accomplish something resulting in a positive outcome I could see immediately. Good training = Good dawg. Nothing more beautiful than a well trained dog, nothing more gratifying than to have a canine companion who's impeccable training made her a joy to walk. Make that canine companion a beautiful red standard poodle, and one could spend time grooming, preening and brushing her beautiful coat, deepening the bond, and it would also provide the 'touch therapy' humans need that I sorely lacked in my life.
Getting a beautiful dog was alot easier than getting a boyfriend. Maintaining a dog is way easier (despite all the work) than maintaining a relationship with a mortal man. Also, getting a dog would end this sometimes impossible multi-dimensional association I was having with Ernesto Che Guevara. (yes, I endure some thinking I'm either crazy or possessed, but whatever!) I've always been a target for judgments, but that is another blog altogether.
He (my invisible friend), always said he would stay with me as long as I had neither a boyfriend or a pet. I even wrote in my journal during the time I was "living my book" that I should just "get a poodle or a goldfish" - - and be done with the whole multi-dimensional thing anyway. Of course I did rebuke him from my life in the name of God, Jesus, Mary...you name it, several times, and his not leaving indicated he did not have ill intent and was neither a 'tramp spirit' or evil entity possessing me, as the recitation of prayer and psalms would have ended it. Nothing evil remains in the Light of the Divine. I bathed myself, my consciousness and my surroundings with prayer, always have, always will. He stayed.
So, now I have my beautiful RED STANDARD POODLE, "CHEYANA". I got her almost a year ago when she was 4 months old. She came to me housebroken, click-trained and adorable. She is loveable, without issues of trauma or abuse. I thought long and hard about a rescue dog or an intended pedigree that was bred to be sold or shown. A standard poodle was my choice - I have allergies to animal hair and having grandchildren warranted an undamaged pup (in my opinion).
"Besides," I said also, "if I'm going to do the intense work and have the expense of a dog, it's going to be a breed I always wanted, which is the standard poodle." So there.
She entered my life in perfect condition. The most intelligent breed of dog, she immediately learned to sit/stay/lay down and come in both French and English. I wanted my granddaughter to learn French, and I wanted to learn French also, so to have a dog trained in both languages, would ensure we learn this beautiful language. This has been very rewarding.
DOGS REFLECT THE OWNER. I've heard this, read this, you name it, this sentiment is indeed a reality that has proven itself over the ions of people and their dogs. People even come to resemble their pet and vice versa. Hell, my daughter and son in law look at Cheyana and say "you know mom, you guys look alike." My reply is "I don't even have brown eyes -- I LOOK like a POODLE????"
On this note, it must be noted that after I got my dog, I experienced a year of intense personal grief and symptoms of chemical imbalances, first diagnosed in my brain, then testing positive for hormonal imbalances. Either way it gets diagnosed, the end result is I was experiencing a disturbed sense of well being resulting in outward, shall we say, neurotic behavior. This neurotic behavior was not publicly demonstrated, but came over me in all those private moments alone (now with dog) in my beautiful cabin retreat in the woods by the flowing creek.
I had a professional trainer spend a day here and show me the correct way to train Cheyana, and he did laugh and say 'really, it's the dog owners that need the training.' Man oh man, that statement rings as true as that Bell Tower in Venice every hour on the hour! I have temporarily ruined my perfect poodle.
A dog trainer may sound like a luxury, but I believe they can train a dog without passing onto it whatever their personal life issues are. They simply TRAIN THE DOG. A dog owner that reads about dog training and wants to attempt to train their dog like a professional cannot do so from a neutral 'dog trainer' space....they inadvertently pass onto the dog, their personal neurosis. My poodle is living proof of this dog owner/dog osmosis of neurosis. I say I 'temporarily ruined' her, because with this awareness staring me in the face, my intention is to reverse this by a) contact the dog trainer to get tips on reversing this osmosis and learn how to behave like a dog trainer, and b) becoming a dog trainer, not a dog owner, and c) staying consistent with all of the above.
The hormone supplemental gel will be arriving in the post today. I know eating the entire tube will not instantly balance me out and I will resist the temptation to apply the 'more is better' adage that humans frequently apply to situations, and simply follow the directions.
I will place myself in a personal boot-camp and get my ass exercising because my life literally depends on it. Just because I'm not fat and still look hot fully dressed, doesn't mean I'm in tone and possessing any strength or muscle mass. Point is, I can fool myself on the outside, but I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I'm just flat getting to the 'age' where I can't get away with this too much longer. Lazybones needs to SHAPE UP!!! Maybe I need a boyfriend that's a drill sergeant and in great shape, thereby having me LOVE to go to the gym. Or maybe I should pretend I just got signed to star in a movie like G.I. Jane. The latter is more realistic.
Either way, my dog does not lie. She is reflecting back the neurosis I experienced and want to forget now that I'm emerging on the other side of. In other words, I have to BE THE CHANGE. And I still am not 'out of the woods' yet, I am only 'emerging'.
I'll keep y'all posted on my progress. And now that I've make this public, I've GOT to live something worth keeping my fans coming back to read! So keep those cards and letters coming people---I love you one and all! Au Revoir.....
So here we are, another mild, summer afternoon...balmy, breezy and non eventful in the drama department. I have learned that the hormonal balance within my physical body is WAY out of balance. Now I wasn't told by the women's health practitioner who's care I was under and who answered my menopausal questions, that hormonal deficiencies the first FIVE years post menopause CAUSE BONE LOSS!!! So I've been tested twice and have full on bone loss. G R E A T! So if any readers out there can learn from this and replace those hormones in those critical first years, you will not host such a condition.
Of course I feel no effects from bone loss. I haven't shrunk. I just won't use those new rollerblades I purchased or my new ice skates I got last winter. I mean, why invite trouble while I don't have insurance to cover an orthopedic repair. I'm not a fear factor freak, but I'm not into pushing it until I build back the skeletal structure. Now hormone replacement therapy has gotten a pretty bad rap over the years, and the good ol' US of A is really backward compared to Europe when it comes to innovative medicine THAT WORKS, and their women supplement the hormones in a way that does not cause other problems. The gel-based hormones ordered from WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL PHARMACY is the ticket. Half the price. And don't forget to request the gel, not the cream, as the cream is fraught with chemical additives. Why get a dose of stuff you don't need with the stuff you do need. Yeah, the gel is 'colder' without the consistency of a nice cream, but this is not worth putting more laboratory crap onto my skin and into my system.
All the symptoms I have expressed in previous blogs are indicative of hormonal imbalance, extremely low levels I might add. Have your formulations done from a SALIVA TEST which is more reliable than a blood test as it shows the hormonal activity and interaction. I may not even BE bipolar. This is an overdiagnosed condition and the doctors get kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies. After all, a psyche doctor would rather prescribe his kind of meds than send you to your doctor to check for hormonal imbalances. This possibility wasn't even suggested by my psyche doctor.
SO LADIES.....I wound up talking here like the expert on menopause that I have become. The journey has been perilous and downright shitty. No scientific term describes it like JUST PLAIN SHITTY. One can insert the words transitional, life changing, transformational, paralyzing, but apply experience to any of those terms and it's JUST PLAIN SHITTY. Like childbirth, JUST PLAIN PAINFUL. I don't care how many drugs you get, it's just plain painful. If this blog reaches just ONE WOMAN out there and helps steer her ship into waters that are easier to navigate for a shorter term than mine has been, this blog has served its purpose. Please feel free to write me any comments, questions or your own experience with this aspect of womanhood that our ancestors were spared by not living past 40. Of course they were having to live in caves, avoid demise from being food for large animals with big teeth, or worse yet, dying in childbirth. I don't think any of them had time to contemplate possible effects related to actually BEING a woman. Did they even know how they got pregnant???
This most humorously irrelevant photograph heading this blog is a central art sculpture at the Peggy Guggenheim museum on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. I have to wonder how Peggy might have utilized this work in her own humorous way, it is after all, conveniently life size and reflects the endowment of Adonis himself!
As a POST SCRIPT, I must mention that men do not escape hormonal shifts in what is called ANDROPAUSE. The recipient of this condition may lose their enthusiasm for the challenge of work, competition and sexual activity. They can also lose bone and muscle mass and have their energy zapped. SO LADIES, we are not to assume all the blame put on any relationship discord as we received during our PMS cycles due to hormones or the lack thereof. Remember when during certain times in our relationships/marriages where the male counterpart could conveniently blame any issues on our cycles???? They didn't even consider the possibility/probability that they had any negative contribution to aggravate us, AND they don't taste near as yummy as chocolate, no wonder we didn't crave them like we did chocolate!
ATTENTION ALL: In addendum to the story on OBESITY & CHILD ABUSE that I just posted, I wish to make it easy for all of you to read the story about BABY PETER.
After learning of this nightmare of all nightmare child abuse stories, I felt it my duty to both follow the story and publish my articles on this to in some way, be a warrior against such abhorrent human behavior.
The story of this baby haunted me severely, caused me grievous depression, for as a grandmother of 4 small children, this is the worst nightmare to be aware of existing on the planet. When this child was not beaten, he had the face of an angel, that was distorted beyond recognition. For his sake, I published articles on this, as they were in the U.K. and not even brought up here in the U.S. For his sake, I brought it up. At least, I can pray for the soul of this baby to heal from the dimension upon which he moved.
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/3939293-baby-peters-grizzly-torturous-death-photo
For the memory of him, and to honor him, please make yourself aware that this is happening right now, to someone you will never even hear of. It is OUR DUTY to be aware of this so we may begin work on SHIFTING the energy through that awareness and prayer to the higher beings for the healing of those that commit this crime against our children everywhere.
