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Friday, November 2, 2012

How to Begin November

I can't believe it is November already!! I have so much to share I don't know where to begin.
The end of September, my husband and I visited the mountains of Colorado.


This is one of my Soul places. When I am there surrounded by the mountains, the trees, the waterfalls, I feel like "me." In the cooler Autumn air, I breathe deeper. I am more comfortable in my skin. A peace that has eluded me the past several years, suddenly settles itself around my restless spirit.


I hiked. I laughed. I caught glimpses of what I want for my life.


Back in Florida. . .
Maybe in my next post a little bit about the Sea and what She has been telling me.
Right now I've got quite a little list of activities going!!
*Autumn SouLodge 
*Inner Glow Self Care (An online home retreat created by my dear friend Lis. It is wonderful!
*World Diabetes Day Postcard Exchange (November is Diabetes Awareness Month and you know how I love postcards!)
*NaNoWriMo (!) aka National Novel Writing Month. This will be my 2nd time diving into the craziness that is writing 50,000 words during the month of November. In 2010, I successfully made the word goal. It was exhausting, all consuming, and some days I considered abandoning the entire thing. But in the end it was totally worth it. So here I am again!! It just started yesterday, so it's not too late for YOU to join in!!


Essentially, we belong beautifully to nature. The body knows this belonging and desires it. It does not exile us either spiritually or emotionally. The human body is at home on the earth -John O' Donohue

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Blue Moon Postcard

Dearest Readers,
I have been on an unplanned vacation. Soul work does not plan ahead, schedule days off, or choose a destination. It just decides, packs the tiniest of bags, and heads for the edges of Inanna's underworld. That is where I have been. . . hanging with my shadows, my fears, all that is unresolved. I have been tired, yet unable to sleep. Restless, yet too tired to really wander. I have erected a wall of sorts around my vulnerable places, and in so doing, have walled off my most wild and beautiful Self. Blood sugars have run high and tears shed far too often. Dreams go unremembered. My journals have quickly filled, but even these are like broken records. Words I never used to call up are written there: hopeless, lost, confused, why bother, failure. Still, bits of healing have made it through in the form of acupuncture, SouLodge, and perfectly timed snail mail from far away friends. My strong husband and my wise dog have handed me magic everyday regardless of my darkness.
Tomorrow is the second full moon of August - a Blue Moon. To honor Her bright beauty and draw upon this second chance, it seems appropriate to me to breathe some fresh life back into this space. It may only be small glimpses. My Muse muscle is a little out of shape.
As the moon goes full, know that I am wishing you much healing and magic in your life! That I have missed you, and that I hope to see you soon. . .
Wildest Blessings,
Angela


Wednesday, May 16, 2012

D-Blog Week: One Great Thing



It's Diabetes Blog Week! And I am a wee bit late to the party. (I'm hoping fashionably late). Since I missed Day 1 and really it's Day 3, I am going to start with the prompt for Day 2: Tell us about one diabetes thing you do spectacularly!

There are a few things I might lay claim to here. But after pondering it most of the day, I realized I knew exactly what finely honed skill I would honor: The ability to hear and respond to my body and all its myriad signals. It is what I do 24/7. When I was first diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 12, my blood sugars were well over 800. My body was SCREAMING for help. Unquenchable thirst haunted me. Exhaustion derailed my usual tomboy ways. I had dark dark circles under my eyes. Even before the doctor appointment where they gave these symptoms a name, I knew in my bones something was wrong with me. Once I was in the hospital they began to administer insulin. For several days, a nurse would come in every couple of hours and ask me how I was feeling. Was I shaky? Did I feel my heart racing? Did my brain feel fuzzy, my mind easily confused? No, no, and no. I thought theses nurses were so annoying. They would even wake me up during the night with their stupid questions. But at some point, I was saying yes, yes, and yes. How did they know? The nurse said, "Angela, that is what a low blood sugar feels like!" They had cleverly taught me how to scan my body for the signs that I needed to drink some juice right away. I have never forgotten this lesson. It settled deep and began my life long path of tuning into my body every moment of every day.

Over the years, this kind of listening has evolved into something more than a survival mechanism. I have come to think of it as a kind of intuition. A devotion to my body. I am in continuous conversation with her. There are subtleties, nuances, secret messages contained in an aching hip, a shaky hand, a wild thirst. It is like ritual to turn inward and "hear" what my body has to say. Mountains, rivers, and rocks are echoed within this awareness, lending me strength, weaving their songs into those of a blood sugar of 50. The beat of a drum, the screech of a hawk, a coyote's howl become part of my recovery from neuropathy. 

By my mid 20's, I began to understand that this deep knowing could transform into a healing response. I sought out a Reiki teacher and learned how to use my hands to channel Qi and restore some balance after a stressful series of high sugars or the discomfort caused by gastroparesis. Often times, if I'm not quite sure what is going on in my body (even after checking my sugar levels) I will lay my hands over the area where I am feeling the worst and just allow Reiki energy to flow. I am amazed every time when an "answer" comes in those moments of quiet receiving. 
The body is a multilingual being. It speaks through its color and its temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of nonconviction. It speaks through the constant tiny dance, sometimes swaying, sometimes a-jitter, sometimes trembling. It speaks through the leaping of the heart, the falling of the spirit, the pit at the center, and rising hope. (Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves)
This ability to read and respond to what my body needs developed from survival. It has kept me alive again and again. It has brought me to an awareness of a beauty and power that reside within me, not in spite of, but because of my diabetes. How can I do anything but honor this gift, hold it as sacred?




[This post is part of the 3rd Annual D-Blog Week coordinated by Karen at Bitter-Sweet. Over 200 hundred people in the diabetes online community have signed up to blog about their life with diabetes. Be sure to check out the stories being shared each day. I am on a strange schedule this week which means I may be in and out of the daily prompts. Thank you so much for visiting my blog! Wildest Blessings.]

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Pocket Medicine





                                                           






















The Peace Of Wild Things 
        by Wendell Berry


When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, 
I go and lie down where the wood drake 
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. 
I come into the peace of wild things 
who do not tax their lives with forethought 
of grief. I come into the presence of still water. 
And I feel above me the day-blind stars 
waiting with their light. For a time 
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. 


























[Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day! (To read the poem I chose last year, click here). For me, poetry IS medicine, and so placing a hand copied poem next to my insulin pump becomes a symbolic gesture of healing. I love the idea that the message Mr. Berry conveys here is working synergistically with my insulin to bring me to a place of peace and well-being. What poem did/would you choose for your pocket today?]

Friday, March 30, 2012

Divine Gathering

Mountain Queens
Fire Dancers
Ocean Mamas
Priestesses of Trees


Let us 
Listen to that wildness running through the river of ourselves
Let us 
Listen to that memory not recorded anywhere 
Except the Dreamtime
Except in our wombs


Channel the poems, the paintings, the
Visions unveiled for us there
Let us
Shapeshift into our power
Willing to grow wings, hooves, fur-


My Magic Sisters,
Let us 
Share our moonblood stories
Risk letting loose breath, howl, roar
Let us 
Risk it all to conjure Truth


Mountain Queens
Fire Dancers
Ocean Mamas
Priestesses of Trees


Let us 
Listen to that wildness in each other
So that we may
Remember
          remember 
                        remember
Every sacred thing.