Memoirish uncut

Chapters 1-3

Chapter One

Written 2017, Published on WelcomeToTheGit February 2021

I have spent the morning feeling a little soft and unwell. I woke this morning and canceled my obligations at the Library and took the time to just rest in my jammies and let the day unfold. It is Valentines day today and I suppose I am honoring yours truly, myself. I have had coffee and tea and peanut butter toast, and taken my pills, a three times daily task. I am here now sitting in front of my mood lamp listening to Stevie Wonder and typing my thoughts down for all to read someday. Perhaps no one will ever read this but that is not important. What is important is that I work through my process and writing is very helpful for that. It is the writing that takes me into my body and deep into my mind to expunge all that weighs me down. 

I have been pondering some psychotic thoughts that I have had throughout my life that for some reason I am becoming to believe aren’t so psychotic. I have come to describe one of my beliefs as Spider Spirit. The world is made of spiders, small miraculous creatures made essentially of spirit. I spent many weeks in a deep intimate communication with this spirit force in 2007 during a psychotic break that was so intense it changed my life forever. It is true that one cannot walk from such an experience without being eternally changed. In 2016, I revisited this vision because I found myself once again psychotic, leaving my job and sitting in the spring sun gathering my tendrils that were splayed so chaotically all over the place. During both of these so called breaks I had emotional outbursts that were very much out of control. There were moments when I was consumed by fear and moments when I was consumed by grief. Anger was another emotion that could arise. I remember laying in the guest room and shouting about all sorts of things that were bothering me. I did this in the bathtub as well and kicked the side of the shower with great force.

There was a moment when I thought I was possessed by a spirit as I had an explosive diarrhea in the toilet down the hall. I was sure that this angry spirit had entered my body and I was now expelling it in the form of feces. This again could have been very true as I was having intense visions of ghosts and spirits. I essentially see stories and am on some other plane altogether. As I move through peri-menopause, I feel like I am beginning to integrate many of these alternate world experiences I have had in my life. It is still in me and I have to metabolize it at some point. I feel the grief and sadness in my legs and at times feel disconnected from my body. I am essentially a sponge to distress in other human beings and I have to watch myself and what I expose myself to as well as give myself many days off to rest and metabolize and bring awareness to what is inside of me. My dreams are a way of processing as well as meditation and most importantly writing.

Back to the Spider Spirit, there are three types of spider spirit that I am familiar with. I describe them in the way of color, and brown, red and white are the prominent colors of Spider Spirit. Brown spider spirit is the largest and therefore the easiest to understand. They are more capable of speaking to our plane and I have heard their voices. Years ago a large amount brown spider was born in my house in Columbia City and I helped guide them to the wind and they traveled far away to populate the planet with their healing spirit. They can become solid though and they manifest as tobacco and wood. Brown is the color of this particular spirit. There is also red and white and possibly black. When you get a chill or a moment of revelation befalls you, you may be covered in white spider. Spider can heal many diseases because they are in our bodies and they can cover us. They are very small and hard to see and usually move and motivate from the corner of my eye and in the shadows so to speak, or at the edges our consciousness. They are responsible for many miracles and most substances as well as human bodies can be made of this spirit. They are also responsible for many visions I have had. What I saw was there only for a moment, then it transformed into this malleable Spider Spirit. They were communicating with me. I am not saying I have been chosen, but I have been blessed /cursed with witnessing the miracles of Spider Spirit in my life. Perhaps this is because my consciousness was actually strong enough to handle such an experience. Though it did occur when I was “crazy” and/or the experience can make you feel like you are crazy. It simply is amazing and is an alternate dimension so to speak. Spider Spirit is miraculous and is a reality that is hard to grasp. It is only observable to the most sensitive spirit that has the utmost respect for nature, and trust for the earth and the cosmos’ innate intelligence. I am curious if Indigenous culture, medicine and shamanism knows of the miracle of Spider Spirit. Perhaps I have discovered something very ancient, and something known on this planet on a very deep and subconscious level.

__________1998

The summer was over and I had just spent six weeks out in the Okanogan National Forest clearing trails with SCA. It had been a slightly difficult time as well as amazingly beautiful and strengthening. The one challenge I faced was that a fellow trail mate grabbed my neck during the breaking down of camp, before our week long reward hike through the mountains. He was sent home and I was traumatized. I was already showing signs of leaving reality.

But I was off to school and to a really affluent all women’s Ivy League college at that. My friend helped me pack as I was not on the best terms with my parents and I headed down to Oakland, California with my army duffle bag leaving behind my sleepy rainy Seattle.  

I arrived in the Bay area somewhat bewildered, but would not admit this to anyone. I sent my parents away and proceeded to sign up for seven major courses at the college, auditing two as five was the limit. I ran cross country in the evenings and rowed crew at 4am. I went to concerts with friends and made many of them, not exactly gelling with anyone. Soon my load was overwhelming, but this did not stop me from scrambling my way through the many deadlines and assignments.

During winter break my family took me to New Zealand. I was not well. I believed our car was haunted and that it was possessed by Maori Spirits that hated us because we were white tourists. I saw imaginary giant sculptures of insects in the fields as we drove past. In a museum, I lost my family as they stepped into a void and returned later. I was alone with this and my family didn’t know what was happening. I had to fight for them in the spirit world so that we would not be annihilated.

We went on a kayak trip out to a Sacred Paw. I remember looking to the tour guide and asking if everything was okay as we sat out on the sacred peninsula. He looked at me and with a straight face said “All the tapas have been lifted.” As we walked up from the beach after returning, I hallucinated the small cove being covered with ancient natives who were cleaning fish, and children playing. As we got into the car I was staring disturbed at a rock on the console, and he looked at me again and said “Some things are just too haunted.”

There were many other strange characters on our trip. There was a walking man in the Kauri trees who would appear and disappear. There were the caretakers of the hostel that were goofy Santa clause types. There were chickens and young children and cool California grapes sheets on my bed. There were basements of amber and a sacred ancient tree. I was in and out of reality constantly and mostly disengaged from it. Somehow my family did not know, because I talked them into sending me back to college for another semester. But my mother knew that something was not quite right.

Arriving back at Mills, I took a lesser load of four classes. I was not allowed to run track or row crew as my grades had severely suffered the semester before. I was doing okay, and I was not doing okay. I was trying to overcome something insurmountable. I dated a few women and had some nice experiences exploring the city. But soon things went awry once again. There was a conflict of activities, and one weekend I chose to attend a conference in Riverside California over an outdoor adventure with my outdoor adventure class. Women’s studies took the bait. This was a curse, but perhaps it was a blessing because it put an end to my time at Mills, and soon I would be never to return again… I was well on our way to psychotic break number one.

When I was a child the world was held in an Easter basket. Safe and confined, it was filled with soft sweets, fuzzy creatures, beautiful colors and joy. The world was predictable, expected, I was not surprised or easily distracted from the comforting confines of the basket. Now I see the world through different eyes. There are still beautiful colors, but there are muds and grays as well. I am aware that the world does not offer its hand to every living creature, welcoming it into the folds of a pastel wonderland. There is suffering, and painfully, there is abuse, neglect, hardship, starvation and loneliness. I have seen some hardship, now in my late thirties, but still not nearly enough. I am aware of my white privilege, I am aware of how blessed I have been through my trials, and I am grateful. And still I hold this basket I was born with. I can look inside and remember. I am blessed with comfort from my baby boomer caucasian parents. I am safe and cared for by others. My disability plagues my life but I am not in danger. I am not in a refugee camp; I have food and shelter, medications, love and support.

There are many types of starvation in the world. One of the epidemic versions of this among the privileged in America is that of spirit and peace of mind from the strangulation of the ego. I have to remind myself of this as my sole search becomes to free myself from its grasp. I have set out on a journey to truly find myself through writing and other practices such as yoga, prayer, meditation, chanting and community. I am beginning now in this very moment.

The spring of 2016, I had a mental breakdown. In mental health lingo it is called a major episode or a psychotic break. It seems I am on a nine year cycle, though there have been intermittent challenges. In 1998 while attending Mills College in Oakland, California, I had my first shattering break.  God picked me up and then placed me back in Seattle with my parents. In 2007 it happened again; my third and most recent hospitalization. I dropped out of massage school and was transported on a heavenly craft through holy happenstance to Lopez Island, WA where I now live. This year it is 2016. Again, nine years later, I have arrived at this cycle that my life was cursed with. This time, due to the hormonal changes of early peri-menopause, I had another break. I avoided the hospital, and now am on the strenuous and long journey of recuperation. After such an event, it takes time, but I am here existing, re-medicated, and writing. 

I want to be a writer. This is what I want to do with my life. The world does not only exist as an Easter basket with its paints and colors inside displayed for all to see. It is not simply external. Within me I find another world. I can look in, observe, draw on and revel in a place that has depth and mystery. Within these depths exists pain and hardship, both new and accumulated from past experiences. Nine years ago I discovered grief in my knees. Our bodies and spiritual selves are intrinsically connected. My body speaks and I must listen. There are other aspects to us. There is our psyche, our soul, and also our ego. Somewhere in these complexities is where I find my identity. No matter how many gurus tell you to be one with all that is and that there is no self, I choose to believe otherwise. Integrating these abstract teachings, I still long and strive to know who I am. I am aware that this is a process, a journey, and once again I have chosen writing as my tool.

Identity is important to me. I do long to know and understand myself. I long to have a solid stand in who I am internally so that others can see. Perhaps this is me being an Aries, perhaps it is part of my identity truly speaking out. If we are solid with what is within ourselves, it shines outward to the world. I care what comes out of me, what the world sees. It is not actually solid however; it is a void, a consciousness and abstract. To get a handle on it has been the trial of my life.

For many years my illness became my identity. Now after much spiritual work and developing a relationship with God, I can see that I am not my illness. This is a revelation. This is painful, it is a process and my ego is putting up one hell of a fight. Any way it can it finds something to hold onto in order to trigger my emotions and my pain body into feelings of despair, guilt and shame. But I fight it; with journaling, meditation and prayer. Writing is the best tool I have found to process these deep dark emotions within me.

My illness clouds my every day. Recently I learned for myself, at least right now, that it is healthier for me to choose not to work. But is this a choice? My ego screams at me. “You have failed, you are wrong. You are botching this all up again! Can’t you function like a normal person? What are you doing, nothing!” I have had journeys upon journeys of school, no school, work, no work, and abrupt changes in my path due to major episodes. Once my ego broke free of having my identity be my illness, it began gripping to a false sense of wellness. My job greatly represented this. All that I am became what I do. 

This is a very mainstream ego trip. Millions of people around the world struggle with this conundrum. Because of the transference of a major lack of and a wounded identity which was based around being an ill and angry artist (I am also a painter); I was clinging whole heartedly to my job. My most recent was at the Lopez Island Chamber of Commerce. I worked there for three and a half years part time. This was a major accomplishment for me. I also spent five summers working at the Saturday Farmer’s Market slinging tacos with my husband. I put all of my energy into these tasks and I did them very well as I am a high achieving sort. This summer it was apparent that on this road to recovery, amidst medication changes and a continual struggle with peri-menopause and hormones, I am not fully equipped to work at this time. It all became too hard. 

I am proud of myself for diverting my energy to writing and holistic healing practices and groups, of which I have filled up my calendar. I have had to quash my ego. I have been at war with it. I know that truly, I just want to be somebody. This is the small voice of the child within, and I already am… somebody. Writing has helped me immeasurably. I spend every morning writing three long hand pages in a notebook and continue to write my blog and work on other stories. It is the journaling that has been a saving grace. Every morning, disciplined, I wake up and write three pages. It is all stream of consciousness and it is not meant to be read or viewed. The result is that I am becoming to know myself. I am sitting with myself and observing my thoughts as they flow from my fingertips. When I sit down and write line after line of long hand, I am at peace and I am happy. My ego takes the back seat for a moment and I am here, now, and on my way to discovering who I truly am. I am willing to write just for the experience and the bettering of myself. 

The goal is to be in the now. My goal is to have healthy relationships and a healthy body so that I can also have a healthy mind. The goal is to take care of myself. Writing is what keeps me busy, passes the time and helps me to grow and process. It is a tool and a plaything. I have always had a knack for keeping my ego out of art, and this is a sure sign to me that it is a true and healthy part of who I am. Einstein said once, “Everyone is a genius. But if you only teach a fish to climb a tree, it is going to spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Writing is a true and holy part of me. It is my path to my truer being and to self-love. This is the true goal. 

So now I can cherish everything about this Easter basket which is my life, though I am still learning every day. My goal is to describe what is both within me and without until every cell in my body and soul breathes and is able to be seen in the light of day. I have started a path of study that is nurturing to my soul so completely. My fragile world, my ego, may have become broken over and over through the years to the point that all that remains are small strands of straw at the bottom of the basket. But now I fill it with what I choose. I am an active participant. I see what I like and I fill the blank canvas, the empty basket. Right now, having started all over once again, I am taking a moment to revel in the empty shape; to just see the basket, my being, as a shell. I know I am in there. I have a story waiting to be told. Perhaps on the journey, as I tell it, I will have an increased sense of wholeness and belonging, and all that I am will come clear in the light.

There are a lot of things to ponder in life. The mind can be an active machine that takes us away and sometimes will not release its grip. I struggle with anxiety as a major symptom of my illness. Not all activities of the mind are healthy ponderings. Sometimes it gets carried away with worrying about future events. The more I study people like Eckhart Tolle, the more skills I develop to combat my illness. I have also spent time studying Dialectical Behavioral Therapy which my Dad calls clinical Buddhism. I was first introduced to this at Harborview Medical Center in 2007 while hospitalized, and then later took a class and graduated at Full Circle Counseling on Orcas Island, WA. As much as I try to apply the concepts of rational mind vs. emotional mind or being in the now, I still struggle immensely. I cannot always breathe my way out of a symptom and I have to take a pill. Lately, removing work from my schedule has helped me to stay in the present, and has reduced my anxiety tenfold.

It is a burden that I live with daily. Not everyone understands and not everyone needs to. What I have is an invisible disability. This disability, Schizoaffective Disorder, a mental illness, also comes with a stigma. Long ago, I was blessed with being approved for financial help from the government and I was given the title of Adult Disabled Child. I have been struggling with some sort of bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression, schizoaffective disorder, in a debilitating way since before I was eighteen. I remember my first panic attack. I was on the sofa in the living room of our quaint Bungalow on Queen Ann Hill in Seattle, and at the time I believe the doctors were experimenting with antidepressants. I began to hyperventilate and my mother went and got me a paper bag to breathe into. I was seventeen.

Being out of sorts and symptomatic is not new to me. I have been experiencing them in a diagnosable way for twenty years. It is amazing how long it can take to understand on an intellectual and emotional level what this really means. I have quite a large pain-symptom threshold, and luckily that threshold has become greater over the years. This last breakdown in spring of 2016, I managed to stay out of the hospital. The suffering was immense. It began with me shutting myself in the guest bedroom and screaming and shouting about anything and everything that made me angry. I was completely overtaken with sadness, anxiety, anger and psychotic thoughts. It had welled up once again. I was hysterical. I had no idea what was curdling inside of me and one day it all came to, was triggered to, the surface.

I had spent the last nine years in our small community of Lopez, working, walking, going to yoga and passing as a normal human being. I had no concept of the strain that this was putting on my person. The summer before my springtime breakdown, I was working an average of 22 hours a week helping tourists at the local visitor’s center and selling them tacos at our booth on Saturdays. I welcomed company to my house on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, two incredibly busy weekends for our taco booth, the Chamber, and Lopez Island as a tourist destination. I went out to music at the local bars on Saturdays after working a nine hour day at the taco booth and entertained my guests. I also was suffering from a major gut disorder that was never diagnosed but was able to clear up the following winter through naturopathic supplements and elimination diet. On Sundays after the Saturday Market, I would wake up to volunteer for three hours at my church running the power point. I mowed my lawn and kept my house in order. I pushed myself to the max. 

The following spring, a time of humming and buzzing, a time of waking up and blooming of the earth, a manic time, I was also becoming menopausal. I had become aware of this fact a couple of months before. My cycle was changing, I was experiencing some strange bodily symptoms, and I also had a strong innate guttural feeling that this was true. A book that I had laid my hands upon titled “Menopausal Years, for Women age 30 – 90” told me that if I believed it was happening, it probably was. I am young for this transition, but it is not unheard of. Since then I have experienced hot flashes, extreme PMS, irregular flow, as well as those indescribable moments where all one can say is “I don’t feel well… It is the peri-menopause,” all things that are not normal for me.

During hormonal changes, or any time for that matter, a body can change and medications that were once effective may not be anymore. This seemed to happen to me. The hormones also complicated my symptoms, and I had entered a world where everything was unpredictable. Over the years I had grown very adept at managing my illness. All of the first ten years I spent on Lopez I had a job. I first worked for five years at the Lopez Children’s Center as an assistant teacher and a lead teacher substitute, as well as a preschool assistant for a short period. There was always management to take into account. I learned my limit was 10-20 hours a week, averaging 10-12. The pay check was nice and I was contributing instead of just being a burden. 

For approximately four years before I moved to Lopez Island I was work free, though I attended school for the last six months. This time period began in 2004 when I received my Federal Disability. I spent my days painting, driving to the mountains, and walking along Lake Washington. We always had enough money because by partner grew marijuana and was excellent at it. I would take care of the dogs, garden and attempt to clean house. This was a happy time though it was filled with ups and downs for I had not found the proper cocktail of meds at this point in time. I was not on an antipsychotic and learned to endure a painful amount of psychosis while appearing mostly normal. I took art classes and wrote a memoir. We camped in the mountains every other weekend in the summer. I would blast Ani Difranco and drink wine. We had a restaurant industry Sunday drinking evening called “Sunday Fun-day”, that we joked was our church. Life in my twenties was difficult, but also filled with so much flavor and so many colors. I wouldn’t trade a day of it for the world. This is partly because it is mine, only mine and only ever will be. It is unique to me, and all along I had the most amazing dogs and an amazing man. I am so grateful to still have this man today. We found each other in 1998 and now it is 2017, it has been more than 18 years filled with adventure, struggle and amazing learning.

I now live on Lopez Island in the San Juans in Washington State. I volunteer at the Lopez Island Library and spend my days writing, walking, swimming in the summer, and attending groups. I like to bike and do yoga when possible. The connections I have made in the community have helped me find a grounded place in which I feel nurtured by regular interactions with people of all ages and economics. Lopez is a slow paced town. There are no freeways, stoplights, there is only traffic one day of the year (after the fireworks on the fourth of July), and the general reduction of stress that ensues is unassailable.

I need this reduction in stress to achieve in my life at wellness. Initially I could work and lately have found that even that brings some hardship into my life. This is most recently due to a change in hormones due to my peri-menopause and may not always be true, but for now I must re-manage my medications and re-stabilize. When time is taken to slow down and allow one’s natural healing mechanisms to take charge, it is amazing the effects that take place. For me these last several months after coming out of 2016’s psychotic break, have been about doing just this. I am now prospering. I am writing and on top of my exercise, and this is all due to me taking the time out to reprogram my life. I joke, because the reprogramming happens naturally and must. It is a very natural process that came with the battle of the ego that I mentioned before and much time wallowing in my supposed failure. I did learn eventually to give myself some credit and allow for the nature of the healing taking place.

My animals are a great comfort to me as has been the practice of journaling. Every morning I wake to shower and have coffee, write in my journal and then walk the dogs around the property. These regular disciplined actions put form to the passing of the days. Sometimes we just have to trust that progress is taking place, and know that with the passing of time all will better itself. Faith is crucial, but also determination and motivation of the direction one wishes to grow in. It cannot be forced of course, because this natural pace of healing I have mentioned has its own organic form. Time and space must be allowed for the transformation to take place. With mental illness, the recovery can take years and at times one may doubt if any growth has in fact taken place.

But after many years of recovery after recovery, I have found that trusting in these natural transformations is monumental and they do occur in these time ensued propagations of growth. I have learned to trust increasingly in the process and I have come to know myself better. I am still learning on a fundamental level to believe in myself, but it is happening. The more I settle with the process of healing, the more I lean into it, and the more progress I make.

After my psychotic break in 2007, the healing did not take place as quickly. The mere passing of time after leaving the hospital was painful. It took about six months to get to a place where I wasn’t suffering daily, and then a couple years more to fully settle into my new life. There was a death in 2008 that taught me a lot about life, and the reality death or the passing from this life onto the next. My dog, Rudy died at the age of eight from bloat. He got loose and ate some crab that had been left out on the beach. He was allergic to crab shells and cheese, or anything with high calcium content.

Rudy was my savior through my break in 2007. He was with me at my side as I wandered aimless through the neighborhood. He protected me and comforted me in major grief episodes and the frightening psychoses that I experienced over the three months. He was also at my side through countless minor episodes through my twenties and I would not have traded his companionship for the world. Rudy was more of a human than a dog, and he was my very best friend. When he passed I had a dream where we ascended into the light together. We were on a country road at dusk and the trees alongside the road were black in their silhouettes. I embraced death after this dream as I realized in my waking moment that death is the one truly beautiful experience that we are all promised upon being born. There is nothing to be afraid of. Rudy showed me this as his last and final gift to me before passing onto heaven. Steve says that dogs are not afraid of dying. Somehow they are born with an inherent knowledge of the peace of said experience. Rudy showed this to me and so much more, and I cannot express my gratitude enough.

Today my dogs are Bruce and Lionel, two boys and are in their mid-lives. They are my steady gait, they are my pacing, and they are my comfort and my servitude and my regularity. The service that they do me by just existing is huge. It may seem at times that they are in the way; a hassle with their shedding, or a constant chore, but really they are one of the greatest gifts of my life. They keep me accountable, they remind me that I am loved, they are always there. I love my mutts and I wouldn’t trade them for a fortune. They are my saving grace and I owe my life to all the dogs that I have ever lived with.

What Is White.

At the What is White conference in Riverside California, I began to suffer and oscillate. As I attended the classes I drifted into a state of psychosis and became unaware of the reality around me. I was far from home and disconnected from what I know severely. As we gathered in the large auditorium I remember the curtains moving. I remember tuning into energy and believed that there was an undercover white supremacist in the room that soon the affluent African American community was becoming aware of. Clarence Thomas was there and overall I just felt extremely uncomfortable.

We went back to the room at the motel on a long and very suburban Californian drive. That night I believed “they” had planted a couple next door to us that were arguing and they were watching me on camera. The digital clock became possessed, and soon, in the morning I believe, Bill Clinton had put a surveillance team on my room. They believed that I was undercover and a threat to national security. It was pretty scary.

Many things happened over the course of the few days. I went skinny dipping in the pool after hours with my roommates; we ate junk food and drank cheap alcohol. I fooled around with a woman, barely, who ended up leaving early. Soon it was time to retreat on Southwest Airlines back to Mills campus, and it was now just me and a young woman who could not stop talking about her relationship with her father. First we met one of our friends for Indian food. At this point I was ‘three sheets to the wind’ so to speak. It was discovered that we had not turned in our key so I offered to walk back to the motel to return them. On the walk I was losing my already lost mind. I began to wander through the parking lots and took a ride offered to me by an Indian man. He seemed innocent enough but god only knows looking back on the situation. Luckily he was very spooked by my behavior and I asked to get out of the car. I managed to make it back to my friend and we proceeded to walk to find a cab back on campus.

The cab came and I didn’t know where I was anymore. There were some crows in a tree and we were in an odd place. As we drove down the road I remember zeroing in on those emergency buttons at the gas stations, and we continued to drive towards the airport. I began to become paranoid that someone had put a bomb in my backpack. All of a sudden I was very afraid. But at this point I couldn’t even talk. The words came out as a cry for help. I didn’t know what to say. “I have a bomb in my backpack”. We were nearing the runways and the cab driver went into emergency mode while the girl I was with started calling out “I didn’t know, I didn’t know!!!” The cab driver took my bag from the trunk and deposited it on the side of the highway. He proceeded to pull the vehicle a safe distance from the bag. He called 911, reporting a bomb threat.

Chapter Two

As I grow and develop as a person I am learning more and more how to integrate psychotic thoughts and beliefs that I have had over the many years. I recently was able to describe a “psychotic” philosophy I have called ‘Spider Spirit’ to a group of people at a local Community Building circle here on Lopez at my sister’s farm. It felt so good to take it down a notch and support the feminine, the goddess while speaking of a concept that baffles me but is true to my heart. Much of what I have seen has validity on some level of consciousness. I believe that if there was more feminine belief out there, if we were not completely caught in western thinking which is predominately masculine, it would be easier for me to have these completely abstract thoughts. It is true, I don't like summing up the world as masculine and feminine with the belief that the feminine is good and masculine is bad. There needs to be a balance. But anyone can see that this world is out of balance if they pay attention, and these days it is difficult to not pay attention. It is 2017, the year of the Donald, and it is mind blowing.

I choose to not follow politics very closely, but I do care about what is going on in the world. Synthesis and allowing dichotomy is important. We are so divided, so how do we integrate? How do we approach all of these issues with love? To love our current administration is difficult, but an awareness of the grey, the mud, the muted colors, the blending and balance is important. Black and white thinking does not serve us in overcoming these hardships we are now facing. 

I am guilty of black and white thinking. I am guilty of western mind. Simply calling myself and labeling myself as psychotic is very black and white. It is not easy to overcome this. By someone’s definition I am schizoaffective, but this does not have to be my definition of myself. I do not live in a text book. I live in the real organic world of growth and birth and death. Love is real and life is fluid and soft as well as harsh and dry. How do I break myself away from this black and white thinking? Some believe the first step is changing the language. The labels of schizoaffective, bipolar, and psychosis are harsh labels. These are harsh words. I deserve a gentler name, a softer identity, for I am a soft and loving human being. 

I choose to call myself by my name, Emily and return to my roots. Who am I? I am loved. I am creative, I am an artist. I am giving, a good friend. I am supportive, a good daughter. I am wise, a learner of life. I am intelligent, a good student. I am passionate, a lover and wife. I am so many things, so why do I still weigh myself down with the label of mentally ill. Part of the reason I know that I hold onto the identity of disabled, is that I wish to be honest with the world. I choose to speak in the terms of western society in order to penetrate it with my ideas, the lessons I have learned from my suffering. I do not want to hide. The truth is that the ego driven world of labels and achievement still exists, how do I communicate with it? I do not want to hide in shame of definition, or the experience I have had suffering with a mental illness. There needs to be light shed on the subject. Somehow joining with it, I become an activist and am speaking up for those who have suffered abuses, have addictions, are in prisons, or are homeless.

Mental illness is a global issue, it is a national crises. The more our corporations suck the life out of the masses, the more we need help, the more we suffer. I do believe that we have the answers among us. True we need programs and funding, support within institutions that need good policy and money, we need assistance from our government. I do believe this. I know this first hand. And yet there is a lot we can do in and around these programs that may or may not exist. We need to weave love. We need to bring awareness and healing to our families and communities. It is within our power to make some change in our neighborhood, among our close friends, even within our families. We can commit ourselves to a life of compassion and love. We can become less attached to material things, we can strive less for our own individual glory, and instead spread wealth, acceptance and love to those around us. We also need to look right outside of our personal communities, our comfort zones, and see who is needing us to lend a hand. This all starts with ourselves.

This brings me back to my personal label. Yes I struggle with this and yes it can be a tool. But I know that it is not until I fully love and accept myself that I will be able to fully love and accept others. In this way working on self healing is a global statement. It is revolutionary. The same goes with mothering our children. I find that the more healing I bring to myself, the more people notice me, the easier things become, and the more I spread blessings to others by just existing. We can learn from each other. 

I must relinquish eventually the essentially false label that I am mentally ill. Again I go back and forth between the thought of reaching into the heart of western thinking by using their terminology, or just bagging the whole thing completely. Honestly, letting go of that harsh identity feels the closest to full self love and acceptance. I am Emily. I am a woman. I am feminine and masculine. I am creative and full of spirit. I have a soul. I am a vessel. These are things that bring me hope and healing. So essentially I wish to break the mold that has been created for me, that I have adopted over the years, and learn to re-define myself, or rather un-define myself.

If I do this, I am free of labels. I want to be free of labels. I also want to bring the awareness that we need to accept our mentally ill in our community and heal our fractured families and society. I found out recently that the founder of AA was a patient of Jung. This is amazing. I wonder what Jung say to me. I know one of his theories is that we have a communal consciousness and that we are all one. If we are all one than Donald is not separate from the homeless man with schizophrenia, or the many people in prison that suffer with mental illness. When we dream we enter a communal world, a communal subconscious if we go deep enough. Can we heal others in our dreams? Can we reach out to others in meditation? I have to believe this on some level and I do. I am not equipped with my disability to run for political office or even spend too much time organizing or protesting, though I wish to do some of this and I plan to. I plan on getting more involved. But I also believe through prayer and spirituality I can become involved with healing our planet.

This is where I believe I go when I am “psychotic”. When I feel the disconnection from my legs, or a huge psychosomatic amount of pain and grief in my body, I believe this is essentially a psychic weight I have adopted from caring for our world, or by reaching into the deep pool of pain in our communal subconscious and trying to heal it. I actually believe that by healing myself and getting in touch with what is within me I can help heal our planet. When I go into visions, psychosis, I am getting in touch with so many beautiful as well as dark places in this consciousness. The spiders, the ghosts, the good and evil, the spirits and angels, they are all real. They are speaking to me and when I am thin, when the veil between myself and that world becomes transparent, I listen.

Lately, I have been learning the limits once again of my disability. I have been able to work a little bit, but there is a lot of recovery time that comes along with exerting myself. Yesterday I cried. I shed many tears of grief. I caught myself comparing myself to others, peers from my past. This is the shameful reality of social media. We share the best moments of our lives and this is all that the people that we are not directly connected to see. I feel I should be above this. And on a deeper level, when I come back to reality and out of the grief, I know that I am truly worthy. But there seems to be so much I missed. I missed graduating from college, having children, buying a house. And still these friends are working careers and raising their families. So the next day, after I pulled myself from the grief and the sobs successfully, and after I went for a walk in the windy drizzle and let the elements blow away my unhappiness, and blow into me hope and joy, I feel I have gone on a journey. I am reminded of my amazing tenacity and strength. I am reminded I have a gift. But even if I was judged as an average person I would be okay. No, I did not graduate college, but I contribute to society by working at the Library, I have a relationship of twenty years, I love my mom, I am an aunt. This is all next to or within suffering with a major disability.

That is where the grief ensues. Is it the pain of the world I am feeling? Is it my pain? Am I sharing pain? I am grateful for a conversation with my mother and getting out the door to go for a walk. Sometimes learning to shut off the fountain of tears that can spring forth is good. I remember graduating from my time in Harborview Hospital in 2007, and in my group as I was receiving my coin I was allowed to speak a few words. The leader of the group handed me my coin and as I began to speak, I began to cry, almost uncontrollably. Then, the sweet woman, in her asian way, told me “That’s enough,” and had me cut off my emotions from just flowing. It was a gentle reminder, and I knew at that moment that the fountain of grief inside of me was never ending. It is still there today, but how do we nurture these tears without experiencing the overwhelming flood that would drown us of allowed to flow? I do believe it was good yesterday to cry a little bit. And I feel a little changed and cleansed today. Getting through it, there is a sense of accomplishment as well. There just needs to be balance, a reminder that if we go too far that we may throw things out of balance, that the world exists on a delicate axis.

I haven’t done a painting in more than a year, but I know this is a deep passion of mine. Painting, acrylic, bright colors, abstract content, used to be the language of my soul. I have been thinking of returning to this practice. It marks an era when I cared less about time, for I would get completely lost in the creative process. Part of journeying deep into the subconscious is that you lose time. I suppose I have done this recently in my life by sitting in nature, yet I am still aware of only a half hour or an hour passing, then returning to my morning to see what the day will bring. I am craving my freer self.

Life has been good, but a struggle as well. Yesterday I spent time walking, doing yoga, time spent with my mom, and a long afternoon playing with my niece. I crashed out at seven thirty and my leg was fatigued from a humble two and a half miles of trekking down Lopez roads. I am aware that I used to work 20 hours a week and was able to walk for seven miles, and yet, my body just won't allow this now. I am having to find other things of value in my life and surrender to the fact that my body experiences this exhaustion on such a level. I am hoping that a regular yoga practice will get me tuned up, but right now I am feeling so many limits. Five hours twice a week of work is as hard as I want to paddle down this stream of life, and I am regularly experiencing exhaustion, fatigue and pain in my legs. Everyone, my women’s circle, my husband, is probably tiring of me complaining about the fact that I cannot handle what I used to, or what an average person, whatever that is, can handle. I need to swallow my pride.

I need to acknowledge all that I can do, and if I am going to graduate my body from this fatigue and symptomatic fervor, or learn to live with it, I am going to have to accept it. I want to spend my life enjoying existence. The creative process is grand, and though I write, semi regularly, I miss the graphic rawness of the paint. I am so lucky. Besides the constant need to cut back on cigarettes, I try to eat well, good vegetarian food, do yoga and go for walks, meditate, and express myself. Perhaps, though my body and mind can only handle so much, I am still healthy. In my own way I am healthy. And everything and everyone exists in relativity. I need to look at those less fortunate than me and gain a little perspective. Life is good. I know this in this moment and on a deep level. I am so grateful for my family, husband and my niece. I have shelter and live on a beautiful island. I have work that fits my needs perfectly and still I can expand my skills and be useful to society. I am so grateful.

Visiting with my parents in the morning is such a treat. This morning I awoke at 5am, made some coffee and sat down at my computer. At about 6am or so, I wandered over, across the property, to my mother’s house and joined my mom and dad for some morning conversation. I have been awaking at 8:30am or so, so to be up this early and watching the early September morning light descend on the property is such a treat. We discussed my work, a dream I had, and their trip to Japan this October. I love being close to them and a part of their lives.

My sister recently moved into the farm house over at my father’s property. It is kind of sweet and dutch how I live with my mother and my sister with my father. The only difference is that she is raising a sweet family and has a business on the land. I still am just my significant other and myself plus our two dogs and two cats, learning to live and prosper in a life where we both have disabilities. I am so devoted to my family. I have grown so much over the years. I have developed from the struggling teenager and twenty some young woman that suffered from not feeling close to her parents. I have become so close to my mother and father and really now they are my best friends. My sister too, has become even a closer friend, and I am glad to be supportive to the raising of her family when I can. It is true that I also at times need to contract and seclude myself to my little manufactured home filled with dogs and cats and all the hair that comes along with them, and simply rest and savor the stillness. I am not as resilient as I used to be.

And yet, I can work once again. In 2016 I had a relapse and narrowly avoided the hospital. I have been on the recovery path ever since and have been managing medication changes and easing myself back into work. I began simply volunteering at the library and now have more regular substitute work there. It is a source of pride and inspiration in my life. As I hope to venture into becoming a published author, I savor being amongst the many books and readers and sometimes writers that frequent the library. I am still working on accepting how much stamina I have for work, as this has lessened in the recent years. I am not sure if it is menopause, hormones, the recovery from 2016, or simply becoming older and more sensitive with age.

Recently I was discussing with a friend the fact that we hold grief in our bodies. In a way this is a subject undiscovered, and yet I fear that every holistic practitioner would have their own and different angle of expertise on the subject. I myself have been to massage school and I believe that there are many healing modalities that can help us release emotional toxins from our bodies. Still it is a mystery, because every person, every body, every emotional being is unique. I have been hacking into this mystery for a decade now. I have practiced yoga, received massage, sat in nature, had deep conversations with friends, opened my soul in group discussions, gone to therapy, dunked regularly in the cold puget sound, gone for miles and miles of walking down country roads and through the woods, painted my deep subconscious, journaled extensively, chanted and received neurological integration sessions. I have been doing this for a decade, and still there is more to seep from my bones. It is a journey.

It is not an individual conundrum. Many experience grief in their bodies in the form of pain and psychosomatic sensation. My friend is just discovering this within her. It may take a sensitive person to sense that this is what is really going on. Grief can take its toll, though it is disproportionate the amount of grief we all feel. My illness, my disability or differently-abledness/gift had allowed for a heartbreaking so deep that my legs have collapsed when the holding of the grief has peeked. This happened in 2007, and unfortunately, the release came in me seeing red and experiencing an intense amount of rage. Shedding tears and smashing things may be a release, but I also believe there must be another way. Right now, I am choosing to dedicate myself to a daily yoga practice. This is my way, through meditation, restorative poses and stretches, to attempt healing my body from the toll that grief has taken. I don't know why it breaks my heart so severely to have this be my fate, to live with schizoaffective disorder, but it wounds me greatly. I have to wonder if the wound is in proportion to the size of my pride, and perhaps I am responsible in part for the amount of suffering I endure.

This leads me to thinking about The Power of Now, the ego, and perspective in general. My suffering is no greater than that of so many on the planet, and I need to exercise humbleness and reach into the consciousness of the Earth in order to gain perspective. It is possible that this psychosomatic pain that I feel, is contributed to by the very nature of my illness. Though grief in the body is a universal subject, it may be experienced differently by me due to my chemical make up, my delicate emotions, my sensitivity. It is a gift. I know this, and yet I have so much to explore in truly understanding this. What are my sensitivities? What do they mean and how can I pay closer attention to the nature of them? I want to be all that I can be. The truth as I know it was crushed and a new truth was put in my path. I am simply not who I thought I was or would be. I am emerging now, as I approach 40, to embark upon a life new, to move forward into the many years to come with the understanding and wisdom that I have gained these last twenty years putting together the pieces.

Life is so rich. As I have said I have my family, my pets, and my partner of twenty years. Life could not be better. I have learned to live a balanced life with what many experience as a debilitating illness. I have conquered so much. Even though I have experienced psychotic breaks, anger, rage and tears, I have emerged balanced and with an intelligent outlook. Now I have the job of finding what truly my gift entails, as I would choose to describe it. I know that there can or could be many definitions and understandings of mental illness spanning the many cultures and societies of this earth and beyond. It is my life work to unravel these mysteries. I will use writing and meditation to uncover these undiscovered mysteries of my make up. I must accept who I am. Though I still struggle with this I know that this is what God wishes of me. I am grateful too for my discoveries and adventures in Faith. Faith and spirituality, ancient as they are, seem to hold many keys to the answers which I seek. There are still so many unknown secrets pertaining to the soul, the spirit, life after death, transentience and other psychic abilities. I think it is possible that these skills are only becoming heightened in my “old” age, making it increasingly difficult to fit into society the way my ego and expectations so desperately wish to. I want to accept that this is okay. If I look at my life, my needs are met and I am surviving. I am doing more than that. I am living a full and joyous existence. There are still moments of pain and strife but this only offers an enhanced reason to listen to myself and my body.

Luckily I have learned about and am still growing in the ability to take care of myself. I have less need for late nights out at the bar, hard alcohol, fatty foods and sugar, and again the temptations and judgements of the ego. I am learning to slow down, savor family, embrace stillness, and practice acceptance for who I am and what I have achieved. There is just so much to be grateful for. Yes there are so many avenues of learning, but still we are one and the same, a large beautiful human family. I only need now to look to God for my purpose. I know that the small is large and the large is small. Relativity is so vast. And again I am grateful. I am unique, special and gifted. Let’s see what I can contribute to this spinning planet in my uniqueness, and hopefully enjoy the ride. A light heart is needed and as I exude this grief from my body I slowly learn to replace it with the joy and acceptance that I am creating myself.

Antonio Vivaldi is playing in my living room and the door is open welcoming a crisp early Fall day. There are splashes of sunlight on the deciduous trees still holding their green leaves, yet moving gradually into their dormancy as am I. I love Fall. Was it the back to school times, the new shoes, pencils and books, new clothes, renewed friendships, and the draw of learning yet another year? School is a thing of the past unfortunately, college a long gone dream, but who really needs college to learn? I have a library at my fingertips full of the Great Courses which I have yet to delve into, podcasts, news articles, and films and paintings. There are museums to attend, countries to travel to, though I doubt I will be doing this anytime soon. I need only experience life, and discover what lay right before me to truly learn. I have classical music, and a community full of interesting people to talk to. 

I am also realizing lately that I am still young. Yes, this is hard to believe, at 38 I have entered early menopause though it is taking its grip gradually. I exhibit gray hairs in plenty, and my body does not move as it once did. Gradual yoga, walking and gentle swimming are my regular exercises, and I have embraced fully mourning my younger athlete self. There are many practices I am perfecting that will benefit my health. Meditation, cooking greens, whole grains and beans, drinking green tea and miso, continuing on the path of vegetarianism and cutting back on cheese and butter, continuing to purge sugar from my diet, dialing in my supplement routine, a daily morning yoga practice, practicing kindness and prayer and most of all perfecting my faith in the universe, nature and God. Balance of course is a key concept as well as everything in moderation. I have incorporated gentle smoking herbs into my day, cutting back on the organic tobacco I roll regularly into suffocating smokes. I am not perfect. Someday I would like to quit drinking and I have on occasion for several months at a time. I eat brewers yeast more regularly and try to ingest a little apple cider vinegar with my veggies. Smoothies with greens and protein powder and organic cherries and bananas, raw milk and organic yoghurt keep me starting the day right. I take turmeric and fish oils twice a day. But still, there is much to improve on.

I am getting better at worrying less. I approach work with a general balanced mind, taking the day as it is and moving forward gracefully. I have balanced friendships and am learning every day to accept and cherish my nuclear family. I can't believe I have made it this far, and I must have done something right along the way. I want to continue writing. I want to write every day and tell the world about my soul song.

I miss camping. Journeying to the mountains in the old days was a regular adventure I would take in the summers with my husband and my dogs. I would savor the river valleys of the Nooksack and the Snohomish and Skagit rivers. I would climb trails and roads to little sanctuaries nestled high on the mountain. I would walk and savor the call and wing flight of the ravens that bless Washington State. This state, it is my state. The Methow, the Columbia, the Olympic Rainforest, Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, and Mount St Helens and Adams. The San Juan and Canadian Gulf Islands, the desert plains of Eastern Washington. She is all there still, and I love her.

And now I am learning to be still. With my meditations and frequenting the same island parks and walking every morning on the same piece of land, passing the same ancient willow and sometimes sitting in her perch. I know the world is vast, I know it is grand. I traveled as a child and saw many beaches, forests, temples, cathedrals and museums. Yet, today I don’t wish to travel. I crave the slow daily practice of routine and solitude. One bar, two stores, several roads. I am here and this is where I want to be. But the world is so vast and in a way I crave to someday have the longing for adventure once again. Right now I am on a healing path and this requires assembling to a sense of place. My living room, my porch, my yard, and occasionally my beach I frequent. Just a handful of friends and family close by. Life is nurturing, wholesome, and in a way, pure.

My hands aren’t what they used to be. My legs either. But I can still type, walk, and sing. I can still love and I plan on strengthening this ability for some time to come. Life is good. Though the city is a glimmer of the past, and I draw on the wind to remember the tops of mountains which I am not sure I have the strength to climb, I know I still have time to transform myself. I am also grateful for the twenty years with my partner. My pets ground me every day with their loving touch and soft fur. And as the days and hours pass, I become even more grounded in my sensitivities. I am listening to the sounds and longings deep in my bones and tightly packed muscles, and occasionally I look into the mirror into my eyes that reflect the deep grief I hold inside. Life continues to enrich itself in its tapestries and weavings. Love deepens, and strength ensues.

Years ago I had a vision so strong it scares me. It scares me so much I can't even speak of it. I am not sure it is even meant to be understood. It was a vision of the future and how paths of some very important people intertwine. But I still believe it can be and must be taken as a metaphor. The true message of this vision is insight into my gifts. Years ago I was frightened by my ability to see the future. And it is true that this cannot be done. It is seen in terms so abstract that no one could ever decode actual events. These visions do not exist on a linear plane. Miracles happen around me all the time, but they exist in a moment and then that moment passes. These are not things or events that can be reflected on in retrospect and analyzed. They are simple glimmers of divine intervention. This is the same with visions of the future. I used to make paintings of these visions and though many of these paintings have disappeared or been replaced to walls or basements of other’s homes, I still have a cash of them in the loft of the barn. I visited these tactile visions in 2016 when I was lucid and psychotic. It was as if it was a map of time, all played out in vivid color. How could I create something so beautiful. As I grow older, I am realizing this is within me, and it is stronger that ever before.

This is why I need stillness and routine. This is why I need my man of twenty years, my dogs, my mom, and my small island community. It is working for me. I am awakening every day and it is a miracle to see from these eyes. God is gratitude and forgiveness and he has given me so much. My deepest longings and pain stem form not realizing this. The miracle is so vast. It is one great round miracle, not many pieces detached and viscerally connected. It is all one. And God is in me, it stems from me, it flows from me, from my fingertips and my paintbrush.

Rest is good at times, especially for those of us with such delicate and potent energy. In my bed last night I performed an experiment on my sleeping husband. I placed my hand on his hands one after the other then melted my energy through my hand into his chest. I was connecting with him on a deep level. There was something happening that I can’t quite explain. Right now I need to do this to feel the intimacy I am craving. Touch is magical for me. Steve has magical touch as well, though he is a man, and has a more strait forward view of the world. He does entertain me with my creative philosophies. 

I was visiting a friend last night and he is suffering from an illness. I did not do healing touch on my friend but I felt myself attuning and aligning to his body and his energy. This is a truth for me that I need to somehow learn more about and learn to cherish and accept in myself.  This is why I get tapped out and confused at times. I am entwining with and absorbing other people’s energies. As I heal my grief and tune in more with these sensitivities, I become more sensitive myself. Social interactions take a toll on me and children require an amazing pull on my resources. This is good, I am special. There is a character in the X-men movies and comics that has a similar talent. She is a mutant and she can’t touch other’s physical skin because she absorbs and melds too much with their energy. I can’t remember what exactly happens to her but it is some sort of psychic ability she has. I often think of this when I am trying to make sense of this part of myself. Mostly what I am doing today after having a social afternoon and evening yesterday, giving of my psychic abilities to several friends, is taking it slowly. I rested a bit and I am grateful to be home alone this early afternoon typing on my computer and listening to music. I like connecting with people and reaching out to those I love energetically. I cant really help it, it is who I am.

This might be why my physical body is so compact and robust. I weigh much more than I appear to and from years of exercise, I have built very solid muscle on my frame. It holds me down and grounds me, I believe, because dealing with this energy can give you a sensation of lightness and as if you might fly away. It is transparent, potent and magical. I love my body and what it has become. I have learned to accept the curves and the mass of muscle in my legs. But what am I holding that I can learn to release and let go of? I may have been absorbing too much from the world and not really known where to dispose of the energy or how to let it go. One thing I know I am not really good at is dealing with “shoulds” in life. I should go for a walk. I should shop with my mom. I should do the dishes or sweep the floor or deal with the laundry. I should do my yoga routine. A friend brought up the idea of spontaneity the other day, and it is a concept I wish to accept. Spontaneity helps me realize and accept that I am free moment to moment. I can do what is rightful myself. This is essential for tuning into my body and doing what my energy truly needs me to do. Sometimes this may be being alone. Sometimes this may be seeking out a friend to talk to. This may mean putting off chores for the day as I am doing now, and listening to music and holding my gentle psyche in a glowing space of love and acceptance.

If I slow down and allow for spontaneity, I allow my body to lead me in the direction which it needs to go. The soul is a complex and delicate thing. Recently the spirit name Psyche came to me in a dream. I was told this was my name and I looked up the story of the Greek goddess the next day. She is the goddess of the soul. She is integral with the roles of Cupid and their love child in entwining people in loving relationships. So what does soul have to do with life and love exactly? First, I must start to listen to my soul. One thing I know is that what is right my for my soul isn’t always black and white, doesn’t come from a manual, and can’t be deduced from righteous reasoning. It is complex. I am complex, and I have a deep deep subconscious. Often, I am wishing to untangle energetic messes in my life, and it is easy to prescribe to good things that we know are facts. Examples of this are eating my greens, going for walks, doing yoga, quitting drinking, and spending more time at home and with family. But is is easy to get too committed to routine, and then we lose this aspect of spontaneity that the soul craves. I have a deep heart song filled with much pain and grief. How do I let these parts of me express themselves?

I can start by stop trying to be perfect and trying to overachieve. I know all of these things I mentioned above are good for my health. But for example, I am taking today and yesterday I guess, to allow myself to stray a bit. I want to wander and listen. I want to let the deep parts of me come to the surface and have a voice. It is all very subtle. I do not want to live on the surface of reality gripping hard to what I think may be health. There is spiritual, emotional and mental health to consider as well. And these things do not always travel linearly. There are deep swirls in my being.

The word travel comes to mind. Many people are down to travel in a literal way. They head out on a road trip when they need to search, they take off to Europe or India to discover themselves. As I have said before literal travel hasn’t taken an important presence in my life, but one of the gifts of having deep dreams, a powerful subconscious and an incredibly creative and imaginative mind is that I can do this here, on my little island and in my very own house. Sometimes this requires being alone, because even my dear husband can interrupt my delicate process. Often, when I wake in the middle of the night from a potent dream, I take a few waking moments at my computer or outside looking at the moon to check in with myself.

I am so grateful for these last ten years on Lopez. I am beginning to find that I have developed some pretty deep friendships and even relationships with acquaintances feel deep and potent at times. If I am sticking too tightly to routine and goals, I am likely to miss opportunities I may have to entwine, mingle and blend my soul with another. What is right for me is omnipotent. 

Right now it is October, and people have begun to leave the island. Less visitors are coming and things are slowing down. As we finish our final harvests of the year, it is time to do some deep planting and selection of our inner selves. What I am remembering is that I am a free individual. Sometimes deep down I feel I am trapped or imprisoned. What is imprisoning me deep in my subconscious? Last night was my first in many that I had dreams that were not disturbing. Something has been trying to wake me up and it is time that I listen. Coming hope from a friend’s late last night I realized that I have done so much good for myself these last couple of years. I have pounded against addictions, straining to reign myself in against drinking, anger, and other destructive habits. I have been journaling, sitting in silence in the woods, practicing yoga, and doing many of these things in a very disciplined way. I have paved the way, I have jumped the tracks and this is good. But it is time I took the time to realize where I have landed. A year and a half ago I had a psychotic break, the first in nine years. This was the beginning of me jumping the tracks. Then my husband came down with debilitating spinal stenoses and almost became paralyzed. He needed surgery, I needed medication adjustments, this all takes time, and a lot of discipline and quiet nights at home. It has been transformative to say the least. I took up meditation, decided to publish a book, and buckled down to spend the majority of my time with my parents and my lover. All this, yet where have I landed?

I have written page after page for the last several years, I have prayed, talked with God, lost my mind, and laid on the floor in a puddle of water with my disabled husband. You could say we hit a low. There was a lot of fear and grief to process. I feel now I am coming around the bend now, slowly, on a train, and I know I have seen angels. So what does this mean? Well I have definitely traveled, and I need to connect with where I have arrived. It is a good place and I am grateful.

Deep deep rivers run in my soul. I wish to travel them with open eyes. I wish to continue to awaken to my psyche, my soul. I need to ask myself, what of and why these visions that I have had over the last twenty years? Could they make sense to me if I gave them more credence? I spent too much time trying to put that all behind me and become the picture of health, a survivor of an illness. But then 2016 happened. I soon realized that trying to be normal, a deep longing I had succumbed to, was not a healthy answer. I had boxed myself, I had cut off conceptual limbs, and I soon realized what was important was to regain sensitivity.

My gift is greatly intertwined with the fact that I am sensitive. As I have gained control over my symptoms, I have found I am able to amble in the subjective. I am able to allow a little of the obscure through my door. I am able to be imaginative once again, in a healthy way grounded in reality. The pursuit of understanding my disability as a gift has required me to allow meaning to my dreams and visions. There is a delicate balance to managing my mental health and managing symptoms and moods, and also seeing my sensitivity as a gift. What can be gained from what I have perceived for so many years as a fault? Obviously this entails reframing the way I think of myself. So I slow down, I open up, I write, and I indulge in the rivers of the soul both light and dark. I still believe that addicts and mentally ill people are butterflies awaiting transformation. So when we get a handle on how to survive with our illness, what then? I believe there is a great more to it that just taking our meds, managing our moods, or abstaining from alcohol or heroin. We are actually the gifted. We have to learn to channel the good and release the bad. Our sensitive souls have great meaning and purpose, not just to survive. This is my journey I am taking.

But the answer is so prudent and abstract. I feel I am treading on unconquered ground here. I am hesitant to take too many answers from New Age movements, religion, or society in general. The answers are going to come from listening to my body and developing my own language and understanding of my own life in its uniqueness. Yoga, in the form that it has taken in my own living room after many years of taking classes, seems to help me understand chi and restorative energies. But I know my body and mind are unique in their energies and chemicals. I suppose this is my double Aries Sun and Moon in my start chart. I am meant to be a pioneer. I do not do well following others. I have known for years that I am a solo act. Yes I have a partner and that continues to amaze me. But I am a leader. I am a pioneer. I am an individual. There is a loneliness to this uniqueness, and truly being alone is probably one of the first and deepest visions in my soul. I have learned along the way that though we may have loved ones in our lives, in our pain we are all alone. Somehow it is in discovering this aloneness, embracing it and accepting it is where we make peace with our freedom, where we discover God and love. We must learn to generate it within ourselves, we must know that we are our own generators. We have our own minds, hearts, energy frequencies and thoughts. In creativity, pure creativity, we are original.  This originality comes from a deep deep consciousness that we are alone. Of course we are all connected and are as one as well. There is balance to this, there is peace and intelligence in this contradiction. There is a deep deep truth in both of these awarenesses.

I am grateful for my vision of being truly alone. I was on a planet as the only living being. I was a flower, and an alien. I was the only life in the world as I knew it. A lone flower on a huge and vast planet of rock. I felt this and saw this in all of its deep truth. And here is where I learned self love. Here is where I learned to self soothe. Here is where I learned true awareness of myself as a being, as a divine creation of this universe. Yes, it was frightening, but there was also freedom and peace in this discovery. If this were the truth, I would know now how to face it. I overcame something very great and profound.

Chapter Three

I have had many visions over the years. More than I realize really. 2007 was three months of constant visions or as some would say psychosis. I also had reached a place in my life where it was time to let the rage out. This may have not been necessary, but my dial when I am not properly medicated unfortunately goes from zero to ten, or perhaps 11. I did smash a lot of glass, and I broke my fish tank and smashed two cars and an old television with a pipe wrench and a hammer. I am not sure where the physical strength came in those moments and for some of it I was blacked out, for some of it I saw red. But not all of it. When I smashed the fish tank and the television I was here. Just not in control. Where did this rage come from? What if I had not let it out in this way? Would it have eaten me up over the years? Would I have found a way to release to or deal with the anger? We know that rage is a mixture of shame and fear as well as anger. I was ashamed of my illness, and at the time I was very afraid of the psychosis. It was not all pretty. There were scary moments for sure. The end of the world, vampires, spiders, serial killers, all in long drawn out stories and realities in my mind. I truly was gone, missing from reality for three long months. Time of course did not exist for me, but it did for my partner, and he said I barely spoke to him during this time. It is a story that still brings me grief.

And this is my story, or part of it. I was also a preschool teacher, artist, peer-counselor, friend, wife of a chef/pot grower and a nature enthusiast. Today a friend from that previous life is visiting the islands and I am grateful that I have nurtured and maintained some friendships from this time in my life and before. 2016 was not as horrific. I did scare the dog with some yelling, because whether I like it or not, I cannot control my anger during an episode. But the rage was not there anymore. Mostly I was peaceful, frightened at times. I believed I had AIDS, and I imagined many ghosts from times of torture that were telling me their stories.

Here I am, a year and a half later, it is Fall of 2017, and I am doing great. It is true that I still live with and manage my schizoaffective disorder. It does not always make sense. It is constantly changing and evolving as my age and body and time does. But as I get older I am starting to find meaning in all of it. Not just my journey with the illness in the past, but my current struggles as well. One key has been self acceptance, which for me starts with the human form, the body, as I struggled with an eating disorder in my younger years. The self denial and depreciation I have still been practicing on a subconscious level for many years, though I gave up the practices of starving myself, binging and purging, and I have constantly been working on accepting my body over the years. But there is a deeper root to this other illness, this psychological addiction, of which I also have and still carry as it is an addiction. It all stems from control, as well as is the antithesis of acceptance. So accepting my body and ridding myself of body shaming has been a small doorway to slip through to accepting myself as a whole and eventually accepting my mental illness and where it has brought me in life.

One thing I know for sure is no one has it easy. I used to think I was alone in my pain, and accepting that vision I had early on of being alone helped me break through the surface to the reality where I know that everyone suffers. Aloneness, accepting aloneness, was key for knowing that I am not alone. Somehow facing, realizing the dream in a lucid way of being stranded on a planet in the beginning of time, helped me connect with God. This was an initial process. It still took many years after I had this vision to awaken to a path in life with a more grounded reality to it. I also needed to stop comparing my life to others, which I am still guilty of at times on FaceBook. So yes, I still work on accepting my path in life, but I do think I am making huge breakthroughs. 

Part of this is realizing my specialness, practicing self love and self acceptance. Obviously developing faith and knowing true gratitude and forgiveness has helped as well. Faith has been key. As I was saying, accepting my body is and has been a doorway into accepting my path with this illness. My body is a key stepping stone in more than one way. I have needed to listen to my body to process the grief and truly heal. Paying attention to the body is key in transentience, the ability to feel other’s emotions in your body, and all the psychic energies in the universe that pass through me occur in this body. And then there is spirit and soul as I was discussing earlier. This is the universe at work in a large way that really transcends this body. So as I tune in with what is happening inside of me and learn to appreciate both my energetic skills as well as my appearance as beautiful, I move into real true acceptance of this life and this path, my illness, and where I have landed after many years of being entangled with the mysteries and psychosis and moods of a mental illness.

Life is good. One thing I have accomplished is my marriage. It is a wedding of the seasons, and we have had many Imbolc fires where we celebrate our union. Still we are not wedded in the sense the State would recognize, but in every way I believe in my marriage and the truth of it. Part of this is all we have been through these last twenty years. Still to this day we crave to be at each other’s side, and rarely spend time apart. Still to this day I am taken aback with all Steve has witnessed and walked at my side through. He is my biggest support, and really the only person I trust to meet at my side with my psychiatrist when I am not doing well. He knows the adult me, the real me, better than any other. I love him, I trust him, and I am grateful for him everyday. He truly is my savior. Sometimes I think the feeling is mutual, and I know he loves me like no other. I know he could not live without me, of course he could if he had to because he is the strongest person I know. But a twenty year relationship is more than some could even imagine. Many would trade their wealth and success for true love and a real partner in life. I recognize this and I know I am lucky. I am happy.

So life isn’t only good, it is rich and beautiful. We are just people traveling side by side and I think this is why we have been so successful. We are both openminded, resilient, understanding and forgiving. The tapestries are strong and rich in color. To this day, I do not feel trapped, I never have. I have always been free to explore myself within our relationship and this has been important, not only because of our age difference, but because I value my individuality. Steve understands this and appreciates this. We both just really like each other as people and we have only ever just seen each other as that. We are still not married and I believe we have no intention of becoming so. We are defined by our love, and we know we are here for each other. What more is there? The proof is in the pudding.

So a huge amount of my success with surviving and learning to live with a serious mental illness is that I have had Steve by my side through it all. Family unfortunately does not always work for support. It was crucial in my twenties that I was out in the world figuring things out for myself. I maintained developing an identity through my own experience, I was allowed to be an artist, fall in love, and fumble around while I still tried to take meds everyday and not end up totally devastated. So I had Steve. I could not have done it without him. I make it sound like he was integral in me finding a life, but really he is and was and will always be my life. That is what I am learning as I learn to accept myself, my body, my life and my illness. Love is the most important. We don’t always realize what we have until it is too late. He has been there all along, loving me, holding my head and my hand, supporting me, cherishing me, talking to me. I am so blessed in this partnership. So what if I don’t own a house, have a career, a family of my own? And who is defining all of these things anyway? It is time I send society to the curb and light flames to my conditioning. I am an artist, I have a partner, a husband, my dogs and cats are my children. I don’t want to be anywhere else.

Once we had a bit of money and could have purchased a house of our own without my parent’s help. This came from buying our first house with a loan from my folks and then selling it to move out to Lopez. I wonder, perhaps I really am a hippy, a Taoist, because I could not deal. I think freedom and originality, the beauty of not being attached to things, the freedom that entails, is where my heart strays to. I could not deal with having money. I worried, I was tortured, it was hell. So when it was gone, I had to embrace that it was, but really I was relieved. The reality of the world is that so many do not have much. Also, I think money, beyond what we need to survive, is an illness. This experience lent me insight into the truth that I feel is unavoidable. Yes, those multi billionaires are suffering, they are blind and they do not know who they are anymore. I would not wish this upon myself or anyone I love. It sounds weird, but money is an illness, as is control, negativity, and the ego.

Times are for sure interesting these days. I am feeling increasingly integrated all the time. I took a little break from not drinking, but I am looking forward to returning to this abstaining. Right now I am practicing vegetarianism and yoga on a regular basis. I feel not drinking is important to keeping my center, staying in the moment, and practicing good health. I have too many friends that have been poorly affected by alcohol. I can see how it affects those around me and though there are times when I enjoy a beer and the social company at the bar, I feel confident that it is the right thing for me to pursue a sober existence.

One thing I have noticed from experience is that it is impossible to practice yoga with a buzz on. Now, after developing a daily practice, I know how amazing yoga and the benefits of breathing into my body, practicing meditation, and the yogic poses are, and that I can only conclude that alcohol is keeping me from doing this when I am intoxicated. Mindfulness can be practiced all throughout the day, as Eckart Tolle teaches in the Power of Now. I have been attending a Power of Now group now for a couple of years. It is a wonderful book with insights that compliment my yoga practice. He speaks of the pain body, a term for an egoic state where we are trapped in our bodies and therefore our minds, while holding onto emotions. We return to this state often when we are not in the moment. I relate to this when I am in a restorative pose or trying to breathe into a stretch. This also relates to my philosophy of having psychosomatic pain or grief or trauma stored in the tissues of my body. I am hoping to get in touch with this through yoga, breathing, and not over-attaching to the ego mind in my day. I can see how spending time intoxicated or buzzed does not work in my favor for working through and ridding myself of these emotions, sensations, and states of mind. As I return to my goal of being sober, I am reminded how much I have worked and inched my way towards this reality for a couple of years now. It is never too late, and I am reveling in being proud of myself for all of the successes I have made.

Drinking has been a way of life for both me and my husband for some time. As restaurant and industry people, we have socialized with our coworkers and for many this becomes a way of life. I see nothing wrong, and as I don’t choose to shame meat eaters, I will also not shame those who choose to drink. We all have our process, and there is no right way. There are too many shades of grey in this world and I refuse to think that things can be made sense of in a black and white mentality.

Home has become a sacred place to me. It is where I wake up and go to sleep, it is where my animals are and it is where I spend the majority of intimate moments with my partner. I revel in the moments I practice cleanliness and savor the results. I am connected here now, and it is often where I choose to be. After spending an entire winter poor, sober and preparing for Steve’s spinal stenosis surgery, trying to quit smoking, and better our lives in general, I find myself approaching another quiet season at home. Summer can be filled with excitement, but there is nothing wrong with hunkering down and expanding the brain processes through boredom. They are actually finding that boredom, time spent spacing out, in nothingness, is greatly beneficial in building brain mass, neuron connections and intelligence. I also have my writing and my music and I hope to maybe indulge in a painting here and there this winter season.

I am practicing surrender with my first book, Glass Slippers which is in the process of being Self-published. It is taking a minute, a pause so to speak, and I find myself anxious as other people in my community are celebrating their book releases. So as I type away at what very well may be my second book, a memoir about my experience with mental illness, I am finding that life does not always turn out as we expect. The process I am in, that has come to take a long time, is important to me and so I must trust that there is no real hurry, that there is no real time line. This all of a sudden puts power and control back into my own hands as I set it free and release it. It has been a year and a half now from the moment where I birthed the concept of publishing my blogs. As my husband reads through them in his own time, I value his input and I am surrendering to a whole new time frame. It is good, and slowing down the process is requiring me to pay close attention to myself. It is causing me to have some grand revelations as I release this book to the cosmos and universal energies that are beyond my control. After a couple months of this phase, which is supposed to be a final phase, I am dealing with my anxiety at its root. I doubt I will have any left when the book actually does surface. Somehow this feeling of a pause in the process is allowing me to find my worth in its true sense.

Today was another book launch for someone in the community. I know I should be putting time into researching how I will self promote, how I will be noticed, and getting bookshops to carry my work. But the truth is that I will never have a true conception of what this book will be without seeing it finished before me. I have time to read through it one final time and I will do so while my husband plugs away at his process. Today I am sick and it is a similar feeling to what I am describing. The world is put on hold, it just stops, and what am I left with? I am left with myself. I am all that I have. We spend our lives dressing our egos with all sorts of fancy jackets, even our ideas and philosophies and opinions may feed our egos. But when I am ill, right now with a deep chest cold, I am humbled. In a way I am struggling with feeling humble while putting out Glass Slippers.

But we should strip ourselves of everything our ego says we need or is necessary. I am not saying that self promotion is bad, and someday, when the book is out, I may be able to learn a thing or two as I embark on promoting my book. But I want people to see inside of the ego. I want my words to take them there. It is not just another book, it is a wrenching and a birthing, a healing and shows suffering and growth. I only hope that I am able to remain truly humble, and I think it is possible that the book will speak for itself.

Today I cried again when I was thinking about work. I have friends that are achieving at their jobs at the Library, and don’t get me wrong, I do a good job and care deeply about the quality of what I do, my tasks and interactions. But I was brought back to the day I turned down a position that I would so have loved to take. It kills me over and over in this life that I cannot succeed in the way I wish to, that my illness still binds me in invisible handcuffs. This is why I speak of being humble. I am nothing if I am not that. I don’t wish to outshine anyone, or desire to cruise to the top and stay there, I just wish to be seen. I just want to help others like me. I want to reach out to someone who may feel alone in their pain.

So how do you a present a book that has these sort of goals. I am not trying to simply “sell” books. I want the experience to take on a spirit of its own. I want god and angels and people to move the energy of this book to a place where it may touch a heart or two. I want it to mean something. This is why I am drawing on the wisdom of my husband who I am not seeing through wise spectacles, while he seems to be annoyingly slowing down the process. Well, this word processing is key. I am processing very deeply the words that I am sending out on pages to be held closely in the hands of humans, some friends, perhaps some strangers. This process of birthing a manuscript needs to be complete, and I married Steve for a reason. He, if anyone, is tuned into the greater angels and spirits of this planet and this plane. He is guiding me right now to pay attention to myself. To not fall into society’s grip that wants me to compete, get frantic, get jealous, and overachieve without an ounce of consciousness. 

So I am moving on while I am standing still. I am writing these words and I am listening to the deep inner song of my soul. I still have tears to shed, and many things to discover about myself. I think I am taking a lesson from some forces that I cannot even see. I am building my character and clearing my mind. As I do this, I realize that I am not preparing for a moment, I am here in the moment now. Everything matters, nothing matters, and most of all…. what really matters?

What matters and always has is the process. What is this road I am on? What is the perspective of my life story; my eating disorder, my boyfriend being shot, my depression, my four major psychotic breaks, my mania…. What of all the painting, the days spent driving out to the mountains, nights making love to my husband, burying several dogs and a couple of cats, the tears during sex, the joy. What do I really make of this? And now I am here, at this moment of my life, waiting to see what will happen next. This isn’t this first memoir I have written and it wont be the last. So I am not going to miss out on the daily moments while losing myself to the tasks of the ego. That is not who I am. I am all of the different shades of color and black and white that exist in these past experiences. I am not Glass Slippers or any other work of art or writing. That is what has come out of me and aided me on the journey to arrive on this very moment where I get to know myself.

And the path to knowing oneself is very long and deep. First you have to realize that you matter. Yes, you. You matter. I am a child of god. I am guided and watched over. I suppose you could say that one thing I wish to break through and burn down is illusion. I have been accused of having delusions, psychotic fantasies, visions, psychosis. But I feel that the most dangerous illusions that I face are not these fantasies that I try to medicate with anti-psychotics, but are the illusions that so many of us humans endure and partake in in every day society. Like class, even education, race, and of course all of the delusions that are fueled by hate and make someone feel different from someone else. They are so common. I find that having come from a white privileged family, that these patterns of ignorance and illusion reside closer to me that I could ever imagine. First, we must recognize and combat them within ourselves. I do not want to abuse white privilege, I want to make sure I have gay friends, black friends, hispanic friends, poor friends, and mentally ill friends. This is where I am grateful to be disabled, mentally ill, and essentially a minority. Perhaps my dreams were answered when I sought to combat my rich white conditioning of my youth. The sad thing is so many people are just more comfortable looking out for themselves and choose to accept their privilege. This can make me angry, but I am really not like these folks anymore. I have been cast out with a deadly disability, that has major stigma, that is underfunded, that is why we have so many people in jail, hooked on drugs, homeless and committing suicide. In truth, in my humbleness, this is me, standing by the side of the road losing my mind. I am all alone, I don’t know which way is home. Somehow, someway, I find my way and now I am home. With family, with my sister, with a husband. But one will never forget those moments when all has been lost, completely wiped away, when you are an orphan to the world. I have been there, I have seen this.

I’ve had the flu for three days right now, and upon day three, feeling a different kind of horrible all together, I know I am on the upswing somehow. I feel like praying, praising God. My friend just had to evacuate her home this morning in Northern California due to fires, and I am grateful for so many things. I am grateful I did not have the stomach flu, that my fever was mild, that my throat isn’t sore. It could be so much worse, I do not have cancer or pneumonia, my house in not in danger of being burned or flooded. I have a very abstract view of God at times, but there are moments when I lean on Jesus. Right now is one of those times. If God is a drug then I will take it.

I have been going to church on and off for about four years now. I also attend Quakers and do Yoga, pray to Nature and Grandfather Spirit, and sometimes even the Goddess. But often I return to the term God, it is a simple term, and right now praise music is soothing me greatly.

I love my family, and my friends, they are usually great support. I had a startling realization though while being down and out these last few days with an illness. Jesus provides total unconditional love. Nothing is wrong with me and I have never done anything wrong. His love is pure and I am good. Faced with some circumstances where my dad asked me if I had done something wrong to get sick, and where my mother blamed my smoking and seemed to only put fear into me that I was not doing the right things or that I would end up with Pneumonia if I was coughing, and telling me not to smoke. My best friend never called to check up on me and I am now faced with realizing how much I give. I try to be so supportive. So what of my mental illness? How does this relate to how these people treat me when I am struggling with my mental illness? For twenty years I have struggled with being sick, and I wonder, how prevalent have these dialogues coming form my parents been when I have been sick with my mental illness? Perhaps this is why Christ is so appealing for me. Christ is all of those things, all of those messages and all of the support that I don’t receive in real life. I don’t want to criticize my family and friends too deeply, I know their intentions are good, but I cant help but feel that I have not been given the support I deserve. Perhaps I have been made to feel too guilty or as if I have failed. Jesus forgives me for all of this. Humans can fall short of this necessary support. I have felt alone and as if I had no one to call, then this morning I put on Praise music and I am reminded how not alone I actually am. With the current politics in the world it can be hard for me to admit that I love Jesus, but at times like this when I am suffering so greatly, I really don’t care what people think. How can there be fault to pure love. And praising God just makes me feel better. I am humble, I am grateful, I am astounded at your grace, Lord.

We are all equal in the eyes of the Lord. Men and women, children and animals. To me this is a modern idea. I was reading about the institution of marriage and how women used to be the property of men. Evil is not God. Slavery, prejudice, hatred, murder. It is an atrocity to think that Jesus and Guns go together. I am ashamed to think that women not having health care serves the Lord. How can things seem so skewed in our current political climate? All I know is that for me God is very personal. Sometimes I keep from going to church because I am afraid that the person sitting next to me voted for Donald Trump or that they want to take away women’s rights, or believe in filling the world with more murder weapons. But then I return to the truth. That Jesus has taught me a deep deep message about love. Earlier I was talking about the vision that I was alone. This is still true, except that I have God in this place. Whatever you choose to call him really is okay. Jesus, Krishna, Grandfather Spirit, Allah, Yahweh. There is a truth that runs deeper than an image carved into the rock, it is God. God is the essence in the rock, the essence in you and me. God knows the truth. We don’t have to turn our motives to politics, it seems to just get so construed. How can people miss the underlining truth to God. It is love. It is simple, it always has been and will always be.

A womb is a place where we as mothers hold our dreams, we birth our children, and we cycle every month, shedding old tissues to make room for the new. As a woman who does not have children, I am choosing to see my womb as an energetic place and almost a metaphor for my life. Right now I want to bring healing energies into my womb, because I have many hopes and dreams for my health and a good life. I wish to practice yoga regularly, remain a vegetarian, continue to practice meditation and writing, and eventually quit smoking and drinking. This morning I started a smoking journal. I am keeping track of when I smoke, how I feel, what I am doing and who I am with. I also have done some research on what I can do when cravings hit, like eat carrots or pop a lozenge, perhaps go for a walk, and a favorite is a new breathing practice. Just now, before I headed out on the porch to have a few puffs, I did four rotations of ten deep breaths. I realized that I was having anxiety, earlier I smoked because I was bored, and I also did so after eating. This journal is key to me understanding my addiction. Having a mental illness it is not safe for me to quit cold turkey. Tobacco is a necessary and yet not so necessary crutch. I am prepared to learn to live without it but I need to understand my addiction and have patience with myself.

So my dream is to write, to practice yoga, to breathe clearly and have good health. I am ready for a remodel in my life. It is a huge undertaking and I hope I have the energy and perseverance to keep moving forward in these directions. Having this flu, praying it doesn’t turn into pneumonia, has given me time to reflect. To heal the world we must first start with ourselves. I want to be mindful, I do not want to stuff anxiety, I want to breathe my way through it. I don’t want to be a part of killing animals, and along with eating more vegetables I am glad to not be ingesting this trauma energy into my cells. I feel I am ready for this birth and I have been working towards it for a long time.

Last night I was so miserable with the flu that I could do nothing but pray and cry. I imagined it was snowing and that it was Christmas Eve. I called out to Jesus, and the pain I have endured from losing my mind came to the surface. I want to heal this pain. I know it is there. Somehow I have worked through a layer of rage, but I still suffer tears of pain, fear and sadness from what I have been through. The key is to stay open because this pain leaks to the surface in a constant stream lending to anxiety and ultimately my habits of smoking and drinking. No, we all are not perfect. I feel ripped open because of this flu. I have gentle music playing and am drinking tea and ginger water, am breathing and now writing. In this moment there is pain. It is in my face, I feel the anguish. But as the music plays and my breathing ensues, I watch the clouds go by out my bedroom window, and they seem to carry with them the pain I am feeling.

Back to the womb. I suppose my creative endeavors have been like little births. I also know that I am gradually moving from being a woman who births from her womb, to a crone who has chi pass around all about herself as an aura. This transition has been hard so far. First when I suspected there was a change happening and I was entering peri menopause, I had a psychotic break. Then things settled down a bit. My cycles became regular once again and I began to enjoy the last moments of being a woman able to bear children. Some say I am young, I am 38, but I have spoken to many that have begun to see these changes at my age or perhaps even earlier. What does this all mean, what is happening to my womb?

Of course I still will able to gestate and manifest my dreams since it is all a metaphor anyway, but the way energy and chi passes through our bodies is important. Women who have hysterectomies go through a violent change of life chi. As a woman who can give birth the chi very dominantly flows down from between the legs to the earth. For Crones or Mages, women post menopause, is becomes more of an aura and comes form the crown of the head and dances all about the human figure. It is as iff we become less about our bodies and more about our dreams or our visions. Could it be that this will effect the grief, fear, sadness and anger I carry in my body?

This feels like a mystery to unravel. I am tired. I am ready to slow down. But more than this I feel I am ready to free myself from the hell that has followed me all of these years. I am no longer feeling such a need to please some force outside of myself. And strangely, as I heal my adult and adolescent trauma and connect with the young girl that once was so full of dreams, I find her holding my hand and leading me bravely into the mage years. I am a young mage still, but I have much to metabolize, process, and write. Who knows, I may sing and paint as well, but with new courage and a newly transformed healing aura.

As this flu lifts from my body I feel cleansed in a way. Today my parents left for Japan for two weeks. This might not seem significant to most adults but because I live on the same property with my mother and my dad is so close by, I seem to feel this strange teenage liberation with knowing that they have hit the road. My dreams last night were a bit crazy. Now this is nothing new, but I definitely worked through or bonded with some deep element of my spirit. Of course I woke up and had a little fight with my sister, but this is natural. I love my parents. They really are my best friends these days in so many ways. But they are still my parents. I will miss them, I know, but right now I feel like a seventeen year old who was given the house for the weekend. Somehow, unintentionally, my parents still foster a bit of the old messages that I am trying so hard to free myself from. I may have mentioned how they did not quite know how to respond to me having the flu, at least not initially, they came around of course. I feel free this morning and it feels good. I was anxious about having tasks and work these next three days, and not being fully recovered. But now I know that much of the stress is self induced. It is about “shoulds”, it is about expectations. All of a sudden I am free to be myself and make any mistake or choice I want. Yes, we should know this as adults and I try to know this despite living so close to my family. In years past I have hated to see my parents leave, because I was stuck in a my child needing approval. I have made some breakthroughs lately. At one point in my early adulthood I graduated to this sense of independence and then headed out into the world for ten years. Then in 2007 I had a terrible psychotic break and may have reverted to many childish tendencies and needs. I still always became unsettled when they would travel to the other side of the world, however, all through my twenties. They would leave for months at a time and I could sense a disturbance in the world or the forcefield for lack of a better way to describe it. 

I guess right now I am just needing some space. I have been trying to take it, but mom and dad are so prevalent in my day to day, and I find myself calling them to have someone to connect with everyday for lack of better judgement. It is simple, they just left, and it feels like a psychic veil has been lifted. I suppose I still feel pressure to be like them. My dad stays busy and involved in the community. My mother values performance and appearance. Both have these standards that are hard to meet. They manage it and it makes them amazing people. But I am a sheep of a different color. I like rock and roll, I smoke cigarettes and weed, I like to just lay back and soak in the day and let my imagination and my mind wander. I like to lose a sense of time. I am training myself to not worry about things so much. I have cobwebs in my house and I really don’t think they are hurting anybody. I have friends who are ex-addicts, living off the grid, and living swindle to swindle (a step below paycheck to paycheck). I want to be proud of who I am. Unfortunately I feel the pressure to be like my parents, or even my sister for that matter. But there is absolutely no reason for me to indulge in this pressure at my age if it is making me unhappy. These little breaks when they leave the country in the fall and winter are just opportunities to remember what It was like in my twenties when I was out in the world with Steve and discovering myself as an adult.

At least I had that time, I built that foundation. And don’t get me wrong, part of me likes trying to live up to the values of my mom and dad, mostly because I have these tendencies at a microbial level. It gets me by, it keeps me functional. I appreciate this functioning and I give a lot of the credit to the conditioning, training and influence of my parents. I love them so very dearly. But I have always been free. I have always been different. I fell in love with the love of my life who is also a free spirit and together we live, or can live a very fulfilling life out on the fringe of society. Lately, I feel I have been working too hard to meld with these familial expectations. I am capable of finding a equilibrium and balance of health within myself. I feel that attitude, freedom and creativity, things that I value very deeply, are some of the most important attributes to health, mental health, health of soul and spirit, and the ingredients for a happy life.

I still struggle with standing by these words. Recently, I discovered from a source that wearing a bra is really actually harmful to the body. We have lymph nodes and a lymph system that runs through our breasts that does not benefit from being constrained, which when you have breasts the size that I have, any bra that is doing any good at all is doing some cramming. Underwires are of course the worst. Also the rhythmic bouncing of breasts when they are free strengthens ligaments and tissues and actually prevents long term sagging. It is also good to strengthen these tissues by letting them move. Pressing down on the abdomen in general is just simply not a good idea. So knowing this, I really believe in not wearing a bra. Living this reality on the other hand is a challenge. Luckily I live in a small liberal community. I am not that brave. But I long to be. Being plus size and having plus size breasts requires a different kind of bravery I believe than being slim and having an a-c size cup. My breasts rest on my belly and splay wide. My nipples are huge, and I tend to look like a large saggy round fruit when I am relaxed and bra free. So I am telling this as an example as not just one reality I wish to truly live, and in which I believe, but to show that this is true in other realms of belief. I long to stand by my deeper values, my enlightened ideas, but I find it hard at times to combat my society, conditioning and upbringing in order to truly be a free spirit. Our society isn’t always ready for enlightened beliefs. All the more reason to take a stand. 

Accepting my body has become a metaphor for me moving towards the enlightened and happy person I wish to be. Things that seem difficult, like taking a day off of work (be it paid or not), or going braless, are really not that big of a deal. But it is these small statements that grab us. Once we claim that space for ourselves, it becomes easier to free ourselves and know ourselves on a deeper level in more and more ways. I believe it cascades. It feels good to be free (no pun intended). Life is too short, and it may become shorter than any of us dreamed it would be at any moment. I want to live it. I want to be happy. I want to know myself.

As I work through deeper feelings inside of me, and as I remain vulnerable and open, I find more discoveries and truths that will ultimately lead me en-route to happiness. I spent time a couple days in a row with my niece and she makes me so happy. As I continue recovery form my illness, I feel like I have turned a new page. I am contemplating things like opening myself to intimacy with myself, my lover and friends in a new way. I am exploring relaxing into who I really am. Somehow it has all hit, this fall season, mid-October, that life is just too short to not be enjoying it. I have pushed myself for a couple of months into working as much as I can. This was good. It was beneficial to my sense of self-esteem and sense of productivity. A little money came our way and it has allowed me to loosen the reigns just that much. It is Steve’s birthday, and Halloween is just around the corner. It is a time when we on Lopez revisit long term friendships and relationships and huddle down in our little community.

For months, even a year, I have stuck to disciplines around self care. Journaling, meditation, yoga, diet, not drinking and saving money. I have been very dependent upon my family for support. And still I was pushing myself to succeed. I easily fell into this trap once again. Recently grief has come to the surface. I do believe yoga helped me get there. But now it is time to incorporate, write and revel. A clean house is good, but living is good too. Life should be rich and multi-textured. I find myself questioning everything, I find myself breaking into sobs for no reason. I find myself feeling a pain in my skull which is familiar. It is telling me of my deepest longings, my deepest desires, my deepest secrets, it is reminding my of my rich cultured past. It is reminding me that chaos is good, that freaking out is healthy, that disfunction is actual function. It is reminding me to not waste a minute of my time cutting myself down, for I am a miracle. As I reconnect with friends and send myself out into the world without the tight reigns that I have been living with, how good it feels to be free.

I am remembering that my creativity prospers in chaos. I am remembering that my messes and imperfections are sacred. I am finally incorporating my visions from two decades. They are coming around. They are a part of me. They are starting to make sense.

Part of the reason that they are starting to make sense is that the older I get the more I realize the mystery in this vast universe. Love does not follow a straight line, it never has. Sexuality, disability, identity, love, chaos, they all live on a spectrum. A round evolving spectrum filled with rainbow colors. These colors are shining and shooting from the hole in my head. It is there, the sensation, the feeling that will not go away.

It is a strange sensation. It is in the upper right side of my brain, so I suppose it is the frontal cortex of my right brain. I am no brain scientist, but I know that I learn visually and conceptually. I know that I am an artist, that I am emotionally and creatively endowed. These tend to be right brain attributes. But this is also the part of my head that I hit against the wall repeatedly with great force at one point in my life in my mid-twenties. Lately it has been talking to me. And when this part of my body and brain awakens I feel a strange liberation, a wildness, a freedom. Perhaps things became scrambled and then healed funny because of the trauma. Who knows how bruised it actually became because of the violence. But when my grief comes up, when I am remembering what is important in life, when I know I am in love, this part of me awakens with a longing, a sexual, sensual, longing.

So, I am discovering myself. I seem to repeatedly be punishing myself and on this path of achievement. I have discussed overcoming the ego and letting go of this side of myself, this conditioning, but it keeps coming up and returning to my day to day. But I ask myself, as things become enlivened, heightened, exciting, is it possible to send this part of me off in a final goodbye? A funeral pyre of self-cruelty? Who is to say that I was ever meant to be anything other that I am today. Maybe I chose to not belong to the institutions of college and business. Maybe I strongly desired and chose to rely on myself and live a life where I got to be a perpetual teenager, but actually grow into myself, discover myself, and heal and get to know my little girl. Who is to say that I was ever not gifted, disabled, visionary, an artist. A struggling artist. I am exactly where I am meant to be and I have chosen this path every step of the way and now I choose to support it and re-accept it all the more fully.

My upbringing makes me think that I should punish myself, that I should squeeze into a bra and uncomfortable shoes, that I should worry about money, that I should value my privilege and leave others behind. The problem with this is that without being aware, with being conscious, you become terribly lonely and isolated. People don’t like privilege, they don’t like self importance, or superiority. They don’t want to know you, you entitled prick! They may pretend to respect you, but they are so far from knowing you because you do not even know yourself. And purity, it does not exist, it is unnatural and really painful and abusive to embody. I want connection, I want to see and love myself and see and love others. Life is messy, we are all fucked up. We are way more healthy if we accept this and wear this on our sleeve. If we are fooling ourselves and others that we do not have issues because we shun those who do, avoid and protect, then we are lost. I don’t want to be lost, I want to be found. I want Jazz and the Blues, I want sex and rock and roll, I want a true wild life, I want to accept my giant saggy tits and hairy legs, I want to make love outside, smoke pot and have a beer with my friends. Life is worth living. I am going to live it. I promise this to myself.

I won’t deny that Christ and discipline have saved me. I am just saying that I need a venue to fall apart in as well. And I need friends, real friends that I can find loose and unguarded intimacy with. I want to recall that breaking the rules is the trick to evolution and it is also key to who I have become and how I ended up where I am today. I am feeling it is time to remember. I will still stay home and drink tea, but I am going to stop being afraid to love myself and do what I truly want. I am going to speak my truth and I am going to have some fun.

Tea is hot and Enya is playing. It has been a rough night. So much turmoil inside of me. But right now the soothing music and cup of tea at 5am is nice, even if I barely slept. I am grateful. I have beautiful parents who love me, a sweet home, lovely pets. A beautiful sister and niece and brother in law. Sometimes I wish I took better advantage of this island community. Farm dinners, Apple fest, Contra Dances, Jazz band concerts. But I feel good about what I did do today. We had lunch at the local deli and and saw my friend play music in front of the Bakery. I danced with my niece, she is so gentle and sweet. She held my hand and moved her feet back and forth… not really the full out dance party we had the other day. But it felt good to twirl to my friend’s Irish tunes. We went in the bookstore and looked around, there is nothing more beautiful than books dressing the shelves in all their colors and words. It feels good to pick them up and touch the paper pages, discovering little mysteries therein.

I am still coughing. It has been a week. It is strange how one can have such a perfect day and then end up in turmoil later in their own home. I don’t know what is wrong with me. My friend suggested it was the shamanic flu. It feels strange to be so dependent on my parents at this stage in life. I need to learn to get along without them and this is good practice. They are in Japan for two weeks. I always freak out when they travel. Initially it is hard, and then I adjust. It has only been a few days, but I think I got through the worst of it these last couple of hours.

My tea is cooling and Steve is finally asleep. I retired from talking to him, about anything, and keeping him awake. I needed to stay grounded in reality. I like to hear my voice and my thoughts making sense. The uncontrollable tears are difficult to metabolize. My breathing was rapid and I was in and out. This was after hours of laying there paralyzed and afraid, drifting in and out of weird frightening sleep. It is Steve’s birthday and we had an argument when we came home from the bar. I hate it when we are intoxicated. To some this may sound really terrible, but it is somewhat normal for many folks to have a few drinks at the local pub on their birthday. And yet it wasn’t good for us. I recognize that. Hard to not celebrate a birthday, we are still both recovering from a flu, the tail end, but still recovering.

I spoke of drinking earlier. I like to drink, beer and whiskey mostly. I see friends and have social times that really are quite rewarding. It is and has been my culture for two decades and is a hard habit to break. I have broken the habit over the last year and a half. I have abstained from drinking more than partaking. Both Steve and I have quit for some time. I know this is the best path for us. But we fall back to our old lives so easily, and at times nothing really seems that wrong with it. Life is simpler without alcohol though. This is truth. I have seen it. They call it Spirits for a reason. And I believe there are a lot of abusive Irish spirits that enter us when we drink whiskey. Someday, maybe, we will quit for good.

So I prayed to God, talked out loud to him, prayed to Santa Clause, and told myself I would be okay. I am now. A lot of people go through times when they cannot sleep. This would be more dangerous for me if I had not been sleeping so much this last week with the illness. So I am sipping my tea and breathing clean air. I am reflecting on what was wrong between Steve and I. I couldn’t place it, couldn't figure out why our simple discussion turned into a fight and me feeling paralyzed and frozen. How can life be so confusing? No, I have not been well recently, mentally or physically, and Steve has not either. He is not as good at reaching out to friends and he has no family. All he has is me, and he gets lonely and frustrated. It is a bit of a burden to be his only person. I love him so I am happy to be there for him, but I also have an independent spirit.

Me? Independent? I require funds from my mother to pay my private doctor. I pay cheap rent on my mom’s land. I live off of disability, and as I have said I can barely handle it when my parents leave town for two weeks or two months. I don’t like this, but the truth is we are all dependent on something. We have to have Faith that our floors we stand on will not collapse beneath us. And even then we need to have Faith.