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This past week seemed to be a highly stressful week for many. I found a number of my clients experiencing neurological switching. That “switching” can be likened to neurological chaos, where there is a lack of integration between the left and right hemispheres or various parts of the brain; enough to throw one’s nervous system out of balance. The brain, the body, emotions, thoughts and the ability to simply be present becomes confusing. Appetites and cravings can change, sleep patterns will be disturbed, and brain fog can ensue. There are of course many ways to “switch” back so that you can feel more like yourself.

One of my clients wasn’t feeling all that well. He has underlying chronic medical issues and was “switching” to such an extent that his medical condition was worsening. I spent the first twenty minutes listening and then I asked him to open an encapsulated herb and put some of it up both nostrils. Yes, you heard me right. Intranasal and transdermal methods of delivering herbs, oils, nutrients are a practice I have always utilized with my clients who are open to it and sensitive enough. In  Ayurveda, the nostrils are considered the pathway of prana. Within minutes, he began to settle and feel more like himself. The confusion subsided, his pulses began to normalize for him (something I feel over the phone), and by the end of the session his appetite returned. With another client I worked with, I asked her to break open a probiotic capsule and do the same thing. It also had a similar healing effect. This week they have been spraying dangerous pesticides in my area for West Nile. With the relentless heat, the pesticides remained in the air for days and I was having upper respiratory issues. I needed something to work with my brain pretty quickly so instead of taking liposomal glutathione internally, I put a few drops in my hand and massaged it into various neurovascular points on my head. I also put some probiotics in my own nostrils. Sometimes I will put fatty acids in my nostrils when they spray. 

There are various traditions of old that relied on transdermal methods of delivery for herbs or utilizing various orifices. Vaginal herbal steam baths were and are popular within certain cultures and used for many women’s reproductive health issues. Some of these methods are more effective than taking something orally. From malabsorption issues to the digestive breakdown of a supplement and the enzymatic processes involved, sometimes “wearing” your medicine, or “bathing” various body parts with it might be your best option!

There is an inner world bursting at the seams.

Ancient wounds tethered to false prophets

Promises ignited from fear and loss

Bonds forged from both power and powerlessness

Centuries of stories created to bind human against human.

Where has this gotten us?

A light barely recognized in the absence of love.

Tears from generations past

Weeping profusely from your eyes

And streaming down your cheeks.

A faith always challenged

A stranger to your own pain.

We are at times unknown to each other.

Our weaknesses can accomplish much with love.

You are part of the same ripple in the universe

As your brethren.

Masculine or feminine

In truth doesn’t matter.

To touch your scars softly

With my heart allows me to embrace my own pain.

Oh God what you find in the emptiness

Changes with every moment of growth.

The abyss can be resplendent

With intimacy

If you only allow it to be seen

If you only allow yourself to be witnessed.

I bear witness to you my friends.

To your hopes and dreams that walk this earth

Filled with so much possibility.

I bear witness to your prayers.

To the form they birth in alignment with God’s will.

We are the inner home of God’s breath.

My breath is with you as yours is with me.

This home we have built needs each and every one of us.

Unburden yourself sweet children of God

And love one another.

Yes.

Just love one another!

Raw and untamed, we enter into this world, this wilderness, birthed from a womb that has carried the stories of many generations. Unfiltered psyche, present in parallel realities as we are ensconced by a knowing of the life to come. We are still in the water, waiting to be born, to be nurtured as much by humanity as we are the Divine, not having any preconceived notions of what that might look like. All we pray for is to be welcomed by this vast wilderness we are entering into, this human conglomeration of emotions, thoughts, experiences, prayers. This wilderness is perplexing. Masculine and feminine energies abound compelling us to mold into a form governed by what humans think they should be. This wilderness has an evolution all its own. One many times we are not ready to embrace. One many times we are not willing to accept. Our vulnerabilities are channeled through the forms which are presented us. What do we know coming from innocence? We are vulnerable in our fears. We are vulnerable in our anger. We are vulnerable in our capacity to love. We are vulnerable in our capacity to hate. Our innocence frightened away by our emotional projections, Yet, how can we not project? The iniquities of this world challenge us to the bone. We separate ourselves in this wilderness; any identity we need to feel safe, innocent, whole. The wilderness is meant to inspire us to feel, to live, to lose our sense of selves so that we may become greater than we ever thought we could be. This wilderness compels us to feel lost, to grieve so deeply that our bones ache with each step we take. And with every step, we cradle ourselves unto the earth for solace, for healing. This wilderness compels us to feel our rage, one in which many of us do not know how to channel correctly. One in which we utilize to destroy one another and hurt the very earth which carries us. Naked, in our aloneness, this wilderness does not want us to suffer. We feel stalked by a darkness we cannot comprehend. Yet, if we turned around to see exactly what might be stalking us, we’ll be staring at a mirror image of ourselves. The sacredness of this wilderness can balance that darkness without any interference from humanity, from our projections onto one another. Naked and alive, wild and free, the resilience and innocence we were borne with can indeed be remembered. They can be remembered as easily as the many tears we have shed for our wounds. We possess the courage, the innate fire of the Divine, to explore our emptiness in this vast paradigm. We possess the strength to go beyond the identity we were born with or have created for ourselves. We possess the worthiness as children of this God- blessed natural world to honor our grief, our rage, and any other emotion which limits us, which armors us, from loving one another unconditionally.

Emerging from the water, unto this rare earth, with its stories and paths of generations before us. Their emotions, their thoughts, still present when we lay our armor to the ground. Their spirits, still weaving an intricate web to amend past grievances and future ones to come. That untamed fire, that innocence, the loss of self, all culminating in an intense desire to be free from all preconceived notions of who we think we are, and how we live our lives. Wild, free, innocent, beautiful children of God. Bless you. Return to innocence and be free.

God awaits us in the midst of the forest. Lush and verdant, tender with life’s most reverent of creations. We cannot hear the cries of the greatest Mother of all. The Divine Feminine which settles beneath our flesh and bones, the womb Goddess, the carrier of all humankind. The epitome of grace made manifest by the heavens. These lands were birthed for the innocent, not for the iniquities hidden by the false desires we perpetuate in our minds. These lands were birthed for the holy, not for the entitled who endeavor to diminish any sanctity through greed, fear, anger or any emotion that tears this womb apart. These lands await patiently. The kingdoms that dwell within this Great Mother have created sanctuaries for us to pray in, yet our lack of humility has made us uninvited guests at times. The trees whisper but we cannot hear their stories. The flowers sing but we cannot hear their music. The waters flow but we refuse to value their importance. The animals protect and serve all kingdoms yet we offer them no dignity. The only dignity some of us understand is that of our own self-righteousness. The earth was not created to serve humankind. It is we humans who were made to serve this Great Mother. How can we tread softly on her if we cannot even tread softly on the ground between one human being and the next? Our footprints will carry the tears of humanity as well as these lands. We will succumb to humility and we can do it gently or be moved by the forces of creation. We are feeling the movement that comes with rebirth. We are noticing the changes within all the kingdoms of this Great Mother. We are noticing the changes within humanity. The Divine Feminine is ready to birth anew? Are you?

There is a vast wilderness

Calling to each and every one of us

Within our hearts.

Many of us struggling to “find our purpose.”

Who was it that told you that purpose defined your existence?

Or that it needed to be a conscious action on behalf of a journey?

Who told you that your trials are a consequence of

Those thoughts you put out into the universe?

When did spirituality become so misguided

That its beliefs led to more separation within self and between self and others?

Cannot life itself be all that you need?

Suffering is so universal.

Darkness is as prevalant as light.

Life is as messy as it is resplendent.

The courage it takes to be real,

To step outside of the spiritual bigotry

And preconceived notions

That worthiness can only be realized

If you are on a conscious path.

Life itself. How beautiful.

I am so grateful, especially those times my mind quiets itself to accept that basic truth.

This hallowed rain

Deluged with ancient souls

Torments the sky above me

Crying over every wound

Humanity has pierced itself with.

Every voice wants to return

To the gentle womb that gave it life

As well as limb and breath and hope.

If every pain was witnessed

By a light that was afraid to shine

By a darkness that could forgive,

How fortunate we would be to

Meet each other in grace.

The place that would soothe all our wounds

And remind this hallowed rain

That its holiness serves a purpose.

Its teardrops remind us we are all a part of God.

Do we let go of our integrity to remain in power?

Moral and ethical principles don’t always provide us with that sense of control, whether internal or external, when we are faced with challenging situations. The flight or fight response, the repetitive response we have to trauma, signals our brains that we have to survive. It doesn’t give us the time to contemplate integrity or sit with our powerlessness in any given moment.

Whatever we do to control any given situation when we are threatened might always feel like we are doing the “right” thing because we are trying to keep ourselves safe. Our challenges lose sight that we might be fighting for our beliefs because fighting for our survival usurps anything else. We believe that we are in integrity because we then relate integrity to feeling safe, in control and in power. I wonder how many of us can equate powerlessness with integrity? I wonder how many of us even want to try? It’s hard when we are engrossed in a world where we correlate our identities individually and collectively with having power. We experience this in every facet of society.

Integrity is one of the most potent forms of empowerment I have ever personally known and witnessed, especially in the face of undeniable powerlessness.

Trauma

Trauma is entrancing.

Its darkness ignites a certain curiosity within us, testing the realms of our fear, our powerlessness, the unknown.

Its tentacles waging war in our psyches, in every universe within us.

We become mesmerized by both its strengths and its weaknesses.

We become mesmerized by our responses to what trauma triggers within us.

Some of us become so fascinated by the power it wields that we would rather allow ourselves to be engulfed in the flames

than to sit back and bear witness.

We name it, we love it, we hate it.

We identify with it at the same time we run from it.

We challenge it.

In understanding and knowing it more deeply, we feel we can know ourselves.

The day will come when you are not hypnotized by it any more.

The power struggle will quiet itself and you will simply walk away.

Bearing witness sometimes offers a greater reward than continuing to engage.

This is something I speak about often with clients. It seemed to be a recurring theme this week with sessions which is why I wanted to share a few thoughts here. Let’s look at the shaming around illness, especially around illness that is not so obvious to others, even those closest to you. There are so many new “illnesses” that are being diagnosed everyday, and younger people are coming down with conditions at a higher percentage from twenty years ago, ten years ago, even five years ago. It is not uncommon for me to hear from a client that people remark they look okay, so there isn’t an understanding or comprehension of a physical malady upon sight. A friend yesterday showed me a photo of a young woman she knows who is very ill and I said, “You wouldn’t know it because she looks amazing.” Yet many of these illnesses work insidiously, depleting a body of its most necessary resources and causing a myriad of symtoms for the sufferer. We are in a society where people are uncomfortable with their bodies first and foremost, and more so when it comes to becoming ill. We are a culture that does not know how to respect or approach illness within ourselves or someone we know. Please take a moment to take that last statement in. People are uncomfortable around illness and have many times, create shame based thoughts and relationships around that uncomfortability as opposed to learning new ways of approaching and respecting what are bodies or minds are struggling with. The shame based relationship we create with illness keeps us disassociated from ourselves and each other, furthering isolation and stress. Indigenous cultures understood the importance of relating to illness authentically, so that there was a sense of honor in alignment with one’s suffering no matter the extent of the illness.

There is such isolation that comes with the loss of emotional freedom, especially when it comes to people being able to express how they feel when they are ill.  A separation from society and from what is considered the norm is prevalent. Well, we are being shown that illness is again, occuring at any age these days and that there are so many “mystery” illnesses on the horizon. We are being faced with having to shift a paradigm of shame and uncomfortability around sickness and how we treat, define and separate ourselves from people who are facing these challenges.

I am willing to be with any uncomfortable thoughts that might get triggered around other people’s ailments. After all I have had my own struggles and have been working with people with physical and mental health issues for almost thirty years now. Once in a while, yes, I  still get triggered when I see someone suffering to the point that my own mind thinks is unfair. But I sit with it so that the space I hold for them becomes more authentic as I listen. 

If we can contribute to rising above the collective shame around being sick, I think that allows us to take a step closer to becoming a more compassionate world.