Good Morning relatives
Have you seen the movie "The Martian"? yeah I thought it would be boring too the cover is not that remarkable but I finally watched it and guess what it was great!
so if you hate spoilers stop reading and go watch the film you can probably rent it from your local library I did then come back because just like the cover that kind of kept me from seeing the possibilities underneath there are some hidden things that matter things that may save your life some day things that may save my life today if we just stop telling ourselves that what we can see is all that there is that what we are faced with is the only possibility that can be real and that what we have done somehow determines what we do next
life is what you make it well death can be also and while I have found that being on your path is unique and one of a kind for each of us and it can be the loneliest journey that we take that small step that brings whats next after what was and becomes what is it is ours to choose and belongs to no-one else ever
don't forget it's our life yours mine to choose
so choose as if your life depends on it
every moment it is your life, my life and that moment slips away as the next one is born so how do I encourage you to see that idea to incorporate it so that the joy the chi that each never before existed moment that comes into your mind, your heart, your brain, your eyes, your nose and your life is brand new its right there in your hand will you will I choose to live it or let it slip away unnoticed or destroy it with what was or what I wish was or had or didn't have? its my choice you know each moment I used to wonder what happened to my chi and I think this is it I just stopped accepting what was offered to me freely every moment every breath
unfortunately for me it took a board to the head to bring me back to the moment well that and my core orientation towards seeking the light fortunately life cared enough about me to hit me in the head and now if I can share with you if I can open up about what I see maybe you can get back to your chi too maybe there won't be any boards to your head as you head out on your own voyage seeking where no human has gone before
well that sounds super heavy and sort of a little frightening to carry around that thought like a lens always trying to remember to see through the correct glass
good thing there is a difference in understanding something that changes your core perspective then letting it go trusting that you and it will merge and be guided rather than plodding on and on trying to juggle to be's and not to be's have and have nots should and shouldn't's in keeping your core separate from life because you don't trust yourself as if that will save it then yes every thing becomes a burden everything becomes a chore and life becomes heavy and seems un-winable and there you are standing on the shore realizing that what you have actually chosen to create is death rather than life and you are not sure or maybe not even aware that even in that moment when the predator that lives inside of us wants to take us from ourselves even in that moment we can slay that predator, we can take up our sword of choice throw away our shield and choose life choose each now in its individual preciousness and drink it in so that we are restored maybe for just one moment but what a full draft it is
and look
there again another has come into your hands
choose from your core
choose not from your past or the idea of a future that will never exist
choose from all the beauty that life recognized when you when I was created and is standing here right now receiving what is given
we get to choose never forget that as the martian reminds us its what we choose that determines the possibilities
libraries are great by the way they save lives
so back to spoiling the film
I realized that the guy in the story Mark Whatney is pretty much just like me fucked from an accident that almost but didn't take his life
he's stranded on an uninhabited planet 249,000,000 miles from home unable to communicate with the folks who the day before were his crew, his team, his family, his tribe, his country, his world. he has lost all communication and the gulf between himself and anyone else is vast, unthinkably vast. it's a bit overwhelming and I understand what that feels like
isolation surrounded by immersed in perpetually in every way imaginable in every sense surface and option confronted with a hostile foreign environment that is not going any where that is until he figures out the next right step
until he figures it out
he is a lot like me abruptly isolated unable to communicate effectively his aliveness his willingness to come home to live to be restored he is surrounded by silence and nothingness and 249 million miles of impenetrable uncrossable space
I on the other hand found myself abruptly stranded on a planet of 7.8 billion people all of whom are creating sound that traumatizes me (remember that 20 decibel sound trauma threshold that got smacked into my head last summer?) every moment of my life surrounded by an unavoidable hostile environment that is going nowhere and in fact follows me every where I go every minute of every day and into the night
I can't avoid sound altogether (although I try) and the people whom I share my malady with really do forget how to have a conversation with me about a half a nano second after I ask, then tell, then demand that they PLEASE SPEAK SOFTER
they forget that for me the noise coming out of their mouth or off of their corduroy trousers or from the papers they are flicking, the gum they are chewing, or the whatever they are doing is killing me loudly, very very persistently sound is hitting me just like the debris that is flying around the astronauts in the movie when they get caught outside in a storm it's loud it's unrelenting and it's life threatening at least my brain believes it is which as it turns out my brain is kind of in charge of me
crazy huh very loud very very never ending
it's really unexpected to be stranded on an uninhabitable planet surrounded by so many people
I can drink the water I can breath the air so unlike the guy stuck on Mars I have an advantage but his biggest advantage over me is that his trauma/trial/ life destroying threatening moment/time of isolation has an end date whereas mine does not
oh and the other thing that Mars guy and I have in common, we don't want our travail to be over by death that sort of seems like cheating doesn't it?
while the astronauts ability to communicate with the outside/home world improves over the course of the movie mine is deteriorating with every passing day
depressing huh? maybe probably perhaps but maybe not
that guy on Mars he has something that I also have something that makes all the difference in the end he has humor, he has a positivity that is endlessly renewable, he has imagination, he has willingness, he has a giant brain, he has what we Texans call True Grit
and so do I all of the above and more, and I have you relatives
I have you
when we are stripped down to our core when we have to begin again at the beginning and take the next step solve the next problem even when it was the same problem we solved yesterday we have to stop being attached to what was
we have to let go of anxiety, of anger, of fear, of the thought that we have the right (somehow the progression of school, of success, of learning to walk teaches us this false premise that we will have ever advancing changing new challenges new problems to solve) to advance that life is climbing a mountain, crossing a bridge, fording a stream, graduating; when in reality all life is is
being all I am
in each moment
every moment
as we come together
in the moment
without trying to make myself or the moment or anyone else who happens to be in my moment or me in theirs someone or something that is convenient for me or my imagination or my capabilities or my comfort or what ever
success isn't being challenged by difference even if it is difference that shows up to be the challenge
success isn't lack of redundancy even if redundancy is all there is (if living meant every moment was the same like a time loop of solving the same problem over and over) could you can I get rid of the concept of over and over so that it whatever it is simply becomes what is what is for me to do right now as if it not only has never existed before but that I have never before considered the next step and how to take it as if my life depends on it using all I have been or tried before without being bound by the before as if after or next is and isn't itself and neither am I
you see that is what he had even when he lost it and got scared or angry or frustrated or simply exhausted and overwhelmed by the moment that arrived on a song that destroyed all his work, all his hope, all his past thought of possibility or a wind that culminated his efforts into a magical never before imagined or accomplished achievement he
that guy on Mars had inside of him had as his fallback had as his Beingness joy, kindness, imagination, willingness, and a letting go that enabled him to find his way back to the company of those who had been left behind
but at the end
at the end when he is safe on the bench with his coffee and his feet on a planet where he can drink the water and breathe the air
he knows deep inside that he is and always will be alone
the only one who ever will know what he knows be who he has been he is and always will be a world apart from those 7.9 billion people just outside his door
and it seems he is ok with it he still sees the magic in the seed sprouting in the leaf reaching
the magic of life of a life lived of a life not yet lived
of life right now
so he doesn't quit he doesn't become something he is not a living growing thing that pushes its way through the dirt that surrounds it so foreign so isolated
can he teach what he knows who can say can a student listen time will tell
because the storm doesn't change how we perceive it does and all of that perception depends on who we are in our hearts who we are when we reach out to the next moment that is our life
love ya
mean it
Friday, February 28, 2020
Monday, January 27, 2020
Minding the Mandala
Good Morning Relatives
how is your dreamtime? when I got hit in the head last summer it seemed that my molecules got disarranged kind of like if a sand mandala gets shaken the molecules are still perfectly individual colors but they are no longer arranged in the pattern they were prior to being struck
for someone like me this can be a problem when I first got hit it was like the world around me became permeable like everything was visible through scattered light prisms in the Dreamtime I had/have really bad nightmares which I never have before sometimes it was like different realities were all mixed up together slowly they are finding their way back into patterns that are not threatening or horribly destructive but that path includes terrifying flashbacks, confusing messages from Those Lightening Strike Beings, warnings that I can't understand, maps to my way back to me that I can't remember when I wake up, and a few other things that made me very aware that the shock to my brain and body when i got hit scattered my psychical transportation system my mandala but not to the wind thank Life not to the wind all the little colored sand molecules are still in their container its just going to take some time to put them back in order.
I imagine a great pipe organ with all the pipes out of order and the vibrations that pass through create a dysphonia wind rather than a song of solomon I don't think I've ever considered that the sound that is created by the wind in trees that are in a peaceful forest or grove is radically different than that of trees that have been traumatized by a tornado or even the sound of the trees that are left scorched and bleeding in Australia after the bush fires
my brain got whacked and it scrambled my molecules Do you remember the movie "What The Bleep Do We Know" that came out in 2004? see if you can find it and watch it one of the things that physics has illuminated (I don't think science discovers things because just like columbus discovering america and The Human Beings that lived here they existed as does all things before some banana head was made aware or illuminated to their presence that does not make them a discovery rather an awakening don't you think?) is the understanding that we consist of a collection of matter in which our consciousness resides believed to be our identity in the present idea of reality we exist in cohesive units of molecules shaped by a ? soul? character? mandala?
and each of those cohesive units each mandala which have a unique configuration (like snow flakes or chemical structures) which exists as three sets of these individually uniquely configured molecules that are in constant motion because each set rotates in and out of what we perceive as the visible manifestation of zillions of other mandalas who are "rotated in and embodied" all around is as this time and space reality as we know it or as we think we know it since its alway moving changing and each and every nano second is unique unto itself we can be attached to it we can exist consciously with in it and participate in the constant forming and reforming of It's mandala which is what I have an idea the miracle of life really is but we can never "know" it because it is unknowable.
So, attached to each of our particular unique mandala of molecules is our awareness our "Nowness" sometimes I think that the citta (consciousness) vritti (whirlpool or waves) of our each own particular mandala which in the yoga sutras are alluded to as having five different types of motion is like a complex living system which most of us are stuck in very beginning illusion and we don't really even look for the instructions let alone begin to explore our own individual mandala universe but, that's a different blog altogether sort of. anyway what I was trying to get to was that the consciousness our individual consciousness actually doesn't move about our universe it only hops from one set to the next that appears in this time and space so that we can maintain our story, our illusion of what where when and how and who we are. when we can be so much more if like Patanjali alludes to in the yoga sutras we can learn to be still and use motion rather than letting motion run through our static illusion of who and what we are.
I copied something from a yogpedia website (I tend to glean grains from different fields like a knowledge thief but that does not translate into supporting or condoning their premise or runaway thoughts and ideas just so you know but it makes really interesting bread/food for thought) :
how is your dreamtime? when I got hit in the head last summer it seemed that my molecules got disarranged kind of like if a sand mandala gets shaken the molecules are still perfectly individual colors but they are no longer arranged in the pattern they were prior to being struck
for someone like me this can be a problem when I first got hit it was like the world around me became permeable like everything was visible through scattered light prisms in the Dreamtime I had/have really bad nightmares which I never have before sometimes it was like different realities were all mixed up together slowly they are finding their way back into patterns that are not threatening or horribly destructive but that path includes terrifying flashbacks, confusing messages from Those Lightening Strike Beings, warnings that I can't understand, maps to my way back to me that I can't remember when I wake up, and a few other things that made me very aware that the shock to my brain and body when i got hit scattered my psychical transportation system my mandala but not to the wind thank Life not to the wind all the little colored sand molecules are still in their container its just going to take some time to put them back in order.
I imagine a great pipe organ with all the pipes out of order and the vibrations that pass through create a dysphonia wind rather than a song of solomon I don't think I've ever considered that the sound that is created by the wind in trees that are in a peaceful forest or grove is radically different than that of trees that have been traumatized by a tornado or even the sound of the trees that are left scorched and bleeding in Australia after the bush fires
my brain got whacked and it scrambled my molecules Do you remember the movie "What The Bleep Do We Know" that came out in 2004? see if you can find it and watch it one of the things that physics has illuminated (I don't think science discovers things because just like columbus discovering america and The Human Beings that lived here they existed as does all things before some banana head was made aware or illuminated to their presence that does not make them a discovery rather an awakening don't you think?) is the understanding that we consist of a collection of matter in which our consciousness resides believed to be our identity in the present idea of reality we exist in cohesive units of molecules shaped by a ? soul? character? mandala?
and each of those cohesive units each mandala which have a unique configuration (like snow flakes or chemical structures) which exists as three sets of these individually uniquely configured molecules that are in constant motion because each set rotates in and out of what we perceive as the visible manifestation of zillions of other mandalas who are "rotated in and embodied" all around is as this time and space reality as we know it or as we think we know it since its alway moving changing and each and every nano second is unique unto itself we can be attached to it we can exist consciously with in it and participate in the constant forming and reforming of It's mandala which is what I have an idea the miracle of life really is but we can never "know" it because it is unknowable.
So, attached to each of our particular unique mandala of molecules is our awareness our "Nowness" sometimes I think that the citta (consciousness) vritti (whirlpool or waves) of our each own particular mandala which in the yoga sutras are alluded to as having five different types of motion is like a complex living system which most of us are stuck in very beginning illusion and we don't really even look for the instructions let alone begin to explore our own individual mandala universe but, that's a different blog altogether sort of. anyway what I was trying to get to was that the consciousness our individual consciousness actually doesn't move about our universe it only hops from one set to the next that appears in this time and space so that we can maintain our story, our illusion of what where when and how and who we are. when we can be so much more if like Patanjali alludes to in the yoga sutras we can learn to be still and use motion rather than letting motion run through our static illusion of who and what we are.
I copied something from a yogpedia website (I tend to glean grains from different fields like a knowledge thief but that does not translate into supporting or condoning their premise or runaway thoughts and ideas just so you know but it makes really interesting bread/food for thought) :
In "The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali," yoga citta vritti nirodhah is the second sutra. It roughly translates to “yoga stops, or stills, the mind's fluctuations.”{(For example here I disagree with the above conclusion about what yogapedia says that particular sutra means and just like aiming a pistol the shorter the barrel the more drastic the aim can be off if you point it in the wrong direction i.e... you will completely miss your target or your path or your destination words like commas matter and save lives) it's off topic but what I believe that sutra (Now Consciousness Waves Inhibited) is, Yoga which teaches Now can be used to inhibit our consciousness's attachment to movement which in turn frees us from the illusion that we are stuck in our own perception of reality. Those fluctuations, or citta vritti, are limiting, habituated thought patterns – misconceptions that prevent one from seeing the truth about the world and the Self.
According to Patanjali, there are five types of vritti:
- Pramana (correct knowledge right knowledge) (FYI Krishnamurti teaches that the word or idea Know is a static word that is immediately an indication of false thought or understanding when applied to any living thing because there is very little in our "world" that is static and thus we cannot "know" anything)
- Viparyaya (misconception false knowledge)
- Vikalpa (conceptualization Imagination)
- Nidra (sleep)
- Smriti (memory)
The vritti can be painful (klishta) or non-painful (aklishta), but they always affect one's ability to find truth. Joyful thoughts can prevent the individual from reaching a true sense of self just as much as fearful thoughts can.
In the above sort of commentated on excerpt from the yogapedia website the only type of vritti that is not of this place and time what we think of as reality is Nidra or sleep this is the place I think of as Dreamtime when I visit it by simultaneously holding on to the Now of a particular set of molecules as they travel and my citta my consciousness my self awareness
my self awareness does not have to be attached to this place I believe that is one of the things that Patanjali was trying to communicate with the sutras our citta if our consciousness is not attached to the whirlpool that is moving around us then we are able to not only be still but we are able to move when our molecules blink in and out of time and space
if we (whoever we are) inhabit embody a mandala that has three exact sets of molecules who as a body travel in and out of this recognized or aware time and spaceness and due to our attachment to the illusion we "live " in our citta jumps in and out of each mandala set as it changes places with its cohort .... where do the other two sets of molecules go?
and if we (whoever we are) travelled with that set as it went wherever it was going would not we "wake up" in whatever time and place our molecules travelled to? until that set came back to now where our embodied set of molecules was sleeping Nidra.
well thats my experience anyway
so back to the island I did tell you I was thinking about islands in the middle of the night didn't I? well I was and in that Harrison Ford movie about the girl who goes to the island to get engaged to someone she doesn't love I remember Harrison Ford tells her "Lady, It's an island. If you didn't bring it with you you're not going to find it here." I always thought of that as one of the great truths, movies are full of them by the way.
so if you go to an island in the Dreamtime whatever you bring with you or not is what you have so why do we care if our mandalas are beautiful, complex, flexible, strong, aware, centered, grounded in integrity and exposure to ideas, concepts, principles, colors and their shades, different skills and the list goes on and on and on (didn't you ever really look at what those monks were trying to communicate?) imagine having all that all that is available incorporated indoor mandala and whoosh! when you were transported to another time and space situation all that library of ability (physical, mental, conceptual, spiritual, linguistic, etc...) was at your fingertips, why because A. you might need it. B. your life or someone else's might depend on it. C. it might be central to your mission i.e... your on an island and if you didn't bring it with you whoops you don't have it at your disposal
which kind of creates the inkling of an idea that what This Time and Space is for is for us to add to our library within our mandalas i.e... to activate what we already have and thus sort of like a super power we can carry with us when we travel with our molecules to somewhere/when else and carry out our missions cool huh?
I've been avoiding working out lots of noise in a gym, lots of noise when I use the water rower, lots of snow and ice outside so the bike is a bit precarious etc... the excuses go on and on while I accumulate a subconscious fear of blobness and my physical strength goes down the winter tube like a bobsled it accumulates speed exponentially as is drops
so in the Dreamtime Those Old Spirits who are always trying to communicate with me in their language (they never can seem to remember that I am really bad at languages definitely not my super power) put me in a place where I was / became the target of a serial rapist killer person /guy AND guess what I didn't take with me ?..... speed physical strength and my old apparently slipped away like a banana on ice tai chi abilities so THAT was a wake up call
so mind your mandalas relatives it matters when you figure out (ps don't try this unsupervised or at home) how to travel with your molecules
I'm off to go for a walk with my dogs and then come back in and do fifteen minutes on the water rower followed by level one tai chi qigong
love ya
mean it
mbdvm
Friday, January 24, 2020
Am I who I Am or Am I who was whammed
Good Morning Relatives
Wow, I was looking back at some of my old posts, actually I was so far only able to look through one, Walking on Water, and while it was really great to be able to see all that stuff that happened and read through the never ending story that life really is, what my brain my mind was really looking at while I was reviewing the past was not the story, it was the writing. Examining old blogs made me acutely aware not only of what kind of mind my brain used to be but also what kind of story I used to be able to tell more importantly, what I am not able to tell now/yet.
Wow so different today it's a small peek into the effect that the brain injury had/has had on me so far I say so far because like the word yet so far doesn't fence me in, so far allows me to recreate me it is the path forward far has a nice intonation doesn't it so that some day I can meet myself again coming down the road.
Yesterday I was visiting with my good friend and sometimes therapist Dr Judy C after she had visited with Dr Rachel the audiologist who recently diagnosed me with three separate "injuries?", conditions? that are a result of the brain injury I had this summer they are Hyperacusis, Misophonia, and Tinnitus and my friend who has and is and will be a great support for me was pretty taken aback about how horrific my life/sound world became and remained so every minute every second of every day since 6-6-2019 she understood how horrific my mental life has become and she was pretty amazed that I was handling it all as well as I am/was.
I'm not so sure I am handling it that well. I seem to have put so much focus into trying to ignore/manage/shut out the ever-present sound pathology that clings to my head like an invisible sound amplification film that was sprayed inside my brain and is completely totally impervious to any attempt at volume adjustment that modern medicine or even medical imagination has come up with that I have been unable to have any except the smallest most fleeting relief from these three brain invaders let alone enjoy or easily participate in the common shared experience that we live in or even begin to be understood or supported by the rigid unyielding parameters of the workers comp insurance that is supposed to insure that I am able to return to a non affected state that I have disconnected with the consciousness stream that was/is my wonder woman blogging self. yeah I had trouble finding my way through and out of that labyrinthian thought also but, I think it is accurate.
so why am I disconnected from me? why does it appear to be so? Am I disconnected? or am I so completely focused on managing the three space invaders inside of my brain that are trying to consume me and my life that I am barely able to function let alone let flow onto the page the integrative imaginative and deeply clear rich mental complexity that was my bloggness self before I got hit in the head last summer.
Misophonia: she is like the Gorgon of the brain stalking about like a fire spewing dragon headed Being that never sleeps. She hates and I mean HATES particular sounds and when they occur she raises the fear level inside of me way beyond red alert more like a blazing cosmic exploding purply orange lightening strike white consuming tidal wave of anxiety and nightmare.....
why is that so? because its not just that I pick these sounds up, thanx to having concurrent Hyperacusis (the brain damage from the work injury this summer changed something in my central cochlear and brain auditory complex so that it amplifies sound reception in my head way WAY, WAAAAY LOUDER than it really is. Technically any sound above 20 decibels that's essentially a very soft whisper to me sounds like I'm sitting with my head inside a rock concert speaker)
so misophonic sounds channeled through the hyperacusis amplifier turn into something other than what you hear for example; try escaping the sound of rain on the roof that sounds like millions of ball bearings falling right over your head while trying to sleep or trying to focus on washing and rinsing when the water in the shower hitting/hating your skin sounds like its going to take your head off, or the sound of people including yourself talking or eating in a restaurant making your head hurt so bad that you have to excuse yourself to go vomit in the bathroom every five to ten minutes, or the sound of this blasted keyboard a zipper or velcro on a winter jacket the cars on the highway a quarter mile away the dinging of the car when started random conversation screaming kids the list goes on and on. I wonder if Apple makes a hyperacusis sensitive keyboard or if there are any doctors at all left whose hands are not attacking a keyboard the entire time they are "examining" me in a medical or therapeutic visit? when was the last time your doctor actually touched you or looked at you with your clothes off? Misophonia has a very long list of unacceptable phonic intruders and thanx to the hyperacusis she has every right to believe that those sounds are a major threat.
Misophonia HATES a multitude of sounds that I am totally unable to prevent from reaching her inside my brain and that is where she lives this sound hating gorgon headed amazonian woman that is trying to protect my brain from re-injury. I am quite sure that that is what she is up to. The reaction that courses through me when misophonic sounds strike the wings of her helmet and reverberate off of her shield is wearing thin my ability to prevent her from laying waste to the land and my life. I recognize that any inappropriate negative response directed outside of me would not be good but I have to say if I want to be completely honest that my patience is wearing thin my constant vigilance is tired of being constant and while Misophonia appears to be a super hero with an honest mission, I am not sure my counteractive wonder woman skills are as developed as hers are. although, in my gut when reviewing that previous statement I can tell that I am more endless than she is. hmm maybe a little more compassion for her rather than each of us trying to hack each others head off.
Misophonia is a hatred and I mean HATRED IN THE EXTREME of certain sounds which means that I have an intense negative emotional response to particular random sounds which results in my brain releasing the limbic kraken who in turn pours fear into my central nervous system via my limbic system (feel free relatives to look up any of these medical terms) resulting in extreme physioemotional reactions like anger, fear lots of fear, confusion, vomiting, severe fight or flight which rapidly turns into "Attack ATTack ATTACK!!!" and I have to stop all of this every time it happens before I set my own house on fire.
all of which is going on inside of me while everyone else around me is pretending that nothing is wrong yep that's what I just said everyone else is pretending nothing is wrong because I no less than a half a nano-second earlier just explained to them how I perceive the world around me and already they have moved on to what ever screensaver their attention span is focused on now. do you think that peoples addiction to transportable technology has stopped their ability to brain dive?
I understand that Misophonia operates with the soul/sole intent of saving me from further trauma to the head, but until I can convince her that I am no longer working at the sawmill, that all the random sounds I encounter are not indicative of eminent danger; I have to grab ahold of me and Her inside of me and keep me in a neutral place and position so that I don't end up annihilating my remaining chance of being an acceptable and well adjusted common person among the masses so much so and so constantly that I end up with e x t r e m e l y s l o o o o w s p e e c h pa t terns and so rt o f a f r e e z e frame body and mind that makes me appear to be .... Brain damaged? well I am brain damaged but not in the way science has imagined.
My damaged brain has become my own personal dysfunctional super hero and my outward appearance of being damaged is more to do a loss of my multitasking ability combined with having to be otherwise engaged inside my own head and body while everyone around me pushes me to be better, to get well, to be normal.
when Relatives was I ever normal? I'm not sure how it's going to work out in the long run I think taking the time to outline what is going on inside of me will give me a clue.
Actually given the circumstances thank life that I am functioning so well as I appear to be
something is niggling at the edge of my consciousness there is something here among the active rubble that is trying to fall into place and help me see in my own particular way how to work with Misophonia how to communicate with the outside world and make my own decisions as to how I can get well and how I can find my way. maybe if I can find a quiet place I can think about it.
thanx for listening I think this is enough for today I'll look at hyperacusis next time.
take care relatives sometimes it takes time to realize that if all I am doing is reacting to my environment (while I can be glad for who my baseline is) I am determined to work my way back to sitting back and seeing, hearing, understanding, observing and choosing who and how I want to be in the world around me isn't that what life is? really
Later tater
love ya
mean it
Wow, I was looking back at some of my old posts, actually I was so far only able to look through one, Walking on Water, and while it was really great to be able to see all that stuff that happened and read through the never ending story that life really is, what my brain my mind was really looking at while I was reviewing the past was not the story, it was the writing. Examining old blogs made me acutely aware not only of what kind of mind my brain used to be but also what kind of story I used to be able to tell more importantly, what I am not able to tell now/yet.
Wow so different today it's a small peek into the effect that the brain injury had/has had on me so far I say so far because like the word yet so far doesn't fence me in, so far allows me to recreate me it is the path forward far has a nice intonation doesn't it so that some day I can meet myself again coming down the road.
Yesterday I was visiting with my good friend and sometimes therapist Dr Judy C after she had visited with Dr Rachel the audiologist who recently diagnosed me with three separate "injuries?", conditions? that are a result of the brain injury I had this summer they are Hyperacusis, Misophonia, and Tinnitus and my friend who has and is and will be a great support for me was pretty taken aback about how horrific my life/sound world became and remained so every minute every second of every day since 6-6-2019 she understood how horrific my mental life has become and she was pretty amazed that I was handling it all as well as I am/was.
I'm not so sure I am handling it that well. I seem to have put so much focus into trying to ignore/manage/shut out the ever-present sound pathology that clings to my head like an invisible sound amplification film that was sprayed inside my brain and is completely totally impervious to any attempt at volume adjustment that modern medicine or even medical imagination has come up with that I have been unable to have any except the smallest most fleeting relief from these three brain invaders let alone enjoy or easily participate in the common shared experience that we live in or even begin to be understood or supported by the rigid unyielding parameters of the workers comp insurance that is supposed to insure that I am able to return to a non affected state that I have disconnected with the consciousness stream that was/is my wonder woman blogging self. yeah I had trouble finding my way through and out of that labyrinthian thought also but, I think it is accurate.
so why am I disconnected from me? why does it appear to be so? Am I disconnected? or am I so completely focused on managing the three space invaders inside of my brain that are trying to consume me and my life that I am barely able to function let alone let flow onto the page the integrative imaginative and deeply clear rich mental complexity that was my bloggness self before I got hit in the head last summer.
Misophonia: she is like the Gorgon of the brain stalking about like a fire spewing dragon headed Being that never sleeps. She hates and I mean HATES particular sounds and when they occur she raises the fear level inside of me way beyond red alert more like a blazing cosmic exploding purply orange lightening strike white consuming tidal wave of anxiety and nightmare.....
why is that so? because its not just that I pick these sounds up, thanx to having concurrent Hyperacusis (the brain damage from the work injury this summer changed something in my central cochlear and brain auditory complex so that it amplifies sound reception in my head way WAY, WAAAAY LOUDER than it really is. Technically any sound above 20 decibels that's essentially a very soft whisper to me sounds like I'm sitting with my head inside a rock concert speaker)
so misophonic sounds channeled through the hyperacusis amplifier turn into something other than what you hear for example; try escaping the sound of rain on the roof that sounds like millions of ball bearings falling right over your head while trying to sleep or trying to focus on washing and rinsing when the water in the shower hitting/hating your skin sounds like its going to take your head off, or the sound of people including yourself talking or eating in a restaurant making your head hurt so bad that you have to excuse yourself to go vomit in the bathroom every five to ten minutes, or the sound of this blasted keyboard a zipper or velcro on a winter jacket the cars on the highway a quarter mile away the dinging of the car when started random conversation screaming kids the list goes on and on. I wonder if Apple makes a hyperacusis sensitive keyboard or if there are any doctors at all left whose hands are not attacking a keyboard the entire time they are "examining" me in a medical or therapeutic visit? when was the last time your doctor actually touched you or looked at you with your clothes off? Misophonia has a very long list of unacceptable phonic intruders and thanx to the hyperacusis she has every right to believe that those sounds are a major threat.
Misophonia HATES a multitude of sounds that I am totally unable to prevent from reaching her inside my brain and that is where she lives this sound hating gorgon headed amazonian woman that is trying to protect my brain from re-injury. I am quite sure that that is what she is up to. The reaction that courses through me when misophonic sounds strike the wings of her helmet and reverberate off of her shield is wearing thin my ability to prevent her from laying waste to the land and my life. I recognize that any inappropriate negative response directed outside of me would not be good but I have to say if I want to be completely honest that my patience is wearing thin my constant vigilance is tired of being constant and while Misophonia appears to be a super hero with an honest mission, I am not sure my counteractive wonder woman skills are as developed as hers are. although, in my gut when reviewing that previous statement I can tell that I am more endless than she is. hmm maybe a little more compassion for her rather than each of us trying to hack each others head off.
Misophonia is a hatred and I mean HATRED IN THE EXTREME of certain sounds which means that I have an intense negative emotional response to particular random sounds which results in my brain releasing the limbic kraken who in turn pours fear into my central nervous system via my limbic system (feel free relatives to look up any of these medical terms) resulting in extreme physioemotional reactions like anger, fear lots of fear, confusion, vomiting, severe fight or flight which rapidly turns into "Attack ATTack ATTACK!!!" and I have to stop all of this every time it happens before I set my own house on fire.
all of which is going on inside of me while everyone else around me is pretending that nothing is wrong yep that's what I just said everyone else is pretending nothing is wrong because I no less than a half a nano-second earlier just explained to them how I perceive the world around me and already they have moved on to what ever screensaver their attention span is focused on now. do you think that peoples addiction to transportable technology has stopped their ability to brain dive?
I understand that Misophonia operates with the soul/sole intent of saving me from further trauma to the head, but until I can convince her that I am no longer working at the sawmill, that all the random sounds I encounter are not indicative of eminent danger; I have to grab ahold of me and Her inside of me and keep me in a neutral place and position so that I don't end up annihilating my remaining chance of being an acceptable and well adjusted common person among the masses so much so and so constantly that I end up with e x t r e m e l y s l o o o o w s p e e c h pa t terns and so rt o f a f r e e z e frame body and mind that makes me appear to be .... Brain damaged? well I am brain damaged but not in the way science has imagined.
My damaged brain has become my own personal dysfunctional super hero and my outward appearance of being damaged is more to do a loss of my multitasking ability combined with having to be otherwise engaged inside my own head and body while everyone around me pushes me to be better, to get well, to be normal.
when Relatives was I ever normal? I'm not sure how it's going to work out in the long run I think taking the time to outline what is going on inside of me will give me a clue.
Actually given the circumstances thank life that I am functioning so well as I appear to be
something is niggling at the edge of my consciousness there is something here among the active rubble that is trying to fall into place and help me see in my own particular way how to work with Misophonia how to communicate with the outside world and make my own decisions as to how I can get well and how I can find my way. maybe if I can find a quiet place I can think about it.
thanx for listening I think this is enough for today I'll look at hyperacusis next time.
take care relatives sometimes it takes time to realize that if all I am doing is reacting to my environment (while I can be glad for who my baseline is) I am determined to work my way back to sitting back and seeing, hearing, understanding, observing and choosing who and how I want to be in the world around me isn't that what life is? really
Later tater
love ya
mean it
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Dude Where's My Brain?
Good Morning Relatives
It's been a while.
Monday I got reconnected to the internet here at home. It's a little scary. Anxiety about change maybe? Anxiety about being public, I'm not sure but it has taken me till Wednesday to sit down and refigure out how to log in and write a new blog post and I am here, HERE, heRe. LOL heRe I like that
It reminds me of a T-shirt a friend of mine (Deb) has it says:
Let's Eat Grandma
Let's Eat, Grandma
Commas save lives
LOL isn't that funny! Deb is funny I miss her face and all the individuality that runs across it, her kindness, her intensity, her integrity, her humor and her steadfastness.I miss her sharing with me/others how she sees the world. I miss Karleena also she has gone on to the Spirit world leaving behind a gap where her passion and majestic humor used to be. Karleena we enjoyed your beingness
it might take me a few tries to get my brain up and running again in MLB blogstyle
I got hit in the head last summer and it caused a TBI with multiple changes in how my brain perceives and interacts with the world around me and the within me world as well so heRe we are I are I am working my way back to IAM
I think it's a good idea
It's been a while.
Monday I got reconnected to the internet here at home. It's a little scary. Anxiety about change maybe? Anxiety about being public, I'm not sure but it has taken me till Wednesday to sit down and refigure out how to log in and write a new blog post and I am here, HERE, heRe. LOL heRe I like that
It reminds me of a T-shirt a friend of mine (Deb) has it says:
Let's Eat Grandma
Let's Eat, Grandma
Commas save lives
LOL isn't that funny! Deb is funny I miss her face and all the individuality that runs across it, her kindness, her intensity, her integrity, her humor and her steadfastness.I miss her sharing with me/others how she sees the world. I miss Karleena also she has gone on to the Spirit world leaving behind a gap where her passion and majestic humor used to be. Karleena we enjoyed your beingness
it might take me a few tries to get my brain up and running again in MLB blogstyle
I got hit in the head last summer and it caused a TBI with multiple changes in how my brain perceives and interacts with the world around me and the within me world as well so heRe we are I are I am working my way back to IAM
I think it's a good idea
Thursday, October 8, 2015
All in good time
Greetings Relatives
its fall here in Wisconsin the leaves are changing the nights cooling down
there is much going on much transition and learning hope you all are well
love love love mb
its fall here in Wisconsin the leaves are changing the nights cooling down
there is much going on much transition and learning hope you all are well
love love love mb
Monday, June 22, 2015
the final frontier
Good evening Relatives
How are you? We are so far apart like a cosmic event whose impetus we are barely able to discern is blowing us out to sea so far from each other so far from what we once were so strong and yet so subtle that the change in our heading is often not recognized until the shore upon which we land becomes the ocean that separates us one from the other
I watched two movies today the first was a spoof on spy/bond movies called the kingsmen starring colin firth I like him it was ok actually funny and original almost elegant in an odd way that lured me in maybe because I am part Scottish and there was a lot of plaid and great accents anyhow in the film a black man causes/directs/purposefully coordinates the murder of fifty or more white people in a church in Kentucky I understand intellectually that it is a film a spoof not real but it immediately and irrevocably brought to my mind the memory of the very real event of a white man murdering multiple black people in a church in south carolina / charleston and once I was deposited on that shore wondering about the exact mirror of murder between "reality" and "the movies" I got stuck
I got stuck because I couldn't figure out which came first the movie or the murder? I didn't like it and because of the deaths in charleston I couldn't go back to being "lost" in the movie. maybe that is a good thing, maybe it means that film has outgrown its ability to give us a place to go where we can escape who we are and who we live with and are surrounded by maybe that is a good thing because it removes one more buffer
but it also made me feel like I live on a different continent than perhaps lots of other people do and that made me wonder how should I feel about that? and I haven't decided yet to settle on one feeling more than another.
I feel as if I am standing on that shore watching people die over and over and cannot escape the loss of humanity that translates in to action into psychotic disregard for life into the over and over and over and over insatiable impulse towards violence violence that leaves an impact a scar that cannot be moderated and I wondered if that man in south carolina who killed those people in that church had watched the same movie
a horrific scene both in Charleston and in the movie, senseless in so many ways and on so many levels and so unexpected and yet part of me was not surprised but sad and it felt to me like my world, my shore drifted a little further away from the shore that everyone else lives on and even though it was a little sad and silent i was ok with the idea that I don't live on that shore and I wondered at where or what shore did the librarian who recommended that movie to me today was standing on when she talked about the hilarity of the film and how funny it was as if the link to the dead in the church never happened
I see myself standing on a different shore perhaps in the same world perhaps not I am not sure and I am no longer sure that it matters really not because I am deluding myself into thinking a blind eye will make the dead not visible but because I know that in my place, in me, in my world I see something that I choose to reject and attentively down to the minutia of activation out of my life and world and that something is violence violence gets no oxygen in my life on my planet
when I fell in 2012 my brain got disconnected there were other physical and mental injuries I had to address and have been and have been working towards recovering the use of my physical self but my brain my memory my ability to retrieve, assess, collate, finesse and weave into reality the vast array of what it is that was available in the world around me in my world in my life got disrupted severely it got crushed so badly so disconnected that I was afraid that I would never know myself again
that I would never be able to recognize me or avail myself of the me that I knew like an old friend the oldest friend in my life I knew right away i would never be able to be a doctor practicing again because the blanks in my cognition were so vast and so complete to me that I knew at least that I could remember that I could not remember what it was and would be necessary to take care of a patient and I still remember that the first part of my oath was to first do no harm
its not disappointing to not be a doctor practicing again, I was a good doctor, I remember that, it already happened, I'm not addicted to what I was what is disappointing is that I have yet to find someone who understands that its not important to me to be a doctor any more, I am proud of me for being able to be enough of a doctor to say no to practicing, and to have the courage to walk away from what was into a life I have no idea about, and that I recognize that the most important thing is, that I be important to me, that I value me really, truly, perfectly. the most Important thing is not that what they project on me is mourned or strived for its disappointing that they don't seem to hear me or value me now and the shores on which we stand again drift further apart
but I am arriving at a functional brain again I am healing and it is a relief to me I have lost somethings that I will never recover and I will not begrudge me this even as I find the limits sometimes through exhaustion sometimes through physical reaction ( I am getting ready to move and when one of my friends told me she would even though she hated the thought of it, would bring her horse trailer out to pipestone and help me move and she wanted to know how much stuff I had to move I found that inside of me there no longer existed that person who could have that conversation with a friend, and i got scared, and I got hot and I said to her that I didn't have the ability any longer to discuss that with her or anyone else and that the thought of that discussion, trying to defend what I had or coordinate with someone about why was I moving this or that and why was I making my choices and timing I no longer could do that and inside of me I got scared and got angry because it felt like a wall that I could never possibly climb or even imagine a door in let along figure out how to open and go through it, so i preferred to move by myself with no help because I didn't want to feel that sense of fear and inability so irrevocably in myself so I just told her and that was that and in a little bit the fear went away and I didn't have to be the person who overcame her lack of skill because I quite frankly just never would again be able to do it so it was ok to simply say I can't go there any longer and find a different place to go find a place that I could go and go there instead) and today when i was bringing things down the stairs carefully and slowly after about three things, three times down the stairs I found that I was hyperventilating and scared and dizzy so I stopped and I said to me good job and good for you that you stopped tomorrow you can try again
so what I wonder is do you think I have to or will have to have a whole new set of friends that don't know me since the me I am today doesn't really too much resemble the me I was yesterday? and do you think that whole new set of friends will be because I can't relate any longer or because my old friends were so invested in who I was that they can't reconcile even if I can that I am no longer on that shore of familiarity
is that what love is ? having the impetus to love yourself to recognize that I am so amazing and so able even when I no longer am very much at all what I was or who I was? do you think there will be people in my life who care for my essence and understand that the expression of me as myself is still a universe that is unfolding and do you think they will celebrate me or abandon ship cut the ties between the interests, the hearts that watch across the void that allows me to unfold without fear without design and allows me to see them as they are and enjoy that they are so not me ?
the second film I watched was Still Alice I had read the book I was a little afraid of the movie but it worked out I took a chance on Julianne Moore and she delivered its a good movie no one wants to face the reality that their reality is so vastly different from everyone else or that there is no way that they can reverse the propulsion that is carrying them away from what was into what is and what will be
it's ok perhaps I could have more I am not sure really but what Ic an tell all you other space and time travelers is that I have me and I know me and I am peacefully pleased to know me still, after all these years
sleep tight
mb
How are you? We are so far apart like a cosmic event whose impetus we are barely able to discern is blowing us out to sea so far from each other so far from what we once were so strong and yet so subtle that the change in our heading is often not recognized until the shore upon which we land becomes the ocean that separates us one from the other
I watched two movies today the first was a spoof on spy/bond movies called the kingsmen starring colin firth I like him it was ok actually funny and original almost elegant in an odd way that lured me in maybe because I am part Scottish and there was a lot of plaid and great accents anyhow in the film a black man causes/directs/purposefully coordinates the murder of fifty or more white people in a church in Kentucky I understand intellectually that it is a film a spoof not real but it immediately and irrevocably brought to my mind the memory of the very real event of a white man murdering multiple black people in a church in south carolina / charleston and once I was deposited on that shore wondering about the exact mirror of murder between "reality" and "the movies" I got stuck
I got stuck because I couldn't figure out which came first the movie or the murder? I didn't like it and because of the deaths in charleston I couldn't go back to being "lost" in the movie. maybe that is a good thing, maybe it means that film has outgrown its ability to give us a place to go where we can escape who we are and who we live with and are surrounded by maybe that is a good thing because it removes one more buffer
but it also made me feel like I live on a different continent than perhaps lots of other people do and that made me wonder how should I feel about that? and I haven't decided yet to settle on one feeling more than another.
I feel as if I am standing on that shore watching people die over and over and cannot escape the loss of humanity that translates in to action into psychotic disregard for life into the over and over and over and over insatiable impulse towards violence violence that leaves an impact a scar that cannot be moderated and I wondered if that man in south carolina who killed those people in that church had watched the same movie
a horrific scene both in Charleston and in the movie, senseless in so many ways and on so many levels and so unexpected and yet part of me was not surprised but sad and it felt to me like my world, my shore drifted a little further away from the shore that everyone else lives on and even though it was a little sad and silent i was ok with the idea that I don't live on that shore and I wondered at where or what shore did the librarian who recommended that movie to me today was standing on when she talked about the hilarity of the film and how funny it was as if the link to the dead in the church never happened
I see myself standing on a different shore perhaps in the same world perhaps not I am not sure and I am no longer sure that it matters really not because I am deluding myself into thinking a blind eye will make the dead not visible but because I know that in my place, in me, in my world I see something that I choose to reject and attentively down to the minutia of activation out of my life and world and that something is violence violence gets no oxygen in my life on my planet
when I fell in 2012 my brain got disconnected there were other physical and mental injuries I had to address and have been and have been working towards recovering the use of my physical self but my brain my memory my ability to retrieve, assess, collate, finesse and weave into reality the vast array of what it is that was available in the world around me in my world in my life got disrupted severely it got crushed so badly so disconnected that I was afraid that I would never know myself again
that I would never be able to recognize me or avail myself of the me that I knew like an old friend the oldest friend in my life I knew right away i would never be able to be a doctor practicing again because the blanks in my cognition were so vast and so complete to me that I knew at least that I could remember that I could not remember what it was and would be necessary to take care of a patient and I still remember that the first part of my oath was to first do no harm
its not disappointing to not be a doctor practicing again, I was a good doctor, I remember that, it already happened, I'm not addicted to what I was what is disappointing is that I have yet to find someone who understands that its not important to me to be a doctor any more, I am proud of me for being able to be enough of a doctor to say no to practicing, and to have the courage to walk away from what was into a life I have no idea about, and that I recognize that the most important thing is, that I be important to me, that I value me really, truly, perfectly. the most Important thing is not that what they project on me is mourned or strived for its disappointing that they don't seem to hear me or value me now and the shores on which we stand again drift further apart
but I am arriving at a functional brain again I am healing and it is a relief to me I have lost somethings that I will never recover and I will not begrudge me this even as I find the limits sometimes through exhaustion sometimes through physical reaction ( I am getting ready to move and when one of my friends told me she would even though she hated the thought of it, would bring her horse trailer out to pipestone and help me move and she wanted to know how much stuff I had to move I found that inside of me there no longer existed that person who could have that conversation with a friend, and i got scared, and I got hot and I said to her that I didn't have the ability any longer to discuss that with her or anyone else and that the thought of that discussion, trying to defend what I had or coordinate with someone about why was I moving this or that and why was I making my choices and timing I no longer could do that and inside of me I got scared and got angry because it felt like a wall that I could never possibly climb or even imagine a door in let along figure out how to open and go through it, so i preferred to move by myself with no help because I didn't want to feel that sense of fear and inability so irrevocably in myself so I just told her and that was that and in a little bit the fear went away and I didn't have to be the person who overcame her lack of skill because I quite frankly just never would again be able to do it so it was ok to simply say I can't go there any longer and find a different place to go find a place that I could go and go there instead) and today when i was bringing things down the stairs carefully and slowly after about three things, three times down the stairs I found that I was hyperventilating and scared and dizzy so I stopped and I said to me good job and good for you that you stopped tomorrow you can try again
so what I wonder is do you think I have to or will have to have a whole new set of friends that don't know me since the me I am today doesn't really too much resemble the me I was yesterday? and do you think that whole new set of friends will be because I can't relate any longer or because my old friends were so invested in who I was that they can't reconcile even if I can that I am no longer on that shore of familiarity
is that what love is ? having the impetus to love yourself to recognize that I am so amazing and so able even when I no longer am very much at all what I was or who I was? do you think there will be people in my life who care for my essence and understand that the expression of me as myself is still a universe that is unfolding and do you think they will celebrate me or abandon ship cut the ties between the interests, the hearts that watch across the void that allows me to unfold without fear without design and allows me to see them as they are and enjoy that they are so not me ?
the second film I watched was Still Alice I had read the book I was a little afraid of the movie but it worked out I took a chance on Julianne Moore and she delivered its a good movie no one wants to face the reality that their reality is so vastly different from everyone else or that there is no way that they can reverse the propulsion that is carrying them away from what was into what is and what will be
it's ok perhaps I could have more I am not sure really but what Ic an tell all you other space and time travelers is that I have me and I know me and I am peacefully pleased to know me still, after all these years
sleep tight
mb
Monday, June 15, 2015
Walking on Water
Good Morning Relatives
well its been a while since I blogged Ive been doing other things and sort of like working the garden in the spring like a maniac and forgetting to do the laundry means that things that need to be sorted pile up I figure its a nice rainy day to sit down and finish sorting out some of the details and story that has begun a new chapter here in Pipestone.
Did you know that there is a secret society of women in Iowa? I didn't know it till this last weekend. There they were, these women who gather and open their lives to change, while weaving a basket of support for each other and for themselves. Then they fill that basket up with questions, answers, potluck food, the giveaway of what has been and what can be, and then they take apart what is ready to be undone and reconstruct themselves with the intention of going at their lives with courage wisdom and the effect/effort of being authentic. I witnessed in them the desire and application of effort to make their lives valuable to themselves as individuals with no worries about the social or manipulated concession of outside opinion or judgement for or against what or who they are becoming. This type of statement might be translated by the pattern of the overculture's propaganda to make us think of amazons dykes man-haters spinsters old hard wire unbending dangerous women who are to be avoided or discounted but these women were funny, strong, kind, heterosexual (not that that is a bonus mind you) mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters, relatives of lesbians, working and retired, friends who are common amongst their communities but uncommon in their lives. it was awesome to see and listen and to observe and get to participate in their common but uncommon lives. I felt like what I had come to think of as utopia was actually right there around me in that little cabin in the woods in Iowa. So those of you who think that the age of aquarius never arrived or that the aztec calendar promise of a new world hasn't yet manifested I beg to differ it has arrived and did so many years ago and is thriving in rural Iowa.
I was saved by this group of women last weekend. what is interesting is that the saving of me began long ago when we first got up as individuals and from different backgrounds, compass points, religiosities, food preferences and life stories started down the path of who are we and what and why should today I go this way, and arrived for a few moments together in the woods in Iowa and simply shared what for each of us was essential, different and naturally complimentary. They we continued on our way, confident in the understanding that our lives up until that time had been well earned and enjoyed and for having come together would continue to be so.
Each of them for the past several years have answered the call of their own essence and begun and lived the work and joy of answering that call. What call is that? It is the voice of the sound and beauty of the desire of themselves to become who they are. These women have expressed with their actions their steps their words the food they have shared the beingness they have gathered in themselves, amongst each other, as a diverse but collective essence, a universe bound by desire and intention, together each year in June for many years now. In-between Junes, when they could they have continued to intertwine their individuality with each other without apology or judgement. This year, they made a noise, sent out an intention, called upon the Universe in such a way that and with the history of their effort in the past holding a depth in that call, the universe responded and that response from their desire and effort through the essence of this great body we live in came a response that changed the minds and hearts of human beings in New Jersey which changed a circumstance that saved me here in Pipestone and thus I was able to travel to the place of their secret social seclusion and thank them, give back to them what they had given to me. How cool is that.
and people think that Life doesn't listen, that the one voice isn't heard, and that the impetus of the unseen action attitude and heart held intention isn't manifest in this time. well hmm that has not been my experience.
Awesome! Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet!
our lives have been held back by the mythology of distrust, by the blanket of fear, the gerbil wheel of endless chewing on unanswerable questions, the season and habit of self-doubt and unattainable perfection, the immobilizing acceptance of the premise that we have to be more than we are in order to connect, to exist, to have value, to show up, to matter, to whatever it is it is a lie that is so ingrained in us that we do not even recognize that we step out onto it rather than into our own beautiful selves every time our minds look towards our lives.
This is the fist that the "overculture" (as Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls it) uses to diffuse, deflect, or channel the energy of our effort. It is the drain that siphons our souls progress into either profitability for the very thing that we a trapped by or into the whirlwind of dissipated struggle that wears out our stamina and uses up our creativity, consuming the energetic essence of our lives until at the end, our lives are or have been lost to the great mechanism of doubt and self questioning that robs this time and place, our time and place, both collectively and individually of the beauty and the creativity that we, each of us, brought with us when like tiny seeds of joy and unimaginability we began unfolding into what never before was here and never again shall be. When we chew on the fist of the overculture; that unfolding is lost, withered, stunted, or twisted into a life shape that leaves us unfulfilled and a little bit confused when it is time to let it go.
but not all of us end up looking back thinking what happened and why was it that blah blah blah? some of us like that secret society of women in Iowa never look back and when the beginning approaches disguised as the end others fear we will simply take off our worn out outfits and transition to the next embodiment of our own divine selves.
so what has been going on?
well some of you have followed the story of the purchase of the home and land in pipestone and the placement of me here (you can look back in the blog if you need to refresh) and it has definitely been an adventure
last winter ( not this last one but the one that ended a year ago, spring of 2014) I had the overwhelming feeling that I was once again climbing an escalator rather than headed down a path this house in Pipestone was too big for me alone and the land and the finishing of everything was too much for an SSDI income and I was tired really really tired so I began to question, not that I was here but instead the grand ideas I had about what it was that I was supposed to do with and while here. I have no doubt that I was brought here and supposed to purchase this house and land but the grand ideas I had were not perhaps what it was bought for
you know how they say that until you let go of what you are grasping you cannot be given what belongs in your hand? well I began to let go and once I did things started moving.
the USgov which "owns" and manages the pipestone national monument has begun a "study" and inquire into whether or not the pipestone that is dug here should be made into items and sold at the monument by the indegenous who do so. Even though the stone has been dug, carved, traded and sold since the beginning of this earth and made into pipes which were and are intended to go one to each heart that beats in a human being, there are tribes who in their PTSD mindset following the events of the 18 and early 1900's and on and on believe that the pipe, and the stone, and any object made from that stone that comes from the sacred ground here in pipestone is only intended for and should only belong to and should never be sold to anyone who is not FBI FBI meaning full blood indian and of their tribe only. so this effort of this tribe, backed by big gambling money etc.... has leaned on the USgov for a long time now and like the water dripping on the stone is not ineffectual in bringing about the change they seek. That of taking over the monument and preventing any pipes or stone made items from being sold or otherwise distributed to anyone without the explicit permission and approval of said tribe.
well as you can imagine that is not good for the rest of us human beings is it? and definitely not what the pipe or the stone was made or intended for. Sooooooooooooo, what I realized is that this property that I bought and its house are the last remaining privately held non-conflict land that is part of the old quarries the original quarries for pipestone and what needed to happen was that this land needed to be transferred to someone(s) who would keep it for the pipe makers and human beings who seek that connection and the stone that holds the representation of their own heart, their own sincu, in prayer.
so I had a dream, in that dream my sister Racho said time to give up the house, time to go home, time to get rid of the past, burn all the photos and go on down the road. So I began to look for a new home for me and to try and seek what and who to turn this land over to. So I knew/ understood that for me the river in wisconsin was a good place so why not look for a home that was small and already finished and private and perfect for me, for just me and my family of other legged beings that care for me and I for them.
so I found, last september on the st croix river a little cabin in the woods, on the river, and in the midst of 15 acres, on a private road, with neighbors who are weekenders but of the same age range and education/economic thought pattern as myself, that is 640 sq feet. Perfect for me
so I went to see it and it was perfect I wept while I was there because the peacefulness that came from that land overwhelmed me. I asked if the owner/seller would do a contract for deed and they would not. I was willing to pay the asking price no questions, no inspections, no repairs etc if they would. but once again I was getting ahead of what the universe what the spirits had in mind and my thoughts were leaving out the bring it on of others its a hard lesson for my brain to learn that my life and others lives come together in a weave and jigsaw that begins long ago and far away and comes to a point of intersection where if we look, if we observe we can see that life has been loving us and we each other the whole time.
so because of the foreclosure FHA in my past I had to wait until March 10th to reapply for an FHA loan. So I laid on the ground there in Wi and put out tobacco and wept and I asked for that land for me for me I asked. and I wept.
then I went home and dreamed about the woman who was complicit in the death of my sister.
some of you may or may not know that when Rachel died she had 4 or 5 times in the 8 months prior to her death gotten drunk and called this woman Karen who was a "friend" of mine, and told her that she was drunk, she was sitting there with her gun, and she was suicidal and was afraid and needed help, she didn't want to die. that is what my sister said to this woman and Karens response was to go to Racho and or have Racho come over to her place and proceed to get her so drunk that she passed out. Karen never called me or took Racho to a therapist, or to a program, or the hospital or anything she just applied more alcohol and walked away. well the last night this happened, Rachel woke up after Karen left. you can imagine how I felt towards this woman when I found out this history
I wanted to kill her I wanted her to end I told her that some day when she had forgotten about me I would come for her for the life she took from me
that was in 2007
now here in 2014 I had forgotten about Karen, but you know what the universe hadn't forgotten and better than me the universe knew what that oath was doing to me and to Karen in our lives like a seed of death unfolding and destroying us. So, when I got home fro Wisconsin and from lying on the ground and weeping I had a dream. In that dreamtime I found myself ahead in time and place walking up to the hair salon that Karen owned and worked at, she is karmeticly destined to be a hair person how funny is that? anyhow she was surrounded by guardians that let me through to her and I walked up to her looked her in the eyes and said, " I miss my sister." then I said, "I am sorry" and then she said to me "I miss her also", and, "I am sorry." and all that hate and death evaporated.
how cool is that
so I woke up crying again and knew that the peace of that land had found in me what was killing me and keeping someone else from transitioning and it had healed me
how cool is that
when I got back to Pipestone I thought I knew how to find the answer for the land so I went to a pipemaker woman that I knew and respected and she was looking for a house to buy and I was looking to sell my place so we talked about her buying the land and in my head I saw the perfect scenario and I was pleased with my adjusted idea about land that did not belong to me
so I went to the conference in mankato the women and spirituality conference and gave a little presentation and while I was there I met a Tarot woman who I booked time with and she when I sat down said to me"let's talk about the land."
ha! that was a shock, and we did. and she said that the grandmothers who were with me said that the woman I thought might or should buy the land was/would be unable to keep her relatives from taking her over so they would most likely (they being the Spirits in charge of the greater picture) would find someone else to buy the land.
so what I saw from her and the connections at the conference was that women were listening to the universe women were in tune with the basket and a part of the weave that held all of us together, but we are coming from around our own curve and dancing past each other long past the moment again and again and holding the dance, the weave but not grasping the point, not forgetting, but not projecting. I remembered the women's basket dance that my old Tewa teacher taught me long long ago and I understood for the first time a little bit about the medicine of that dance.
so I headed towards March towards a new FHA loan and I fell again at Caseys ha and again learned more about what I was and was not supposed to be doing and how to see and how not to see money I thought I should or could buy the home mortgage free but it was not to be I had my SSDI and I had enough to make it work but it would require attentiveness, staying in the economic basket and developing discipline and interaction
I got a little credit card to wake up and restore my credit I paid off old crazy little debts and began to reinsert myself back into the financial patterns
then in March I called the realtor back and found out that no-one had made an offer on the property no-one had even looked at it. So, I called a woman who is a mortgage broker who I had known in Dallas since 2003, she had helped me get my home back then, and then I helped her save her dog back in 2009.
back in 2009, she brought me her dog for a broken tooth and the dog had a mass on a toe on one of his front feet. she asked me to take off the mass while he was under for the tooth and I did thinking that she would follow the followup no worries. Only a series of not keeping the e-collar on events happened, not following the instructions and guidelines happened, and the dog ended up with 6 or 8 surgeries and gangrene in its foot.
bad gangrene is bad. so we had a "come to Jesus" meeting her and her hubby and I and the dog at the clinic and I drew a line on one side was the pink juice(euthanasia) for the dog, on the other was exact and unwavering agreement and followthrough about post op instructions and e-collar. no messing around no more.
so she reached in side of her this woman that I knew and she found her rock and she committed to her dog and she never looked back and I did ceremony for her and her dog and the gangrene and the Spirits fixed that dogs foot and eliminated the infection and dead tissue with not even the loss of one toe for that silly old dog in about ten days.
it was a miracle
then they declared bankruptcy and never paid the over 18,000.00$ bill 8 surgeries and 30 or so bandage changes is a lot of money dudes. so there I was and there she was and there it was a debt I had to let go of
remember how when I bought this place it wasn't about the money? well the dog wasn't about the money either. and letting go of the place in Pipestone wasn't about the money (getting "mine" back) or having enough to get the land in Wi, and remember when I told the owner of the land in Wi that if he let me purchase it on Contract for deed that in 5 years the money would be forgotten but the deed would be life changing? its never about the money relatives remember that
so I called Wray my friend of the dog and asked for her help with the FHA loan for the place in Wi and you know she said to me, you saved my dog and I owe you mary and I told her I never saw it that way and yet she did and so now the debt is come due and she could help me in a way that was more valuable and would be more lasting than the money from 2009 would have been oh and by the way the dog is still doing great old but great so it wasn't about the money but the trade the doing was important and carried karmic weight even if back then I didn't see that things would be reinvested for me in a way that was more timely and more valuable than what I thought was best back in 2009 or what society would say was right or good back in 2009.
so Wray helped me with the loan she prepped everything, got me a banker and then she stood by me like she stood by her dog back in 2009
but, the process the loan, process almost killed me. I found a cash buyer for the land and the house, the couple who run the non profit known as The Keepers of the Sacred Tradition of Pipemaker's, people who believe in and stand for the access of all human beings to the pipe are the ones who bought the place, they own the depot next door, they and I reached an accord. Cash price, no inspection, no improvements no nothing for me to do here at the house, I can stay as long as it takes and no worries.
so i sold this place out from under myself limbo agggggh 50 days before the loan was approved I became homeless but not homeless I had to wait I had to hold and keep going forward one step at a time with no idea that anything or what would work out or how it would
aggggggh
and I was of course as all loan applicants are freaking out about money and closing costs and having enough etc and I didn't want to pay for the inspection of the house, well, septic etc... I thought I would save the $600.00 but ....Wray said not to, she said do the inspection. so I did and guess what
the well had not been capped properly and there was a little opening and a mouse crawled into that opening and committed hari-kari on the switch in the well. soooooooo when we went to do the inspection the well wasn't working, and because it wasn't working the owner/sellers had to repair it which turned out to be more extensive than just the switch and included having to submit a water test. And the water test showed that the well had naturally occurring arsenic in it that was too high of levels to be ok for human use which meant that not only did the owner/seller have to fix the well they had to have a system put in that purified the water all of which cost way way way more than the $600.00 inspection fee and that little mouse knew that its time was now to let itself go and it gave its last effort to wards that land and me and the help needed in a timely manner
how cool is that
and while all this is going on in the interim, some of the women I had met in mankato, who belong as it turns out to the secret society of women in Iowa, invited me to be their guest speaker at their june gathering and I accepted so as june approached and the loan officer kept telling me that the loan could fail any day and things seemed more and more frighteningly frightening for me because I was supposed to turn over the property in pipestone June 15th to the new owners I was panicking and my body was filling with toxins from fear that inspite of all the training qigong and swimming and self distraction i was doing I could not resolve into faith faith was there it just was unable to make me into buddha in the midst of the storm of impending deadlines and no loan
agggggggh
I was floating on a very small island inside of my own sea of fear and doubt and knew that there was no way I could be of any use to the women who had invited me to come and visit with them if I was that afraid there was no way it would happen and I saw the idea that I was a spiritual failure, that my life was over, that the end was near that blah blah blah was imminent and I knew that I could not do anything but say I did all I can and I can do no more and just like that time when I was holding the fire in Lame Deer and all I could do was focus on the fire and not engage or try to change or judge or effect or think about anyone or anything happening around me I didn't dive into the black fear and self judgement nor did I try and run around and conjure up a miracle I just stated the truth and stood where I was
so I put out tobacco and cried and said to the Spirits on Wednesday last week (due to leave Friday for the Iowan retreat) I said to the Spirits, there is no way I can be of use to or visit those women in Iowa when I am in this much fear.
and I left it at that, and walked away, I walked away from imagining, projecting, or deciding on an answer. I just left it. I think it is the only real buddhist be in the now time of my life, so far. if I drowned in fear so be it at least I would drown without taking those Iowan women down with me.
at five o'clock on that day Wednesday I got a call from the loan officer and he said your loan is approved.
That was it the loan is approved
dude
how cool is that
still papers to gather things to tidy up but it was a done deal
instantly I felt the sea of stress begin to drain away
that night I slept for real in the dreamtime journey I made that night every place I went I encountered myself in another time and place sleeping, resting
how cool is that
so I went to Iowa and met the secret society of women and thanked them for saving me
their desire, their request to the universe for me caused things for me to come to a positive resolution so that I could come to them and give back what the universe had filtered through me as a giveaway that day.
how cool is that
what a nice basket with a nice little mouse accent
so they saved me and now the land in pipestone is on its way to where the Spirits are taking it and I am on my way to Wisconsin and those secret women in Iowa are entering into the daily weaving that will change lives across our world even if they never know it
we all walk on water relatives we just don't look down and don't look back
love ya
mean it
mb
well its been a while since I blogged Ive been doing other things and sort of like working the garden in the spring like a maniac and forgetting to do the laundry means that things that need to be sorted pile up I figure its a nice rainy day to sit down and finish sorting out some of the details and story that has begun a new chapter here in Pipestone.
Did you know that there is a secret society of women in Iowa? I didn't know it till this last weekend. There they were, these women who gather and open their lives to change, while weaving a basket of support for each other and for themselves. Then they fill that basket up with questions, answers, potluck food, the giveaway of what has been and what can be, and then they take apart what is ready to be undone and reconstruct themselves with the intention of going at their lives with courage wisdom and the effect/effort of being authentic. I witnessed in them the desire and application of effort to make their lives valuable to themselves as individuals with no worries about the social or manipulated concession of outside opinion or judgement for or against what or who they are becoming. This type of statement might be translated by the pattern of the overculture's propaganda to make us think of amazons dykes man-haters spinsters old hard wire unbending dangerous women who are to be avoided or discounted but these women were funny, strong, kind, heterosexual (not that that is a bonus mind you) mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters, relatives of lesbians, working and retired, friends who are common amongst their communities but uncommon in their lives. it was awesome to see and listen and to observe and get to participate in their common but uncommon lives. I felt like what I had come to think of as utopia was actually right there around me in that little cabin in the woods in Iowa. So those of you who think that the age of aquarius never arrived or that the aztec calendar promise of a new world hasn't yet manifested I beg to differ it has arrived and did so many years ago and is thriving in rural Iowa.
I was saved by this group of women last weekend. what is interesting is that the saving of me began long ago when we first got up as individuals and from different backgrounds, compass points, religiosities, food preferences and life stories started down the path of who are we and what and why should today I go this way, and arrived for a few moments together in the woods in Iowa and simply shared what for each of us was essential, different and naturally complimentary. They we continued on our way, confident in the understanding that our lives up until that time had been well earned and enjoyed and for having come together would continue to be so.
Each of them for the past several years have answered the call of their own essence and begun and lived the work and joy of answering that call. What call is that? It is the voice of the sound and beauty of the desire of themselves to become who they are. These women have expressed with their actions their steps their words the food they have shared the beingness they have gathered in themselves, amongst each other, as a diverse but collective essence, a universe bound by desire and intention, together each year in June for many years now. In-between Junes, when they could they have continued to intertwine their individuality with each other without apology or judgement. This year, they made a noise, sent out an intention, called upon the Universe in such a way that and with the history of their effort in the past holding a depth in that call, the universe responded and that response from their desire and effort through the essence of this great body we live in came a response that changed the minds and hearts of human beings in New Jersey which changed a circumstance that saved me here in Pipestone and thus I was able to travel to the place of their secret social seclusion and thank them, give back to them what they had given to me. How cool is that.
and people think that Life doesn't listen, that the one voice isn't heard, and that the impetus of the unseen action attitude and heart held intention isn't manifest in this time. well hmm that has not been my experience.
Awesome! Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet!
our lives have been held back by the mythology of distrust, by the blanket of fear, the gerbil wheel of endless chewing on unanswerable questions, the season and habit of self-doubt and unattainable perfection, the immobilizing acceptance of the premise that we have to be more than we are in order to connect, to exist, to have value, to show up, to matter, to whatever it is it is a lie that is so ingrained in us that we do not even recognize that we step out onto it rather than into our own beautiful selves every time our minds look towards our lives.
This is the fist that the "overculture" (as Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls it) uses to diffuse, deflect, or channel the energy of our effort. It is the drain that siphons our souls progress into either profitability for the very thing that we a trapped by or into the whirlwind of dissipated struggle that wears out our stamina and uses up our creativity, consuming the energetic essence of our lives until at the end, our lives are or have been lost to the great mechanism of doubt and self questioning that robs this time and place, our time and place, both collectively and individually of the beauty and the creativity that we, each of us, brought with us when like tiny seeds of joy and unimaginability we began unfolding into what never before was here and never again shall be. When we chew on the fist of the overculture; that unfolding is lost, withered, stunted, or twisted into a life shape that leaves us unfulfilled and a little bit confused when it is time to let it go.
but not all of us end up looking back thinking what happened and why was it that blah blah blah? some of us like that secret society of women in Iowa never look back and when the beginning approaches disguised as the end others fear we will simply take off our worn out outfits and transition to the next embodiment of our own divine selves.
so what has been going on?
well some of you have followed the story of the purchase of the home and land in pipestone and the placement of me here (you can look back in the blog if you need to refresh) and it has definitely been an adventure
last winter ( not this last one but the one that ended a year ago, spring of 2014) I had the overwhelming feeling that I was once again climbing an escalator rather than headed down a path this house in Pipestone was too big for me alone and the land and the finishing of everything was too much for an SSDI income and I was tired really really tired so I began to question, not that I was here but instead the grand ideas I had about what it was that I was supposed to do with and while here. I have no doubt that I was brought here and supposed to purchase this house and land but the grand ideas I had were not perhaps what it was bought for
you know how they say that until you let go of what you are grasping you cannot be given what belongs in your hand? well I began to let go and once I did things started moving.
the USgov which "owns" and manages the pipestone national monument has begun a "study" and inquire into whether or not the pipestone that is dug here should be made into items and sold at the monument by the indegenous who do so. Even though the stone has been dug, carved, traded and sold since the beginning of this earth and made into pipes which were and are intended to go one to each heart that beats in a human being, there are tribes who in their PTSD mindset following the events of the 18 and early 1900's and on and on believe that the pipe, and the stone, and any object made from that stone that comes from the sacred ground here in pipestone is only intended for and should only belong to and should never be sold to anyone who is not FBI FBI meaning full blood indian and of their tribe only. so this effort of this tribe, backed by big gambling money etc.... has leaned on the USgov for a long time now and like the water dripping on the stone is not ineffectual in bringing about the change they seek. That of taking over the monument and preventing any pipes or stone made items from being sold or otherwise distributed to anyone without the explicit permission and approval of said tribe.
well as you can imagine that is not good for the rest of us human beings is it? and definitely not what the pipe or the stone was made or intended for. Sooooooooooooo, what I realized is that this property that I bought and its house are the last remaining privately held non-conflict land that is part of the old quarries the original quarries for pipestone and what needed to happen was that this land needed to be transferred to someone(s) who would keep it for the pipe makers and human beings who seek that connection and the stone that holds the representation of their own heart, their own sincu, in prayer.
so I had a dream, in that dream my sister Racho said time to give up the house, time to go home, time to get rid of the past, burn all the photos and go on down the road. So I began to look for a new home for me and to try and seek what and who to turn this land over to. So I knew/ understood that for me the river in wisconsin was a good place so why not look for a home that was small and already finished and private and perfect for me, for just me and my family of other legged beings that care for me and I for them.
so I found, last september on the st croix river a little cabin in the woods, on the river, and in the midst of 15 acres, on a private road, with neighbors who are weekenders but of the same age range and education/economic thought pattern as myself, that is 640 sq feet. Perfect for me
so I went to see it and it was perfect I wept while I was there because the peacefulness that came from that land overwhelmed me. I asked if the owner/seller would do a contract for deed and they would not. I was willing to pay the asking price no questions, no inspections, no repairs etc if they would. but once again I was getting ahead of what the universe what the spirits had in mind and my thoughts were leaving out the bring it on of others its a hard lesson for my brain to learn that my life and others lives come together in a weave and jigsaw that begins long ago and far away and comes to a point of intersection where if we look, if we observe we can see that life has been loving us and we each other the whole time.
so because of the foreclosure FHA in my past I had to wait until March 10th to reapply for an FHA loan. So I laid on the ground there in Wi and put out tobacco and wept and I asked for that land for me for me I asked. and I wept.
then I went home and dreamed about the woman who was complicit in the death of my sister.
some of you may or may not know that when Rachel died she had 4 or 5 times in the 8 months prior to her death gotten drunk and called this woman Karen who was a "friend" of mine, and told her that she was drunk, she was sitting there with her gun, and she was suicidal and was afraid and needed help, she didn't want to die. that is what my sister said to this woman and Karens response was to go to Racho and or have Racho come over to her place and proceed to get her so drunk that she passed out. Karen never called me or took Racho to a therapist, or to a program, or the hospital or anything she just applied more alcohol and walked away. well the last night this happened, Rachel woke up after Karen left. you can imagine how I felt towards this woman when I found out this history
I wanted to kill her I wanted her to end I told her that some day when she had forgotten about me I would come for her for the life she took from me
that was in 2007
now here in 2014 I had forgotten about Karen, but you know what the universe hadn't forgotten and better than me the universe knew what that oath was doing to me and to Karen in our lives like a seed of death unfolding and destroying us. So, when I got home fro Wisconsin and from lying on the ground and weeping I had a dream. In that dreamtime I found myself ahead in time and place walking up to the hair salon that Karen owned and worked at, she is karmeticly destined to be a hair person how funny is that? anyhow she was surrounded by guardians that let me through to her and I walked up to her looked her in the eyes and said, " I miss my sister." then I said, "I am sorry" and then she said to me "I miss her also", and, "I am sorry." and all that hate and death evaporated.
how cool is that
so I woke up crying again and knew that the peace of that land had found in me what was killing me and keeping someone else from transitioning and it had healed me
how cool is that
when I got back to Pipestone I thought I knew how to find the answer for the land so I went to a pipemaker woman that I knew and respected and she was looking for a house to buy and I was looking to sell my place so we talked about her buying the land and in my head I saw the perfect scenario and I was pleased with my adjusted idea about land that did not belong to me
so I went to the conference in mankato the women and spirituality conference and gave a little presentation and while I was there I met a Tarot woman who I booked time with and she when I sat down said to me"let's talk about the land."
ha! that was a shock, and we did. and she said that the grandmothers who were with me said that the woman I thought might or should buy the land was/would be unable to keep her relatives from taking her over so they would most likely (they being the Spirits in charge of the greater picture) would find someone else to buy the land.
so what I saw from her and the connections at the conference was that women were listening to the universe women were in tune with the basket and a part of the weave that held all of us together, but we are coming from around our own curve and dancing past each other long past the moment again and again and holding the dance, the weave but not grasping the point, not forgetting, but not projecting. I remembered the women's basket dance that my old Tewa teacher taught me long long ago and I understood for the first time a little bit about the medicine of that dance.
so I headed towards March towards a new FHA loan and I fell again at Caseys ha and again learned more about what I was and was not supposed to be doing and how to see and how not to see money I thought I should or could buy the home mortgage free but it was not to be I had my SSDI and I had enough to make it work but it would require attentiveness, staying in the economic basket and developing discipline and interaction
I got a little credit card to wake up and restore my credit I paid off old crazy little debts and began to reinsert myself back into the financial patterns
then in March I called the realtor back and found out that no-one had made an offer on the property no-one had even looked at it. So, I called a woman who is a mortgage broker who I had known in Dallas since 2003, she had helped me get my home back then, and then I helped her save her dog back in 2009.
back in 2009, she brought me her dog for a broken tooth and the dog had a mass on a toe on one of his front feet. she asked me to take off the mass while he was under for the tooth and I did thinking that she would follow the followup no worries. Only a series of not keeping the e-collar on events happened, not following the instructions and guidelines happened, and the dog ended up with 6 or 8 surgeries and gangrene in its foot.
bad gangrene is bad. so we had a "come to Jesus" meeting her and her hubby and I and the dog at the clinic and I drew a line on one side was the pink juice(euthanasia) for the dog, on the other was exact and unwavering agreement and followthrough about post op instructions and e-collar. no messing around no more.
so she reached in side of her this woman that I knew and she found her rock and she committed to her dog and she never looked back and I did ceremony for her and her dog and the gangrene and the Spirits fixed that dogs foot and eliminated the infection and dead tissue with not even the loss of one toe for that silly old dog in about ten days.
it was a miracle
then they declared bankruptcy and never paid the over 18,000.00$ bill 8 surgeries and 30 or so bandage changes is a lot of money dudes. so there I was and there she was and there it was a debt I had to let go of
remember how when I bought this place it wasn't about the money? well the dog wasn't about the money either. and letting go of the place in Pipestone wasn't about the money (getting "mine" back) or having enough to get the land in Wi, and remember when I told the owner of the land in Wi that if he let me purchase it on Contract for deed that in 5 years the money would be forgotten but the deed would be life changing? its never about the money relatives remember that
so I called Wray my friend of the dog and asked for her help with the FHA loan for the place in Wi and you know she said to me, you saved my dog and I owe you mary and I told her I never saw it that way and yet she did and so now the debt is come due and she could help me in a way that was more valuable and would be more lasting than the money from 2009 would have been oh and by the way the dog is still doing great old but great so it wasn't about the money but the trade the doing was important and carried karmic weight even if back then I didn't see that things would be reinvested for me in a way that was more timely and more valuable than what I thought was best back in 2009 or what society would say was right or good back in 2009.
so Wray helped me with the loan she prepped everything, got me a banker and then she stood by me like she stood by her dog back in 2009
but, the process the loan, process almost killed me. I found a cash buyer for the land and the house, the couple who run the non profit known as The Keepers of the Sacred Tradition of Pipemaker's, people who believe in and stand for the access of all human beings to the pipe are the ones who bought the place, they own the depot next door, they and I reached an accord. Cash price, no inspection, no improvements no nothing for me to do here at the house, I can stay as long as it takes and no worries.
so i sold this place out from under myself limbo agggggh 50 days before the loan was approved I became homeless but not homeless I had to wait I had to hold and keep going forward one step at a time with no idea that anything or what would work out or how it would
aggggggh
and I was of course as all loan applicants are freaking out about money and closing costs and having enough etc and I didn't want to pay for the inspection of the house, well, septic etc... I thought I would save the $600.00 but ....Wray said not to, she said do the inspection. so I did and guess what
the well had not been capped properly and there was a little opening and a mouse crawled into that opening and committed hari-kari on the switch in the well. soooooooo when we went to do the inspection the well wasn't working, and because it wasn't working the owner/sellers had to repair it which turned out to be more extensive than just the switch and included having to submit a water test. And the water test showed that the well had naturally occurring arsenic in it that was too high of levels to be ok for human use which meant that not only did the owner/seller have to fix the well they had to have a system put in that purified the water all of which cost way way way more than the $600.00 inspection fee and that little mouse knew that its time was now to let itself go and it gave its last effort to wards that land and me and the help needed in a timely manner
how cool is that
and while all this is going on in the interim, some of the women I had met in mankato, who belong as it turns out to the secret society of women in Iowa, invited me to be their guest speaker at their june gathering and I accepted so as june approached and the loan officer kept telling me that the loan could fail any day and things seemed more and more frighteningly frightening for me because I was supposed to turn over the property in pipestone June 15th to the new owners I was panicking and my body was filling with toxins from fear that inspite of all the training qigong and swimming and self distraction i was doing I could not resolve into faith faith was there it just was unable to make me into buddha in the midst of the storm of impending deadlines and no loan
agggggggh
I was floating on a very small island inside of my own sea of fear and doubt and knew that there was no way I could be of any use to the women who had invited me to come and visit with them if I was that afraid there was no way it would happen and I saw the idea that I was a spiritual failure, that my life was over, that the end was near that blah blah blah was imminent and I knew that I could not do anything but say I did all I can and I can do no more and just like that time when I was holding the fire in Lame Deer and all I could do was focus on the fire and not engage or try to change or judge or effect or think about anyone or anything happening around me I didn't dive into the black fear and self judgement nor did I try and run around and conjure up a miracle I just stated the truth and stood where I was
so I put out tobacco and cried and said to the Spirits on Wednesday last week (due to leave Friday for the Iowan retreat) I said to the Spirits, there is no way I can be of use to or visit those women in Iowa when I am in this much fear.
and I left it at that, and walked away, I walked away from imagining, projecting, or deciding on an answer. I just left it. I think it is the only real buddhist be in the now time of my life, so far. if I drowned in fear so be it at least I would drown without taking those Iowan women down with me.
at five o'clock on that day Wednesday I got a call from the loan officer and he said your loan is approved.
That was it the loan is approved
dude
how cool is that
still papers to gather things to tidy up but it was a done deal
instantly I felt the sea of stress begin to drain away
that night I slept for real in the dreamtime journey I made that night every place I went I encountered myself in another time and place sleeping, resting
how cool is that
so I went to Iowa and met the secret society of women and thanked them for saving me
their desire, their request to the universe for me caused things for me to come to a positive resolution so that I could come to them and give back what the universe had filtered through me as a giveaway that day.
how cool is that
what a nice basket with a nice little mouse accent
so they saved me and now the land in pipestone is on its way to where the Spirits are taking it and I am on my way to Wisconsin and those secret women in Iowa are entering into the daily weaving that will change lives across our world even if they never know it
we all walk on water relatives we just don't look down and don't look back
love ya
mean it
mb
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