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Week 38 of 52 Wilcox Pass-Dare An Arthritic Dream?

March 25, 2013 //
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I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life.

I don’t mean to be reckless, but setting a goal that seems a bit daunting actually is very helpful towards recovery.

Christopher Reeve 

REFLECTIONS

I Didn't Want This!

I Didn’t Want This!

ANKYLOSING SPONDYLITIS – the terrifying diagnosis

In 1983,  my Rheumatologist insisted I get a Handicapped Parking Permit for my car. She said I had to face facts. “You have a very serious disease that is chronic, debilitating and progressively degenerative.” She might as well have punched me in the heart with her fist. In fact, as I force myself to write these words, I feel a band of pain tightening around my head, and my blood pressure rising. My recollection of the rest of her speech that day and at most visits over the next 25 years went something like the following…”Ankylosing Spondylitis… that’s your disease. It’s a form of arthritis that can make joints swell to hideous sizes, while depositing calcium that eventually fuses the bones into an immobile, non-functioning joint.”  She then listed associated illnesses that can accompany AS! She said I may get: iritis, dactylitis, enthesitis, psoriasis, ulcerative colitis and a few other ‘itises’ (itis means inflammation). Shocked, I quit listening and began to fantasize about the sedating sugary junk I would eat when I left her office. To jolt me back to the ugly picture she was painting, she would pull out a few photographs, and lay them before me on her desk. 

Supposedly, my decline was predictable. She showed me a photo similar to the one below and said in 30 years, I would walk with a cane. Although she cautioned, a wheelchair was sometimes necessary.

Ankylosing Spondylitis

Ankylosing Spondylitis

RECLAIMING MY PHYSICAL BODY

So here I am, 30 years later, daring to dream about climbing Wilcox Pass in late June, to celebrate the Summer Solstice. My joints are far from perfect, but I am not using a wheelchair or a cane and can finally walk up and down stairs like an adult, not a child learning to walk…right foot up on step, left foot up on same step…etc. The purpose  of The Other Woman Blog has been to reclaim my life; emotionally, spiritually and physically. 3/4 of the year completed and I feel ‘whole – hearted’ with a connection to God/Cosmic Consciousness/Unified Field. But I shudder with fear at the thought of reclaiming my physical life. So here is what I have done to help move me towards my dream!

1. On Thursday, March 21st, I allowed the desire to climb Wilcox Pass register in my heart, not dismissing it instantly as I would have done in the previous 30 years.

2. I then had 2 sleepless nights, as I registered the fear I felt in agreeing to participate in a hike well beyond my present physical ability.

3. At the Spring Equinox Workshop on Saturday, I created a doll symbolizing the rebirth of my physical self! She represents my deep desire to move with wild abandon, like a cougar in the woods. She is the life that resides within me already, waiting for the governing controls I have placed on her to be removed, SO SHE CAN DANCE!!

Doll Symbolizing New Physical Life
Imprisoned by Arthritis-will these boots reach Wilcox Pass?
Will This Ever Be Me?

 WHY I’M NOT DISABLED

 I am not disabled because I never believed I would be. Admittedly, I came very, very close to being crippled, but at some deep level of ‘knowing’, I felt I would find my way out of illness. I just needed someone else who believed I could make a difference in my health by healing my heart and my spirit. Of course this true healer is my Herbalist, Annette Bossert. Doctors are not educated to give credence to the power of belief. They observe a symptom, for example, a swollen knee, diagnose a disease and then offer a series of drugs, hoping the symptoms will be suppressed. And after many years of drug ‘therapy’ they suggest replacing the now non – functioning knee with a metal joint. This is not healing. A knee cannot be thought of as a flat tire. Nor would a flat tire improve if the car as a whole learned to express its feelings, or found loving occupants. The human body is not analogous to a machine. Car parts do break down, and the car as a whole is improved by a discrete repair or replacement. But the body is part of a synergistic whole, where emotional and spiritual experiences affect it, positively and negatively. Symptoms are meant to get our attention, to alert us to an imbalance, whether it’s emotional, physical or spiritual. It’s only since the Industrial Revolution that parallels were drawn between humans and machines!

If you click on the white sentence that follows, you will see an incredible 5 minute clip of Viktor Frankl describing the impact of our beliefs on an individual’s behaviour …Viktor Frankl talks about the power of belief!

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 38 OF 52

WILCOX PASS – DARE AN ARTHRITIC DREAM?

As I connect with my physical self, accepting my deep desire to move in sport, dance and play, I imagine I will begin to experience new levels of physical joy. I imagine I will ride my bike again, kayak in the ocean again, and hike in the hills and mountains again! As I remove the mental and emotional barriers to this dream, opening my heart to any hurdles, my body will respond accordingly!

Dare to Dream
Jasper National Park
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Categories Arthritis, Creative Expression, GOD/Cosmic Consciousness, Having a Vision, Self Determining, the other woman, transformation, Wild Instinctual Woman

Week 36 of 52 Doing Versus Being Spiritual – The Humble Journey

March 11, 2013 //
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Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away.

-Barbara De Angelis

REFLECTIONS

For decades I have been living a prosperous life…

Yesterday, I spent 10 hours writing 800 more words, which you will never read because I just deleted all but the above sentence without reading a word of it. 10 hours of writing, and I never once got into that place of bliss, the writer’s groove. Horribly frustrated I gave up writing at 8pm and escaped to a movie. In the previous 35 posts, I have never had this happen. Usually I get my premise together on Sundays and then on Mondays I edit, add photos and colours, hoping to ‘publish’ by 3pm. But not this week…UH-UH no way…there may not be a post at all…certainly not what I wrote yesterday…Select all, then hit Delete and poof! 800 words vanish into a cyber graveyard, where all bad writing spends eternity.

Cyber Graveyard

Cyber Graveyard

Today, Monday March 11, began with me waking up knowing I had to face the crap I wrote yesterday. Stalling, I drank 2 cups of coffee and then finished watching last evenings’s  movie.  By 8:30, I decided to ‘face the music’. I opened my WordPress Blog and began to re-read yesterday’s schlock!

Prosperous VS Preposterous

And it happened again, same as yesterday… each time I read the opening line …’For decades I have been living a prosperous life’… I read instead…’For decades I have been living a preposterous life!’

Yesterday, I thought this constant error was due to momentary verbal dyslexia, but today, even with a freshly caffeinated brain, I made the same slip of the tongue. I read no further, but deleted everything else, without reading a word. I sat with that one sentence and decided to commune with God…my Higher Self… Cosmic Consciousness(I haven’t settled on a name).

“Okay God…what’s with the Freudian Slip? Huh? Why do I keep reading preposterous instead of prosperous?? What is my lesson this time?” And then it happened, a beauteous ‘aha’ moment…an ecstatic experience delivered upon me in a state of grace.

Ego Experiences Pain When Soul feels Bliss

Ego Experiences Pain When Soul feels Bliss

I was humbled and brought to my knees yet again, as I acknowledged and surrendered to a force greater than my will. My EGO consciousness wanted to write about my prosperous life, while my COSMIC consciousness wanted me to acknowledge how preposterous my prosperous life had been…I spent 10 hours battling between these 2 forces yesterday. I love the above image of the hand. Bliss is juxtaposed with barbed wire, illustrating my experience. I got to a state of grace through the crucible of psychic pain.

My ego driven ‘self’ had a plan. I just put my mind to it. I yanked each and every word by the ear and demanded it stand exactly where I placed it. I closed my ears to any complaints of over-use or misuse and refused to acknowledge feelings of being misunderstood. I was writing about the most important of subjects, my burgeoning spirituality… and I had a deadline, so there would be no breaks. There would be no walk on the lovely beach in the warm sunlight with my friends –  until my work was done.

Yesterday's Writing

Yesterday’s Writing

This writing experience is analogous to my entire approach to spirituality. Yesterday, as I was DOING my Blog on Spirituality, I got stuck in the pomposity of my words. I needed someone or something to break the stalemate I was experiencing in my writing. Enter the Cosmic Trickster. He kept introducing an energy that was the opposite of my self-righteousness, by having me mix up ‘prosperous life’ with ‘preposterous life’. When I finally stopped to ponder this, the standoff ended and I had an inspirational moment. 

Blissful Consciousness

Blissful Consciousness

I have been trying to have a Spiritual Experience for 30 years. I earnestly read many of the well known Spiritual texts, practised Transcendental Meditation and Chi Kung regularly and visited sacred sites. This approach to Spirituality is what a materialistic consumer believes Spirituality to be. But when materialism dominates, the Spirit is quashed. This is why we need the Cosmic Trickster to bring mishap, misadventure and mayhem in to our perfect little lives. We need the creation of tension, unease or disaster to force us out of our materialistic complacency. I will speak for myself, rather than the ‘royal we’. It seems I would rather experience the temporary pleasures of a prosperous life than the eternal bliss of a Spiritual Life. Illustrating the need for Cosmic Tricksters creating chaos!

Cosmic Trickster – mishap, misadventure and mayhem

Cosmic Trickster

Cosmic Trickster

30 years ago I was instructed in Transcendental Meditation. I spent a weekend listening to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi videos. I’m embarrassed now, to admit that I spent the next years imitating his voice and message. In my humble and amenable state today, I remembered this and searched for a YouTube video of the Maharishi. He is gracing beautiful Lake Louise with his presence. Listening to him, I burst into tears, realizing I finally understood his message…

 Aspirations for Week 36 of 52 

Doing Versus Being Spiritual – The Humble Journey

I am 2/3 of the way through the year of The Other Woman Blog. To be honest, which is what I vowed to be, I am a little disappointed. I thought, through the process of transformation via The Other Woman Blog, I would ‘turn into’ a sultry, sexy woman, who would finally ‘get’ her illusive man. But ‘The Other Woman” seems to be more of a Spiritual entity than I had bargained for. Maybe sultry and spiritual are not mutually exclusive, but the Cosmic Trickster is not going to condone any more of my materialistic proclivities, and have me find sultry before I found spiritual!

So for Week 36 of 52, I will thank that force, which is greater than my will, for giving me a chance to experience the bliss of Cosmic Consciousness.

Cosmic Consciousness
Cosmic Consciousness
Cosmic Consciousness
Cosmic Consciousness
Cosmic Consciousness
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Categories Conscious Creativity, Creative Expression, GOD/Cosmic Consciousness, Having a Vision, Spirituality, the other woman, transformation

Week 35 of 52 Revisiting Black Madonna of Czestochowa

March 4, 2013 //
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The Black Madonna is a Mother who is aware of the hardships that happen to us, in and out of the dark of unknowing, unconsciousness, ignorance and innocence.

-Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

REFLECTIONS

My daughter sent me a warning the other day. Her email’s subject said, “Mercury In Retrograde – Take Precautions.”

Mercury In Retrograde
REJOICE!

Trying to be a ‘cool’ mom, I glibly responded with, “I’m up there with Mercury, holding her hand, demonstrating retrograde behaviour at its finest.” I had always thought retrograde just meant regressive, but after a quick check with Merrian Webster I discovered to my ‘New Age’ delight that retrograde could also mean, moving contrary to a previous direction. Smugly, I thought to myself, “I’m not going backwards after all, I’m going in a new direction!” I immediately felt better about myself. In a typically self-satisfied, ‘I’ve got my karmic act together’, kind of ego – inflatedness, I decided I didn’t need to read the advice on successful navigation when Mercury is in retrograde, and began to answer emails. The wiser Universe immediately proved to me yet again, that my smugness will have me on my knees begging for a second chance to be a more humble person.

GETTING MY KARMIC COMEUPPANCE OR OWNING MY PROJECTIONS

Last fall, having joyfully participated in Deepak Chopra’s free 21 Day Meditation Challenge, I was sent his latest offer. Although similar in format, this time Deepak is teaming up with Oprah. Seeing the image of Oprah ‘hugging’ Deepak, I sent the photo below, along with a message to my daughter…(or so I thought it was sent to my daughter)…saying “Is Oprah Strangling Deepak?”  

She Who Laughs last, laughs Alone

But pesky Mercury had me click REPLY not FORWARD, so my message went right back to DEEPAK at the Chopra Institute. I only know this because of the reply I received from the Chopra Institute:

Your request (#48094) has been received and will be reviewed and replied to by our Help Desk staff within 24 business hours of receipt.

Needless to say, I never got a response from the Help Desk, as they probably realized I was beyond any help they could give me! I am writing about this for 2 reasons.

1) Don’t ignore warnings, especially those sent by your more intuitive children, who know your faults and foibles better than anyone.

 2) To share my experience of projection, a Jungian concept that defies comprehensible explanation, and continues to baffle me. But here goes.

In reality, I know nothing of the relationship between Oprah and Deepak. Therefore, my comment about Oprah having Deepak in a half nelson says everything about me…not Oprah. In a projection, I take an unacknowledged, unpleasant quality of my own and instead of owning up to it, I ‘see’ it in another person. In this particular projection, I don’t want to acknowledge my tyrannical tendencies with men, when I don’t get the love I want. I would rather believe and have others believe that I am always a loving woman, just unlucky in love. There is no grace or growth in the endless gossip and tittle-tattle of daily life. I apologize to you Oprah, for projecting my character flaw onto you.

SPENDING MONEY – THE COMPOSTER VERSUS  FACIAL SKIN REJUVENATION

The other day, I was simultaneously searching the net for the most efficacious compost system and the best facial skin rejuvenation technology.

Skin Rejuvenation
Garden Composter

I found experts on both, with whom I discussed my purchase options…and then I had to laugh! With one, the Jura garden composter, I am acknowledging the end of the life cycle…with the other I am fruitlessly clinging to a youth long gone. The juxtaposition of two such wildly opposing attitudes hoisted me onto the cross of indecision. On one side, if I purchase a composter for my new garden, I can contribute to the cycle of organic food feeding my body, creating a ‘natural beauty’. On the other side, if I have my face zapped with radio and light beams, I could create a new and improved me…or could I have both? Unable to decide, I went for a walk on the beach.

Treasures from My Beach
Broken Pottery from Japan
Purple Starfish
Broken yet still Beautiful
First Heron of Spring

BROKEN YET STILL BEAUTIFUL

Yesterday’s tide was extremely low which meant I could look for treasures in places usually under water…and there it is…the metaphor for uncovering the gems of the unconscious. Given the right conditions, new life manifests. This process needs the synchronistic collision of The Universe and an individual’s intention. The Universe provided the low tide, and I got my ‘imprisoned’ self out for a walk. Typically, I find 1 or 2 pieces of this coveted glass, but yesterday I found at least 50…turquoise, cobalt blue, green and yellow. Uncovering the gems hidden within our unconscious can be equally rewarding. Hidden in the dark swirl of fear, I can stand frozen…the pain of remaining in the place of suffering lays opposite to moving into an unknown world. Immobility over mundane real world dilemmas such as illustrated above(composter vs facial rejuvenation) happens similarly within our inner, psychic world. In both, we can hang frozen, hoisted on the cross of indecision, until we die, or surrender to the creation of a new and better life. The beautiful, broken beach glass that I had found in the past, was thus transformed by my dear friend, Colleen Belyea(This Little Bauble). Below are 2 examples of her creations.

Beach Glass Transformed
Beach Glass Transformed

Aspirations for Week 35 of 52

Revisiting Black Madonna of Czestochwa

In 1993, my 86 year old Aunty Mary visited me in Vienna. My middle name is Mary –  a tribute to het being surrogate mother to my mother. My maternal grandmother died in childbirth, leaving 7 children motherless. Aunty Mary and I planned a trip to Poland, our country of origin, so that we could visit Black Madonna of Czestochowa. Incomprehensibly, I was fascinated by her. Up until a couple of days ago, I have not thought much about Black Madonnas…also incomprehensible. But in reading Untie the Strong Woman by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, the journey into Poland came flooding back. Historians believe the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, may have been the table top used by the Holy Family. She may have been painted by Luke, the Apostle. Incredulously, this Black Madonna has several battle scars on her face, that have defied countless attempts at restoration! She is considered to be a warrior Madonna and a healer of the crippled, the harmed. Maybe it is she, who has been watching over me, helping me heal my crippled, arthritic body and broken heart.

So in honour of my Aunty Mary and Black Madonna of Czestochowa, I will leave my face to bear the scars of my hard won battles. Just as the beach glass is broken, but still beautiful, so too am I.

410px-Czestochowska[20]

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Categories Black Madonna, Conscious Creativity, Emotionally Unavailable Men, Finding your Voice, Having a Vision, Jungian Analysis, Self Determining, the other woman, transformation, VIRGO, Wild Instinctual Woman

Week 33 of 52 Slogging and Blogging Through the Mire on my Way to Joy

February 18, 2013 //
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A Spiritual Encounter

A Spiritual Encounte 

I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.

Nikos Kazantzakis

REFLECTIONS

Last week’s revelations have altered me forever. I had a cataclysmic shift in perspective, when I finally saw that I, as an Emotionally Eager Woman(EEW) contorted myself in futile attempts to elicit heartfelt reactions from Emotionally Unavailable Men(EUM). Now that’s a sentence! It describes a reality that NO LONGER EXISTS! I am free of this self-destructive, soul-destroying pattern of behaviour. This past week has been delightful and different. Gone is my need to be told I am loveable. Gone is my desire of wanting to be wanted. This lifelong, unconscious, beguiling determiner of my behaviour with men, finally broke through to consciousness! The sonic boom it created seemed as loud as the meteor in Russia. The pain in my heart, broke into tiny pieces, just like the shattered panes of glass in Chelyabinsk. And in time, these shards will be washed away!

I’ve had experiences during the last 7 days that were entirely new to me. I flirted with emotionally available men, rather than waiting to be noticed by EUMs! I taught drama to a delightful Grade 7 class. I committed to visit Vienna(without a man) in celebration of finishing Week 52 of 52 for The Other Woman Blog! I planned a communal food garden with a young couple I befriended in my neighborhood. I smiled at my reflection. 

THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF EXPERIENCING LIGHT IN THE DARK

The purpose of The Other Woman Blog has been to unravel my contained and confined femininity. As I celebrate the sensation of freedom today, I have the strength to examine some of the forces behind the formation of my behaviour with men. I was an obedient daughter, and never openly provoked my father, that is, until I brought home my first serious boyfriend. Up until this obvious act of defiance, I employed passive aggressive tactics to express my rage. With his penchant for violence, I felt I had no other choice. For example, as a teen, I would stack the drying dishes from the evening meal, so precariously, that inevitably, the next morning as my father put them away, they would CRASH BANG to the floor. Hearing him swear from the safety of my bedroom I would laugh to myself, delighting in my ability to enrage him. Every day, I systematically burned the potatoes for the supper meal, knowing how much dad hated the pervasive taste of charcoal. And when I set the table, I gave him the chipped glass, the fork with the bent tine and the plate that swirled when he tried to cut his food. My father remained unaware of the lengths I had gone to elicit a positive, unequivocally joyful response from him…I got great marks, I was polite, and I said ‘no’ to sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. So by 20, I had given up on him and transferred this desperate plea for male attention to my ‘father replacement’.

My Old Boyfriend

My Old Boyfriend

Nothing says you’re a failure as a father more eloquently than when your daughter chooses a much older boyfriend, who bears a striking resemblance to the patriarch! At 20, I chose B as my boyfriend in a misguided belief that a facsimile of father would give me the attention and emotional support I craved. The side ‘benefit’ was the anger and humiliation my father felt over my choice. B was 20 years older than I, which made him 13 years younger than my father. They could trade WW11 stories and gloat over the fact that they still had their hair in middle age. I was incapable of discerning B’s motivations for being with me, as my need for male approval, superseded any logic or good sense. I failed to see how I was hurting myself in this odd relationship. My unfulfilled emotional needs dictated my choices. I’ve come to see that any behaviour that defies logic and common sense, is driven by unconscious need.

One night, after meeting B, my father offered me his first bit of advice…”A man doesn’t have to buy the cow, if he gets the milk for free.”  His comment infuriated me. It was rude on so many levels, that I blurted out “F*** YOU.” Shocked that I would say this to him,  he slapped me with incredible force, across the face. Broken-hearted, I ran from the house, out into the blackness of the summer night, weeping and suicidal. I sat on a swing in a nearby playground, planning my death, when an overwhelming energy pulled my gaze upwards, into the splendour of the sky. Transfixed by what I saw, my pain subsided. The beauty unfolding above my head, was the counterpoint to the strife I had been experiencing with my father. In that moment, in my soul, I found hope and enough strength to walk back into the house, knowing that life’s hardships would always be balanced by its beauty. SORRY, YOUTUBE IS NO LONGER ALLOWING ME TO USE ANY OF THE FOOTAGE FROM THIS AMAZING EXPLOSION! 

40 years ago, this cosmic extravaganza kept me out of the morgue. Its unparalleled magnificence gave me a reason to live, a philosophy of life and a sense of hope. Although Alister Chapman’s YouTube clip is not exactly what I saw, as my event had more pinks and purples, the majesty of the music, echoed my feelings!

WEEK 33 OF 52

SLOGGING AND BLOGGING THROUGH THE MIRE ON MY WAY TO JOY

THE POWER OF 8

Last week’s Blog Post, Week 32 of 52, Ending My Search for Emotionally Unavailable Men, marked the 8 month point in my 12 month journey towards finding The Other Woman within myself.

8 is symbolic of completion to Buddhists and celestial order to the Hindi where  the 8th Chakra is the Chakra of the Soul. To the Christians, 8 is symbolic of rebirth and regeneration. To the Pythagoreans, the number 8 is the symbol of love and friendship and to the Chinese and other Asian cultures, 8 represents the whole, the totality of the Universe. And for the kinaesthetic learners in the group, you will not be able to fold a piece of paper more than 8 times. 8 is infinity – Paradise regained. 8 is a universally recognized power number.

After 8 months of slogging and blogging through the mire of my psyche, my unconscious drives, my memories and my habits I declare a success! For the first time in my conscious life, I feel free of my need to ‘work’ on myself, in hopes of receiving a declaration of sincere, unreserved, unfettered love from the man of my dreams.

Cosmic Infinity

Cosmic Infinity

 

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Categories childhood, Emotionally Unavailable Men, Finding your Voice, Having a Vision, Self Determining, the other woman, transformation, Wild Instinctual Woman
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