"The same pain that can blemish our personality
can act as a creative force,
burnishing it into an object of delight. "

Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
Alchemical Wisdom

This is actually the top half of a picture that my Mom took years ago. It is the "heartland" of forest from my childhood. Nearly every weekend in the summer, I ran free there with 20 plus cousins. I am pretty sure this is where I became a young Naturalist. It's a beautiful example of what Ohio's colors are like in the fall.

reblog

"Love alone can unite living beings

so as to complete and fulfill them

for it alone joins them by what is deepest in themselves.

All we need is to imagine

our ability to love developing

until it embraces the totality of men and of the Earth."

Teilhard De Chardin

Earlier this year, the day that two of my friends had their first child, I embarked upon my first project of making an old book into a new "art book" like I had seen in many books about the subject. This one is for Kai and his two parents. The left side mostly represents his Chinese side and the right his Swedish. I reused the Year of the Ox collage because he is a baby boy Ox. I tried to fill it with Love and Blessings from many different cultures.

Rabbit, Rabbit!

Joshua Tree

My Favorite Roadside Sculpture Joshua Tree

I could live here...

Indian Cove


my pile that week

"Heal Thyself"

Today is the 15th Anniversary of my survival . On October 31st, 1994 I was diagnosed with and had surgery for , a grapefruit sized tumor on my right Ovary. I knew as soon as I woke up from surgery that there was no way in hell I was going to do chemotherapy or radiation.

I was very fortunate at the time to be surrounded by folks in Sonoma Co who were herbalists and knew the healing power of plants. I was also very lucky to have not had a great deal of pain (unlike many of you out there who have gone through hell and back to survive). Two weeks after surgery, I was back hiking with kids and teaching about Redwood trees. To attempt to keep the "cancer cells that were found in the wash" from reproducing and spreading, I prepared and took tea that was a combination of Burdock root, Slippery elm bark, Sheep sorrel and turkish rhubarb. This formula (rumored to have been passed down by the Ojibway but similiar formulas existed in the cures of other midwestern Indian peoples) is commonly called The Essiac Formula. It was made famous in the u.s. and in Canada by a nurse, one Renee Caisse, who took on cancer patients in Canada that doctors had completely given up on, and healed them by golly!

I also had access to a clinic in Oakland called "The Charlotte Maxwell Clinic" http://www.charlottemaxwell.org/ that was/is an amazing oasis providing alternatives to western medicine for low income women with cancer. The environmental education program I worked for at the time did not provide me with insurance, so I qualified. So a few Saturdays a month , I would go there and receive free acupuncture, massage, reiki, chinese medicine, organic produce, flax seed oil etc. The CMC ( at that time ) was run by volunteer bodyworkers and herbalists .

I also stuck to things (for a while) like rice and miso and alot of seaweed soup. The previous summer I had been working on an Organic csa farm and eating straight from the ground, so I believe that this also helped by body to fight the reoccurance. My surgery was paid for by the county, because I could not.

The hardest part of the entire ordeal for me was that the (overkill) surgery induced the onset of menopause. I chose herbal medicines for that too, deciding never to go the route of estrogen replacement therapy. I don't know how to say what I want to say here in any other way than a short two word phrase (author unknown) who said "Heal thyself".

Regarding the current debate on all forms of media regarding government supported healing:

All I can say is : Healthcare Shmealthcare. Sadly, I do not have access to any of these forms of alternative bodywork at this time, and yes they are not accessible to alot of the population. It is long overdue for these forms of alternative healing to be recognized and I do not want to participate in any (so-called) healthcare system that does not provide them.

For now, I will continue to search out, harvest and prepare my own medicinals, practice self massage/acupressure and practice the little that I know about energy work with movement, taking walks, doing art, playing music and singing , laughing as much as possible.