Inspirations (HAWMC #14)

Today's prompt is a no-brainer for me. We're invited to give public thanks for some of our fellow Health Activists and what they have done, perhaps interspersed with some of our favorite posts of the event so far.

Well, thank you for the opportunity to thank Meredith for her blog! And for so much more. I came across Meredith during last year's event, intrigued by a comment she left on another rather wonderful blog (by a graduate of the MFA program I'm in, not participating this year). We got to know each other with miraculous rapidity. In addition to admiring her lucidity, transparency, and eloquence in writing about life--and life with bipolar--I learned and continue to learn from her courage, directness, and tough questions, of herself as much as of others. Her ability to reflect on her own experiences, to show her positive learning as well as the setbacks, is health advocacy of one of the most empowering kinds, especially related to a health condition as widely misunderstood and stigmatized as mood disorders are.  I so admire the levelheadedness--levelspiritedness--with which she represents both medication and non-chemical ways to help us do better. Our brains are full of electricity and chemistry, and there are so many ways, from the clunky to the fractally subtle, that they can be influenced.

Her list of Resources from day 4 of this year's challenge just blows me away for its comprehensive and smart coverage. When things have calmed down (or when I can't sleep again tonight) I can't wait to check out many of these links, and also to try on myself some of the farther-out-of-the-box suggestions.

All that aside, I connected with a friend wonderful beyond imagining, in a year in which friendships have been the air that keep my self from imploding or bursting, the threads that link my limbs to the big hook in the sky.

There's another health blogger by whom I've been very inspired for years, but unfortunately her blog had to be taken down. She's a celiac vegan raw aficionado, so very much from the same corner of the food arena as I am, and I have always been inspired and impressed with her willingness to advocate for herself, her tireless, intelligent research and engagement, and her passion. Bitt, sending you love.

Finally, obvious as this may seem, I'm thankful for the WEGO Health Blog and community for encouraging me to think about the whole concept of health advocacy in creative and useful ways both in April and beyond. It's a concept that twirls around with my literary aims in a mesmerizing way.

A little more on my own verklemptitude (way to mix a Germanic root with a Latin suffix, eh?) in a separate post later.

Today’s Prompts:

• Thank a few of your fellow Health Activists for what they have done.  Call them out by name or twitter handle.  Share your love.
• Pick a few of your favorite #HAWMC posts so far and share them with your readers!

Sunt Lacrima Rerum -- Always in Season

Three times in the past three weeks. On Monday, it was around "sixteen-one thousand" in my litany, standing on one leg in front of the cop car; my car in the ditch, eleven below zero. The day before, it was seeing Tom and Jeanie's movie for the first time since Lucas died. A couple weeks before that, it was being unable to remember a friend's phone number as I continued in the downward spiral now thankfully reversed.

Sunt lacrima rerum, says Vergil. Literally, "There are tears for things." As humans, with human experiences we have tears.

I find myself seasonal like the Nile in this. At times, I don't cry for months on end. Other times, I cry nonstop. At the treatment centers this summer it got to be embarrassing at times--I'd say my goal for the day was not to cry, and would be crying twenty minutes later. But until these past few weeks, I hadn't cried since getting out of treatment.

I accept my small bouts of weeping with gratitude, an opportunity to allow some balance in the water table. Laughter's similarly seasonal. Lately, I've found myself laughing more, where it had stopped pretty much entirely. I welcome small bouts of laughter. Why not laugh a little, weep a little, every day? Why can't the grace of being moved by life be an everyday nourishment?

As a writer, I wish to make myself laugh and cry every day as I engage with the wonder of the universe. To make others laugh and cry also. If I can't find it within myself, I can read and watch movies to educate me and make up the deficit as I laugh and cry (I am so far deficient in film education, and am grateful every time I watch a single film to fill the gap a little).

The obvious metaphor: I have gone from habitually eating almost nothing to eating everything I could hold and more, for an ultimatum. One whole week later, the barren season beckons with siren song; the complications of appetite strike fear. Why can't daily nourishment be part of a full life, like tears and laughter, and the ecstatic connectedness to which they are a response?

Tears, laughter, adequate and appropriate sustenance. May they always be in season.

A Challenge for Bliss

I love the idea of blogger challenges, which bring likeminded writers together, are directed toward a specific and uplifting goal, and provide some focus for the blog. However, I haven't undertaken them very often, usually because I think I'm too busy.

Now, we know that I'm currently "overextended" and ridiculously busy beyond the usual. It also wouldn't be too much of a secret that my emotional/mental poise has been seriously wonky lately. On the other hand, this challenge only requires one post per week, and I have posted so many times about my desire to have my blogging practice help me become a better person overall.

And so...I'm going to participate in Bliss Connect's "Six Weeks of Bliss" Challenge. I'm late to enter this, but I've given thought and decided that I wouldn't be out of integrity to pursue the theme of bliss even when struggling with mood issues.

This week's Challenge is to talk about why we started blogging, and who inspired (inspires) us the most.

The Why
I was very clear about why I started blogging: it was because I wanted to participate. I wanted to add my voice to wide-ranging discussions about the topics dearest to my heart. Initially, I wrote a lot about health issues, high raw food diet. Then, as now, I also wrote about our lifestyle in a small cabin on the very edge of a bluff in Alaska. The constantly changing and wild scenery is always an inspiration to share, with times of green profusion, and times of ice pans.

I still write about those things. However, in my blog, as in the rest of my life, I struggle to maintain laser -pointed focus on just one issue. Outside of my passion for healthy living, I'm a poet and a writer: these elements of my identity are key. More and more, I'm wanting to talk about exciting literature I've read, poets I've listened to, what happened at my writing group today.

"Ulterior Harmony" refers to a quotation by the Presocratic philosopher Heraclitus. He said that the underlying harmony is more powerful than the obvious one. As my life path continues on its rollercoaster, this search for ulterior harmony underlies all that I do, so long as I remember.

The Who of Inspirations
I've shared several posts dedicated to bloggers that have inspired me. See, for example, this one about the Pure2Raw Twins, this one about Gena, or this one for Lori. The whole month of posts on Self Love in September 2010 were definitely inspired by Tina, who curated the series.

However, there are a few other inspirations who deserve mention. Joanna Steven, with her piercing intelligence, tireless research and deep humaneness, was so generous in her communication with me when I was first thinking of starting a blog, and definitely helped me to decide to go ahead with the project. Amber of Almost Vegan Chef and Barbara of Rawfully Tempting are people whom I've watched blossom on their blogs in a truly inspirational way--rising stars. (And by the way, Barbara's currently hosting a giveaway for Medicine Flower Flavor Extracts, which I've talked about on here before and which I love, and Amber's also hosting a giveaway--actually multiple giveaways this month. Today's is a beautiful eBook).

Unfortunately, she had to discontinue her blog, but "Bitt" of "Bittofraw" was another huge inspiration, for her passion, her culinary wizardry and her frank but brave discussion of health issues.

There are various literary blogs that I read too, but the one that stands out is Being Poetry, the online home of my real-life friend Erin. I'm in awe both of her and of her poetry, and always find something to admire on her blog too.

Well, I'll leave it at that for now, although I know --please share your inspirations with me! And I think it's working: I'm feeling all lovely and grateful now.

Extempore - Inspiration

I mentioned internal transitions yesterday. It has a lot to do with trying to figure out 'what I'm here for' and how to be my best. This is so much more powerful a way of thinking than the pathetic, apathetic helplessness I found myself falling into. Health challenges, especially when accompanied by the recognition of one's own responsibility in creating them in one's life, and of the likelihood that these patterns will continue and sabotage, are maybe better viewed as a crisis point, that impetus of coming up to a high ridge, pushing a heavy load all the way, and then over the other side everything becoming much better. I'm entertaining that possibility of breaking long-standing habits, changing long-standing ways of orienting myself to the world, and actually believing that I can make myself better, so that I can do more good in the world.

My mum called me on Sunday and gave me a good 'talking to,' along the lines that it's never too late to change oneself around, that I'm actually potentially in the 'prime' of my life, although that window is getting smaller, and that I need to get back with it. It was like the voice of my conscience and I feel so honored to have such a wise mother!

This morning, I did an interview with a very prominent raw food teacher, which will be published in the July edition of the Eighty Percent Raw Magazine - don't forget the June edition is just out today! I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to talk with this man - I'll tell more about it later, no doubt, but I don't want to steal any thunder ahead of time! But it was a message of self-love and of connection with the fact that each of us is here to do something special and wonderful - once again, a message congruent with the avenues of myself that I have been exploring. It is a wonderful serendipity that I feel so inspired and personally helped through having performed the interview in order to share his message with many other people.

Has anyone else had experience of 'coming out the other side' of a dark night of the soul? And has the universe conspired to bring you just the messages that you need to hear in order to find your way out?

On My Birthday - With Gratitude

It's the start of a new year for me: yesterday was my birthday and I am now 33! From yesterday's compositions:…

Given my propensity to look to the ancients for inspiration, their features blurred and idealized with the passage of time, I always feel that it is also a wonderful thing to look for inspiration and things to admire in people with whom I interact personally and see in sharp focus.

Today, on my birthday, as on all my birthdays for many years, I focus my thoughts intentionally and with gratitude upon someone whom I have come to view as a potent inspiration in her own right.

I was my mother's first child and it wasn't an easy birth. I'm sure I wasn't the easiest child ever raised either, and of course it is inevitable that in the course of my growing up I occasioned pain, heartache, anxiety, disappointment and frustration. Of course I acted as most adolescents do, and went through my years of rejecting both my parents in my attempts to discover my own identity. (For the record, I don't think that I ended up with any better an idea of who I am as a result of that.)

I am glad to be able to say that this, too, passed; and that for close to a decade now, I have felt close to and appreciative of my parents. But when I think of my mother, on this day when I turn 33, and consider how much I have changed, moved, grown over the years, I have to acknowledge that in the portion of her life for which I have known her, my mum has undertaken some remarkable changes in her own right.

She has, in fact, redefined and recreated herself: many aspects of her character with which I found fault as a teenager are totally gone. She used to be afraid to travel: now she has traveled to India, California, Hawaii, as well as her frequent trips to Israel to care for my grandmother and visit family. She used to lament the fact that my father doesn't like to go out to shows, exhibitions, etc, and feel it as a prevention against her own going. Now, she goes by herself, or with girlfriends - and the several close and sweet friendships that she now enjoys are a part of this blossoming themselves. She used to be uncertain as to what she was doing with her life and vaguely unsatisfied, which seemed to manifest in excessive concern about the minutiae of the rest of her family's lives (an easy judgment for a teenager to make!). But when she was already over 50 years old, she went back to school to train to become a homeopath, thus validating her life-long interest in holistic healing. Once qualified as a homeopath, she studied for a nutritionist's qualification also.

My mum now holds her family together as she did before, and is kind and helpful to neighbors and friends as before, but she also has lots of fun nowadays, and she helps so many people! It has always seemed very clear to me from listening to her stories of people she's helped that a big part of the reason why she is so good as a healer is that she is so passionate about it! She really believes in the efficacy of what she is doing, and she recognizes the importance of listening to a person fully, rather than just taking down symptoms.

It is so inspiring to me that she takes such delight in this work, and that she has been able to have such a positive impact on many people's lives. She has found a path that is so fulfilling to her and that also brings her joy and helps other people - instantiating my 'core belief' that when we are at our best, it is also for the best of the universe. No one can ever guess my mum's age from looking at her: they're often out by over a decade. She often says that she still feels just like she did when she was 16.

I am so grateful for her fulfillment: selfishly in part - it is good not to feel like your parents' happiness depends on you! But more than that, I feel honored and grateful to have been born as a part of this person's life. When I look at the ways in which my mother has transformed herself and expanded my life, it makes it harder for me to devalue and wish away my own life, and reminds me of that shining harmony of 'being in the flow,' doing what you love to the best benefit of the universe, to which I aspire.

Mummy, thank you so much, with much love.