Howl at the Dark Horse.

Howl at the Dark Horse.

Ashah ashah ashah ashah….wind rattles
my ears,
my face, my life.
Leather, the reins
as I steam through dark night.
Breath seems so tight,
so determined, so hard
that my howling is cutting,
scarring the world.
I ride through the bracken
not afraid of Dark Horse
for she and me shatter
boundaries with force.
This terror is screaming
in sinew and vein
as my body convulses;
invisible pain.
Ashah ashah ashah ashah…..

* dedicating this to all who suffer with invisible illness.*

Wild

Seize the day as night comes slowly
to gather and hide the Light.
Be present in your breath for
therein lies the wisdom of your Life.
Crack wide the rigid bones of your ribs
for there, nestled within that cage,
lies the cavern of your wild and glorious Love.

Pushing

Tears come –
a leak in my
soft, weary eyes
paints the mural
of my life.
Salty stains fall
silently on my
worn out canvas.
Often we push
ourselves beyond
our Soul’s desire
and the body
screams for us to stop.
But I wonder what it takes
to ‘do’ nothing when the
world demands we ‘do’
it all………….

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LIVING WITH FIBROMYALGIA and CHRONIC ILLNESS. Is fighting it the right way?

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Hello!

I haven’t posted for a while….all too often Life happens when all you want to do is sit with your own thoughts, in your own space, doing your own thing. So here I am, on the wings of the creative Muse, being called back to Me.

It’s a soggy day here in Snailwell and yes, I can confidently say that, should I venture into my garden, there will be a snail and slug patrol going on, looking for the next tasty treat to ravage! The skies are clearing now. For a while it felt like someone had scooped up my cottage and shoved it into a black hole. It’s pretty grim for the 26th of August; bring back the sun – please.

I was just thinking, as I sat down in my armchair here, I am living everyday with Fibromyalgia (FMS) and although I know there are people far worse off than me, in my life, the impact it has, is very difficult. I never contemplated getting to the age of 62 and feeling A) in constant pain or discomfort. B) Being unable to walk more than a few steps without being in almost immovable pain. C) Feeling completely thrown into the void of bewilderment about my life, what it’s been, where I am now and where I am going. D) struggling on a daily basis, not to DO my work as a Singing Teacher/ Therapist, but to actually cope with the logistics of the unknown; what will today bring when I step outside the door?

Still recovering from a little dance with cancer  four years ago and a couple of other pretty significant surgeries three and two years ago, the Fibro is now playing havoc with my body. Those of us with this chronic dis-ease in our systems know all too well how exhausting it can be to carry on….. people talk about ‘Fighting’ cancer or chronic illness….. I don’t ….. I believe we have to take a long, deep warm in-breath and just sit with what is, allowing the passage through to something else. Being kind to oneself is not always easy, especially if you have lived a life where you have complied with the done thing, of pushing yourself to overcome that which is getting you down.

My Life has changed significantly in the last five years and just now, I don’t know where I’m going, or really have much of a sense of who I am anymore, but I do know this: we are drip-fed a lot of illusions in our lives. ‘You can be anything you want to be’, ‘you can have anything you want to have’, ‘you are X’ etc etc. This is not true; these things are illusions. Actually, at the end of the day, when we begin to really look at our lives and accept the conditions we find ourselves in, we see that all we have left is our innate ability to Love and be Loved and out of that other things may grow, if we allow them to.

As for the pain? Toxins come in many forms….. it’s isn’t entirely one thing or the other. It is a combination of ‘poisons’ which inhabit our bodies, a lot of which are environmental, belief systems about ourselves and others and the more obvious things like foods and chemicals in medications and on the land. No doubt there are other things too but these I’ve listed are for me, the building blocks of dis-ease. For example, when someone is led to believe they are ‘stupid’, they will often take that on board if there isn’t anything to counter that abuse. With that belief deeply buried in their physical and energetic bodies, they will become ‘stupid’ and as such, they will experience pain on one or more levels. Changing those deeply embodied beliefs is not easy, it would seem. However, acceptance of how things have been and are, does release the strangle hold which has a big impact on the body and mind.

Something to try: Place your LEFT hand on the back of your RIGHT upper arm and your RIGHT hand on the back of your LEFT upper arm then gently squeeze or pat. This is grounding and consoling the wounded parts of you and dealing with trauma to your system. 

So, as I now go into my day, I am encouraging myself to be kind and loving to me and to all those I come into contact with. We are all battling something in life, if we think LOVE, we shall be LOVE….. pain or no pain.

Namaste.

Healing Oils of Experience

I pootle along past glorious fields
which yesterday made my heart sing,
the flatness of the Fen.
I ask myself:
Why has it changed today?
why am I low?….
For a tiny chip of a moment I shift inside…
expansion and warmth bubble in me
like a hot spring of healing waters.
All too soon it’s gone again,
yet at least I know that somewhere inside
there is still a touch of the warming oils of experience.
And tomorrow is another day.
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Hypervigilance & the Pain Body

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Hypervigilance & the Pain Body

It might just be as I had thought….
I see the chronic pain has raged in me
so many times where hypervigilance
has been my prison officer.
I had not known nor felt the acuteness
of burning threats those years now passed.
I had not seen the agony of experience
soak into my body….. and hide.
Do you know about this too?
This dancing game? The game where
the perpetrator awaits its prey,
you move and then……..
you’re caught?
I know it now…. my body has incubated it.
Every cell in me has an imprint of every action,
every fear and loathesome sound which
banged on my nerves so hard and
for so many jagged years.
The nerves my friend….. this is where it
rises up and says – “No more”…..
The whole system in turmoil screams
and caming down comes slowly on apace.
My wings are my wrapping for safety,
My heart is my organ to fill the echoey chambers
where compassion now grows like balm dripping
from transluscent trees……
Healing is coming.

Fly On Faithful Night

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Fly on Faithful Night

The energies are strange tonight.
Percussive voice of winds bang loud
and the squeaky gate from nextdoor
adds eerie melodies in this dark night.
I cannot sleep again
again, again…….
Such disturbance night after night
gets the ghouls squeezing and pounding their
interferring feet all over my body
intruding on my energy,
and I’m in pain.
It is not ok.
I say this not for grand pity, no….
as the fight in me is rising up with the sun
who will dawn within two hours now
and once again I shall bring myself back,
back to the centre of my intrepid journey
to find the cure…….
Fly on faithful night…..
for I am the courageous investigator of my Soul.

When The Heals Of Your Red Shoes DO Still Click Together!

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When The Heals Of Your Read Shoes DO Still Click Together!

When The Heals Of Your Read Shoes DO Still Click Together!

Well quite honestly…. if you’re reading this and you are living with Fibromyalgia or any other chronic and debilitating illness, rest assured… I don’t take it or anything else health related, lying down! Well, sorry, I do because i’m frequently completely knackered during the day and can’t sleep at night! Horizontal I do go in order to snooze, sleep, allow my aching bod to stretch out and not have the pain pulling me down. 
Ok now let’s see….. 
What is it your heart longs for?
How did you ever mislay that longing?
What do you need to do to get it back?
Do you LISTEN to the voice of your pain?
If not, why not?
if yes you do, then what in heaven’s name is it asking of you?  
                                                           
All Dorothy wanted was to go home. She wanted it SO bad that she clicked the heels of her red shoes together and – wham….. she was home…… Now, you’re probably wondering if you should rush out and buy a pair of sparklingly red Dorothy shoes! I did – sort of!  I bought RED ANKLE BOOTS!!! Dorothy believed in going home so much that she brought it into being….. that’s what we need to do my Fibro Friends. 
Ok – I hear you muttering back at me, your fair share of expletives….. ‘Look’ (as the politicians in the UK all like to preface their ‘profound’ statements with)…… The medics don’t know the cause of FMS. There is no absolute test for it….. so, how can they possibly say we cannot become healthy and healed from this debilitating illness? In short, they don’t know! I’m aware of others who have been able to revive their lives, each having worked hard in finding out what’s right for them. We can too! I believe it. 
I have been running a Fibromyalgia Support Group during the last 18months. One thing I firmly believe is that we will not recover if we hold on to the notion that drugs are the answer. My mother had FMS, I have it and my daughter has it. It is like obesity; it is complex. The Rheumatologist I saw for my diagnosis said – “We now believe it is embodied trauma, psychological and or physical which is triggered by a virus and releases as pain a fatigue in the body.” I began to cry. He thought he had upset me. NO! on the contrary. As I have trained  a Body Psychotherapist, I understood this very well and was hugely relieved to have a diagnosis which made sense to me.  I remember so clearly my mother saying her doctor had said the pain was all in her mind. This suggestion had upset her terribly. Many people I have spoken to also believe this to be a negative statement. Unfortunately the bedside manner of many doctors and consultants is not one of speaking in language which is conducive to clarity to the lay person who is suffering! 
Yes….. I am saying I too believe it is in the mind AND body. No, please don’t get me wrong…. I do not, let me emphasize that – I DO NOT believe we are imagining it! The effects of Trauma are destructive…. it seeps into our very being without us even realising it and sits smoldering away. “But”, I hear you saying…… yes, I know….. your childhood was ok…. you have no nasty memories of car accidents, falls or other shocking experiences. Ok …. I hear you AND I also believe your body might have another story, IF YOU GIVE IT SPACE and ALLOW IT A VOICE! 
What do I mean by that? Close your eyes breathe deeply noticing the feelings and sensations in your body without judging them as good or bad, right or wrong. This may be difficult to experience at first but the more you engage with this practise, the easier it will become. We are showing the body compassion and for some of us, this will be pretty much the first time of doing so. Notice the pain, stuckness, tension – whatever it might be…. just notice it…. don’t try to change it…. it really does begin its own journey of change by bringing awareness to it. Just breathe. Find the gratitude in yourself – for me it usually starts of with something like – “I feel so grateful for the space to just do this” or “ I am grateful for my breath.” Or the sun, the cat, the trees…. whatever….. it’s just changing the energy from ‘ouch, I hurt’ which is contraction, to thankfulness which is expansion….. pain is contraction … freedom from pain is expansion.
By beginning on the is journey, we ARE clicking the heels of our “sparklingly red Dorothy shoes”…… you never know where that act might take you!

Special heartfelt empathy and warmth to you if you are reading this and you, like me, have Fibromyalgia or a chronic, debilitating auto immune illness.

When The Heals Of Your Read Shoes DO Still Click Together!

Well quite honestly…. if you’re reading this and you are living with Fibromyalgia or any other chronic and debilitating illness, rest assured… I don’t take it or anything else health related lying down! Well, sorry, I do because i’m frequently completely knackered during the day and can’t sleep at night! Horizontal I do go in order to snooze, sleep, alow my aching bod to stretch out and not have the pain pulling me down. 

Ok folks…..

  • What is it your heart longs for?
  • How did you ever mislay that longing?
  • What do you need to do to get it back?
  • Do you LISTEN to the voice of your pain?
  • If not, why not?
  • if yes you do, then what in heaven’s name is it asking of you?

All Dorothy wanted was to go home. She wanted it SO bad that she clicked the heels of her red shoes together and wham….. she was home…… Now, you’re probably wondering if you should rush out and buy a pair of sparklingly red Dorothy shoes! I did – sort of!  I bought RED ANKLE BOOTS!!! Dorothy believed in going home so much that she brought it into being….. that’s what we need to do.

Ok – I hear you muttering back at the screen your fair share of expletives….. Look (as the politicians in the UK all like to preface their ‘profund’ statments with)…… The medics don’t know the cause of FMS. There is no absolute test for it….. so, how can they possibly say we cannot become healthy and healed from this debilitating illness? I know of others who have been able to revive their lives, each having worked hard in finding out what’s right for them. We can too! I believe it.

I have been running a Fibromyalgia Support Group during the last 18months. One thing i firmly believe is that we will not recover if we hold on to the notion that drugs are the answer. My mother had FMS, I have it and my daughter has it. It is like obesity; it is complex. The Rheumatologist I saw for my diagnosis said – “We now believe it is embodied trauma, psychological and or physical which is triggered by a virus and releases as pain a fatigue in the body.” I began to cry. He thought he had upset me. NO! on the contrary. As I have trained  a Body Psychotherapist, I understood this very well.  I remember so clearly my mother saying her doctor had said it was all in her mind, the pain. This suggestion had upset her terribly. Many people I have spoken to also believe this to be a negative statement. Unfortunately the bedside manner of many doctors and consultants is not one of speaking in language which is conducive to clarity to the lay person who is suffering!

Yes….. I am saying I too believe it is in the mind AND body. No, please don’t get me wrong…. I do not, let me emphasise that – I DO NOT believe we are imagining it! Trauma is so destructive…. it seeps into our very being without us even realising it and just sits there smouldering away. “But”, I hear you saying…… yes, I know….. your childhood was ok…. you have no nasty memories. Ok …. I hear you AND I also believe your body might have another story, IF YOU GIVE IT A VOICE!

What do I mean? Close your eyes breathe deeply *Compassion towards body. Listen. be grateful. Act. Click heals an travel home to yourself. *

Seize the Day

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Seize the Day

Seize the Day

I toss and I turn
not knowing
where to put
this pain body,
for comfort….
It’s not the first time
nor will it be the last…
it just is……
maybe I can close my eyes
again, as the day begins.
Perhaps the day will be kind,
if I am.
Maybe I will stay awake
if I truly engage with the day…
Carpe Diem old pain…
Carpe Diem.
We’re not dead yet.