Seeking a return to Center

So, here’s the scoop about what’s led up to this part of my life…

I’m incredibly blessed to be the unexpected youngest child of older parents. I never questioned whether I was/am loved, and while we weren’t wealthy, I never wanted for anything important. I was raised in church, but I have since moved to a more spiritual, rather than denominational, view of things. My childhood was idyllic in many respects, until I got sick when I was 15…then everything changed. We traveled first all over the state, then the country, trying to figure out what was wrong with me, but the best anyone could tell us was I had some kind of disease in the lupus family. Well, that’s informative, right? Not really. There were periods of normalcy between times of profound illness, and of course, being a kid, during those times I immediately set about trying to make up for lost time…Then, I’d get sick again…then I’d be ok again…repeat. That was my life.

In spite of all that, I modeled, graduated from high school, and went away to college. I ended up having to come back because I was too sick to stay that far away from my doctors, who incidentally, still had no clue what was wrong. They did recommend I try non-traditional medicine, though, which was almost unheard of back then. I did well for awhile, then got terribly sick again, then decided I was going back to school regardless. I got married but it didn’t last, and then my dad died, and my understanding of the world as I knew it changed drastically. I had no idea how protected I had been as the baby of the family. So, I got divorced, changed schools, and graduated as quickly as I could. After that, I started a tutoring/editing business. Soon after, I also started graduate school in psychology and got remarried. I graduated with my Master’s in psychology, and then taught at the local university for a year and a half. I was still sick, but I’d reached a point somewhere along the way that I wasn’t going to just give up my life to being sick anymore.

Throughout all of this I’d felt this sensation in the back of my mind that I was missing something-that there was something I still needed to do, or recognize about myself and the world. I’d had glimpses of it, been told it a time or two, but just couldn’t figure it out. My first, real, adult understanding of it happened when I met someone who had healed himself and he began working with me to show me how I could do the same. Since then, my life has largely been a journey to try and restore some sense of balance within both myself and my world. I’ve spent a significant amount of time trying to undo much of the conditioning I’ve received as a Western-educated woman…you know, have to rid yourself of the bad before you can replace it with the good. It’s harder than it seems, at least for me, but then I hide in my head because my head was my primary distraction from my illness. Now, though, I often wonder if that hasn’t contributed to my illness….

However, since I started daily meditation and returned to the things I enjoyed as a child–spending time outside, gardening, cooking, music–it’s become easier. It’s funny how returning your outlook to that of a child’s makes everything simpler. Maybe we really did learn everything we needed to know in kindergarten….

I hope you’ll join me as I seek to restore Peace where there is chaos, Light where there is darkness, Hope where there is despair, and Harmony where there is discord in my life because I believe if we each realign our own lives with the Truth, we will go a long way to restoring the balance necessary to heal the planet.

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Have you ever noticed when you decide to withdraw from “the mainstream” way of doing things, the grappling hooks come out? When you decide you’ll do one last thing to appease the people around you, it ends up turning into an all-consuming, gaping maw that seeks to gobble up your life? Ugh. . . it makes me CRAZY!

I decided to reduce my interaction with Western medicine, and BAM! Now, I’m off to have a heart cath and looking at valve replacement surgery!! How in the hell did that happen?! I’m so frustrated and angry I don’t even know what to do with myself. My instinct is to turn around and run the other direction, but most of the people in my life are worried and telling me I need to do whatever it the doctors say to do. I just don’t know, though. . . it’s an awfully big decision and it involves a very long recovery time. I don’t want to worry the people who love me, but I also don’t want to do something that may end up causing them even more distress.

The whole thing just blows my mind. . . I was completely blindsided, never even saw it coming; I fully expected everything to come back ok and be sent on my merry way. But, no….

So lately I seem to be searching for my sanity instead of attempting to restore balance to my life. I HATE that! As contradictory as it may sound, what’s strange is that I’m not worrying. Ordinarily, I’d be freaked out and nearly hyperventilating with anxiety about all of this—the cath, the valve replacement, the timetable, all of it. I’m praying a lot, and meditating more, and not just for the purpose of looking for answers. So, maybe I’m not as off-balance as I feel lately. . . maybe. . . .

Anyway, enough about that. . .

I don’t know why, but I am still amazed at the power the people of our country can bring to bear when they come together (peacefully) to protest acts against our interests, whether by our leaders, large corporations, or anything else. At first, when several of my frequently-traveled websites were blacked-out I was confused as to why. However, when I followed the links to the explanation, I immediately understood. I had heard about the pieces of anti-piracy legislation through the media, but only in remarkably glowing terms about its effort to stop people from getting ‘bootleg copies’ of movies or other copyrighted material which would inevitably result in the lost money being shifted onto the consumer’s back (because that’s where everything else ends up).

Funny, no one mentioned anything about its potential use for censorship. Heck, no one even mentioned its potential for use for censorship in the derogatory “liberals-are-concerned-about-it” kind of way (Now, in all fairness, I could’ve missed it if it were in the news over the last few days, as I’ve been at the hospital, without the tv on, with a family member most of the time, and too tired to watch it at night.). But, I’ve been online some, and I hadn’t seen it there either, until yesterday. I’m guessing that’s largely because of the extensive backing the legislation received from theHollywood contingent?

At any rate, I was amazed to see the effect of the various websites’ going dark. I’m too young to remember the effects of the various successful sit-ins and protests of the ‘60s and early ‘70s, so yesterday was a truly awesome thing to witness. My father was a WWII (marine) veteran; he loved this country and he always spoke of it with respect, pride and love. He also believed in its promise, and he instilled that same love and respect for our country in me too. With all the things lately that have angered, saddened, and made me question whether the country we live in was still the one he so loved, yesterday’s response to the web protests and the decline to move forward with the Keystone XL pipeline was a ray of hope that we just might be.

 At least it’s a start.

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Sorry to have disappeared for a few days. . .

Recovering from a heart cath isn’t as easy as I thought it would be, although I’m not sure whether it’s the actual cath I’m having trouble recovering from, or the news I got after the cath that’s the issue. You’d think after 22 years there wouldn’t be anything Western medicine could do to surprise me, short of finding out what’s wrong with me, but it did. 

I think I still expected, obviously naively, to hear the docs say the results from the previous tests were incomplete or even better, wrong, and that there was no need to consider surgery because everything would be fine. HA!. . . NOPE! In fact, instead, they said it was worse than they originally thought, AND my overall heart function is low. Wait. . . WHAT?!? I’ll tell you, information like that even cuts through a Valium-induced haze. Shock and awe don’t even begin to describe my feelings. While I’m still not anxious, I’m really just stunned. I cannot seem to wrap my head around this at all, though I’m doing lots of research and weighing the pros and cons of the whole idea. My instinctual reaction is still of the “I’m going to take my toys and go home” sort, but the more I come to terms with the reality (and seeming inevitability) of all this, the more I find my attention drawn to something else.

When I meditate, and when I find myself thinking about this, there is a still, small voice inside my mind that tells me getting caught up in the negative, or even factual, aspects of this is merely a distraction. Instead, my focus should remain on my intended purpose: restoring balance, remaining centered; and perhaps I should consider that this situation presents me with opportunity to do just that; that perhaps this situation will provide me with long-sought answers to the very questions I’ve been asking. I don’t know. . . maybe that’s projection or wishful thinking, or both, but that voice has been there pretty constantly since a few days before I had the cath. I’m still going to get a second opinion about all this, but maybe this is to be the final act in the ‘medical drama’ of my life, so the first act of my Real life can begin. . . .

By the way, be sure to check out pictures of the auroras from the solar storms yesterday and today–they’re beautiful!  http://www.adn.com/2012/01/24/v-gallery/2281625/aurora-viewing-is-dazzling-now.html

 The Universe is speaking to us. . .it’s time for us to listen. “As above, so below. . . “