Presence Matters

May 2, 2012

Yesterday’s Washington Post Health and Science section had a lead article that was, in my opinion, spot on. It is the true story of Amy Berman, a nurse, who made a decision in favor of quality of life, not quantity of life after receiving a prognosis of stage 4 inflammatory breast cancer eighteen months ago. The piece that is so telling is the stark contrast between the spectacular care she is receiving from her oncologist, who is listening carefully to her needs and truly meeting her where she is right now, and the specialist she was referred to who wanted to treat her cancer aggressively, and did not even take her desires into account at all. This article is well worth the 5 minutes it will take you to read it.

May 1, 2012

As we usher in the month of May, my friend and colleague, Gene Miller (thanks Gene!) sent me this hilarious link that got me laughing – which I really needed today. It is only 7 minutes long, and performed by a wonderful, talented young woman named Annabel Carberry. Enjoy!

April 30, 2012

As last weekend rolled in it began as an overwhelming sense of tiredness. Then the low grade fever and body aches ensued and I knew I had to rest. I have not been sick for a couple of years now. I recognize that the activity level of the last two weeks (wasn’t Beyond the Dura just over the moon?!?!), combined with 4 airline flights had probably pushed the limits of my system.

So I have rested and taken in lots of warm fluids (lemon ginger tea was the drink of the day on Saturday.) I have slept some more. I have eaten very little, and rested some more. I took a long warm bath with Epsom salts. My wonderful husband gave me an acupuncture treatment and a head rub. I have gone to bed early every night.

What I do not do anymore is to get irritated that I am sick. I see my body as a wonderful partner, so when it says “We need to slow down, we are fighting something in here,” I listen.

It is interesting how my inner listening changes at a time like this. The requests get very simple. When I feel thirsty, I ask things like, “Warm or cool?” Then I run down the list of my teas and when I get to the right one a bell in my head goes off and I pull that tea off the shelf and make a cup.

If I am sitting up and my body says, “Lie down and close your eyes”, then I do that. I check in moment to moment and my body is very clear on what I need. And believe me, there are a lot of herbs, tinctures, and remedies in our house. So knowing which ones are best for this immune challenge is also something I ask inside. I find that things just pop into my head that I need. So I go dig up “Singers Saving Grace” from my travel bag and start administering it to my sore throat (that was Saturday morning), or a Chinese herbal formula (started that Friday evening) that often cuts these things down considerably when taken religiously…so here I am.

It is Monday evening and I am feeling much better, yet it is not done and I know that. So I commit to taking it easy this week and letting myself rest as much as possible while life goes on around me. I like this slower pace for a change…

April 28, 2012

My colleague Lori Chinitz (thanks Lori!) sent me this article from the New York Times magazine on the history and effectiveness of anti-depressants. Click here to read the whole article.  I think it behooves us to periodically revisit what we take for granted, as experience and history show things in a different light than the advertisements may be wanting us to see them. In this article on depression and it’s pharmaceutical antidotes they look at the fact that not all depression is the same, and that pharmaceutical drugs do not work as effectively for certain kinds of depression, and then work quite well with others. So, do read the article and let me know what you think. And, enjoy if you can!

April 27, 2012

I continue to be amazed at how life offers me multiple opportunities in any given day to experience love and connection and beauty, and then lack and want and feelings of being less than someone else.

As I look back over this week I am struck by the breadth of experience I have had in just the last seven days. As I do all the things that keep me healthy (walking, eating good food, being in right relationship) there are still pockets of beauty (aren’t the pink azaleas so exquisite right now?) and pockets of lack (why can I not organize my office better?)

Sometimes I can recognize that it truly is all a choice, moment to moment, in how we perceive the world. And whether or not if feels safe. And whether or not we stop to take pleasure and enjoy our lives and our relationships. So take a moment this weekend - if you choose – to slow down and appreciate something in your world. Drink it in and appreciate what you have. And, enjoy!

April 26, 2012

In this vein of holding a breadth of life experiences, I have one more story to add to the list.

Last week a couple in our community lost their son’s fiancé. Their son is devastated. They are heart-broken for him and all that it means for his world. We simply do not expect death to come to healthy young people in their twenties, but it did. As they were carrying the initial weight of this loss, some interesting things happened.

It turns out that, at 13 years of age, this young woman had signed an organ donor card. She also had a very rare blood type. Now there are six families who have loved ones who have regained their health. The transplant team has reported that one person with heart failure received a heart transplant, one person with lung failure has received a double lung transplant, one person with liver failure received a liver transplant and two people with kidney failure received kidney transplants. In addition, one person with diabetes will receive a pancreas islet cell transplant.

This young woman’s foresight and courage allowed her to live on in these other human beings. She is an inspiration to all of us.  I would hope her actions as a donor might cause each of us to consider the invaluable gift that is only ours to give at a time when loved ones, wracked with such a deep sense of loss, have yet one more reason to be proud and thankful that another family can be lifted up with renewed hope, life and love.

So if you are inspired by her story, check how you can do this in your state. Often it is done when you update or get your first drivers license. Here is the link to the official website for organ donation from the federal government. The family gave me permission to write this blog post in hopes that you will be inspired by her courage and foresight. It has helped them in immeasurable ways to mediate some of this huge loss. So please, be inspired.

April 26, 2012

While I was writing yesterday about the poor mallard duck that was so severely neurologically impaired by whatever toxic chemical had gotten dumped or sprayed on her home in the hedges, my door bell rang.

At the door was a young man from a Pest Removal company letting me know that they were going to be in the neighborhood later this week exterminating ants and spiders from someone’s house and asking if we wanted to piggy back on their treatment and get a reduction in the cost of the treatment. Oh, and by the way, all their treatments are green – meaning that they utilize only environmentally friendly substances for their extermination processes.

I remembered the last time we had to have some large carpenter ants exterminated about eight years ago. It took me being really insistent before they would utilize non-toxic substances. It wasn’t fun because they had to stop their normal operations and go back and get what they had in their storehouse to do so. I had to read up on it and find out what was available and name it specifically before they went back and got it. But they did. And my cats did not get sick and we did not get headaches or any other side effects that can follow toxic spraying of chemicals to kill insects or rodents or whatever.

So, I asked this young man what chemicals they were using and sure enough they really are a green company, and I thanked him for what he is doing. I let him know that we did not need them at the moment, but when we did, we would call them because of their use of environmentally friendly substances.

We do live in interesting times, don’t we? Having these two experiences – so close in time to each other – is what life is all about these days. Experiences of illness, death and destruction and then experiences of life, hope and integrity right alongside…more on that in a different situation tomorrow.

April 25, 2012

Something happened my last morning in Florida that has stayed with me. I find myself mulling it over in my mind and the images and smells won’t leave. I was taking a walk with one of my colleagues in a well appointed, gated community across the street from our hotel. The air was unseasonably crisp and cool. The sun was shining on the water of the canals and the path we were on was shaded and well manicured. It felt really good to breathe and I was breathing deeply as we walked.

Suddenly we were both aware of a heavy chemical smell. It felt toxic to our nostrils and we both commented immediately that something had to be really wrong to have that strong, toxic smell in this beautiful place. We could not figure out where it was coming from and we distinctly did not want to spend anymore time breathing it in order to figure it out. The smell lasted only about twenty feet and then we were breathing clear air again. We both were relieved and we walked on wondering what it could have been.

On our way back we passed the same area, and again the smell assaulted us. At that moment a female mallard duck came scurrying out from under the hedge where the smell was the worst. She was wobbling horribly and her neck was cocked oddly as though she was really disoriented. She was quacking in a distressed way and she hardly noticed us at all. She wobbled down the path, trying unsuccessfully to fly and then once she was in clear air she scurried back under the next big hedge she came upon.

I wanted to help her in some way, but I felt helpless to do so. There was no one to speak to about the hideous chemical smell and we continued on our way with no way to report or fix the situation. And, I cannot forget her weird disoriented wobble down the sidewalk quacking all the way.

It occurs to me that in our society today we are forgetting to take care of those without a voice, those who cannot speak on their own behalf – the environment, the children, the animals, the birds, the elderly and those who are too ill to take care of themselves. Funding is being cut right and left on government organizations that are the watchdogs for our environment and the safety of our food. This experience has brought home to me the fragility of life and how easily it can be fouled and poisoned unless we take actions to protect it.

I am haunted by the memory of that duck, and her experience with that foul chemical being poured right into her home environment and damaging her. I realize I am now awake about what can happen even in the most beautiful of places. I am looking into how to report something like that should it happen in the future. Anyone have any ideas?

April 21, 2012

Angela Stevens is my guest blogger today – speaking about her experiences here at Beyond the Dura.

“I feel so jazzed by the whole conference this year – there is an exciting new vitality coming from the breadth of the vision that is unfolding for CranioSacral therapy. As it moves forward, there is such deeper understanding of the magic of what we do as CST therapists, as well the concrete grounding of the specificity of information. There is an immediacy that is palpable in the ‘calls to action’ we have heard from every corner of our profession here at the conference. There is an excitement in the air. It as though we are reaching a critical mass – and are about the ride a surge of energy into the future of CST. There has also been such a deep honoring of Dr. John’s vision that has been spoken about again and again, by speaker after speaker. I feel tremendous gratitude to have the opportunity to be here now.”

April 20, 2012

I have just spent the day listening to my colleagues speak and share exciting information about the history –  and then future – of CranioSacral therapy. What a fabulous day. We have been inspired by Chas Perry on the Essence of Dr. Upledger’s work, listened to research on all aspects of  CST including migraine headaches, and then were roused in a strong call to action for case studies and research. We got to hear from Rebecca Ridge about her CST work in China with special needs children, and then deep wisdom from the womb, by my friend and colleague Carol McLellan as she described the new curriculum on CST for Conception, Pregnancy and Birth. It was truly an amazing day! Wish you all were here with us so you could be filled with the inspiration that is permeating the room. The excitement is palpable.