...gwendoes

• 2012-02-03 0 notes

  up at 5 again

  Integrative medicine has so far been only a pie in the sky for me. My insurance-covered-biomedicine and CAM treatments have never aligned well - except in the very beginning of my attempt to fuse them, in 2007. Truthfully, the pursuits diverged when I moved to San Francisco, and I’ve had a hell of a time trying to give my all to one camp or the other back and forth with my health hanging in the balance sometimes. The bleakest moments have been the final days in each phase when I have held out just as long as I possibly can with only the protocol recommended by this acupuncturist or that naturopath before plunging again into the ignorance-is-bliss mania of steroids.

  Here we go again! Last night at the Exploratorium After Dark I had to use the toilet 5 times in 2 hours. Not only the frequency, but the pain and depression as well have abated only on prednisone in the last half decade. The upsides to the steroid treatment are vast: I wake between 5:00 and 5:30 am. I value my own opinions and voice. The energy is with me for making healthy choices like shopping for and cooking the food that nourishes me; walking and going to yoga; reaching out to friends rather than withdrawing ever further into my cozy den of self-loathing and constant diarrhea.

  I want to have energy for my friends, family and clients. I want to run. I want to write and paint, to visit museums, to laugh. These things have been in short supply recently as I’ve had an invisible leash of pain and urgency. I co-facilitate a support group for others with Crohn’s and colitis but don’t know how to get the help that could make a difference for me health-wise. Sometimes I make an opportunity for myself to try again, and this is one of those days.

  Living with a chronic illness is such a strange phenomenon - one cannot really treat the condition as an enemy, and the reality is that I will always deal with having a bum colon. Although prednisone is back on board again, I won’t stop taking my Jian Pi Ling and hoping it’s really the perfect formula for me, as several respected practitioners have said. I won’t stop taking my fish oil, blood-builder vitamins, Inflammacore, protein and supergreen powders in my daily smoothie…

  A solid night of sleep is something I look forward to experiencing again someday soon. Until then, here’s to my predni-self.

• 2012-01-20 0 notes

  Thank you for the bitter knowledge
  Guardian angels who left me stranded
  It was worth it, feeling abandoned
  Makes one hardened but what has happened to love

  You got me writing lyrics on postcards
  Then in the evening looking at the stars
  But the brightest of the planets is Mars

  Then what has happened to love
  So I will opt for the big white limo
  Vanity fairgrounds and rebel angels
  You can’t be trusted with feathers so hollow
  Your heaven’s inventions, steel eyed vampires of love

  You see over me, I’ll never know
  What you have shown to other eyes
  Go or go ahead and surprise me
  Say you’ve lead the way to a mirage

  Go or go ahead and just try me
  Nowhere’s now here smelling of junipers
  Fell off the hay bales, I’m over the rainbows

  But oh Medusa kiss me and crucify
  This unholy notion of the mythic power of love
  Look in her eyes, look in her eyes

  Forget about the ones that are crying
  Look in her eyes, look in her eyes
  Forget about the ones that are crying
  Go or go ahead

  — Go or go ahead ~ Rufus Wainwright

• 2011-12-08 0 notes

  Say You Will

  MY CAFFEINATED SELF LOVES FLEETWOOD MAC.

  (At first the caps lock was an accident, but it seems apropos.)

  On prednisone from September-November my waking in the night was productive and exciting. Less pleasant were the excessive sweating, occasional aggro-Gwen episodes and general numbed sensations that made me second-guess a lot of my sensory input; I’d find bruises and not have any memory of their genesis, for example.

  Prednisone is a wonder drug for some purposes, but I’ve had such a conflicted relationship with it. This most recent course was just as dramatic as usual, but the crash afterward has been maybe more dramatic. I’ve found myself thoroughly depressed, anxious and angry over the last few weeks. There have been lots of shifts in my life over the past month and I’m navigating some with more grace than others.

  Blessedly there is some continuity and I’ll reflect on that for the rest of the month along with practicing loving openness to the beauty of the unexpected… even when it’s less than pleasant. The eyelid and scalp eczema that cleared up on prednisone are back with a vengeance. My energy is pretty low and I’m back to 3-4 bathroom trips during the night. But I’m feeling everything again and that’s allowing me to be more in touch. I want to appreciate and live my best life without steroids.

  Here’s to more frequent (and hopefully mostly more fun) posts in 2012!

• 2011-11-03 2 notes

• 2011-10-30 0 notes

  The Invitation
  Oriah Mountain Dreamer
  Canadian Teacher and Author
  
  
  It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living
  I want to know what you ache for
  and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

  It doesn’t interest me how old you are
  I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
  for love
  for your dreams
  for the adventure of being alive.

  It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
  I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
  if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
  or have become shrivelled and closed
  from fear of further pain.

  I want to know if you can sit with pain
  mine or your own
  without moving to hide it
  or fade it
  or fix it.

  I want to know if you can be with joy
  mine or your own
  if you can dance with wildness
  and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
  fingers and toes
  without cautioning us to
  be careful
  be realistic
  to remember the limitations of being human.

  It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
  is true.
  I want to know if you can
  disappoint another
  to be true to yourself.

  If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
  and not betray your own soul.
  If you can be faithless
  and therefore trustworthy.

  I want to know if you can see Beauty
  even when it is not pretty
  every day.
  And if you can source your own life
  from its presence.

  I want to know if you can live with failure
  yours and mine
  and still stand on the edge of the lake
  and shout to the silver of the full moon,
  “Yes.”

  It doesn’t interest me
  to know where you live or how much money you have.
  I want to know if you can get up
  after a night of grief and despair
  weary and bruised to the bone
  and do what needs to be done
  to feed the children.

  It doesn’t interest me who you know
  or how you came to be here.
  I want to know if you will stand
  in the center of the fire
  with me
  and not shrink back.

  It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
  you have studied.
  I want to know what sustains you
  from the inside
  when all else falls away.

  I want to know if you can be alone
  with yourself
  and if you truly like the company you keep
  in the empty moments.

  — 

  © 1995 by Oriah House, From “Dreams Of Desire”
  Published by Mountain Dreaming, 300 Coxwell Avenue, Box 22546, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4L 2A0
  Please click here for more information about Oriah’s book.

   

• 2011-10-27 11 notes

  Cat’s Eye; how I’m becoming a 21st century 70s feminist

  Of the fourteen Atwood books I’ve read this year, I like this one the most, absolutely. It’s such a joy to read a novel so laden with richly embroidered motifs artfully popping up here and there while others steadily flow as steady undercurrents - a novel that is ABOUT a woman’s body of work, how it comes to be and how she thinks of it.

  The book is so gorgeously self-conscious. For a while I’ve been meaning to read a whole bunch of 70s feminist novels (in part thanks to a series of pieces in the Believer), and the middle section of this book was a great reminder to finally pick up Ephron, et. al. I studied literature and religion in college, focusing on American Catholicism. Though I had a few great classes taught by women (Contemporary Experimental Theater Tutorial, Hebrew Scriptures) I read almost exclusively men - I avoided the female fiction professors, for several reasons - some that are really a shame, and others I stand by to this day. Can I go back to New College and do another literature degree?
  

  My fiction classes happened to be “Religious Themes in Literature,” whose only female was Flannery O’Connor; Russian novels & short fiction with just a couple of women on each syllabus, 18/19th century German drama and Latin American short fiction with ZERO women authors per class. In my late twenties it feels like my job as a reader is a self-guided survey of feminism, which has elicited some chuckles from friends, but which aligns perfectly with my vocation to birth work and newfound enchantment with the sacred feminine.

  Good thing my Mom let me pick anything I wanted from her friends-of-the-library paperback sale - I picked up a huge, exciting tome: The Politics of Women’s Spirituality. Thanks, Spotsylvania Library!
  

  Here’s an album of my favorite shots from the Hirshhorn this week. I was drawn to SUCH a different set of sculptures on this visit from any of my previous trips there and when we got back to my Mom’s I found an Atwood quotation for each piece. Enjoy!
  

• 2011-10-25 0 notes

  …a guard at the Hirshhorn said to me: “Some of us are different. You and I see the Angelic in everyone.”

• 2011-10-16 0 notes

  Saturday Skies

• 2011-10-10 0 notes

  Twice to the Zen Center: Part 2

  * Click the title of the post to read “The Ino’s Blog: Entertainment.” This amazing reflection (with beautiful photographs) by Ino David Haye sums up exquisitely the experience that Austin and I had on Saturday night at the Zen Center.

  Besides the music, collaborative art, tea tasting and warm environment, we also got to taste free trade chocolates. It is such a powerful treat to live a block from the Zen Center - throughout and since the weekend, my heart and mind have been thrilling with things I learned when I volunteered in the kitchen there. My relationship to that place and those people is only beginning. 

• 2011-10-09 0 notes

  Twice to the Zen Center this weekend: Part 1

  *Click the title of this post to visit the website of Zenju Earthlyn Manuel*

  At the San Francisco Zen Center Friday night I was among the blessed group present for Zenju’s reading/discussion of her new book. What an inspiring person - smiling tears streamed down my cheeks for a good portion of the presentation ♥ I certainly plan to blog responses as I read her book, Tell Me Something About Buddhism.
  

  From her site: “After being involved in Buddhist practice for over twenty years, after an L.A. upbringing in an African-American Christian church, I intertwine throughout the book personal experiences as one of the first African-American Zen priests. My life in the Sangha, my teaching in local communities, and my travels around the world meeting other Buddhist practitioners enliven my answers to the most fundamental questions about Buddhist practice. She writes, “Had I not opened myself to the many teachings from the earth, such as Buddha’s wisdom, it would have been nearly impossible to survive the fires of my soul.” The book is self-illustrated.”