When Muscles Hit the Perfect Storm

For the last several years I’ve been dealing with increasingly painful and bothersome issues in my left hip/pelvis/low back/groin. That hip has a long history of trouble and I’d injured the psoas a few years before, with little success at healing it. So I carried on as best I could under a lot of tough circumstances, doing the yoga and Robert Masters exercises I’d used for years.

But the problem wasn’t going away and I started to look into other solutions, which led to realizing a series of issues in that area have come together and, as far as I can tell, impacted every muscle, ligament and tendon in the area. A combination of injuries, repetitive motion, and much-reduced exercise schedule created an area-wide problem.

It took quite a while to realize the many threads that brought me to this point. It happens more than people realize with muscles and western medicine is lousy at coping with muscle issues, so most people don’t know how easily one problem can become two and then five, so I thought I’d give some info on this particular journey.

I was born with my left leg twisted so muscles on that side were out of place and pulling on others from the beginning. Years later a car accident created a bit more of a twist and my left hip started going out of joint all the time. The pain from that led to sitting with more weight on the other side while squeezing the muscles on the left hip as tight as possible to numb the pain. That created one hip being quite a bit higher than the other.

There were already profoundly twisted back muscles extending into that area and the psoas was so tightly wound many practitioners commented about never having seen one so bad… They’re all in the same area so the patterns interacted. A great deal of that has been dealt with and as far as multi-patterns everywhere else, most of my body is holding the releases.

With years of yoga and concentrating a lot on hip and psoas stretches as well as the usual forward bends for back, a lot improved and I could mostly control the hip issue though it was never gone. Bodyworkers made big strides into all of it as well and when I added regular practice of the Robert Masters’ triggers of release, everything worked pretty well. Though the worst of the muscle patterns were still there, they improved enough to keep pain largely at bay.

Then I injured the psoas in a too-long hold on a yoga posture and struggled to get it to heal. Because the psoas is so central to movement, the pain meant my years-long habit of walking went by the wayside. A lot of other exercises and poses became tough to do so a lot of postures I normally rotated through went off the roster.

In the meantime, difficulty keeping my hip from going out when sitting in any chairs led to creating a set-up on the floor where my hips could be held firmly in balance. But floor sitting generally means bending the low back. It took years, but the position slowly took a number of muscles out of alignment and left the sacroiliac area locked tight.

All of that was still going on when my mom fell and broke her hip. Hours in some NOT ergonomic hospital chairs brought the hip issue back, worse than it had ever been because of interaction with the psoas and sacroiliac issues. Covid hit and the extra hours it took to take care of groceries, the caretaking for my mother, etc. left me struggling about exercise.

With less time to spend and pain dictating what I could do, my practice dwindled to mainly doing postures/triggers that directly impacted the areas of pain plus riding an exercise bike several times a week. Through that time to now, Mom wound up in and out of the hospital several times with a couple of skilled nursing stays as well and my dad died, so many more things filled my schedule and reduced time spent on yoga, etc.

The forced move after my mother’s death added more layers of issues as I heaved boxes, moved furniture, etc. Then the exercise bike was too big for my condo, so it didn’t get moved and yet another many-years-regular exercise fell away. All of these things combined to mean these first 5 months in my new locale have been riddled with pain issues.

Regular practice of the hip/psoas poses and releases meant I could keep reducing the pain but every time I try to go back to finishing the process of clearing my dad’s stuff from the condo and unpacking mine it goes out again. It’s not crazy about long grocery shopping trips, vigorous cleaning or cooking that involves a lot of standing either.

The Universe popped a video by chiropractor Dr. Rowe (see top video) for opening the sacroiliac joint into my path and it was a game changer. He has dozens of videos on YouTube and I’ve been making my way through all the ones that relate to muscles in the hip, pelvis, low back, groin region. Some of them overlap and some exercises that help several muscles in the area show up on numerous videos so it becomes easy to memorize a few and start integrating into your routine without having to watch a video every day.

As far as I can tell pretty much every muscle in there is either twisted up or weak from underuse and/or connected to one or more of the painful patterns operating in there. Plus on the “good” side, some muscles are over-strong because they’re doing most of the work for both sides. I’m particularly focused on the piriformis, iliotibial band and psoas/hip flexors on the bad side. If you spend a lot of time sitting, you should probably be doing something for those muscles too.

I’ve also been working with some of the online videos provided on the Silver Sneakers site. There’s a Restorative Yoga one up right now (they rotate) which, while unlike any other RY I’ve done, happens to concentrate a number of nice easy long holds on muscles in the area I’m addressing and it has REALLY helped.

Since I’ve been watching/doing a lot of videos for this area, naturally the internet is constantly showing me more, which is how I found this gem, with exercises quite different than the others I’m doing and very helpful. The final two for psoas are really making some inroads on the psoas issue.

A lot of people don’t realize the degree to which muscles can go off slowly and over time nor how much they interact with each other. When someone says an exercise could cause an injury, in many cases it’s not that something so dramatic will happen that you’re off to the ER the first time you do it wrong.

Generally it’s means you’re using a muscle or impacting a joint in a way that slowly over time will cause muscles to tighten or the joint to become sore. You might not know you have a problem until several years after you quit doing the exercise. And by that time the impacted muscle(s) will have pulled off some others.

As I’ve noted before, Western medicine is remarkably obtuse/uneducated in muscles, how they work, and how central they are to so much in our lives. And when a muscle is sore they’re more likely to prescribe a pain killer than point you toward something that would actually heal the muscle.

So if you are in an accident or have a fall, etc. it’s up to you to either demand a referral for massage therapy and/or chiropractic adjustments and/or physical therapy and really up to you to look into exercises YOU can do on your own to keep the muscles from freezing in the pained position caused by the accident.

In this case, a perfect storm of injuries, interconnected patterns, reduction of movement/exercise work and straining the area all came together over the course of a few years and threw the whole area out of whack. I’m aware enough of how muscles work to realize it was starting to pull nearby muscles in my leg and back out too. Fortunately the yoga and Robert Masters work I’ve done throughout prevented those areas from staying twisted.

The exercises are making inroads. The main things I’m noticing are that my posture is generally better because it’s easier to hold the low back in proper position and I’m also more able to sit in a healthier position. The worst of the painful muscles are still pretty painful though the exercises are giving me periods of relief.

I’m still working out a rotation, trying to do one or two of the new exercises every day, feeling into which I should do more often and trying to make sure my regular yoga practice, which I designed to cover a lot of basics, stays in the mix. I’ve also added several new exercises from the Restorative Yoga video and several of Dr. Rowe’s into my regular routine.

No idea how long it will take. And that’s another thing western medicine doesn’t prepare you for. Actually healing issues instead of throwing some pills at it that eliminate symptoms while doing nothing to heal, isn’t really part of their practice. And healing takes time.

Go Fund Her

litebeing chronicles

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Reblogathon to write about somethig current and urgent. Many of you may know Sindy of bluebutterfliesandme . I met Sindy shortly after I began my blog almost 10 years ago. She began commenting, encouraging me, and showing me the ropes. She was very positive about my writing and I dug her exuberance and sense of humor. She truly took me under her wing. Unfortunately Sindy has become ill and will have extensive medical expenses. As if the treatments are not enough, here in the good ole USA, medical care is not free for most of us.

A GoFundMe campaign has been created for Sindy and she gave me permission to share it here. Please give what you can and spread the word.  Sindy welcomes prayers and love as well. She has a big heart and has extended it to many. Now she is in need…

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What a week

Rarasaur is hosting this year’s NanoPoblano again. I’ve had such a busy exhausting time I decided not to sign on just as I get to a point of things winding down but I’m reading posts (check out the tag #NanoPoblano2022 to see lots of good posts) and enjoying. Ra put up a post today on the prompt “tell us about your week”; thought I’d try that.

I’m dipping the week back to last weekend because it had a lot of impact on the week for me. It was the weekend before my friend Hanna was to arrive and the guestroom still had unpacked boxes, stuff to move out for Goodwill, etc. I arranged for the guy I hired early on to help with moving, clearing, unpacking, etc. to come back for a couple of hours that weekend. So I kept working and also had a pile of stuff for him. Except he never showed. So Sunday, already exhausted to the point of dropping, I did not only everything left on the list for me but also most of his list. Grrr.

Not my favorite way to start a theoretically fun week and I struggled for most of it to rise above the fatigue and enjoy. Starting with never having been to the St. Pete airport, so driving with the anxiety of hoping the navigation system would not do one of its weird misdirections. Fortunately it got me right there and it’s hard to stay grumpy while driving across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

Hanna is much younger than I and very lively so she wanted to be out and going! Fortunately for me she had a couple of other friends here so I got breaks, but we did a lot of eating out, a little shopping in the adorable Village of the Arts area, and picking her up from one of her outings I even found out about a really great beach off St. Armand’s and an organic restaurant in St. Armand’s circle.

All of it put me in touch with issues I’ve long been aware of regarding being able to recognize the happy and joyful stuff and be in the moment with it. So I kept moving from feeling “I’m too tired to do this” to realizing how great this restaurant or that crystal shop or this beach, etc. was. Hanna is fun and good-spirited so it wasn’t hard to enjoy being with her but otherwise an interesting dance between old numbness/”no fun” habits and new awareness of happy moments.

All that wandering in the area and finding new restaurants, etc. turned out to be good for feeling a little bit more like I really landed here instead of that life brought me to a strange place I don’t know well. And being in places having fun with a friend felt like a little harbinger of more fun here once I know some people. Been too busy unpacking, getting settled, obtaining new car title, etc. so far to be out meeting people anywhere.

Closer in, some issues I’ve always had about condos and condo associations cropped up when Hanna hung some beach stuff on the front courtyard fence, which is apparently a no no. Instead of coming over here to talk to me, several whiny people with the emotional maturity of a 5-year-old called the office to complain. Though the office manager was very diplomatic, it really ticked me off and reminded me why, after some run-ins with busybodies in the early years when both my parents lived here, I decided I would never live in a condo.

The couple remaining days of the week after Hanna left I sank bank into relaxation. Made a decision that the rest of the unpacking is on hiatus since I have everything I need for day-to-day life set up. Once I could just sit back and be for a while, the reality of being far from the home I’d had for 24 years started sinking in. And questions about staying here.

Most of the day yesterday I was on a schedule that was off from my normal of recent years. Early in the evening, while lounging on the couch reading, I had the sudden feeling I should be doing “the next thing”. Which led, after realizing I’d already done the exercises I usually do then, that SO much of my schedule in recent years was set up around my mother’s schedule and that I’m now free to have my own. May sound small, but to me it’s big and I’m still mulling the aspects that suit me fine so I’ll keep versus what I may want to change.

Quite a week, from frantically working past my limits, through having a mini vacation with my friend, to lounging and having time to reflect…

Healing/heat pads

HealthyLine Far Infrared Heating Pad

Having been guided for a while toward info on various healing pads, I finally purchased the one pictured above, a HealthyLine Far Infrared Heating Pad with jade and tourmaline. But I wandered through some other choices with a huge price tag range and different healing qualities and thought I’d share a bit of what I found. All seem to have claims about helping pain and circulation issues.

It began with a couple of people I know mentioning occasionally how much benefit they get from their Bemer devices. I looked up Bemer and the $4-5,000 price tag deterred me from looking farther. It’s a PEMF, or pulsed electro magnetic field, therapy.

The devices help open circulation/open the body and are being studied for multiple healing effects. Some therapists have Bemer pads in their offices and offer treatments so rather than purchasing you can just pay for an occasional treatment. Not widely available, but you can look up availability here.

Another friend recently purchased one and raved to me about the results for both her and her husband, who has multiple awful symptoms from years of battling cancer. As we talked, though, about the prohibitive price and its benefits, she commented that she credited it mainly with opening the body/energy flow up and said she thought my 36+ years of yoga plus working with Robert Masters’ Psychophysical technique probably meant it would have a less dramatic impact for me.

Then she also mentioned she’d done some research for another mutual friend and came up with the HealthyLine Platinum Mat, which is half the price and has both PEMF and infrared therapy. That’s still way out of my price range so I found it intriguing but not for me. The review article she found: https://www.well-beingsecrets.com/best-pemf-mats-reviews/

Next another friend, who’s also been my frequent bodywork/healing practitioner, brought up her PhyMat Far Infrared Amethyst Heating Pad and how much she loved it. When I mentioned the PEMF pads, she agreed that I’m probably already opened up enough not to need that and felt the somewhat more metaphysical and subtle benefits of the crystals added to these infrared pads (which the HealthyLIne PEMF above also has) would be more for me, added to the pain-relief capability, especially for my ongoing hip issues. This pad brings the price down to $330, so much more in the right ballpark for me.

I’m an inveterate researcher, though, so I started hunting for info on infrared heating pads with crystals. That led me to this review and the HealthyLine Far Infrared pad I wound up choosing. It’s the same company as the PEMF pad my friend came up with and I noted also that customer reviews raved about how great the customer service is, which is something I value. Also $100 less than the PhyMat. So I wound up with a price point much more in line with my budget.

The jade and amethyst in both pads are listed as mainly being there for their calming/relaxing benefits, so the trade to jade felt equal. Then the tourmaline adds some detox and energizing benefits and I really liked the idea of including those. Several friends have since mentioned experiencing the amethyst pads and really loving them, so sounds like that’s a great choice too.

The mat is a new arrival so I’ll wait to review other than to tell you the first thing I noticed was how much energy I felt from the crystals while the mat was still in its plastic wrapper. The recommendation is to use it initially only for short spells and on a pretty low setting. My first round felt good, definitely got into my muscles (an impact that kept unfolding for some hours after) and left my energy really buzzed. I’m looking forward to reaching the point of using it at higher temps and, at least occasionally, longer times.

The in between place

I’ve reached the point of settling in where clearing Dad’s stuff, unpacking my stuff, moving things around, etc. has slowed down. With that slowing, in moments of sitting back, I realize I feel incredibly “in between”.

I can barely take in that I’m now living in this condo. Incredibly thankful my parents bought it 40+ years ago and that my dad kept it in the divorce so the home at least is deeply familiar. Because I never spent large amounts of time here, I don’t know my way around town well and feel as if I’ve landed in foreign territory when I leave home.

The car navigation system is a must for almost every venture out though I finally have been to a couple of places enough I can just drive to them. Other than chatting a bit with neighbors and cashiers, I’ve not met anyone, don’t have friends here… I miss my fave restaurants in Lexington and am struggling to find places here.

I’m still on zoom for regular happenings at the spiritual center I attended in Lexington and my attempt to reach out to a place here has landed no answer, adding to the feeling of being more connected there than here. Once in a while when out driving in territory I really don’t know I feel untethered, lost on another planet.

And deep within the actual physical relocation and sense of being lost in a strange land, I’m at last at the end of the long healing journey and finished with the caretaker role I’ve held for a long time with my mother. I’ve seen those endings coming for some time and realized nothing loomed to be the next phase and I still have no idea what I want to do next.

My main gratitude, as in so many things, is for the many years of meditation, yoga, emotional clearing, etc. that are allowing me to hold a calm space in the face of this uncertain in between place. When the last of the clearing, unpacking, etc. is done I’m hoping for a quiet spell to contemplate, to let the flow of normal life move me in a new direction…

See No Stranger: an inspiring read

The law was designed to colonize and control the rest of us, not set us free. And yet the founders had invoked words whose power even they could not constrain–justice, freedom, equality, the guarantee of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These were magical words that had a power of their own and seized the imagination of the people for whom they were never meant. In every generation, people had risen up in movements to unleash the magic of these words, to bleed for these words and expand the “we” in “we the people” to include more and more of us. Constitutional Law was an archive of these expansions and contractions.

Kaur, Valerie, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love (One World, 2020), p. 177

I’ve been reading Valerie Kaur’s excellent book, See No Stranger and not only enjoying the book but fascinated by the inner roads its content leads me down. The book is a combo of autobiography and a history of the Revolutionary Love movement she founded.

Ms. Kaur is a Sikh whose family came to the U.S. several generations ago and her commitment to change/transformation began in the wake of 2001 and the backlash of hatred in which many Sikhs suffered violence and death. There were some respects in which her path and mine were similar, politically speaking. I was inspired by the Viet Nam war and the things I learned in college about the many ways our country did not live up to its hype as a welcoming place of freedom.

We both continued to follow those convictions, learning more via things we studied in college, graduate school and then law school. The big difference was that, from the beginning, she “got” how to make every right move from joining with like-minded people, to taking internships and positions that connected her to a more powerful network, to figuring out how to inspire change in a whole community. I never knew how to be that smart about the moves I made; instead I kind of blundered along, studying, volunteering, trying to find jobs that let me help, etc.

One big difference was I homed in, in college, on the “power elite’ aspect of our problem. I quickly understood how deeply the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of the rich and powerful impacts our government and our lives. I studied it from many angles and throughout my anti-war/hippie crowd of friends I talked about it till they told me I was boring. But no one wanted to hear this.

So it’s a little bit hard to launch a movement if you can’t convince anyone there’s even a problem to address. Of course we are now seeing in our country how deeply the rich and corporate factions have affected our lives and that the right wing group is trying to destroy democracy in favor of the rich basically doing whatever they want while everyone struggles, starves, suffers, etc.

But I will admit, I grew up just thinking you got an education and got a job and things fell into place, so I was clueless about seeking out networks, taking positions that would seat me next to power, etc. I can see how many times and ways I failed to make moves that might have put me in a better position to be an influencer.

My dad spent many years at Buick as a second in command in a department which he pretty much ran while a variety of others kept getting promoted over him and then on to higher positions without ever having really done anything in his department. It was years before I realized it boiled down to those other men knowing how to play the political game and my dad hanging out believing that if you worked hard and did the right thing you’d be rewarded. That’s just how I grew up.

What I did do always was to find where I could volunteer to help with environmental issues or get a job where those issues were addressed, attended rallies and marches for many causes and wrote lots of letters to senators and reps. Just a quiet dedication to trying to do something, however small. And I know the world needs the foot soldiers who just do those little things.

But I always kinda wanted to be more like Valarie, moving into a position to influence and really impact change. Very inspiring to read her book. And I love her Revolutionary Love movement!

Losing Mom

My 96 year old mother died last Saturday. At her age I guess it shouldn’t have been a big surprise, but she’d just fought hard through a broken leg and rehab and we were looking forward to doing a few things once she could move a bit more. She was tough and I really thought she’d have another year or two.

Suddenly she was very ill– an undiagnosed issue that had been growing for a while. After nearly 2 weeks of ups and downs from “she’ll be home tomorrow” to “do you want to prolong life or go into hospice” back to “she can come home soon”, to a downhill slide to death sooner than anyone thought.

I’m not only in shock about her, but the house I’ve shared with her since 1998 is on a reverse mortgage and I have to be out in 3 months. So I’ve been frantically going through things, organizing several rooms for an appraiser/real estate firm to look at the good stuff. etc and will be moving to the condo I inherited in Florida. I’m also a bit uneasy about that as I don’t really know people down there and have lived here in Lexington longer than any other place in my life.

The hardest part was watching my mother cope with the prognosis. She wanted to live and started off wanting the long, complicated surgery that would have been required. It was a huge disappointment to her to be told that she was too frail and wouldn’t be cleared to have it. As we rode the roller coaster of opinions from her coming home with me required to do more stuff than I could possibly do for probably some months to her staying in hospice where she’d probably die soon, etc. her distress was palpable. Until it wasn’t and she reconciled with the idea that death would come soon.

After a long, close and sometimes tumultuous relationship in which there was always a little stiffness, we finally said, “I love you” every day and sat for hours at hospital then hospice holding hands. Those moments of finally just settling into the love were priceless.

It’s weird now to be in her house but not able to go tell her things. Weird to watch some of the TV shows we liked to watch together without any commentary from her. To watch the ones she loved the most — and was most looking forward to seeing this summer — and realize she doesn’t get to find out how Bosch or Sweet Magnolias latest seasons ended and won’t know the acts on America’s Got Talent. Other moments I’m kind of relieved as the caretaker duties falling on me have been growing in recent years and it’s a huge weight gone.

Throughout all the increasing caretaker duties, sudden prognosis and now this whirlwind move, I’ve been so incredibly grateful for all the years of emotional work, meditation, yoga, etc. The calm space I’ve come to occupy has kept me from being anywhere close to the level of panic I once would have been in. Not that there’s no panic 🙂 but only at scattered moments. Synchronistically, Deva and Miten are offering a 7 day Gayatri event coinciding with this exact week so I’ve been tuning in to chant and feel the big group energy every day, which really helps. Thank God for my spiritual path.

WordPress Shenanigans? — This, That, and The Other

Many of us have a sense of loyalty and devotion to WordPress. I’ve had several WordPress blogs since migrating from TypePad in 2013. But something may be afoot that will put our loyalty to the test. I don’t know if there is a conspiracy theory going around or if it’s a bad April Fool’s Day […]

WordPress Shenanigans? — This, That, and The Other

Savitri and Me

In the mid-nineties I took a lengthy class with a Sufi master that included some private counseling sessions. During one of those he stopped midstream, staring over my shoulder, and mentioned that he always saw the Goddess Savitri standing over my shoulder and wanted to know if I could feel her.

Well, no, not only had I never heard of Savitri, but I’d definitely never noticed an entity standing at my shoulder. He felt strongly that I should work on sensing into her and learn about who she was. Over the next several years I periodically ran internet searches on Savitri and also tried to find a small statue of her. I don’t know how many of you remember how incredibly primitive internet searches were in those days, but suffice it to say I could find very little.

Savitri is a Hindu goddess who is an aspect of Saraswati. She’s considered an inspirer of speech and word; since I’ve always been a writer and have a long-standing interest in questions of communication as well, it seemed fitting. But I couldn’t find much more. There’s also a mythic Hindu story of a Savitri who I gather was human and I just found the two different tales confusing. Any hunt for a statue of Savitri seemed to lead only to various statues of Saraswati.

I pretty much gave up on the pursuit of knowledge about her or a picture or statue and concentrated on feeling the link. Eventually I felt I had made a connection and have tuned in periodically to commune with her ever since.

Fast forward to recent years, when I’ve moved increasingly into chanting. Six or seven years ago I started a regular chanting practice in which I first spoke the lovingkindness chant and then sang the Gayatri, to which I felt very drawn. Then in 2020, early in the pandemic, Deva Premal and her husband Miten began doing online Gayatri sessions which morphed into a Global Gayatri Sangha with membership and an app and weekly Gayatri. I’ve been participating from fairly near the beginning and feeling ever more connected to the world of singing chants.

Imagine my surprise and delight a couple of weeks ago when Deva introduced a chant to Saraswati and it sparked me to look up Savitri for the first time in years, which led to discovering Savitri is also “Gayatri” and the chant we sing is considered to be Savitri’s. It felt like such a completion of a circle.

I also discovered it’s much easier to find information about her now and to obtain a statue if I decide I still want one. I still find a lot of the commentary confusing and different writers handle all the stuff about “aspects” of goddesses, etc. differently. Some writers consider the Savitri in a story in which she’s married to someone else and seems to be human as the same Savitri who’s a goddess and married to Brahma. Some don’t mention the second story. And the discourse on Savitri vs Saraswati and “aspects” is widely varied. So the connection to Saraswati remains hazy to me; some sources speak of them as if it’s the same being and some discuss the “aspect” thing. But the story of her becoming one with Gayatri and the chant being hers was clear.

I love how the Universe guides us along these paths and brings things together whether we “know” what’s going on or understand all the connections or not.

Some Savitri links:

• https://www.attukaldevi.com/devi/faq-who-is-devi-savitri-goddess.html
• https://www.hindu-blog.com/2011/05/goddess-savitri.html
• https://vedicgoddess.weebly.com/goddess-vidya-blog/savitri-maa

Straddling the science line

The enormous divide over science wrought by the advent of Covid has left me in an interesting spot. I’ve not seen an allopathic medical doctor in 30+ years and I totally credit an alternative health path with slowly but surely healing ailments that, when I began, Western medicine insisted did not exist.

However, I always felt that allopathic medicine knew what it was doing on certain things. I used to joke that if I’d been in an accident and clearly needed a cast and some stitches, I wouldn’t tell the ambulance to take me to my acupuncturist. And I also think Western medicine has been pretty good at figuring out vaccines, so I had no problem about getting a Covid vaccine as soon as I could and I jumped on the opportunity for a booster.

But the arguments have led to a lot of ugly remarks about alternative medicine and I’m really disturbed by the ignorance with which so many assume “science” has everything right and that if big studies haven’t proven something it means it’s wrong. Acupuncture and many herbal traditions, for example, have thousands of years of history and, as both have been increasingly studied both are being shown to be effective. Yet even such studies have made very small inroads into the arrogance of allopathic medicine practitioners about the superiority of what they do.

Early in the 20th century, the U.S. had a fairly large array of homeopathic, osteopathic, herbal, etc. schools and a lot of people went to such practitioners for health care rather than medical doctors. A seminal paper by Abraham Flexner (who’d been a teacher, not a doctor) in 1910 promoted biomedicine and wound up having such an influence that biomedicine dominated and the thriving alternatives withered away. The Flexner Report of 1910 and Its Impact on Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Psychiatry in North America in the 20th Century

Perhaps my biggest issue with biomedicine is the lack of interest in actually curing people. The orientation is to finding drugs that will mask symptoms and without regard to possibly causing other ailments because of something in the drug. It ties people often to a lifetime of taking a drug– which means continually having to consult with the doctor to get renewals — and then having to take another drug to deal with the symptoms caused by the first drug, also endless because it masks instead of curing.

I will not be at all surprised if, somewhere down the road, an exposé shows collusion between the AMA and big Pharma on keeping patients tied to a lifetime of dependence on their “treatments” and continually adding on more problems created by side effects and drug interactions.

The approach of most alternative medicine modalities is to try to find the source of the problem and discover what combination of herbs, diet changes, exercise, etc. will get to the source and cure the problem. The process sometimes takes time — in my case, years — but leads to restoring optimum health. Suppression of Symptoms is Not a Cure of the Disease

I consider myself fortunate to have landed on the alternative path and I have allopathic medicine to thank for sending there. When I first started suffering extreme fatigue and pain in my muscles, the biomedicine community was quite sure that neither existed and told me to see a shrink. I knew something was wrong and had friends who were seeing acupuncturists, chiropractors, etc. so I got recommendations and set off down the path.

For me the whole story wound up being complicated by the eventual realization that all my muscles, including even the connective ones, were tightly wound around all my organs and glands. Initially none of the practitioners could see that, but their tests showed weaknesses in all the organs and glands and thus kept treating me on a rotating basis for those. Since they were, in fact, weak, all the herbs, needles, etc. gave me boosts that helped me move along but not the type of progress anyone thought I’d make. Once I focused on the muscles and getting the complicated patterns released, everything started improving.

I’ve spent years seeing brilliant practitioners of many alternative modalities and all have contributed progress to the long, slow process of restoring my health from being so exhausted I slept 16 hours a day and then was so weak I couldn’t stand up through a whole shower. Also moved from having every single muscle from head to toe wound up like a steel rod, intertwined with other muscles, muscle groups glued together, etc. to a life in which most of my muscles have been restored to normal and my energy is much greater. Because of this restoration of REAL health, I have enormous respect for alternative medicine.

On the other hand, I can point directly to failures of western medicine to SO many of the muscle issues that resulted from either having injuries to muscles or ligaments that weren’t even diagnosed to injuries for which they felt no need to do anything. I have enormous contempt for their lack of knowledge of musculature. and how much it impacts health. When biomedicine finally decided fibromyalgia existed they came up with a treatment that, as usual, masks symptoms without doing anything to cure. Had I been stuck in that model I would still be taking meds for pain while every muscle remained twisted instead of enjoying more flexibility and healthy movement that ever before.

Ever since I ran into the great divide provided by Dr. Flexner, I have wished we could find a way to return to the broader array of healing choices that used to be the norm. In the meantime I straddle the line, willing to have a vaccine or be treated for trauma by western medicine and looking to alternative medicine for actually being healthy.

Kate Raworth again

I’ve posted this video before. Am posting again in part because it is so important re: shaking up thinking about “economy” but also because I’m taking it off “pinned tweet” status on Twitter and want to park the link for it in a spot where I can access it easily to pin again later 🙂

When we talk about raising wages then say prices have to go up we are ignoring the elephant. The assumption everything re: economy has to grow & grow. Not the only way to do it. Time to cut corporate power & stop assuming profits have to go up & up. (1) https://t.co/jzz4kOBR0s— LeighG (@spiritULeigh) August 3, 2021

A Week of Chanting

The first week of January turned into a week of chanting and chanting for me, not entirely by design, but a delightful accumulation of events. I signed up for “Ecstatic Chant” a six-day workshop featuring Deva Premal & Miten, Jai Uttal and Krishna Das, not having noted that Deva and Miten were also doing the second annual New Year’s week daily 108 round Gayatri and not assuming Krishna Das would also do his regular Thursday satsang. But all were happening and I really worked at keeping up.

Managed to do every day of the 108 round Gayatri, which I find incredibly powerful. This time it also became more of an exercise in mindfulness than usual, which I’ll discuss more below. Also got to tune in for the satsang. The workshop I fit in around the other things (plus, you know, I have a life) as best I could — still have some to watch so very grateful they’re giving us a month to see the videos.

I’m not sure I have adequate words to describe how it felt by the end of the week to spend that many hours a day chanting and/or listening to chant. Extraordinary. Uplifting. Pulsating. All are true and yet don’t quite say how amazing it was. Really loved it!

The first day of the Gayatri there were either transmission problems or my YouTube was acting up — they often have trouble with signals in Costa Rica and YouTube has been screwing up for me a LOT — but the Gayatri was stopping and starting, stopping and starting. I was using my mala beads but I kept singing on into dead spaces and then picking up again with them when the stream re-started. Soon I was struggling to decide where I was on the beads and realizing the struggle was moving me out of connection with the mantra.

Thus the chant became a challenge for staying mindful. Only at the end did I laugh as I realized I could have just put the beads down… Meanwhile I considered the challenge well met when I wound up in the right place with the beads while keeping attention on the mantra. Afterwards I realized the starting and stopping and beads distraction had kept me from feeling thrown by the super fast guitar playing that goes on in sections of the 108 round version.

The next day the transmission was fine and when the –to-me– frantic guitar playing started my heart started pounding and my stomach tightened up as usual. Then I remember how the distractions the day before had kept me from reacting and concentrated on the lyrics to move me into the chant and out of noticing. Good reminder that I can mindfully make choices about how to react and what to notice, etc.

I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop sessions viewed so far and Krishna Das’ Thursday evening satsangs are always good. I will say as far as the workshop, not much was done kirtan style and many chants were new to me so while I loved every minute, listening was not as spiritually expansive for me as it is to chant the Gayatri with the Global Gayatri Sangha — often thousands of us at a time from around the world.

The overall experience of spending hours and hours in one week chanting was divine. In a future post I’ll talk about how my slow, tentative launch onto a path of chanting is contributing to the “sparkles” I discussed in the last post.

All the Sparkle

Increasingly over the last couple of years I’ve noticed the world looking more sparkly. Literally looking around and seeing things shining, sparkling everywhere.

It started from the very practical purchase of a new dishwasher. a couple of years ago. It took some months but eventually it managed to clear off all the collected lime on glasses and silverware and I started noticing how shiny they looked. But it’s kept going from there.

The last couple of years have seen a lot of movement for me on emotional and health issues, including some big shifts in outlook. A really psychic friend of mine commented recently when I talked about all that’s been opening up in the muscles in my face and how it has been changing my world that she pictured me literally getting rid of anchors all around me that had been holding me stuck in place for years. Perfect fit for how it’s been feeling and my long-time sense the tight muscles have been instrumental in “stuckness”.

This sense of being more free on many levels and finally moving forward is so powerful. And I feel like a good deal of the sparkle I see around flows from that.

A huge amount of the tightness in my facial muscles has been centered around keeping my optic nerve squeezed tight, which causes near-sightedness according to my late, amazing vision therapist, Dr. Sirota. As the muscles finally loosen, I periodically notice increments of seeing more clearly; the clear field moving outward an inch or two at a time. The opening lately leaves me feeling that the changing vision also contributes to seeing all those sparkles.

Wherever it comes from, I must say, I LOVE looking around the world and seeing sparkles!!!

Towel Day

Wow the last two years have impacted blogging for me; not planned just some combo of Covid , caring for my Mom since she broke her hip and coping with my dad’s estate have added so much to my schedule I’ve not managed to reorganize. At the same time, I’ve continued a process I began a while before Covid hit of trying to get back to keeping more of life on a schedule. Coping with health issues for years pretty much threw schedules and normalcy out the window; even things like cleaning and laundry were hit or miss for years.

A couple of years ago I splurged and purchased new towels to replace the old sorry ones I’d had for years. At the same time I decided I wanted to have a schedule for changing out dirty for clean. So Saturday became “towel day”. Every Saturday, fresh towels. It’s also sort of laundry day though laundry often happens more on whatever day a load is “enough”; the change is all of it gets done in the course of a week. So Saturdays, clean towels and some sort of clean laundry.

Towel day has been happening for a couple of years now and today as I shifted out last week’s for the clean ones, I realized how hugely satisfying it is to have a schedule.

Over the same couple of years, some house cleaning projects, dish washing and dishwasher schedule have also been moving into new patterns of regularity. and I’ve been happy to feel those happening too.

It’s funny for me because in many ways I’ve always been a person who fights schedules and rigid lists of what needs to happen when. But after years of chronic fatigue and muscle issues throwing life into chaos where everything became hit or miss, it’s SUCH a comfort to restore some order. I also love that the fact that I can is a reflection of how much better I’m doing.

I also love that my consciousness of gratitude leaves me feeling so happy about nice, still fluffy new-ish towels, always clean and knowing when I last put clean ones out. Small things that mean so much.

Chat as Map of Monkey Mind

Since the pandemic started so many meetings, services, etc. are being shown or held on Facebook, YouTube, Zoom, etc. I totally appreciate the opportunity to participate safely in gatherings I love. “Chat” columns are often open to the side or just below these videos and I began to notice they offer an interesting visual of monkey mind.

Monkey mind, aka wild mind, refers to the way our thoughts tend to run wild, to chatter like monkeys. All day. Every day, masses of thoughts jumbling through our minds. I first noticed the chat phenomenon during an Ahava Center for Spiritual Living service. We had a special guest speaker, Reverend Sunshine Daye and her talk was SO good. A talk to fall into, to exercise every power of right listening on, to drink in every word. And through the whole thing, out of the corner of my eye, I could see chat messages flying by.

Once I’d noticed it there, I began seeing it all the time. During any Ahava service. During Deva Premal’s and Miten’s weekly Gayatri meditations. While Jack Kornfield gives a talk, etc. My guess would be that at in person services at any given moment many people’s minds would be composing grocery lists, choosing paint colors, remembering childhood ills, fretting over an unhappy conversation, etc. While everyone might be sitting quietly through the event, monkey mind would be busily in action around the room. But we manage to seem present because no one can see the thoughts chasing around in everyone’s minds.

With chat visually present on the screen, we can see how busily people’s minds are racing the whole time they’re supposedly chanting or participating in a meditation or listening to a deep spiritual talk. Granted, in these situations the “chatter” is generally more on topic, love emojis, repetitions of lines of the chant, comments on specifics of a talk, etc. But it still involves not really sitting with an empty mind and meditating or chanting or listening, etc.

No judgement, we all struggle to control those inner chattering monkeys, but really fascinating to watch it in action while attending church or meditation, etc. Has anyone else been noticing?