Remember the three little pigs?

We, Pete and I are in the middle of an ongoing process to heal and make our way in the world -- both on a material and spiritual level.  The process is messy, and moves in all directions at once sometimes, and stands stark still at others.  With our home as tiny as a closet, perched on two wheels, the reality of limits forms sharp squares and we run into the walls easily because of course it takes no more than four or five steps to reach the farthest wall in a vardo. 

I often use astrology to angle my way through the maze of my life that will not sort from within my brain or mind.  Astrology gives me a Cosmic Pie to view and chew; the planets and locations/definitions of the Houses helps to navigate.  With the language of astrology prototypes of behavior show themselves and I jiggle the information and try to apply insight to my life.  This post is another one of those jiggles of information.  We are living with others (they are our benefactors) and have been more than once in our lives.  We receive benefit and yet, the imbalance of a relationship like this can become a pattern ... and that's what is happening here in the Mill Town.  The balance has tipped, the boundaries have been crossed and the process for healing or inflamation is in the balance.

Yesterday, when I walked through the side door of the main house I smelled chemicals.  Strong, unexpected and unidentified.  I held my mask to my face and also held my nose, and closed the basement door behind me.  WTF!  I know that chemicals are used in the house and have made adjustments to their use.  The smell yesterday was different. 

By mid-day I was sick from the exposure; headache, nausea and weakness; then anger and rage, disorientation.  I had time to rest and do the things that calm me.  Finally, late in the afternoon I was able and ready to ask , "Did you use chemicals?"  "Yes, their in here."  She indicated the kitchen, and continued saying, "it was grungy and I swabbed down all the counters with cleaners."  God, it was worse than I thought.  I turned to her from behind my mask and said, "My friendship with you is a real contradiction...You choose to use chemicals that make me sick!"  Caught unaware(?) she said, "I'm sorry."  I could not remain in the kitchen much longer than that, and said, "I've gotta move on."

The ripple of those actions are felt today:  Pete has had his own conversations with both friends who live here and share their home.  Boundaries and limits are the issue and more will be revealed.  My karmic lesson is "Cooperation" and I am learning that there are always at least two sides to every story.  The title of this post and the cartoon here point to the children's tale "The Three Little Pigs" ... a parable for teaching what values count in the 'building of one's home".  I know that I come with issues that surround my self-value and the astrology of the 8th House helps me look at myself with insight and compassion:  I have a legacy of conflict about self-worth, resources and the ability to make my way in the way (materially).  My conflicts with "benefactors" have repeated themselves throughout my life, and MCS has magnified these conflicts. 

What to put where? Letting go and the process involved

The in between stage ... the 'ole moon phases ... that has just passed (four days of them) prove to be hard won times of reassembling life for me.  The broken bone in my arm is healing, I am writing this with both fingers on two hands.  Remedies and diagnosis helped:  noni fruit leather and ti leaf compresses eased the original pain, arnica montana a homeopathic blood thinner has helped with the pain too, and then a blend of comfrey and other botanicals concocted for tissue and bones soothes the aching joints and shock to the rest of my body due to the fall.  The sling given to me at the clinic is too stinky with dyes and petrochem smells to use, so it has been in milk and vinegar baths and now hangs outside on my bike handle airing out.  A thrift store table cloth bought and destinked last year serves as my sling.  And, after a week theNoni has turned my skin to rash...for just a while, and only for a time, the fruit did help.  Breaking bone and falling at 62 years is at best an inconvenience and a spiritual wakeup call ... at the other end of things as I mend physically and emotionally, I am met once again with old, old "hungry ghosts" who taunt me from places of long ago vulnerability.

Throughout my life, I have been a seeker.  Even now I am not always sure what I seek, I mainly know I seek.  Astrology has offered me the satisfaction of grand tools of explanation for things that I cannot undertand in the daily practicals.  For example, as I chatted with my friend Lois yesterday, about my progress with the fall, this old friend (Pisces) can lay out an explanation that would take me paragraphs to explain.  She is different than I, yet she can attune to me and to her self.  When we are chatting like this its primal nourishment ... I feel known and I know she 'sees' me.  The contradictory reality of our friendship (she uses many toxic cleaners and likes her fragrances) means being a self-regulating adult who can set limits and boundaries that are best for me .... I stay clear when the dryer is filled with bleached clothes and don't get near her when she's freshly from the salon or made-up.  Where do you put the differences between one and the other?  How does a person living with multiple chemical sensitivites learn to express needs and values while maintaining true support?  It's not a simple or one-dimensional answer.  What does matter though is the daily and real commitment to love one another.  There's no end to the things that one person does that is contrary to me.  I've lived more than fourteen years of trying to put distance of safety between others choices and the others I believed right for me.  Where has it led?

I think it important for me to describe the very real experiences that include facing and making peace, over and over again, if necessary, the hungry ghosts that are part of my life of origin.  Medical doctor, Gabor Mate of Vancouver, works with the addicts in the skidroad section of downtown Vancouver.  My life includes very early & genetic memory of addiction, so at low points I slide from grace and try again to change the unchangeable(the past/yesterday) and slip from the STEPS of a foundation of recovery that serves us who are family of addiction.  The links throughout this post will take you to more about Mate's work, and his recent book..  The first book I have attempted to read is his newest book In the Realm of  Hungry Ghosts.  Amy Goodman from Democracy Now (see our sidebar for a link) interviewed Dr. Mate on at least two ocassions and I listened to this man describe the interconnection of early adaptive behavior and on-going addiction in our culture today.  Astrology has other ways of spotting legacy or past life inheritance.  Among them, the nodes of the moon The South (the soul's baggage) and The North Node (where the soul seeks to evolve) offer clues and still I must act or think differently even after I am informed to evolve.  Anyway, flipping gingerly, since sensitivity to print and book binding limits my once obsessive love of books, through Dr. Mate's sizeable accounting of first-hand experiences with both his own addictive nature and that of his addict clients from the Downtown Eastside Vancouver clinic, I gleaned a bit of information to consider as part of my seeker's kit. 

Notes from the vardo about ultraviolet jackhammering

I'm leaving comments on the original post about practicing Donna Cunningham's "Ultraviolet Jackhammer." It's a way to keep track of the progress with this form of clearing thought forms that really have to go.

thank god, i know some things ...

Our Grand Ave encampment is reminding me of the progress I'm making living with MCS. Pete and I lived at this address in Everett two years ago when both our health and our spirits were stretched to a fine thread. With little to believe in and hope at its lowest we had the love and support of two friends who helped us through. Between times mawaina the harsh reality of what it can be like living with a chronic illness whose only cure is to live without exposure to toxic chemicals, and toxic attitudes (external and internal). It's been a slog, and the stuff of nightmares or fairy tales. We have traveled many more thousands of miles since that two year stay on Grand Ave, and have made progress since those debilitated times. Living with this chronic illness demands being aware nearly all the time; that can be an exhausting job. Thing is though, in a very meaningful way exhausting or not it's my job, and my life and by the gods I'm finding the joy in really knowing how to do this job ... a bit, a moment, an experience, a day at a time. Rather than focus only on the woe of it all, there are real successes to this nearly invisibly journey of victories.

Pete is out shopping for a few things for Thanksgiving. Our friends are going to another friend's for Thanksgiving. I bought a free range turkey the other day thinking maybe we'd gather for the celebration even while I knew I couldn't sit, and eat with my friends or be in the house without a mask. Well, we, Pete and I, will be the gathered and there are gifts to celebrate anyway. The basement kitchenette we've set up is plenty enough to season and stuff our turkey. There's an oven in the house that Pete can turn on (it's gas) and then vacate while our turkey dinner cooks. He tolerates being inside a lot better than I, so who knows, there's always a ball game on for Thanksgiving and he has been known to watch them games. I'll putter in the vardo during the cooking, and maybe go for a walk with my mask and scarf. The progress is ... we know what we can do and know what we can't.

Here are a few of those small and real improvements, and sequential learnings that have come over the past two years. These are in a random sort of stream that is like one of my favorite ways of praying.

When I am having a particularly low-down day or night and have little energy to recall a prayer I can say/chant, I am usually able to say the alphabet. A, B, C, D, ..... and end by thinking "God, you put them together you know what I'm saying better than I can at the moment." Then, I start over until I fall asleep.

• i know being inside a house is like being in a store (even the best of non-stinky stores is a 30-45 minute experience) ... short doses of house time works.

• i know it's best for me to braid my hair and tuck it under my hat/cap when I'm out of the vardo (house smells-store smells-neighborhood smells collect in my hair and then ... {the sequential learning}i have a choice to wear my mask to sleep until my hair off-gasses or wash it with baking soda.)

• i know my twitchy nose is telling me something (i still need to learn the distinction between a full-on red light twitch and a milder alert)

• heart palpitations are an indicator that something's put me over the top. The year and a half of working with my NAET practitioner has taught me that my thyroid and heart are intimately connected. When my heart starts to flutter or race it may be my thyroid (and my heart, too) that needs attending.

• i can be in the vardo with a book Pete's reading now (i just need to be on the other side of the futon or have Pete read from the floor)

• NAET treatments i do for myself help boost my body-mind's ability to reach equilibrium (my muscle-testing confidence and objectivity is much improved over the past two years)

• living with other people who are not fragrance or chemical free doesn't mean I can't love them. (this is a daily experience in setting workable boundaries, tolerance, forgiveness and letting go)

• i know what worked yesterday might not work today (like the Tropical Traditions Unscented bar soap that has been my toothpaste, shampoo, bath soap for two years is now making me itch) ... there's a hot shower with a shower head filter and that's big~

• i know i can wash my clothes and me/my hair with lemon juice or baking soda

• i know writing is one of my best forms of healing

• i find comfort through connection with others learning to live a new quality of life with chronic illness (see our sidebar for links to those connections)

• i know when i am worn from the everyday dance of avoidance i must find ways to comfort myself. I found this article on Planet Thrive written by Susun Weed, Master Herbalist, about dealing with the anxiety that comes from living with chronic conditions, and especially like the description of "unfreezing" ... I do this one often.

Unfreeze yourself: Curl up in a fetal position (on your side with knees drawn up), breathe deeply, and hum. You may want to rock back and forth. Concentrate on what feelings want to emerge. Do not be surprised if grief is what you are really feeling. (Click on the link above to read the entire article)

• i know the value of love and ancient ways and give thanks for ti leaves my son has brought from Manoa to clear the way ... and pray for the righteousness of the gathering in spite of harvest during an 'ole moon.
  

Small changes, real changes, creating a new set of normals. Sending blessings and gratitudes. Happy Thanksgiving Day.
Mokihana and Pete

COSMIC PIE: Using the natural zodiac on the way to a satisfied soul

The Natural Zodiac
Cosmic pie in twelve pieces

It's a glorious summer day. Life is full, the dehydrator is drying up the first batch of Pete's Buckie Crackers we've made in two years, Bernadette our '66 one ton flat bed truck has a new windshield gasket (which is making Pete light-headed ...

time in the sun for off-gassing will be next!) so we can eventually drive her in pouring raining, we've got our wheat grass growing and juiced a bunch for breakfast. I'm moving forward in clearing the pockets of pilau (crap) left from herbicides and fragrances from scents. Plenty of good stuff is happening. The fact that there are rough patches through which we scrape our way is part of the whole, and in light of all this evidence of positives it helps to acknowledge how I get through the rough spots ... part of the process of opting out of suffering. In addition to the helpful treatments and caring ways in which I malama this makua, there are the cosmic pies like astrology. Let's see if I can translate the use of astrology and the natural zodiac to get at the bigger picture. I'll start with this comment I left over on ElsaElsa.com this morning and let the story unfold. Link on that highlight above to get a full picture of the astrology of things.

"This is a big piece of Cosmic Pie and this ole girl she loves pie. I’ve been following the thread and watching the vids to eat just one more piece of Cosmic Pie. I am in the 12th house phase of my understanding and ultimate acceptance of the reassembled truth of my health. I am affected by the whole and after 15 years of trying to out run the natural zodiac I get that my plane is down, the losses are great, the grief exists, I have been pissed with the gods and they still hang in there to wait it out with me. I’m cappy moon in the the 12th living in a moon shaped house on wheels smaller than plenty of folks’ walk-in closet. I get to accept my fate and grow gardens where EVER my wheelie home rolls.

The Cosmic Pie you’ve served up here Elsa and the wonderful conversation that was shared because someone (Double Cappy, thank you:]) asked is so perfect. I’m gonna try to translate this onto my blog today, maybe a great thing for a solar eclipse that is supposed to be easy on the Scorps. Thanks a million Elsa and all."

This is turning out to be a very long post, ... so take a break, get some tea, take a nap and then come on back.

"after 15 years of trying to out run the natural zodiac I get that my plane is down, the losses are great, the grief exists, I have been pissed with the gods and they still hang in there to wait it out with me. I’m cappy moon in the the 12th living in a moon shaped house on wheels smaller than plenty of folks’ walk-in closet. I get to accept my fate and grow gardens where EVER my wheelie home rolls." For readers who are new to this blog, welcome to our world where solutions are wide, deep, broad and linked together in an eccentric way. Astrology is one of the many tools I use to make sense of the nature of human. I don't always get the 'why' unless I go way out there, and really have a newbie sense of 'how to be human' so much of the time. Living with Multiple chemical sensitivities, allergies et.al. has been a struggle. The recent exposure to herbicides has tripped the lever on healing at a deep level for me. I used the holistic/Pythagorean explanation of retracing to sort through the process of re-living the aggravations and illnesses/symptoms. It helps me. I seek the personal stories of others who have found solutions to their exposure symptoms.

Astrological insight gives me a view beyond the physical and taps into the Cosmos where words are fleeting, and navigation more ancient. The thread of comments that grew from Elsa P's videos suggesting the use of the Natural Zodiac to opt out of suffering included some very personal insights. I especially liked this comment from Toni, and with permission from Elsa (thanks, EP) I am rewriting it here as a way to connect the journey through the zodiac with my own experience accepting chronic illness and multiple chemical sensitivities. The clan of canaries who live with or support the lives of canaries with chemical sensitivties and environmentally induced illness find relief and solace in diverse ways. Health is defined in so many ways. Here's one way of reckoning truth.

Thanks, Toni

Note: for anyone who is unfamiliar with the Natural Zodiac there are many informative sites to explain the Twelve positions or Houses of the Chart (pictured at the start of this post).

The Houses start with Aries in the 1st House, found at lower half of the chart in the 8:00 position, and continue counter-clock-wise in turn.

1st house- Fighting physically/emotionally.

I return to Hawaii after a 23 year marriage ends. Childhood asthma shows up in reaction to mock orange blossoms and fireworks. I am shocked! I fight back, go to the emergency room and get oxygen, inhalers and a diagnosis that "You have asthma!" Ha? No asthma for 23 yrs away ... then I do. Talk about retracing.

2nd house- Saying ‘no, this isn’t happening.’

Exactly! 2nd house is all about action and anger. I went through lots of that, years of it. Anger directed at my ex-husband, and then the flowers, my past. Things just kept irritating me. I keep fighting, take the medication, and try to get my way.

3rd house- Thinking of a way to get out.

I have a large head, and a history of thinking or reading my way through problems. I had no idea of what 'multiple chemical sensitivities' was or that I was headed down that track. There was surely something else going on with me ... a fix was some where I was not! Emotions, relations and communication get tangled up and crazy.

4th house- Grieving.

New love had come into my life. I grieved the old, yet the hope of new love fueled my sinking ship, my diving plane. There was no doubt my health was tentative, I was moving more in one year than I had in 23. Places weren't safe for long, that hurt, I didn't know how to 'do' this. Where was my place called home?

5th house- Searching deeper in your inner self.

I turned to yoga and supplements to heal me. I walked into the rooms of Al-Anon for a spiritual practice that would tie things together and turned my life over to a power greater than myself. Thing is, I thought the 'cure' would kick in and level life out. I was still doing the control it bit, but I was doing it with grace and Mountain Pose.

6th house- Thinking of the details in order to get out.

Health crises increased even with my yoga and Al-Anon foundations. I began writing more and more. Used words to craft a world that comforted me, explained the inexplicable. The teacher me sought service to others as a way to make things better.

7th house- Weighing both sides of the plan.

My thyroid expands, swelling to the point of undeniable 'issue.' I look at all the possible solutions and decide not to have the glands surgically removed. I still hold fast to the belief that the body - mind - spirit will heal. I begin a raw food life, see healing results and continue to be on the move from one more toxic exposure to herbicides and VOG. We move back to where we started ... and begin spending summers on the continental USA. My relationship with Pete changes, we marry.

8th house- Psychology, like Elsa said. Why am I feeling this way?

HERE'S WHERE A LOT OF TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL LIVES ... I come to this very question ... "Why am I feeling this way (after all the good stuff have been doing to make it different?" Saturn and Mars play significant roles in my 8th house. Saturn is about the step by step slow and steady process and no short-cuts allowed reality. Mars is the way a person acts. Together I began seeing that something was missing from the view-master. Pieces were missing from my jigsawed life. There was no denying some things:

1. pesticides and herbicides are bad period.

2. people use them and won't change their habit even when they see how it made me sick. Bad People!

3. moving from house to house/island to island/island to continent was wearing me out.

4. what were the options?

9th house- Why is God doing this to me? What’s the meaning of all this?

At this point Pete and I have bottomed out significantly. We are living in the car, being rousted by the cop, and keep getting poisoned by herbicides. While living in the Subaru we come to sleep nightly at the Tide Pools near Sandy Beach on O'ahu's west side. This is a major healing spot for me. Of the many places on the Earth, these Tide Pools have been a source of care for me since I was a small girl. Night after night we pull into our parking spot after dark and set up our car for sleep. Unsure of our 'safety' yet given no other place to be surrender waits and we drop into it.

Meaning comes from the humiliation, and soon we find that indeed, 'our plane is going down' and there's no stopping it from crashing. We become nomads with a diagnosis: nomad with multiple chemical sensitivities. The illness is not just in my mind, it is in my body.

10th house- Limit the problem.

Six months of living off and on in the car gives you a set of boundaries that could come from no other experience. We know a few more things, and have left behind most of our former chattels of living. We know mobility is a good option for us. We suspect we could build something safe and mobile. We begin to recognize the limitations of a 'formerly normal house' and use surrender to craft a land ark.

11th house- Hoping and wishing. Praying.

Friendships and hope come in such different packages during this stage of our process. In a year we live with or in the general vacinity of eight different friends or family members for as little as a few hours to as much as six months. We do more praying than we'd ever done. We hope for guidance when decisions don't make sense. Some people 'get the conditions of this illness' most don't. I learn to hide from old friends who knew me 'before.' It's easier to not explain.

12th house- Surrendering to the universe and believing there is a bigger plan.

I think we're here now. The blogs we began writing back in October, 2008 are the musings and reality of a surrendered life. Multiple chemical sensitivities is a real day to day, night through the night reality. It is not going to go back to being 'like it was before.' And, it's not likely we would be able to live as we have lived before. My search for transcendent truths take me from fairy tale maker to astrology student, raw food and organic gardener to writer of eccentric blogs and lover to a mate who came to me later in the Cosmic Pie Eating process.

Chronic illness is the universe's ultimate practical joke. It might not seem fair on most days, and probably isn't. Just the same, it does something to my evolving sense of surrender to consider that possibility. If you've made it through and have some energy for a comment, I'd welcome it. Comments aren't common here, yet there's always a possibility ...

Thank the gods for MCS ... RETRACING ILLNESS, The Body-Mind Wisdom, Zen-down parlor, 12th House Perspective

Kwan Yin greets us at the door with daisies from our garden, gifts of tea pot, painting, galloping horses vase and three precious ocean stones in a pot of aloe. The tall swirling glass goblet a treasure still with me after all these years ...

Our zen-down parlor thanks to the healing affects of retracing

Changes to the oasis bed-room space ... lightening up, seasonal change, ulu (breadfruit) hang on the back wall.

We had a visitor to the Ledge yesterday. Company and social graces are often part of the losses that count heaviest in the process of living with long-term chronic illness. Multiple Chemical Sensitivities makes a visitor a very big deal! Our visitor is a friend who also lives with MCS. She was in need of a day's escape from serious logging being done right behind her house. Mustering enough energy to make the two hour drive is one more example of the tenacity that bubbles to the fore when you know what needs to be done, and do it even when it's hard. We spent the afternoon chatting and generally hanging out on the steps of the Vardo, conscious that there was lots of tree VOC (volatile organic compounds) emitting terpenes and tannins. Still, the promise of good company and shared experiences with an illness that creates grievous losses made the afternoon a time of grace.

When our friend called to say she was on her way Pete checked with me first. "Are you still up for a visitor?" He knew the past few days have been rough with symptoms. "Sure!" I answered still dazed from disturbed sleep, irritation and sensitization to EVERY thing, and an invitation to slip into the dross waiting with my name of it. I took all the time I needed to rest and comfort my body and mind that morning. In retrospect something I have known for a long time was feeding me positive inclinations. From the homeopathic frame of consciousness and well-ness the experiences of the past week have been and continue to be Retracing the illnesses that my body- mind remember allowing healing at a deep level to be possible. If I fight that natural wisdom the process is tougher. It lengthens. If I am unconscious of the process it's likely the Retracing will re-peat the next time I am exposed to an old trigger ie. herbicides and pesticides.
Today I needed to clear out even more 'furnishings' from inside the Vardo. A newly built oak bench milk-painted by my dear man Pete set off a reaction. No, not yet and maybe just 'no.' A change in the porch done a couple days ago is triggering additional reactions. The switch of sensitivity is 'on' and when it's a high-end trigger like herbicides the Retracing phenomenon activates. What I was not reactive to a month ago might create a reaction today ... This is the stuff that can be maddening if I take up that invitation to the dross.

I always look for the messengers and the messages(link on the colors to get a 12th house astrological perspective from one of my messengers ... Elsa P.) and a Visitor is always a messenger in what ever guise she comes. Because there was a distraction from the usual, we enjoyed interaction, shared stories, insight, laughter and strawberry rhubarb pie made fresh by aka. Turtle Woman. The reality of aging and illness showed up with pie, yet it was not the only presence. Retracing symptoms also called 'healing crisises or healing opportunities' kept showing up. The vertigo, the aches, sore throat and the explosive need to go to the toilet are all part of the Retracing. Along with the symptoms we have cleared the front half of our tiny home and now have a zen-down parlor with tiles bare and clear, a lighter covering of old cotton panels on the back wall and when we're not using the heater or laptop we pull the plugs to reduce electromagnetic emissions.

Here's an excerpt from an article called "Retracing: The untold story" from the Pythagorean Center for Natural Healing Newsletter. It may be review to some and new to others. It was just what I was needed to remember today.

The inability of the body-mind to self-heal may be expressed in these simple terms: health is a balance between inhalation and exhalation. In other words, we must be able to inhale good nutrition in the forms of good air, water, food and constructive emotions and we must be able to exhale physical and mental toxins. When this cycle is interrupted we develop "accumulations" which lower our vitality.

Natural therapies can open the circulation, restore the nerve supply, and improve the nutrition, allowing a person's well-being and self-healing ability to slowly increase.

Constantine Hering, MD., the well-known American homeopath, formulated what is called Hering's Law of Cure which states that "disease is healed from inside out, from the head down, and in the reverse order that it appeared." Healing occurs in the body at the deepest level first, then surfaces by moving from the head to the toes. The patient's most recent illness is the one that heals first, after which previous illnesses are "retraced" back to the oldest (historically).

As the patient begins to heal, he/she frequently experiences what are called "aggravations" which are flare-ups of present or past illnesses. These flare-ups are due to increased blood and nerve supply to blocked areas of the body, and after the aggravation, the patient always feels better.

Daniel David Palmer, D.C., founder of chiropractic, also referred to the flow of the healing process as "above, down, and inside to outside." This universal law of health, by its very existence, indicates that the body has its own priorities in getting well and, in fact, knows what to do better than we do. The Vital Force will direct its own healing if we supply what it needs. Dr. Bernard Jensen, D.C., Ph.d., in his book "The Doctor Patient Handbook," acknowledges the awesome potential inside all of us when he states:

"The body could manifest no greater proof of its ability to be self-adjusting, self-regenerating, and self-healing than it does through the retracing of disease and the production of the healing crisis."

This post has been modified (no worry, it's not GMO).