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Frequency

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The physicist I worked with in Colorado is trained in brain mapping and uses a machine developed by NASA during president Gerald Ford’s watch to ease the effects of the havoc extensive travel did to his circadian rythms.

The machine carries a library of thousands of frequencies known to have an effect on the human body and it’s function and well being.

There are only three such machines in existence.

The other two people trained in this work practice solely on celebrities and athletes.

A treatment with my Doc consists of an initial report of current symptoms and her decision as to where to concentrate. There seems to be quite a bit of backround homework she does before and between each appointment.

During an hour long session she attaches electrode bands to my feet, hands, back of neck and forehead respectively for 15 minutes each.

The machine then makes frequencies available for my body to take up as it feels the need.

Nothing is done TO me. My body decides what and if it needs anything.

I feel nothing except a refined ‘buzz’ during the treatment.

The first trip I made to Colorado 8 weeks ago was primarily dedicated to working on my sluggish digestive system.

She said I could not move toward health until my body was adept in taking in the nutrients I gave it in the form of food and supplements.

I was down to eating around 10 foods that I knew would not irritate my stomach and cause a distended belly.

After our initial time together, I can now eat more normally and feel a boost to my constitutional strength which has stayed with me.

During this visit we worked with my ability to get a full 8 hours of restful sleep.

I seem to carry a hefty amount of low grade anxiety along with having to pee 4-5 times per night.

This disallows deep and restorative sleep.

We also worked on detoxing me.

I met with her twice per day for 4 days.  It was intense but doable and after each treatment I returned to the hotel to sleep.

I pretty much slept most of the time I was not in a cab or on her table.

After the first day, I itched and scratched my way through the night, breaking the skin at times from the release of unwanted toxins my body had been harboring.

This lasted the night but was gone in the morning.

She worked quite a bit on my sacrum area and the results have been that yesterday, as I practiced re-entry into my familiar world in Santa Fe, I was irritable and tired only to wake today clear and bright with strength and balance not present before.

I  feel a smooth quality and relaxation which has markedly changed my well being.

I now dream and remember them which was not the case previously.

She asked that I call her weekly with a report on changes which may occur.

I am fully aware this method of healing is no quick fix yet the fact is that I am getting results which are real and lasting.

I believe in this work.

I will return in 6-8 weeks.

In the course of my health challenge I have experimented with many, many modes of healing.

Understandably, treatment does not work for me unless I am 200% behind it.

Unless I believe.

Some may beg to differ.

This is one woman’s experience.

Today, I still walk with a walker and struggled to put my socks on but I have a much stronger foundation I move from and, to me, this is invaluable.

All joint pain is gone.  I can eat normally.  I sleep deeply and wake rested.  I have more of myself available to meet the world.

And onward I go…..

Home Is Wherever You Are

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It feels good to be home from my trip.

It was the first time I had travelled solo since belonging to the ‘walk with support’ club.

I watched myself truly shine as I negotiated wheelchairs at each transfer; to car to chair to plane to chair to regular chair (wait for the delayed plane and wait some more) to wheelchair to plane to wheelchair to cab to fabulous hotel.

I became the extroverted Cathy I think I almost lost.

Even in my weakness and exhaustion, I somehow pulled it together to engage with people I made lasting friendships with.

The shuttle driver from airport to hotel was an older gentleman who had a wisdom and open-heartedness about him I was drawn to. I began a conversation during which he told me of his daughter with MS and wife who had passed away a few years ago whom he visits daily at her grave.

He wanted to tell those stories and I wanted to tell mine.

I wanted to listen and so, apparently, did he.

And from there a thread of recognition and care extended throughout the week as he checked on me daily at the concierge to see if I needed anything.

My activities for my week in Colorado consisted of seeing the Dr. twice each day for an hour long treatment (more about this later), then back to the hotel to sleep or eat then get up the next day and do it again.

I did not rent a car as the hotel was close to the clinic so I spent a good deal of time in cabs.

The first two drivers were intent on asphyxiating me with pine-scent and converting me to their brand of Christianity.

I have nothing against Christianity, mind you…

The third man was Michael.

I hope to never lose contact with him.

He picked me up on time 4 times a day as I came and went to my appointments.

We slipped into an easy, extended conversation about life and family and thriving in a screwed up world and frailty and strength and the power of women (adores his wife and has 4 girls).

We became pretty transparent to one another during the incessant to-and-fro from Dr. to hotel.

Then there were Patrick and Lydia and Rob and Pat and the ladies in the Denver airport waiting with me and holding the plane which had just changed gates and now would depart in 10 minutes across the airport and my wheelchair was nowhere in sight..

What I learned about myself during this week away from all things familiar is a new kind of trust in my ability to distinguish where I want to put my energy and how much without ever losing track of myself.

I built a number of solid, mutually beneficial relationships in a short period of time and they each enhanced my well being multifold.

I witnessed the ease with which doors opened in every direction and I saw that the thing that felt like a bubble of GRACE was a bubble I had blown myself by showing up as authentic and true.

No hiding.

Willing to be seen.

There are certainly risks inherent in this way of being.

But what’s the worst that can happen?

I found myself unafraid and shiny with the confidence of a woman who doesn’t know much beyond what real and precious LIFE feels like when in it’s presence..

…and the flip side of pretense, veiled disappointment and black holes of needs unmet.

I saw that I could acknowledge all of it and choose intuitively the paths that led me toward vitality and an open heart.

These are the gifts of moving away from familiar territory; finding a self you may not have noticed was growing and preening and waiting to be noticed standing right beside you all this time..

I like the girl I met.

Colorado

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I am off to Colorado for a week.

As I don’t have a laptop, this will be my last post until January 30th.

I will be working with the doctor I visited a couple months ago with whom I got such great results.

She is a physicist and works with frequency medicine.

After spending my initial 4 days with her, my digestive system is better than it has been in my entire life which was her intention for the first round with me; to allow my body to take in nutrients so it has a chance to heal.

I am following the ‘results’ trail and will keep you posted when I return.

In my absence, I thought I would leave you with some things to look at which you may not have seen.

This is an eclectic list but, I hope, fun:

1. Elegant, intelligent, witty and wise ministrations from a wheelchair-

2. Interesting look at a ‘gift economy’-

3. A city girl marries a cowboy and moves to a ranch- This girl has the ‘blog-thing’ DOWN and I watch her up the visitor ante by the hundreds. This is LITE with a capitol ‘L’ but good to see photos of ranch life,kids,seemingly healthy family, good cookin’. The Harlequin romance of dirty, sexy ranchlife.

4. Fabulous street fashion. Spare, easy, fun.

5. Inspiring design site.

6. Prosthetic legs like you’ve never seen……

7. Fascinating inroad to what’s current in the technology, entertainment and design worlds.

8. Respect.

Blessings,

Cathy

Anger

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Yesterday was a day of hardware.

Wearing the brace on my leg has caused a quickening of muscle loss because I don’t have to use all of them.

I have a giant resin band-aid that I strap on to do the work for my atrophying muscles.

It does give me support which is really good.

But now I need a separate knee brace to alleviate the hyperextension in my leg.

All this ’strapping on’ of stuff can be slightly daunting until it becomes a familiar part of the story.

Yesterday also brought my new scooter to my door.

It is twice the size I had imagined in my state of intermittent denial.

I really know it will allow me freedom and it goes pretty fast but REALLY!

ALL THIS HARDWARE IN ONE DAY?

Give a girl a break. (not literally)

Right at this moment I want to be Jewish and say words like ‘kvetch’ (?) and all those fabulously succinct and descriptive Hebrew words that are more about the sound and emotion of the thing.

But here I sit, a rather pathetic version this morning of your everyday WASP, bemoaning change and ugly disability hardware and vanity issues and I’m sure there’s other stuff in there too….

So thanks for listening but you are probably through..

As a parting gift in appreciation, I will leave you with this:

Gifted

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GIFTED

A new friend came and

Scrupulously shoveled snow.

My heart was opened.

- CA

Dance

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I like to watch dance movies.

Girl from upstanding backround meets busboy and he sets her free.. those kind of films.

LITE entertainment, surely, but I do love them.

The girl with MS LLLLLOOOOOOVVVEEESSSSSS them!

Could be thought of a torture but, for me, they remind me of a kind of life in my body and soul; free and unhinged.

Last night I watched HAVANA NIGHTS which was the sequel to DIRTY DANCING.

Shot in Cuba, it was full of color-unAmerican, the street beat of their culture amidst the political landscape of the day.

The lead guy says at one point: “You can’t dance with someone if you don’t admit your fear to them.”

That line got me.

I think that means that if you want a masterful union with anything then we must become transparent, unhidden.

I often look at this PPMS I deal with as a sort of dance.

I must constantly take off the blinders and rose-colored glasses to see exactly WHAT IS.

It used to be a breeze to look the other way.

Now, if I do that, I may fall and complicate things terribly.

The “What is?” of this situation changes pretty quickly in my case.

So I really have to be real.

This particular dance is not romantic.

But the focus in mastering the particulars in twists and turns and emotions and physical needs seems somehow similar to me.

I am not a novice, here.

Probably, I would characterize myself as an intermediate student.

A large part of my education has been to make sure pleasure is a basic and constant medication.

For me, this includes dance movies, and dinners with friends, connections with strangers, my dog, writing here, communing with Nature, reading, musing about life and, as I think about it…there is the odd pleasure in being transparent to myself and others as I negotiate this terrain.

It is REAL.

RAW.

Uncharted territory.

But REAL, non-the-less.

That is really something, in this culture of pretense and glitter.

Here, up close and personal, if you’re fortunate you can catch the delicate fragrance of the heart. Open and exposed.

A rare thing, indeed.

Winter

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Everything about Winter asks me to go inside.

Deep inside.

The cold, snow, irritable people (self included).

As I was brought up in Michigan, I NEED the seasons.

Such a direct reminder of cycles we are a part of.

Bloom, fade, back-to-the-earth, gestate, gather, reach for the light, bloom.

In Winter I gather.

Early in my art career I self-flagellated a lot in judgement of my meanderings in magazine racks and coffee shops and the wilds of New Mexico in my big red truck.

I thought were anyone to know how I spent my days oftentimes, I would be judged irresponsible and lazy.

Quite to the contrary, I now know…

I am a gatherer.

I spend time witnessing, looking, sensing, appreciating, being appalled and back to gratitude again.

After I do this for varying amounts of time, some THING in form appears.

When it was art I was primarily creating, all the gathering would distill into something like the piece above.

These days, healing my body is my chief concern so this Winter’s gathering is taking shape in the form of inspired guidance concerning my quest for wholeness (whatever that looks like).

I am now, after all these years, familiar with and not self critical about this process of mine; gathering then taking extreme pleasure in watching for the form to appear.

This is surely NOT a heady endeavor.

More a softening into the cycle of the seasons in me.

Today is very white and still with a constant light snow.

I have paperwhite bulbs growing an inch per day in a glass vase on my counter.

The only thing we can count on is change.

May as well enjoy the ride.

Permeability

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This piece is made out of lava rock.

They came from a favorite place in New Mexico called the BISTI BADLANDS.

It looks like a god-forsaken moonscape.

I love it for it’s otherworldliness.

So, these rocks caught my eye.

I just notice stuff as I’m going along and ask if it’s ok to take it home.

In this case the answer was yes and here I am, 6 years later writing about them.

They went through the fire.

A very big one.

And today they are my teacher.

The rocks are HARD.

And COMPLICATED.

They know the shadow and are still here.

Transformed, perhaps. But still here.

Lava formations in New Mexico are mysterious places.

They can surprise you if they are hidden.

Or take your breath away with their monumental size.

I liked these particular rocks because they aren’t really a solid mass but a maze separated by air passageways.

I suspect from the bubbles as the firey mass cooled.

They remind me of me.

I am fairly complicated, I think.

Not hard, though. Anymore.

I have been through the fire as we all have at one point or another.

MS is my fire at the moment.

The thing is, I notice this fire I am in is leaving me more porous than before.

My guard goes down somewhat because I haven’t the energy for it anymore, really.

But the gift in that is I now feel and think about myself, the world, the whole game board differently.

I used to be much more serious than I am now.

It took a lot to make me laugh but not these days.

The witness in me takes a gander at Cathy trying to get to the bathroom in time and how her body looks making that desperate journey and who wouldn’t laugh?

This whole MS thing can be funny.

Unless it’s not.

And that, there, is the shadow side.

The thing is, there they both are.

Am I any different than anyone else in that respect?

Point-of-view…

That’s the key, right there.

Dirty old black rock?

Or teacher in disguise?

Boundaries

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My sister gave me dog training lessons for Christmas.

I’m telling you, it was THE best gift.

Turns out the training is 90% about the human.

What a surprise!

We think we are so damn smart but really we’ve rearranged our instinctual behavior to such an extent that confusion reigns.

Yes, I am fully aware of the life altering contributions human genius has allowed us; technology, medicine, the wheel, etc..

I’m talking here about TERRITORY.

My dog thinks she rules.

Not an uncommon situation in dog owners.

When the trainer came the other day, he spent 1/2 hour giving her corrections in a purposeful and directly in-the-moment manner.

He was certainly not without compassion because I was hyper-vigilant in my scrutiny.

At the end of the session, my previously ‘pseudo-aggressive’ chihuahua was nesting at his feet.

As he explained it, she was hankering after clear boundaries so she actually knew how to please me.

She wanted to know the right thing but I didn’t know how to tell her in her language.

I watched her hold her body proudly and her eyes got very bright.

(Stay with me here.. this isn’t all about dogs, I promise..)

The marked change in her sense of self made me think about how boundaries are used in our human world.

I have a strong boundary where people in my life know not to stop by my home unannounced as I get startled so easily.

I work with a physician who has many requirements for her patients regarding scented detergents, hair products etc. that may not be worn during an appointment due to her extreme sensitivity.

I notice I am often taken aback in situations in which I am required to alter my behavior and the request is delivered in a somewhat strident manner.

This is all ego-based stuff as we know but the fact is that confusion in our world reigns.

The microcosm of this is my world here, living with MS.

Confusion leaves the room replaced by sighs of relief when I ask for the help I need or make a clear request.

I grew up with non-existent boundaries.

It was a no-mans’-land of etheric galavanting.

I wanted SOMEONE TO SAY NO. I WANTED TO SAY NO!

But they never really did and neither did I so as an adult, here I am trying to put healthy boundaries in place.

Oh, it’s all a work in progress but aside from the discomfort of trying on new ‘behavioral clothes’, I see it as a gift to myself and others to be clear, timely and secure in expressing my expectations.

Who knows..I may even get what I need.

Thicket

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Two beloved male friends/collectors have taken their own lives in the last few months.

Seemingly highly functioning and fairly contented people have demons we could never even dream of.

My heart hurts.

And yet, I have an odd peace.

It almost feels embarrassing to say it as the expectation is for weeping and horror and countless other displays.

I’m certainly not saying I am immune because I am not.

I loved these two friends deeply.

I also respect them both with all I’ve got.

They were both extremely private men. Highly accomplished in work and play. Neither had children but left magnificent women behind.

Living with the challenges of MS gives rise to having death on your shoulder.

Not in a bad way.

But a way that changes me.

It is a good practice to make friends with death.

Life becomes very real and VERY precious.

One starts to have the feeling that you are LIVING in church, not just attending once in awhile.

Love is not just a yearned-for, imagined fantasy of picket fences and the like.

It is there in the eyes of the forgotten and ordinary if we choose to look.

I have more love in my life at the moment that I could ever have imagined.

I know, without a doubt that my two friends knew I loved them.

Never spoken, perhaps, but a knowing just the same.

If I love them them, I must allow for their choices in life and death.

The peace I experience when in the midst of bereavement exists because I treat death as an inextricable part of life.

I don’t want to go there yet though I have thought of it as an end to the constant and, at times , seemingly unbearable thoughts of THE FUTURE.

But I ain’t there yet.

And so, with death as my teacher, I live.

Until I don’t.

Death really seems to me like a total experience of the loss of the thread to love; for ourselves, each other, the planet and when Spirit is no where to be found.

My tears for my friends are my imagining that they lost that thread or forgot.

But, if I say I love and respect them, I must settle with that knowledge and practice the ‘let-go’ that is so hard in love.

It is pure ego.

I want what I want. Them back here with me to enrich my life like before.

Hmmm… that sounds like it’s all about me…

Dearest Frederick and Doug: I love you and wish you peace. You left your mark on me. I am different and better because of you. You will be missed but I can feel you in my heart whenever I want.  I will try to spread around to others some of the compassion, intelligence, love of beauty and service to many that you both practiced masterfully. It will be so different around here without you. Thank you for the gift of your friendship. I am more and better because of you.

Love, Cathy

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