Oh my gosh, yeees... bed. :]
Day two of my bone broth fast went much better than yesterday. Yesterday was... challenging. I was really hungry all day, and just the thought of continuing with no food except bone broth was so darn depressing... more so as the day went on. I finally broke down and opted for a keto breakfast for dinner about 8:30 pm. So today I had decided I would do exactly the same. And knowing that made all the difference. I lost 2.2 lbs after day 1 on the fast. And I knew I would weigh less on day 2 because I peeked at the scale halfway through day 1 and I actually weighed less than I did that morning. That never happens on a normal day.
Anyway, I also had far less brain fog today. I felt it start to creep in about noon, but I powered through it. I spent the morning deciding on the ready-made meal I would have on-hand (a meat and side item) and some desserts (fat bombs). On keto, fat is good.
During the afternoon, I went to the local farm to get chemical free, free-range eggs (2 dozen because I plan to make some hard boiled to have on salads and just as a snack). There's also 4 other people in this house that might eat eggs. But I also plan to eat a fried egg (in coconut oil) with avocado for breakfasts. I often eat that anyway. It's just right now I don't have a good recipe for a morning smoothie, keto approved. I had to give up my sweetened chocolate almond, banana, and frozen fruit smoothies.
Then this evening, I cooked:
- 2 whole chickens with poultry seasoning I also mixed up. We had this before and Ashley (who is doing keto with me) loves this recipe
- cauliflower mashed potatoes, with garlic scapes, garlic, bone broth, coconut oil, and tarrow - EVERYONE loved this one, even the non-keto folks in the house.
- cheesecake fat bombs
- peanut butter cup fat bombs
The fat bombs are made from butter, coconut oil, some weird sweetener that has zero whatevers, 100% dark chocolate or cocoa, amish peanut butter (just peanuts) and whatever other ingredients I can't recall at the moment. We froze them in either mini muffin pans or silicon ice cube trays. I do NOT like the 100% dark chocolate... but maybe I will grow to enjoy them.
Spaceman worked on pricing garage sale items for the community garage sale that he's participating in Thu-Sat. We don't ever get much traffic here. My street is out of the way, but he tries. I detest garage sales. I try to stay out of his way and am happy to take stuff to donate instead. He's much more thrifty than I am. When he was done with that and tending to the garden a little, he came into the kitchen to help lick bowls and cut the chicken up to put in serving size containers. Ashley and I each have 3 ready-made meals and more dessert fat bombs than we would want to eat. I also still have some raw, soaked, & seasoned almonds drying out in the dehydrator. That was super expensive, organic raw nuts. I don't think I'll be doing that very often. Even though I thought I bought plenty. They don't look like much on the drying tray.
We got nothing done on the bathroom this weekend. Oh well. I was a mess yesterday and today I had to do everything I had planned to do yesterday, today, and then today's stuff. I'm whooped and thankful spaceman came in to help me divvy up the meals into separate containers. We also saved off the giblets, bones and broth from cooking the chickens. He says he will make lentils with the broth. I plant to make my own bone broth with the gizards and bones, no matter how gross that sounds. I am doing it to heal my leaky gut. I would rather be a vegetarian.
And if anyone knows a keto-friendly "batter" for catfish deep frying... please share. I forgot to make my catfish meal before I ran out of time and started this diet!
I'm also looking for good salad dressing alternatives... no sugar, keto-friendly oils (olive, avocado or coconut). Right now I plan to mash an avocado and salt it for a creamy dressing. I don't know anything else and I'm not really a fan of olive oil, unless something can mask the taste.
That's it for now. It's bedtime. :)
Sunday, June 10, 2018
Saturday, May 26, 2018
a wandering free-write
This place (blogger), kinda feels like home. It's nice to have somewhere I feel I can just be myself as I type. It's very much appreciated. New places to write are stressful. I like it here with you all.
Life feels pretty good lately. ...for a while now actually. It's so fucking ordinary and yet so dam sweet too. Not perfect... never perfect. But perfectly of the energy and connection that called out for me. I absolutely do have the love I came here to be with. We did meet, and we did end up together. That alone I thank existence for, daily.
Spaceman is in the bathroom caulking the tub/shower surround he just put up. I helped, but just assisted. Mostly, I cleaned up as it went along and handed the right tools or a paper towel, whatever was needed. He did the measurements, the cutting, the gluing, the shopping for supplies.
The air conditioner is on. I hear it running in the living room, but I've purposefully left the sliding glass back door open. It just finished a summer-feeling shower and the birds are chirping in refreshment.
I'm drinking my mineral water, the kind I filter and mix up myself. We use a Big Berkey water filter with the add on fluoride filters. I add ionic minerals (ReMag & ReMyte) and a little sea salt, for trace minerals, and measure out 64 oz of it into a big jug each night for the next day. In general, I am getting a lot more water than I used to. And it has replaced drinking more teas or sugary drinks.
In this way, my health has been better.
Our garden is da bomb. I'm telling you, I'm really happy with the joint effort we put into it and the solid healthy and sensible reasons we choose to do things the way we do out there. I love sitting and watching YouTube videos on gardening when I need to learn about a subject. One or two might be not exactly what I'm looking for - and sometimes I don't even know what I'm looking for before I start - but I usually find my answers... then spaceman and I discuss it and then go for if, if we decide to at all.
Doing the seedlings with grow lights, that was MY idea though lol. I'm the one who is always wanting to grow things from seeds. And they turned out GREAT this year. Spaceman is raving over the sturdy tomato stalks. lol
We live such an exciting life, I know. lol (sarcasm)
Spaceman is now over at the kitchen table digging through a big bowl of day old popcorn, looking for the "half crunchy ones" he says. He's a popcorn freak. And it bothers me not. I can't really eat it, but don't care that much for it anyway.
At some point this evening I'm going to have to make a run over to my sister's house to take a shower. (ours is under reconstruction) I'm supposed to go over to a friends house, planned 3 weeks ago, and a shower is a must. My friend hasn't texted yet though. Maybe she won't??? I would rather stay in, but I know that's just because I always prefer to stay home with spaceman. He's the same way, so it's not really a problem. But yeah, I find it much harder to be social these days. I'm just so damn happy with this phase of my life. And damn it, I was social for my whole life, I can delve into this without guilt. It's pretty sweet anyway. <3
How would you feel if the man you loved showed he loves you more than alcohol? And I was in love with him like this long before any of that was revealed. Our getting together has been healing for him in especially that way. It feels damn amazing to be with someone who walks their talk and is self-motivated to be aligned and to understanding of this world.
It's almost as if there's this key... or maybe it's a bridge, a 1000 bridges, a quadrillion...
When the soul becomes balanced or sensitized enough to what's really going on around them... well, awareness begets awareness. But it's harder than it talked about. Because right action must also be in balance in one's life. Spaceman showed me right action and emotional capacity, with never giving up even when feeling lost (and it did come close).. he showed me love. He showed me the value in myself. his struggle was my struggle, but in my own ways. I feared I would never have the ability to understand why some people did what they do... any people.. no one particular, but everyone. People. We do some stupid shit for love sometimes. Sometimes it really isn't healthy.
But the stars aligned when we came here, so that we could be together again. There are so many signs of that... a shared soul purpose... and we mirror one another in an untold myriad of ways... but mostly it's just every day ordinary.
The wind has kicked up out back. It's coming in gusts every now and again. But the birds are still cheep'in and the TV muffled from the other room plays some anime cartoon in another language...
Everything is ordinary here. I have a home life and the home is alive with sharing.
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
Misfortune with a Silver Lining
1 am and unable to sleep.
There are reasons. One major one actually.
I have poison ivy! ick and such an annoyance. :(
Bet you're happy I'm typing from the other end of the internet right about now.
I assume I got it fishing two Sunday's ago. But the first spot didn't show up until the Wednesday after. Whatever... however long it took to show up, is how long it took. But I'm telling you, no matter how hot it is, next time I will ensure I wear long pants in the woods!
There is a silver lining to this cloud.
While walking through the woods we came upon a doe, munching away at foliage. As we approached she didn't run away. She stayed there, lifted up her head to get a better look at us, and we stopped about 15 feet from her just because it was so novel. Nothing about her seemed tense, and eventually she bowed her head and began munching again. Didn't she know she was only a quarter mile from a trap shooting range?
Anyway we don't hunt deer, just fish. And right about then I caught movement out the opposite direction, quite a bit further away... a big raccoon was standing on it's hind legs trying to get a better view of us. When he saw me see him, he took off running, then turned around to check on us again. I laughed and pointed out the irony that the raccoon was scared but not the deer. We trudged onward, heading back to our car.
Spaceman has a history with deer. He used to go to the woods to meditate often and one day he felt a presence near him. When he opened his eyes a deer was standing beside him, curious. On another occasion, he was walking near a creek when he heard a high pitched noise coming closer and closer. It turned out to be a baby deer, complete with its fawn spots, lost or abandoned. He said it followed him for quite a while and he hand fed him some foliage and eventually they went their separate ways. I've always admired his up close encounters with deer, and finally we had one together. So cool!
As I sit here not feeling the least bit sleepy, I'm trying to stay positive about my condition. It's not easy. Poison itchy anything really does a number on me. It's one of the only times I get truly OCD, trying to keep clean and limit spreading it. No matter how hard I try, it spreads across my body without obvious reason. Hence I usually end up at the doctor asking for a cortisone shot and some prednisone meds. Benadryl has been my constant companion, which also has made working a bit miserable, feeling so like medicine-head. But the shot and prednisone, which I got yesterday, must have started having an effect because I forgot to take Benadryl before bedtime and felt wide awake in comparison. And of course, being covered in long sleeves and long pants under the blankets has overheated me and made me itchy all over again. (I'm really trying not to spread it to spaceman!) But I was too late in taking the Benadryl. Sometimes taking it in the middle of the night just doesn't do it for me. Tonight seems to be one of those nights. It's hours later and I'm STILL wide awake.
So I'm munching something heavy on my tummy, a baked potato, hoping to cause a digestion-induced sleepiness. It might be working??? If I can't get some decent sleep tonight, medicine head tomorrow will really suck!
I'm so done with this. It's not the itching that gets to me the most; I've learned to never scratch it. I have that much steel will. It's the constant worry and excess care I take caring for it. It's taxing. I'm ready to be well now, thankyouverymuch. As it looks now, I will have a scar for a while on my shin, and I'm keeping vigil over an infection trying to break out - for which I refuse antibiotics, except topical. Topical is okay. Topical is good.
Okay, enough typing. Off to try sleep one more time tonight. Wish me luck.
There are reasons. One major one actually.
I have poison ivy! ick and such an annoyance. :(
Bet you're happy I'm typing from the other end of the internet right about now.
I assume I got it fishing two Sunday's ago. But the first spot didn't show up until the Wednesday after. Whatever... however long it took to show up, is how long it took. But I'm telling you, no matter how hot it is, next time I will ensure I wear long pants in the woods!
There is a silver lining to this cloud.
While walking through the woods we came upon a doe, munching away at foliage. As we approached she didn't run away. She stayed there, lifted up her head to get a better look at us, and we stopped about 15 feet from her just because it was so novel. Nothing about her seemed tense, and eventually she bowed her head and began munching again. Didn't she know she was only a quarter mile from a trap shooting range?
Anyway we don't hunt deer, just fish. And right about then I caught movement out the opposite direction, quite a bit further away... a big raccoon was standing on it's hind legs trying to get a better view of us. When he saw me see him, he took off running, then turned around to check on us again. I laughed and pointed out the irony that the raccoon was scared but not the deer. We trudged onward, heading back to our car.
Spaceman has a history with deer. He used to go to the woods to meditate often and one day he felt a presence near him. When he opened his eyes a deer was standing beside him, curious. On another occasion, he was walking near a creek when he heard a high pitched noise coming closer and closer. It turned out to be a baby deer, complete with its fawn spots, lost or abandoned. He said it followed him for quite a while and he hand fed him some foliage and eventually they went their separate ways. I've always admired his up close encounters with deer, and finally we had one together. So cool!
As I sit here not feeling the least bit sleepy, I'm trying to stay positive about my condition. It's not easy. Poison itchy anything really does a number on me. It's one of the only times I get truly OCD, trying to keep clean and limit spreading it. No matter how hard I try, it spreads across my body without obvious reason. Hence I usually end up at the doctor asking for a cortisone shot and some prednisone meds. Benadryl has been my constant companion, which also has made working a bit miserable, feeling so like medicine-head. But the shot and prednisone, which I got yesterday, must have started having an effect because I forgot to take Benadryl before bedtime and felt wide awake in comparison. And of course, being covered in long sleeves and long pants under the blankets has overheated me and made me itchy all over again. (I'm really trying not to spread it to spaceman!) But I was too late in taking the Benadryl. Sometimes taking it in the middle of the night just doesn't do it for me. Tonight seems to be one of those nights. It's hours later and I'm STILL wide awake.
So I'm munching something heavy on my tummy, a baked potato, hoping to cause a digestion-induced sleepiness. It might be working??? If I can't get some decent sleep tonight, medicine head tomorrow will really suck!
I'm so done with this. It's not the itching that gets to me the most; I've learned to never scratch it. I have that much steel will. It's the constant worry and excess care I take caring for it. It's taxing. I'm ready to be well now, thankyouverymuch. As it looks now, I will have a scar for a while on my shin, and I'm keeping vigil over an infection trying to break out - for which I refuse antibiotics, except topical. Topical is okay. Topical is good.
Okay, enough typing. Off to try sleep one more time tonight. Wish me luck.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
The Spark of Life
Magnesium, that is.
I had tried it before, for constipation. For a couple of years in fact, I took large amounts of it regularly. But those cheap magnesium oxide pills caused chronic edema in my shins. I had also tried drinking tons of water daily. But as many "close but not quite" attempts go, I didn't have the right combination. I was taking the wrong form of magnesium -the least absorbable form- and I didn't regularly combine that with large amounts of water, but instead tried my "drink lots of water" solution on a separate attempt, years later.
It's funny how close you can be to an actual solution to a pressing problem, and yet not quite get it... and give up. I've been suffering from chronic constipation for 13 years!
Over the years... I saw doctors, had procedures to investigate things, had blood tests (nothing was ever found as the reason). I changed my diet, took prescriptions that were later deemed unsafe and taken off the market, did cleanses, did food trials to identify offending foods, cut out some food groups, tried supplements, tried dowsing myself in water daily, cut out more food groups, suffered with laxative cramping all night (losing more sleep), and eventually switched over to enemas for the quick and easy solution. The problem was... even THAT caused more problems over the long run. And this time, it was beginning to get VERY serious - blood & heart problems! Just like the all the other solutions that only addressed symptoms, enemas also caused an unwanted side effect. The sodium in the them caused a worsening electrolyte imbalance that in turn caused my heart to flutter increasingly over a couple of years. Spaceman and I secretly had it checked out (and I have the bills to prove it), but nothing was found. I was given a clean bill of health. Looking back, it was a blessing they didn't put me on any prescriptions. It turns out, it was an electrolyte imbalance, lack of magnesium and excess sodium - two of the 4 basic electrolytes every body needs. And those prescriptions they might have prescribed? ...they exacerbate magnesium deficiency.
Thinking back to when I was taking lots of magnesium oxide and still not solving that particular electrolyte imbalance, I now know the oxide form can't really help much because it only has a 4% absorption rate. 96% is unabsorbable! That means for every 250 mg, only 10 mg of magnesium makes it into the system. And even though I was often taking 1200 mg daily (an amount I was told was safe because of magnesium's fail-safe laxative effect), only 50 mg could be absorbed. A body simply cannot get enough magnesium from the oxide form due to it's poor absorption rate. That's ridiculous to only absorb 50 out of 1200 mg!. But back then I didn't know I was magnesium deficient. I didn't know that was the core of my problem. I was just using it for the laxative effect. Had I known about the poor absorption rate, I still probably wouldn't have actually cared. All I wanted was the laxative effect! It was short sighted. But you only know what you know, when you finally learn it. And I have learned a LOT about magnesium lately.
It took another attempt at changing my diet recently and "cheating" with some Chinese food before I put together the connection between sodium and my heart palpitations. From there the answer was only a google search away: I ran across a conversation between a guy with the same issue as me who received a reply from someone touting Dr. Carolyn Dean's Magnesium Miracle.
As I sat and listened to an interview with her, I could not believe how many LIFE LONG symptoms of magnesium deficiency I have had and never once assumed they were related.
The thing is, there are absolutely TONS of other conditions I don't have that are also caused by a magnesium deficiency, including many opposite seeming conditions such as high blood pressure, variations of thyroidism, and outright heart disease. What I've learned is, simply:
Magnesium is the spark of life, responsible for over 700 bodily functions, truly a fundamental electrolyte.
Magnesium is the gatekeeper of cells (it also relaxes muscles) keeping calcium (a tightener of muscles) from entering cells until a contraction is needed. Without the magnesium barrier, calcium-based disorders and disease occurs, including vascular calcification (sticky blood, high blood pressure, calcified arteries, involuntary muscle spasms and even eventually heart attacks). Any electrolyte imbalance, endured long enough, can cause issues in the body, frequently vascular and heart-related. I was having increasing issues that were blood and heart related. My electrolytes were out of balance: magnesium (too little), sodium & calcium (too much) and potassium (not sure, probably just about right).
The magnesium-calcium balance is super important. Our city water is one of the WORST in the area as far as "hard water" goes. Hard water means calcium build up in house pipes and body as well! Ever hear of calcified pineal gland? Yeah, that too. But if calcium is abundant in city water and dairy that is pushed at us by corporate interests, what about magnesium?
Magnesium USED to be abundant in food. But - and here is the clincher - Floroide binds with magnesium making it unavailable not just to us, but to ALL LIFE FORMS. And guess what contains flouride? You'll be surprised (or not):
Besides most city water supplies... it's found in chemical insecticides and fertilizers! In the past 100 years or so, with the advent of industrial monoculture agriculture and chemical insecticides and fertilizers, fluoride is sprayed on plants AND SOIL alike. The plants can no longer absorb the mineral magnesium from the soil because the fluoride binds it up! Now even if you stop using the chemicals the soil's magnesium content is all bound up by fluoride! How did the magnesium get there to begin with: Ice age glaciers. They scraped the rocks and broke them down into the minerals our bodies use and need. So even if you eat a plant-based diet.... even if you eat an organic plant-based diet and avoid fluoride (hard to do but can be reduced), your plant food does not contain nearly as much magnesium as it did 100 years ago. In this case, one cannot simply eat a well balanced diet and get well. It's truly a sad situation we find ourselves in these days.
Not only are we not getting enough in our food, the very prescriptions we take to manage many of these magnesium deficient conditions (which doctors will never admit to because they aren't taught nutrition and would rather placate with pills).. many of these prescriptions also contain... you may have guessed it: fluoride! Check the inserts.
So how to balance the magnesium and calcium in your body? First, you must ingest more magnesium. And if you are prone to that laxitive effect or need more magnesium than you can tolerate laxitive-effect-wise... Dr. Dean eventually broke down and hired scientists to make a better magnesium, one that is highly absorbable. I'm now taking that (approx. $30/mo) and another formula for thyroid support - because I feel I need that, too. Other than that, I add a pinch of sea salt (the kind I use contains 50+ trace minerals) to my drinking water and I drink 64-80 oz of water each day (half my weight in lbs, in ounces of water). Please beware: you cannot do this with table salt - it contains NO minerals and is a lab created pure chemical sodium (very bad!). And of course, I stopped the enemas 3-4 weeks ago. Oh yeah, we also now have a water filter that filters out fluoride - LOVE IT!
It was hard at first (pun intended! haha). For the first week or so, I did not have a bowel movement at all. This, even though I was taking 1000+ mg of magnesium oxide daily, in addition to taking Dr. Dean's ReMag. I was also drinking coconut water and drinking all my water daily... it just wasn't happening at first. And that's to be expected when recovering from enema abuse. But because of Dr. Dean's ReMag, much greater amounts of magnesium were finally being absorbed by my body and my sodium levels were evening out, too. So the first thing I noticed was the heart palpitations subsiding. That was week one. By week two, I was having occasional bowel movements again. Whew! And now... man! You would not think I EVER had chronic constipation!!!
Let me tell you how good it is! I go, multiple times a day. Yeah wonderful lol. Sorry for the TMI. Aren't we past that yet anyway? ;) But sometimes I have even been too busy and NOT drank all my water, which also means I didn't take all my minerals since they are mixed into my water. Still, I have my frequent bowel movements the next day. And Sunday at the wake I did the unthinkable: I purposefully AND JOYFULLY ate a thick slice of chocolate dessert bread!!!!! And... I still pooped the next day no problemo!
So...
I'm getting a bit giddy here. I realize I still have leaky gut, so I better keep this "in check" but I am thinking I will not have to stay away from all grains for the entire rest of my life. It's so freaking liberating!
Sunday at the grocery, as I walked past the breakfast foods, I found myself staring at the oatmeal selections. Oh my gawd, if I could only eat simple oatmeal for breakfast again!! :) So, after reading label after label I settled on a brand that was one ingredient (to limit cross-reactions) and bought it. It's now sitting in my cabinet waiting for me to eliminate all allergens for a few days - let my face clear up (I ate rice cakes the other day too which break me out due to leaky gut) - and then I will EAT OATMEAL FOR BREAKFAST. This is amazing to me. I'm just insanely curious at this point. Do I only have leaky gut to deal with (skin breakouts or cellular bloating) or will I still induce slower motility by eating grains????
I cannot wait to find out!
I had tried it before, for constipation. For a couple of years in fact, I took large amounts of it regularly. But those cheap magnesium oxide pills caused chronic edema in my shins. I had also tried drinking tons of water daily. But as many "close but not quite" attempts go, I didn't have the right combination. I was taking the wrong form of magnesium -the least absorbable form- and I didn't regularly combine that with large amounts of water, but instead tried my "drink lots of water" solution on a separate attempt, years later.
It's funny how close you can be to an actual solution to a pressing problem, and yet not quite get it... and give up. I've been suffering from chronic constipation for 13 years!
Over the years... I saw doctors, had procedures to investigate things, had blood tests (nothing was ever found as the reason). I changed my diet, took prescriptions that were later deemed unsafe and taken off the market, did cleanses, did food trials to identify offending foods, cut out some food groups, tried supplements, tried dowsing myself in water daily, cut out more food groups, suffered with laxative cramping all night (losing more sleep), and eventually switched over to enemas for the quick and easy solution. The problem was... even THAT caused more problems over the long run. And this time, it was beginning to get VERY serious - blood & heart problems! Just like the all the other solutions that only addressed symptoms, enemas also caused an unwanted side effect. The sodium in the them caused a worsening electrolyte imbalance that in turn caused my heart to flutter increasingly over a couple of years. Spaceman and I secretly had it checked out (and I have the bills to prove it), but nothing was found. I was given a clean bill of health. Looking back, it was a blessing they didn't put me on any prescriptions. It turns out, it was an electrolyte imbalance, lack of magnesium and excess sodium - two of the 4 basic electrolytes every body needs. And those prescriptions they might have prescribed? ...they exacerbate magnesium deficiency.
Thinking back to when I was taking lots of magnesium oxide and still not solving that particular electrolyte imbalance, I now know the oxide form can't really help much because it only has a 4% absorption rate. 96% is unabsorbable! That means for every 250 mg, only 10 mg of magnesium makes it into the system. And even though I was often taking 1200 mg daily (an amount I was told was safe because of magnesium's fail-safe laxative effect), only 50 mg could be absorbed. A body simply cannot get enough magnesium from the oxide form due to it's poor absorption rate. That's ridiculous to only absorb 50 out of 1200 mg!. But back then I didn't know I was magnesium deficient. I didn't know that was the core of my problem. I was just using it for the laxative effect. Had I known about the poor absorption rate, I still probably wouldn't have actually cared. All I wanted was the laxative effect! It was short sighted. But you only know what you know, when you finally learn it. And I have learned a LOT about magnesium lately.
It took another attempt at changing my diet recently and "cheating" with some Chinese food before I put together the connection between sodium and my heart palpitations. From there the answer was only a google search away: I ran across a conversation between a guy with the same issue as me who received a reply from someone touting Dr. Carolyn Dean's Magnesium Miracle.
As I sat and listened to an interview with her, I could not believe how many LIFE LONG symptoms of magnesium deficiency I have had and never once assumed they were related.
- SAD (seasonal affective disorder)
- very frequently cold
- low blood pressure
- thinning hair
- subclinical hypothyroidism that no allopathic doctor would treat
- eczema on ankles, knees and elbows... and for a time, eyelids
- brittle bones (I was told as a child by a doctor that a stress fracture in my heel was from my muscles tearing it apart - I was a tomboy)
- calcium deposits on the sides of my feet
- teeth prone to cavities and crumbling even though I have had excellent oral habits for years and years
- edema during pregnancies and again later in life (this time not pregnant)
- unexplained high cholestorol for a period of time
- persistent and annoying eye twitches several times a day
- heart palpitations
- blood clots behind knees and eventually in the corotid artery as picked up in a thermography scan
- and of course... that ever-so-troubling chronic constipation!
- There's more, I'm sure. I'm going from memory as I don't have my list in front of me.
The thing is, there are absolutely TONS of other conditions I don't have that are also caused by a magnesium deficiency, including many opposite seeming conditions such as high blood pressure, variations of thyroidism, and outright heart disease. What I've learned is, simply:
Magnesium is the spark of life, responsible for over 700 bodily functions, truly a fundamental electrolyte.
Magnesium is the gatekeeper of cells (it also relaxes muscles) keeping calcium (a tightener of muscles) from entering cells until a contraction is needed. Without the magnesium barrier, calcium-based disorders and disease occurs, including vascular calcification (sticky blood, high blood pressure, calcified arteries, involuntary muscle spasms and even eventually heart attacks). Any electrolyte imbalance, endured long enough, can cause issues in the body, frequently vascular and heart-related. I was having increasing issues that were blood and heart related. My electrolytes were out of balance: magnesium (too little), sodium & calcium (too much) and potassium (not sure, probably just about right).
The magnesium-calcium balance is super important. Our city water is one of the WORST in the area as far as "hard water" goes. Hard water means calcium build up in house pipes and body as well! Ever hear of calcified pineal gland? Yeah, that too. But if calcium is abundant in city water and dairy that is pushed at us by corporate interests, what about magnesium?
Magnesium USED to be abundant in food. But - and here is the clincher - Floroide binds with magnesium making it unavailable not just to us, but to ALL LIFE FORMS. And guess what contains flouride? You'll be surprised (or not):
Besides most city water supplies... it's found in chemical insecticides and fertilizers! In the past 100 years or so, with the advent of industrial monoculture agriculture and chemical insecticides and fertilizers, fluoride is sprayed on plants AND SOIL alike. The plants can no longer absorb the mineral magnesium from the soil because the fluoride binds it up! Now even if you stop using the chemicals the soil's magnesium content is all bound up by fluoride! How did the magnesium get there to begin with: Ice age glaciers. They scraped the rocks and broke them down into the minerals our bodies use and need. So even if you eat a plant-based diet.... even if you eat an organic plant-based diet and avoid fluoride (hard to do but can be reduced), your plant food does not contain nearly as much magnesium as it did 100 years ago. In this case, one cannot simply eat a well balanced diet and get well. It's truly a sad situation we find ourselves in these days.
Not only are we not getting enough in our food, the very prescriptions we take to manage many of these magnesium deficient conditions (which doctors will never admit to because they aren't taught nutrition and would rather placate with pills).. many of these prescriptions also contain... you may have guessed it: fluoride! Check the inserts.
So how to balance the magnesium and calcium in your body? First, you must ingest more magnesium. And if you are prone to that laxitive effect or need more magnesium than you can tolerate laxitive-effect-wise... Dr. Dean eventually broke down and hired scientists to make a better magnesium, one that is highly absorbable. I'm now taking that (approx. $30/mo) and another formula for thyroid support - because I feel I need that, too. Other than that, I add a pinch of sea salt (the kind I use contains 50+ trace minerals) to my drinking water and I drink 64-80 oz of water each day (half my weight in lbs, in ounces of water). Please beware: you cannot do this with table salt - it contains NO minerals and is a lab created pure chemical sodium (very bad!). And of course, I stopped the enemas 3-4 weeks ago. Oh yeah, we also now have a water filter that filters out fluoride - LOVE IT!
It was hard at first (pun intended! haha). For the first week or so, I did not have a bowel movement at all. This, even though I was taking 1000+ mg of magnesium oxide daily, in addition to taking Dr. Dean's ReMag. I was also drinking coconut water and drinking all my water daily... it just wasn't happening at first. And that's to be expected when recovering from enema abuse. But because of Dr. Dean's ReMag, much greater amounts of magnesium were finally being absorbed by my body and my sodium levels were evening out, too. So the first thing I noticed was the heart palpitations subsiding. That was week one. By week two, I was having occasional bowel movements again. Whew! And now... man! You would not think I EVER had chronic constipation!!!
Let me tell you how good it is! I go, multiple times a day. Yeah wonderful lol. Sorry for the TMI. Aren't we past that yet anyway? ;) But sometimes I have even been too busy and NOT drank all my water, which also means I didn't take all my minerals since they are mixed into my water. Still, I have my frequent bowel movements the next day. And Sunday at the wake I did the unthinkable: I purposefully AND JOYFULLY ate a thick slice of chocolate dessert bread!!!!! And... I still pooped the next day no problemo!
So...
I'm getting a bit giddy here. I realize I still have leaky gut, so I better keep this "in check" but I am thinking I will not have to stay away from all grains for the entire rest of my life. It's so freaking liberating!
Sunday at the grocery, as I walked past the breakfast foods, I found myself staring at the oatmeal selections. Oh my gawd, if I could only eat simple oatmeal for breakfast again!! :) So, after reading label after label I settled on a brand that was one ingredient (to limit cross-reactions) and bought it. It's now sitting in my cabinet waiting for me to eliminate all allergens for a few days - let my face clear up (I ate rice cakes the other day too which break me out due to leaky gut) - and then I will EAT OATMEAL FOR BREAKFAST. This is amazing to me. I'm just insanely curious at this point. Do I only have leaky gut to deal with (skin breakouts or cellular bloating) or will I still induce slower motility by eating grains????
I cannot wait to find out!
Sunday, April 15, 2018
Burial and Planting
A week ago today, I had planned to start my tomato and pepper seedlings indoors. We had gone shopping and picked up a $1.79 seedling tray, some seed-starting potting mix, and vermiculite. But the day's activities were instead filled with a phone call from my mother about her sister's impending passing and a notice that I should go say my final good-bye. It was hard, and she did indeed pass the next evening.
The week turned to funeral and wake preparing activities, including my having to work extra long hours prior to Friday's wake, just so that I could leave work early Friday to attend it. There is no bereavement for the relation of "aunt" in Ohio. I knew this without looking it up, because when my grandmother passed several years back, there wasn't even a single day of bereavement for my grandmother! I had taken a vacation day instead.
So yesterday we laid my aunt to rest beside her beloved, with her mother and the only father she knew close by. The wake was held at my mother's house and my eldest cousin's mother-in-law handled ALL the food preparation, setup and tear-down. What an angel!
I didn't count how many people showed up, but I would venture to say there were upwards of about 40 people milling about my mother's finished basement. She has seating for almost that many and at times there was nowhere to sit. It was a lively gathering with many kids playing underfoot. Mom used to regularly host Christmas Day dinners with this side of the family as I was growing up, and we have easily hosted this many people at once, or more, many times over the years. But yesterday was different. Ever the people-watcher, as I looked around the room, it was obvious everyone was genuinely enjoying their family time together. What a testament to my aunt's legacy! <3 Only one family left early that I noticed, and it was due to a very long drive ahead of them across the country. Everyone else stayed three full hours or more.
There were so many flower arrangements from the funeral, that I was able to take home two packed full of houseplants even though I didn't choose mine until all guests had their choice first. Mom had about 5 large arrangements of flowers left still!
On a lighter note... after the wake yesterday, I re-potted the houseplants in one arrangement into separate pots. But I ran out of pots, so when I hit up the big box grocery store (NOT Wally world, ick) later today, I will pick up a few pots for the others.
I was also able to finally get my seedling tray set up yesterday evening.
I tend to just wing the seedling stuff, but this year I watched some videos and decided to "try better". So I am using this tray system instead of small round pots. It can be watered from below and has its own little micro environment with the lid. I'm also researching grow lights. All I need is something simple, but some of the cheap $30 clip on lights, which is about all I would need for one tray, have bad reviews for the wiring. Definitely NOT something I want to risk! So, I'm still researching my options. I won't need one until they sprout, so I have a little time to decide, but not much. I'm also learning about mixing fertilizer into the water and when to do that. There is SOOOO much to learn to be a good gardner! I'm 7 years into this and though winging it has generally worked for me so far, I'm to the point where I just want to fail less. :) Thus, I am digging in, trying to improve my techniques. After all, I'm never NOT going to be gardening for the rest of my days.
I'll leave this post by sharing a close up picture of a plant that came in the flower arrangement shown in the background of the photo above. I'm not sure what it is and thus how to care for it yet. So if you recognize it, please let me know what it is. The leaf is gigantic and beautiful <3
The week turned to funeral and wake preparing activities, including my having to work extra long hours prior to Friday's wake, just so that I could leave work early Friday to attend it. There is no bereavement for the relation of "aunt" in Ohio. I knew this without looking it up, because when my grandmother passed several years back, there wasn't even a single day of bereavement for my grandmother! I had taken a vacation day instead.
So yesterday we laid my aunt to rest beside her beloved, with her mother and the only father she knew close by. The wake was held at my mother's house and my eldest cousin's mother-in-law handled ALL the food preparation, setup and tear-down. What an angel!
I didn't count how many people showed up, but I would venture to say there were upwards of about 40 people milling about my mother's finished basement. She has seating for almost that many and at times there was nowhere to sit. It was a lively gathering with many kids playing underfoot. Mom used to regularly host Christmas Day dinners with this side of the family as I was growing up, and we have easily hosted this many people at once, or more, many times over the years. But yesterday was different. Ever the people-watcher, as I looked around the room, it was obvious everyone was genuinely enjoying their family time together. What a testament to my aunt's legacy! <3 Only one family left early that I noticed, and it was due to a very long drive ahead of them across the country. Everyone else stayed three full hours or more.
There were so many flower arrangements from the funeral, that I was able to take home two packed full of houseplants even though I didn't choose mine until all guests had their choice first. Mom had about 5 large arrangements of flowers left still!
On a lighter note... after the wake yesterday, I re-potted the houseplants in one arrangement into separate pots. But I ran out of pots, so when I hit up the big box grocery store (NOT Wally world, ick) later today, I will pick up a few pots for the others.
I was also able to finally get my seedling tray set up yesterday evening.
I tend to just wing the seedling stuff, but this year I watched some videos and decided to "try better". So I am using this tray system instead of small round pots. It can be watered from below and has its own little micro environment with the lid. I'm also researching grow lights. All I need is something simple, but some of the cheap $30 clip on lights, which is about all I would need for one tray, have bad reviews for the wiring. Definitely NOT something I want to risk! So, I'm still researching my options. I won't need one until they sprout, so I have a little time to decide, but not much. I'm also learning about mixing fertilizer into the water and when to do that. There is SOOOO much to learn to be a good gardner! I'm 7 years into this and though winging it has generally worked for me so far, I'm to the point where I just want to fail less. :) Thus, I am digging in, trying to improve my techniques. After all, I'm never NOT going to be gardening for the rest of my days.
I'll leave this post by sharing a close up picture of a plant that came in the flower arrangement shown in the background of the photo above. I'm not sure what it is and thus how to care for it yet. So if you recognize it, please let me know what it is. The leaf is gigantic and beautiful <3
Monday, April 09, 2018
Waiting for The Call
Update later on Apr.9: The call came. :'(
I'm waiting for the kind of call no one likes to receive. My aunt was given 24 hrs - 7 days left to live. This news was not sudden. I went to see her Sunday to say my final good-byes, and now I can't even recall saying those exact words. I waved hello -with the strongest, most loving smile I could muster- when she finally looked straight at me... or was it through me? I'm not sure. Maybe words were pointless anyway. She didn't look good. It's time, no doubt. She will pass soon, very soon.
This is my mother's sister, from a matriarchal dominated family line. Not that the men aren't important, but that the women are more prominent. This is my mother's sister. Gawd, I cannot imagine losing one of my sisters!
But of course... mom is older. She has been through dealing with death several times over, having stared it down as it happened. She was there with my grandmother when she passed several years ago. My aunt asked for 3 people, I'm told: her other daughter (one was already present), her mother, and her sister. All three have arrived from out of state and are currently sitting vigil.
It won't be long. Soon the call will come.
I'm waiting for the kind of call no one likes to receive. My aunt was given 24 hrs - 7 days left to live. This news was not sudden. I went to see her Sunday to say my final good-byes, and now I can't even recall saying those exact words. I waved hello -with the strongest, most loving smile I could muster- when she finally looked straight at me... or was it through me? I'm not sure. Maybe words were pointless anyway. She didn't look good. It's time, no doubt. She will pass soon, very soon.
This is my mother's sister, from a matriarchal dominated family line. Not that the men aren't important, but that the women are more prominent. This is my mother's sister. Gawd, I cannot imagine losing one of my sisters!
But of course... mom is older. She has been through dealing with death several times over, having stared it down as it happened. She was there with my grandmother when she passed several years ago. My aunt asked for 3 people, I'm told: her other daughter (one was already present), her mother, and her sister. All three have arrived from out of state and are currently sitting vigil.
It won't be long. Soon the call will come.
Tuesday, April 03, 2018
Facing Reality
I like a big salad, with lots of tiny bits. The more variety I can get on each fork-sized mouthful, the better. The more I eat salad, the better I feel. But I need variety!
Today's salad is the 2nd half of the mixed baby lettuce tub from yesterday's salad, with pineapple, mushroom, gala apple, almond slivers and a variety of poppy seed dressing.
It's not all organic, because I am using up food spaceman's mother sent home with us. But usually, I vote with my fork and either:
A) grow my own organics, or
B) buy organics
Growing my own is better. Have you ever compared the taste of an organic store bought tomato to the one you grew in your own backyard? Trust me, there is no comparison!
Right now we have no produce producing. And with the extended winter this year, my little early spring garden, even while protected with a hoop house, has failed all but the garlic. I'll have to plant again.
I'm not sure if it was just the extended cold or also the learning curve of growing under a hoop house. There's always something to learn! I'm in year 7 of gardening and I'm still failing at things!
That's just the nature of... well, nature.
But a salad every day for lunch... that's my current M.O. Breakfast is usually either an chocolate almond fruit smoothie (cherries, blueberries, or strawberries) or eggs and avocado sprinkled with Braggs Herb Sprinkle. Dinner is something spaceman cooks up, usually from scratch - and lately - vegetarian.
I don't eat horribly. But what I am learning is that no matter how "great" one tries to eat these days, it will not likely be enough to obtain the minerals your body needs because the soil is tainted. The soil is deprived of nutrition itself.
I grow organically, but what if my neighbors spray their lawns? What can I do about it? Zilch.
I grow organically, in raised beds (we raised the large garden, too, for the most part last fall). I even collect rain water to water with, but what can I do about the chemtrails poisoning the rainwater? Zilch.
Look at it for the mass majority of people: Fluoride binds to magnesium, making it bio-unavailable. Weed killers contain fluoride. Your city water more than likely contains fluoride. (Your toothpaste probably does, too, for that matter.) In the case of conventional single crop mass agriculture being sprayed with herbicides and pesticides, year after year, not only does the plant contain the chemicals themselves, the soil has very little magnesium not bound up with fluoride. So, food grown today has far less nutrition than food your parents or grandparents ate growing up.
It's no longer feasible to tell someone to "just eat healthier" and for them to actually obtain the nutrition their body is desperately needing.
Of course, eating well does help. It's just not enough.
As a society, we are in that place where the cycle is so complete with being poisoned on so many fronts that it's truly really difficult to be healthy.
When we're young our bodies are much more resilient, but our children are also being assaulted on levels we never experienced at their ages.
It's enough to make a person want to pack up and move OFF GRID somewhere remote. But they're making that illegal in more and more places, too!
In any case, how many of us are not enslaved to our debt, making that a pipe dream anyway? And as long as we are too busy working to pay our bills, we can't even find time or risk being arrested if we want to join a protest.
We are being assaulted on so many fronts. Why? Are politicians who make city ordinances to fluoridate water, to outlaw camping on your own land, to fine you for growing food on your front lawn... are these the people we should blame? Maybe. Maybe not. It's never as simple as some like to boil it down to.
The question remains... why all this oppression in the world?
I have suspicions, but what do you think?
Today's salad is the 2nd half of the mixed baby lettuce tub from yesterday's salad, with pineapple, mushroom, gala apple, almond slivers and a variety of poppy seed dressing.
It's not all organic, because I am using up food spaceman's mother sent home with us. But usually, I vote with my fork and either:
A) grow my own organics, or
B) buy organics
Growing my own is better. Have you ever compared the taste of an organic store bought tomato to the one you grew in your own backyard? Trust me, there is no comparison!
Right now we have no produce producing. And with the extended winter this year, my little early spring garden, even while protected with a hoop house, has failed all but the garlic. I'll have to plant again.
I'm not sure if it was just the extended cold or also the learning curve of growing under a hoop house. There's always something to learn! I'm in year 7 of gardening and I'm still failing at things!
That's just the nature of... well, nature.
But a salad every day for lunch... that's my current M.O. Breakfast is usually either an chocolate almond fruit smoothie (cherries, blueberries, or strawberries) or eggs and avocado sprinkled with Braggs Herb Sprinkle. Dinner is something spaceman cooks up, usually from scratch - and lately - vegetarian.
I don't eat horribly. But what I am learning is that no matter how "great" one tries to eat these days, it will not likely be enough to obtain the minerals your body needs because the soil is tainted. The soil is deprived of nutrition itself.
I grow organically, but what if my neighbors spray their lawns? What can I do about it? Zilch.
I grow organically, in raised beds (we raised the large garden, too, for the most part last fall). I even collect rain water to water with, but what can I do about the chemtrails poisoning the rainwater? Zilch.
Look at it for the mass majority of people: Fluoride binds to magnesium, making it bio-unavailable. Weed killers contain fluoride. Your city water more than likely contains fluoride. (Your toothpaste probably does, too, for that matter.) In the case of conventional single crop mass agriculture being sprayed with herbicides and pesticides, year after year, not only does the plant contain the chemicals themselves, the soil has very little magnesium not bound up with fluoride. So, food grown today has far less nutrition than food your parents or grandparents ate growing up.
It's no longer feasible to tell someone to "just eat healthier" and for them to actually obtain the nutrition their body is desperately needing.
Of course, eating well does help. It's just not enough.
As a society, we are in that place where the cycle is so complete with being poisoned on so many fronts that it's truly really difficult to be healthy.
When we're young our bodies are much more resilient, but our children are also being assaulted on levels we never experienced at their ages.
It's enough to make a person want to pack up and move OFF GRID somewhere remote. But they're making that illegal in more and more places, too!
In any case, how many of us are not enslaved to our debt, making that a pipe dream anyway? And as long as we are too busy working to pay our bills, we can't even find time or risk being arrested if we want to join a protest.
We are being assaulted on so many fronts. Why? Are politicians who make city ordinances to fluoridate water, to outlaw camping on your own land, to fine you for growing food on your front lawn... are these the people we should blame? Maybe. Maybe not. It's never as simple as some like to boil it down to.
The question remains... why all this oppression in the world?
I have suspicions, but what do you think?
Sunday, April 01, 2018
Rampage of Joy
My morning routine is to drink my minerals in 16 oz's of water with a pinch of sea salt, and it's the same as my evening routine. In between that, I have 2-3 more bottles of water with that sea salt pinch.
Minerals sure, but why sea salt, too? More trace minerals. It's really as simple as that. Sea salt, unlike chemically manufactured table salt, has 50-70+ trace minerals and that's what I'm after, certainly not the sodium. Like I said, I recently discovered my body was saturated with sodium to the point of chronic heart palpitations and other disconcerting symptoms.
It turns out, my body was craving recovery and as soon as I stopped the offending relief treatments for my constipation, my sodium levels went down fast. Within a week, palpitations were fewer and further between. And in 2 weeks, I wasn't having them at all. This meant I could safely include the sea salt in my my new minerals routine.
I'm taking the most highly absorbent form of magnesium on the market, a pico-ionic sized form that readily absorbs before it can cause any loose bowels. I did that for over a week, mixing it in my water twice daily. This week, I added a second 9-mineral formula, also pico-ionic in size, and thus highly absorbent, that mainly supports healthy thyroid function.
I am still taking some cheap, meaning non-highly absorbent form, of magnesium to ensure my bowels do move. The better quality magnesium won't cause that because it's too bio-available to the body, and... I do need my bowels to move.
But even that has become easier. This regimen is doing my body wonders. I am taking less and less of the crappier form of magnesium as my intestines have begun working things through better. It's truly amazing. It's still ups and downs by the day sometimes, but I have a good set of practices and medicine (minerals) to restoke the fires of hundreds of bodily functions that have gone dormant through the years from lack of necessary ingredients: minerals.
It's boring stuff to write about. But it's just amazing to me that I can even write about having such successes. My intestines are contracting of their own free will! lol To me, this is the bees knees! I've been suffering since 2005! That's 13 years! I can't remember what it feels like to be healthy. Even before that I wasn't healthy (makes sense right?). Before that it was a pendulum that swang in the equal but opposite direction - and a family-wide issue. Only at some point my body had enough and something SWITCHED into the opposite of issues. Within the course of 3 weeks, I slowly (pun intended) realized I had a serious problem.
No doctor has ever been able to tell me what's wrong with me or even provide any solutions. "It's stress" my gastroenterologist used to tell me. I would just look at her like, you've got to be kidding me. *eye roll* For a while she gave me some prescription to help keep my pipes flowing... later it was pulled off the market for some reason.
One way or another I have been suffering through the last 13 years just to eliminate the food I must eat to continue living. And now... now I have real progress along that journey. Everything I'm doing is working in unison and I feel sooo much better.
Okay, rampage of joy going offline... Have a wonderful Easter. <3
Minerals sure, but why sea salt, too? More trace minerals. It's really as simple as that. Sea salt, unlike chemically manufactured table salt, has 50-70+ trace minerals and that's what I'm after, certainly not the sodium. Like I said, I recently discovered my body was saturated with sodium to the point of chronic heart palpitations and other disconcerting symptoms.
It turns out, my body was craving recovery and as soon as I stopped the offending relief treatments for my constipation, my sodium levels went down fast. Within a week, palpitations were fewer and further between. And in 2 weeks, I wasn't having them at all. This meant I could safely include the sea salt in my my new minerals routine.
I'm taking the most highly absorbent form of magnesium on the market, a pico-ionic sized form that readily absorbs before it can cause any loose bowels. I did that for over a week, mixing it in my water twice daily. This week, I added a second 9-mineral formula, also pico-ionic in size, and thus highly absorbent, that mainly supports healthy thyroid function.
I am still taking some cheap, meaning non-highly absorbent form, of magnesium to ensure my bowels do move. The better quality magnesium won't cause that because it's too bio-available to the body, and... I do need my bowels to move.
But even that has become easier. This regimen is doing my body wonders. I am taking less and less of the crappier form of magnesium as my intestines have begun working things through better. It's truly amazing. It's still ups and downs by the day sometimes, but I have a good set of practices and medicine (minerals) to restoke the fires of hundreds of bodily functions that have gone dormant through the years from lack of necessary ingredients: minerals.
It's boring stuff to write about. But it's just amazing to me that I can even write about having such successes. My intestines are contracting of their own free will! lol To me, this is the bees knees! I've been suffering since 2005! That's 13 years! I can't remember what it feels like to be healthy. Even before that I wasn't healthy (makes sense right?). Before that it was a pendulum that swang in the equal but opposite direction - and a family-wide issue. Only at some point my body had enough and something SWITCHED into the opposite of issues. Within the course of 3 weeks, I slowly (pun intended) realized I had a serious problem.
No doctor has ever been able to tell me what's wrong with me or even provide any solutions. "It's stress" my gastroenterologist used to tell me. I would just look at her like, you've got to be kidding me. *eye roll* For a while she gave me some prescription to help keep my pipes flowing... later it was pulled off the market for some reason.
One way or another I have been suffering through the last 13 years just to eliminate the food I must eat to continue living. And now... now I have real progress along that journey. Everything I'm doing is working in unison and I feel sooo much better.
Okay, rampage of joy going offline... Have a wonderful Easter. <3
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
The Backstory
Things are so amazing right now.
Ever since spaceman turned things around, every single day has been bonus after bonus of progress and healing. And just as I suspected, once we got him on the right track, the two of us would blossom in untold ways.
At this point, too many (good) things are piling up that I would like to share, but without telling the backstory of this one big thing, the significance of it and everything else now unfolding cannot be realized... not by anyone who doesn't yet know the backstory anyway.
So here goes:
Spaceman has AUD (Alcohol Use Disorder). Denial is a bitch, let me tell you. And so is Vodka! I have received quite the education in dealing with alcoholism, and yet, every single person and their circumstances are unique. I don't pretend to understand anyone else's situation, but I can tell our story a bit.
AUD is debilitating. It does not matter if you have a heart of gold or coal. And spaceman's heart is a rainbow of goodness. For that reason, I found that although this quite serious red flag became obvious after about 2 months of living together (because I'm dense and took that long to realize), I found that at every choice-point, I simply COULD NOT send this beautiful soul packing. My heart was broken, we were crumbling, and yet I could not leave him to his vice to die an inevitably early death.
Is every detail necessary? I'm sure you have some idea of it already... the stress, the conversations repeated because he was too drunk to remember from the night before, the hidden bottles, the promises broken, the refusals to admit, the arguments while drunk... you name it. We did not escape it, except violence. Spaceman is a kind soul, and a happy drunk (or rather, was) and has never raised a hand to me. He didn't have to. Threatening to walk out a few times was traumatizing enough to me. Like many with AUD, drinking was an escape from his worries, a means to forget, to stop the pain from consuming him.
He lost his two children to his ex-wife's personal vendetta against him. And, he lost his best friend, his brother, to a sudden heart attack in the room next to his one night. That is enough to tell you of his pain for now. I am not elaborating, because it is highly personal, and his story, more than ours. I will focus on ours. But please know, finding someone you love dearly dead one morning is extremely traumatizing. And losing contact with children you have only ever wanted to love and nourish is soul-shattering, especially when they reach of-age and do not come seeking you out and have not been found either.
So back to our story:
What I find so endearing about his personal struggle through this has been his sheer determination despite all the setbacks he endured. Having a genetic predisposition from both sides of his family made it even tougher. This has been a long drawn out process, pulling him out of that tailspin, and there are a few factors that were god-sends, one of which I wish I could tell the world about: TSM (The Sinclair Method), a pharmacological extinction method developed by Dr. Sinclair using Naltrexone.
Naltrexone or "Nal" for short is a pill that blocks opioid receptors in the brain, the same receptors that get stimulated when drinking. Only, and here comes that part that seems unbelievable until you understand it better, one MUST DRINK while using Naltrexone in order for it to work its seeming magic over time.
We eventually modified it for us to be:
If one is not transparent with their significant other, troubles brew. But of course this method can be used even without any help from a significant other, so technically Nal + Drinking = Cure is still the actual cure.
The transparency part came into play for us because that bitch, vodka, kept sinking her hooks into him time and time again. He needed to begin the process of being open about the things he's been hiding for so long, and that was not an easy thing to do at first.. not for a long time in fact. Sneakiness in drinking is simply part of the core of AUD. It's not personal, though it sure feels personal and I had to learn to deal constructively with deceit from my significant other. It helped to realize that this man was never deceitful in any other subject or manner, other than with his drinking.
It sounds severe, doesn't it? It sounds like a deal breaker, I know. Believe me, it almost broke us, time and time again.
But on Feb. 8th, 2018, the birthday of his deceased brother, spaceman made a decision, a strong-backed decision to drop vodka from his life entirely. It was then that the TSM method kicked into its highest gear yet and we quickly climbed out of the vicious cycle that is AUD addiction. Don't get me wrong, it's not that the Nal wasn't working before that point. Spaceman swears that he could never have gotten to the point where he felt strong enough to kick the hard liquor to the curb without it. It's just that I suspect he needed a stronger dose to achieve that while still drinking vodka. It's just one of those steps in the TSM process... while you are doing your Nal + Drinking method of weaning off alcohol, you eventually experience milestones such as that. He still drinks beer or wine on Naltrexone sometimes. But he ALWAYS has his Nal pill at least an hour before drinking. This shrinks the neural pathways that were once used reinforce addiction, and over time his cravings have shrunk, bit by awesome bit.
Having said all that... I cannot express to you how significantly different "this time" truly feels. Few people have even known of his AUD outside of my little family's walls. One person, my older sister figured it out and I swore her to silence, insisting it's our story to tell, when and IF we choose to tell it. She has complied and been super supportive of our process. His family also knows. It came down to it at one point. One of my readers here, also knew, as I reached out for desperate help during one of the stronger stress points in our journey. A couple of my best friends knew, though that wasn't particularly helpful. One may also be in her own AUD struggle and the other has a boyfriend who is also AUD stricken. And I... my presence faded from everyone's lives while all this raged around me. I recoiled inward just to manage my own situation.
So that is it. That is the big ordeal of which I have been writing circles around for so long. And now that we have regrown our trust, regrown his faith in himself, he has begun the process of dealing with emotional triggers on-the-level, without numbing them. And now the world is laying bare all kinds of fruits from our labor. I can't wait to tell you about those as well! <3
Ever since spaceman turned things around, every single day has been bonus after bonus of progress and healing. And just as I suspected, once we got him on the right track, the two of us would blossom in untold ways.
At this point, too many (good) things are piling up that I would like to share, but without telling the backstory of this one big thing, the significance of it and everything else now unfolding cannot be realized... not by anyone who doesn't yet know the backstory anyway.
So here goes:
Spaceman has AUD (Alcohol Use Disorder). Denial is a bitch, let me tell you. And so is Vodka! I have received quite the education in dealing with alcoholism, and yet, every single person and their circumstances are unique. I don't pretend to understand anyone else's situation, but I can tell our story a bit.
AUD is debilitating. It does not matter if you have a heart of gold or coal. And spaceman's heart is a rainbow of goodness. For that reason, I found that although this quite serious red flag became obvious after about 2 months of living together (because I'm dense and took that long to realize), I found that at every choice-point, I simply COULD NOT send this beautiful soul packing. My heart was broken, we were crumbling, and yet I could not leave him to his vice to die an inevitably early death.
Is every detail necessary? I'm sure you have some idea of it already... the stress, the conversations repeated because he was too drunk to remember from the night before, the hidden bottles, the promises broken, the refusals to admit, the arguments while drunk... you name it. We did not escape it, except violence. Spaceman is a kind soul, and a happy drunk (or rather, was) and has never raised a hand to me. He didn't have to. Threatening to walk out a few times was traumatizing enough to me. Like many with AUD, drinking was an escape from his worries, a means to forget, to stop the pain from consuming him.
He lost his two children to his ex-wife's personal vendetta against him. And, he lost his best friend, his brother, to a sudden heart attack in the room next to his one night. That is enough to tell you of his pain for now. I am not elaborating, because it is highly personal, and his story, more than ours. I will focus on ours. But please know, finding someone you love dearly dead one morning is extremely traumatizing. And losing contact with children you have only ever wanted to love and nourish is soul-shattering, especially when they reach of-age and do not come seeking you out and have not been found either.
So back to our story:
What I find so endearing about his personal struggle through this has been his sheer determination despite all the setbacks he endured. Having a genetic predisposition from both sides of his family made it even tougher. This has been a long drawn out process, pulling him out of that tailspin, and there are a few factors that were god-sends, one of which I wish I could tell the world about: TSM (The Sinclair Method), a pharmacological extinction method developed by Dr. Sinclair using Naltrexone.
Naltrexone or "Nal" for short is a pill that blocks opioid receptors in the brain, the same receptors that get stimulated when drinking. Only, and here comes that part that seems unbelievable until you understand it better, one MUST DRINK while using Naltrexone in order for it to work its seeming magic over time.
Naltrexone + Drinking = Cure
We eventually modified it for us to be:
Naltrexone + Drinking + Transparency = Cure
If one is not transparent with their significant other, troubles brew. But of course this method can be used even without any help from a significant other, so technically Nal + Drinking = Cure is still the actual cure.
The transparency part came into play for us because that bitch, vodka, kept sinking her hooks into him time and time again. He needed to begin the process of being open about the things he's been hiding for so long, and that was not an easy thing to do at first.. not for a long time in fact. Sneakiness in drinking is simply part of the core of AUD. It's not personal, though it sure feels personal and I had to learn to deal constructively with deceit from my significant other. It helped to realize that this man was never deceitful in any other subject or manner, other than with his drinking.
It sounds severe, doesn't it? It sounds like a deal breaker, I know. Believe me, it almost broke us, time and time again.
But on Feb. 8th, 2018, the birthday of his deceased brother, spaceman made a decision, a strong-backed decision to drop vodka from his life entirely. It was then that the TSM method kicked into its highest gear yet and we quickly climbed out of the vicious cycle that is AUD addiction. Don't get me wrong, it's not that the Nal wasn't working before that point. Spaceman swears that he could never have gotten to the point where he felt strong enough to kick the hard liquor to the curb without it. It's just that I suspect he needed a stronger dose to achieve that while still drinking vodka. It's just one of those steps in the TSM process... while you are doing your Nal + Drinking method of weaning off alcohol, you eventually experience milestones such as that. He still drinks beer or wine on Naltrexone sometimes. But he ALWAYS has his Nal pill at least an hour before drinking. This shrinks the neural pathways that were once used reinforce addiction, and over time his cravings have shrunk, bit by awesome bit.
Having said all that... I cannot express to you how significantly different "this time" truly feels. Few people have even known of his AUD outside of my little family's walls. One person, my older sister figured it out and I swore her to silence, insisting it's our story to tell, when and IF we choose to tell it. She has complied and been super supportive of our process. His family also knows. It came down to it at one point. One of my readers here, also knew, as I reached out for desperate help during one of the stronger stress points in our journey. A couple of my best friends knew, though that wasn't particularly helpful. One may also be in her own AUD struggle and the other has a boyfriend who is also AUD stricken. And I... my presence faded from everyone's lives while all this raged around me. I recoiled inward just to manage my own situation.
So that is it. That is the big ordeal of which I have been writing circles around for so long. And now that we have regrown our trust, regrown his faith in himself, he has begun the process of dealing with emotional triggers on-the-level, without numbing them. And now the world is laying bare all kinds of fruits from our labor. I can't wait to tell you about those as well! <3
Saturday, March 17, 2018
Healing Atop Healing!
Miracles can and do happen, and I believe I am in the midst of a banger of one right now.
Most people who know me, know I live with chronic constipation. This came on suddenly back in 2005, at the same time serious health problems came on suddenly for spaceman... immediately after our trip to Sedona together. While the reasons for that may be somewhat more in line with some kind of "spiritual setup" - due to unfold much later for the two of us, it may turn out to be related in a coincidental medical cause kind of way that, to be honest, we have not yet identified.
Though this miracle I've stumbled upon has been being called forth from my conscious calling out for it ever since then, it wasn't until this week when things got dangerously out of control that I became rooted in determination not just to treat symptoms any longer, but to get to the very root if it all.
I didn't expect answers to come so quick!
Now is the time, I suppose, and I am not wasting this new information. I'm jumping in full steam ahead, because it feels that succinct.
Synchronicities have been sparking off right and left this week as well, futher impressing upon me that I am on the right trail.
Here's the short of it:
I discovered my answers through escalating symptoms. All symptoms, even seemingly unrelated symptoms suddenly connect in an unexpected way and I have a health solution laying before me that excites me to no end!
First off, I am toxic. Not just because I'm full of shit quite literally, but because the method I have been using for years to help alleviate it (enemas) has finally caught up with me and been causing serious cardiovascular distress. But I didn't know this yet. Regardless, it is now clear, I am on toxic overload of sodium. So that must be dealt with first. I discovered the sodium connection from two meals I ate this week that had more sodium than usual, and the connection between my cardiovascular issues and sodium became self evident. But wait... I hadn't been eating too much salt in general, so how did I become toxic? I plugged it into the search box and began reading.
It was then that I discovered a forum post of someone having similar problems to whom my miracle answer was recommended. The guy said he felt results start kicking in within the week. Still skeptical of course, I searched to reach about that protocol and began skimming about the "magnesium miracle". Still not impressed yet, I pulled up a (long) video interview and set it to play while I continued my research.
At some point the connection popped into my head. Tossing my laptop aside, I jumped up and ran to the bathroom to read the label on my box of enemas... sure enough, it's salt water!! I immediately knew I had to quit those cold turkey and also felt grateful that I had listened to my body's intuition so far this week and really clamped down on constipation-offending foods again. I even gave up meat again, simply for digestive tract transit time concerns. (Plus, I want to do it for spiritual reasons.) So making the decision to axe my one "go to" solution for my constipation didn't feel overwhelming to me because I was already starting to feel some relief from the constipation, having been eating tons of veggies this week, cooked and raw. I've always known that is super helpful to me, so it was the first thing I changed... again, because before now I never felt I could stick with it.
Back to the bed, sitting by spaceman who is doing his own thing on his own laptop, we both were growing increasingly fascinated with what this lady doctor was explaining about chronic magnesium deficiencies.
I have been telling spaceman all week, who has been trying his level best to accommodate any and all healing changes I want to make, that I'm adamant that I am not seeking solace for symptoms. I AM SEEKING the ROOT CAUSE. And let me tell you, I have been distraught this week over the cardiovascular complications and their boding in my life. My mantra has been root cause, Root Cause, ROOT CAUSE!!! I've been feeling a level of determination bordering on angry insanity, but it's also been fueling my requests for help from my spirit guides with a certain degree of expectation that they can deliver this information to me one way or another! I have been determined to will* the manifestation of this answer one way or another, though I knew not how!
And BAM!
This shit has landed in my lap and blown me away!
Magnesium deficiency, why that? Well, I plan to re-listen to that video and write down all the ways in which I personally have had life-long symptoms of this and how it may help with so many issues I have, that I thought were unrelated, including my chronic constipation. Seriously, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or both!
I feel stoked! I'm going to BEAT this condition and RESTORE health like I've never known it before! And I'm going to take as many people with me as I can. <3 Staring with... my daughter.
And since this post is long enough, I think I will get out my carrots, apples & beats and start making fresh juice for the week while I re-listen to that video, making notes along the way.
What a good week!
*"Will-ing" healing... that's another synchronicity! I had an amazing dream over spaceman's recent healing which involved my willing it as so. So many overlapping synchronicities lately!
Most people who know me, know I live with chronic constipation. This came on suddenly back in 2005, at the same time serious health problems came on suddenly for spaceman... immediately after our trip to Sedona together. While the reasons for that may be somewhat more in line with some kind of "spiritual setup" - due to unfold much later for the two of us, it may turn out to be related in a coincidental medical cause kind of way that, to be honest, we have not yet identified.
Though this miracle I've stumbled upon has been being called forth from my conscious calling out for it ever since then, it wasn't until this week when things got dangerously out of control that I became rooted in determination not just to treat symptoms any longer, but to get to the very root if it all.
I didn't expect answers to come so quick!
Now is the time, I suppose, and I am not wasting this new information. I'm jumping in full steam ahead, because it feels that succinct.
Synchronicities have been sparking off right and left this week as well, futher impressing upon me that I am on the right trail.
Here's the short of it:
I discovered my answers through escalating symptoms. All symptoms, even seemingly unrelated symptoms suddenly connect in an unexpected way and I have a health solution laying before me that excites me to no end!
First off, I am toxic. Not just because I'm full of shit quite literally, but because the method I have been using for years to help alleviate it (enemas) has finally caught up with me and been causing serious cardiovascular distress. But I didn't know this yet. Regardless, it is now clear, I am on toxic overload of sodium. So that must be dealt with first. I discovered the sodium connection from two meals I ate this week that had more sodium than usual, and the connection between my cardiovascular issues and sodium became self evident. But wait... I hadn't been eating too much salt in general, so how did I become toxic? I plugged it into the search box and began reading.
It was then that I discovered a forum post of someone having similar problems to whom my miracle answer was recommended. The guy said he felt results start kicking in within the week. Still skeptical of course, I searched to reach about that protocol and began skimming about the "magnesium miracle". Still not impressed yet, I pulled up a (long) video interview and set it to play while I continued my research.
At some point the connection popped into my head. Tossing my laptop aside, I jumped up and ran to the bathroom to read the label on my box of enemas... sure enough, it's salt water!! I immediately knew I had to quit those cold turkey and also felt grateful that I had listened to my body's intuition so far this week and really clamped down on constipation-offending foods again. I even gave up meat again, simply for digestive tract transit time concerns. (Plus, I want to do it for spiritual reasons.) So making the decision to axe my one "go to" solution for my constipation didn't feel overwhelming to me because I was already starting to feel some relief from the constipation, having been eating tons of veggies this week, cooked and raw. I've always known that is super helpful to me, so it was the first thing I changed... again, because before now I never felt I could stick with it.
Back to the bed, sitting by spaceman who is doing his own thing on his own laptop, we both were growing increasingly fascinated with what this lady doctor was explaining about chronic magnesium deficiencies.
I have been telling spaceman all week, who has been trying his level best to accommodate any and all healing changes I want to make, that I'm adamant that I am not seeking solace for symptoms. I AM SEEKING the ROOT CAUSE. And let me tell you, I have been distraught this week over the cardiovascular complications and their boding in my life. My mantra has been root cause, Root Cause, ROOT CAUSE!!! I've been feeling a level of determination bordering on angry insanity, but it's also been fueling my requests for help from my spirit guides with a certain degree of expectation that they can deliver this information to me one way or another! I have been determined to will* the manifestation of this answer one way or another, though I knew not how!
And BAM!
This shit has landed in my lap and blown me away!
Magnesium deficiency, why that? Well, I plan to re-listen to that video and write down all the ways in which I personally have had life-long symptoms of this and how it may help with so many issues I have, that I thought were unrelated, including my chronic constipation. Seriously, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or both!
I feel stoked! I'm going to BEAT this condition and RESTORE health like I've never known it before! And I'm going to take as many people with me as I can. <3 Staring with... my daughter.
And since this post is long enough, I think I will get out my carrots, apples & beats and start making fresh juice for the week while I re-listen to that video, making notes along the way.
What a good week!
*"Will-ing" healing... that's another synchronicity! I had an amazing dream over spaceman's recent healing which involved my willing it as so. So many overlapping synchronicities lately!
Sunday, March 11, 2018
Deep Healing
It's a life of ease, suddenly, and just in time, like a dam breaking and life downstream being refreshed... like salmon being let back into their natural rivers and streams and allowing the wild numbers to increase and contribute to the natural diversity of life all around it... I feel I am exactly where I planned to be at the time I chose to be here... and WITH who I was meant to meet up with. We share an interconnected purpose, so interconnected... I could never speak to it all.
If nothing else, we came to heal each other.
Like the salmon being allowed to return to to an expression that's closer to their source, being with spaceman helps me feel closer to mine. At the same time, he needed to experience the unconditional love that he pined for. And let me just add the caveat that unconditional love isn't really unconditional in so much that each person allows the other the room to heal while dealing with some of the most intense ares of life needing that healing most. It's more like holding space. But it does NOT mean allowing yourself to be walked all over. Giving room doesn't always mean non-interference; it means looking at what's best for the moment when your gut tells you what's most helpful for both beloves. What takes off after that is said to be amazing.
Have you ever seen that video on the effect of the release of wolves back into the area changed the very landscape of the park over time.
https://youtu.be/ysa5OBhXz-Q
Like is demonstrated in this video, you never know all the various ways in which returning balance into one's lives affects everything from their perspectives.
If nothing else, we came to heal each other.
Like the salmon being allowed to return to to an expression that's closer to their source, being with spaceman helps me feel closer to mine. At the same time, he needed to experience the unconditional love that he pined for. And let me just add the caveat that unconditional love isn't really unconditional in so much that each person allows the other the room to heal while dealing with some of the most intense ares of life needing that healing most. It's more like holding space. But it does NOT mean allowing yourself to be walked all over. Giving room doesn't always mean non-interference; it means looking at what's best for the moment when your gut tells you what's most helpful for both beloves. What takes off after that is said to be amazing.
Have you ever seen that video on the effect of the release of wolves back into the area changed the very landscape of the park over time.
Like is demonstrated in this video, you never know all the various ways in which returning balance into one's lives affects everything from their perspectives.
Tuesday, March 06, 2018
Respite, Healing
These last two days have been charged for me.
Certain difficulties have broken through to cleaner energy and stability. Actually that happened nearly a month ago. I can't believe it's been a month of this break-through. I'm starting to process what feels like grief and relief, especially this week as I look back and see how much time has gone by and what that represents to me right now. I wasn't sure how many rabbit holes I would have to go down to retrieve such a breakthrough. A month ago was a big one. And yet, I feel out beyond its sphere of destruction.
It's a really good place to be. Respite fills the air.
Certain difficulties have broken through to cleaner energy and stability. Actually that happened nearly a month ago. I can't believe it's been a month of this break-through. I'm starting to process what feels like grief and relief, especially this week as I look back and see how much time has gone by and what that represents to me right now. I wasn't sure how many rabbit holes I would have to go down to retrieve such a breakthrough. A month ago was a big one. And yet, I feel out beyond its sphere of destruction.
It's a really good place to be. Respite fills the air.
Sunday, February 18, 2018
Sunday Funday
It's just before 9 am on a Sunday morning. Today we are going fishing, trout fishing to be exact. Trout are active when it's cold so spring and fall are great for trout fishing. But since it's been raining quite a lot this past week, the rivers are swollen, so wading upstream through swollen rivers is out of the question. Today we go pond fishing.
The place we're going has 5 big ponds or small lakes, whatever you want to term them. They are stocked once a month and are a popular place to fish for a couple of reasons. #1) It's a metropark that does not require a fishing license. We have them, but it's a popular spot for that reason. #2) You can "keep" the fish you catch! Most easy access places around here don't let you. It's just for catch and release. That leads me to a third reason... #3) The lakes are easy access for elderly or handicapped veterans who live near the VA hospital that's close by. Some of those dudes (and a few gals) really know their fishing! Spaceman usually tries to get them to talk, you know... spill the beans on what lures they're catching all those fish on.... most folks are friendly and will chat a few minutes to share about their successes or the one that got away.
Today it's going to be chilly. Usually we only go fishing if it's close to or above 50F. As of right now, it's only 28F. brrrr!
I'm awake though, spaceman is sleeping beside me, snoring *rolls eyes* ;) If it were warmer I would have awoken him already like a kid on Christmas morning. But.... *sigh* It will be a while before it warms more. The high is supposed to be only 41F today. But... it's the only day in a long stretch where it's not supposed to also rain when it warms up. And we are itching to get out there and spend the day casting.
For my birthday he bought me my own tackle "box" which is a soft-sided bag with lots of pockets and a couple of hard plastic containers with dividers inside. Yesterday I got it out and gently reminded him it's empty. EMPTY! What's the point of carrying an empty tackle box. lol So he got his out, which is literally bursting at the seams and spring cleaned it a bit, handing me things I had contributed or that he had doubles of. So now I have a few things in my bag. That works for me.
Aww, he just woke up and said dejectedly, "It's 30 degrees." To which I replied, "Yeah, that's why I haven't woke you up yet. Go back to sleep." And bam, a minute later, he's snoring again. :P
I plan to wake him up a little more nicely later. :)
The place we're going has 5 big ponds or small lakes, whatever you want to term them. They are stocked once a month and are a popular place to fish for a couple of reasons. #1) It's a metropark that does not require a fishing license. We have them, but it's a popular spot for that reason. #2) You can "keep" the fish you catch! Most easy access places around here don't let you. It's just for catch and release. That leads me to a third reason... #3) The lakes are easy access for elderly or handicapped veterans who live near the VA hospital that's close by. Some of those dudes (and a few gals) really know their fishing! Spaceman usually tries to get them to talk, you know... spill the beans on what lures they're catching all those fish on.... most folks are friendly and will chat a few minutes to share about their successes or the one that got away.
Today it's going to be chilly. Usually we only go fishing if it's close to or above 50F. As of right now, it's only 28F. brrrr!
I'm awake though, spaceman is sleeping beside me, snoring *rolls eyes* ;) If it were warmer I would have awoken him already like a kid on Christmas morning. But.... *sigh* It will be a while before it warms more. The high is supposed to be only 41F today. But... it's the only day in a long stretch where it's not supposed to also rain when it warms up. And we are itching to get out there and spend the day casting.
For my birthday he bought me my own tackle "box" which is a soft-sided bag with lots of pockets and a couple of hard plastic containers with dividers inside. Yesterday I got it out and gently reminded him it's empty. EMPTY! What's the point of carrying an empty tackle box. lol So he got his out, which is literally bursting at the seams and spring cleaned it a bit, handing me things I had contributed or that he had doubles of. So now I have a few things in my bag. That works for me.
Aww, he just woke up and said dejectedly, "It's 30 degrees." To which I replied, "Yeah, that's why I haven't woke you up yet. Go back to sleep." And bam, a minute later, he's snoring again. :P
I plan to wake him up a little more nicely later. :)
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Valentine's Eve
I've finally found my way to the bedroom, early tonight, after several days of lower back aches and cramping. This IUD is coming out, very soon. It's made things so much harder. I'm done. This evening, I have a heating pad. ugh
Tomorrow's Valentine's Day and I had already bought some cards and candy... I hadn't been planning to buy a gift-gift. But today I thought of the perfect thing, and I tried to get to that type of store... one said it was open until 7pm. After racing to be there in time to shop, I found the parking lot abandoned and the neon "OPEN" sign, dark.
In desperation, I went to the only place that might have anything, Wal-Mart. But that too was a no go. This is a specialty item. Might as well tell you, since it didn't happen... it was "hackles", at least I think that's what it's called... it's a feathered craft material for tying your own flies, for fly fishing. He's out of them and they're sold from specialty stores or online. Too bad I didn't think of it sooner. :(
Anyway, I may still try to go, to a closer-to-work store, over my lunch tomorrow. Near work, it's a good area for fly fishing... which we haven't explored yet. This area has a few rivers perfect for wading. The only problem is I CAN'T CATCH WELL. haha I wish it weren't true! But I LOVE fishing.
When I was little, my dad took me fishing once... Paint Creek.... we fished off a giant squared off boulder, or maybe it just looked giant to my young self. I caught an albino fish of some kind, maybe 6 inches. There's a photo somewhere, I think, just not online. It was way before "online".
After that I was hooked. Unfortunately, I spent the rest of my childhood wishing my dad would take me fishing again, but never really going. Imagine my continued disappointment when down at the lake on vacation with extended family, my aunt and uncle got up to go fishing early one morning and though I begged my parents to let me go with them, my parents wouldn't even ask my aunt and uncle if I could go with them, it was their couples time, looking back. But still, my heart sank.
Dad had four kids to feed, put through catholic schools, and take on family vacations. Dad was a machinist for GM. I used to ask him, "Dad, what do you make at work?" "Money" he'd say. And for the longest time I thoroughly believed dad made metal coins at work. *shrugs* I was young. :) But dad knew what all parents know, if you buy something for one of them, they will ALL want it. And that was expensive. No fishing licenses for us. Anyways, dad worked all the overtime he was ever offered, 16 hour days for days at a time. Unions have lists, rules, and dispute resolution processes. he played by the rules and never missed out on maximizing overtime pay.
But it left little time for fishing.
Enter spaceman who fares from a river fishing family. The stories include stopping to fish open spaces... spaces that are now long since all owned, divided and marked "KEEP OUT". There's also an incredibly hilarious "when the fish really start hitting" story of his dad's. But it's not mine to tell. ;)
Spaceman takes me fishing every time I ask. If he's feeling blue, there's a good chance you'll find him getting lost in his healing process while casting his lines. He catches at least something EVERY TIME we go fishing! grr But not me. It doesn't matter. I would sit there all day if the weather cooperated. One time, lol, we rented kayaks to fish.... I actually caught 2 that day... and then we realized we had 3.5 miles left to go on a 5 mile course and about 15 minutes until sunset, until dark. It's hard to navigate a river at night and we had no flashlights. That was the most wild, determined rowing I've done in my life - or ever will again. When I'm 80, I want those memories.
Spaceman makes my life memorable. I know that I have truly been loved. And I know what truly loving feels like. It's not all easy, but it's beyond worth it.
Happy Valentine's Day to you all, My Love included. <3
Friday, February 09, 2018
all your moments have purpose
What if we're in a moment like in an epic movie... all of us, only not everyone knows this. What if you're ridiculed for the knowledge you would share? But what if you're finding others, and groups of all organic backgrounds are coming closer in combating the oppressors that keep you from your inherent access to the knowledge of the history of earth, true physics, and the interconnected-ness of logos, and holographic fractals. Everything is one, but from each perspective, separate. The wave and the particle, observation has an effect, lack of observation has proven a changed effect, consciousness creates.
And each of us are creating, from each our own perspectives, though coalescing of social complex conditioning guides (aka: brainwashes fake news to the masses) and that's how we have those that know and those masses who don't with the majority used to parrot propaganda to ridicule, those who bring awareness to the way forward. Otherwise, it's a bleak future. It's the enslavement of your minds by tv, gadgets, and technology to keep you disconnected from your seed of knowledge of self consciousness....
And I'm very into technology, so understand that I understand the significance of AI technology. AI is not just something created to assist us humans, make life easier, keep us alive. Technology is used for warfare, it's used in unimaginable ways when combined with the real physics and awareness transcending knowledge that's kept from us.
This is a consciousness war, and it's spread throughout the earth, solar system, other dimensions, and their inhabitants every 26,000-some years, morphing souls, points of consciousness, "enlightening", ascending those who are ready. Service to others is difficult but not like service to self. Send love to those whose modus operandi is service to self, when you can. But don't start with them, start with yourself, your past, your present. Reinvent the future. Become aware of the epic movie moment your existence is living out, because it's about to get crazy.
Energies are transforming and we are in that transformative area of our galaxy where (or is it when?) we are bombarded with more light from our central sun, enough to flip tipping points in cosmic ways that are no different from the ways of consciousness. The scales are tipped in our favor, because no service to self entity can ascend through the octaves into 6th density, if I recall it well. Each logos contains an octave and each note in that octave has logos within logos. Holographic. How can I not conceive an end outward, but inward... at some point we reach unity. It blows my mind to sit and think about it. I am so small. And yet I am all there is! If only I could live every moment aware of the implications of this in everything I do... that's kind of how I imagined enlightenment to be when I began to learn about it.
In reality, I'm not sure I know how it really is. I have so many personal hangups and self-sabotaoge even when I know I do, smh. But we each have a purpose, we have our place in the, shall I say, timeline??? maybe. A purpose we each must discover on our own... mine is inextricably intertwined with spaceman's. When I met him, he counted his telescope, book of essential rumi, and family photos as item's he'd save in a fire.... We fell in love while he quoted rumi passages to me over messenger, with or without webcam. We fell hard for one another.
Then a lot of stuff happened and we maintained a platonic friendship through the in-between years, until reuniting a couple years ago. Spaceman is someone I know in my everything is a separate but mirrored consciousness to my own soul. It's uncanny, he tells me this, feeling it with me as well, both ways. And yet, no couple is without their troubles, especially during a consciousness war, and especially with wanders who have been waking up in droves the solar system over, realizing their place in the cosmos, like an epic, slow-mo movie moment in the blink of an eye amid the history of the cosmos.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
who spaceman is to me
Maybe a handful of you, at best, read that last post. No one commented, but at least someone out there read what I wrote.
Tonight I am pondering other things. Things like... seeing myself... in spaceman. Having met so clearly a reflection of transpositions along a myriad of faucets of personality, points of view, spirituality, and struggles... he shows me to myself, who else could do that so well but someone who is cut of the same cloth. And yet this person different enough... he's from a different sub-culture and we have a significant difference in age.... though I don't feel the age difference, except in music and tv references he'll make from time to time. I'll say, "I've heard of it but I can't place it". And he invariably says "nevermind, I'm old". I think he must feel the age difference more than I do. But we both feel the connection equally, we both know how lucky we have it in one another.
Spaceman is my twin flame. I didn't know what that meant until we came back together the second time. In the past I would scoff at the use of the term, not understanding how it is not the same thing as saying "soulmate". I'd long determined I'd had more than one soulmate in my life, including a platonic friendship or two. My experience led me to reluctantly believe that I'd either messed up my chance at true and lasting love, or just wasn't slated for it this time around. Though by then I had had a serious taste of what it could be like. It was all for naught though, I'd given up expecting what I wanted and was just trying to find companionship without the love that I felt calling me from my very being. My whole life had been "to find the one"and I was no longer looking for "the one".
It's like when they tell you "oh, you'll find him just as soon as you quit looking" (that always irritated me!)... and you think to yourself, "yeah, sure, I'll just quit wanting it right here and right now" (sarcasm) because you know you can no more let that dream go than not exist in the next moment. It's part of who I was, this calling to find my love.
And I found him and I sent him away!!! haha (long story)
That, too, by the way is a common experience with twin flames. It's said one or the other of the twins is the runner and the other is the chaser. I was the runner back then. But it wasn't easy to run. Ultimately what sent me running was a bit of energetic interference that must have been designed to draw attention to those things that needed transformation in our lives... that kind of transformative energy came from when we were in Sedona, AZ together and significant time in the shadow of the Cathedral Rock Vortex.
Years later he moved to Sedona and lived there for 2 years or so. I remember it well... well enough, anyway, from the perspective of his pen pal of sorts... a pen pal he was still very much in love with. A girl knows these things, yes, but she really knows it when he tells her. ;) Authenticity has a certain resonance to it when you sense it. Spaceman is the most honest and inwardly reflecting man I've ever known. He says he's all cancer-y water like, and he'd be right, but he's also infused with such a distinct insight ability, which I always considered to be thought-based, not as much emotion-based. Regardless, however he came by it, he came to similar insights and conclusions as I have come to about life, and how and why it works the way it does. It feels as if we've come together in a co-creative, predestined kind of way. I'm sure it must sound like flights of fancy, but some things are true whether you believe them or not. just because you exist as the center of your experience doesn't mean I also don't exist at the center of my experience, therefore everyone's experience is creating reality... it draws down into us like magnets for logos building material. threads of probabilities crackle and jump like elecromagnet jolts of tunneled light, like portals between planets and stars...
Spaceman is HIM. He's that person I came here to meet and go through life together like we are... like we are, at this time, on this timeline, and for a specific reason. We are not alone, there are many of us starseeds out there, and I would venture to guess that most are like he and I... still working out varying degrees of 1) our awareness of what's going on in the world and 2) our purpose within it. A few are confident of details. We are not, most are probably not. This is a whirlwind experience, but one I wouldn't trade for anything.
It's like we are barreling down through a portal tunnel of light where it's stretched we're all having a bit of a rough ride of it, especially those who are becoming aware through it, those who are awakening or awake. For the others, things may seem crazier but they still won't question it. Those folks may not notice as much difference, because their awareness is hijacked. But starseeds and a great deal of others as well, are waking up. We're all in different stages of that, but it's happening more rapidly. The negative is getting magnified but so is the positive. But no one individual, of those who are polarized towards one end or the other, is having an easy time of it lately. There is struggle and turmoil in some form or another for each of us.
Spaceman and I are no exception.
Our perspectives, our roles are not the same, but there is a certain challenge in our lives together that cannot easily be remedied. I don't know if he would be okay with me spilling it here, especially without warning, so I will simply tell you that it's a physical/emotional/mental/spiritual kind of challenge that both the not the dealing with it and the dealing with it has each threatened to take our relationship... and yet neither of us wants that, we want more to work things through, and we are doing just that and succeeding. And despite sometimes feeling setbacks, there is no way we cannot feel the authentic truth that resonates between us, that we belong together. we are home with one another, home is being with the other. it's childhood character building, common off-the-wall experience, a relentlessly endless stream of never running out of things to talk about. It's wading quietly in a swift moving river, the cold water closing on the pants of your waders but never freezing you out. It's the clear cold water where you can see until the water turns icy blue and too dark to make anything out. (don't step there!) It's looking up and seeing a hawk on the telephone wire then swooping down into the brush to get his song bird. he did. It's working hard shoving and shoveling mulch out of a borrowed pickup truck and being exhausted from the day's work. It's also a lot of other things, too.
Out of privacy, I withhold. But let me reassure you that this man is the most amazing gentleman I've ever met. <3 He's shown me what it means to truly love someone, to truly be loved by someone. When I am hurting, he's listening and working through things to meet me somewhere along the middle. Every morning he gets up early to make me breakfast, clean off the car and warm it up for me. And every evening he's made dinner for us while being conscious of each of our food sensitivities. He's torn off the and side of my shed, fixed it with new wood, and repainted it. My 10 x 10 little garden is now 20 x 30'! And it has a french drain under it, well.. mostly. heh :) It's a work in progress. ;) We have common aspirations. We love to grow organically. We want to live where we can have a small farm and live more surrounded by nature than the suburbs can provide. And we watch Cosmic Disclosure together, it's our favorite show, and have so much in common spiritually that it's uncanny how similar we view things.
But sometimes people have been through some serious shit. and sometimes that shit still has a grip even after love comes flooding in. I know what true love is because of this man. I not only know it, I have the memories of it, and the future and the present. Everything about us is transformative in a way. We do come from two significantly enough different cultural backgrounds... suburban metro libral meets Appalachian fishing christian theologian. Yet I knew what his hands would look like before I met him... but not what his culture or age would be like. in most ways, he is far more insightful and tolerant than I am. I'm hot firey air sometimes and he's thick mud. I'm not good with my emotions sometimes because I rely more on my intellect to keep me from those emotions as often as possible. he's so deep with his emotions that I have trouble understanding the patterns of it. thankfully cancers do have rhythms... and that's one thing aquarius isn't aloof about, discerning patterns, so consider it a challenge accepted! ;) The realization is... that cancer feels as deeply as aquarius thinks. it's a little known secret that there can come a rare connection between a certain combination of cancer and aquarius and the sparks are impossible to avoid. somehow he and I got it right. And I'm so thankful that I didn't miss out after all. My guy is here. we're together right now. whatever challenges that come our way, we face it together. we may not both take the same degree of flack by the challenges we face together, but the other is there, and in a complimentary fashion, standing together. To me, that's what love does. maybe what it is, is hard to describe well enough. but what it does, we can tell those stories over and over for generations to come. That's the kind of love I feel for spaceman. And it's the kind of love he gives to me. It doesn't prevent me from hurting, due to others or even him, but it does insulate me. his love feels like a blanket, all snuggly warm. He's home to me, he feels that way because the man I have been looking for my entire life stands with me now and every cell in my body tells me it's true. twin flame relationships are not easy, but they are rewarding like nothing you can imagine unless it happens to you. may it happen to each of you <3
Tonight I am pondering other things. Things like... seeing myself... in spaceman. Having met so clearly a reflection of transpositions along a myriad of faucets of personality, points of view, spirituality, and struggles... he shows me to myself, who else could do that so well but someone who is cut of the same cloth. And yet this person different enough... he's from a different sub-culture and we have a significant difference in age.... though I don't feel the age difference, except in music and tv references he'll make from time to time. I'll say, "I've heard of it but I can't place it". And he invariably says "nevermind, I'm old". I think he must feel the age difference more than I do. But we both feel the connection equally, we both know how lucky we have it in one another.
Spaceman is my twin flame. I didn't know what that meant until we came back together the second time. In the past I would scoff at the use of the term, not understanding how it is not the same thing as saying "soulmate". I'd long determined I'd had more than one soulmate in my life, including a platonic friendship or two. My experience led me to reluctantly believe that I'd either messed up my chance at true and lasting love, or just wasn't slated for it this time around. Though by then I had had a serious taste of what it could be like. It was all for naught though, I'd given up expecting what I wanted and was just trying to find companionship without the love that I felt calling me from my very being. My whole life had been "to find the one"and I was no longer looking for "the one".
It's like when they tell you "oh, you'll find him just as soon as you quit looking" (that always irritated me!)... and you think to yourself, "yeah, sure, I'll just quit wanting it right here and right now" (sarcasm) because you know you can no more let that dream go than not exist in the next moment. It's part of who I was, this calling to find my love.
And I found him and I sent him away!!! haha (long story)
That, too, by the way is a common experience with twin flames. It's said one or the other of the twins is the runner and the other is the chaser. I was the runner back then. But it wasn't easy to run. Ultimately what sent me running was a bit of energetic interference that must have been designed to draw attention to those things that needed transformation in our lives... that kind of transformative energy came from when we were in Sedona, AZ together and significant time in the shadow of the Cathedral Rock Vortex.
Years later he moved to Sedona and lived there for 2 years or so. I remember it well... well enough, anyway, from the perspective of his pen pal of sorts... a pen pal he was still very much in love with. A girl knows these things, yes, but she really knows it when he tells her. ;) Authenticity has a certain resonance to it when you sense it. Spaceman is the most honest and inwardly reflecting man I've ever known. He says he's all cancer-y water like, and he'd be right, but he's also infused with such a distinct insight ability, which I always considered to be thought-based, not as much emotion-based. Regardless, however he came by it, he came to similar insights and conclusions as I have come to about life, and how and why it works the way it does. It feels as if we've come together in a co-creative, predestined kind of way. I'm sure it must sound like flights of fancy, but some things are true whether you believe them or not. just because you exist as the center of your experience doesn't mean I also don't exist at the center of my experience, therefore everyone's experience is creating reality... it draws down into us like magnets for logos building material. threads of probabilities crackle and jump like elecromagnet jolts of tunneled light, like portals between planets and stars...
Spaceman is HIM. He's that person I came here to meet and go through life together like we are... like we are, at this time, on this timeline, and for a specific reason. We are not alone, there are many of us starseeds out there, and I would venture to guess that most are like he and I... still working out varying degrees of 1) our awareness of what's going on in the world and 2) our purpose within it. A few are confident of details. We are not, most are probably not. This is a whirlwind experience, but one I wouldn't trade for anything.
It's like we are barreling down through a portal tunnel of light where it's stretched we're all having a bit of a rough ride of it, especially those who are becoming aware through it, those who are awakening or awake. For the others, things may seem crazier but they still won't question it. Those folks may not notice as much difference, because their awareness is hijacked. But starseeds and a great deal of others as well, are waking up. We're all in different stages of that, but it's happening more rapidly. The negative is getting magnified but so is the positive. But no one individual, of those who are polarized towards one end or the other, is having an easy time of it lately. There is struggle and turmoil in some form or another for each of us.
Spaceman and I are no exception.
Our perspectives, our roles are not the same, but there is a certain challenge in our lives together that cannot easily be remedied. I don't know if he would be okay with me spilling it here, especially without warning, so I will simply tell you that it's a physical/emotional/mental/spiritual kind of challenge that both the not the dealing with it and the dealing with it has each threatened to take our relationship... and yet neither of us wants that, we want more to work things through, and we are doing just that and succeeding. And despite sometimes feeling setbacks, there is no way we cannot feel the authentic truth that resonates between us, that we belong together. we are home with one another, home is being with the other. it's childhood character building, common off-the-wall experience, a relentlessly endless stream of never running out of things to talk about. It's wading quietly in a swift moving river, the cold water closing on the pants of your waders but never freezing you out. It's the clear cold water where you can see until the water turns icy blue and too dark to make anything out. (don't step there!) It's looking up and seeing a hawk on the telephone wire then swooping down into the brush to get his song bird. he did. It's working hard shoving and shoveling mulch out of a borrowed pickup truck and being exhausted from the day's work. It's also a lot of other things, too.
Out of privacy, I withhold. But let me reassure you that this man is the most amazing gentleman I've ever met. <3 He's shown me what it means to truly love someone, to truly be loved by someone. When I am hurting, he's listening and working through things to meet me somewhere along the middle. Every morning he gets up early to make me breakfast, clean off the car and warm it up for me. And every evening he's made dinner for us while being conscious of each of our food sensitivities. He's torn off the and side of my shed, fixed it with new wood, and repainted it. My 10 x 10 little garden is now 20 x 30'! And it has a french drain under it, well.. mostly. heh :) It's a work in progress. ;) We have common aspirations. We love to grow organically. We want to live where we can have a small farm and live more surrounded by nature than the suburbs can provide. And we watch Cosmic Disclosure together, it's our favorite show, and have so much in common spiritually that it's uncanny how similar we view things.
But sometimes people have been through some serious shit. and sometimes that shit still has a grip even after love comes flooding in. I know what true love is because of this man. I not only know it, I have the memories of it, and the future and the present. Everything about us is transformative in a way. We do come from two significantly enough different cultural backgrounds... suburban metro libral meets Appalachian fishing christian theologian. Yet I knew what his hands would look like before I met him... but not what his culture or age would be like. in most ways, he is far more insightful and tolerant than I am. I'm hot firey air sometimes and he's thick mud. I'm not good with my emotions sometimes because I rely more on my intellect to keep me from those emotions as often as possible. he's so deep with his emotions that I have trouble understanding the patterns of it. thankfully cancers do have rhythms... and that's one thing aquarius isn't aloof about, discerning patterns, so consider it a challenge accepted! ;) The realization is... that cancer feels as deeply as aquarius thinks. it's a little known secret that there can come a rare connection between a certain combination of cancer and aquarius and the sparks are impossible to avoid. somehow he and I got it right. And I'm so thankful that I didn't miss out after all. My guy is here. we're together right now. whatever challenges that come our way, we face it together. we may not both take the same degree of flack by the challenges we face together, but the other is there, and in a complimentary fashion, standing together. To me, that's what love does. maybe what it is, is hard to describe well enough. but what it does, we can tell those stories over and over for generations to come. That's the kind of love I feel for spaceman. And it's the kind of love he gives to me. It doesn't prevent me from hurting, due to others or even him, but it does insulate me. his love feels like a blanket, all snuggly warm. He's home to me, he feels that way because the man I have been looking for my entire life stands with me now and every cell in my body tells me it's true. twin flame relationships are not easy, but they are rewarding like nothing you can imagine unless it happens to you. may it happen to each of you <3
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