I have been working on my heart lately. My sister, the acupuncturist, would say that I’m working on my pericardium. Looking into Doaist Chinese Medicine, I can’t say that I disagree with their perspective on the subject. I adore learning new systems and languages.
As someone who works with herbs in a folk manner here in the United States, it’s fascinating to talk with my sister about Chinese herbs and how they’re used, or considered for support of various systems of health. We use many of the same or similar herbs, often prepared differently, and certainly thought of through different pathways of understanding. Understanding the connections people make—personally and culturally—expands my ability to see how connections work at all, and to make even newer connections as I walk through life. I value this highly, and it’s only served to help me communicate with others and listen better.
My cat, Tamlin, is in the hospital today getting oral surgery. She’s almost 18. I’ve had her since she was 3 months old. This is the longest relationship I’ve been in by far outside of family. She’s saved my life more times than I can count. I don’t know what I’ll do without her when the day comes… She anchors me to the reality of what love is, and to the responsibility of loving. What I could do to myself in times of crisis and depression, I have never been able to abandon her to.
Emotions have felt like excruciating pain in my body for as long as I can remember having feelings. Completely overwhelming. I’ve been called a crybaby since childhood for good reason. When I feel the pressure of sadness, anger, fear, shame, etc. build in my body I don’t know how to not break down and cry. Emotion often feels like intense helplessness to me, and the only cure is time and space and an option to speak calmly and be connected with gently. Even still, if I’ve suffered an anger-filled emotional argument it can take a few days to recover and feel safe in my body again or steady in my brain.
Testosterone has helped modify this for me, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. It feels good to have more control over my body when I’m in an intensely emotional state. I absolutely consider this hormone to be a privilege in multitudes of ways (acknowledging that what it helps “fix” for my particular chemical [im]balances are a personal reality). Still, it’s amazing to be able to stay present and see what’s happening from a slightly less viscerally overwhelmed place when I’m triggered these days, rather than feel blinded by being pinned down by emotion, like a bug to a scientist’s board.
I was away at the end of December for a week visiting family (chosen and related). Spending time in New Orleans with my chosen family asked that I start resolving the thing inside me which is afraid of loving deeply. The most natural thing in the world for me is to love. I am in love with loving and have been since forever. I’m still the little kid laying for hours in a field watching spiders do what spiders do, and talking to grasshoppers and trees. I want life to be like that today. Acknowledgement and joy. Cherishing and being in wonder of life for what it is, not what I imagine it should be.
Sometimes I think this world’s commitment to desiring change over an acceptance of reality is the most painful trauma we are socialized to internalize. We believe there is a right and a wrong and that bodies should behave in a certain set of ways. We know this isn’t what the world is made of though, and so we judge instead of endeavor to more accurately translate. Imagine what things could be like if we learned more languages…
There is healing in acceptance, in seeing, and in understanding. When we imagine what life or other people “should be”, and then act out accordingly, we can rather deeply wound things. When we act out of fear, as though that story of fear is the truth for all, we can dampen the electricity between us. Of course there is no end to misunderstandings—and we can learn from mistakes or acting in ways which don’t serve the world around us. But I also ask, where are the wide open spaces? Where are the stars and our dreams? Where is acknowledgement of the palpable connection that can be felt between all bodies? Where are our desires to make love with one another and the Earth, and all sentient beings we share the planet and our most basic atoms and molecules with? I need the ocean and trees to be ok in my own body. I think to some degree we all need nature to remind us how to be ok.
I hope 2020 is full of endeavors to connect or create space, rather than push through. I hope for more peace in our own bodies, granting more space and peace to the bodies around us. Life is a series of choices and change. We are each made of molecules based of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. We recognize one another at an atomic level, and have the ability to know things which are not right before our eyes—even when we cease remembering to listen. We can always start remembering again though. One gift we share in life, is an ability to breathe.
Play On My Friends,
~ Creature
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