Walk the walk

Unsteady

Been a tough weekend for mobility, but inspiriting!! Bernie Sanders stumped for Zephyr Teachout (running for the 19th congressional district.) At a local park in my town. I stood on the grass on this lovely late summer day,in the strong sun. After these 2 motivating progressive activist’s speeches, I realized walking would be a struggle, and it was, every step. My groovy leg brace, and olive wood walking stick, are little help in the face of body fatigue!

A day later, I sat on the grass again, in the strong sun, to watch my little boy’s first soccer game. Coaching myself: legs, engage, muscles, hold the body up, walk forward, take another step. “I think I can, I think I can…”

The question of “what is my life’s walk,” Comes to mind. Or more importantly, “how can I be of service in the world?” or as Jewish sages call it, Tikkun, or repair of the world. In the wise words of, Howard Thurman,

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Answer: do what you love! So I am facilitating a dream group at the Center for Symbolic Studies, a new venue for me to host at, but I’ve been coming to the dream group at CSS, under the masterful tutelage of Stephen and Robin Larsen for 19 years! (Since I moved to the Mid-Hudson Valley.) Substitute facilitating when so honored.

Steve certified me to be a dream group facilitator 6 years in, of a direct lineage of teacher to student to Carl G. Jung, whose picture adorns his office, I have also had the great, good fortune of learning with, and being certified by master teacher and minister, Jeremy Taylor, of MIPD, and dream shaman, “the maestro”, Robert Moss.

And a further report on these symptoms caused by MS, the pain level in my right shoulder is high! wow- an electric pulse coursing through me, my right side of my jaw has joined the fray- maybe the Medical Marijuana takes the edge off? (see previous blog post: Medical Marijuana Today, I went for my first session of Qi Gong with a phenomenal woman, Helen B., who is offering this ancient knowledge as her service in the world

A little later in the season with the changing leaves in this pic.

. Though my body is limited in the motions it can make to gather the energy, let this serve as a baseline from which to only improve, and may this martial art bring renewal in mind, body, breath!.

Here is the event invite for the next dream-sharing circle I’m hosting: https://www.facebook.com/events/210249016059245/
If you find yourself in New Paltz, (which I highly recommend), Come do dream work with us!

G-dful

September sky is blue and clear. Autumn changes: the topmost leaves in our tree, Abundance Chai, are lightening/yellowing, littering the earth with golden, sun-light.

On this day- Receive the G-d presence on the right side of the heart. An audible gurgling, a breaking through a clog. And an emptiness, an aching. Thinking it Connects body to the spirit I have encountered through sight-the sun!- through sound- the bat Kol- through smell- L’airdetent.

So, my question is what one makes of the fact that our planet is hurtling, spinning, circling through space, around a star that is moving also, contrary to what I was taught in school, nothing is fixed/static. And as the child observes, the sun and the stars are one and the same.

Yesterday, limping along, weak and body fatigued from the MS (an active weekend takes it’s toll!) I said to my housemate, “well, I’m still standing!” And he laughed, and shared the quote, “Any day above ground is a good day.”
Weekend infused with spirit! Native American celebration and sweat lodge. Matoquiocin, to all my relations. Then Jewish Renewal gathering in the woods- again, my chevre!

All people, connected by love and kindness, and spirit! It is Elul- hear the clarion call of the shofar.  The time of T’shuva, reflection, returning… As we ready ourselves for the Jewish New Year!

Return again, return again, return to the light of your soul.
Return to who you are, return to what you are, return from where you are…born and reborn again.

A sturdy arm and a steadfast spirit. The chief supports you. The chief nourishes you, cooks for the tribe. The Rebbe teaches you, touches you, learns from you. The rabbi sings to you, inspires you. The child needs you, individuates from you, hugs you, ignores you. And you just keep on keeping on.

I got stuck conceptualizing what G-d is. An old man on a throne, an energy, the great No Thing (the Ain Sof). So I go back to chanting. Sheviti SHekina l’negdi tamid. (I place G-d before me always.) I feel one should be G-ful as well as mindful! ❤

Living in it

Low flying crow over my Southbound car.

Graying  praying mantis steps across the threshold of my front door As I open it from inside.

We find a perfect wild turkey feather just before the season opens,

and a tiny Tall magenta mushroom living under a wet fallen leaf. these are the days for bluejays in the compost pile, quick moving

clouds in the wind, and a half moon visible in the noontime sky it’s shadow autumn clarity. slow reaching sun chiding squirrels in transitioning trees we’re noticing the earlier evenings and we continue.

 

Ability

MF MS 10

It starts like an electric shock boring into my right shoulder, like a bolt of lightning! The pain is intense, electrifying! And then it passes, washing over me like a hot rushing wave. Like a chilling release. I bear it bare it, grit my teeth, brace myself. Or I rub my right shoulder vigorously, and thanks to my dear friend / spiritual advisor,  I know to move my arm more, move my body, be as water.

Now it’s the time of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. I haven’t been watching it, but when I do see a news brief, or a link to an article on the phone , I really want to pause and look at, and honor the strength of the athletes, the balance, grace, and grit, of those  who are competing. The Best of the Best. Ability, not dis-abled (very disempowering word.) I think maybe I should pay more attention to the Special Olympics, and not allow, “I can’t” in the door. I think I can, I think I can. Whenever I’m at the gym on the elliptical and see the Olympics on the TV before me (or any sports, for that matter) , I feel re-ignited to push myself more, because I must!

MS (emmes) means truth in Hebrew. I limp down the hall, lose my balance, drop glasses, and I can no longer type or write, eat or cut with my once dominant right hand. So I really feel the MS has evolved from RR MS, Relapsing Remitting, to Secondary Progressive MS. Whereas, I used to have such severe symptoms such as optic neuritis, seeing through an icy veil, losing the hearing in my right ear, losing the feeling in my hands and feet and torso, as well as other skin stuff -tingling and the’ phantom itch traveling around my arms, hands, collar bone, and back, the side of my face palseying, holding a grimace, to dizzying vertigo when I move my head too quickly, and the debilitating fatigue that sometimes accompanies me. Each of these symptoms would last six to eight weeks, and then mostly abate. It was a really hard road to travel, those first 15 years.. But now, I don’t seem to get those exacerbations, thank goodness, though my walking is compromised. I walk with a wooden walking stick, a ‘staff’, as it has been named, or a purple aluminum cane. And now, I wear my groovy new custom made, foot and ankle brace. Made to my body’s very specifications!

Oh, but did I used to walk! I was a hiker! I’ve hiked in the Wilds of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, California forests, and by the seas- both Pacific and Atlantic. New England forests, New Mexico mountains, the Hudson Valley woodlands, many many many walks. It was on these  hikes that I would write, speak, and memorize poetry. That was my time to cleave to the divine- devetkut hashem. Cry out to God, converse with the universe- so, God time, creativity time, physical activity time, inspiration time. I was once called, “Pride Walker”, by a master of movement and drama. Now that is a name I am glad to be called!

My neurologist will not change my MS designation from RRMS to Secondary Progressive MS. This is likely because the health insurance companies will refuse to pay for the medications with that title of disease. So tell me, what is a person with secondary progressive MS supposed to do then?
Again, left to the universe , I need to ask myself, is my faith so strong that I truly know that God will heal me? Or rather, through my body, G-d can shine G-d’s healing light. Send your emissaries, Most High one- mayachorai Raphael! I’ve put the healing Hebrew words to a lovely Lakota melody:  Ana Elna R’fanala- rfua  sh’layma. (a complete and total healing- body, soul, and spirit.

I’ve felt that these past twenty years of illness, and from earliest sensation and memory , of the body’s indelible art of being an instruments of the divine, and I also know that I need to take an active role in my own healing. so I work out at the gym, and I try to eat well, though I’m not on any particular diet: raw, vegetarian, gluten free, dairy free or otherwise. And I know, that my body has the innate ability to heal itself from any imbalance. So now, I’m doing the ondamed machine, ever grateful to the healers who are offering this to me. Ondamed. Is a biofeedback machine that tansmits electro-magnetic energy to my body, in the hopes that that will trigger such a reaction in myself that will bring about healing!

Here I am, ‘Hineni’, still hopeful, still believing, but I’m not really waiting- I’m just living, and sometimes I’m damned frustrated- . Still I’m smiling. As I sometimes say, I’m grateful even for the challenges. Every morning, when we thank G-d for restoring our soul to our body, we say, “abundant is your faithfulness.” “Raba Emunahtecha!” If G-d has faith in me, then shouldn’t I have faith in my body’s ability to heal!

 

Thank the Path

Hiking the back woods, an odd thing happened.I realized, that though I’ve walked these paths a thousand times before-Nothing looked familiar, and though I knew where I must be, I had no idea where I was.Maybe I was seeing with new eyes, as was suggested, but I think that everything- bush, tree, flower, stone, was not the same as it had ever been before! All was changed, an is continuously changing- as am I, as are you! This is not the same rose your father gave you at graduation, or that you carried down the aisle in your sister’s wedding, or that blossomed on the bedside, filling the room with its essence, the morning you mother passed away.

This rose presents itself to you! Touch its gentle petals, breathe deeply its life scent, see this loiving being burning in its divinity! I thank G-d, who illuminates my path. Those who hold me up along the sometimes overgrown and convoluted way. And the very path itself! The decomposing leaves pressed in mud, the bright orange eft scurrying away from dtopping acorns, the tiny spotted toad leaping onto my hand, and off again. The mushrooms that open as flowers, and the flowers that turn to sticky burrs. All this is new, and now, and me- honored here.

by, Yiskah Koock