Bilateral localized edema noted on lateral and medial aspects of legs at knee level, medium-angry red, swollen.
Began first as general soreness, feeling like a typical bruise. I felt sure it was not a bruise due to the location and I knew there had been no injury sustained. Checking in with my self, I did not feel worried or scared about this development, and in fact felt a vague, nearly friendly, familiar sensation as I gently rubbed these new sore spots that had quite suddenly appeared Saturday evening. If I did a visual inspection at that time, I don’t remember, it did not reveal anything.
Awoke Sunday morning eager to continue the maple sap harvest. Walked out to the woods, all around the trees collecting sap, then back to the house and noted some continued discomfort from my “bruises”. There was no limitation in movement or use of my legs and knees. I felt gently curious about the symptoms and mostly focused on the exciting, satisfying task at hand. As the day progressed there was noted increasing tightness at the “bruised” areas as I was now thinking of them. Squatting down to feed the fire was right next to painful and movements became slow and careful. There continued to be no worry, just a loving curiosity that was in the background of the lovely day in the woods.
Returning to the house, getting all the hot sap onto the cookstove for continued boiling, the muddy clothes were removed. This time the inspection revealed the description above. It was quite shocking, except not so because my body sort of looked the way it now felt. As a nurse I have seen more than my fair share of edema, on other people. I had never seen it on myself. And now I viscerally understood why all those people had reported discomfort at the site of their edema. It hurts. What I observed on my legs was fascinating because it was not dependent edema, it was localized and it was not the knee cap or anywhere near what I think of as my knee joint. My legs were swollen, just a sort of oval shaped area on the inside and outside of each leg, at the level of the knee. So strange.
And then I knew. Without a shadow of a doubt, clarity came lovingly into my heart and I knew what it was. What it is.
Anger. Anger is leaving my body. Long held, ancient, exquisite anger. Hatred and blame, violence. An old friend, she’s been with me probably my whole life and now she’s moving on, taking leave of me. Through the legs around my knees.
Saturday I participated in a yoga and sound healing session. Before the leaders began, I ate a tablespoon of Sacred Honey offered by my friend, who I think of as my personal witch healer. The honey is mixed by her mentor friend and it contains micro dosing of psilocybins. This would be my first ingesting of these generous mushrooms. My friend and I had attended the previous yoga sound healing together and from that experience, she thought the sacred honey would compliment this next session nicely. I can’t say for sure that I felt anything I would have described as an effect from the mushrooms, had I not consciously known that they were ingested. But I do believe my heart was opened and my mind was more clear and quiet during the experience of the yoga movement and sound offering.
Leading some shoulder stretches, our friend told us to lift arms to should level and strongly push away, hold hands at shoulder level, tips of fingers pointing up, she said to push away anything that does not serve you. I felt a yucky feeling thought arise, Miguel, he doesn’t serve me, I push him away to protect myself and allow myself to be the lovely human that I know I am. Instantly I felt relief as the next thought arose, its not Miguel, its your ideas about Miguel. Truth. Oh the release of it. I continued following the yoga while I rode muted sobs in my chest, scrunched up face as silent crying fell. It felt good and a bit confusing. It felt like something bigger and more wonderful than just me was taking over and clearing out something that needed to be cleared. I was sort of observing, allowing something to happen, riding the waves of release. I felt safe.
I knew it was not ideas about Miguel, it was patterns of thought, habits of pain that have been focused mainly on him since moving here. These thought patterns and resulting behaviors used to get acted out on the many people I came into contact with every day. Living here is dramatically socially isolated so miguel became the near sole target of these habits based in anger and fear. I brought all this with me here to the farm. It has little to do with miguel personally. That’s why the relief was so huge when the gentle thought arose, its not miguel, its the ideas about miguel. Over time I had applied much of my unhealthy thought patterns directly, personally to one human. Feeling anger towards one person, experiencing hatred towards just one person made it easy to believe that he was the problem. But I knew it was the anger that I had brought here with me. When I interacted with many different people all day, the anger was spread out amongst all of them with bits of fun in-between, so it may have seemed that nothing needed to be healed or released.
As a nurse practicing in a big city Intensive Care Unit, I knew something needed to be healed. I was not happy. I was mean to people and it felt awful. It felt so wonderful to make the conscious decision to leave the environment in order to heal. I told myself that some people may be able to heal as they work a job under these conditions, but I cannot. I choose to leave this stressful environment that accepts my nasty behavior and go somewhere else so I can really get hold of this and free myself. Working in home hospice for two years was better and it was on my path to leave nursing entirely, take off my shoes, and start living closely with mama, on a farm. So here I am to heal.
Miguel was on my path to healing too and I do believe in co-creation. His junk and patterns of thought and habits of pain clicked right in with mine and we created a terribly beautiful storm of humanness. Living here on the farm I was free to seek healing every day instead of focus on some deathly ill person that needed my nursing book knowledge and the license I held to save them or comfort them as they transitioned. Living here on the farm things got real raw. Deep human pain and ancient fear were expressed in an environment of no social boundaries. There were no counseling sessions, there weren’t even any friends to talk to. It was me and my bare feet. About a year and a half in there was a breakthrough and I began an honest, intimate relationship with God. Then there were the birds, as I began to notice their singing and watch them fly and play in the trees. The cows offered their massive size and Rock steady, stable presence every day. I love remembering how I would lean against the massive beast in the milk house and just cry, knowing that she was lovingly, easily absorbing all the pain pouring out of me. The brilliant blue sky stunned my eyes and the lush green pine trees offered magnificent contrast to the bright white clouds. Freedom from city noises like cars traveling down paved streets, sirens, car doors slamming, car alarms going off, so many distracting, not pleasant sounds were now replaced with cotton wood tree leaves rustling in the gentle breeze and frogs calling all beings home. I was immersed in the safe, ancient beauty of the planet that humans live on. For someone seeking it as hard as I have been, healing was inevitable. mama earth loves all her children and love is the most powerful force in our Universe.
Since his death almost a year ago, my dad has been actively helping me heal from much of the pain we experienced together. The inordinate sensitivity to noises was the first to go. Now my housemate can loudly scooch back his chair and my response is negligible, comfortable. Then came the unhealthy relationship with food. Dad, in non-physical form, helped me heal from what he demonstrated in physical form. Food was about numbing. Large quantities of food could numb, for a time, nearly anything. Eating was like gambling or any other addiction, the mind could rest and the pain would lie dormant. Food brought some temporary relief. Bags of M&Ms, cartons of ice cream, bags of chips, yes to all of that. The bummer of it was, the numbing was not soothing and it came with all this guilt. So the guilt needed to be numbed, frequently with food. It could get pretty ugly. And there was body hatred to go along with it all because obviously eating like that did not make my body tight and sleek like I wanted it to be.
Over the past year I could clearly feel all of that was going to heal. Dad was right with me showing me how to live free of the unhealthy habits he had used, and then taught to me simply through a child’s unconscious imitation of her dad. Under dad’s guidance, I learned to soothe myself with food. I experienced the immense difference between intentionally, lovingly soothing, and numbing. There was no guilt. It was obvious that I had feelings that needed to be soothed, so he encouraged me to truly soothe them. Consciously, lovingly buy two big bags of M&M’s and sit on your bed watching a movie or reading a book while the bags are slowly emptied. Love yourself. This is all you have right now and as you become free of the guilt and pain, you will allow and receive new, more effective ways of soothing painful feelings. Just relax my dear girl and eat a bag of chips. Let yourself get fat and love each roll and handful of your glorious body. Being fit and firm feels better and when this healing process is over, your body will easily return to the balanced state where it functions best. For now just relax, go to the thrift store, and buy some bigger pants.
So I did. The feeling of Love and acceptance through the whole process was sure, undeniable, covering everything I did. I knew I was on my path to healing and letting go of a lifelong habit that had brought insincere, temporary relief to real problems. And I Knew that further along this path would come loving, effective solutions to all my struggles. My struggles wouldn’t go away but my ability to move gracefully through them would now be guided by truth and love. God was leading me home.
About a month ago I noticed a shift and felt ease, gentle readiness to embrace what was next. I consciously acknowledged that I was done buying food from the dollar store to soothe myself. I was ready to eat only nourishing farm food and to let myself feel hungry again. In the past this would have been a determined, sort of fighting decision that I would have nearly raged against my own body to fulfill, until I again lost the battle. Now things were totally different. I just easily followed my heart, followed inspiration and sort of observed my eating habits change to simple eating of farm food for the sole purpose of satisfying real, empty stomach hunger and nourishing my physical body. The ease of my life around food now is astonishing. And yet its also a bit familiar. Seems I have returned to an original human relationship with food. Dad lead my healing from something he himself was never able to heal while in his physical body. Now we reside together in comfort and ease. Thanks dad, I love you.
The Universe is creative and infinite and writing to describe the edema in my legs proves quite the task. Another piece of this story involves my hips. Nearly two years ago I noticed that I was losing my ability to sit crosslegged. Over time it became very uncomfortable for me to even sit on the floor with my child. This was frustrating and confusing. After awhile I just accepted it and sat in chairs a lot. I knew that I could get my hips open again, it was possible, so I just sort of let myself be stiff. As the healing with dad around food began, I applied those ideas to my stiff body. Just relax and sit in a chair. Love your tight hips and know that when you’re ready, flexibility will return with ease. So I did. It was liberating to allow my hips to prevent a simple activity while continuing to Love my body and feeling sure that it would all shift and balance would return.
Recently, I just followed gentle inspiration and started intentionally sitting on the floor, breathing love into the discomfort and pure knowing that balance was returning. Again this was different than in the past because there was no angry determination to fix my body and take back my open hips. This unhealthy, ineffective habit had been replaced by a loving allowing and a clear knowing. Balance isn't attained from struggle, it is allowed to flow through Love. In the mornings I followed the inspiration to disregard the table and sit on a pretty cushion on the floor with my legs crossed while writing in my journal. It just happened. My body just seemed to easily open up. Even as I write this I remain astonished. That's how God works. The magnificence of Love's power is a bit much for the tiny human mind. I love to feel astonished at the creative ease with which God works in my life. I'm getting so good at allowing Love to flow through me.
Everything came together with love's perfect timing at the yoga sound healing session. The yoga leader took us through 45 minutes of gentle stretches that opened and prepared the physical body to receive. The sound leader offered vibrations from instruments and her own voice specifically intended to heal. My body, my heart, and everything about me was lined up perfectly to open and receive, to move through some old and come out into some new. Later that evening when I first noticed the bruised feelings on my legs, clarity came easily, flowing into me on waves of love. This is it kari, let it all go. Move into your next way of being. Find out who you are without your dear old friend anger.
