Setting the record straight

This is a very personal blog entry, and it's a dark one, so if you don't want to know me that well or would rather look at warm and fuzzy pictures, just scroll down and skip this section. I promise I won't be offended. And there are some pretty cute pictures of baby chickies below.

A lot of people look at my blog and think I have a perfect, fairy tale life.  Let me set the record straight.  Although my life is magical, sometimes it is also incredibly, scarily dark.

I am very sensitive and tend to pick up vibes around me. This last month has been very hard on many levels, not only for me, but for a lot of people I know. Personally, I dealt with lots of stress, friends passing away, Post Dramatic Stress Syndrome, and painful emotional baggage from the past. I fell into a state of deep depression, mixed with anxiety and exhaustion. A dark cloud followed me around daily, shrouding events that should have been joyful in a grey, soupy mist. It's a scary place to be. I underwent a dark night of the soul. The only way out of it was to let myself feel the grief and frustration and not pass judgement on these feelings. I practiced compassion with myself, took extra time for self care. I took a radical stand for myself, as if I were one of my beloved children who had gotten hurt. I went to the river and wept, then prayed for help. I did this every day for a week.

What came out of it was miraculous: the right people, books and resources showed up at exactly the right time. Uplifting information changed my whole energy field. Loved ones eagerly supported me.

We all need to take care of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual selves. Recently, I have started a journey of discovery about my physical health. I am doing blood tests to figure out some of my symptoms, and I am finding that my adrenals are shot. Stress does that! There are deficiencies in my body that can be adjusted and healed. I am hopeful again!

The other weight I felt has to do with my life path, which is to be a truth teller, a light house of sorts that shows and models alternative ways of living and being, someone who digs underneath superficial meaning and gets to the core of another person's being, helping people see things about themselves and help transform them.

I am a visionary who often is a few steps ahead of popular culture. I always try to listen to my intuition and inner guidance and follow it, even if it is scary. Things that I live and breathe every day and teach to my community are often not the norm in mainstream culture (home birthing, home schooling, growing our own organic food, no TV, natural health and body care, raising of consciousness, etc). Sometimes, it feels very lonely to be on the leading edge of what I believe is our natural path to evolution. I have been yearning for my tribe. I have been feeling the weight of knowing that we simply can't go on treating the planet and ourselves the way we have, because that consciousness of exploiting the earth and treating ourselves and our fellow humans will eventually lead to our demise on the planet. We will have to evolve as a species, where love is the guiding principle for everything (just as so many religions have taught).

It's hard to see any progress in that department when following the news.  It's mind boggling how much negativity is reported in the media.  So I've made the decision to spare my sensitive nervous system.  I'm trying to ban negativity (and that doesn't mean that I'm putting my head in the sand pretending darkness doesn't exist).  It means that I will attempt to keep myself attuned to goodness, positivity, love, hope, gratitude and everything else uplifting.  That's why my last blog entry was about happiness, even though I found myself in a deep depression.

Are you with me?  Will you experiment with this for just one week and see how this practice of gratitude will change our lives?

In the spirit of this, let me share some beautiful pictures from my life this week.

Eva helping in the garden.  I especially like her mismatched shoes.

Eating lunch outside in the sunshine with my kiddos.

Going for a walk to the river and picking wild strawberries on the way.

Stopping to smell the roses, or whatever flowers we can find.

Making a new cheese I've never made before, which is soaked in wine and looks very interesting.

Coming inside and listening to a story Steve is telling Eva, while she watches him, spellbound.

Finding new baby chicks under our neighbors' broody hen.

Watching Kai pet the piglets.

Seeing the boys wire brush the new cordwood sauna to make it look so, so beautiful.