D-Blog Week: One Great Thing

It's Diabetes Blog Week! And I am a wee bit late to the party. (I'm hoping fashionably late). Since I missed Day 1 and really it's Day 3, I am going to start with the prompt for Day 2: Tell us about one diabetes thing you do spectacularly!

There are a few things I might lay claim to here. But after pondering it most of the day, I realized I knew exactly what finely honed skill I would honor: The ability to hear and respond to my body and all its myriad signals. It is what I do 24/7. When I was first diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 12, my blood sugars were well over 800. My body was SCREAMING for help. Unquenchable thirst haunted me. Exhaustion derailed my usual tomboy ways. I had dark dark circles under my eyes. Even before the doctor appointment where they gave these symptoms a name, I knew in my bones something was wrong with me. Once I was in the hospital they began to administer insulin. For several days, a nurse would come in every couple of hours and ask me how I was feeling. Was I shaky? Did I feel my heart racing? Did my brain feel fuzzy, my mind easily confused? No, no, and no. I thought theses nurses were so annoying. They would even wake me up during the night with their stupid questions. But at some point, I was saying yes, yes, and yes. How did they know? The nurse said, "Angela, that is what a low blood sugar feels like!" They had cleverly taught me how to scan my body for the signs that I needed to drink some juice right away. I have never forgotten this lesson. It settled deep and began my life long path of tuning into my body every moment of every day.

Over the years, this kind of listening has evolved into something more than a survival mechanism. I have come to think of it as a kind of intuition. A devotion to my body. I am in continuous conversation with her. There are subtleties, nuances, secret messages contained in an aching hip, a shaky hand, a wild thirst. It is like ritual to turn inward and "hear" what my body has to say. Mountains, rivers, and rocks are echoed within this awareness, lending me strength, weaving their songs into those of a blood sugar of 50. The beat of a drum, the screech of a hawk, a coyote's howl become part of my recovery from neuropathy. 

By my mid 20's, I began to understand that this deep knowing could transform into a healing response. I sought out a Reiki teacher and learned how to use my hands to channel Qi and restore some balance after a stressful series of high sugars or the discomfort caused by gastroparesis. Often times, if I'm not quite sure what is going on in my body (even after checking my sugar levels) I will lay my hands over the area where I am feeling the worst and just allow Reiki energy to flow. I am amazed every time when an "answer" comes in those moments of quiet receiving. 

The body is a multilingual being. It speaks through its color and its temperature, the flush of recognition, the glow of love, the ash of pain, the heat of arousal, the coldness of nonconviction. It speaks through the constant tiny dance, sometimes swaying, sometimes a-jitter, sometimes trembling. It speaks through the leaping of the heart, the falling of the spirit, the pit at the center, and rising hope. (Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves)

This ability to read and respond to what my body needs developed from survival. It has kept me alive again and again. It has brought me to an awareness of a beauty and power that reside within me, not in spite of, but because of my diabetes. How can I do anything but honor this gift, hold it as sacred?

[This post is part of the 3rd Annual D-Blog Week coordinated by Karen at Bitter-Sweet. Over 200 hundred people in the diabetes online community have signed up to blog about their life with diabetes. Be sure to check out the stories being shared each day. I am on a strange schedule this week which means I may be in and out of the daily prompts. Thank you so much for visiting my blog! Wildest Blessings.]

Divine Gathering

Mountain Queens
Fire Dancers
Ocean Mamas
Priestesses of Trees


Let us 
Listen to that wildness running through the river of ourselves
Let us 
Listen to that memory not recorded anywhere 
Except the Dreamtime
Except in our wombs


Channel the poems, the paintings, the
Visions unveiled for us there
Let us
Shapeshift into our power
Willing to grow wings, hooves, fur-


My Magic Sisters,
Let us 
Share our moonblood stories
Risk letting loose breath, howl, roar
Let us 
Risk it all to conjure Truth


Mountain Queens
Fire Dancers
Ocean Mamas
Priestesses of Trees


Let us 
Listen to that wildness in each other
So that we may
Remember
          remember 
                        remember
Every sacred thing.

This One May Require a Postscript!

By now I'm sure you've figured out I am in the midst of some kind of creative block. I write everyday, but when I sit down here in front of the computer and this blog, I seem to be having issues! Blame it on Mercury retrograde, our recent move, nerves, a weariness of hearing/reading my own voice. . .  Bloodsugarwitch is a year old (!), and, maybe that's part of it. I can't help but reassess my hopes, goals, intent for this creative outlet.

In any case, I've determined the best way to deal with this wee little creative block is to simply post something every day for the next week or so. It may be only a photo or two, or a favorite poem. I'm giving myself permission to keep it simple, yet I want to connect and give the Muse a reason to show up!

For the last 2 weeks I've been immersed in Stephanie Anderson Ladd's Goddess Temple e-course. She has been guiding a group of us through the Triple Goddess archetypes of Maiden, Mother and Crone(specifically Persephone, Demeter, and Hecate). Creating altars to honor the varied aspects of these Goddesses along with SoulCollage to further explore the layers within our own psyches has provided a foundation from which to work. Quite honestly I hesitated in taking this class as I knew the material would not be "new" to me. But as with any practice, returning again and again, like the cycle of seasons, is what brings the deepest truths to the surface. Stephanie is an excellent teacher, and I am thankful (and humbled) to be in the presence of so many women eager to remember and understand our history.

SoulCollage card for Persephone, Queen of the Underworld

*It is one of my strongest beliefs that if we want to change our world, it is vitally important that we as women honestly look at the ramifications of religious practices that emphasize the masculine. To look in the mirror as a woman -in a world dominated by modalities of worship that are based on fathers, sons, and the absence and subjugation of the feminine-  and see the Divine reflected back is a RADICAL act. Think about what the phrase "made in the image of god" really truly means. If it helps, think about what it would be like to enter a temple or church or mosque where god is a woman. Where prayers, offerings, rituals, and worship honor YOU! Not just you minus your breasts and womb and sacred blood as they have been asking us to do for thousands of years, but you as a woman born of a woman.


I DARE YOU.

Memory and Medicine

There is something about Autumn that conjures memories. The wind brings them in I suppose, blowing like the richly colored leaves. I enjoy this kind of remembering as it helps me to link the past to my present, to see patterns and the arc of my own personal narrative. I am in a mind to share with you my very first memory. To do so means we travel back to when I was two years old. My parents were renting a house outside the small town of Plattsmouth, NE. Though they had to commute to the larger city of Omaha, they wanted to "live in the country." These things I do not remember, but often when my sisters and I were older, my parents would drive us past that house, tell us stories from the early years of their marriage. In a photo (now lost) from that time 40 years ago, I am sitting in the grass with a kitten on either side of me. The three of us intent on whatever game we are playing. My mother has told me when I was outdoors she had to keep an eye on me because I loved to wander off into the woods.

So it is here near the mouth of the Platte river that I trace my first memory. I am standing outside on a small porch. There is a screen door behind me. It is dusk, neither light nor dark. A coyote is howling. I stand there listening to this repeated howl. Mesmerized and a tiny bit frightened. I listen for awhile, then in a quick bustle of motion, I open the screen door and go inside. That is all that I remember, but that howl went deep because I have held onto that moment, that call from the countryside, for forty years.

In many tribal traditions, coyote symbolizes a powerful storyteller, a trickster of sorts. Magic and humor are often involved. S/he teaches that things aren't always as they seem. And that sometimes to really learn something, we must be tricked into doing so. Coyote is also a shining example of adapting to survive. While many wild animals have struggled to make it in our modern world, this canine has found ways around our invasive human presence and even extended its range.

from Daughters of the Moon Tarot by Ffiona Morgan

Though there are many aspects of my life where I find Coyote's energy at play, I am especially able to link her archetypal presence to diabetes. To thrive despite this illness, I must adapt. I must listen to my body in the moment and determine the best course of action. Some days, weeks, even years are more difficult. Survival is not always graceful or pretty. Sometimes it requires scrounging, high risk, and many failed attempts. Often it is lonely. And then you remember you can howl. You can call in another who's been there. Someone who has wisdom to share.

Several years ago, I began working on a series of poems about Coyote's presence in my life. This is one I wrote, inspired by this memory:
  
How It Begins

Coyote called me
Into being
Her howl
Cut across the Plains 
Sharing air with winged things, drifting
Down at dusk
Her howl 
Startled me from some other slumber
Rippled my spine, my skin  
Goosebumped
Two years old, I 
Inhaled my first memory
Like a birth breath
Coyote called me
Into being
I know because
Her howl 
I have spent my whole life
Answering

Coyote Woman Waits by Susan Seddon Boulet

[And it seem so very magical and fitting, that I am learning a great deal these days from a beautiful and wise Coyote Woman. The Autumn session of Pixie Campbell's SouLodge course begins on October 31st. She has created an inspired place to connect with your wisest soul self, other women, and the sacred Earth. Registration is open through Monday the 24th, and it would be lovely if you could join us!]

Days of Sweetness and Light

light unchecked

filtered through the trees

bees teach us to savor the sweetness of life

measuring my own

light mingling with insulin

This Whole Time

you've been with me

since my feet first birth

my days of fast running, horse riding

since that day in burning hot August when the doctors

told me you had changed shape

diabetic

since the moonblood began

first kiss,caress

since the first time I let a man inside my walls

since I marked you with goddess images

since I let rain wash over and purposefully

called the elements into gentle contact

 

you've been with me

since the first circle of women

since heartbreak and sacrifice

since true love appeared

since I stood in the Ocean

since the Winged One wrestled us to the ground 

and Innana arranged a trip beneath the surface 

you spoke LOUD then with nerve pain

I re-emerged and again you

changed shape but did not leave

 

Since you are and have been always

She Who Is  

She of Ten Thousand Names

This whole time

My own body

.

Type 1 Sacred

Many years ago, I underlined this passage in Clarissa Estes' book Women Who Run with the Wolves:

But what if we were to imagine for a moment that the body informs the soul, helps it adapt to mundane life? Suppose the body is a God in its own right, a teacher, a mentor, a certified guide?

I have read those lines over and over. Written them in my journal. Turned them around and around in my mind wondering how, as a type 1 diabetic I would answer Ms. Estes' question. My first reaction is more like protest:  NO WAY can I think of my body as God/dess! My pancreas faltered long ago. My genes have some kind of weakness. My immune system is hyper vigilant. My thyroid has its own agenda. I'm damaged goods, baby! There is also the constant reminders of my far from perfect body. Every time I prick my finger and squeeze blood onto a test strip, I am faced with a number that tells me good or bad. And what about the complications of this incurable illness? That list was filed in some dark corner of my mind the day of my diagnosis, daring me to go any amount of time without glancing at it: kidney failure, heart failure, blindness, neuropathy, depression. Wrapping my head around the concept of my BODY being holy, goddess, sacred is needless to say difficult. More difficult than I thought.

BUT in a quiet space in between the negatives, I realize how profound this concept could be for me, for any of us living with chronic illness, pain, despair. How different might my body look if I examined her through this lens?

I would have to acknowledge that my body has some kind of wild wisdom. That She possesses a knowledge that runs deep in my cells, functioning sometimes beyond my logical comprehension. So often it feels like a tug of war. Surely I know better than my body with a sugar reading of 250 or hint of nerve pain! I want to yank her into submission. But DO I know better? She is simply asking me to take responsibility. Be mindful of what I consume. Understand the ripple effect of my choices.

Working in unison with my body then becomes the most sacred of acts. The dialogue we have is intimate and full of mystery.  She is asking me to be devoted. To hold Her in awe. To serve Her in ways most people reserve for something intangible and elusive. My pancreas, without the ability to produce insulin, is NOT elusive. My body handed me this task 28 years ago. To answer the call of the divine(my body) means I have learned to listen for subtle messages,to adapt in the moment, to intuit a solution outside the norm. To honor Her, I make offerings of insulin and glucose tablets. (And in the last year, green juice and lots of carrots!) I allow her days of rest if necessary. And if She asks me to, I will walk among trees or dance on the mountaintop.

Those of us with words like incurable, dire, or chronic attached to our lives have been given an "in" to that wise voice. We are privy to something sacred. The state of our bodies is holy writ. And not outside of ourselves. It is within our own blood, cells, synapses.

                                                      i found god in myself                 
                                                      & i loved her/ i loved her fiercely
                                                                                         -Ntozake Shange                                                                                
                                                               
Tell me, do you find it difficult to hold your body in awe?