QuestionQUESTION: Greetings,
I will start with history:
Born with constipation, mom gave suppositories when little, told to push when old enough to understand what that meant. Never able to shake the constipation.
AS a baby My mother noticed I was dragging a leg. I had a hip that the socket wasn't fully formed so I was put in a brace for a few years. As child I had a slight scoliosis which my parents were told I would grow out of. I was fine for a long time.
We were an active family so exercise has always been a part of my life. swim, bike, run, gym, yoga, hike etc. We also grew our own fruits and vegetables. My diet is mostly healthy, my weakness is a form of ice cream(dairy or non dairy), candy and cheese. Naturally didn't like pasta, beef and chicken.
I have never felt like I have been close to or guided by my family in my growth and development. I have always felt alone and have always taken full responsibility for myself. I moved to Phoenix to try to have a better relationship with my parents. Did I succeed? Yes and no. You can't get something from someone that never held it to give in the first place.
In my 30's I started the quest for a resolution for my chronic constipation. Have gone to gastroentologist, Chiropractor, acupuncturist, homeopathic, colon irrigation. IN my past have gone through barium testing, MRI CT Spinal CT/MRI. The things that helped for a while where alcohol caused BM upon initial drinking, cocaine, coffee/tea, lemon/honey in the am, triphala, cascara sagrada, magnesium ( citrate & complex), aloe vera. Tried Zelnorm which gave me the runs. Amitiza which worked for a few months then stopped. Think it gave me more liver congestion as I seemed to get this tingling under the right rib cage.
I tended towards alcohol and cocaine because they helped me have a BM and now upon reflection I am shy and it helped me overcome this. I am now very clean and have not drank for 2 years/drugs for 5 years. I have gone through introspection & personal growth classes and ongoing searching of my soul and life for "what stops me". Sometimes it is me and sometimes others. Unsure how this is truly effecting me except when highly stressed in particular situations.
Until I moved away form the ocean and a lot of stress came my way living in Phoenix, AZ. Where I
am currently living. I had moved from Seattle to California then to phoenix.
I started practicing yoga & meditation,went to a sweat lodge and drank out of a community water jug and got into a unclear river(Verde river/cottonwood,AZ) after which I started having back pains/side pains. Vaginal infections, Urinary infections and worse constipation followed. I went to several doctors again with no diagnosis. I guess they all thought I was just making it up or something!! Is there a bacteria that we are missing?
I went to emergency march of 2010 and was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis. I have not been able to shake it. My digestion completely shut down march of 2011. I couldn't have BM at all, resorted to enema & colonic irrigation; parasite and digestive cleansing. I had just gotten married to on 12/31/11. My new husband was lovely for about a month then became so difficult, I was feeling emotionally shut down, put down and negatively charged by his way of being. We have since come into balance with all of that after great struggle.
CT/MRI showed pancreatitis(chronic at this point & gallbladder sludge. Allergy testing to 36 things highest being wheat, yeast, brazil nuts, almonds & tomatoes. I stay away form all things on my allergy list if at all possible and have been on a gluten free diet for 7 years.
My current testing significant results are: lipase at 90, GFR at 8.5, calprotectin test came out really low 15.9.
My current homeopath started me on a leaky gut/low lectiin diet (blood type B), permeable gut formula, enzymes, Vitamin E & C. I have added magnesium, B complex and Thorne medi-clear.
I feel like there is more to it than that. I have back pain on my right side my spine jack-knifes around T-11-8, pain wraps around to iliac crest and down into groin. Recently gone up into neck. Which brings me to : I fell into a prickly pear cactus 7 years ago and got hair thin spins in my body ( can't remember which side) couldn't get them all out. I was told they will work themselves out eventually. I have 2 years ago a pretty strong resurgence of them working themselves out along this neck/trapezoid area. I feel like there are still a few there, maybe causing this pain to flair in my neck. It always starts as a tingling. What do you think about the cactus causing any of this?
I WAS feeling better so I started to go off my supplements slowly in July and off the permeable gut and enzymes in august. I had started a new job in JULY and my boss was yet another version of my "bad husband" . Here I am again and my digestion shut down in Sept. 2012 again! Back to the initial therapy/regiment. Even green vegetable juice was bothering me...maybe oxalates? Not eating much didn't even cause me to loose any weight which I think is odd. Very thin stools, soft eraser heads, foul gas, same right sided back/rib/iliac pains. psoriasis/dermis infection on feet(started getting this at about 14 years old)
My questions...Is there something that I am missing in diagnosis? Is there something I am not doing. Bacteria/parasite? cactus? leaky gut ? pancreatitis? gall bladder? vagus/celiac Nerve? Phoenix desert vs. ocean land? I have the most difficult time here with men and job satisfaction. I don't feel in tune here. My judgement, choice & intuition has not been good and accurate. I can go on and on...I hope that this is enough to get a grasp of my situation and how you can help.
I am 48 now and have been searching for almost 20 years for answers.
Thank you for your gracious insight and help that you are providing for all of us that are searching.
ANSWER: Dear Jotina,
I read your question with great interest and compassion, and then let some time pass for my answer to mature. I very much appreciate the detail you gave me, it helps to form a more complete picture of you. And it is this "you" I really want to take a look at. Of course, I cannot take a strictly medical look at your question, but I can take an esoteric view and observe illness as a crisis of the soul-spirit.
Any topic which pivots around the pancreas and liver-gallbladder (glandular system) is all about the influences and how they are received and processed by your soul to help realise the "Real I", or the most spiritual and individual part of your being. Health means to measure in how far you are successful in achieving this self-realisation. Some of us have more spiritual missions than other, and may need to suffer more with our health, since such fine-tuning comes at a price. (Our body may be considered lesson material.)
Your constitutional complaints clearly, from an Anthroposophic perspective, all point in the same direction: a weak or even partly removed I-organisation, possibly caused by a dampner on your self-expression. Inner and outer worlds may not have had the opportunity to meet sufficiently, especially early on in life. This equates to a less than optimal self-awareness, however analytical one may become. The experience of self has not been real enough.
Usually this means our life has predominantly been lived by convention, other people抯 expectations, and second-hand information. Our own initiative has been repressed and our creative resolve stunted. More specifically, we can see that the spirit is not enough integrated in your actual life and body. The organic complaints map out more precisely where the blocks lie: we may say that there is no flow between head and feet, leaving the middle area as a cold kitchen floor with little cooking there.
This middle, breathing area, the origin of circulation besides, becomes quiet and cool. Causing stagnations in the glandular activity of your digestive tract (pancreas, liver, small intestine). There needs to be a meeting of inner and outer, upper and lower there. This is what creates enthusiasm and right thinking, feeling, willing (imagination, intuition, inspiration).
Your psyche or soul has been bogged down by many emotional issues and this has worn it out, incapacitating it bit by bit on a physical level. Since this started from a very early age with a luke-warm (may we say?) childhood we can see how it takes a life-time to restore yourself to your original starting point (na飗e and pure). Your detailed biography and self-analysis shows you are willing and able to continue with this to the bitter end. I use "bitter" only to confront you with the fact that there can be no easy way up and out of the current ditch of poor health. The honesty and dedication you display holds its own promise of success.
It may become your major challenge to understand how this success is best measured. By "best" I mean sweetly and veritably, by spiritual standards. Obviously there are things you cannot do. You cannot turn back time. The pancreatic condition is chronic. You are also wise not to blame anybody, eventhough there is a clear cause and effect which contributed to the worsening of your condition. We cannot blame your parents, who did the best they knew how to. Back in the day, it was quite something to take good care of a child抯 wellfare and focus on education, manners, and overall general health. Your partners may have been your nemesis. And a negative self-image will not pull the best jobs towards you (with regard to colleagues and pleasant environment or conditions).
I will not try to remove your current discomfort and anguish to the consolation of an after-life or a rewarding next-life. But I am trying to offer you some perspective. Eventhough your childhood disorders point to the fact that you are the type of child who could have done with a bit of extra warmth, you are wise to realise you chose this family to incarnate into. Maybe to show something to yourself; maybe that you are a great pillar of strength and must dare to stand that tall and strong even if it sets you apart.
There is no miracle to healing, but the potential to become whole is miraculous. We must understand our physical limitations as reflections of our state of soul. This is not easy to do and it is about time we all started supporting eachother an awful lot more in this. Doing it alone is treacherous and needlessly traumatic. I am glad you reached out with your question, and it seems like you do so frequently to others (physicians, therapists). I hope you can also find a more pastoral note to support you on your quest. Reading wise, loving tales or poems, and any type of scripture or holy verse can contribute greatly.
I am afraid I will not be able to do much for you by way of offering an alternative diagnosis or a better curative course, but I go through your biography with you to confirm or suggest alternative ways of looking at the path you抳e come so far. I can only point to a few minor recourses which might help you form a more cooperative whole between body, mind, soul. This with the aim that at least you may feel better about yourself, and become more in tune with the full potential of deep feeling and a soulful approach to life.
It began for you with the constipation, which is basically a sign of a cramped nervous system. You were chronically tense as an infant already. In part you may have arrived into a tense or stiff family organisation with too many outward pressures to which they felt a need to conform, or inner tensions between personalities (old karma, new insecurities) may have made it a less than blissful and welcoming place. It could also be that you were a specifically hyper-sensitive child who needed more nurture than the average child. In either case, it would have been a challenge you needed to go through. Try to reach back to your earliest self-belief, when you told yourself, never mind, I will come through this, not just a survivor but a better person. It is valuable to try and go back to your initial "mission statement". What do I really want to get out of this life? When were you truly happy or at peace with yourself as at 5-11 year old?
I love your cactus story, albeit love and those nasty prickles do not go well together! But it illustrates to me how you have a good insight into the way providence helps you to read your karma and destiny in very concrete ways. It also shows that you have a sense of time and process, not confusing the twain. It takes time for the cactus incident to work itself out (quite literally): but I would be reluctant to find the cause of any further complaints with the spikes. Rather this occurrence runs parallell to the stiffening up of your astral-I organisation (the hardened leaves/prickles illustrate this well).
The more you can activate the (inorganic) catabolic forces in your system the more a centifugal energy will start to work foreign bodies out. The allergies work in the same way: foreign elements (nutritional or other) are not being adequately transformed into human-friendly materials your body can use for its maintenance. It takes a lot of freed soul force to do this. The soul needs to dive deep down into organic matter and rule house there. Instead it pussy-foots around there, over-sensitive to the rumblings and gurglings of life. Life is a bit messy or chaotic and you never liked that much. It does not naturally clear the way for you, does it? And that makes for tough going on us shy ones.
We might be able to say that your middle-realm of feeling is petrified and arid like a desolate plain ?living in Arizona mirrors this perfectly. The pancreatic infection (a healing mechanism) was trying to bring it back to life and force your spirit to snap to! You were yanked back into life and even married to consolidate this. But this seems to have been another more head-based or rational decision and not inspired by the soul. Now you need to wake up more slowly (over time, chronically) and catch up and reeducate your soul to feel, feel, and feel again. If you are into New Age enough, try Tarot or get a pendulum, or runes, I-Ching, or even feng shui. These are tools to help you trust your inner voice and reorientate yourself towards the spiritual. If you are religious you could try reading texts more meditatively. Sacred music (from any age or part of the world) can be anointing: but make sure it is very well crafted (Bach cantatas, Tibetan chanting, Vedic mantras) you need to be able to concentrate on it and not float off into space.
Is there also in this observation the advice to move back to the coast? Well, in the olden days one would indeed take the mountain air or the sea air alternately as a prescribed cure. There were spas with specific concentrations of minerals which would help to reset the system. But it will take more than a right environment full of flow and motion, greening and change, regeneration and metamorphosis (nature!) for you to feel alright in yourself. It does help mix soul and body into a workable format to live in a temperate zone.
More interestingly, perhaps for you, is that you gravitated to the truth of your soul-spirit, intuitively matching inner and outer realities. Bit by bit you are stripping down to the bare bones of your flawed self-knowledge (man抯 main mission is to know himself). This is an awesome feat of courage! But there comes a point in time, when this work must end, at least when it comes to digging deeper. There is always deeper to dig: and this is why we reincarnate so often.
By 49 one has arrived at a place where it is good to stop and see where you are. It may be time to set up shop. (It can still be a mobile shop!) It is time to show your wares and say: this is who I am. Many, many, many of us find we do not have a clue who we are. We hollor help! And fall into a deep mid-life crisis (the one at forty is but a false pang, usually). Often we have become savvy enough to cover up such distress and carry on to live a lie. Then we become progressively more rigid (calcified) and disoriented ?which ends in many barren years of life, waiting for death. From a spiritual perspective this is a tragedy.
As a child you were forced to uncramp (told to push). It cannot work like that: force makes for cramp. You helped yourself up into adult life by telling yourself that you were fine. The active life-style helped you to simulate a kind of flow. But yoga is not about being active! It is about standing in your truth. If you are interested in taking a more spiritual look at yoga I can recommend two (very different) inspiring yoga teachers you can find online: David Garrigues (his blog and his Vimeo channel is a good place to start). He has a very thorough and very experienced knowledge of the original Vedic and Sanskrit stream of Yoga. He is pragmatic and a shining example of softness and devotion, through discipline and meticulous self-observation. The other is a woman from New York, Elena Brouwer (www.Art of Attention and Vimeo) who also is very honest about her self-development. She may look like the perfect hip, metropolitan yoga teacher, but her writings are sweet and profound. If you want to take up yoga practice on-line I cannot recommend Esther Eckhart on YouTube enough (or via Facebook). You can compile a wonderful sequence with her many free videos; she also has meditations and moments of reflection. Looking into how these people work on themselves can be very supportive to consolidating a promise to yourself to go easier on yourself, without slacking or steering off the course of your quest.
Of course, the truth is: one is always alone; one is born alone and one dies alone. In the heavens, even, it would be an advantage (superior development) if you can hold on this sense of individuality! But still one must feel interconnected with the others. Tricky balancing act. If life on earth is hard, it may be a lot harder as a spirit-being: you will have no coordinates or anchorpoints (your body) and can easily end up with nothing (not even much of a memory). Spiritual science teaches us that this is the only way towards the independence and freedom God designed for us. It means we need to go through the rough patch of tough learning (self-healing) here on earth.
From our mistakes, illnesses, errors we learn best. And nobody can be ill for you or make mistakes for you ?just like nobody can heal you: you heal yourself. But we do try and avoid our own responsibility by forcing others to be our careres and cure! Whether we project our own inadequacies onto our children as parents, or choose relationships for mirrors.
It is perfectly fine that relationships fall apart the moment we have learned what we needed to learn. Nothing is permanent: only love can reach eternity. We are allowed to close books (masculine, legal, conventional institutions seldom allow us, though). If we reopen it (embark on a similar relationship, or fate confronts us with one) we have become rusty on the material we must absorb and are forced to go over it again. Still, as a free student of life you have the choice: try harder or give that course a miss. Some doors must be closed (learn to say no) and sometimes you need to try something completely different (does not really matter what: it only serves to break an old pattern, but who knows what it might bring you, anyway).
If we are made to feel too responsible at too young an age (actually before 21, when the personality is not fully formed, yet) the soul can either become severely fatigued or miss important steady learning curves. We will then always feel something is missing and many mental illnesses result from this (notably depression, insecurities and neuroses).
We cannot run before we can walk. A dragging leg is a beautiful sign to yourself (and parents!) that one must first practice standing (yoga is all about this!). Why do we not allow ourself time for this!? We believe in such nonsense, don抰 you agree? All these external concerns and superficialities and social pressures we have invented. Partly they serve to civilise us better, but mostly they crush our tender souls. What is walking more than allowing the pull of the earth and the pull of the heavens to vie for your attention? One stands after each step taken and must then release oneself anew.
If we were plants, we could still get from a point A in time to a point B (watch a time-lapse bramble growing), and a peek down from the moon shows us how our mobility can have no final destination. It is all just a journey on a very small but special sphere. We are living under a giant bell jar, experimenting with our freedom. Life is not meant to be a struggle. The ground under each foot sole is a sacred spot where nobody else is standing. Each step counts you out time and again. Meditation slows down our walk of life for us to become aware of this truth. You can practice this anywhere at any moment of the day, in the supermarket, in the park, hanging up the washing, or cooking a meal. Observe your posture: mark its uprightness. Straighten it if necessary, sink into where it slumps and see if you can ease it up and outwards to meet the world, to connect heaven and earth.
Now, I must broach the point of your silly decision to try drugs and alcohol as remedies. I do this, because I also wish to alert you to how we can become dependent on any remedy as a curative measure (medicines=drugs when we wish to numb the cause). But for you there may be very little that can be done on a physical level beyond mainentance and stimulation of the functions available to you and letting time shift you into a new stage. Don抰 fall into a symptomatic approach: this will only fragment you.
You most aptly write down your self-medication of alcohol/drugs to your former shyness and the big effort it takes to find your true self. These supplements become surrogates of your I. I am going to suggest what stops you is yourself. Your milling brain-self. It makes us all spiritually retentive and slowly deadens our soul potential. Spending too much attention on this however creates a Catch 22 situation: you feed the fire or your mind thinking about it! So now it is time to stop yourself.
Let us begin by cutting out all neurotic fears of disease or infection. Don抰 worry about what you drank or ate, or what bug may be living inside you (tons will be!). Look at it this way: medical science cannot help you much, they know too little about viruses and cannot trace all the germs that are dormant or semi-active within you. Besides, the point of our resistance and immunity is not about becoming bug-free, but learning to become brave warrior-sages. Viruses and bacteria can only get a detrimental grip on us if we don抰 get a grip on us first. It is our body, not their hotel. But so much of our inner space is simply not used for light and loving purposes. The darkness attracts them.
Infection is all about heat and darkness, chaos and hysteria (medically speaking). In it you can recognise a call to self-heal. It is an impetus to become whole and fight off alien influence. But it can become a chronic disaster, like bailing a leaky boat, if you do not shut some windows, doors and learn to trust your own inner resources. This is not to isolate yourself but to calm down and work on a meaningful relationship with your higher self and all those who stand around her.
A healthy peristalsis and subsequent bowel movements are also very much related to our spiritual well-being. Our brains and our intestines resemble eachother a bit (a coiled or crinkly mass of inner workings). Elimination processes are not only about waste. Wasting anything is a "sin". We eat and think for the very process of digestion or conceptualisation. We need to take care therefore to put in very high quality materials. We need to read good books (not endless tweets). Watch inspiring films, not take endless snap-shots. It is less important which products you eat and more important how they were grown, prepared, and blessed.
Such processes are soul-work-outs. It is much less about the building blocks or values (vitamins, minerals, calories, facts and figures). It is about brain-waves, visions, understandings, skills, communion etc. It is about connecting the inner and the outer and taking part in the (natural) cycles but not becoming trapped in a limitless circular, milling motion (like a dog chasing its tail or a hamster in a wheel).
Where the pancreas goes into shut down, the gall is soon to follow. An acute disorder is always a wake-up call. You need to make urgent and concrete life-style changes. It then takes a more subconscious period for healing to follow.
The allergies are more stop signs for you: you need to limit the alien influences because you lack the soul strength to process them, and convert them into life-force. This is an autiform mode caused by an unhappy soul, sometimes karmically so. Either way, your job is to become your own court-jester.
If you keep all your head-forces in the top of your head like precious crown jewels, you will be disrespecting your natural intelligence. The organs have a supreme intelligence and a faith in a cosmic order. They can teach us that it does not suffice to believe only what you see, but you must bear witness to the truth of what you see. All that is not true you must turn a blind eye to and every day you must seek for something true to see.
We need to find ways to encourage your upbuilding forces. Iron leads the I more boldly into the blood and our organism so make sure you are not aenemic. Silver helps to regenerate. Phosphor brings light and movement into the metabolic region. When potentised, these are homeopathic remedies most frequently used for pancreatitis. Wood sorrel (oxalis) stimulates the transformative digestive processes (bringing astrality and etheric together); and its potassium signature overcomes mineralisation and helps with elimination, soothing abdominal cramps. Carraway appeals to the air-element active in catabolic processes. Air has a flow too. Don抰 forget to breath: receive and let go in turn. All cellular processes are a kind of breathing. All feeling is too. Back on a bitter note for the gall: chicory and chelidonium. They regulate astrality and balance the soul between physical and spiritual work.
The gall and pancreas are polaric in the metabolic system and work together towards eminating your soul on a physical level. They organise your vehicle (processing the necessary materials) so that it adequately carries out your true Self. If this middle realm, where this Self burgeons, is wrapped up in a constricting cummerband, we affect all unfolding of the self and create a wasp-like divide between upper and lower body.
The gall is linked to Mars, and any aggressive or masculine connotations this might give are very apt. This "aggression" is what makes things grow in spring. It is a life-affirming force when kept in balance with a receptive Venus. This yin-yang order gives a higher form of perception or consciousness. When you become too receptive (for anything) you become too passive and stopped up. The flow ceases and the middle region comes to a standstill.
When your alignment to the cosmic flow is fragmented your soul is running on half empty and she will find it difficult to keep your cosmic receptors (organs) running smoothly. Many things interrupt this reception, distort it or make you switch off. Anthroposophical psychology (psychosophy) looks at the function of your organism to help you tune in better.
Your complaints indicate difficulty with loss of form and excessive rigidity (a Jupiter-Moon polarity), which also summons up a liver-picture for me. To digest properly you need to allow the chaos and fluidity of life to meet with organising (cosmic) principles. But too much consciousness (including stress or mental work) will make rigid and cool your system into stagnation. The body is resilent and will try to restore balance but your bowel movements keep indicating clearly how you are not ruler over this domain (with your I-organisation) and too susceptible to external influences or matters pertaining to temporary life. A course here or there is seldom sufficient to heal age-old karma and change one抯 life around fully. It has to become a day-to-day initiation practice around all the normal every-day stuff. Routine exercise, daily chores, and diets are therefore so curative. The trick is to do them with an objective eye and a receptive ear. Learn about what is, be what you are. More often than not, something organic will then start to happen changing you for the better. It is a myth that we change ourselves. The real remedy lies in acceptance and surrender. Gratitude and patience are things you can actively take a dose of daily!
On a more pathological note, we can see your homeopath is trying to relieve your metabolism as much as possible with the diet. The enzymes and the vitamins will be necessary because you do not break down your food very well, and have a limited diet Your additional choice of supplements seem very intuitive (don抰 forget manganese rich foods). If we check the ingredients of the Thorne product we can also see how it may stimulate the liver-gall system, which will aide digestion.
When the catabolic (digestive) action is weak we cannot deliver sufficient energy to the liver, the storehouse of our energy. This Jovial (Jupiter) organ is like a tropical rainforest, moist and warm, full of life and continuous turn over. If it becomes cold, like a derelict railway station at the end of an old line, insufficient bile is produced and calculus deposits are formed in the gallbladder. This sludge seems treatable with Coledoron (a remedy made with greater celandine, or chelidonium and again: curcuma or turmeric), but it takes a long time (up to three years) for it to be effective. The liver is quickened with iron and chelidonium (massaged as oil or subcutaneous injection).
I am no fan of supplements, but I like the combination of minerals and potentisation and can recommend a more homeopathic supplement in Schuessler Salts (available over the counter or online). I believe they may appeal especially to the I, since they are absorbed in the mouth (head pole) and do not introduce life-force. They facilitate and trigger cellular processes, working on an electrolytical level. They come in numbers (1-12 basic ones and additional ones 13-27). 6, 9, 10, 12 support gallbladder and liver functions. They promote elimination and purification, and metabolic activity. Perhaps, your homeopath can look into them and figure out a dosis for you. For the pancreas: 6, 10 (ten to 20 tablets a day), 21, 27, 17 (up to seven tablets a day). If you happen to have a command of German there are some good websites with more details on these (19th century) homeopathic remedies.
You will have learned (the hard way, unfortunately) that the digestive tract is very sensitive to emotion, and each major organ has its own sensitivities. Actually the illness at the site of the organ is a consequence of an unsupported soul life, which gives mental symptoms before irrepairable organic damage takes place ?so we are wise to use our character flaws as symptoms of our soul weaknesses. Organic malfunction is the last straw. The liver will offload less onto the gall when it is more content. It likes to enjoy life, be laid back, equinanimous and congenial. When the liver becomes inert, first fatigue then anxiety (troubled moods) and eventually depression and melancholia arise.
With regard to your achey right side: it is the active (masculine, cerebreal) yang side. If we over-demand from it (especially as females) we are going to become lopsided and we topple over sometimes or rule with a too heavy directive hand (we nag and boss around).
Indeed, an irritation along the spinal muscles, even in the thorassic-cervical region can cause muscle tension as low down as the lumbar area. It may be worth checking out the condition of your spine with a chiropractor, or a good physiotherapist is even better (massage is a better teacher than the instant fix of cracking bones back into place). The prickly pear will have jabbed the most out-of-synch area ?that抯 how it tends to go with all pricking or stinging, so there could be a clue as to where to begin to find an age-old stiffness or disintegration.
Finally, it will be important to break the "bad-husband" cycle, so that you can stand on more stable ground. You need a truer kind of fine. It is not so easy to stop bumping into more of the same trouble, for after a while such programmes become etched into our aura. It takes drastic dedication to erase them again ?or else disease does it for us. One may begin by becoming renewedly inspired by nature and sweet, talented, caring people. This will make you more magnetic to positives, in the long run.
I think the clue may lie in taking a far more spiritual approach. But this will ask a tremendous amount of faith and devotion from you. This is not the same as understanding and belief IN something. It is much more intangible, but ultimately much more real, however paradoxical that may sound. The Bach Flower Remedy Sweet Chestnut might be supportive in trusting a higher truth when you feel most like your back is against the wall. It helps one through a dark night of the soul. Otherwise Gentian can help you face your reality on a day-to-day basis if you are feeling sombre.
Crystals are amongst the most spiritual self-healing remedies available to mankind There are two crystals which may be helpful for you: prhenite and citrine. The first is a milky emerald green (you can find some good pictures at http://www.dakotamatrix.com) and the other a translucent sienna-orange (more info at http://crystal-cure.com). Prehnite helps you face harsh facts and the cruel world without needing to put on full armour. Accept the rough with the smooth and prove you can rely on your own identity. It helps eliminate toxins and promotes regeneration. Your capacity for reception is enhanced. Your analytical qualities are separated from your intuition giving a calm centre. Place over the liver and pancreas/small intestine during meditation, directly on skin. It is a crystal for closure: old (bad) memories will resurface only when triggered through new events but then mildly and with the opportunity to be put to rest once and for all.
Citrine brings back joy into your life. Stimulating and dynamising your individuality it boosts self-confidence and self-realisation. Encourages self-expression, thus free-flow and uncramps your heart and soul. Aids the digestion of mental processes and sensory impressions, one understands one抯 life better in a fresher perspective. Fortifying nerves (contains iron) and warming your insides (as its colour suggests) it has a knock on effect upon the digestive system, strengthening the working of the pancreas, spleen, stomach. Wear on the skin or use a crystal ball for meditation.
It is typical for the psoriasis (another condition with an underlying infectious state) to have begun at your feet at the onset of your third seven year phase. All transitions are critical, and if not made fully, the issues linger. An exaggerated renewal of the skin (taking about three days instead of 28) seems to be trying to rub out your stand: as if the ground beneath you is alien to your spirit. This in part is true, but also an error: the spirit must learn to adapt to earth-conditions and find herself both worthy of this spot alloted uniquely to you, and humbled with gratitude for such a gift.
The force with which you tried to incarnate in your teenage years was more cerebreal than spiritual. When you have a mission to be true to yourself, this cannot work out very well for you and you will need to change your approach sooner rather than later (48 is not so old for such realisations!). If all that can be done conventionally has been done, the only way to progress now with such severe health issues is to find the divine within.
Skin disorders are usually early signs of metabolic imbalances, caused in turn by a turmoil of the soul. Just think of normal teenage pimples. They can occur together with obstipation and all point to a sluggish liver. Poor diet (processed foods, fried, salty, sugary), with not a lot of life force early on in life can compromise the liver a lot. By adulthood we are then exhausted, already. There are many toxins, however, in our modern-day life which burden the liver early on. Think of amalgam fillings, car exhausts, anti-biotics, and innocculations full of heavy metals. It is not easy to detox from them and it takes more than colonic irrigation and a fast! Even an extreme diet is not the solution. In an esoteric sense our soul is also often a magnet for such concrete toxins. You may prize yourself lucky when they are nameable, as you can well appreciate, for then you can do something. But there is much to be said for the Taoist art of non-doing (not a passive renunciation, at all!). This subject matter takes years to develop for yourself.
It can be very demoralising, or seem like a cruel, impossible test, when you have spent years trying to heal yourself and find the underlying impulse and end up knowing less than you did before. But there is hope in that, yet. The trick is to reign in ambition and keep tending the gentle fire of enthusiasm, which is a quality you must receive from the gods, and not sweep up with self-empowering affirmations.
The hearth for this glowing warmth is a concrete plan with effective steps one must stick to come hell or high water. The kindling must be creative works.
All activities which exercise speech ?reciting very rhythmic poetry ?invigorates a rhythmic motion your I can engage in. Architectural activities, constructing spaces, will give one insight into the three-dimensionality of our life. Clay sculpture appeals to the liver. Yoga or Eurhythmy when done with great attention to gesture enables a soulful response. Crafts can give you a space (time) of your own and promote creativity. This is to dream concretely and imaginatively. Enjoy the air you breathe (scent it, refresh it with sprayed ?rose or lavender - water). Relish the body you live in, take soothing baths or have a massage. One does not need to hike up a mountain, a short nature walk is always restorative. These baby steps do amount to something good.
By directing your focus onto activities outside your head you reach a new level of patience and forebearance with yourself and your world. You may have to take the details of real living a lot more seriously while at the same time becoming a bit more removed from self-interest.
It can be alleveiating to vaporise some essential oils: juniper gives a sense of sacred space with its Jupiter signature and helps you let go of negative thoughts. This creates room for positive forces (not just vast expanse). Good can and will come to you if you let it. (We tend to think we need to do much more, but it is usually a question of thinking less and doing only that which needs to be done). Juniper is also used for psoriasis ( 4 drops to 10 ml base oil). In a bath with rosemary it vitalises and gives a protective sheath of high energy (use an emulsifier to mix into water). Geranium oil can be used in a relaxing massage (mix four drops into 10 ml almond, avocado, or jojaba oil) of the abdominal area to relieve cramps. It shows you the beauty of life and brings good cheer. A great grounding aroma is sandlewood (quite dear), it also lifts your mood, and is a classic Aryuvedic remedy for fears and selfish-desires, and elegantly grounding. Use the purest quality oils to avoid headaches and to tap into the natural vibrations of these plants.
Although I have given you little by way of pathological analysis or better cures, I hope that if you relax that side of the quest a bit, I have given you some nutrition for the soul. Do not hesitate to ask for any futher clarifications on matters I have only been able to brush upon here. If you wish to consult me on a very rudimentary reading of your horoscope which may highlight karmic and energetic challenges and the direction you should most be looking towards (the lunar nodes and black lights come into play at the second half of your life) please feel free to ask me in a private question so that I may respond with my email for your use.
I wish you much inner warmth, trust and hope
and may you recuperate a lot more, soon.
Love Evelyn.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Evelyn, thank you, so much to take in. Yes you are correct in that I felt a cold beginning & relationship with parents. Anorexic/bulemic in college. (horrible speller!) I AM sensitive and aware of all things in my path & others paths. I have gone to Ellen's yoga class for a few months when I visited NY.
I feel I never got the nurishment & guidance from my parents that I needed to stand tall in my truth. I have yet to find a "mother" figure to guild me that I can speak to directly and often. Teased often though out school. When I am fully truthful I am often pushed away because I am SO truthful. Balance is difficult in this world. I find the world harsh and uncaring, hard to take in. I am a cancer sign, vulnerable, loving but my hard shell get harder for protection when all is too cold. I stand in trying to be "for the benefit of all". Thoughtful, aware and gentle. I occasionally get pushed ...I get angry and want to run. That has softened in my life a bit.
I tend towards reading insightful books, Women who run with the wolves is my current selection. Do I have a question for you at the is time...how do I find the guidance I need? Inside myself with out being hurt by the world? How do I find the "I " and be accepted? I often feel I am not of or to be for this harsh world. Fish our of water so to speak.
AnswerDear Jotina,
Thank you for your kind feedback. It is such little good things we can do for eachother that light up my day.
I can relate to how harsh and cold this world can seem - indeed is. We must not be naive about all the opposition and dark forces. But there is another side - may art, music, flowers, bees and kittens or lambs inspire!
It took me around 40 years before I crossed a line into a state of being where I could say "yes" to life. It was not because I was finally happy. On the contrary, things seem pretty set for now (my Autistic son is the main focus in my life and he is turning into a teenager...). What did suddenly happen for me might be comparable to how a dancer finally knows their steps and can dance in their sleep, but then to dream better dances still.
Years of continuous training and hundreds of picking-myself-back-ups went into grounding myself better. There was no way out of my dismay with life than to really SEE that we HAVE TO be here - and the trick is to making the most out of our given situation. It can be an incredibly lonely affair but the worst thing that can happen is for you to become despondent. This zaps all your good energy away from you (attracting bad entities).
One must become aware of negative energies in as concrete a manner as possible and then ward them off. Sometimes you may need to burrow down, other times smack 'em away with a fiesty broom. The best way is to create sacred space wherever you are.Stay light on your feet, but stay in the ring.
You sound very Crab, indeed, the way you describe yourself! But it makes me curious what else is lying dormant for you in your horoscope. Perhaps,astrological counselling is something you can look into. You must take care that you find a spiritual astrologer who knows their esoteric lore, because you do not want to hear false predictions or cliches. There is only so much one can derive from a horoscope, and it takes a grounded sensitivity to find one's way around the useful patterns. Check out Astrosophy if you can: William Bento (CA resident, I believe) is a psychologist but also a Steiner-vogue inspired astrologer I find incredibly inspirational. Perhaps in the States there are astrologers who have followed in his footsteps and easier to find than in Europe.
Sometimes our karma will force us into a great sense of alienation and abandonment. The dyslexic past is another indicator for a great reluctance to touch-down to earth at all. In a sense you have TOO much overview and TOO little filter for a simple do or die attitude that gets most of us through ordinary life.
I could send you a short list of esoteric training exercises which strengthen your higher members (soul-spirit) day by day (every weekday links up to a different planetary influence). As with all Anthroposophical guidelines (from Steiner) they make for practical exercises you can do throughout the day, at home, as you go about your business.
At the same time, remember to pamper yourself. You must recognise the reality that there is nobody else around to annoint your scars. Do one kind thing a day for yourself. But also guide yourself through one unpleasant thing. It might be as simple as getting up 10 minutes earlier, or picking up a crumb you drop and might as well hover up later, or facing yourself in the mirror on a grumpy day. But don't push it: you've had enough of that. These are tiny little pricks to your soul to engage more in life.
It is an esoteric, spritual adage, that one must meet the light in life and there is no enlightenment in itself. No greener grass in the fields of tomorrow. You may blow a fuse if you try to achieve perfection, and people who have been bullied or traumatised often end up trying to do so to put an end to all the negatives once and for all. That is not how it can work, though. We do not live in a mechanical world and self-determination works only with the most noble essence of ourself (love, hope, charity)
I am very jealous of you that you followed one of Elena's classes! It must have been quite an experience - if probably it takes quite a New York frame of mind too. (Talk about harsh living!)
Quite a stickler for the truth and nothing but the truth, I only recently learned myself, that there is a limit to the power in the truth.Hammering on the truth or being "in your face" with it is not only ugly but pointless. We fear that without the belief in the truth we will be lost. But belief stands alone as a kind of private seeing, we cannot persuade others of.
In fact, I came to the rather inspired conclusion that there is a ultra fine but spider-silk strong line we must draw between our crusading spirit for the knowable Truth and the lie life needs to be (maya, delusion). Of course reality is real, but it is also just a picture of underlying spiritual forces: so it is an illusion, too. One must learn to play with that a bit (not take life too seriously). On the one hand you have to trace the magic in moonbeams and butterflies, and on the other hand you have to mock bankers and politicians. Mean people deserve your cold shoulder (do NOT cast pearl before the swine: those generous hippy days are over). Kind people attract kind people.
My research on Autism showed me how for many good people with Autism life is unbearable because of the normal, conventional lies we live with everyday (turning blind eyes, making do, cutting a little corner, smuggling our way through by not telling a lie but concealing the truth etc...). They would rather die with the truth than live a lie. Several I know have, indeed, acted true to their word, and taken their own lives. But this is wrong. Very understandable, but the higher Law informs us that this makes matters a lot worse for you, ultimately. Life is incredibly precious, and while you are not forced to live it in a box or a container (think of refugees, hostages, prisoners of war, abused children etc) it is relatively full of opportunity each day: life is what you make it. You are lucky if you can enjoy an apple or a drink of clean water - happiness is quite relative, but gratitude and a spiritual understanding is not.
Being hyper-sensitive, which has characteristics of Autism, and can drive you nuts in a fake world full of nonsense. From a personal perspective, I know it is possible to embark on a pilgrimage to find a way to live with this "handicap" without feeling disabled. It is possible to find a new kind of quiet and ever-lasting empowerment (self-belief). It might only be a tiny step for an entire life time, but if it is transcendent, you had better count your blessings.
15-20 years of continuous practice (and many moments of despair) I have become more resilent and I have learned much about subjects I thought I knew enough. I now know less than when I started! And that can feel somewhat demoralising. But I have also become more skilled at picking myself up and dusting myself down. If God or the angels have not brought me great visions or helped me to escape nastiness, it is because I am not so special, I have most things in common with many others. We are all special! But only those who acknowledge this specialness and live up to it stand a chance of eating their slice of humble pie and growing stronger on it. We both know it is disrespectful and disgraceful to feel sorry for oneself when there are atrocities happening somewhere else to some finer or more innocent person. But we are also as vulnerable, and need comforting. This comforting can only come from greater self-knowledge. The more you learn about yourself the closer you come to the divine (I am not God but God did make me in his image - this is a hermetic understanding not a religious one).
I have found a faith that is built up solely of endurance and softening again. Endurance alone is not enough: that will harden you. It is all about love, in the end (nothing else outlasts it). It is much less about finding out what you ought to be doing and more about just doing what it is you can.
I can therefore I must activates our thinking, feeling and willing as soul-inspired powers. I must do what I can. Think of the acorn which must grow because it has an oak inside. It can when it hits soil and rain falls. Sometimes we find ourselves on the tarmack: not so suitable for setting root! We can wait till the wind rolls us into a more muddy gutter, but this could equally wash us down the drain. We have limbs, though! Attached to them is Willing, a faculty of the soul stimulated by doing good deeds, ploughing the earth as it were - even in the cold, or scorching and harsh wind. Get cracking in a conscious way on whatever lies before you.
It is only fear (the devil) which makes us seek a paradise on earth. There is great glory on earth (watch some David Attenborough nature documentaries on plants or birds,a country back garden or the Antarctic): be amazed, be inspired, give praise! What else can we do? At least this we CAN do!
You know where to find me, but please use my personal email address for further communications which are not specifically nutrition related. You can obtain this by putting up a (new) private question (tick the box, I cannot do that from my end with responses).
For now, all my best,
Love, Evelyn
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