Health

The Greek God Pan, Pandemic, & Nature’s Healing Balm

On April 14, 2020 / Health, Nature / 21 Comments

My email feed and Facebook page burn with coronavirus news and magic ways to avoid the covid-19 pandemic. I remind myself to breathe. Our house is on fire. And still, the moon makes her nightly rounds and

When Only Kindness Makes Sense

On March 17, 2020 / Bereavement and End of Life, Health / 23 Comments

Just before our fortieth wedding anniversary in 2008, I drive my husband Vic to Strong Hospital where he’s being treated for lymphoma. The long drive is familiar after two years. Spring-green hillsides shout May vitality and hope,

Dreaming the Earth Mother, Searching for Ground

On February 18, 2020 / Creativity, Health, Psychology and Mythology / 16 Comments

I’ve always felt grounded, sturdy in my hiking boots on a challenging trail, but there is no “always” in bodies. We change constantly, quickly or slowly. In 2013, as my L ear roared and the hearing disappeared,

Monarch Medicine: A Meditation on Transformation

On August 6, 2019 / Health, Nature / 34 Comments

With morning dew on the grass and the sun rising over the hill, I wander through the milkweed patch choosing the healthiest young plants to feed the Monarch caterpillars. I find Monarch eggs and tiny caterpillars as

A Day without a To-Do List

On June 25, 2019 / Health, My Land and Home / 32 Comments

I wake up gently, yawn, and bury my head in warm blankets. “You should get up and meditate,” an inner voice suggests, ever so sweetly. She has many ideas, most beginning with you should…. I ignore her

Hearing Our Determined Hearts

On May 28, 2019 / Creativity, Health, Psychology and Mythology / 29 Comments

“I need help,” I said. I was a mother pleading for her child. The deaf child in me felt isolated and abandoned. I struggled to hear friends or a phone call. Constant vertigo and a roar in

Sorting Seeds: Psyche’s First Labor Gives Us Lessons for Life

On April 2, 2019 / Health, Psychology and Mythology / 19 Comments

“Is this easier or harder?” my audiologist asks. “Raise your hand when you hear a beep. Do you prefer program 1 or program 4? You made great progress in a week, so keep going.” It feels impossible,

Relighting The Vital Fire

On March 19, 2019 / Health, Psychology and Mythology / 35 Comments

The day before cochlear implant surgery, I lifted weights and took a long brisk walk. Five weeks later, I feel a flickering flame of vitality, fragile and easily snuffed out by stress or restless sleep. Arctic weather

A Healing Ritual in a Sweetgrass Bowl: Self-Care for Surgery

On February 5, 2019 / Family and Friends, Health / 48 Comments

My support system is in place, but no one can protect me from vulnerability. When you read this, cochlear implant surgery will be over and I’ll be home recovering. As I write a few days before surgery,

Feeling the Sound: Listening with the Whole Body

On January 8, 2019 / Creativity, Health / 20 Comments

I heard Evelyn Glennie’s TED talk “How to Truly Listen” when I did a google search for deafness. In 2013, five years after my husband’s death, my already impaired hearing took a nose dive. A new kind