Lives and Longings

At the end of March, a wild little whim grabbed hold, a whim that smelled of old maritime magic and fishy brine, a whim whose cold salty wind beat against our cheeks and froze the tips of our noses, a whim to head over to the coast, to our former home, that we loved a lot, and still do.

From our high dry highlands it's a 7-8 hour drive and a substantial chunk of change, but we decided it was worth it to quelch the longing (longings are like that, aren't they?- easy to justify). 

The whim took hold on a Wednesday afternoon, and by Thursday at midnight we were driving--a little cross-eyed--alongside the Hood Canal, almost to our destination, and to the promise of rest.

Something I think about a lot is this: that there are many, many lives worth living. I imagine all of them for myself, sometimes in the span of one week- I could live my life on a Greek island, my bare feet against the warm stone each day as I walk to the market; or back in my home state of Kentucky, in a little country house, caving in to the humidity and allergies, but being there; or I can see myself as a mother, loving so deeply and glowing with that self-sacrificing beauty that only mothers possess; or I could move to a city and put all my efforts into career, enjoying the city offerings such as dance classes, theatre, philosophy meetups, cafes...; I could forsake it all and become a nun in Montana, or Tibet; I could be a surfer on Tahiti or Hawaii, living in a little bungalow, my skin stained sunny gold; I could live happily in a little adobe casita in the desert southwest as an incense-maker; and then there is the vision of myself wandering the heathered Scottish highlands or the Yorkshire Dales, my little white stone cottage and farm in the distance à la Hannah Hauxwell or I could certainly be a lighthouse keeper except the era for that in earnest is really over; or, another one that I ponder very often: I could live a maritime life, on a boat or some stormy northern coast, pulling my food from the water, learning the ins and outs of my vessel and of marine navigation, rocking back and forth to sleep at night, swallowed up in that old brackish aroma, my mornings smelling, like Dylan Thomas wrote, "seaweed and breakfast." 

All of these, and more, I could do. But it is my nature that no matter which of the paths I went down, I would always find myself longing for parts of another.

So this particular trip was not only revisiting an old home, but immersing once again in that northern maritime sea-life imagining.

We hopped onto ferries and whale watching boats, our noses well-coated in salt and our eyes delighting in light waves of azure blue.

And when our feet were on solid ground again, we'd smile across the table at each other with tired but invigorated adventurers eyes and relish in some delicious fare before heading back to our little yurt for an evening of hot baths and reading.

Some afternoons we'd dip into a peculiar shop or two and hunt for unusual little treasures to take back home.

A drawerful of crosses

Himalayan marionettes!

And more than once, we walked to the lighthouse, a favorite spot from the past, and sat on the rock wall, gazing out across the mystery, imagining what we would do if a tsunami came (we'd fully embrace one another and surrender to our fate), and watching the full moon set over the North Cascades to the east.

And I started a new book, a fiction this time, a maritime classic, appropriately with the sea lashing the rocks beneath me.

(I finished this trilogy just last week, a little under two months later, and do heartily recommend it if you're in the mood for a good story that really transports).

And finally, we took our wobbly sea legs and coaxed them into navigating brake and gas pedals and getting us back over the mountains to our home in the blonde highlands.

Here in the high, dry Okanogan Highlands, Spring is waltzing in charming us all as usual. You can feel the buzzing energy everywhere, in everything.

Sometimes I sit beside a glacial erratic or a pine, and feel a love and warmth that is like family, and like belonging. I smell the Ponderosa Pine baking in the warm sunshine and am dizzied by the sensation of passing through another life that sometimes feels more real than this one. It is like I know this ground, like the mountains were my grandparents, and I've been steered back here by some unseen force, a formless path that I walk and turn to matter. 

Here it is rugged and difficult and right to the bone, like boulders the size of sheds that crash down onto roads you travel often, or like what happened on easter Sunday...the symbolic day of death and rebirth - when we came upon a young bull elk, still as large as an adult buck deer, lying on the side of the road with his foot tangled in a barbed wire fence. My husband and another man held him down and managed to get his foot out of the fence, much to our relief, but as we backed away expecting him to jump up and run off, he instead just continued to lay there. We thought maybe he was in shock and just needed some time, so we backed away and talked gently, giving him space to gather himself again. 

A few minutes passed and we inspected further, piecing together marks in the road, a scuff on the neck, a puss-filled eye, and an inability to move, realizing he had been hit and knocked into that barbed wire fence. 

Something seemed to be wrong with his neck, causing him not to be able to rise despite an urge to try every few minutes. 

It was brutal for me to watch. 

We are hunters, but I've come to believe that a wild animal facing its end by a well-placed bullet is the most kind form of death available to them - the other options are being eaten alive by wolves or a cougar, a drawn out injury that slowly separates them from their herd and likely leads to the aforementioned scenario, or --as we witnessed with our young bull elk here--is hit by a vehicle and left to lay on the side of the road with something broken, unable to move. In that scenario, a bullet is a welcomed respite. But despite, it is still a difficult experience to handle. And on that particular day I was already feeling especially tender. 

The herd of about 40 or 50 had moved up to a far hillside, but when we started working with the injured elk, they rallied and ran back toward us- a sight to behold! Raw, intuitive, unspoken power. I could've taken pictures, but the moment felt so potent and real that I only wanted to show up in respect, not capturing, despite the cinematic scene all around us. 

At last they settled close-by, watching attentively and eventually easing into grazing and looking up toward us from time to time. After the young bull elk was freed from his suffering, they slowly began to move away again, as if they sensed the completion. I hope that we were able to bring comfort to the elk, despite his horrific situation. I do know that as I stroked his head, and talked softly to him, that he began to close his eyes and drift off, being rubbed at all by a hand was an altogether new sensation to this wild creature, and I hope comforted and eased his passage before my husband performed the inevitable dispatch. 

It is easy for me to read this and wonder if I'm being too soft, but when we can assist a helpless being, or any other being, shouldn't we? 

We could've just walked up and shot him and moved on, but as a firm walker on the spiritual path, the non-physical world that is always in concert around us, impacting and interacting with us constantly, is very real to me. I know that I can change the field around me, and I know that the spirit, or essence, or soul, of that creature could benefit from a hopeful peace being brought to him, prayers, comfort, and wishes for the after-journey. 

This is how I choose to live my life- with depth as much as possible, and with consideration for all that conducts reality, not just the five senses we perceive, and certainly not just the abrupt and rational American way where time is money, so don't waste any time comforting an elk, silly girl, just be done with him, butcher, and move on. Surely there is a middle ground, too, but on this day, I felt tender and had the time, and wanted to pass on whatever comfort and benefit I could. 

I'll never forget that little bull elk.

This feels like home on such a deep level for us, and we have endured and been patient for years attempting to build a certain kind of life here, but it feels like this phase of life might be coming to an end soon.

 

There is so much chest-heavy sadness in this realization, but with a new plan laid for the winter, we're focusing our vision on the future and opening again to the world, to engagement with others, and to service.

It is far too soon to speak publicly of this plan right now, but suffice to say our sadness in potentially having to leave this area is balanced with a forward-looking excitement of the possibilities ahead.

Until then, all we have is now anyway, so we submerge into the seasons and the place as always- pulling fish dinners from cold mountain lakes, dipping in the snow melt rapids of Sherman Creek, and soaking the sunshine back into our bones. 

No matter where the path of life leads, it's hard to imagine ever finding such a special place, one that feels like it is us and we are it, yet something in the breeze whispers that it's time for change.

It is a blessing and it is hard to love so many things, and so I circle back around to how I started this post, with different lives and longings, yet we must choose and go full in to that choice, otherwise we never show up intimately to any of it.

So here's to being able to love where we are--physically, mentally, emotionally--so completely, being ever present, and when the time comes to detach and fork off on a separate path, to then transfer and redirect that love and presence, taking it with us fully, not letting parts of ourselves linger. If we linger across too many paths, we become scattered and incomplete, deducting something from every place and interaction. We owe it to ourselves and to others and to every place to arrive whole.

Holy grail traditions

And try to read this if you're interested- a very illuminating book. I think the Holy Grail traditions, any access we still have to those primordial teachings, is important and--as of now--rings the most bells in my spirit.
 

The bone and marrow of winter

"I turn round and round irresolute sometimes for a quarter of an hour, until I decide, for the thousandth time, that I will walk into the southwest or west. Eastward I go only by force, but westward I go free. Thither no business leads me. It is hard for me to believe that I shall find fair landscapes or sufficient wildness and freedom behind the eastern horizon. I am not excited by the prospect of a walk thither; but I believe that the forest which I see in the western horizon stretches uninterruptedly toward the setting sun, and there are no towns or cities in it of enough consequence to disturb me. Let me live where I will, on this side is the city, on that the wilderness, and ever I am leaving the city more and more and withdrawing into the wilderness. I should not lay so much stress on this fact if I did not believe that something like this is the prevailing tendency of my countrymen. I must walk toward Oregon and not toward Europe."

- Thoreau Looks to the West, August 1958

I am slowly settling back in to the snow-dusted little home in the mountains that is our own, after having been away, eastward, visiting family for the last three months. Far, far too long to be gone from one's life. For all of the love that gets to be shared during that time, it is still just too much, and we have made the firm decision that from now on, winters will be different, with less time spent away, a focus on quality and not quantity of days.

I'll be frank and say: it was a difficult winter. It's not an exaggeration even to say I went through a small dark night of the soul while in Kentucky this year. But for all its struggle, I can't say I would change a thing because I believe some very important pearls were plucked from it all that I'll now have the rest of my days. 

To condense such multi-faceted experience into a single nutshell isn't easy, but I'll simply say that I entered a personal season of mysterious physical struggle on multiple levels, about one week after arriving in Kentucky, with strange and acute attacks of symptoms I had never experienced before. I'm aware that there is something deep and psychological in me that causes illness every time we return to Kentucky for the winter--where we stay with family and spend a lot of time apart--but despite feeling stronger upon arrival this visit, the symptoms were new and more intense than previous years. Weeks passed, I researched, observed, and took care of myself the best I knew how.

Clinging to each other as home, while enduring a too-long time back east.

Finally, I decided to embark on the GAPS intro diet, strictly, to a tee, the only way it can effectively work and heal in a deep and foundational way. I began this on December 20th, in earnest. The first couple of weeks were incredibly hard as my system adapted to such a change in diet. Not having my creamy hot beverages anymore was really challenging--it felt like I didn't have anything to look forward to throughout the day! truly eye-opening--and I experienced a big drop in dopamine as my body learned how to produce its own rather than rely on periodical snacks to uplift me. But after week 2, roughly, I emerged like a phoenix, no more strange symptoms, feeling so clean, light, strong, free from cravings, unattached. It was an interesting experience of freedom in a way I had never considered before. I started this diet in order to heal my gut, which the diet teaches is the root of any other illness, and ended up enlightening many other areas of my heart and mind along the way. 

But all of my spiritual study and experiences make me certain that illness is not all physical, maybe not even physical at all in origin, but rather informed by a beyond-physical event or thought, of the present or past, conscious or sub-conscious. So, while the diet was working and making me feel so good, and while it did feel important and right, I knew there was more to it all. 

So I kept digging- observing, searching, and researching.

And, as fate would have it, came upon something altogether paradigm-shifting. 

This new paradigm, I'm still amidst learning about and properly understanding, only a couple of months into the journey, but I'll go ahead and mention it here because I think it could be vital to understand. 

It is called German New Medicine. Now, to try to figure out how to sum it up might be difficult, but I will try: German New Medicine takes a completely different approach to what we call "disease" and posits that symptoms are usually a healing phase of the body, or at least an attempt at healing, and that the symptoms are simply a natural biological response to a perceived shock or stress. If we treat the symptoms with medications and surgeries, we don't allow the healing phase to play out and we create what is called a hanging healing which results in ongoing symptoms and what we would then refer to as a chronic condition.

Brain scans are used to spot lesions that correspond to specific areas of the body. But in order to experience complete healing, you do have to be able to hone in on the "original conflict" that triggers symptoms in you now (and this could be all the way from an argument that happened last year to an event from your childhood). German New Medicine can be applied across the spectrum, from something seemingly as benign as itching or a dust allergy or headaches to serious conditions like terminal cancers where one is given three months to live and told to go home and enjoy their days. It is utterly fascinating how it all works, so I wish I was able to explain in more detail, but if you feel drawn to it, I'll leave a list of the resources I've moved through on my path thus far:

1. I started by reading this book
2. Simultaneously I listened to videos and interviews with Dr. Melissa Sell (her website, and her YouTube channel)
3. Next, I began reading the incredible articles on learninggnm.com and getting more familiar with conflicts and related symptoms - here is a good article to begin with on that site
4. Then, I treated this video by Ilsedora Laker as a class where I watched, listened, took notes, and made a real study out of it
5. And now I have joined a bi-weekly GNM "healing group" by Dr. Katherine Willow of Carp Ridge Wellness Centre in rural Ottawa, Canada

So now I am slowly implementing German New Medicine principles into thinking about my experiences of symptoms and seeing everything in a wholly different light. Nutrition is still important according to GNM, because it strengthens and helps us to better endure perceived shocks and stresses, so I'm now practicing a full GAPS diet 90% of the time (giving myself a little leeway on the weekends or when out gallivanting) in conjunction with GNM and am feeling balanced, healthy, and steady, in a more rounded and polished and complete way than ever before. 

I see illness not as something to be feared, but as a messenger saying it's time to return to core principles of our nature. And I believe if we do this on all levels, in earnest, we regenerate.

Lots of meat stocks and soups made with vegetables and meats- the meats focused on are to be all parts of the animal including parts containing fat and connective tissue, not just muscle which is primarily the only kind of meat we eat in Western culture.

Morning juice: juice of freshly pressed carrots, celery, beet, and green apple with a raw egg, a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt.

Some words dreamt up while on a walk one afternoon at a park in Kentucky:

The way is not
to wear the years as weight
But as a lightening

Days of beauty,
days of horror
One's flaming fable flickers
Their tide rushing shoreward

Morning tea is made,
Spring soil tilled
Wood gotten in,
the dinner table sat

If dying is lifting,
let the days be an ascent
Birth- crashing, dense
And dying- a recollection, recommence

Diamond Caverns

Diamond Caverns

.::*::.

Now we are back- back home, in what I am convinced is the most sacred part of this vast country- the high, dry Rocky Mountain regions, whether the southwestern ones or way up here in the inland northwestern mountains and highlands. There's just no better place than this infinite landscape, this penetrating serenity.

Here there is space, there is natural beauty and endless treasure troves of inspiration, poetry is ever on the wind for the honed observer, and the land is not so peopled and sickly as the one I've been inhabiting the past few months.  

I love my family so dearly, and my friends, sometimes I even enjoy the marketplace (rock climbing gyms! thrift stores! healthy grocery stores!), but my mind changes altogether after I've been away for two weeks, then one month in I can no longer feel how it feels to be someone who lives here, where I do, and where I sit now again, thank God. The sounds of traffic, the low buzz of powerlines, the television frequencies, the bad air, the bad water, the coughing masses, the jaded and distracted expressions, the constant chatter... it wears on me and eventually I feel I lose something that is vitally me. And I miss it so very badly when I feel it leave. Like a little spirit, or essence, I can feel it detach a little each day, then eventually flutter away, leaving me thinner than before... and I don't truly get it back until I've been home again for a few weeks.

But I am here now, home, in the great American West, with my love, and our simple wholesome life. There have been things to tend to right away since our return- a vehicle needing brand new tires and a refrigerator needing replaced (which required a slight bit of remodeling!), but we are just grateful to be back to a routine together, and to be held once again by this big land that feels like a living, breathing elder to us, full of teachings and nourishment, a living being who we revere and love.

About an hour after the photo below was taken, we ascended into a proper snow storm up in the Okanogan Highlands one recent night. I was scared at first, thinking we had really gotten ourselves into a mess--and was coping by singing Pentangle's "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" loudly as we crept down a steep canyon at 15 mph (I heard a chuckle from the driver seat at the line "Undertaker, please drive slow")--but finally was able to relax and enjoy the enchanted snowy drive through the wilderness the rest of the way home. 

I haven't yet showed you the knitting project I worked on this winter- a gift for my brother-in-law, modeled below by Eric. This is probably the most intricate thing I've ever knitted, and it took a lot of concentration and patience. From now on I plan to focus more on knitting patterns that challenge me because I really enjoyed the process and learned several new techniques along the way.

It is the Windy Scarf by Martin Storey.

I love it so much that I'll probably make myself and Eric one in the future, though in different colors. The Celtic-looking cabling pattern resonates on some deep old level for us.

On the flight back and since we've gotten settled in, I've been working on my first knit sweater. It's another pattern by Martin Storey (whose work I really gravitate toward) and it's to be a gift for my husband. Right now, I'm on the front side... and making my wobbly way along, trying to make sense of what are (to me) more complicated pattern instructions. We shall see how it goes.

Outside the snow is falling and in the distance a row of willow trees cuts a branched yellow line across the landscape like fireworks. It is mid-afternoon and I've just wrapped up my work day, sipping a hot mug of homemade meat stock now, and going to tend to a few little odds and ends around here before we go do our workout. As the days roll on and we continue to settle back in and find our rhythms, I'll be back here to share stories. Wishing you all a satisfied end of winter and a verdant blossoming of the heart until then.

x

Fabric Frequency

In 2003, Dr. Heidi Yellen conducted a study on the frequencies of fabric. According to this study, the average human body has a signature frequency of around 70-100hz, while those with chronic disease were 50hz and lower. A diseased, nearly dead, person has a frequency of around 15hz.

The study showed that if the number is lower than 100hz, it puts a strain on the body, and higher frequencies give energy to the body.

Far beyond all other fabrics, linen and wool were both 5,000hz! But if those two fabrics are mixed together, it was found that they cancel each other out completely resulting in a 0hz measurement. Even wearing a wool sweater on top of a linen outfit collapsed the electrical field. This brought measurable weakness and even pain in some tests. This is interesting to me because ancient spiritual texts prize linen, and mention that wool and linen should not be mixed. 

It was also found that black clothing discharged and extinguished one's electrical light field. 

Linen: 5,000hz

Wool: 5,000hz

Organic unbleached cotton: 100hz (considered "normal but not healing" fiber)

Standard bleached and colored cotton: ~ 40hz ("Plant fibers like cotton and hemp are not a healing fiber when measuring its signature energy output")

Polyester: 15hz

Rayon: 15hz

Silk: 10hz

Polyester, acrylic, spandex, lycra, viscose and nylon measure zero and do not reflect light

A quick note amidst the dawn of the migration

"Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death." 

- Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims

In our region of the Inland Northwest grows a tree with a secret. Though it masquerades all year as one of the conifers, come October its true deciduous nature is revealed. What looks like an evergreen forest becomes adorned with streaks of gold, and when the sun shines through and you happen to be passing by underneath, it can move you to tears. It is the real golden wood like Tolkien told us about, physical of course, yet creates a feeling beyond physical that is maybe even more palpable, a liminal story-world where conifers turn gold and lose their needles. Majestic and divine and awe-inspiring are all the right words, but they're not enough. Getting to experience it feels like a pure blessing. It is the Western Larch and it enriches our autumn days with its cheery gold paintbrush strokes across the landscape. A harbinger of the seasonal shift from light to dark, and the last bolt of color of the year, its yellowing lets us know that winters snows are right at the doorstep.

That is how the landscape looked when we drove through it waving our good-byes, then flew up over it early one morning when there was barely enough light to see, me with quiet tears moistening my cheeks, and love for a place putting an ache in my chest- surely one of the most interesting and deep relationships of my life.

Now I write from Kentucky, where I was met by the usual illness upon arrival, though fortunately it was short-lived this time as I'm in a healthier state overall this year (and adorned with my BioGeometry ring and pendant!). I'm starting to think that the sickness I experience coming to Kentucky each winter has to do with electrosensitivity. We already know I'm extremely sensitive by nature- my husband lovingly nicknamed me sensi-tiffany several years ago, and his canary, and it's true: if something is damaging, rest assured I will be the first to feel it and respond. While this used to feel like a burden, I now see it as a hidden blessing. And it seems the longer I live in the remote area that I do, the more stark the contrast when I suddenly throw myself back into the electrosmog that engulfs modern civilization. 

Alas! Here I am! In Kentucky, my hometown, visiting loved ones for a few months. 

During the days I'm usually working, studying, walking under the oaks, or helping family, but at night I've structured a lovely evening routine for myself. It involves: a 30-minute sauna session, a cold shower, some stretching, a mug of hot cacao (you can use the code TIFFANY98397 to get 15% off your order) and then hot herbal tea, some reading (right now I'm finishing up Richard Schulze's "There Are No Incurable Diseases" in preparation for a cleanse I plan to do soon), and knitting. This evening routine is balancing, nourishing, and crucial. 

In other good news, I've found a wonderful massage therapist here in my hometown and am enjoying a bi-weekly full-body massage for lymphatic drainage complete with hot stones and cupping. I feel fortunate to have connected with such a skilled masseuse, who is a true artist of her craft, a healer indeed.

Usually I help with an interior design project of some kind while I'm here and this year we've decided it's to turn an old unused bedroom into my mother's office for her Ebay store. I plan to create work stations and systems that will help her streamline some processes and be better organized in general. So I'll probably begin working on that soon.

I'm also hoping to start pulling back the carpet in the "new" addition part of the house that I stay in when I visit, with hopes to see nice hardwood underneath! We shall see. In my mind, I see this room turning into something like this, folky and rustic. But that might be a project for the next visit.

For whatever reason, I've been drawn to fictional literature lately instead of my usual non-fiction in the genres of health and esoteric spiritual topics. Driving back from the park this evening at dusk, I noticed the cold bluish LED lights shining from the windows and it turned my thoughts to older times when lantern light warmed the windows and blessed the village with a coziness. So I thought: to conjure this feeling while I'm here, and during this holiday time especially, I'm going to read some Victorian-era books. I already had Jane Eyre here, so I'll probably begin there (though when it comes to the Bronte sisters, I'm more drawn to Emily, as a person anyway, but who's to say who I'll like most as a writer?). And earlier this evening I was in the basement of the town library printing something very large, and as it printed I poked around and ended up making my way through the first few pages of Charles Dickens' Bleak House and really feeling drawn to his writing style and the voice of that era. So I have a copy of his "Great Expectations" on it's way to me in the mail, too. I wonder if anyone reading this has any Victorian-era book recommendations for me?

A short post this, but it's late and now I'm off to get into the aforementioned evening routine. Wishing anyone reading this health, grace, clarity, and peace of mind. 

x

In Nighthawk just a few weeks ago; sometimes when I'm away, like now, I stop and imagine it just as it might be right this minute... with the lonesome coyote howl, the scuttling sage grouse, the slow underground heartbeat of hibernating creatures, the quiet spacious bigness all around, the air so pregnant with freedom.