Tag: healing

Struggling

Thank you to the lovely ladies who popped into my DM’s this past few weeks. It means a lot that you bothered to check in while I am clearly enjoying not posting or sharing for a spell.

We’ve been getting ready for the busy season at the retreat, and our legacy projects are growing and evolving at a pace we simply cannot manage without some serious support stat.

And help is on the way as we’ve engaged an enthusiastic and aligned recruiter. Interviews commence next week, after a tsunami of interest.

The first OFFICIAL Persephone event (after countless soft launches and practice runs over the years… anyone remember my attempts to launch heartache and cheesecake?) is this Friday in Poneke/Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington.

The poetry competition went staggeringly well. Spearheaded and supervised by Holly Rowsell who is hosting the Poneke party. Women all over Aotearoa dug deep and shared slivers of their shimmering and sometimes shattered souls on the page. This competition will continue as is for two more consecutive years, and we will add a similar photography submissions strand to the tapestry of the Persephone projects.

I am struggling with so many aspects of these efforts.

Naming the foundation. Battling with the chip on my shoulder after years of volunteering, steering committees, donating and being deeply disappointed by so many charitable entities. The tension between my desire to do something impactful and disappear completely. And the constant and crippling fear of humans after being kicked far too many times by people who I helped or lifted as best I could.

I do not have the market cornered on any of these struggles.

Being a human means being hurt and disappointed sometimes.

Trying means failing far more often than celebrating clear successes.

Healing means hurting.

Helping doesn’t always help.

Being brave means being vulnerable, there is no safe way to stand up in a world that is increasingly and inarguably divided.

So fuck it.

I have picked a side as society struggles through whatever rebirth it is destined to endure.

Whether or not people are willing to accept the reality of our situation, the objective fact is that we are fucked if we can’t pick a socially just side. Ed Sheeran this week is a case in point – sitting on the fence is not a winning strategy. If you have a platform and a voice now is the time to clearly choose your side and then let the wider community decide if they support your position (this week Macklemore’s bravery and courage clearly won the popularity contest over the sitting on the fence position of Ed’s).

FMCG fuckery and overconsumption fueled by corporate greed have changed the very fabric of our ecosystems. Not just the environment, not just the oceans and soils, not just the air that every carbon based creature needs to exist, but also the social, economic and spiritual fabric of life on earth.

Successful shareholder values have scarred delicate systems that took billions of years to evolve.

So my little anxiety attacks over sticking my head up above the parapet seems seriously silly.

We live in a time where neutrality is a luxury that only comes with privilege. That privilege costs every corner of life on earth a tangible price. Noone is free until everyone is free. Nobody can rest until the earth is able to heal and regenerate to an extent that allows life the fundamental building blocks to exist and regenerate.

I am absolutely a hypocrite and a climate criminal because of the carbon it takes to ship my body around the globe in search of meaning.

It is my responsibility to acknowledge and act upon the damage my activities incur.

So, that’s what I intend to do.

But today, dragging my weary ass to the march for nature protest in Albert Park is the only thing I have the bandwidth to do.

So, watch this space.

I will be sharing more as more happens in my microcosm.

Thanks for reading.

If Pain is a Gift, Today I am Blessed

On Friday last week I stayed in bed most of the day after my social battery went totally flat after we attended a beautiful send off for Damon’s uncle David at the glorious goddess Auntie Ingrid’s home.  I am a big fan of Auntie Ingrid and had a lovely time laughing with Damon’s niece, his delightful dad, and some friends and neighbours as well.  Also got to catch up with Cousin Emma who is here from Boston, and of course my irrepressible and decidedly delightful mother in law Pamela.  Her brother David completely changed the face of the music and broadcasting industries in Aotearoa, and he was much loved and well-respected pain in the ass according to the speeches and songs shared in his honour.  A giant of a man in stature, charisma, and his indominable legacy.  

So my beautiful wife Damon and I snuggled in and had a quiet day on Friday.  I decided at some point to make myself some baked beans with melted cheese on top.  A fateful decision that would have deep and disastrous consequences.

Those scolding hot beans and the molten cheese attached themselves to the roof of my mouth and seared and sizzled and burned and bubbled.  I knew I’d fucked up immediately.  Burns are an insidious suffering and the echo of thousands of heat-related injuries flooded through my accident prone body and nervous system in a flash while this latest dipshittery occurred.

It is now a week later.  I am unable to talk or eat without pain.  A trip to the dentist confirmed the extreme nature of my injury and sprays, gargles and pain killers are keeping the pain dull enough that I can read my wonderful Barbara Kingsolver novel “Unsheltered” and pause now to write this quickfire blog. 

My life is certainly not terrible.  

When shit goes wrong, as it sometimes (often) does, I am reminded just how not terrible things are as terrible things kinda waft through my consciousness and concrete reality.  

Consciousness and concrete reality are really such small parts of the magic that is existence, but we place a great deal of focus on them.  Most states pass.  Joy and euphoria come and go, as do grief and despair, pain and pleasure.  It all wafts through and it is such a fucking incredible gift to experience it from a place where I know there is hope – after living a powerless and hopeless existence for such an incredibly long time. 

I am not powerless.  I am filled with hope.  Even bad days feel like a gift as somehow, now, that I have called back my life and my boundaries to my own self.  Lately, I am good even when things are not going great.

It’s so fucking weird and awesome.  

As is customary, Damon and I have been continuing to toil away at things we both Love, and also… manage to keep our shit together (just) when dealing with truly vile and disgusting people.  These vile creatures serve very little purpose on this planet, aside from reminding sensible/kind/curious/creative people how not to be boring, cowardly and disappointing cunts.  

The world needs these horid, boring, angry, annoying people.  The deepest frustration I have observed with them, however, is that they claw and con their way to positions of some level of power despite generally never having done anything interesting or useful.  This old boys club continues to be filled with cowards and cretins and it continues to protect itself despite clearly competent aspects of society (women, minorities, thinkers, creatives, truly competent and charismatic leaders, and even kindness in general) proving to be far better and more fun for everyone and everything involved.

Days like today remind me just how glad I am to have picked a side and sticking to it though.  I choose the planet, nature, community, tolerance, creativity, art, hope, and magic.  I do not choose, seek or condone ignorance, hate, greed, fascism or privilege.  All that nasty shit is just getting way too mainstream for my liking these days, and I will stay in my lane and actively condemn it until the last breath leaves my beautiful little body.

So, having inflicted a reasonably serious injury on myself, I just have to calmly manage the pain and let it heal.  I was not stressed out, or under the influence of any drugs or alcohol, or in any sort of hurry at all.  I just made a really poor decision and a week later I am rendered rather helpless.  Still able to function, more-or-less.  Had a typically perfect catch up with my darling low-drama-llama goddess Mel and her sparkling beam of light daughter.  And have had some b’ness meetings and strategy sessions and done a wee whisp of creative work this week as well.  But through it all there is a pain that ranges from dull and controlled by the codeine to seering and excruciating.

I don’t hate it.

Suspect that the reason why I do not hate it, despite pain being genuinely unfun, there’s a comfort associated with a small but notable injury.  This that goes beyond the fact I know it will heal and I will relish feeling fit and healthy even more after going through the motions of this recovery.  I feel grateful it was not a bigger or different injury and am more grateful for the bits of me that are working and the vessel that carries me being in reasonable order most of the time.

When I was young and living through a traumatic and hellish childhood/puberty there was plenty of self-harm and poor decisions leading to injury.  Now that I am safe and removed from toxic and abusive people… well, most of them… Even pain is not what it was when things were the way they were before.  Now I’ve successfully built boundaries and started to design a safe, private, simple and very satisfying life.  I have nothing to prove and don’t need anything from any fucker these days.  

Still, I relish honest and creative collaboration and connection with a community.  I thrive in situations with perfectly imperfect people doing their best and giving an actual authentic fuck about themselves and making the world bearable for themselves and others.  Community and connection for creation not self-interest. It’s its own kind of magic.

My friends have checked in and chided at me for what is clearly on brand – if something is worth doing it is worth OVER-doing.  My beautiful wife Damon has carried on important work at the farm and rushed home to nurse me in my invalid state.  Not that he can do much.  Poor thing.  He wants so much to be helpful.  I can’t eat and talking is a chore too, so he feels a bit helpless, but his presence is calming and there’s a tenderness that is so incredibly pure when one of a couple of lovebirds is injured or unwell.  

Nurse pickles (we are dog sitting) is very concerned and helpful during my recovery ❤️‍🩹

I guess, all I am saying, is that I feel awful, and that’s somehow making me feel decidedly blessed and it is wonderful.

My mouth will heal.  My friends are divine.  My kids are all on different and fascinating paths right now and I am so stressed out by and utterly proud of each and every one of them.  And I am safe.  I am safe from gaslighting, cruelty, or scary social climbing con-artists.  I am surrounded by people who are their authentic selves and perfectly imperfect in safe and interesting ways.  Feeling shitty never felt so good.

Have a great long weekend everyone.  

Much Love and thank you for reading.