Nurture Practices VS Self Soothing Strategies There is a time and a place for all. What do you choose to do now? Self-love, and by extension self-care, is on one end of a continuum, on the other end is self loathing. At any time we might be moving towards one end or the other, sometimes…
Category: Alternative Healing Modalities
The long long road to order.
I have had my fair share of inner struggles with Stuff… I don’t know about you, but I have a pretty complex relationship with some of the stuff in my life. This seems to be an inherited condition shared by family members. The animist ideas of Shinto, in which belongings have a spiritual force makes…
Recurrence, an Oncoming Train?
(Disclaimer: Many of you know that I just visited my oncology team last week- Just so you know, all tests came back normal. I continue to have no evidence of returning disease. I am feeling happy, humble and very grateful for being in this place in this moment.) I have thought of western treatments like…
Body as Enemy – Body as Ally
Some of my best thinking happens in the shower. The warm water and steam seem to open up my mind to possibilities that otherwise wouldn’t occur to me. The other morning it was a question: Am I being an ally to my body or am I my own worst enemy? This led to more questions….
Navigating the Medicine Show
“Step right up! Step right up! Hear about the amazing healing powers of Dr. SmartyPants’ patented formula!” If pharmaceutical drugs were distributed out of the back of a charlatan wagon at a medicine show would they have fewer takers? Wait a moment, what about commercials for prescription drugs? You know the ones, with the huge list of possible…
The Inner Puppet Show.
Yesterday was so very beautiful. After work we celebrated a family birthday at Shively Park with a picnic supper. The trees there are big and old and have the feel that they are holding the world together. Two beech trees on either side of the park have covered the ground with their burst open little spiky…
Becoming a Frog on my way to Zen Princess.
All through this journey I have been focused on the idea of metamorphosis. At first all I knew was that I wanted to change, and focused on changing into a new self that was no longer “compatible with cancer.” I started out looking for clues on what I needed to do differently and then worked on…
Soothing surgery scars with some herbal whoop-ass.
Making herbal whoop-ass is something we really love to do here at the Hotel Daire. For several years we used Herbalism as the focus of our homeschool efforts. You can study chemistry, botany, math, anthropology, and history all while gaining useful skills and creating a family apothecary. Back in June Dr. Metro, my naturopath, suggested that I get…
Call of the Wild
Labor Day weekend. Wow, seems like the summer flew by. Last week we traveled up into the edge of Olympic National Park to camp a few days, and then rushed back so I could meet up with my friend Amy to spend a few days in the Cascades at Breitenbush. 18 hours of driving to…
Movie Review: Living Proof, the story of Herceptin
Last night we finally watched Living Proof, the Story of Herceptin which came out in 2008. The central character is based on researcher Dr. Dennis Slamon, and was played by Harry Connick Jr. in the film. The story was first captured in the 1998 book HER2, the making of Herceptin by Robert Bazell. Usually I am distracted while watching a film adaptation of…
The Teeny Tiny world within.
You are what you eat. Food is Culture. The way to a person’s heart is through the stomach. Let food be thy medicine. Food is Love. You eat first with the eyes… and on and on. Everyone eats, and we have countless adages about food that attest to this. The question is how can we eat to…
Space, the final frontier… for healing that is.
If you read my last post on the five actions of wellness I mentioned mindfulness – which I define as the deliberate attempt to cultivate a disciplined mind. Essentially attaining a more relaxed state at will. The goal isn’t to never have intense feelings, the goal is to be able to observe my feelings when they arrive, and to…
Riding the Pooka 