Riding the Pooka

Honoring Birds & Día de los Muertos

Birds “Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Only a life lived for others is worth living.” –Albert Einstein We have a game we play each day when we go for our walk-…

Prodigal Daughter

Yesterday the rains returned, ending our days in the sun for the time being. We came back from our Southwest travels only to dive straight into some needed kinwork. Then last week I was gifted the opportunity to go to Breitenbush for a writing workshop taught by my friend Amy. Even though I had never met the fellow writers in…

long time travellers

“These fleeting charms of earth Farewell, your springs of joy are dry My soul now seeks another home A brighter world on high” Wailin’ Jennys Traveling today to New Mexico, to visit my sister where she lives on a remote high altitude ranch. We will miss the last days of beautiful September in Oregon, and…

Busy Signals

I have been very busy these last few weeks. Tuesday while traveling into Portland for appointments I was thinking about time and phones. When I hold a cell phone with my left hand, and usually when I try holding one to my head, it looses reception. Full bars to zip in an instant. For…

Harmony

We just got back from a blessed adventure. Wednesday through Friday we attended a family retreat at Harmony Hill, a beautiful healing center near Hood Canal, a little more that 3 hours north east of Astoria. This has been a wonderful week. We all feel so lucky to have been able to attend the retreat. To be together- separate from…

Camo for Amazons

I have been learning how to tie beaded necklaces lately. This serves several purposes, by using my fingers for fine motor skills I am improving my hand neuropathy. It also gives me something productive to do while supine in the nest-the one sunny place to lay down in our house. This feels especially important when I am not the…

Chicago

A little more than a week ago I heard the sobering news that a friend who is about a year ahead of me on this whole cancer-ing trip is experiencing a reoccurrence- with metastasis to lungs and liver. This time around it is about more than her breasts. She is so beloved by her wonderful family and intimate…

Bali Ha’i

Bali Ha’i may call you, Any night, any day, In your heart, you’ll hear it call you: “Come away…Come away.” Bali Ha’i will whisper On the wind of the sea: “Here am I, your special island! Come to me, come to me!” Sometime in January I started to have hot flashes. Micro bursts of temperature…

On the other hand . . .

When I look down at my right hand, I see the progression of my treatments visually etched into my nails. Stripes mark the 3-week intervals. The discolored areas that separated from the nail bed, due to the toxins in the yew-based chemo, are now nearly grown out, while the pale stripes marking the Herceptin continue. I…

Natural Dyeing

When I was in college I called home one day to talk to my special grandparent-ish people, Edna & Ed. I had recently changed majors from Biology to Fine Arts. When they asked what I would be studying I replied, “Natural Dyeing.” “What?” they asked, “Why would you want to study that?” They of course thought…

You say Placebo, and I say Nocebo.

pla·ce·bo (pləˈsēbō) a. A substance containing no medication and prescribed or given to reinforce a patient’s expectation to get well. b. An inactive substance or preparation used as a control in an experiment or test to determine the effectiveness of a medicinal drug. no·ce·bo (nəˈsēbō) A detrimental effect on health produced by psychological or psychosomatic…