Vernal Equinox 2010 Detox III

Happy Spring! I am so grateful for the sun. Today I actually got out into the garden and weeded and potted some basil. The sun was warm and the breeze cool, I believe that spring is finally here!

What a cold winter it has been.

I had an eventful week last week in that I met with a wonderful woman Jill Ayn Schneider www.circle-of-life.net She has been an inspiration for me from the beginning of my diagnosis, sand this was the first time I had the opportunity to visit with her.

I had my second meeting with Dr. Morse in Port Charlotte, who suggested it is time for a 10 - day detox fast. I began Thursday with fresh grapes, grape juice and teas. He calls it the "top of the mountain" detox, fast. These last three days I have been sipping a home squeezed-lemonade as well as taking the herbs and supplements. Sunday I will add more fruits and little by little reintroduce veggies. It is not so easy for me to write this as it has been quite difficult but has also been a great learning experience, physically, mentally and emotionally.

I won't dwell too much on the particulars of the fast, but I do wish say thank you to those that have stayed beside me in my little yin world that I have wrapped around me like a cloak. I am especially grateful for my dear friends at White Crane Healing Arts www.whitecranehealingarts.com for continued support, humor and guidance!

What I prefer to speak of here is the enormous grace and love that comes with being so powerless. Forced to slow down and be present, I spent the week quietly reading, watching films, breathing, listening and hanging like a cocoon in the hammock. I have had lots of contemplative time to examine my relationship with mySelf and the world around me.

It is with age that wisdom comes. How do you teach the value of taking care of one's self? I will pass along what have learned, and that is to study Nature. Processed foods and packaged products are not meant for our consumption( don't tell the marketers that!). If we insist on fresh vegetables and fruit, the supply will increase and prices will go down. That aside, eating organically in the end is cheaper...medical bills and even alternative health professionals can be more that one is able to spend. Fresh fruit and veggies can be energising. Study, read the labels, stay away from sugar and denatured foods. It can be an adventure in eating. Teach your children well. Retraining and reconditioning is important to create new eating habits, the body loves habits...make them good ones! Eat only when hungry and don't overeat. oooo

This is sounding a bit like a lecture now ......

I did say I would pass along what I have learned which is; there is so much more to health than food, happiness and acceptance living without judging trust be present LOVE listen and be still weakness can be powerful illness can be a gift detoxification is crucial and more stay tuned!

Blessings, Tanza

Ruminations on Impatience

Bamboo- symbol of flexibility


It has been quite a while since I posted, but it is not for lack of thoughts to share, but perhaps for the fact that sometimes I prefer to keep to myself. As an animal healing, it is often easier not to expend too much energy.

I am finding that in spite of the fact that I have allowed myself this time for inactivity and inertia, I am still beset by that companion, impatience. This character in my life drama surfaces when I sit quietly, when I prepare food, when I am waiting for someone/something, reaching for a goal... in an hour, tomorrow, next year, and so on. The

true goal is now, a simple truth and an obvious one, but we strive to ignore it and look for a future happiness, a future unknown. We reach for a coffee, tea, the popular liver killer red bull to keep going instead of making the mind-body connection that might actually inspire one to rest, be still and listen, and find that there is no rush, now-here to go. Quiet sitting often has an energising and certainly an illuminating quality that lifts us closer to that eternal now.

This companion called impatience is perhaps best reflected in these familiar phrases, "I am so tired of..."

"I can't wait for..." "It is taking so long.." I have too much to do.." I don't have the time..." Can we be aware and eliminate some of this mental posturing? The method Silva calls it mental house-cleaning and in reference to one's health includes such phrases as "It/she/he gives me a headache/pain.." (I am sure you can think of others) with the idea that we create with our thoughts our daily path.

Abundance

Some of you have asked why I shaved my head and how is my diet? This I will share with you. As part of the detox, and in solidarity with all cancer sufferers I made a clean cut. I really enjoyed the feeling, but it is quite cold and it has begun to grown in soft tufts of white and black. Oh there we go, now I must reveal the fact that middle age is this crazy feeling in this culture of youth and beauty that is literally only skin deep, a dye, a cut, a derma-brasion away. I embrace the fact that I am beautifully salt and pepper, and will not put chemicals on my skull again.

My diet is abundant with fruits and vegetables. Now the citrus are in season, sweet fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juices are desirable. Papayas are prolific in the garden, and I just finished that last of the pile of green coconuts. To eat the latter, I chop the top off with a hatchet and drain the sweet milk, then cut the husk and shell in half and scrape the sweet meat to combine with any number of smoothies. I particularly like it with the papaya or watermelon in the morning. What is left goes to the squirrels. We found a winter avocado tree, small round hard shelled but delicious, so I had luscious avocado dressing on my salads.

Salads are full of raw veggies such as spinach, celery, carrot, spring onion, sun chokes, radishes, parsley, cilantro, whatever there is in the organic market and lots of fresh sprouts. I do try to eat as much as I can organic.

Sprouts are easy. I found a box of Mason jars at our local supermarket chain and in the section with sponges,etc, I found cheesecloth. I cover the bottom of the jars with sprouting seeds, lay a thin piece of the cheese cloth on top of the jar and secure it with the rim of the lid. Then I rinse them with filtered water, drain thoroughly and turn them upside down on a drying rack. That is it. Then all you have to do is rise and drain them twice a day. Once they sprout, you can store them in the fridge and they last several days. I had to experiment a little to get the quantity that I would use. The tendency at first was to make too much.

I invite other cancer patients to write to me and share their journey because I do believe there is not one way of healing. We are all intrinsically individuals, jewels on the web and each of us has a unique view point and perceptions of our own. Pain is personal, thought provoking, and often unspeakable, but sharing is a sweet golden gift. I thank my dear friends that have been sharing this journey with me.

"..on the whole this world is a very anxious one. whether you are happy are sad, whether you are exuberantly joyful or miserable, it's still an anxious world we are living in. According to Buddhist tradition, anxieties can be transformed into mindfulness and awareness. Anxiety itself can be a reminder, a nudge that keeps waking us up again and again. It is up to us whether we try to get rid of that reminder and make everything smooth, beautiful and fantastic, or whether we try to make the world into a training ground to learn more, which I suggest is preferable." Chogyam Trungpa

LINKS and Detox stage II

I have been thinking about links. I promised a friend that I would send her a link (below) and we all regularly send electronic links for a fav website or u tube video. The word is a special one because we are all linked to each other, to this rock that lives and breathes that we call Planet Earth, and all its myriad of life forms.

Many are the ways to create a link and many are the ways to break one. Regardless of your beliefs, the link of the life-energy is the most powerful and is maintained through the all pervasive Love that supports and empowers us; this I send as my Valentine.

Life is wonderful

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite celebrations (What better than to celebrate love!) and February one of the best months down here in So. Florida because it is still cool, yet warm enough to have a garden and go barefoot.

As this blog is about my path of healing, I fear that I have side tracked a little and some of you have asked about my diet, etc. Well diet consists of not only what we eat, but what we consume daily in our lives; news, videos, visual input/ output, our breath, traffic.....you get the picture. (Nov 4, 2009 post describes my initial diet) I have made some changes, spend my mornings quietly, reading and breathing....wow ! I am breathing!!! keeping my life simple for now, eating and preparing organic live food. I am sprouting daily and love the taste, radish, lentil, alfalfa, fenugreek, and sesame. My garden is beginning to produce greens, I ate fresh arugula and spring onions in my salad today. I make a dressing with olive oil, umboshi plum, and sometimes I add some fresh herbs. .

I visited a Naturopath this week in the lovely town of Port Charlotte on the west coast of Florida. It is about a two and 1/2 hour drive. The beaches are clean over there ( the east coast has been compromised by civilisation!) and still have the white sands that feel so soft and lovely on one's bare feet. The day was a beautiful winter day that warmed up to 70 F by mid day. A very good friend came with me and we perused Suzanne Somers book Breakout on the drive up. She strongly advocates bio identical hormone therapy.... *more on that later.

hibiscus

The office of Dr Robert Morse is cheerful and the staff is happy. It is clean and painted with colorful flowers. He sat with us for over two hours explaining about the cells and how they function in the body and what they need within the two basic systems, blood and lymph.

I have been on an alkaline diet since my diagnosis in October, eating organic green juices which I juice myself, and salads as well as taking supplements. I still eat no meat, breads, milk, or refined sugar of any kind.

I will not go into all the details of his assessments of my state of health, but on his recommendation, I have added fruits, fresh and organic to flush out my kidneys and I will try to eat all raw for the next four weeks.

If I find it gets too cold, I will add a cooked sweet potato or make a warm broth with the left over roughage from the green juices (I add water and steam it for a few minutes then strain the roughage out and add some sea vegetables which I steam for an other few minutes, maybe adding daikon, green onions or leeks. I am still resting quite a lot as my body won't let me maintain the schedule I had become accustomed to, but slowly I intend to regain/ regenerate a clean healthy energy

"Nature uses detoxification as its main source of cleaning impurities. This is the only true way to heal and cure yourself of anything."

This is the link to his website: (http://www.godsherbs.com/)

*When I asked him about bio identical hormones, he said something that I think we need to consider. Once you start supplementing your body with artificial hormones, the body will quit making them. Perhaps it is better to strengthen the cellular tissues naturally, clean the lymphatics, and trust nature. I will do more research on this, and if any of my readers have feedback, I will certainly be happy to hear what you think or have experienced. I welcome any questions you have and thank you for all the support.

I close with a quote from Dr. Morse's workbook,

"Your physical body is an organic, carbon based being. It is an expression of the awareness and the consciousness of God. It expresses itself and is maintained and repaired via over 76 trillion cells or units (states) of awareness.

Happy Valentine's Day

Share your Love !

Tanza

Walking

This week we had a cold spell. How we all complained!! ... we are not accustomed to heaters and heavy jackets and shoes and socks. Nights were in the thirties(F) and even my cat stayed indoors. My sister Nina came down from Pennsylvania and found it quite a nice change from below zero.

We had a nice couple of days together including a trip to Butterfly world where even the butterflies had been kept indoors and were slowly being reintroduced to the atrium as the weather began to warm. Today it is back in the 70's F and feels great! Our conversations circled around healing emotional and physical hurts and taking charge.

Why is it after a crisis I feel the need to speak? Perhaps those are the days we make the most progress, perceiving a dark cloud in ones mind and finding a way through it to the light again. I have been resting a lot and my past active non-stop personality jumped in and criticised my indolence or what I have been defining as inertia.

Inertia:

Origin1705-15 Latin : lack of skill, slothfulness

Synonyms: torpor, inaction, laziness

Physics.

The property of matter by which it retains its state of rest or its velocity along a straight line so long as it is not acted on by an external force.

LORIKEETS "It is the child that sees the primordial secret in Nature and it is the child or ourselves we return to. the child within is simple and daring enough to live the Secret" LAO-TZU I prefer the definition of retaining its state of rest along a straight line, but my crazy head calls me inactive and lazy, closer to the 17 century definition. Regardless, today is a new day and I began by a walk in the hood. It is a clear cool winter morning Florida style and I observed the big ficus trees wrapped around themselves, the live oaks, two entwined as one, and picked a small bouquet of fresh fragrant jasmine, juxtaposed in between an old fence and the trash along the alley where I chose to walk. The idea to walk this bright morning came from Julia Cameron's book The Vein of Gold. Maybe some of you know her from The Artists Way. Her task is to walk daily 20 minutes. Try it?

Poem

Happy New Year! 2010 has arrived and with it, the celebration of hope and optimism for all things prosperous and beneficial to Nature. We are but a small part yet must inevitably play a large part in her regeneration and healing.

This blog I dedicate in gratitude to all the wonderful people who have been encouraging me. Through your prayers dear friends, sisters and mothers, I find solace and strength. What follows is a poem that was sent to me, and was written by a Celt, John O’Donohue.

I found it deeply resonated with many of my initial emotions and thoughts. If you care to take the time to read it, You will also find two beautiful poems about blessings http://elspeththompson.wordpress.com/

I don't wish to fill the space with more

words, so for now,in the words of the Incredible String Band.

" May all love shine upon you"

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Poet, Philosopher

On the occasion of his official opening of

The art collection of Inis Aoibhinn

Cancer Care West - Residence and Support Centre

Friday 14th September 2007

For a Friend on the Arrival of Illness.

Now is the time of dark invitation.


Beyond a frontier you did not expect,


Abruptly your old life seems distant.


You barely noticed how each day

Opened a path through fields never questioned,


Yet expected deep down to hold treasure.


Now your time on earth becomes full of threat,


Before your eyes your future shrinks.


You lived absorbed in the day-to-day,


So continuous with everything around you 


That you could forget you were separate.


Now this dark companion has come between you


Distances have opened in your eyes


And you feel that against your will


A stranger has married your heart.


Nothing before has made you feel 
So isolated and lost…

When the reverberations of shocks subside in you


May grace come to restore you to balance.


May it shape a new space in your heart


To embrace this illness as a teacher


Who has come to open your life to new worlds.


May you find in yourself a courageous hospitality


Towards what is difficult, painful and unknown.


May you learn to use this illness as a lantern 


To illuminate the new qualities that will emerge in you.


May the fragile harvesting of this slow light 


Release whatever has become false in you.


May you trust this light to clear a path


In all the fog of old unease and anxiety,


Until you feel arising within you a tranquillity


Profound enough to call the storm to stillness.

May you find the wisdom to listen to your illness 


Ask it why it came, 


Why it chose your friendship,


Where it wants to take you,


What it wants you to know,


What quality of space it wants to create in you,


What you need to learn to become more fully yourself,


That your presence may shine in the world.


May you keep faith with your body,


Learning to see it as a holy sanctuary


Which can bring this night wound


Gradually towards the freedom and healing light of dawn.

May you be granted the courage and vision


To work through passivity and self-pity,


To see the beauty you can harvest 


From the riches of this dark invitation.


And may you learn to receive it graciously,


And promise to learn swiftly that it may leave you newborn


Willing to dedicate your time to birth.

Go raibh mile maith agaibh.

Happy Holidays

Blessings and Joy

I wasn't really sure where to post this or if I should just send a group email, but this format is simpler to post photos and write my rambling thoughts. The subject also seems to be in sinc with healing, forgiveness and understanding and maybe even New Years resolutions(?) So here I am again.

I have been doing a lot of thinking and reading and meditation. Years ago I took a workshop with a Slovenian artist named Marko Pogacnik, who leads seminars in earth healing.

Sometimes I think that we tend to blame our illnesses on our toxic environment and if we improve the quality of our food, water, air, etc we will not have so much disease. Yes this is most likely true, but sometimes I feel quite helpless in the face of the overwhelming facts of global warming and where do I/ can I help. I do believe that it is the individual that creates change. I have been revisiting the teachings of Pogacnik and came across this bit, which I would like to share.

This is a passage from his book which I found inspiring, a little different and immediately accessible:

If more and more people find inner peace and attunement with their true Selves, the resulting healing energy will necessarily have an effect on planetary life systems. Earth-healing processes are stimulated even if nothing specific has been undertaken in this respect. This feedback process, which is based on the law of macro-microcosmic resonance, is the reason I am convinced that embarking on a process of personal transformation is the most important contribution towards earth healing we can make. It is also the most democratic; no one can worm their way out of it by claiming ignorance of earth healing. It is simply down to the way we treat our own bodies, thoughts and emotions. None of us can escape this responsibility for all of life and, to put it the other way around, we can all contribute in our own unique way towards healing the earth.

From Healing the Heart of the Earth

Beautifully put and has quite exciting possibilities don't you think?

from the garden

Today I met a man named Raoul who opened a raw food restaurant with his wife called Green Wave.

http://www.greenwavecafe.org/

He took the time to talk to me and in that conversation I became so convinced that I have chosen not only the right path for healing but that this is truly a new and trans formative path. Also I had a delicious salad and saw possibilities of new recipes for tasty energising food. His wife gives classes in raw food preparation.

I wish you all a healthy and happy holiday season, take time and take care

Tanza

Storm

Hello friends and family,

It is time to post something of my life back in the fast lane. Storm is my constant companion and yesterday when I had a little melt down he gazed into my eyes like he knew.

Lucky me to have such a loving soft boy. ok I know I feed him on demand, but it is his main pleaseure other than sleeping. Oh how we can learn from animals!

Speaking of feeding, I am still on a vegy diet and really enjoy the challenge of varying the salads and drinks. I started sprouting. Everyone should sprout. It is so easy, so nutritious and delicious.

I continue on the cancer protocol of MMS morning and night and have added some vitiamin and mineral supplements.

As healing is not just a diet I am working on changing my lifestyle and lower the stress level which is not easy in this environment. I am still adjusting to the traffic, noise and apparent lack of human interaction in our daily lives. I am learning breathing, deep into my organs and spend more time in simple quiet between work. I have to learn how to manange my energy and still be able to do what I do which at times can be strenous and demanding.

The meltdown was just such a problem. I worked all weekend and Monday did not allow my body to recover, how easy it was to fall into old patterns of pushing myself instead of stopping and enjoying a good rest curled up in the garden like my cat!

The new pattern is emerging however, one of joy in the richness of time, of enjoying chopping and preparing holistic (whole) foods, living without rushing, listening, gardening, being.

Please continue with your prayers and healing thoughts because I am convinced that there is great power in love and faith, it is by grace we are here.

ginger

I was regretting the past and fearing the future.

suddenly God was speaking.

"My Name is I AM"

I waited.

God continued

" When you live in the past,

with its mistakes and regrets,

it is hard. I am not there.

My name is not 'I Was'

When you live in the future,

with its problems and fears,

it is hard,

I am not there

My name is not 'I Will Be'

When you live in this moment,

it is not hard.

I AM here.

My name is 'I AM'."

Love, Tanza