Some unexpected lessons in balance
(And actually, I have no right being surprised)
Hello Friends,
It’s really cute how I set out to talk about balance this month and then found myself utterly flabbergasted as life delivered an endless series of lessons in this very subject. Which came first, friends, the unbalanced chicken or its lopsided egg?
Since we last spoke, I’ve been learning a lot about intentions and how they don’t always go the way we intend as a series of unexpected immediatelies have forced me, each in their own specific ways, to let go of what I think I want and need so I can take care of what’s actually in front of me instead.
These are not the self-created deadlines of things like newsletters and podcasts, but actual legal requirements for living a life that have hard and fast rules with real-life consequences if they’re not followed. And these are the things that exhaust me most and leave me feeling like a hollowed-out shell. Filling out forms, getting tax information together, visiting government offices, finding out more documentation is needed, trying to get that documentation, visiting the government offices again; and then, on top of it all, navigating a veterinary emergency (she’s doing much better!) all virtually exploded the intentions I’d intended this month.
However, I have met each one of these challenges without fear — just kidding, there was plenty of fear. But I handled each one, as they came up, and felt strong and capable after and since.
And so, going into Equinox this week, I’m digging deep to find my gratitude for this continuing lesson in balance — that as important as the spiritual aspects are, we have to also be engaged with the 3-D stuff of life that requires equal, and sometimes extra, attention.
By the way, and I think totally related: Happy Eclipse Season everyone! 🥳
They say (astrologers, I mean) that themes that came up during the last eclipse season six months ago will resurface now, and that this is the completion of cycles started then. I’ve been a little terrified, to be honest, because last eclipse season was all about breakdown and anxiety for me — particularly around fear associated with caregiving — and becoming aware of the many and varied ways my coping mechanisms weren’t adequate.
Last Eclipse season, we were right in the middle of the hell that was canine seasonal allergies.
So right on cue, Ginger got sick just a few days before Friday’s lunar eclipse. This time it was blood in her urine, on a weekend, when the only veterinary help was at the emergency hospital an hour and a half away. I do drive, but not often and never very far from home by myself, because we never know if I’m going to suddenly not be ok. And if you’re an hour and a half away from home and unable to drive, it’s pretty essential to have someone else who can take over. This isn’t usually a problem because Mom can always drive, or ride along. But on that fateful day, she’d fallen on the only remaining patch of ice left on the whole property, and we weren’t really sure if she was going to be ok, either.
So both of my dearest loves were struggling, and I just didn’t know what to do.
I talk more specifically about this below, in the Dispatches from Ginger’s Little House section, but for the purposes of my personal experience of this Eclipse Season so far, I’ll provide a brief outline: I knew Ginger needed to see a doctor, but we were repeatedly blocked from having this happen smoothly or easily. And I was left trying to make the best of bad choices, with her health in the balance.
Just like I was last fall, during the last eclipse season.
The next morning, when it was no longer the weekend and our local vet would normally be open, I couldn’t get through by phone. They eventually texted to tell me they were closed for the day, so I tried the other vet, where she’s had a few surgeries, because she’s at least kind of comfortable going there. After weirdly not being able to get through to them either, I eventually got someone on the phone only to find out they were fully booked, but would check with one of the doctors to see what we should do next. She recommended Ginger be seen that day if at all possible and referred us to an urgent care practice. Thankfully, Mom did feel better enough to ride in the truck just in case, so we headed up to the big city an hour and a half away from home. Ginger met a lovely new doctor and we had a really positive experience overall.
My anxiety for those two days was off the charts, but it let up almost as soon as we were in the truck on our way to the vet, prompting me to ask within: what was really going on there? And why? I realized that my anxiety is at its worst when there’s a decision to be made, and particularly if that decision could affect someone else’s health, and especially if it feels like I’m making the best of bad choices. When we’d made the decision to go to the vet, every part of my being relaxed.
When I started to look at the why more deeply, I recognized I was cycling through old feelings I had five years ago as I was holding space for the deaths of my dear cats, Beece and Mouse, and my darling Little Dog. With each of them, it was clear what was happening. They were dying. But I felt like I had to constantly assess whether they were suffering and if they needed me to bring in veterinary intervention.
I was pretty sure that Ginger wasn’t leaving this past weekend, but it’s not actually the life-and-death part that bring on the anxiety for me. It’s the uncertainty, the decision making, and the feeling that any decision I make could have terrible outcomes.
The trauma I’m reliving in my anxious body isn’t from the outcome, because the outcome was not just inevitable, it was quite beautiful.
I can look back now and know that I provided each of my animal friends with the deaths they were asking from me. That I held space for them lovingly, that I did what I could energetically to ease their passing, that something amazing was happening that provided an ease to their suffering, and that if any of those aspects had changed, I would have called on veterinary assistance and we would have helped them leave. The trauma I’m reliving in my anxious body isn’t from the outcome, because the outcome was not just inevitable, it was quite beautiful. My anxiety loop remains from the uncertainty I lived through in the days leading up to their deaths.
One of the downfalls of having access to psychic information — at least this is true for me — is feeling like I should always have the right answers to every difficult thing. But I don’t. Especially when it’s something that I’m emotionally invested in. And especially when none of the choices are obviously good.
Of course this event was the headliner for my next appointment with my therapist, and she pointed out how much of my anxiety is wrapped up in SHOULDs. Even when I ask myself, “what is the best choice I can make in this moment?” the underlying energy of the question is, “what SHOULD I do right now?” So I’m banishing SHOULDs, and I expect to feel much better very soon.
She also helped me realize that some of this anxiety is the result of a couple of insistent voices in my head that are not my own, blabbing constantly, and whose impossible approval I’m always seeking. These voices are assholes, and need to be evicted, but they hide in the weirdest places and have an uncanny way of making me doubt myself in my very tenderest of moments. With awareness comes healing, so now that I know, I feel ready to do the work.
My therapist said this is also all about Self Acceptance, so Onward with that quest!
Dispatches from Ginger’s Little House:
This month has seen the occasional return of the Sun here in Michigan, and with it, the thawing of snow and ice. According to our local newspaper’s daily newsletter, we got 169 inches of snow this winter, which is not abnormal, but is So … Much … More … than we’ve seen in the last five years. I have actually experienced more snow than this! We had two winters here in the mid-to-late-aughts when we got more than 200 inches of snow, which I remember as feeling like we were in a snow globe that was being constantly shaken for four straight months.
With the thaw, Ginger and I have been venturing out again a little bit, sometimes driving in the truck to her favorite places, and sometimes setting off on our own six paws. One of the days when she chose the latter, we arrived at and wandered through the Little Lake parking lot, so called because it is a parking lot next to a very small lake. We were getting ready to go home when Ginger noticed a truck parked in one of the spots. She stopped in her tracks, looked at me, looked at the truck, and insisted that she was either getting in that truck, or I should call Mom and ask her to bring our truck. Obviously, I called Mom and within a couple minutes, we were back home playing all the after-walk games Ginge loves most.
As I mentioned, Gingy had a pretty intense week that started out with her peeing blood. The lovely people at the urgent care did some tests, and the ultrasound thankfully showed there weren’t any tumors or stones in there. They said it’s a severe UTI, and sent us home with some meds, which already seem to be working, and our girl is on the mend!
It was such a strange string of events that led us to this new urgent care vet’s office, between not being able to drive the distance to the emergency room on Sunday, our own local vet being closed on Monday, my not being able to reach anyone by phone at her surgeon’s office, all before finally getting the advice and referral we needed, and finding ourselves in another new place with yet another new doctor.
This dog has met so many doctors! And it makes me wonder for whose benefit that is. It doesn’t seem like it’s hers … I know everyone thinks their dog is the most special, and of course they all are! But as I watch this dog navigate the world, I find myself more and more convinced that her job is so much bigger than I even realize. And maybe, part of what she’s had to go through is so that these doctors and vet techs can see this bright, beautiful spirit who has been through hell, but continues to be such a happy and joyful dog. I think she expands people’s capacity for compassion everywhere she goes.
So she met some new friends and even though she didn’t like what they were doing at all, at no point did she even try to bite any of them. Yay! Her responses and her communication of her feelings were all very appropriate and polite, and she made very good choices overall.
We went to dog training two days later and everyone there was just as proud of her as we were!
In the Garden:
I mentioned the thaw, right? But it’s March in Michigan and so, at time of press (that still applies if “press” means the button that says publish, right?) the rain is turning to snow and everything is getting covered in a fresh, cold blanket of white.
While it wasn’t frozen, though, we’ve been busy collecting soil samples to send off to the lab for testing. We’ve never done this before, despite every garden expert ever saying this is the most important thing we can do to ensure the health and wellbeing of our plant friends, and it’s not because we don’t care, I promise! It’s because I was sure I could psychic the information of what each plant needs and when, and provide it.
This might still be true, but psychic-ing takes a lot of energy. And I’m beginning to realize that it’s ok to lean into what is already known, and save the energy for psychic-ing things that I have yet to understand. There’s so much to do, and I think maybe it’s a show of respect for the divine guidance others have received along the course of human experience to lean into what is already known instead of feeling like I have to intuit it myself all over again. This is a big shift for me here in the garden, and I’ll let you know the results as time goes on.
We’re feeling this strong need to focus our energy on better food production from our garden, too, since the situation here in the States is so unstable and uncertain. For most of my adult life, I’ve felt this compelling push to have a closer connection with my food, not only for health reasons, but also so I know it will always be available.
Gardening right now feels like an act of rebellion.
Gardening right now feels like an act of rebellion. A way to remember that the powers that be don’t have control over every aspect of our lives. A reminder that, within an entire country, we actually live in these tiny little communities, and within these little communities are people who are connected by place, but also by more than place. That we all have the same basic needs for food, water, shelter, clothing, medicine and love. I’ve tried looking at what’s happening here (and in other parts of the world, too, of course) through the lens of what’s meant to happen, and here’s my hope: In trying to pit us against each other and keep us separate from one another, the actions of these few powerful people will remind us — through their callousness and lack of compassion or care — how interconnected we all really are. Because we’re going to see suffering up close; in our families, in our neighbors, in our communities. And we will see reflections of our own suffering in each other and remember who we truly are. Spiritual beings — embodiments of oneness — having our own physical experiences that are totally interconnected and that actually bring us together, not drive us apart.
Time will tell, but we are essentially creators, each and every one of us, so what are we focused on creating?
The seedstock ginger arrived safe and sound from the farm in Ohio we ordered it from this year. I unpacked it on the kitchen table, where it stayed for eight days while things around us got more dynamic (read: hard), until finally, last Sunday, I actually planted it. This was the day of Ginger’s bloody pee, so I was already a bit fried by the time I actually buried my little friends, but I did manage to give each piece a bit of Reiki and thank it for being here before nestling them all into their own little pots. Now I hover over all of them every day, telling them we love them, and waiting for them to sprout.
I’ve also been sorting seeds we saved the last couple of years, and thinking about seed saving as a further act of rebellion. It has really been healing my heart. Hopefully, by the time you’re reading this, I will have also planted the dome tomatoes as well as some of our other cool-weather Spring friends.
Podcast Preview:
Friends, this month’s podcast episode is a doozy, and I think you’re all going to enjoy it so much. I had the joy and honor of talking to my friend Ade, who is also known as Maid4Luv. She is a Holistic Therapist, psychic medium, teacher, student and psychic surgeon, who in the mean time also became Dr. Maid4Luv by earning her PhD in Human and Social Services with a specialty in Online Mental Health Interventions. She’s an approved therapist and trainer under the International Practitioners of Holistic Medicine, a certified Spirit Release Therapist, a Reiki Master and Munay Ki practitioner, and, I think for obvious reasons, the person I most wanted to talk to about balance.
“We’ve been doing the spiritual and energetic work, so we’ve gotten the theory. Now it’s time for practice. Practicing what we know.” — Ade, aka Maid4luv
The whole experience of recording the podcast was surprising, and a bit surreal actually. Ade and I are both pretty accustomed to coming to work prepared — well, as prepared as people who tune into spirit and let our psychic faculties flow can be, of course! But the morning we were scheduled to record together, we both came to Zoom completely discombobulated.
I had spent the morning as I always do, waking up early, doing crafts and reading magazines. I knew I had an appointment, but from the time I woke up that day, I can only describe my experience as being completely out of time and space. I had no awareness of anything linear at all, so when Ade texted me to let me know she was ready, it was like I came crashing back into my body. Thankfully, she didn’t mind starting a little bit late while I did a few grounding things and got my computer ready to function.
As a bitty sidenote, I’m going through a moment right now where I am very rigid with my time, and weirdly possessive and hard around how it’s taken up. This isn’t normal for me, and I still can’t quite pinpoint where it’s coming from. (Perimenopausal impatience, perhaps? I’m not sure.) So I was really starting to beat myself up for screwing up our schedule and wasting Ade’s time. But somewhere, deeper down than my mind, I became aware that some larger purpose was at work.
And then, when we finally did connect on Zoom, and I heard Ade had a similarly disconcerting morning, I started to see what it was. We weren’t meant to be prepared, we were meant to be in a healing flow.
As you’ll hear in the episode, Ade even felt apprehensive at the beginning of our conversation because she usually goes into talks like this with some plan for what will be said, and this time had no idea where the topic of balance would take us.
The conversation that ensued was so unexpected, and so raw, and so healing for both of us, that it took me a full week to listen back. Once I finally did, something lovely settled deep within: the work we’d done together, and the work we get to share with you.
I’m really excited to put out this Equinox episode on Balancing instead of Bypassing, so keep an eye on your inbox that morning (March 20) if you’re subscribed, or set a reminder to check it out in your favorite podcast app if you’re not.
Ade and I have both been quite isolated in recent years, for various reasons. The fact that we do spiritual work allowed us both to ignore and diminish the importance of certain aspects of our physical nature, and to bypass the very glaring needs of our physical forms by dissociating from our bodies as a coping mechanism left over from childhood trauma. We discovered how deep this actually goes for each of us as we talked, and each experienced a new level of healing in real time as we recorded.
Towards the end, Ade came through with some amazing tips for how to practice balancing in everyday life, which I thought would be excellent to share with you here.
“I think the challenge for us now,” she said, “especially those who have been in hermit mode for a long time, when you can really get lost in your head, is to practice being in your body and being present, and not just for other people, but for yourself. … So making sure that you are nourishing your body and that you’re fully present with your body. So when you’re drinking water, you’re actively feeling everything, feeling yourself being quenched. When you’re eating, feeling yourself being nourished. Especially when you’re eating food that you’ve prepared for yourself. All of those are acts of self love for the body.
“When I prepare my own food and I take that first bite, I’m like, ‘mmm, this is so good. My body’s going to feel so good with this.’ It’s a totally different experience. When I bathe my body, I always just visualize as well that all the negative energy’s just draining off of it, and then I do a lot of mirror work to show my body that I love it, touch different places, show it love, that kind of thing.
“It really starts with loving yourself first, and being em-body-ied, because I can get lost in my mind,” she said. “I can tell you right now, I can get lost in my mind.”
Perhaps the only question I had actually prepared to ask Ade before I lost my whole morning out of space and time was: what kind of rituals and routines can we bring into our lives around balance? And we realized that we had been answering this question all along. It’s in the everyday things — the most basic things — that we do to keep our bodies not just alive, but nourished and loved.
“We’ve been doing the spiritual and energetic work, so we’ve gotten the theory,” Ade said. “Now it’s time for practice. Practicing what we know.”
We both talked about how often our minds jump in to remove us from our bodies, and Ade said a good practice for these times is to just write down everything you’re thinking, “get it out so you’re not thinking about that.”
Here’s a few more practices she recommends that I think are so valuable and that I’m trying to remain present for in my everyday life:
Mirror work: Being kind to ourselves
Touching your body, both in sexual and non-sexual ways
Grooming yourself
Give yourself manicures and pedicures, even if you don’t like polish just making sure your nails are neat and cared for
Throwing out the underwear that has holes in it
Throwing out torn clothing
Throwing away chipped dinnerware
Cleaning out the refrigerator
Getting rid of anything that’s broken in your home
Throwing away the stuff that you’ve collected for hobbies but haven’t used in years
Not letting the recycling build up
Stop hoarding these things, and do something with them and about them
“What you’re showing is contempt for yourself and contempt for your body by holding onto that,” Ade said. “And you’re holding on to past, you’re holding on to old, you’re holding on to broken. It is the little everyday things that count.”
I love all of this so much, and I feel like it is such a wonderful way to celebrate Equinox, no matter where you are in the world. Whether it’s planting time or harvest time, practicing balance in this way, by attending to your everyday needs, is such a lovely clean energy to take into the next season. And, as a bonus, it really makes use of the Venus Retrograde energies we’re in the midst of until April 12!
Be sure to visit Ade’s amazing YouTube channel at: www.youtube.com/@Maid4luv, especially if you’re seeking guidance about love and romance! And to book readings, healings or to see what classes she’s currently offering, check out her website at: www.maid4luv.com.
Book Reports:
Last month, I included a poll in the newsletter for the first time asking if anyone would like to join a book club on Zoom. Only one person answered yes, but the poll didn’t show me who. So if you’re the one person who wanted to chat about Martha Beck’s Beyond Anxiety, reply to this email and let me know what you think! After this week’s evidence of how much work I need to do still around stress and anxiety, I’m going to crack that book open again and revisit some of the exercises.
This month, I can’t stop talking about Whole Brain Living, by Jill Bolte Taylor. It was mentioned in Beyond Anxiety, and my curiosity was piqued. I haven’t seen Bolte Taylor’s extremely famous TED Talk, but maybe you have? Here’s a brief rundown in case you, like me, missed it: Jill Bolte Taylor became a neuroanatomist because she was compelled to study the brain after her brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In her mid-30s, she experienced a massive stroke that affected the left hemisphere of her brain, leaving only the right hemisphere functional. Because she was a brain scientist, and because she never lost consciousness, she was able to observe the whole process as it happened.
Here’s what she found: With only her right brain functioning, she understood herself to be a giant ball of energy as big as the universe. She knew nothing of herself as a separate entity from everything else, and she experienced only peace and joy. She worked really hard over the next eight years to regain the function of her left brain, and learned how important all aspects of the brain are for living a rich and rewarding life. This book goes through explaining each of the four characters of our brain, how each of them function, and helps to explain how we can allow each of them to do what they do best in order to live in balance and harmony with ourselves, others and the entire universe around us.
I love this book so much, and as I’ve been navigating all these real-world issues that have come up lately, I’ve been leaning heavily on my left brain thinking character, who is very good at paperwork and organization and getting things done that need to be done. I have a ton of anxiety around these kinds of tasks — especially things like tax forms and healthcare redetermination — but each time this anxiety came up, I recognized it as the kicking off of my left brain feeling character 2, thanked her for showing me what she needed to show me, explained that character 1 had everything under control, and reminded her that we were all safe and ok in this present moment right now.
And it worked!
Bolte Taylor calls this a “brain huddle” and I’ve been making use of it often.
Now I’m reading Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas, and I’m obsessed. When I saw the audiobook was 25 hours long, that felt pretty massive and I wondered how much it would drag. But I’d heard him talking about Pluto on an episode of The Astrology Podcast, and really wanted to hear more of what he had to say. I’m flying through this ginormous book, and finding myself completely fascinated by the data he presents.
By describing historical events and figures based on what transits of the outer planets were involved at the times of their births and major life events, Tarnas presents the planets as archetypical beings we can get to know better. How these massive entities move, and how their movements affect our own lives, is something I’m pretty invested in understanding right now. Selfishly. Because several of them are playing with my chart right now. This book is great.
I’ve also got Nicholas Nickleby going, but I’ve been so interested in everything else I’m reading that he only gets the two minutes of attention it takes each night after I turn it on before I fall asleep. At this rate, I’ll finish it sometime around my 90th birthday.
I think this might be the longest stretch of almost entirely non-fiction reading I’ve ever done in my whole life. During my conversation with Ade, we both realized that our childhood love of reading fiction might have been more about escaping reality, and that we’re both finding that coping mechanism isn’t necessarily serving us now. I feel like this dive into non-fiction might be my own way of realizing that I’m healing and evolving by staying present with what I’m experiencing here in my real life.
Also, I still love stories and I know I’ll be diving back into the realms of make-believe soon. But maybe from a more balanced and healed place within myself, for the pure enjoyment of letting my imagination flow instead of the outdated survival mechanism of escaping from real life.
My creative life:
My obsession with embroidery continues, and I’m sorry, but I have to brag here because I’m really very good at it. This might be one of the least useful skills I have, but I love it so much and not everything should be about capitalism anyway!
I wake up at 5 o’clock every morning, and when the alarm rings I say to myself, “I get to wake up and embroider now!” and no matter how tired I am, I have no problem climbing out of bed. And in fact, as the evening wanes, I often find myself thinking, “Yay! It’s almost time for bed, and then I can to wake up and embroider some more!” It’s honestly pure joy:
And finally, I have great news!
I have an article up now on Spirituality & Health Magazine’s website called How My Emotional Support Animal Became My Spirit Guide! Here’s the link if you’d like to read it: https://www.spiritualityhealth.com/how-my-emotional-support-animal-spirit-guide
And if you like it, and want to read more about how Little Dog and I helped our loved ones transition out of this life, we wrote a book all about it! You can get a copy here: https://www.thedevicconnection.com/shop/beautiful-death
Friends, thank you so much for being here with me! I hope this finds you all well, and I’ll see you in just a few days when we can celebrate Equinox together with Ade!
Wishing you days of balance, peace and harmony,
Jodie