Pollen: Irritant or Medicine?

A Lesson In Letting Go

There's a lot of pollen out this week. I had a tough day on Monday, and today is a bit challenging, too. As I was sitting there "suffering" on Monday, trying to fight off the itchy eyes and sneezy nose, my dear friend and colleague Suzette Marie said,

"Maybe it's not an allergy. Maybe it's medicine for you. Maybe it's helping you to release something."

 Well. Hmmm. That sounded like an interesting perspective. I was totally game for turning something very annoying - indeed, debilitating - into something good for me, if only I could pull it off. 

Here's what I did.

First, I contemplated what pollen does in a plant. When pollen reaches the stigma, it embeds itself and creates a "pollen tube" - it basically tunnels its way from the surface down to the "womb" of the plant.

Then, I contemplated what pollen does in a human - it triggers the release of histamine. Histamine dilates blood vessels and makes the vessel walls extra permeable. 

Then, I examined what I was experiencing. Of course, it was the histamine reaction - the "symptoms" of the "allergy".

But what was that, really? What if it was medicine? Suzette said, "...it's helping you to release..."

To figure this part out, I sat quietly and closed my eyes. I calmed myself enough to notice my fierce resistance. Resistance to what? To the feeling of "swelling" in my eyes, nose, and sinuses. I was fighting hard against it. 

I took the time to feel my way through and into that resistance. I let go of "sensing the itch" and embraced "sensing the resistance".  This part is hard to describe, but I think it's useful to share.

It was as if I was blasting away with a weapon - a weapon of light and heat - that I was applying to the area all around my head. And all that light and heat was making the area around my head hot and full of a kind of fiery plasma that was "stuck" in that area. Almost like I was firing this weapon into a heat shield that was between me and the rest of the world. 

Now, I can't tell whether I was the one blasting away, or I was the one holding the heat shield in place. I just know that I was in the middle of it, and it was not a happy or productive scene.

Once I got a handle on the dimensions and depth of the resistance, I began to try to release it. To "let go". The first phase of that process was to stop seeing the situation as an antagonism. The pollen, the reaction, the "motion", I said to myself, was appropriate. It was an OK thing. A good thing. Nothing to fight. Rather, it was a release of something. (What, I didn't know).

The second phase was to drop the shield. To let down my guard and "allow" what was happening to happen.

What I found was that if I was very still, and did not try to do anything else but "allow", the feeling of "discomfort and resistance" transformed into a feeling of "quiesence and permeability", through which "something" was being released from me out into the ether. I could feel it passing out of me. 

What was this "something"? 

I'm not sure I totally know, but here's a clue: The stillness that I had to adopt was a meditation of sorts. It required me to be completely present to myself and the moment. I could not read. I could not write. I could not plan or think or be in the future or the past. Fretting about my "to-do" list only made it worse. I had to be fully present.

What I felt dissipating through this process was the compelling urge to be "doing". All the items on my to-do list, my sense of having (or wanting) to engage with the world and experience something resulting from the application of my own volitional force onto the world had to go. 

Instead, I had to be completely receptive and, I guess in a way, vulnerable.

What evaporated out of me was attachment, desire, action, drive. What was revealed in its wake, in its absence, was clarity. 

How odd that a hayfever reaction would lead to clarity.

They say that allergic reactions are more pronounced in those that lead an unhealthy lifestyle - smoking, bad diet, etc. And also in those that lead a "hyper-sanitary" lifestyle - everything sprayed with disinfectants and very restricted encounters with the "dirt" of the natural world.

I think if a histamine reaction makes one "more permeable", and an unhealthy or hyper-sanitary lifestyle exacerbates the reaction, then perhaps what pollen is doing is offering us the opportunity to reconnect with the energies of the natural world, and cleanse ourselves of those things in our lives that are impediments to doing so.

Bee pollen is know in naturopathic circles as very strong medicine. Perhaps the bees and the flowers have something to teach us about the healing power that comes from intimacy with the natural environment.

The Boys Are Back In Town!

(cue Thin Lizzy music...)


I know, I just wrote a post yesterday after a hellaciously long break, and here I am posting again less than 24 hours later.


But this one is short, I promise.


Mars is back.


Mars went direct last night. After 13 weeks in retrograde, he's back from vacation, and ready to come off the bench. Back into the game. I felt it. BOOOM. Like a muscle-car in high idle dropping into gear, but without the clanky lurch. It just felt like IMPULSION brought on line. But with the emergency brake still on. A horse, bridled but aching to run.


Ahhhh....


And, my birthday is on Thursday (Thor's day...). So me, Mars, and Thor are gonna have one rip-roaring, high-energy, kick-some-ass kind of launch for -my- second half. I turn 51. 

I'll keep you...ahem...posted :-)

Success - It's all in the Physics...

I spoke to a life coach this morning, Dr. Liz Zed, recommended to me by my dear friend and colleague Ana Maria Sanchez. I had to admit it - I'm starting a new career (or, several) and it's just possible that I might need some help sorting things out and getting the traction 

I need to make my new life sustainable.

I've experienced a lot of healing and growth since I left high-tech at the end of 2009. So I'm a little more than 2 years into "whatever is next", and, frankly, I feel like a two-year old. 

Which is to say, I feel grand, healthy, and a little out of control, but very determined.

Lately, the realizations and clearing of old patterns has accelerated. I'd say since last May when I first had the opportunity to meet with Dakota elder Chief Golden Light Eagle, and then REALLY accelerated since the Winter Solstice of 2011.

So there I was this morning, talking to a life coach.

What did I learn? Well, it was a meandering conversation, as first "get to know you" conversations often are, but something subtle emerged that I wouldn't have been able to hear not that long ago. 

The nugget is this: Success is all in the physics.

Success isn't about doing a bunch of things you don't really want to do, gutting it out through pain and sweat and frustration. All that stuff feeds the ego - either the "I deserve to be punished" or the "I have to earn it through hard work" or the "I have something to prove" or any number of other mis-wired messages.

Rather, it's about discerning what one really, truly wants, and then setting up the scene so that doing what you want brings you success. All the moving parts are keyed to align with the effort that comes naturally for you, so once you engage the system, it's like the system sings along with you.

Sounds simple, right? Well, the second part is, I think, pretty simple to folks with a mind for mechanics, physics, the dynamics of power, cause and effect, and so on. That's the physics. Sure, you might need some trimming and tuning by folks with domain expertise, but generally speaking, it's a system of pulleys and ropes and levers. 

The life coach said something like, "It's the difference between doing while having uncertainty about whether you're going to succeed or fail, and having a program that you know you can follow, and if you follow it, you'll succeed."

Why wouldn't we all sign up to a program that we can follow, and follow it to success?

Ahhh, the multi-million dollar (literally) question. 

I think it's because we're afraid of really understanding the first part -- understanding what we love, and letting go of what we don't. We have tapes that say "success looks like this..."(see stressed-out working stiff at right), and we're not sure we want that. Or we have tapes that say, "You can't just do the things you love - life is hard!" Or we have tapes that say, "That's a stupid, low-value, low-esteem profession."

All those tapes block us from understanding what we really want. What we really love.  And when we build a process that includes all those tapes, the physics is not working with us at all. In fact, we're setting the physics up to work against what comes naturally to us. And then sheer force of will, willpower, determination, stubbornness, stress, and heart-attacks are required to achieve the goal.

Not very enticing, is it?

Nope. Not for me.

I want the physics to work in my favor. Not boring, or even necessarily easy (no "slacker" goals here), but certainly working with the momentum of my soul, rather than against it.

Thoughts? Comments? Have you set up your Rube-Goldberg success engine to leverage the momentum of your soul?

2012: The Year of Action

Welcome to the action. Claim your piece.

Early in 2011 I got the message that 2011 would be the year of Authenticity - the year where doing what wasn't true would be hard, and discovering what we truly are would be paramount.

I hadn't given similar thought to 2012. It seemed like there was already so much written and said about 2012 that I would have little to add.

Then, last night, a quiet, gently foggy night, I got the message.

"2012 is the year of Action."

Action vs. Taking Action:
2012 will be the year of action whether we as individuals choose to act or not. As the saying goes, "No decision is a decision." Similarly, choosing not to act is a choice to have others direct your actions. In this case, I suspect we will be compelled by circumstances to be actors in the grand drama, however uncomfortable that may be at times. Better to participate in choosing the course.

Selfish Action vs. Community Action:
One can argue that a selfish act can be an act in support of the community, and that an act in support of community can also serve the self. I like this perspective, because it suggests that we have a choice to bring these two courses, which on the surface seem so antipodal, into a kind of harmonious alignment.

When contemplating an act, consider what aspects of it are selfish, in a community-damaging way. Then see how those aspects can be eliminated or mitigated.

How can the "selfish" act become "sustainable"?

My favorite call to action of this type (one that I've heard probably thousands of times) is, "Put on your own mask before helping others…"

The "Good", the "Bad", and the "Bridge":
The notion of taking action can conjure thoughts of political and community activism, and working toward our objectives (and against the opposition's). I will no doubt be pulled to "Support the Good" and "Resist the Bad". There is the aphorism, attributed to Edmund Burke, that "All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing".

But there is a third course of action - the act of relentlessly pursuing understanding, communion, and communication. Being a bridge.

Jesus broke bread with the sinners. And he did not judge them.
"Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
(Or, from the Aramaic, "Blessed are they who make peace…" Note how that feels very active...)

I am committing to more regular publishing of thoughts here at the Firefly Willows blog; I'm also committing to another course of action: The Swallowtail Project blog. There you will find my more "activist" writings, and, I hope, my successful exertions at being a bridge.

Welcome, 2012. Welcome to the action. Claim your piece.