Once upon a time, I went up to Arcosanti, AZ with Flam Chen. I was helping with fire safety during a performance that weekend and we got to spend a few days chillin' in the incredible venue and camping at night. Laying there in my tent one of those nights, I was fascinated by all of the life around me in the desert. During the day, the heat and the cicadas drowned out all but the loudest bird calls. Human hustle and bustle distracted me from the outside world. But at night, the cicadas slept, the humans went indoors, and there were noises all around me! I heard crickets, some night birds, frogs, nameless insects, scampering mice, and the occasional bat squeak. I marveled at the symphony of sound around me. The symphony of the night-chirpers.
That night I discovered that there were beings that chirped during the day, and beings that chirped at night. From that mystery and magic, I was inspired to create this blog. I didn't know what it was for, but now I have a few ideas.
Sometimes going back to the beginning means one has come full circle. I am back in southern Arizona now. I fled the concrete jungles of California and came back to the only place that has ever felt like home. I left for a lot of reasons (health, finances, sanity, gallons of negativity and stress), and you don't want to read about any of them. That's okay. I don't need to write about them here. They were good reasons, and I'm solid in that.
So where is this headed? Why revive a tired, old blog that never had a point? The answer is focus. In my attempts to become a "real artist" who makes money at their work, I failed. I had no focus for the work. The work was not mine. I fell into the dead end of retail after giving up on art because I had no focus. I feel as though I have lived most of my life without focus. But when you live long enough, you eventually find focus, often by accident, always for a reason.
I experienced a calling. "I am a healer." And it gave me focus.
I first heard my calling back in 2004. I tried going to school for nursing, but I got diverted by art. Then I went to school to become an illustrator, but I got diverted by graphic design. Then I tried being a designer, but I got diverted to retail. ("It's a living!") Finally, my health took a dive, and I had to quit everything. But that's the funny thing about having a calling. Diversions end badly. My hands aren't capable of designing on a computer anymore, and my feet aren't capable of standing in a shop selling products, stocking shelves, and herding customers. I am not a graphic artist, I am not a retail slave. I AM A HEALER.
I am a healer. Not just a healer, but a wounded healer. In other cultures, they use the word "shaman" to describe people like me. I like "healer". It feels a lot less demanding and loaded than "shaman". So now I am back in school, both literally and figuratively. Literally, I am going back to college to earn a Master's degree in dietetics so that I can work with getting other diabetics right with their food and using food as a primary form of treatment with medications. And I am learning how to walk my talk, healing myself, and learning to accept my limitations as well as my strengths.
Someday in the nearish future, I will have another blog to discuss nutrition and debunk the mountains of bullshit surrounding good nutrition. For now, I have this blog. Here I'll discuss art, spirituality, herbalism, and whatever other awesome things are going on in my life. I want to keep it positive. Negativity is for the news.
So, the symphony of the night-chirpers awakened my sense of wonder in that moment when I camped in Arcosanti almost 10 years ago. I have learned that the experience of wonder brings one into the present, and being in the present brings joy and stillness to ones life. It is the wonder that I will write about. I will write from my perspective as a sensitive, wounded healer. Wonderful writing, not negative news. This is the new focus.
