chronicinnature

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A Few Drams on Raasay and a quick hello to Skye: Scotland Reflections Part 5

Onward west we ventured. A spectacular drive from the Glencoe region toward the Isle of Skye brought us to Eilean Donan Castle, which sits at a meeting point between three lochs. This restored castle was one of the most frequently found instagram tags when I began researching our itinerary. Generally, we find ourselves going in the opposite directions of the most trendy stops, however this spot…

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Portals and Fairy Bridges: Scotland Reflections Part 4

Finally, we began to venture into the highlands. We drove out of the rainy weather of the lower east coast and headed west (ish) towards our next stay in Onich, a village in the Glencoe area. On the way there we took our first winding, captivating path through the Ciarngorms. We took a pitstop at the Glenlivet Estate Distillery (they have very nice bathrooms, highly recommend), and visited the…

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Peacock Herb, Findlater Castle and Cullen Skink: Scotland Reflections Part 3

Returning to this series after a busy week away teaching in western Saskatchewan. This part of our journey along the east coast and into the Highlands was pursued and directed by Storm Babet. Luckily, we only met the edges of this system on our routes, staying about a day ahead of it. As Babet began to pick up speed and roll into the east coast, we took advantage of the morning to head from our…

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Tidal Graves and the Eyes of Dunino Den: Scotland Reflections Part 2

After a few days in Edinburgh we were ready to move onwards. We picked up our rental car and headed North to Torryburn Beach. It took a while, but we eventually found what I was looking for: the grave of Lilias Adie. Lilias Adie, a woman in her sixties, was accused of consorting with the devil in the early 1700s. She was imprisoned under the crime of witchcraft, tortured and interrogated until…

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On the backs of dragons: Scotland Reflections 1, Edinburgh

As spring arrives I am in some ways still steeping in the intensity of last year: one of my busiest professional years yet, getting married in September and then spending a month overseas in Scotland on our honeymoon. I’ve always found that travel is best processed in hindsight. All the experiences over the year, culminating in our travel in the fall, very much seem to have neatly encapsulated a…

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Lost remembering

Today in my weekly riding lesson I was told to keep my right hip over my right foot while riding down a line of jumps off the right. The profound thing was.. I actually managed to do that by the end of the lesson. Ten years ago I fractured my right leg and sustained nerve damage. While I was back riding and competing later that year, I had a few years of not having full sensation in that leg…

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The acceptance of life as chronic

Having been faced with the diagnosis of a chronic illness recently, and as a therapist who frequently works with chronic conditions of all sorts, I've been faced with the paradox of the chronic reality of human existence.

On one hand, it's human nature to pursue solution. We are orientated to survive by recognizing threat and resolving threat, neurologically. Yet, our conundrum persists.

To be human is to encounter one thing after the next. To be human is to exist through experiences, many of which are threatening, overwhelming and traumatizing.

There is no cure for our diagnosis' as humans.

We may experience all forms of acute and chronic discomforts, diseases, traumas and mishaps. And we are designed to be irrevocably changed by them as we live through them.

That is surviving, as well as thriving.

The recognition that we can not solve our chronic human conditions is both a relief and torture.

Acceptance is perhaps one of the reasons, if you are one who needs a reason, why we experience a human existence.

This recognition isn't to minimize the nature of chronic disease, or any of the chronic complexities we experience. If anything, it amplifies their significance.

If I've recognized anything in those I've worked with professionally in support of their chronic concerns, it's that they are more sensitive, more aware and more burdened. They have often been caught by the worst of life's experiences and perhaps are in the midst of sorting their way through the processing of that. As they navigate their relationship to themselves, they are forced to meet pain, grief, trauma and the ebbs and flows of biological sensations time and time again.

As I begin to consciously navigate this for myself, within myself, I am recognizing that I've had some nature of chronic complaint most of my life. Be it post traumatic syndromes, or mystery health complaints. The current diagnosis I have received is both unique and synonymous in nature to many ones I've received in the past.

I am facing a reckoning within myself; biologically, spiritually, energetically, mentally and emotionally.

The question I am facing from my intuitive parts is this: Is this reckoning simply an embodiment of evolution? Is my breakdown just another breakthrough? Is breakthrough just another way of framing yet another turn of the wheel of life?