Where He Died

In my memoir, Food Memories*, the Cannery Row area in Monterey, California figures prominently. These scenes involve my first romantic relationship with a boyfriend that for anonymity sake, I call “Eric.” This picture shows the remnants of a once-lively teen hangout behind Cannery’s Edgewater Packing Company. The lighter building on the left once housed an old-time carousel, soda fountain, arcade, magic shop and antique photo booth. Now, it is a recently closed IMAX theater.

The cement sidewalk/bike trail is the same as it always was, providing thoroughfare to countless Aquarium tourists on bike carriages, drunken lovers walking home from bars, gangs looking for fights, metalhead stoners wanting to play boomboxes loud and raucous. The drinking fountain is new.

In May 1991, I had a dream that Eric was killed by a gigantic tsunami here, on the edge of this sidewalk. In the dream the sidewalk was close to the water’s edge, and I watched as the gigantic forces of water nature swallowed him before my eyes. I remember waking up, sweaty and heart-racing, and the relief of realizing it was only a dream.

On June 1, 1991, my first boyfriend was murdered here, on the edge of this sidewalk. As the gun was shot off in the midst of a crowd, there was no clarity about who shot it, nor was the gun ever recovered. This man, whom I loved immensely, died here under the not yet erected drinking fountain, in his best friend’s arms, with no one to blame. I was lucky, and not so lucky, be absent when it happened. I’m not sure how I would have handled him bleeding out in my arms.

The tsunami didn’t literally happen, but his death did. The waves of despair and unconscious devastation were likely the metaphor. And of course, for a brief moment I wondered–should I have stopped it? Could I have? Why was I shown that in the dream? But everything went blank relatively quickly in the aftermath. That questioning stopped. I stopped dreaming, or at least remembering the dreams, for a long time after that.

Just down the road from where he was killed was this place, known to us teens as “The T’s.” These are remnants of the old Steinbeck-era canneries, their skeletons slowly being whittled down by crashing waves and by corporate tourist traps infringing on the area. An early scene in Food Memories describes how me and Eric sat here, on this beach, with his gigantic wolf-dog. Here we basked in the sun, stoned and eating deli sandwiches from a local shop. Eric was fond of putting potato chips on his sandwiches, and he did the same for my sandwiches. I grew to like this combination, however sacrilegious my dieting/Anorexic/culturally/brainwashed mind considered this. Eric controlled all of my food during our relationship, but in a really non-verbal way. I just ate what he ate, when he ate. I knew there would be drama if I didn’t. But I wasn’t complaining, I drank in this structure like a starving child.

In another scene from Food Memories, I attempt to show how this man was helping me find my way back to learning how to enjoy living after descending into the realms of depression, suicidality and Anorexia. His care, concern and (probably slightly co-dependent) caretaking of me was something I had never felt before. This scene recounts the morning after my first big arena metal show with him and his friends, and how we share a moment with pancakes, oozing with syrup, and playing children scurrying by. It shows how much I look to him, and the depth of gratitude I had for his presence in my life.

So you can probably imagine what happened to my burgeoning recovery and enjoyment of food when he died.

This man, the person that was never found that killed him, and the possible larger forces that orchestrated this experience, of his loving and his dying, changed my life forever. Almost 30 years later I still feel those moments so viscerally–that sun on my face, the crunch of the chips, the seagulls shrieking overhead, his face as he looked at me. I took a deep dive into the underworlds, over and over, after he died, and have struggled to understand and thrive despite this occurrence. Part of my struggles with eating stem from that, and to say intimate relationships are difficult is an understatement. Although I have done much work on myself around all of this I will never be able to truly shake what happened.

This is where my first boyfriend died. This is where the dreaming worlds and waking world collided. This is where a shuttered IMAX now stands.

*If you’d like to learn more about Food Memories, you can support a small bookstore by purchasing it here:

https://www.ebookwoman.com/book/9781689839075

or by searching for Food Memories by Reagan Lakins on any major book selling website.

Ancestral Grief-Heilung

Recently, I was introduced to the band Heilung, a pagan folk metal group from Denmark/Norway/Germany that are seeking to recreate Old Ways of Northern Europe, and facilitate re-connection with the Earth through their music and performances (in a good way, honoring all peoples, not in some sort of racist way, just embracing and acknowledging the land and traditions they have come from–although I’m sure there’s shadow in there somewhere).

Upon listening to the first song on the album, I felt pulled into an older time, an older, more earth-honoring connected people. The guttoral, haunting, primal sounds being made, the re-memberances it caused within me brought forth waves of grieving for a culture me and my peeps were disconnected from during the process of being colonized and colonizing others, human and non-human.

This well of grief kept flooding me as I listened further and further, and the sadness of the disconnection as well as what the disconnection created in our actions with others and our bodies was big. At times I found myself wanting to crawl into the computer and join these musicians in their vocalizing, wailing, drumming and howling around the fires, attending to and releasing this grief together. The yearning for this ceremony to be somewhere I can step into and connect into was intensely palpable, a deep deep longing.

I share this here because although I can’t quite explain it, I feel this deep grief and disconnection is a big part of why I and several of my ancestors struggled so much with suicidality, addiction and restrictive eating disorders. I share this here because I have been really grateful to have a course and supportive practitioners in Ancestral Healing that has helped me explore this topic in deeper ways.

I share this here because I firmly believe that the cause of eating disorders is not something wrong with individuals, or even the family dynamic, or even the social/media pressure to look a certain way. I share this here because I feel that these symptoms manifest as a result of thousands of years of unresolved trauma, famine, being oppressed and oppressing others, sexual violence, racism, etc and as a result of not having the awareness of why one is strongly pulled to do such destructive things to themselves.

I don’t exactly know how this work with Ancestral Healing will help me see and heal more fully from my struggles, but I am hopeful and grateful to have somewhere to explore this weird sense and deep longing I feel is connected to releasing these patterns in myself. Seeing what I and my family have struggled with be talked about in such deep and wide ways is regardless incredibly refreshing than the typical mental health conversation.

So Heilung. Listening to pagan folk metal is an interesting way to tap into the depth of these feelings, as music exploring shadow realms often is for me. Reading about things doesn’t really tap anything but music sure does. If you have Northern European peeps and feel similar deep roots to some of your struggles, I wonder if listening to this music might also cause similar feelings or awarenesses in you. If you listen and want to share, I’d like to hear. Also, if you are interested in Ancestral Healing work, this practitioner’s work I highly recommend: https://ancestralmedicine.org/

True Voice

I’m feeling really confused at the moment, not an unusual feeling, but one I’d hoped would be absent from my interactions with a recent book reviewer. This reviewer was a personal one, my prior boss from my days of working in the eating disorder treatment field.

What confused me is that in her gracious reviewing of my book, she noted that I might want to wait until I had a more final story of wellness to end with, not leaving people with how I’m still struggling. She made the point that it is helpful to do this so that people can have hope that it is possible to “fully recover” from an eating disorder, and that it would be less likely fuel for those still struggling to use against themselves.

This of course was one of my biggest fears in releasing my memoir, Food Memories, before I had reached some sort of end all be all disappearance of symptoms. That although the state I find myself expressing in the memoir is authentic for me, and although I believe that healing is cyclical not final, I feared that my words and lack of perfect recovery might hurt someone. I also feared that my belief in the cyclical nature of healing was all rationalization to prevent me from fully recovering and that someone would challenge me on that. In a way, my old boss did, and I find myself in the wake of her feedback wondering if my message is really one ready to share.

I find myself confused at whether I am being lulled back into the systemic brainwashing of recovery, whether this full and final disappearance of symptoms is really possible, or whether the cycles and awarenesses I thought I found in my process are the actual gold I have to share. I’ve tried so much over the years to address these things, including 12 step structures and it feels like there’s something deeper that’s not being addressed. This is what I’ve found is what I try to express in my memoir: the sacredness of illness, loving oneself and accepting the struggle, not pushing so hard for perfection that strides are ignored. Yet I wonder, have I not done enough? Should I spend more time and energy and money in hiring another coach, dietitian, specialist to try to help me reach this perfect state? I wonder, I wonder.

I wonder about how it would feel if this same conversation was aimed at someone with re-occurring cancer, or diabetes, or some other chronic illness: “It might not be as helpful for you to share your story before you fully healed.” It has such a different tone, and is obviously judgmental when seen in this light. Yet to say this to a person struggling with an eating disorder seems perfectly fine, as if the person has loads more control over their symptoms than someone with one of these illnesses. Something about it all seems so wrong, separating these two.

Yet I respect this person, and a part of me yearns for what she describes as being “symptom-free.” Hearing her words made me wonder, and swirl in this confusion I am sharing with you right now. Is what I struggle with a chronic illness, one I must learn to live with or one I just haven’t tried hard enough to ‘recover” from? When is sharing one’s story too early? When is the urge to share the authentic process of struggle and awareness from such struggle an ego exercise, and when is it a service that will help others? Where is that line?

Have you struggled with an eating disorder, addiction, depression or chronic illness? When do you think is too early to share your story, is it helpful to hear others’ stories of struggle? Is it unsatisfying if the protagonist doesn’t reach some sort of pinnacle of transformation? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The Witch’s House and The Magickal Forest

Across the street from 857 Taylor Street was a ramshackle wooden cabin I called The Witch’s House. It certainly doesn’t look that way now, as the old home was razed and this prefab place was erected.

Sad thing, as the wooden cabin was a magickal and mysterious place for me, I wish I could show it to you. I describe it in a scene in my upcoming memoir, Food Memories called “Sourgrass.” I describe the way the collections of multi-colored glass bottles lined the windows, how they glistened in the sun like jewels. I describe the many cats slinking through the overgrown and wild property, and how there never was really anyone there.

As mentioned in previous posts, I was a pretty fantasy/magic leaning child, and this place held such wonder. Especially since there was never anyone there. I seemed to have some sort of relationship with this place, gathering my friends at times to help fix and paint its crumbling picket fence, and trying to take care of the cats that seemed to somehow get mysteriously fed. One day, I actually went into the house, it was unlocked, and cats were on the counters, licking old bowls. Again, someone there, but not there. I was fascinated by it all.

Across from this lot was another lot where the neighborhood forest was. Again forgive me for the quality of these pictures, and for not being able to show you the amazingness of what it all used to look like.

If I were an artist I’d definitely render a long ago version for you! This is the entrance to the corner of the woods, and back then there were no sidewalks or condominiums. It is quite possible the pine tree in the foreground is a survivor from those times…and the grassy earth, well its the same grassy earth. As also described in detail in the “Sourgrass” chapter, I’d go rambling over this bump of land, down the hill and take a right onto a thin trail deeper into the trees. In this scene, I described running through this forest to see if my secret fort had been intruded on. Smells and tastes were so powerful back then, as was my first meeting with the sourgrass plant (Oxalis pes-caprae). I loved this plant so much as a child, equal to my love for the forest and the witch’s house. I also described how I used the wild onion (Allium Triquetrum) growing nearby to smear a protective layer around my fortress door. This was a plant I respected but didn’t love so much :}

Pairing these two things together, the forest and the Witch’s House, I see how I was exploring the witch both inside and outside of me, already drawn to plant teachers and the familiars of cave-like fortresses and wild untamed cats. There was no Netflix then, no internet, and kids like me just ran around these different places until it got dark, or as my mom said, “come home before you can’t see the color in the trees.” My mom, in her own way, was a witchy gal, despite her struggles with alcoholism, depression and Anorexia, and in these stories I’ve spent the last few years recalling, I see that more and more. Yet she was never as accessible or pure as the energy of nature, or the fantasies of my mind where unseen witches lived. These are the places and memories I’m so very glad to have experienced and learned from.

I do wish I would’ve had an actual Aughra to go hang out with though, rather than dreaming of the imaginary Mother witch from The Dark Crystal to be waiting for me behind the Witch’s House doors :}

Book Review: Almost Anorexic

Greetings! I was planning on writing the next segment of my photographic journey into the past, but this book came across my path and I found it more interesting than I expected.

Almost Anorexic, by Jennifer J. Thomas, PhD and Jenni Schaefer, jumped out at me on the library shelf the other day as I was looking for titles to assist me in a current state of struggle I am feeling. I love my body, I don’t want to torture it, but for some reason I am having a very difficult time increasing my intake to address recent labwork results of deficiency. This resistance is not unfamiliar, and the immense haze and feelings of trapped-ness aren’t new either. Yet, in turning to my doctors or other health practitioners for help in this “non-emergency” struggle, I find myself lacking in ways to describe what is going on with me. This book, although I dislike the labelling and diagnoses train, felt like it spoke to what I am experiencing, and what I imagine countless others experience when they are struggling, deeply, yet not meeting the requirements for particular diagnoses, especially to qualify for treatment.

The overall message of this book is to help people feel like their struggle IS worth treatment, it IS a problem, and it SHOULD be addressed by the healthcare system…while also delineating the reality that sub-clinical symptoms rarely are treated with any kind of respect or care, nor are there any systems for handling these kinds of things. I really liked this messaging, and its what held me through the recovery lingo and anti-ED talk that Jenni Schaefer is known for in her book Life Without Ed.

The first section of the book, “Getting to Know the Ed in Your Head,” didn’t really speak to me for this reason, I’m more of a proponent of seeing the struggles as age-old and ancestral rather than a bothersome voice I need to battle or ignore. It was enlightening to see the descriptors/assessments for “Almost Anorexia,” (which in their languaging almost seems as if it is a new diagnosis the writers are proposing), including the standard EAT-26, as well as questions about behaviors like frequent restriction, compensatory behaviors, body image challenges, frequent fluctuations in weight.

I’ve seen these tests and questions a million times, but for some reason, the way they were written (or perhaps due to my particular state of struggle) I was reminded of the small ways I am still stuck in the cage of restrictive but not “dangerous” eating patterns. I was reminded that there are little ways that I still am circling around old patterns, and how in talking to medical practitioners these little ways were kind of dismissed as not that big a deal.

Yet here I’ve felt kind of dead and bored and wondering…is this really all there is? Will I always have to follow a meal plan to avoid the intensity (sub-clinical intensity, mind you) of feelings that arise if I veer from it? To deal with this PTSD-like response that no practitioners I’ve seen know how to handle or categorize? Something in me knew there was a Big Deal happening, and these reminders of the “little” ways I still cling to rigid eating as a coping mechanism really helped me validate that I’m not just being a drama queen with what I’m experiencing right now.

The next section, “Kicking Ed to the Curb,” again rubbed me the wrong way with its battle-infused lingo, but the topics it raised–the allure, even if unconscious, of being too thin, of being a part of the cultural dieting mentality, of resisting working on symptoms because the hunger/fullness signals don’t feel trustworthy–were again good reminders of ways I have plateaued with my growth and transformations. I have long kind of poo-pooed the whole process of “intuitive eating” as I felt it was pretty much bullshit for people who have messed with their appetite for so long that it feels like it’s broken. The book actually addressed that, including the reality that restrictive eating causes delayed gastric emptying which often creates a revolving cycle of finding it difficult to eat more, even if one wants to, if they’ve fallen into restriction again. It also addressed the overwhelm one might face when asked to eat new foods after DECADES of being on highly structured meal plans to either decrease, maintain or gain weight. It addressed and reminded me of the fact that despite these difficulties, that food is still the medicine.

This again I have known but have grown quite frankly bitter about, when eating literally has caused me to feel pain or overwhelming panic whenever I would get the courage to expand my joyful eating. These reminders, as well as the last chapter about not settling for “almost recovered,” got me inspired again (although my skeptic will always be in full affect around any kind of recovery lingo).

There are helpful exercises throughout the book that speak to the wider swath of people who might be feeling restricted but don’t think they’re “worth” really working on, and I am grateful for this. While reading, I also found myself getting deeply connected to a still lingering part inside (a small child it seems) that does actually harbor some body-hate. I thought, and genuinely felt, that I really loved my body through and through, yet there is this little girl I’ve found who hates the struggle and difficulty and confusion that her body, the one she feels trapped in, gives her everyday. As the epilogue in my upcoming memoir Food Memories describes, I am getting more connected to and aiming to help this part inside. I’m connecting with her in hopes that our work may loosen the need to grip onto the rigid structures that have seemingly kept me from disassembling for so long.

Lastly, I want to also mention that I recently came across the 2019 Gurze/Salcore Eating Disorders Catalogue and was pleasantly surprised at its contents: Midlife Eating Disorders, eating disorders and pallative care, understanding PTSD and eating disorders, and how the autism spectrum traits complicate eating disorder diagnoses and treatment. Although I can’t seem to find a way to access the 2019 physical magazine I read, if you search for any of these topics on the website you can read the articles there. I’m heartened and inspired at the nature of these articles and the progressive nature that the research/treatment community seems to be headed in by the way the articles read.

The website is free and can be accessed here: https://www.edcatalogue.com/ if you are interested.

857 Taylor Street

While I was in town the other weekend, I had the urge to do some memory lane photography (mind you these are no dazzling, skilled photographs lol). In the next few blogs, I will be sharing these photos and how they relate to various scenes in my upcoming memoir, Food Memories.

This is 857 Taylor Street. Many of the scenes from the first section of Food Memories take place in this apartment. The first scene of the book describes my early morning enjoyment of ice cream whilst watching a favorite movie, The Beastmaster. I am alone in this scene, my mother is sleeping, sleeping off the drunkenness and rage from the night before. Yet I am a happy little kid, as I remember, not sure why I’m not affected by her outbursts yet. I’m way more affected by the magickal characters on the screen, wishing to be them. Perhaps my wishing was evidence of my desiring a different life.

The surrounding neighborhood of this apartment, of which I’ll describe in future scenes, was filled with great adventure, but most of what occurred inside this apartment was kind of a lonely, twisted drag. It is understandable on so many levels why food became at first my best friend, and then a tool to manipulate my way out of the toxicity of the environment. Only where I ended up as a result of said manipulation was not in my preferred fantasy world, with Dar and Kiri, with the black tiger and the high flying hawk. My desperate manipulations did end up taking me on a pretty intense adventure, however, and in a way, I crafted my own hero/ine’s journey, with my own inner spirit animals along the way. Perhaps I have this quirky 1982 movie to thank for that.

So. 857 Taylor Street. Nice to see ya, thanks for the reminders of a time long ago, and how far I have come.

Book Review: Midlife Eating Disorders by Cynthia Bulik

This week I am at another one of my favorite cafés, BookWorks in beautiful Pacific Grove. I grew up here, many of my more joyful childhood memories took place in this little seaside town, and I find myself drawn back to swim in this nostalgia lately. I’m even considering moving back here, which the “get me the hell out of this boring place” teen-self would be horrified at :}

I brought with me a book I have finally gotten around to reviewing–I mentioned my desire to do so a few weeks back–Midlife Eating Disorders: Your Journey to Recovery, by Cynthia Bulik. I notice that I am hiding the cover from others’ view as I write this, evidencing the still lingering shame I have in others knowing I am associated with this subject. Interesting to note.

As I sip on my perfect mocha and look out onto the beautiful blue-sky day (Still figuring out how to improve photo quality to show that lol), I think of the things that have stood out to me, good and bad, about this book. I’m glad to say most of it is good, and I’ll start there.

Cynthia’s voice and perspective rings with incredible compassion for the many varieties of client experiences she’s dealt with, as well as the complexity of eating disorder labels, diagnosis, the decision to medicate, and unique challenges facing the person struggling with an eating disorder in middle age.

She broaches the subjects of males with eating disorders, palliative care and its controversial nature (“Is There A Role For Palliative Care In Anorexia Nervosa?”), finding compassionate care, how to deal with and talk to your children if they are struggling (“What Would You Say?”), how behaviors affect intimate relationships (“Partners Suffer”), as well as touching on many other midlife triggers to reengaging with or starting ED behaviors.

She provides helpful “Awareness and Action” shaded boxes at the conclusion of each chapter, which I also really like–an invitation to not only understand and take in information mentally but also to embody it in practice. She includes a small resource section at the end of the text for those who are looking for more assistance. Nothing earth-shatteringly unique about the resources, your typical ED anachronyms–NEDA, NIMH, AED, HAES, etc.

The parts of this book I honestly skimmed over and didn’t find interesting were the chapters on the possible connection between the “toxic food environment we live in” to the increase in midlife eating disorders, and her section on defining the eating disorders. I have a lot of information about the latter already and personally find categorization of this struggle not very helpful for those who don’t fit into the typical categories–but she does address the complexity and simplification problems of diagnoses.

I wish there was a larger focus on ARFID (Avoidant Restrictive Feeding and Intake Disorders) appearing in midlife, as it seems that is more than ever what I am experiencing but have not a lot of resources to go to for assistance. She does focus on these issues but only briefly. I also wish there were more parallels drawn to the eating disorder journey being a possible journey of the Soul, a psyche journey to find wholeness, and that the resource section included some texts on this aspect of “recovery”–finding Soul and respect for the underworld journeys. As that is what my book, Food Memories, mainly focuses on, I suppose it’s a good thing it doesn’t mention these things, that my book has a niche to fill. Yet I yearn just as much for this topic to be more widely talked about rather than be seen as some niche expert. Perhaps I am part of that.

As I finish this blog I find myself a little less moved to cover up the title to this book. Am I more comfy to allow others to see that I am reading this book, associated with the topic? Perhaps it is the chocolate and caffeine coursing through my veins, sourcing me with more courage to be who I am? Perhaps it’s the slow and creeping changes occurring in my willingness to be more open to sharing about this struggle I’ve kept hidden for so long? Perhaps.

Regardless, the sunlight reflects off this publicly-displayed cover and it’s time for me to think about lunch. I think I’m getting hungry for some of my favorite BookWorks quiche–well, hungry for as much of it that I can eat before my mind starts fearing and the dreaded fullness sets in. Aye!

Coffee + Fenderbender+ Gratitude

This is a picture out of the window of one of my favorite writing spots–Coffeetopia in Santa Cruz. In my Raven-engraved cup is one of their frothy perfect mochas, which I am sipping on as I hack away at crafting the perfect query letter. Unfortunately there is a telephone pole that stands in the middle of the parking lot that I somehow managed to back into today, a first in my many carefree and enjoyable visits to this cafe! Here’s another photo of the things I go through in order to get to my writing posts lol.

In other news, my editor finally responded to my plea for assistance in reviewing my book proposal. I am so ready to send it out and just get things moving that I almost decided to forego this step as she has been very busy over the holidays. And also to save money! It’s kind of amazing to me how much I have invested in this 160 page book thus far and a proposal review is another investment. Yet in the past ten years I haven’t had anything as strong as the directive to get this book out there. Ive really no other strong desires to put my money towards, and I’m grateful to have the money to spend on this.

Oh well there is the money I need to fix the @!**!@ bumper!

Regardless, a proposal review I will invest in. Hopefully not too long before it is complete and I’m sending it off to agents and publishers and have that step done. For now, send blessings to my dear Corolla and if you’re ever in Santa Cruz stop by Coffeetopia for a mocha and a most excellent writing nest.

Book Review: The Joyous Body

When people hear that I’ve struggled with an eating disorder, and still do, the first assumption they make is that I hate my body, think I’m fat, horrible, etc. This really irritates me. What is actually true is that I am so in love with my body, for all the things it has put up with as I have slogged it through intensities, for all it has kept going on through. At times, I am overcome by grief at how much my dear body has been through, how its been with me despite the drastic things I’ve done to help ease my anxieties. At times, I sob uncontrollably for the cages and plans and rules and starvation and deprivation I have brought to my body. To think of it, as this loyal soldier, keeping me alive as I faced what seemed to it as famine, over and over again. I just weep sometimes with how amazing this vessel has been to me, and how cruel I’ve been to it.

Now this doesn’t mean I feel comfortable in my body, nor that I understand what it needs. These are certainly a few things I still struggle with, am confused by, and hope for someday reaching resolution with. I have wrestled with why it has been so difficult to do the simple things that most people do to stay alive, why this body doesn’t talk to me clearly, why it hurts when it shouldn’t. I’ve been bitter. I’ve been rageful. At God. At The Universe. At my body. This body.

Yet over the past decade there has been a sort of settling with that, a sort of acceptance of the possibility that this is my journey, my sacred wound to explore, and that this body and I are partners in figuring this stuff out, finding our way back to each other. Finding our way back to hearing each other through the decades, and possible eons, of ancestral disconnect from land, body, feeling, and primal instinct.

Which (finally!) brings me to this book. What an amazing gem. I recommend listening to it on audiobook, as Clarissa narrates it. In tuning in each day to the chapters, I felt as if I was in front of an ancient fire, Clarissa wrapped in layers of multicolored fabrics, swaying slowly before me, stories flowing from her as the firelight flickered and shadows danced over her face.

These stories, part of a greater series called The Dangerous Old Woman, recount her experiences growing up with powerful women who taught her how sacred and beautiful the body is, how sacred and beautiful being wild and “different” is. If I had any complaints about the book, it would be that Clarissa fails to mention how I might find these elders and sit at their feet :}

The audio book is comprised of six sessions, each about one hour long, and they explore titles like: The Scar Queen, The Great Silverbeards: Making Peace with the Body; Life Size story; The Body Bill of Rights; The Ice Queen: The Distorted Mirror ; I Tell Your Beautiful Body to You ; On Remarkable Life Emerging From the Midst of the Wound…and so many more. Her concept presents the body as our Sacred Consort, and to re-member it as such. It urges us to come out of the deep sleep of consumer society that tells us we need to be something different, something flatter, smoother, lighter, hairless. But most of all it urges us to drop into a timeless, ancient well of deep gratitude and amazement for these bodies that we inhabit, taking time to care for them as if they are a separate being, a life partner we’ve been gifted.

The end of each session is laced with a blessing for the body, and Clarissa’s voice reads like honey oozing into parts in need of nourishment. Her book does not purport to fix or solve anything. She tells us sacred stories and it brings magic, somehow. This is one of the things I love about storytelling and mythology in general. Her stories simply leave me with an echo of a deeper way of being I re-member. They help me re-member that I can place myself in these stories when feeling lost in the soulless banter of the everyday monotony.

This book did not suddenly make me want to “eat intuitively” or banish all thought of struggle in my relationship with my body, but it did soothe me. I know that what I struggle with is deeper and wider than anything a step-by-step method could address. Yet it soothed me, cradled me, like someone does when you need to just talk, not be fixed; when you need to be held, not directed. It made me remember this deep and profound gratitude I have for this Sacred Consort, and to realize how far I’ve come from the days of treating my body like a slave.

Have you listened to this book or any in the series? I’d love to know your experience, especially if you struggle with an eating disorder or body-hate. How did it help or not help to hear these stories? Did it help you re-member something deeper? Did it hold you when you just needed to be held?

Sweet Darkness

A poem for all of you that may be experiencing the holiday season alone and/or if you are in some sort of darkness. Sending good energy your way ❤

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

– “Sweet Darkness” by David Whyte, House of Belonging