Cultivate

My seedlings

Each day, I spend time cultivating the lives of living creatures, giving back. I care for each little seedling, each dog, and my kiddos gingerly and with love.

Right now it is raining - a fabulous spring thunderstorm. The drops fall on the concrete sidewalk outside my window as I type in a torrent. It smells of spring, and I swear I can smell the nitrogen in the air from the rain. Thunder claps in the distance. A dog breathes in the hallway, sleeping through this beautiful night and spring storm.

I sit cross-legged and breathe in love, acceptance and peace. I breathe out judgement, negativity and hate.

I breathe in forgiveness, serenity and tolerance; I breathe out pain and anger.

I breathe in vitality and healing.

I breathe in.

I breathe.

It's funny how long it takes the soul to repair from trauma. Over the last month, now that it's quiet, all of these memories from the hospital flood me. The lovely, dream-like haze of morphine injecting into my veins and washing over me. The Asian female resident in knee-socks and a white coat at dawn leaning over to listen to my heart and declaring, "murmur. You have heart murmur." Odd, surreal memories.

And then there's the not so surreal ones - ones that are far more ominous and horrifying. Feeling like I'm being held down by a weight on my chest and drowning when my lungs collapsed...Huge man indifferently ripping open my hospital gown while I'm helpless, can't move, can't speak to stick electrodes on me for an EKG, flopping my breasts around like so much meat...callously, callously, while my oxygen reads 82% and BEEP BEEP BEEP...

Can the soul be damaged when the body is damaged?


"Self portrait" - a piece I shot while in the hospital. Many claim they see images within this image

I had no idea when I checked into that hospital room it would be weeks before I'd leave. And I had no idea it would take months to process what unfolded in that room.

So now, nine months later, I sit crying at my dining room table listening to the rain. Nine months. Is this the gestational period to give birth to trauma recovery?

I breathe. Breathe in forgiveness, serenity and tolerance; I breathe out pain and anger.

I breathe in vitality and healing.

I breathe in.

I breathe.