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In Sickness & In Health


We can commit to each other, over and over. We can commit to keep one another safe. To love this planet. To choose caring over fear and greed.

We can commit to ourselves, too. As a matter of fact, we must.

Too many of us are dying. And not the dying that feels like the natural order of things. The dying that feels out of place. The panicked slide into precarity. Finances, fragile. Mental health, cracking. Bodies, bowed and exhausted from the strain.

I’ve written about fostering resiliency, and some days, fostering resiliency isn’t enough. I have to commit to myself. In sickness and in health.

***

My name is Thorn. I have chronic illness. I have for decades now, but I used to be able to manage. I used to be able to pretend I wasn’t sick, because I was stronger then, and my capacity to cope was better. My immune system hadn’t been attacking itself for years yet, eating up my resources and wearing me down.

Besides, doctors told me nothing was wrong with me. Herbalists and acupuncturists helped me the best they could. I helped myself the best I could. More meditation. More exercise. Vitamins. Weightlifting. A personal trainer. Lighting candles. Trying to rest. Finally getting to the point where I refused to travel for work anymore.

All of that meant I did a lot––more than others, even––until the day came when I couldn’t do anymore. I was crawling back into bed. Breaking dates with my girlfriend. Asking my partners to take on more of our household burdens.

And then I got worse.

***

Why did I not talk about having chronic illness? I thought it was in my past––I had a motorcycle accident in my late 20s, was in chronic pain for years, and then all the little, increased illnesses and fatigue started, until working with a homeopath and making some life changes shifted something in me.

I thought I was better. And I was better. The still getting mild illnesses way too often? Well, that must just be from all the work travel. Who wouldn’t be tired after that?

Besides, unless you have some visible disability, or are puking your guts up, people don’t believe you’re really sick. Also, I’m a private person. An introvert. I don’t want to have to explain myself all the damn time. I shouldn’t have to. It’s nobody’s business.

Except, people still want things from me, and I’ve been saying no for so long that I now feel, perhaps, I should explain. I seem great on the surface, I’m sure. I’m publishing books. I go out to see movies, or music, and go for long walks. Sometimes I make it out to actions or to testify at city council meetings. When I can. You don’t see the days when I’m barely able to drag my carcass around the block for a short walk.

I don’t call myself a spoonie, proudly wearing my identity… but I am still a person who just cannot go to organizing meetings anymore. Who often barely makes it out to street actions or other events and hasn’t risked arrest in over three years. Who only recently started volunteering again, twice a month, because every time I went to volunteer the past three years, I was too sick to go.

So yeah, I guess I am a spoonie* by definition. But I don’t want the name. I don’t want a new identity. I’ve got a tentative relationship with enough of those already. Witch. Queer. Genderqueer. Author. Activist. Creative. Placeholder names. Attempts to explain the soup that makes up a…

Human.

Chronically ill. Exhausted. Betrayed by capitalism. Betrayed by medical professionals who repeatedly told me nothing was wrong with me. Betrayed by my own body that forms antibodies to attack itself, especially my thyroid function. Betrayed by one of my favorite things in this gorgeous, embodied world: food. Yeah. Turns out, “healthy eater” though I’ve been, a host of food allergies increase the likelihood that my body will turn on itself, repeatedly.

So I’ve been slowly getting sicker, poisoned year by year.

***

In sickness and in health. My life is what I’ve got.

It’s what you’ve got.

It’s what we’ve all got these days, with our rivers choking from pollution, earthquakes caused by fracking, our lead filled water, and our toxic skies. We’ve got capitalism and multi-billionaires and people half a paycheck from living on the hostile streets. I read recently that 40% of people in the US can’t regularly make their basic bills. Forty percent.

And a lot of us are sick. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually.

This is me, just talking about it, with nothing profound to say except, “We’re here. And we’re not going anywhere, you fuckers.”

In sickness and in health. On our “good” days or those days when brain fog settles in, our skin feels abraded, and our bones feel as if they’re made of the heaviest substances on earth.

***

Another reason I never talked about my chronic illness?

Besides the fact that I was managing it quite well––traveling the world two to three times a month, teaching, seeing clients, writing books, maintaining relationships, volunteering, doing in the streets activism––people still judged me. They disapproved. They wanted to shame me for it. How could a healer get sick all the time? How could a teacher of spiritual practice not have a super high-functioning body? Couldn’t I just manifest it? Will myself better? Sometimes I even partially blamed myself, even while trying my hardest not to.

Or people would offer concerned comments: wasn’t I taking care of myself? Why was I sick again? I needed to take better care of myself! They didn’t see the extra meditation sessions, the commitment to exercise, the personal trainer, trying this food or that food, seeing herbalists, acupuncturists. And they didn’t see the western doctors who told me nothing was wrong. That there were no tests to run. I was normal.

Fuck the shame.

In health, or in fucking sickness.

I’m what I’ve got.

***

The same goes for this planet. In health or in fucking sickness, as ozone and oceans gasp for a clean, sustaining breath.

The same goes for our communities. In health or in fucking sickness, as beloveds are shot in the streets, or lose their jobs, or can’t afford their meds because we live within systems of oppression and spiraling greed.

What choice do we have?

We have the choice to recommit. To ourselves. To each other. To this earth.

In sickness and in health. This is what we’ve got.

Please choose yourself. Please choose one another. Please choose this planet, this life, this home. We may not always feel up to the task, but, in sickness and in health, can we at least commit to try? Our best may not feel like enough every day. But every day, it’s what we’ve got.

And together, we’ll make do. On days when I feel better, I’ll pick up some slack. On days when you feel better? I trust you to do the same. And that will look different for each of us, no doubt.

We can expand our capacity for showing up as we are, not as who we want to be.

In sickness and in health.

I’ll keep sending out a signal, and I’ll be listening for yours.

##

*Lupus blogger Christine Miserandino first explained her lack of energy using spoons as an energy measurement. A person has so many spoons at the start of the day. Getting up might use one. Showering can take another. Chronically ill people will often say “I don’t have enough spoons left to do x or y.” I don’t use this language, but know people who do. They often call themselves “spoonies.”

This is part of an ongoing series of essays on Life in Empire, and the third to directly deal with illness. The second is about the gifts listening to the patterns of illness can offer us.

The first was written after I finally got an (initial, incomplete) diagnosis. I’ve since also fired that doctor and the naturopath that replaced her. I’m now working with both a new nurse practitioner and a naturopath who seem to want to actually help with my symptoms.

But this essay is, of course, not just about me. It’s about too many of us.

Wishing you good health, and ways to navigate your illness if you need them.

This is reader funded writing. I thank all of my Patreon supporters for making it possible for me to provide one free essay and short story every month. Most of this writing would not exist without these people. They all rock.

Want to join my Patreon crew? You get advance copies of essays and stories before they hit the web, plus a chance for free books once or so a year. 

One thousand blessings to supporters Chani, Misha, MJ, Saga, Michael, Joan, Maggie, Cethlenne, Sia, Adrian, Jenya, Jenny, Joanne, Mitchell, Anna, Summer, John, Morgane, Constance, Leanne, Maria, Ambar, Lisa, Kathy, John, Ada, Heather, Tadhg, Michael, Mat, Gary, Valerie, Lira, Kay and Sandi, Charlie, Nessa, Kirsten, Sophia, Leigh, Joanna, Constance, Amerwitch, Elizabeth, Michael, Alex, John, Rebecca, Steve, Sea, Samantha, Irisanya, Autumn Lily, Lorelei, Wendy, Hollis, Sister Krissy, Vanessa, Maddy, Carlin, Anon, Bear, Doneby, Dayle, Devotaj, Will, Brooks, Law Nerd, Michelle, Gwynne, Mark, Merri Ann, Meagan, Veronica, Shira, Allyson, Jocelyne, Michael, Dawn, Joanna, Lia, Rachel, Kiya, Corinne, Evodjie, Angela, Zann, Daniel, Luna, Christopher, Sarah, Amerwitch, Tamara, Elizabeth, J. Anthony, Sea Serpent, Jen, David, Emilie, Jennifer, Elliot, Ellen, a phoenix, Jersey Meg, Tony, Sean, Sherry, Christopher, Stephanie, Lira, Ariana, Tamara, Karen, Morgaine, Sarah, Rachel, Jenny, Joanna, R.M., Ember, San, Miriam, Leslie, Sharon, Mary Anne, Joanna, Tony, Angela, Constance, Stone, Omorka, Unwoman, Shemandoah, Sarah, Rain, Cid, Alley, Mica, Christine, Vyviane, Katie, Emilie, Louise, Victoria, Greg, Ealasaid, Jennifer, Louise, Rose, Starr, Sinead, Lyssa, Aeptha, Cara, Crystal, Angela, Misha, Eridanus, Cheryl, Lori, Soli, Peter, Angela, Ambariel, Sonia, Jennifer, Ruth, Miranda, Jeremy, Jonah, Michelle, Jenny, Jen, Mir, Ruth, Emilie, Jonathan, Kate, Roger and Nancy.

 

(F*ck the) Law of Attraction

You create your own reality. Change your mind and change your life. You attract what you put out.

Half-truths, dangerous half-truths.

Yes, we can change our thoughts, train our minds, tune our bodies, or emotions. Sure, we can change our attitudes. And yes, of course all of this affects our life. Because everything affects our lives.

The thing that pisses me off though, is what all of these theories leave out, no matter what they call themselves. They leave out war. They leave out crushing poverty. They leave out systemic misogyny, and racism, and trans antagonism, and bigoted hatred. They leave out red-lining of neighborhoods, and the prison industrial complex, and loan fraud for the poor, and the school to prison pipeline, and the fact that some neighborhoods end up with toxic waste dumps built in their backyards and others don’t.

“Change your mindset” doesn’t speak of the truth that some schools are better, and some kids go to school hungry every morning. “You attract what you put out” doesn’t speak the truth that some people work two and three jobs, some which required skilled labor, and never get ahead.

You create your own reality, but your reality also creates you.

Whether you call it the law of attraction, or the prosperity gospel, or new thought, or mindset shift, it doesn’t matter. All of these systems forget another truth: in actuality, we could create our reality. We could create our lives with the society we live in, with our families, friends, communities. Reality is, we could create with the entire cosmos. But in order to do that, we need to recognize that everything in the cosmos is interdependent.

All things co-create and are co-created.

No life is lived in a vacuum, and to act as if it is is hubris. Not one person, no matter how isolated, lives their life alone. We are interdependent: on trees, on watersheds, on insects, and mammals, on human communities, and even on the stars twinkling in the night. The dying of those stars gives us the iron we so desperately need to live. The stars flow in our blood, and the lives we create owe them a debt.

The other reason I say fuck the law of attraction, is that all too often this sort of thinking veers on victim blaming. Got cancer? Change your thought form. Live in crushing poverty? Make a vision board and attract something different. Raised by parents who beat you every day? You chose to be born into this life time didn’t you? What are the lessons you need to learn?

And all of this makes me feel angry.

Don’t get me wrong, I work magic. I’ve taught magic. Yes, I’ve made vision boards. Yes, I make prayers, light candles, and design spells, and some of them have been very effective in shifting my life. But I also know that I am not the center of the universe. Relying on myself alone is not enough.

And in the United States, this sort of thinking––change your mind, change your life–– is coupled with a sick Calvinism that says that those who are worthy have what is good, and those who are unworthy do not. Almost every Western society has this sort of social Calvinism embedded in its thinking. It has become the root of capitalism itself and is very difficult to escape. It’s a hard thought form to change. And so, the systems of oppression and exploitation are given our full permission to continue in their gruesome operation, grinding lives into dust.

It is time for us––particularly those of us with greater privilege–– to change our minds and change our thoughts around that. It is time for us to change our minds and our thoughts around why poverty must be punished, and why punishment rather than compassion is the best way to order our society. It is time to change our thoughts around wealth hoarding and resource accumulation…

It is time, I feel, to change our minds and thoughts, and focus our prayers and spells––and actions–– on greater equity. And justice. And love.

We can create a new reality, but we can only do it together. Our singular efforts are not, and never will be enough, to change the world to something less toxic, less oppressive, and filled with greater beauty, joy, and concerned with the well-being of as many as possible.

It takes each of us, but it also takes a large proportion of us, to truly shift the world toward the one that we so dearly desire.

Make your magic. Change your thought forms. Vision new dreams. Tell new stories. Shift your life. And organize with your families, communities, and friends.

Let’s talk with one another about what we want to build.

Note: I added two words to the original document: “and actions” in this sentence: It is time, I feel, to change our minds and thoughts, and focus our prayers and spells––and actions–– on greater equity. 

This is reader funded writing. I thank all of my Patreon supporters for making it possible for me to provide one free essay and short story every month. Most of this writing would not exist without these people. They all rock.

Want to join my Patreon crew? You get advance copies of essays and stories before they hit the web, plus a chance for free books once or so a year. 

One thousand blessings to supporters Michael, Joan, Maggie, Cethlenne, Sia, Adrian, Jenya, Jenny, Joanne, Mitchell, Anna, Summer, John, Morgane, Constance, Leanne, Maria, Ambar, Lisa, Kathy, John, Ada, Heather, Tadhg, Michael, Mat, Gary, Valerie, Lira, Kay and Sandi, Charlie, Nessa, Kirsten, Sophia, Leigh, Joanna, Constance, Amerwitch, Elizabeth, Michael, Alex, John, Rebecca, Steve, Sea, Samantha, Irisanya, Autumn Lily, Lorelei, Wendy, Hollis, Sister Krissy, Vanessa, Maddy, Carlin, Anon, Bear, Doneby, Dayle, Devotaj, Will, Brooks, Law Nerd, Michelle, Gwynne, Mark, Merri Ann, Meagan, Veronica, Shira, Allyson, Jocelyne, Michael, Dawn, Joanna, Lia, Rachel, Kiya, Corinne, Evodjie, Angela, Zann, Daniel, Luna, Christopher, Sarah, Amerwitch, Tamara, Elizabeth, J. Anthony, Sea Serpent, Jen, David, Emilie, Jennifer, Elliot, Ellen, a phoenix, Jersey Meg, Tony, Sean, Sherry, Christopher, Stephanie, Lira, Ariana, Tamara, Karen, Morgaine, Sarah, Rachel, Jenny, Joanna, R.M., Ember, San, Miriam, Leslie, Sharon, Mary Anne, Joanna, Tony, Angela, Constance, Stone, Omorka, Unwoman, Shemandoah, Sarah, Rain, Cid, Alley, Mica, Christine, Vyviane, Katie, Emilie, Louise, Victoria, Greg, Ealasaid, Jennifer, Louise, Rose, Starr, Sinead, Lyssa, Aeptha, Cara, Crystal, Angela, Misha, Eridanus, Cheryl, Lori, Soli, Peter, Angela, Ambariel, Sonia, Jennifer, Ruth, Miranda, Jeremy, Jonah, Michelle, Jenny, Jen, Mir, Ruth, Emilie, Jonathan, Kate, Roger and Nancy.

 

Legacies of Failure and Success

I don’t fully trust people who live a life with no regrets. How do they learn? I wonder. Have they never stumbled? Fallen? Have they never boldly forged ahead, only to realize they may have trampled others in their wake? Or have they never locked themselves into a space so small and suffocating, they almost died from lack of air?

Everyone has something: Some action or inaction. Words spoken or held in silence when they should have been shouted out loud.

Recently, Theresa Reed the Tarot Lady asked “What do you want your legacy to be? What do you want to be remembered for?” I replied that I hope to get to the end of my life having helped more than I have harmed.

And that’s it. All my grandiose efforts towards changing culture and myself––all my attempts toward creativity, justice, or love––all boil down to that. Every day, I hope that I help more than I harm.

How about you? What attempts are you making to living well, despite mistakes and triumphs, successes or failures? Because, don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a lot of success in my life. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t come at a cost to myself or others. Also, given a longer arc, I’m not exactly sure what “failure” is. Or “success.” I could count dozens of both, but what do those words mean? And how do I actually know what the long-term effects of my actions or inactions, words or not words, may be?

I won’t know what the outcome will be, and letting go of my wish to control the outcome frees me up to live my life to the best of my ability, once again. Day by day.

So every day, I sit, and breathe, and pray. I center myself. I opened back up to the cosmos, and to what I hold sacred. Why I do this? Not only do these practices set a template for my day, they are an attempt, always, to become less self-centered by recalling my place in the world. I have a place. And so does everything and everyone else.

Everything stumbles. Everything falls. Everything slows down or speeds up. Everything does its best here in this cosmos. And even on days when it feels as if the world is on fire, we can offer one another a drink of water, and gratefully receive a drink ourselves.

Don’t give up. Ask for help. Rest when you need it. Regroup. And then remember that no matter what, you contribute to the great unfolding of this earth. What you do and what you don’t do makes a difference.

Your life makes a difference.

This is reader funded writing. I thank all of my Patreon supporters for making it possible for me to provide one free essay and short story every month. Most of this writing would not exist without these people. They all rock.

Want to join my Patreon crew? You get advance copies of essays and stories before they hit the web, plus a chance for free books once or so a year. 

One thousand blessings to supporters Cethlenne, Sia, Adrian, Jenya, Jenny, Joanne, Mitchell, Anna, Summer, John, Morgane, Constance, Leanne, Maria, Ambar, Lisa, Kathy, John, Ada, Heather, Tadhg, Michael, Mat, Gary, Valerie, Lira, Kay and Sandi, Charlie, Nessa, Kirsten, Sophia, Leigh, Joanna, Constance, Amerwitch, Elizabeth, Michael, Alex, John, Rebecca, Steve, Sea, Samantha, Irisanya, Autumn Lily, Lorelei, Wendy, Hollis, Sister Krissy, Vanessa, Maddy, Carlin, Anon, Bear, Doneby, Dayle, Devotaj, Will, Brooks, Law Nerd, Michelle, Gwynne, Mark, Merri Ann, Meagan, Veronica, Shira, Allyson, Jocelyne, Michael, Dawn, Joanna, Lia, Rachel, Kiya, Corinne, Evodjie, Angela, Zann, Daniel, Luna, Christopher, Sarah, Amerwitch, Tamara, Elizabeth, J. Anthony, Sea Serpent, Jen, David, Emilie, Jennifer, Elliot, Ellen, a phoenix, Jersey Meg, Tony, Sean, Sherry, Christopher, Stephanie, Lira, Ariana, Tamara, Karen, Morgaine, Sarah, Rachel, Jenny, Joanna, R.M., Ember, San, Miriam, Leslie, Sharon, Mary Anne, Joanna, Tony, Angela, Constance, Stone, Omorka, Unwoman, Shemandoah, Sarah, Rain, Cid, Alley, Mica, Christine, Vyviane, Katie, Emilie, Louise, Victoria, Greg, Ealasaid, Jennifer, Louise, Rose, Starr, Sinead, Lyssa, Aeptha, Cara, Crystal, Angela, Misha, Eridanus, Cheryl, Lori, Soli, Peter, Angela, Ambariel, Sonia, Jennifer, Ruth, Miranda, Jeremy, Jonah, Michelle, Jenny, Jen, Mir, Ruth, Emilie, Jonathan, Kate, Roger and Nancy.

 
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