Today marks 92 days out of pain from severe sciatica. Most cases last 2-3 weeks; mine lasted 12. A mirror stands in front of me, now free from an embodiment of lightning in my rear left thigh just as long as I seemed to be imprisoned by it. Though the pain was horrific, the gifts offered by this trauma outweigh it 10,000-fold. Trauma presented a doorway to bliss I never knew existed. 

Succinct isn't my middle name. I write like flowers bloom. My heart writes for me. She is unlimited. She spills, she's wide, she's vast. Yet sometimes brief is worth a try. So here I go.

When it takes nine hours of heavy opiates to cut thunderous pain from your thigh, you are then gifted with patience while standing in a grocery store line. 

​Thank you, trauma. 

When your pain is on such hellfire you either ask for help 200 times a day or suffer more, you never hesitate to ask for help again -- and are gifted now, with eyes that see Love's constant motion via the act of giving and receiving. Giving and receiving. We were born to serve each other. 

​Thank you, trauma. 

When you wonder if dying would be better than feeling pain like this another day, and you breathe, and you breathe, reminded that all you can do is your best in this. moment. now... You've been given a heavy dose of Wake-Up! And on those days when you're stressed out or grumpy, afraid our planet is dying and our species is going extinct, well... then again you remember that while you might not be able to save the planet from sinking, you can still do your best in this moment now. Healing doesn't live in tomorrow. It lives now. 

Thank you, trauma... for endless invincible truths that offer freedom. 

All I can do, I now see, is choose Love over fear in one moment and then the next. Even if the limitless version of me -- the Oneness in which our truth resides -- is pain-free, I love being here in a body for now. I choose this Life, and Life chooses me. I am breathing. I have walked through trauma's doorway, holding hands with the divine. 

Thank you, trauma.

Today I choose to focus on where the glass is half-full, not half-empty. Brain surgery for a massive tumor followed two months later by severe chronic pain? OK. Well guess what? I've never been raped. I wasn't abused as a child. I've never been physically locked up or chained in enslavement. I have food to eat and a safe bed to sleep in. My daughter is alive and healthy. OK? 

Thank you, trauma. 

Empathy in me is oceans deep. For those of you who've experienced sciatica or other forms of striking pain, I wish you peace of mind and ease in body. One day I will finish Ten Steps to Heal Sciatica. For now, here's Step 1 out of 10 and Step 2 out of 10: Reduce Pain and Inflammation. 

Today I celebrate the gift of Life in a body, and the glorious gifts trauma has given me. How about you? What are you celebrating today?​

Cobblestone under our bike tires, we cross the old railroad tracks. We turn right over the drawbridge.

She was striking.

But why?

Sure, R-Evolution is massive. But it's simply a woman — her body, as she was born, natural.

In Sweden, where my husband is from, no big deal. Nudity is natural. But I was born and raised in America, where freedom sings a different song. Nudity is obscene. Women’s bodies are often treated as objects, as property — not our own.

Biking over the drawbridge, I wonder how I'm teaching my daughter to love, accept and honor her own body. 

Children deserve the best of us. No experience I’ve ever had has compared to the Oneness I felt when my daughter’s little body was in my womb. We were physically one — as with every mother and child. My daughter’s got me — I would do anything for her. Mothers can relate; our connection with our children is indescribable.

This is personal. This isn’t personal.

What is the power of Woman?

In that place where she’s different from Man, we can state the obvious: We carry and deliver new life.

When we fully behold the power of this — as women — GAME OVER.

This planet would look radically different overnight if women owned our power today. I won’t pretend to know what that would look like because the power of Spirit, dancing with the complex particles of the physical universe, is far more masterfully creative than human consciousness. But I can begin to dream…

There is enough food for everyone, and it’s all grown with reverence for Mother Earth’s body.

Water is clean. Children swim in healthy oceans, creeks and lakes.

No body is abused. Bruises on a child’s skin are from that time she fell on the trampoline.

Sexual interchanges are between adults, consensual — and when there is misunderstanding it is taken seriously, and soon thereafter, healed.   

World class support is readily available for every human soul. Our pain, our confusion and despair are soothed by someone skilled to see — to see who we really are — as that’s what Love sees in its mirror.

Rivers are free. Dams evaporate. We barely remember ever plugging-up the vivacious blood of our planetary body, drowning her canyon walls.

Humans accept that only Love heals. That when we hold others in our mind through blame, it is actually ourselves who we imprison.

Inside the ambulance, the paramedic flicked the bottom of our baby girl’s feet to keep her lungs stimulated. Her father and I spent day and night after day and night in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) as her lungs received support to grow healthy. On her 10th day of life outside my body, we took her home. 

In the weeks that followed, I fed our precious baby my breast milk and was supported by a well respected Lactation Consultant. When she told me that my milk supply was low because my breasts’ milk ducts were arranged differently than most mothers’, my being felt ruptured again. What? My body could not feed my baby? 

A silver lining appeared. I was introduced to a woman named Mary who had an oversupply of healthy breastmilk. Her milk was just right for our daughter as she had given birth just five weeks before I had which meant our babies’ nutritional needs were similar. Mary and I shared a fierce bond. Our daughter was fed largely by Mama Mary, someone with whom I share core values and whose milk I trusted. I’d pick up small, tall glass jars of her milk and stock our refrigerator weekly. My soul’s Village values shone bright and a new human life became fully nutritionally nourished.

Still, the shock and trauma I had experienced after giving birth struck me on deep levels. I entered 13 months of postpartum depression, even in the presence of the greatest Love I’d ever known: our child. Even in the presence of her highly devoted father. Even in the presence of world class friends and an attentive, loving family.

Thirteen months was a long time to feel down. Our daughter received a lot of love and affection, she was held by our arms and in her carrier, I sang to her and we read to her, and her lungs worked great. Still, something had lodged itself within my consciousness that kept my inner skies gray.​

I sit in the audience that loves Planet Earth. People next to me tend to want children honored, and women, and all humans. We want fairness in the world. 

Donald Trump therefore doesn't tend to be a match. People around me have a lot of opinions about him and some are vocal, giving him responsibility for the awful things he's done.

I get it.

Yet almost the whole time, I remain aware of his wounded heart, his wounded being. Am I forgiving of his ways? You bet I am. Do they still hurt when I focus on them? Absolutely. 

I'm simply here to say that it really hurts my heart -- and sometimes disgusts me -- when we throw mean words at him as if we don't know any better. I wonder when we will evolve, when we will shift as a society to be a species who acknowledges pain, and extends Love toward that pain rather than making the pain stronger with our fear, our blame.

Do I have answers? Not for you, not right now. 

I just needed to name it. When we add pain to pain, it makes more pain in the world. Is that what we want?