Something gorgeous for a Friday

This woman, Antoinette, speaks like an artist and a poet from where she lives in the Karoo in South Africa. I love her language (Afrikaans) and the way she lives in harmony with nature and understands the secret to life. For me, watching this beautiful little film is like going up the mountain to visit the wise hermit. Kudos to the videographers for the stunning images. Enjoy.

https://youtu.be/Xup8yGqjYQw

Just call me dizzy... and an AMAZING video

For the past three weeks, I've been a dizzy dame, and not in a "fun" sense. I have been diagnosed with what's known as Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, or BPPV. Basically, it means that my head spins with sudden movement, whether I'm laying down or standing, picking something up from the floor, or reaching for the top shelf. Driving is an impossibility because shoulder checks just don't work. Simple tasks like unpacking groceries or making the bed take a long time. This morning I took a walk around the neighbourhood with two friends who let me hold onto them as if I was a ninety-year-old woman who is unsteady on her pins, which is true, except I'm only half of ninety.

This same thing happened to me five years ago after a day surgery. At the time, I blamed it on the anaesthetic, but this time, I'm suspecting it came out of the blue then, as it has now. I haven't bonked my head on anything recently; I haven't had an ear infection or even a common cold. There's no excuse for my dizziness, which means it's idiopathic, occurring for no known reason.

So, what to do? Well, the last time around, I waited it out, mostly. It took three months before my body got rid of whatever was causing the problem and I went back to life as usual. I visited doctors and saw a physiotherapist who gave me some exercises that included walking up and down my hallway, focusing on a picture to my right until I'd passed it, then one to my left until it was behind me, turning my head this way and that, over and over. The physio also did something called the Epley manoeuvre, a turning of my head in different directions in an effort to move the crystals that might be causing the imbalance in the semi-circular canal in my ear, and perhaps that helped. I hope it helps again when I see him this week.

Having vertigo again after being so healthy for the five years since the last bout has brought home to me once again the marvel of nature, of the human body. Everything works so well most of the time... but get a few little ear crystals in the wrong place, and they set off chaos that stops me in my tracks. My neighbour down the street broke her arm somewhere close to her elbow last week, and now she has a full arm cast that means she can't drive either (and dressing herself is a trick too, I imagine). Nature's balance is a delicate thing, and it's so easy to lose sight of that fact until something unbalances.

So, though I'm frustrated by my present unbalance, I'm also trying to appreciate the places where balance exists. I'm grateful for the fact that this vertigo has nothing to do with brain tumours or Meniere's Disease. A few weeks of dizziness is but a speck in time when I really think about it, so rather than complain any more than I have, I'll save my breath for prayers for the people who live with frequent attacks of dizziness. I'm appreciating the friends and family who have supported me these last three weeks by helping me do things and go places, and I'm looking forward to getting back to life as usual.

This morning my friend Mark sent me this completely amazing, two minute video of an incredible and balanced murmuration of starlings that blew my mind. Kudos to the girls who got such wonderful footage! It made me think about the fact that, even though so much in our world is imbalanced and out of kilter, nature does these inexplicably amazing and wonderfully balanced things. If we can stop life's dizzying pace and make ourselves aware of our connectedness with every living thing and our need to live in harmony within life's web, nature's balance will be enhanced in our world... and our bodies.

Have a balanced day!

Find hope in the rhythms of nature... Simple Suggestion #12 of 100

One of the things I love about living this far north is the light in the skies at day's end this time of year. I'm still a ways from the land of the midnight sun, but this morning the sun rose at 5:18 a.m., and it will set at 9:44 p.m. It only seems right because our winters have so little daylight.

One of the things I love about nature is that a lot of the time, it balances out. Light and darkness, sun and rain, cold and warmth, growth and decay. It's just when people tamper with the way nature does things that life gets really messy. I always find it interesting how, when something goes wrong (for example, this week's Joplin tornado) that it's entirely nature's fault and has nothing to do with Global Climate Change caused by human beings. I heard an interview with a meteorologist this week, and she claimed that the severity of this year's tornados is in keeping with every other year, but meteorological records only go back sixty years so we can't talk about these storms in terms of Climate Change. Doesn't she realize that our glaciers have been melting ever since the late 1800s, and that such things might be connected to an increase in the severity of storms? It drives me crazy when scientists miss the fact that everything is interconnected because they're so intent on studying only their particular field.

But I'm not going to get snarled up in depression today. Nature is having struggles everywhere, to be sure, but her rhythms continue, especially where people cooperate with her natural processes. And more and more of us are waking up to and participating in what cultural historian Thomas Berry called the Ecozoic Era. We are returning to intimacy with our earth, trying our best to live in harmony with nature. Rather than thwarting those things that happen naturally, we are beginning to embrace them and work with them, seeing ways to live in mutually beneficial relationships.

All it takes is a change in mindset. It would be easy to complain about this fourth rainy day in a row, but I know that rain is part of nature's rhythm. True, I can't get out and work in the garden... but I have a day to clean my house, organize my life, and catch up with myself after having neglected indoor living for a time. Nature is good, and it all balances out if I can go with the flow.

P.S. Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Try here.