angels

LOVING MYSELF: I SING THE BODY PERFECTIC

Before the rain yesterday, this is the vision Bob and I saw in the clouds. I see a woman blowing a horn if I look at the photo from far away. Others see a man looking right at the viewer. I wish we could show this as a vertical shot because the cloud  looked so spectacular hovering over the rooftops and trees.

LOVING MYSELF: I SING THE BODY PERFECTIC

I have recently been reflecting on the perfection of the body and how little love we tend to give it. It is our first and oldest friend. It is the final companion we will bid farewell. More than a garment that houses our spirit, it has a life of its own that depends on us to help shape it and protect it.

I am grateful that my body did not give up on me when there are so many times I have not been that kind to it. I am inordinately kind to others around me and sensitive to their needs. However, looking back, I have seldom given the love and respect to my own body that it so richly deserves.

Every body deserves love and respect. Every body is a gift from God, on loan to us for this lifetime. Having free will, we can choose to treat it however we want. Many religions tend to downplay the importance of the body for a variety of reasons. They talk about temptations of the flesh, but it is really the mind that makes the choices.

I choose to honor my body as much as I can, for as long as I can. That does not just mean giving it good food and taking it for a walk. A dog owner knows that this protocol will keep a dog in shape. If the dog is to thrive, then another ingredient must be added to the mix: LOVE. And in return, the dog is happy and glad to serve its master.

How many kind people would yell bad names at the dog for being “ugly”? Would they stop loving him if he got too fat? Would they quit loving him if he were in pain? Yet these same people (myself included) repeatedly think bad thoughts about their less-than-fabulous-Madison-Avenue bodies, and the aches and pains of aging.

It’s time to STOP… CHANGE THE COURSE OF OUR THOUGHTS.

Regardless of what has manifested in my body, I choose to love my faithful companion. The longest marriage of flesh and spirit in my life deserves my affectionate attention. The body communicates with me, sometimes in ways I don’t particularly like, and I have the option of a loving response.

When I was put on the kidney transplant list, I did not blame my body. I tried not to blame anything. I realized that prayer work, positive thinking, and some unusual measures could help what appeared to be a desperate situation. My mother suggested a solution. She said to sing to my kidneys and visualize them up to 25% function and loving to work with me.

It seemed like a weird idea, but both my mother and I are oddballs, so I started to make a simple, happy song for them. When I reached 25% function and up to 30% function, I was not surprised. My kidneys knew I loved them enough to sing for them and they returned the favor.

Yes, the body does have an intelligence. And more importantly, I believe the body (right down to the cells) responds to the healing power of love.

Now, I just need to get over prejudices that keep me from helping the rest of the body to heal. Since I am a singer/songwriter, my idea is to write songs, love songs, for other areas that would benefit from improvement. Actually, what would be even more effective and less time-consuming would be to write one epic song: “I Sing The Body Perfectic,” and sing that on a daily basis. I love Walt Whitman’s poem on the same idea, but adding music would make the feeling more energetic.

As for what constitutes perfection…I cannot say what that means for everyone. I only know what it means for me. I can choose to have love for my body-buddy regardless of what the doctors say or what others think. I am the only one who has to live in it and I will program my thoughts and feelings accordingly. I take direction from God, my insights and angels, and those that love me regardless of my body’s condition.

And I can choose what constitutes my perfection on a daily basis as long as my eyes and heart are focused on love.

As a postscript, I might add that I met the love of my life 38 years ago today. We are working on recording more songs for our fourth bobandkathi CD today, and then we plan to CELEBRATE.

ANGELIC INSPIRATIONS: WORDS WITH WINGS

This recent photo of Mono Lake takes me halfway to heaven just looking at it. I don’t know how Bob got the Milky Way to look so close, as though I could reach out and touch it. Light is inspirational, whether it is external or internal. The best illumination is a combination of both.

ANGELIC INSPIRATIONS: WORDS WITH WINGS

Your state of mind is really where you live…not the outside world. I have lived in many different “states.” But I have never lived outside  California. My favorite state of mind is quiet contemplation because that is when I see such beautiful sights, and my best songs come to me.

It used to bother my friend Ken Porter (who is now in spirit) that I would sit down and write a song in five or ten minutes. He would spend days working on and perfecting one song. “How do you write them so fast?” he asked . My response to that question has eventually become, “ I  don’t exactly write them.”

There have been times when I consciously planned, produced, and edited a piece of poetry or music. That style of writing is rare for me now. These days (and nights) I just open up a window in my heart and let my mind take a backseat while I write the lyrics and notations down.

Afterwards, when I read back what is written on the page, I am sometimes surprised at my “creative” spelling and word usage with messages that go beyond what I know. I put my name on the copyright because I penned the song, and it would be too difficult to send the royalties to the real creator.

Since the 1980’s I have been writing songs for churches, spiritual centers, weddings, funerals, and loved ones, without any real effort on my part. The process goes something like this: I know the sermon topic, or the gospel reading, or a situation in advance, and I just ask for an appropriate song. The lyrics and music come in as soon as I make time to receive them. Sometimes, they circle like airplanes until I agree to write them down.

I remember when I was working on our first music CD, life was too hectic for me to sit down and breathe. Songs for the Soul by bobandkathi (available on the usual internet sources) did come out that year, 2012, but some songs were written at very strange hours. One time in particular, I recall awakening to a song I had been hearing as a title for days. “One Day My Soul Just Opened Up” really wanted to be “born,” but I kept saying, “I’m too busy.”

So at two o’clock when I woke up one morning, the Voice said, “You’re not too busy now.” I got up, wrote the song and dedicated it to Iyanla Vanzant, whose book I had read with the same title. (I dedicated each of the songs on that album to someone special to me.)

As far as knowing where the songs came from, I wasn’t really sure at first. When a very pleasant lady told me she saw angels around me and that they “channeled” through me, I thought perhaps she had a touch of dementia. I later came to realize what a wonderful place this world would be if everyone had the childlike simplicity to see and hear the wonderful things that are beyond standard science.

An even greater  gift is to be able to talk about it and share it with others. That makes words have wings….

I am spreading my own wings on a vacation soon where internet may not be available. Therefore, I am considering taking a few weeks off from blogging. The green of the rainforest will provide some lovely photos for my future writings. I am certain that experiences with the water, vegetation, and wildlife will inspire more to share, too.

May the busy schedules of life float away down the river until then. I will meet you on the shore.

 

 

 

ANGELIC INTERVENTIONS: AMAZING GRACE IN ACTION

Coming down from Idyllwild, California,  late one afternoon, we saw this lovely shaft of light from the cloud. Bob got the photo before it disappeared.

ANGELIC INTERVENTIONS: AMAZING GRACE IN ACTION

I love angels, and angels love me. Actually, angels love everybody and are always available to help anyone. The key is to ask for their guidance, protection, and assistance. I would not be alive today if I hadn’t received angelic interventions.

When I was five years old, I was not in a very safe environment. Living in an isolated desert area seven miles out of  town with an abusive person in the family led to some frightening situations. Most of my memory has been wiped clean from that time period. I do recall some scenes and sounds of severe anger: Mom’s fresh baked peach pies being thrown to the ceiling, her dark sunglasses to hide the dark bruises underneath, the verbal fighting and breaking of glasses and dishes, long nights trying to sleep with the covers over my head for protection.

Cotton sheets are not enough for protection. That’s where the angels came in.

I did not have fancy, well-thought-out prayers when I was five. I don’t even remember what I prayed the afternoon my stepfather came to get me from my ballet lesson. We started to walk down the long, steep, narrow flight of stairs. That’s when I realized I had been pushed.

I began to roll down the cement steps, trying to grab something, anything, to stop the fall. I was halfway down the flight, when something, someone, scooped me up and broke the fall.

It was a man, a nondescript man in a brown suit and a brown hat. I remember having my eyes closed for just a moment and holding my aching head. When I opened them and looked around to thank the man for rescuing me, there was no one there. There was no evidence of anyone anywhere on the stairs except for my stepfather, who told me I had imagined my elusive helper.

I told my mother about it. I think she believed me. She also knew that I had not just fallen due to clumsiness. I had so many “accidents” in those days.

I have always wanted to thank the man in the brown suit for saving my life. I have seen him since in dreams I have had. I remember one in particular where there was an extremely large golden bridge going up into the clouds. He had the hand of a little boy and was walking him up the bridge. The bridge was very beautiful, but something told me it was not my time to cross that bridge. It was comforting to know I might get picked up and escorted when it is my time.

Sometimes I have tried to rationalize this childhood experience into something more realistic. In another angelic intervention when I was older, I could understand my experience without  trying to explain it. It happened when I was twenty-seven. I am reminded of The Song of Bernadette by Franz Werfel. The introduction states: “For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.” Angels fit into that category, too.

Back to my angelic intervention encounter, I was driving down Interstate 10 in pouring rain, wishing I hadn’t agreed to take my friend to Orange County to meet a deadline for an application. The deluge got worse and worse. Visiblity was highly impaired.

That’s when I realized it looked like an accident was happening right in front of me. But it wasn’t…. What I was seeing was something like a video screen of an accident. I could see the border around the screen and yet I could see the flow of regular traffic in front of me as well. I saw all the details of the accident, the make and model of the cars, who was passing whom, the spin out of the dark blue car. And I knew there was a fatality involved.

When I picked up my girlfriend I told her about my weird vision and suggested we go home and get out of the rainstorm. It was the deadline day for the application, so I finally agreed to drive on and be extra careful.

As my car approached the interchange for the 57 freeway, I saw the black truck pull in front of me. “It’s happening NOW,” I said and slowed down, while we watched the accident unfold. The dark blue car hydroplaned. The driver, probably without a seat belt on, flew out of the car. (I had not seen that part in the original vision.)

I pulled over and went to see if I could help. The woman was dead. She was like a beautiful, pale, red-haired china glass doll. I had never seen a dead person before. I marveled how she could still look so lovely.

A motorist who had witnessed the accident was a nurse. She said the woman had died instantly. I knew she was in no pain, but it bothered me to see the rain pouring into her pale blue eyes. I got the red plaid blanket from my V.W. van and covered her in it. I knew there was a reason I was there to be with her, so I prayed. Sometimes, that is all one can do.

My friend stayed in the car. I was drenched, my suede coat ruined. The police questioned me about the incident. Even though I had seen the accident twice, I could hardly talk. The officer said I was in shock, to drive slowly up to the Denny’s and call for someone to drive my car home.

My husband came for me, and my friend’s son drove her to safety. I realized what a great gift I had been given. If I had not known to slow down and get out of the way, I could have hit the water pocket, too. Instead, I lived to see other days and other miracles, not just of intervention, but of angelic inspiration, which will be a topic for another time.

 

 

 

AFTER THE RAIN: THE BEAUTIFUL WEATHER, PART TWO

Bob took this photo in the Grand Tetons area. It’s a rugged place, but like many places that are challenging to get to, and difficult to get through, it has a special beauty worth the effort.

AFTER THE RAIN: THE BEAUTIFUL WEATHER, PART TWO

The evolution of my marriage with Bob has been a blink in the universe of time. Thirty seven years and we’re still evolving, finding out what makes the other tick.

Emotionally, we stand taller together now, but physically are more bent. Perhaps arthritis is just the outward manifestation of burdens borne and cares that ran too deep. But I believe that love lightens the load and faith rebuilds  us, or finds what was supposedly lost.

We cannot bring back our lost children, our deceased parents, our absent friends. They dine at another table now. We will be reunited, but Bob and I have business to attend to here, promises to keep to ourselves and others, the fulfillments of our raison d’être.

I have had opportunities to leave the planet on quite a few occasions. Two direct angel interventions kept me here, one when I was five, and one when I was twenty seven. (I will give the account of those experiences at a later date.) I am also certain that Bob and I have been blessed by behind-the-scenes heavenly help many times.

I don’t remember the exact date, but sometime after the new millennium I discovered I had a severe kidney problem. The doctor  informed me I had a GFR of 25%. I learned a GFR (glomular filtration rate) was the measurement of how well kidneys worked. I thought I just had a 25% reduction in function. I was shocked to learn that 75% was gone.

Where had it “gone” and why was the doctor saying it would get worse? I had very little understanding of why I had been  switched from lithium to another drug to treat my bipolar illness, and why I’d been referred to a nephrologist. It was a medical wakeup call for me and my husband.

As the function went down to 20%, I learned all I could about “mighty nephrons,” the little parts of the kidneys that do the work. I even had a song I sang to them. We prayed. I visualized good health.

Bob and I went to the dialysis classes together in preparation for the getting the shunt. We discussed my options for types of dialysis. When I went to Loma Linda for the evaluations to be put on the transplant list, Bob was my faithful companion. I got on the list in 2007 and was told it could be years before I got a donor.

I was taken off the list the following year, but did not get the transplant. I had gone over the weight limit and kidney function had gone UP too high, too good, to be on the list. I never even got a shunt or put on dialysis. I told my nephrologist that there was a higher power than Kaiser (my medical HMO) and that I’d get to 30%. I did.

I had the goal of 40% by Christmas of 2012. Bob and I had released our Christmas CD, Carols for the Christ. We had concerts set up, but I started to feel more and more “funky heart rhythm.” We had to cancel our bobandkathi performances after I went through a catheter ablation which didn’t work. The six hour heart procedure, done while I was awake, established my electrical misfires were in the septum, an area that could not be fixed.

After a hospital stay two days later to try a new drug, I was sent home because it was too dangerous for my kidneys. I got a new combination of medicines and my rhythm got better. My kidney function went temporarily down. I am thinking it will be up to 40% by next Christmas.

Bob was usually the one taking me to medical adventures. When he turned sixty in 2009, he had a full physical. An elevated PSA score (a prostate screening test) led to an evaluation by a urologist. Another blood test showed an increased level. Next came the biopsy and we came back to hear the results.

Bob was positive he did not have cancer. POSITIVE. But the results were positive, too. The good news was that the cancer was in the early stages. The doctor went over the different options, complete with colorful pictures. He explained risks and side effects. He said Bob could think about it and get back to him. Bob replied, “I’ve made my choice.”

It was my turn to be surprised. I thought we’d discuss it first. He had chosen the least invasive procedure, radioactive seed implantation. I wondered if a more intense surgery would give a better chance for a longer life.

We did talk about the choice later. Bob got a wonderful radiation oncologist. Unfortunately, the doctor had his arm in a cast. We waited for him to heal, so he could do the surgery.

It was the right choice. In December, the doctor made the “template” for where the seeds of iodine 125 would be implanted. Bob had the procedure done in January of 2010. I drove him home the same day as the surgery with his list of instructions.

There were interesting precautions. He could not be around pregnant women or have a child on his lap for a while. There were sexual and urinary issues to heal. He was given a paper to carry to show doctors and X-ray screeners. He jokingly referred to himself as “radioactive man” to our friends. It was a small price to pay for an extended life together.

Now he volunteers for the American Cancer Society as a “Road to Recovery” driver, giving free rides to patients for their chemo and radiation treatments. Sometimes I have complained about the time it takes from our schedule. That’s when I forget what it means to Bob and to the ones he’s driving. I am very proud of him for his dedication.

As for the beautiful weather of life, BRING IT ON!

Here is Bob Haine at Mono Lake, California, on one of his photo trips.

Bob Haine at Mono Lake ©2013 Nancy Speaker

Bob Haine at Mono Lake
Photo By: Nancy Speaker