[Marilyn Michele]

My monograph: Horsetail. 350 – 400 million years on. As an artist my monograph is a painting. After each of my acute to chronic illnesses (about 4 life/death/life changers) I have come out of the illness feeling naked and in an open landscape. And yet, all the while, I have vividly discovered behind me, within me, is that which has my back. I have found, is all that is, all that has been and all that will be cross through the rounds of time. Seen and unseen is fully present. And there is ancient horsetail. Of both the physical 3D seen world and of all. Saturnian, aware of the edges, the boundaries of physical life. Telling stories on us, on me, when I listen! A few plants have a spiritual dance with me through the eons. And horsetail is one.

[Marilyn Michele]

Hey Chad, I honor and respect your engagement with me. Thank you for staying in the conversation. I cannot respond fully right now except to ask, might the “figuring out” of why shit happens keep us within our own framework? Might we be drawn, or simply be amidst that which is way beyond our current framework of reference? Not understanding, not claiming to know why does not negate my transformation. In my experience it enhances my transformation. As I am not the one directing it, this personal expression at hand. While not in a place of having figured much of anything out, I am fully embracing what is on deck and participating within. Because I know the redemptive juiciness, the perfume of joining in the vitality of life, even when I am in the compost heap. So is your way with God giving definitions, holding within your framework, or is God extending you beyond all known particulars? I find to be in the unknown territory is ok. I am not negating my spiritual/body wholeness when I don’t know. In fact I feel this one becomes more porous and open to that which is beyond self. And don’t get me wrong. All of life’s movements are welcome. Exposing the gifts within—divine within — which was/is always there. So maybe we might call this a movement of growth, but I find it is an expression of truth within -exposed as vital life dancing.

[Marilyn Michele]

Hey Chad… good on you in your journey. I am going to be straight forward with you Chad. Your voice felt very confident. So may I assume you welcome a frank discussion? I felt a little preached to in your sharing. The whole notion of “dis-ease” for me is rather simplistic. AND self incriminating within the familiar use of it. I feel illness, injury, accident, misfortune is more sacred than that. Can you really tell me why shit happens? I can’t. But in a shit storm I can embrace vital life’s movements. And, I can live transformations. Sacred AS all of it. Your voice for me feels very buoyed in church’ism. And while that is ok, I am one who has danced in that paradigm and found it way too rigid. And while in a rigid system- I think, one often partakes of that rigidity without sight of it. Just know your voice as I read it, for me, is a bit didactic. My first health blow was before I was born. I was nailed with ‘down winding’ intrauterine, and as a toddler. A type of iodine was introduced into my system through atomic bomb testing floating down wind. This isn’t a factor of me finding my movements here nor there out of alignment with the universe. It disrupted my endocrine system from the get go. And then…. And then some. The hubris of the atomic bomb developments, can mirror our own hubris as we practice and proclaim what is wellness and what is healing. And with the myriad of my rounds of illnesses, I have danced this conversation and implications of what is proclaimed, vigorously in a many settings. I welcome more to our conversation. Know you are speaking with one who is past my second Saturn return, and I have been brought into illness after illness, left in conditions beyond choice. AND find ALL of it transformative. It is a wowzer. And I am a bit sensitive that the container offered to support one through a shit storm be open and porous enough to allow whatever full dynamic they are to enfold to be honored. Consider the whole Spagyric process as just a model of how much room one might need. One might go through each and every phase of the alchemical process. All of it. Including the repeats. Blessings to you. And thank you for stepping up and providing a reply. May my straight forward engagement be ok for you.

[Marilyn Michele]

Thanks Chad, well said. What was welcomed in your healing? I have found “Illness” or diverted expressions of life lead through the body… are of a wide range. My illnesses, or body lead life changes, have been of a life/death/life pattern. And this painting finally brings forward my experiences. I wouldn’t have seen this so fully if I didn’t regularly sit with others who have severely altered life expressions due to their body’s lead conditions. They have different life patterns. I respect what our bodies teach. Where we are lead, or have opportunity to follow. And what life unfolds as we journey along in humanness, which I wouldn’t have seen otherwise /or come to be.