"Art, at its core, is the act of being yourself," said Cinnamon Cooney, The Art Sherpa, on her Art Sherpa Blog. 

Throughout this last year and a half of my art exploding, self-study-tutorial-seeking-materials-using awakening, it has become more and more clear to me that I need art. I need to create - I need to play - I need to manifest whatever this is going on inside my heart/head/soul. 

The other thing that has become crystal clear is that the more I show and share what I am doing, the less afraid I feel about this wild ride, and, when I do start to feel afraid, or frustrated, or penned in, I go to my artspace and create something - which often leads to some sharing online. Something struck me as I looked at my Graduate Diploma peering out from behind the door of my studio, holding it's obligatory space on the wall but not really where I have to look at it much. I don't feel like that person anymore.... and, at a time when I'm not really sure who I am or why I am here, something quite amazing has been happening - I am creating myself with Art every single day. Through art I am telling myself who I am and why I am here, and I'm not really sure that the answer is "artist" mind you, although that is part of it. There is something bigger going on. Alcohol Inks are mending what Lyme Disease broke. The more I create, the more of me I see... simultaneously a work in progress, and an old masterpiece, being restored. 

Art is fixing me. 

Art is putting me back together. 

I'm beginning to see - I need art like a bird needs the sky. 

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This piece was first published on my blog on The Art Sherpa website, October 25, 2016

My thoughts on healing are still swimming around in that floaty realm of not-fully-ready-for-words. However, what I want to say is this: When I tell you I am healed it doesn't mean there is no treatment left for me.  I am still treating multiple tick borne diseases. My journey has been a long one, and it spreads out for as far as it needs to go, ready to receive me. 

It's true that I used to believe a failure in clearing the infections meant I was one of those treatment failures, and I just did not want to provide fodder for anyone's "chronic lyme is untreatable" malarkey.

One day, after sharing my treatment failure worries with a much loved and very Lyme Literate neurologist, he begged to differ - emphatically. So much had changed for me. Among the changes: I was completing sentences. My pain was down and twitching was less. I was reading actual books. I was walking more than wobbling. My cane only was used to pull the curtains open at home, and I was sleeping every night. I was driving safely. He reminded me of these victories and more, and that's when I began to realize a very gradual shift was beginning. My life was redefining the word healing for me.

Healing from Lyme etc. is not only about clearing the diseases, but opening my heart and becoming reacquainted with my soul. If you've ever felt separated from your soul you know what I mean. It's a feeling of fractured-everything-on-the-inside. It seems to me, however, that this is an illusion. We are never really less than whole, but we forget - we feel lost - we feel broken. Our soul, I believe, is always there just waiting patiently. It is not our soul that ever disengages - it is us.

Healing, I think, is not primarily about the body..
Healing, I believe, is more about remembering who we are. 
So, then, it is not about cure or remission. 
Healing is about knowing, as Belleruth Naparstek says, we are "perfectly, utterly, safe."

Dear Wayfaring, Wandering, Day-tripping Soul -

I am your Journey and I want to thank you for venturing into this uncharted territory that is me. You, dear Traveler, are very brave, and I not only fully support your first step and all steps that follow for as many as there may be and for as long as they stretch out ahead of you from where you stand right now, but I applaud them.

Please let me explain my role here. You may want to print this out and tuck it into your pocket for days when this will be hard to remember on your own.