Dealing

I was worried just now, when a overseas friend of mine edmitted that he drinks exessivly these days. I figured that he was a person who listened to music as a way of dealing with stress, guess I was wrong or that doesn't really cut it for the current situation. I think one of the big things that carachterise a person is how they deal with stress. My friend often says that it means a lot to him that his friends are there for him and I am very happy to hear that some of his friends are visiting soon.

I deal with my stress in a different way. Yesterday evening I was on my way out running at sunset, I have changed from mornings to evenings now. But since the collective's dirt bike was available I changed my mind and headed over to the track instead.

Since I had my latest flare of lupus I have had a long way back. It took longer to shed the extra weight I put on from the prednisone than I had expected. Every time I started exercising more I had inflammations in the joints again and had to rest. Since I don't want to go into another flare I have to be careful.

But yesterday I was able to really go and I got concentrated enough to be able to get to that stillness in my mind and heart that training gets me to if it is intense enough. Oh how I have missed it! For shame I didn't take a helmet because I didn't expect to be able to go any fast at all. I thought it would be a struggle. Instead I felt like I should. Strong and light and fast. (Sorta. I am really still slow and weak, comparing...)

I need exersise to be able to deal with emotional stress. I can't just meditate it away as some people manage. That is why lupus is so doubly painful to me, when it locks me into immobility. It makes me unable to successfully deal with stress the only way I can. At the same time it wrecks my life and threatens me with death and really stresses me out. Torture!

Now I am speculating, but I peg Baron as a person who exersise not only because of the blatantly obvious reason - he is as vain as a beauty queen! - but as a way of dealing with stress, it makes him feel good? I think beeing captive and tied down must feel something like what i feel having a lupus flare only worse. Fear of death, stress, but no way of dealing except to escape inside. I read a research paper about hostage situations and hallucinating, it is very usual in those situations. Maybe they are not hallucinating, maybe their spirit really leave the body and wander. I hope that he manages to keep his sanity and that we'll get him back in one piece both physically and mentally.

Speaking about 'one piece', I wonder how long the bike has been creaking like that when strained. Doesn't sound good. If I ask the others they will probably say I singlehandedly wrecked it with this my first ride in like a YEAR, and make me pay for repairs or a new one. :-D Nahhh! They would never do that.

The Phoenix bird of Hope.

My lupus is in remission. I now have reached a subclinical level of inflammation, no longer burning up with rheumathic fever. I'm picking myself up from the ashes and regenerate once again, just like the Phoenix bird. The creature of Hope.

The Phoenix bird is also the logo for Paranormal Investigation Experts or PIE, a group I have been following and joined forces with some weeks ago. Hector, the brains of the pair that founded the group, has a theory called the JUMP theory. Or in my language: 'HOPP teorin'. HOPP is a nordic word that in it's anglicised version is written HOPE. So for me the JUMP theory is also a message about HOPE for a better future. (You did know that english originates from Nordic language? There is a saying: 'You cannot be born, live or die without speaking Nordic' ...Isn't that true, geekgrl2019?)

But the story of the Phoenix bird also tells about the pain of recreation, renewal. Before it can be reborn, it has to burn up in fire. (Think also of the beloved hindu God Shiva, the Destroyer.) There is always going to be people who don't want things to change, because they have more to gain by preserving their own power. And so it is in this case too. Somebody is sendig blueclad zombiefied goons to harass Hector and Baron, and the same people is trying to prevent the JUMP from happening again. Probably 'Greyish' types. They will fail. Resistance is futile.

Call it Ostara, Eostre, Easter or what you will. Doesn't matter what religion, this time of year is significant. This is the season of hope, beginning NOW. The egg - a really strong symbol in myths of all cultures. On the outside it looks like a dead stone (and often is camoflaged that way too, in pattern and colour) but from it comes life or a new way of life. Ptah the creator shaped the world egg in Egyptian myth. And many more cultures muse about the world beeing shaped from an egg. My own ancestors, the finnish, too. The druids say the egg is not from a bird but from a snake or dragon.

Wales, Cymry, is the land of the red dragon. I went to Aberystwyth at Lughnasadh the same day as my initiation in the Dan yr Ogof caves, to look at the Black Book of Carmarthen. Later I found what the welch call an dragon egg at the beach. It is egg shaped, smooth, white and a little translucent, looks like stone. I hold it when I need to calm down and think. The dragon who is born from it some day, I hope, is me.

The egg we are hunting now is the next JUMP. Weather the mysterious egg comes out of the butt of a bird, snake, fish or dragon, we will find it and open it. No strange organisation will be able to stop PIE. It is the oldest story in the mythology book, (or clay tablet) and our thoughts and expectations have power. What we can believe in, we can make happen, we can create. Just think of all the inventions that science fiction writers have dreamed up, that inspired researchers and were realised.
I have a dream!