ancestor veneration

ancestor veneration: my mom @lindamariebunt has been doing genealogy work since I can remember

She would take me to cemeteries when I was little where we would search the grounds until we found our people-- maybe do a little grave rubbing if we couldn't read the inscription, talk about how they were related to us, and imagine the time when they lived

Back then she would be in the library basement looking over microfilms to find names and dates. She would ask older family members about stories passed down to find a clue to point her in the right direction toward the next in line

At a certain point she ran into a terminus because there was less and less access to info

Everything changed when things went online

She was able to trace our maternal great grandmother's side back to North Andover in the 1660s. Our family participated in the Salem Witch Trails-- multiple members of the Barker line were accused and confessed to consorting with the devil to avoid being hanged

Last October we decided to visit their burial site and today I went back

There are two babies, both brothers named Joshua. One died at 3 weeks old and the other at 2 years old. Aside from our more popular family member, these were the ones I wanted to spend my time with

Being a mother who has lost a baby has really changed every fiber of me. I still can't imagine Sarah Barker losing two boys, one after the other, and continuing on to have more children

The strength and faith and duty and love is something I'm only beginning to understand

So under the shade of a huge pine lie the bodies of both boys, headstones side by side

We four collected pinecones, moss, bluejay feathers, flowers, leaves, needles, and bark to make them a little altar to let them know that our people are still here, thinking about them-- almost 300 years from when they lived and died

Taking the strength of my line as a sign and reminder that this is where I come from, these are my people, and this is the history my babies are/will be born into

resting with the plants

trimmed zinnias for blood orange fudge tarts 😍 just wanted to let everyone know that we will be slowly letting go of the grind and simply resting with the plants 🤣

More seriously, it's time to announce that Happy Belly is going through a major shift. Makes sense given our newest news 🤰 but we will be slowing production down to something a bit more manageable for a growing mama

Yesterday Brandon said "creation over creativity" and I couldn't agree more

To keep this show going and still have time to care for our family, we'll have to be open to adjustments

This means, as our customers, you will too ❤

What will this look like?

We'll be a little more inconsistent with what we bring to markets

We may not have the widest variety each week (you're good with the 24 separate types of baked goods, we promise 😉🤣)

We'll most likely not be taking special requests or doing holiday orders

I may not always be able to wake up at 4am to make you guys doughnuts

I'm sure the list will grow while I grow

We may lose a few of you and that is something we are okay with. We totally get that some customers rely on the steady consistency each week and us needing to be flaky for the next year is off-putting. We'll be sad to see you go

And just so we're clear, this is a two person operation-- just me and Brandon (Bea does love stickering though!)

We are baking out of our home kitchen. We don't have a crew or the space to keep this going full-boar 110% like we have for the past 3 years

A couple months ago we had to make a decision to either REALLY grow the business or pull back. We decided to pull back. And then I found out baby was on the way

We're looking at this as the right decision because without making space we know a baby wouldn't have come through

So after many years of choosing business, we're choosing family

We hope you get it ❤❤ and we love that you guys are alongside the ride 🎢

snake class

this is rapture and joy: officially a level 1 certified venomous snake handler/relocator 🤷‍♀️🤣

My road since 2020 has been a straight path toward sovereignty, freedom, and slowly living into all the nooks and crannies

I have the high medicine of the rattlesnake to thank for bringing me back to the fiercest and most grounded side of myself

After an experience in 2020 with a western diamondback in the Superstition Mountains just outside of Phoenix, I wrote:

"When I work with snake medicine in ceremony it almost always centers me in my heart. She is focused and serious, fully knowing truth from fiction-- almost sniffing it out and giving you no place to hide in yourself. She strikes fast and hard, to remind us that fake shit is poison to our systems. Only pure hearts are allowed to rest with her."

Fake shit is poison, only pure hearts rest with her... this is where I'm at these days

Living into everything that's authentically me-- including my weird fascination, admiration, and deep respect of these amazing creatures

So this weekend-- in Stallings NC, with 85° and 80% humidity, in a firehouse training facility, while 13 weeks pregnant 😜-- I took a step toward the unknown

Whatever this is thats moving me closer, I'm stepping in and letting it take over

The snakes we worked with-- an Eastern Diamondback, a Timber Rattler named Sweet Cheeks, and a Cottonmouth named Bellatrix-- were perfect in their design

With sweet personalities (given 18+ people handled them in and out of buckets and bags with hooks, they remained so tolerant and calm) and an intense grounded focus that I've never experienced before

They're a symbol of our country (don't tread on me), a symbol of medicine work (caduceus), a symbol of the infinite (ouroboros)

So much magic and power in these gorgeous creatures, fuck whatever our culture has said about them

We're all misunderstood

more room for this

making room for more of this ❤

we have been working 7 days a week for the past three years

we're exhausted from grinding

we're constantly missing out on life and we're dealing with a lot of resentment for the business because we always put it first

coupled with some very life-changing personal things going on, we made the huge decision to completely stop our wholesale accounts

so what this means for you...

now you will ONLY be able to find us at @hudsonfarmersmarketny @beaconfarmersmarket and @randomharvestny

or you can order directly through the website (if you're local we'll deliver, otherwise UPS will take care of ya)

what this means for us...

we'll be able to live our life at a slower pace and show Bea what it means to take care of our family

we'll be able to actually see family and friends and not miss every single event because of work

we'll be able to start the homeschool journey with Bea

maybe we'll be able to fall back in love with Happy Belly 😝

Bea said to me the other day "now you're feeling better, you can get back to work" 🤦‍♀️ it was a strong and shameful moment for me. A "what the fuck am I teaching my kid?" kind of moment.

I hear there's more to life than working 🤣🤷‍♀️ I would like to find out

This might not be a permanent decision but it's the decision that makes sense now

We've put our lives on the back-burner for years to accommodate the business and now we want more

We know many of you who grab our stuff at Hawthorne or Miller's Crossing or one of the local coffee shops will be super disappointed, but this is to make sure I don't actually lose my shit and shut down Happy Belly altogether

I need a fucking break before I tank the business

sloppy mess of alcoholics

numbness of alcoholics: my immediate family feels like it's finally surfacing after 15 years of drowning alongside an alcoholic

Someone we loved

But...

Someone who held us hostage with his addiction

And an abusive temperament to boot

Every interaction could land wrong and you would be subjected to a rage explosion, so life was like walking on eggshells all the time

Every conversation, every dinner, every "welcome home", every time we hung out as a family... they all felt like we were on the edge of a knife just WAITING for the moment when said person would snap because he either was drinking or hadn't started yet

Stupid shit too, like my brother mindlessly clicking a pen at the dinner table or the dogs needing to go out to pee

Our family being held captive in our own home

Never being able to settle on CALM, so much so that our nervous systems are all fried as a result

I'm smart enough to know that drinking is just the mask for the deeper issues, but the bottle really does a number on families

The visual I always have with the alcoholics in my life (there have been many) is standing face to face trying to connect, but doing so through a thick barrier

It's like they can't interface without alcohol being the filter and the separation-- and in that way it always feels uncomfortably hollow for me

It's an adaptation for unprocessed pain, I get it

But they almost always fail to see the distance they are seeking is creating distance in their relationships-- the pain they are running from is just causing more pain down the line with people who love them

My dad flipped his truck on Christmas Eve when I was 8. He dropped me off with my mom and got in an accident on his way home. He went cold turkey right then and there

The older I get the more monumental of an effort that seems

Something completely born out of love and protection for me, because he knew he was given a second chance

And because I could have been with him

Not everyone answers the wakeup calls though, some just take their families down from the inside

We're all trying to rebuild from all that fucking damage, it took an effort to claw our way out of the hole they left

Glad they're gone tho

bread and butter

Sunday AM + too hot for market = our cinnamon raisin walnut bread with a thick layer of grass-fed cultured butter for breakfast 🤌😘

Thought it was a good time to remind everyone that although the business is vegan, we are NOT vegan 👋

trying to dispel some assumptions and step more into who we ACTUALLY are without fear that it's going to tank our business

listen, we love every single one of our customers who subscribe to this lifestyle-- and more power to you for finding something that works for your body⚡I know better than many how long it takes to find a system of eating that actually works and the ethical issues behind food production/consumption

I started this business with these ever-evolving recipes to treat MY issues with gluten, eggs, casein, and uncultured dairy

"VEGAN" just became the easy catch-all phrase when I would say "oh we don't use eggs or dairy" and the response was always "so it's vegan" 🤷‍♀️

we've noticed that vegan has somehow become more of a political statement these days-- instead of being a marker of what type of food you're buying, it's become a marker for the people buying/making it

so we want to be honest with you guys in case you would like to take your business elsewhere, if you're inclined to think that way

we've lost customers over the years who don't appreciate that we bake vegan but are not vegan ourselves 🤷‍♀️ we get it and we never take it personally

and despite the explanation of MY body's journey in defense, it doesn't land well with people who may feel duped or manipulated

so like my post the other day about people taking advantage of the "WELLNESS" for $, I sometimes worry we're doing the same with VEGAN

not sure where we land with the description of the business or if the language is going to shift back to dairy- and egg-free but here we are...

messy little contradictions still making delicious baked goods

so please don't be surprised when our recommendation for topping the breads are goat cheese or cultured butter alongside nut butters and plant pestos ❤

we've got customers from all walks of life who come toward our food for many reasons-- we respect all of you

a change in name

business pivot: talking about wellness used to be radical when we did it 10 years ago

it made sense for me

Happy Belly was specifically informed by my journey to heal my gut because of Celiac Disease-- it was all about creating food that promoted wellness versus dis-ease

so now that Capitalism's claws are in, every company is turning their attention toward WELLNESS in an attempt to gobble up more and more profit

and to maybe make you feel like you're failing at healing yourself and that you need THEIR products to get better 🤷‍♀️ missing key mentality 👌

I feel like the meaning of WELLNESS is lost and the potency is gone

and frankly I don't want to associate our business with the shit shill anymore

therefore, we're dropping the moniker: "happy belly wellness kitchen"

we're being reborn as: "happy belly home kitchen"

because its a much more revolutionary act to create and maintain a business that stays small and doesn't prey on it's customers

this is a true old-world extension of love-- the baker lives above their bakery, you know their family, baked goods will always be there kind of thing

maybe this is a stupid and insignificant change, I don't know

but seeing businesses cash in on being a "gluten free bakery" while sourcing grain that is fully contaminated at the mill 😤 or making baked goods in a kitchen that is constantly producing gluten products 😤 or not having safe practices to limit cross-contamination really pisses me off (same goes for eggs and dairy)

just stop being fake and taking advantage of customers, you're getting people sick and eroding confidence in what's actually GLUTEN FREE

so Happy Belly Home Kitchen will stand apart from a changing and diluting market

pictured: our Scandinavian cinnamon raisin walnut bread, we'll have it this weekend

dark arts

art and expression get dark sometimes ⚡ we're here for all of it's forms and all of the ways it possesses us, but there are times when the force is totally overwhelming and more like a burden than a blessing

When the thing that saves is actually the thing that shackles

I'll be honest, I feel this way about my work sometimes

I'm both the monkey willing to perform for the crowd and the dynamic goddess who has these creations just pour out of her from heart to hand

We've built this business to a pretty successful place but we're still trying to negotiate work/life balance [especially since the business has been operating out of our 700sqft home for near a decade]

Brandon said the other day that the business has to work for us-- not always the other way around. And I think this is where I've lost the love at times. When I'm chained to routine and grind and I need to feel/hear myself again

I've had the Alice in Chains song "Nutshell" in my head and on my heart a lot lately

If you're going to give it a listen, do the unplugged version-- the lyrics are intense, but Jerry Cantrell's guitar really brings the song to a supportive and uplifting place

Anyway, there is a line that has been on repeat: "if I can't be my own, I'd feel better dead"

Heavy shit, but right-- right?

If we can't be the fullest expressions of ourselves then what the fuck are we doing?

Why not take down the scaffolding that's not truly supporting the strongest versions of ourselves?

I think many of us are scared to live into who we REALLY are

Maybe because we don't want others to see it and be disappointed and then reject the self that's closer to truth (than the version they remember)

But one of the most beautiful things about running this business is knowing that we've become a tiny place where people from ALLLL walks of life can find respite

We're going to celebrate the diversity of your life and your experience because we expect the same extended our way

We are walking contradictions and happy to be messy

Please stay messy with us

There's art and beauty and so much potential just in the way things take shape-- in the time before the put-together manifested version hits your table

my sweet dad

Happy Birthday to my sweet Dad ❤ been feeling him a lot over the past couple weeks, he's been doing important work on the other side

It's really amazing how relationships evolve even after someone has been gone for almost 13 years

Real magic 🧚‍♀️

I never cared much for making him proud when I was younger-- he always encouraged me to figure out who I was instead of really striving for perfection

He would be the first to claim he was a fuck up and he fucked up. But he wanted something more for me without putting a ton of pressure on my young shoulders

Now that I'm older and I do care

I hope that he sees who I've become. I hope he knows that he has been a part of the change. I hope he's proud. Couldn't have done any of this without him guiding me from the sidelines

Sometimes I feel him sitting shotgun while I'm driving and listening to some of our favorite music: AC⚡DC, Zeppelin, Heart, Rage Against the Machine

Those memories are so entwined in my DNA

The songs will always be the ones we listened to together driving in his growling black Dodge diesel with the music blasting and the windows down-- hands floating in the wind and feeling like complete badasses

And just like that I let the memories and songs take me to a place so familiar its protective and so much MY DAD

birth story: Callum

5:15am, 7/7/17 Callum Angus made his way into this world.

This post is pretty graphic. I don't care much for trigger warnings (especially with this reality) but this is for family. This is a tough one and I'm tired of not sharing.

❤❤❤

I didn't kiss him or really even hold him during the two days before he went to the morgue. There was a primal voice in my head that said to not get this twisted-- that this baby is dead and doing those things would do more damage. The voice said to not lie to myself and to live in NOW

I listened

I just held his hand and touched his face and looked at him. Trying to study every single inch because his body and time would eventually betray us

I remember handling his body was very difficult to do. We decided to change his clothes and it was horrific. Without life, the body goes completely limp. With the looseness of their body structure-- a biological adaptation to get them out of the womb-- he moved like water. Hard to clothe liquid. They had to stuff cotton in his nose and keep a rolled up cloth under his chin to keep the fluids from coming out.

I just kept hearing the voice: he's dead, stop doing this. You're doing alive things. You're doing damage to yourself pretending this is anything but a body

It was viscous but protective. Again, I listened.

His body was kept on ice to make sure decay didn't set in too fast. There were parts of him that where frozen through. His little face was an ice block toward the end. His nose got smushed and stuck in place. His skin had condensation and discoloration on it, like thawing freezer-burned meat.

We knew we had to give him up. The vision and feeling of the changes in his body over the two days set us straight. It was brutal.

The voice reminded: there is a certain point where you will not want to see what happens next-- a point of no return. Time like this would not have been afforded to your ancestors.

They asked if we wanted to do an autopsy. They assured us there were no guarantees anything would come back-- sometimes these things just happen. We knew it didn't matter. He was dead, he was healthy, and that was the hardest thing to live with. So we made the plan to cremate him and when to leave the hospital. Fire like the only bit of control we had. A way to cleanse us from what happened. A way to keep what remains with us forever.

I made a special trip to Scotland to depart with my dad's ashes. We went to Callinish standing stones in the Outer Hebrides to hold ceremony and scatter them. That decidedly felt like I made room in my life for something. I got pregnant with Callum on that trip. So fire and ashes felt full circle.
This is what we have for him. A little shelf in our house filled with his ashes and all the little things we've pick up along the 5 years that mean something to us from him. Big places in our heart and enough insane memories to keep me remembering how this was a moment handed down from the gods. A sacred one.
Well Bea just woke up and needing me to cuddle. Life goes on and on.

garden is life

Raw and unpolished, garden is life.

Full post:
July 4th five years ago I sat on our back porch in the almost full moonlight dealing with hour after hour of contractions. We spent the day swimming at our favorite hole. Making a lunch of pistachios, dried mango, and garlic almonds. I felt my boy in my belly, 41 weeks along, swimming while I swam and quiet like he always was. That night as I was breathing into the moon, each contraction rose up from the depth of my body, out through my mouth, and into the moon. I heard every insect, they're clicks and cricks and lightening bugs and buzz. I asked for help. Out of the shadows of our elder, a werewolf came along to greet me. He told me he protects and patrols our property and is meant to be seen in his were form or his human form. This night he was at the end of his transition just waiting for the full moon to help him burst forward. I asked him to show me his true form, as it is. He was mangled and in the midst of transition. Not quite human, not quite animal. He told me that transition is the most painful process. All that space in between formless and form. It ripped him apart. I asked him to stay with me and he told me to howl the pain into the moon. To let the animal in me be birthed. That animal was death. And as I write this, intuitively knowing this is the right phrase, I feel guilt for saying so. I am a woman who gave birth to death. That is my power. That is my magic. To take death and make life, to allow the transitions of my life to burst forward and take shape. Like the were, after I lost my son, I believed I was cursed and bound to a fate I had no control over. But now it feels like a blessing. A moment in time where a mother brings through death and a new life for herself. The sacrifice and the initiation. The flames of change forever stoked because of my son. Feeding the beast within me, always. We love each other so.

To my sweet baby Callum on his death day ❤

happy solstice

happy solstice from Fairy Lake🖐☀️

our two babies ❤ the dragonfly and the bee

Callum always sends love through winged messengers while we're at the lake

We spent a couple weeks out here, by ourselves, after he died to try and pull all the pieces back together again

It was magical and heartbreaking and we were surrounded by dragonflies at every moment

they acted like little reminders of his love

ephemeral and delicate, here but then gone

just like our boy

I remember early morning pumping session, followed by a full day floating the fishing boat from bay to bay

I remember the first time we caught a fish on that trip. Something that was normal for our family became so visceral and violent after the loss

I remember feeling like the sunsets and the quiet and the call of the loon mamas helped bring me back to life

It reminded me that we're always held by SOMETHING regardless of the chaos of life and loss and love

And this time around the message is: we grow

We make new memories. We heal the losses. We honor the traditions of our family as we nurture our babies. We keep alive the stories of those who passed by keeping our feet and heart at this lake

This time is filled with LIFE

Bea immediately stripped when we got to the cottage. She dropped her clothes, grabbed a fishing net, and went down to the dock-- booty out-- to hop in the water 🤣 (clearly just as determined as her first time fishing!)

@brandon.of.bjerke went in after her and on his bee hat landed a dragonfly

CAB and BEB together in spirit

Like the four terminals of a cross that are bound together by an origin: dad, mom, Callum Angus, and Beatrix Ea

Bea walked out to where I am just to tell me "mama I love you" and then ran back to watching Camp Cretaceous and I have the overwhelming feeling of being in the flow of life like a fish in a current or a dragonfly on the wind

Happy Solstice Magic, sweet friends-- that's all I got ❤❤

the hands that feed you

the hands that feed you

when the oat flour is this fine it fits into the grooves of my print

it reminds me of all the instruments of love these hands have created over the 37 years they've been in existence

it's always kind of visceral putting my hands into oat powder

reminds me of the handprints on the caves in Lascaux-- to leave our mark on the world in the most primal of ways

Monica was here! 🖐

we hit 10 years this year, by the way

got me thinking about the transactional relationships we all have with each other-- hand to hand

whether that transaction is through money, goods, services, time, emotion, attention, space doesn't much matter

but every time you purchase from us you are helping to feed our business and our lives

four of us: me, Bea, Brandon, and Happy Belly

every dollar spent and received is not without the work that went behind it

on your end and ours

you could choose to spend your time/money/attention elsewhere, but you choose us and we feel that deeply

our devotion to this business is something of a guiding light-- a beacon

Happy Belly was gestated and birthed by me, but raised by ALL of us

glad to be part of whatever this sweet beast has and will become

and glad to know that THIS TYPE OF RELATIONSHIP matters the most right now (in this capitalistic hellscape)-- this is really understanding where your food comes from in a much more tangible way than we've ever talked about

so let's keep putting all of our best into her and she'll keep feeding us for years to come

might be talking about myself right now instead of HB, butttt whatever 🤣✌

child and mother

This little one is constantly reminding me that we are learning how to do this together, each and every day

Being a child and being a mother

I never thought being a mother would be a staging ground for massive experimentation and forever change, but here we are on the frontlines

I thought being a mother meant sacrificing my spiritual growth

I let that belief burrow deep into my head for so many years that it actually kept me from wanting/having children

Spent most of my teenage years and all of my 20s against it

Now I feel sad for that older version of me that felt that kids were burdens-- felt that my purpose was more than them

Nothing (literally NOTHING) puts you on the fast track to clearing up your shit and taking responsibility for yourself like having a kid

As long as you have the heart to face yourself every single day, of course

It's a very direct 1:1

I am you, you are me

I am the model for this kid

A touchstone (perhaps THE touchstone)

I want to always be the tree under which my child rests and plays and grieves and explores

Rooted and sturdy mama

Always there for comfort and groundedness, love and tough love

Willing to be the network of support that holds her while she expands and contracts, all until she decides it's time to be a tree herself

It takes bravery to be a parent

To help raise a spirit from the moment of conception to the end of your life (assuming it all goes that way), is an absolute gift

After losing a few pregnancies and having Callum die during labor, life is truly truly truly nothing short of a fucking miracle

The fact that we are anything more than a clump of dividing cells in the neverending pea soup of evolution is astounding

The fact that we can carry on our lines is an honor to every single ancestor who came before us-- a living and breathing prayer, incarnate

I hope to teach Bea a gentle, fierce, and connected way to walk through this world for a very long time

Having this soul beside me is the only gift that matters

For now she's standing on turtles and begging for chocolate and talking about how her favorite dinosaur is a dilophosaurus because it spits and in love with her little but expanding world

lady l

a little raindrop hammocked in a lupine = me

sovereignty is something that has been a prime directive over the past couple years

the constant work/play to get myself free and less encumbered

I remember years ago driving back through the Berkshires from a tarot session with @sheilaahite and listening to Bob Marley's last performance in Pittsburgh from 1980

I've listened a million times, but after a powerful and magical session about the direction of the business, the words hit differently and lined up perfectly with what the guides/Sheilaa brought through

got to "Them Belly Full" and the lyrics laid out the path forward for me so clearly:

"them bully full, but we hungry/ a hungry mob is an angry mob/ the rain a fall, but the dirt too tough/ a pot to cook, but the food not nuff"

a pot to cook but the food not nuff 🤯 fuck, what a line

this song is about the rich and poor rising up through circumstance and getting free through honoring Jah

nothing else leads to salvation and ends the hunger we all feel

this memory popped into my head because the Beast of Insatiablity is making it's presence known in my life these days

it's a force that is never satisfied

it keeps us eating when we're full, angry when we're settled, fighting for the sake of fighting

hardens our heart to any softening

whatever it is, it keeps us enslaved to something outside of ourselves because of a lack inside of ourselves

seems that Bob was really preaching that Jah (God/Universe/Nature/big nothing) is the only thing that will set us free from the terror of a never-ending hunger

can't help but think that the closer to the path of righteousness I walk, the clearer my conscience/consciousness will be

for sure life will not be easy-- but it will be manageable because I know I've got backup always putting circumstances into perspective

lessons and growth

not sure about it all but wanted to share

if you need me I will be baking bars that actually NOURISH and maybe help remind how singularly special each of you/us are

a jewel in the crown of God

a smiling face bathed in the rays of the sun

in my spare time, I'll be Borrowers-sized and curled up in this little gem on a lupine

overidentifying with disease

Celiac Awareness Month: over-identifying with disease

when you're struggling to figure out a health crisis, all of your energy and focus goes into it

who am I joking... it's not like you have any control over what you're doing

you're completely within its grasp and ground down by the daily struggle

some days are clearer than others, but until you get better it's really a crapshoot

in my case, once I figured out what was wrong with me, I found that I was over-identifying with my disease (see even the possessive language of MY disease still shows ownership🤦‍♀️)

it does make sense-- when getting better is about your literal survival it becomes what you live and breathe

when every meal has the potential to get you sick, every meal then becomes a step on the slow road toward death or toward life

but...

there was a time, years after, where I started to see that this label "I have Celiac Disease" became something that was so aligned with WHO I WAS that it was really holding me back from LIVING

I heard a lyric from a Tori Amos song this week (in reference to anorexia): "I turned myself inside out in hopes someone would see"

that line brought me back to how much I held onto the CD label to show others (and myself) how much pain I went through

especially since that pain was so silent and internal

instead of processing the emotional pain within myself (because I had for so many years!), I learned to externalize it

seems like a smart adaptation

and most certainly a way to garner sympathy and attention in hopes someone would see what I was going through

wild what these moments do to us and for us

and now I can only have sympathy for myself

what a sad and lonely experience to have a chronic autoimmune condition without the empowerment of knowing what's wrong and the tools to fix it

sad to live in that fear every single day and hate your body for the pain it causes

this is the story of many with chronic illness or disease (or even dis-ease)

light at then end of the tunnel, but a long journey in the mucky darkness

Celiac and psychedelics

Celiac Disease and psychedelics: I spent a number of years sick and a number of years attempting to get better once I figured out my diagnosis

It's truly amazing the physical and psychological toll living with an autoimmune disease can have

I buried the pain so deeply in my body it took a very long time to root it out

I spent so much time distrusting my body-- feeling as if it was failing me and literally hell-bent on killing me from the inside out

After dropping 30lbs one summer, I was living with ongoing diarrhea and having neurological issues, there was only one doctor (out of many i went to) who believed my symptoms and then tested my guts absorption

Not having much guidance in the early days, I really took ownership of my failings and wallowed in the shame around "disease"

When every single thing you put in your body has the potential to either heal you or hurt you, you really start to bow down in the face of it all

I started welcoming psychedelics into my life when I was 18 and began really using it as a tool for deeper work in my early 20s

I remember during a few sessions with mushrooms I was brought into the pit of my gut and shown the stacks and stacks of proverbial shit I had in there

All of the attachments to my pain and shame from doctors telling me my problem was in my head was stored there alongside the literal shit

I could feel the mushrooms guiding me back to myself, allowing me to release the gut knots, and reminding me to trust that EVOLUTION has brought me here just by showing me the story

This really helped me understand on a much more realistic level that if we're not actively honest and processing our feelings/experiences our body will certainly keep score

My gut was the site of so much warfare

Even while I was healing-- years after being gluten free-- I still held on to the tightness of my pain in the folds on my intestines

Being able to work with a medicine that was able to show me this was something I needed

It showed me how to shed and that it was okay to release my gut from the grips of my trauma

I slowly unwound and found a new center of balance

And a support system to digest the food AND the feelings around the food

Celiac Awareness Month

Celiac Disease + Body Intelligence: hey it's Celiac Awareness Month and I though I'd share this week's glutening!

There are times I think my issues with gluten are just in my head. I convince myself that regardless of the diagnosis, I most certainly don't have THAT serious of a reaction 🤦‍♀️ Like a fool I think this because I stay relatively healthy, eat at home, and am unexposed to gluten

I feel that way until I get glutened again

I've been dealing with a reaction all week and it's truly amazing how it unfolds

The symptoms are like a old friend I know very very well

They start the same way each time. It typically takes my system 18 hours to fully respond after exposure

The "death farts" start first. Horrendously putrid and a sign that my gut is getting ready to purge

Then I pass literally everything that is in my digestive tract, all day long

Then the body aches start, followed by the brain fog, eye twitching, stiff joints (knees and wrists this time!), and then days of nausea. Lot of anxiety too

All until I'm completely empty and cleaned out

Since I haven't had a full blown reaction like this in some time, the distance made it interesting. I felt like an observer of my own body and completely in awe over it's intelligence

Everything makes sense

The way my gut lets go of everything because it knows gluten (a fucking protein!) is harmful to my system

How this would cause system wide inflammation expressed as aches, stiff joints, and stomach pain

Then being in a sympathetic state, it moves along to my nervous system in twitching, brain fog, and anxiety

Then it makes sure I'm nauseous for a few days because everything it has been through, but also to secure that I don't eat too much to tax my digestive system

It's genius really

A marvel of design

My body can so easily communicate with me about the food I put into it, it's likes and dislikes, and when it needs to involuntarily detox

I'm used to most of the digestive symptoms, but the anxiety (so emptied out that I can literally feel its origin point is in my gut!) leaves me so shaky I get scared

Working through though🤞 gluten reactions are so different person to person

Haupia is back BTW!🤣

watermelon baby

"The things that I've loved,
The things that I've lost,
The things I've held sacred that I've dropped"

These lyrics have been on repeat in my head (Audioslave, Doesn't Remind Me, btw)

Considering more and more how we're creatures of change and flux, adjustment and readjustment

All in a bid to return to homeostasis and maintain balance after a bit of chaos

The vessel taking in and letting out

This seems to be how I learn and grow

Life-chaos-readjustment-integration

The versions of ourselves that have existed over time are part of a remarkable evolution

Even though we shift who we are while working through this life, it's beautiful that fragments of self stick around

I was dipping into memories the other day with @brandon.of.bjerke and reminding myself of the feelings I had watching Dirty Dancing

When I was Bea's age it was my favorite movie (along with Ghostbusters!)

I have very warm memories of watching the scene when Baby brings the watermelon to the staff party 👌❤ when "Love Man" from Otis Redding drops, there is literally nothing better

That little bit of chaos in the system changed Baby and really set her on the path toward liberation and self-ownership

Child to woman or innocence to experience

Those feelings are bound to my DNA in some wild way that I can drop into them and feel the purity and rawness when I listen to that song

Despite being 34 years separated from 3 year old me, there is so much overlap

Scary as it might be because I fuck up all the time, but parenting is truly the most significant job

Some of the things I model now and some of the experiences Bea will have will stick around regardless of all the upgrades to her system (heart, spirit, emotion, mind)

No matter how much we change, there are parts of us that are the same

Anyway, here is a midnight collage of Francis "Baby" Houseman and all the lovely things that came through when dipping into HER legacy and my own Hebrew lines

Life bursting forward with Baby the Goddess, bowing at the foot of her altar

Things I still hold sacred

shimmering cool glass

At acupuncture yesterday, I felt myself on the table but also outside of my body-- as if I was both a physical and a spiritual body experiencing and witnessing itself at the same time

Just before this I was doing some visualization work for my womb; to welcome back my cycle after recently having a miscarriage

I saw my womb as a giant shimmering cool glass bowl filled with fruits and veg

I moved my arms over the bowl to fill it and opened my arms away from the bowl to let it go-- intuitively mimicking the build up and flow of blood in the uterus

Taking in and letting out, infinite flow

Anyway the bowl turned into a woven basket

In that basket was the whole of my life represented as individually wrapped up items

I was shown all of "Monica"-- my experiences, my characteristics, my likes, my dislikes, my habits-- as things I can pick up and let go of whenever I want

I settled into my spirit body to feel what it was like without the attachments of self-- all those things that define me

There was a freedom and anxiety with letting myself exist in that space-- it felt like a jacket on a hanger in a closet not really being used and not really mine

I stuck with this to feel it out and then started asking questions about why I was anxious letting go of parts of myself

I felt pride well up in my chest about who I am and what I have been through in this life

None of these things really felt like they were weighing me down

They felt like old friends I never want to part with, but also a bit detached from

After session, I get in the car and start listening to Into the Wild by John Krakauer (just finished Into Thin Air!)

The story is about Christopher McCandless-- a 22yo who drops everything familiar (his life, his family, his possessions, even his name) to find himself. Krakauer describes dropping all the markers of "you" to get free, wild, transcendent experience

McCandless didn't have the best end, but weird and wonderful coincidences of timing after those transmissions on the acupuncture table

Will not be trekking into the Alaskan bush anytime soon 👌 rewild myself is the mantra though

Also: carrot + beet mochi sticky buns w/ pecan paste