New blog : Natural Healing Tinea Versicolor

hey friends! i’ve started a new blog today & made my first post.

~ http://naturalhealingtineaversicolor.wordpress.com/ ~

for three years now i’ve had a little rash (composed of a fungus ~ tinea versicolor~ which exists on all of our skins, but which can get out of control on some skins & be annoying and sometimes unsightly or itchy!). there’s not a lot of clear data on the internet for how to use natural / home remedies to remedy or prevent it (and conclusive research is that it’s impossible to prevent! what?! i’m going to try to see if i can disprove that one!).

a lot of sites will say, “you can use this or that (insert natural remedy),” but don’t give real data on if it works or how to use it. so i’m creating a blog where i experiment with what works for me & this information will be shared to benefit other people. perhaps you have tinea versicolor pop up on your skin in the summertime or know someone who does – what has worked for you?

i hope you’ll come over & visit my blog or share it with a friend who would do well to connect with it/me. it’s a very common skin infection; you may be surprised! thanks! ❤ wren

writing space; living in place

i write when i am on the move. when i ride my bike. when i used to have an iphone (that hadn’t been “rained out”), i’d write on the go, anywhere i was. i remember once leaving a friend’s house on my bike & on my way back into town, i stopped in a cemetery to breathe, to take life in & slow down and as i sat beneath a tree overlooking the graves the sharp contrast between the living & the dying prompting me toward life a small bird came and perched on my head. as this was years ago now, i can’t remember what type of bird it was; a simple cemetery sitter, maybe a common nuthatch.

bike tour resting at an ecovillage; tons of fodder for writing there!

i write on the go on the move and when i am still & when i am confused. i write inspiredly & i write to make sense of things. i write to prod & i write when my thoughts & emotions are like a vast savannah laid out before me, everything plain to see.

i write to bring my own bird into flight. to free myself from my self-imposed cages.

fly into the light

i write to be my own desert oasis.

oasis at joshua tree

thanks, daily post.

the way i treasure my body: a tribute

For our final assignment, tell the tale of your most-prized possession. If you’re up for a twist, go long — experiment with longform and push yourself to write more than usual.

Lately, I’ve been indulging in these daily prompts. As I reflected on this one, I immediately thought, “My most prized possession? I don’t think I have one!” Then, after a moment’s thinking outside of the box, I knew what my most prized possession is: my body.

---

my body

tending a garden using my body

when i was a young girl i used my body to climb trees. i was like a little monkey then, scrambling and scuffling amid branches, up and down trunks. sometimes i’d stay in trees for hours pretending i was a mother monkey. one christmas i got a set of “babies” that fit in a snug fanny-pack carrying case. i was SO excited to receive those triplets because what i most wanted to do with them was scuttle up that tree & pretend we were all sitting up there. and then i was so content just to sit up there pretending with my children. thinking back on it now, that was the peak of my satisfaction then, climbing a tree as a mother monkey, babies in tow.

some things have changed since those days. though these things remain: i still love to climb trees, i still have no children of my own, and i still love to use my body in all manner of ways. when i think of my most prized possession, in fact, it is my body which comes to the fore. recently my partner and i moved to the appalachians where we have been experimenting living on an old homestead. we’ve planted potatoes (sweet & not), herbs for tea & medicine & kitchen, carrots, tomatoes, arugula & flowers. we’ve worked on the old shack we’ve been staying in- putting boards, rat wire & steel wool up to keep mice out. we’ve looked into running a pipe from the stream to our shack, which is off the grid, to have easier access at doing dishes, getting water for cooking, drinking & bathing. we’ve met the neighbors & put down some roots. we’ve traveled to the nearby mountain during a festival and sold some hats we got in Peru. all in all, we’ve been settling in and wondering if this could be a place that we eventually build a house & put further homesteading dreams on the ground.

last night, however, many of our dreams finally came crumbling to the ground – maybe they were even aflame and burning down! you see, my partner’s parent’s best friends recently lost one of their tribe to the hantavirus, a virus carried by deer mice (also known as field mice). this has made us cautious from the start about the horrible end-game possibilities of living with mice. and there are deer mice all over our shack; pooping in corners, on our food bins & counters and scurrying about as the dawn breaks or shortly after we retire for bed. it’s all too much! we’ve been putting so much effort into living in this place (and mouse-proofing it!) and really hoped it could be a place we could settle our dreams in, but health is more important.

our current shack sure is cute & we love it, but the problems with the mice have proved to be too much.

in the end, my body is more important. because this is the vehicle that gets me through life. my breathing is my primary contact with this earth. respiration in and out of my lungs, taking in the earth, letting it feed me down to my cells, and exhaling back into the greater whole. where would i be without my body? i cannot allow molds, funguses, air-borne viruses or any other silent, lurking, invisible slow “killers” to find a home in my primary home, my body!

it feels sad to choose to leave this place. i am grieving today as i tie up loose threads around the property & carry things to again be wisely placed into our car. and while i am feeling this sadness & grief in my body, i am also breathing in my body, and feeling thankful for this opportunity, for the chance to experiment in this way on this beautiful appalachian homestead with its cool sweet mountain fresh spring water, drinkable straight from the source; for its wild delightful mountain air; for its trees & people. for it really is a lovely place. but, in the final count, i need my body, my sacred temple which allows me to interface so freely & jubilantly with the world outside of myself.

for you see, i would be a much different person if i didn’t have my body. being active has always been a part of my life. from taking 6 weeks to ride my bike up the west coast from LA to BC, Canada (you can read more about that awesome journey here: ourdailyride.wordpress.com); playing D1 college soccer; taking innumerable bike rides all over Indiana, Maine, Missouri, California, & Oregon; being a massage therapist for a time; being an outdoor guide & climbing mountains, rock climbing, hiking for days; trekking with my beloved recently in Peru… i use my body for so many things in my life. and i have been with it through sicknesses and challenges and anemia & weak adrenals. when this happens, i feed it what it needs; take proper medications, and i always eat so well.

i have gone through high school in my body, when it looked different than it does now. i have learned to cut the hair of my own body (and shaved my head twice!). i’ve made love with my body, and pushed myself to run faster with my body; two activities which leave me feeling relieved, but in drastically different ways. i have taken pictures of my nude body and posed my body for group shots, for fancy events, family photos, outings with friends & art projects. i’ve felt water in oceans, bathtubs, showers, rivers, cenotes, streams, ponds & puddles caress and careen my body. i’ve grown food via my body & eaten tons of it! i’ve put clothes on my body, gone without clothes & i’ve rubbed mud all over my body,

see! happily rubbing mud all over my awesome body

 

i’ve done so many things with/via my body! my body is my primary focal point as i live. through body-based therapies i’ve learned to listen to my body to find out where emotions are speaking from, and through doing this, i’ve gotten more in touch with my body & emotions. i’ve learned how to use my body to help free my mind. and i love using my body to pleasure myself and others of my choosing. this vehicle through which i travel this globe is my most important possession. i choose to possess and carry it with as much wisdom as i have in any given moment. and if i see that i’ve been making choices that are unwise for my body, i will change those things so that i can live in greater alignment with health and well-being. because my body is an awesome gift & i want to use it the best way i possibly can for many more years to come!!!

contrast: to differ strikingly

a rose, by any other name, would be just as fair

what of a kid
what’s the contrast there?

thanks to the daily post for the inspiration:

“Light and dark, tall and short, happy and sad — this week, share a shot that captures a contrast.”

in the garden of freely written weeds

thanks for the inspiration, daily post 🙂

“Today is a free writing day. Write at least four-hundred words, and once you start typing, don’t stop. No self-editing, no trash-talking, and no second guessing: just go. Bonus points if you tackle an idea you’ve been playing with but think is too silly to post about.”

good thing i started this this morning in my usual pre-writing warm-up of writing whatever the fuck wants to come out!

Good, she slipped in past the gates. The guards were enamored by her shiny plaits, not even realizing what slips under their gaze. Superficial sally subterfuges willy wonky heart spirals. Tombstone groomstone hello moonstone. Sapphire giraffe fire hello backfire . hello goodbye rye stye eye fly. Hello good morn jello mold uncle horn. Jello mold uncle horn reborn true form hello goodbye 4 3 8 stye one time fly by fire fly fire fly uncle jump yellow trunk hay bale dry spell uncle wren hi then queen lace dread face xylophone instigate yellow jacket I elate relate uncle hay bale dale frail ol mail female red grail holy snail junk pail sex fire 4 trie quail egg remake 7 8 2 1 sally subterfuge has won.

okay okay okay, so the idea i want to write about is actually spoken of in this daily prompt in the words, “the rational mind doesn’t nourish you.”

when i say, slipping past the guards/gates, that is exactly what i’m talking about! i see the gates/guards as…

the rational mind …

the rational mind as a kind of trap, a filter that inhibits us from reaching full heights/depths/potentials of thought/imagination … we’re going places kid and the rational mind can only take you so far.

one time i lived with a famous writer & that’s what she told me … you get to a certain point in the creative process where the mind doesn’t help you at all. at this point, you just have to be washing the dishes or going for a walk in the woods or lighting the peace pipe for ceremony and then

WHAM!

that’s when the “good idea” “better” “best” idea comes forth… the mind can only take you so far … and then there is mystery that moves through us.

 

And isn’t that what all good writers try to do (of course good is a subjective in my own head)? to try to write the spark of life into their words? (you can quote me on that one, dear wordpressers.)

 

From time to time i have written stuff that i look back on and think, wow, that’s actually got merit … maybe i should harvest a bit from that piece. the piece could’ve been hidden for years in the antiquated folders of my computer.. such a post a came upon the other day.

 

i think i wrote it while i was housesitting on a mountain in southern california, in a home where i could see the city of LA from the mountains in the evenings. it sure made me think… here’s an unedited, spur-of-the-moment piece from then 🙂 :

 

You are the artist

We give you space and trinkets and wine

You are the artist, after all,

And you might need it to take the edge off

From all of your midnight wandering up lake ave at night

To reach the mountains and see the city

An indeterminable call that wells up

And froths forth from your mouth

So we’ll take the froth, collect it in little jars

Bottle it and sell it, maybe even around the world

And we’ll feed you wine, you might need I to take the edge off

Tear the edge off the world, to reach center

 

 

 

 

When the world says you are a writer

Write for us and share oh please share as if your life depends on it and so does ours

And so does ours

My gender pronoun of choice is us

What do you adore

 

I cannot live without you garden

 

Oh my god I am sick with your words mary you cut right to the point and present your poems as is you are some dark cryptic grave the shell that breaks open to reveal the lifeseed sprouting

In each of us!

If I can tell you anything tonight through my words

It is that the creative spark is in each of us

Did you hear me

It is not relegated to any one other than you tied up in your very same flesh

You amid the mud and pinnings of culture and ways we do this around here

If I could give you just one glimpse of the nature within

One waft for your glorious sniffer of the scent of freedom

If I could cast a little light on your trail right night

Your trail which is your very own which is your vewy own

How can I say again what cannot be said

Only felt

A  felt sence so I bring attention to it now

I call from the top of the mountains are you listening

Bring your self forth

Bring your self forth

firewood haiku

firewood haiku

first heat: collecting
second: there’s heat in sawing
lastly, in winter

sex me again

ass if … that title needs more to get your attention! hahaha~

thanks for the inspiration, daily post!

If you could relive the past week, would you? Would you change anything?

 

it’s about time i get back to writing about sex. the word conjures up unfathomable images into countless minds, bodies, hearts, beings. sex. an activity different than all the rest. sex. an activity possibly outside of time & space. sex. a first word that as a kid that i would look up in the back of school textbooks, notice within last names (sexton; giggle!) & hardly say out loud in my conservative upbringing.

but as i grow in age, years .. no, moss hasn’t started forming on the tip of my nose yet! .. and experience, i find that sex, this so mysterious, so miraculous, so fucking mundane it’s magical! activity is one of my favorite activities that i go back to again and again.

last night there was sex in my dream… with a stranger from calgary. his primary penis (i know, he had more than one!) reached to his chin (guess that means he’s potent?!) and his second penis (i know, it gets weirder!) was like a sea-polyp with a fat, hard head and a thin, grass-like base. the stranger sex was exhilarating and when i met up with my main partner again in the dream, i told him it wasn’t that bad that i had done that (primarily without talking with him first!) and likened it to eating different varieties of cherry tomatoes as compared to whole, big tomatoes! hah! as if that makes sense…

this week i’ve had a lot of sex! and i love it! my partner and i are still learning how to please one another better, continually experimenting in our own ways … because i love him so much, sex takes on something beyond just the physical. it turns into a spiritual/ sacred act for us. there’s no special ritual for this, but the connection between us catapults us into a loving, sacred connection nevertheless. and it’s been like this since the first few times we had sex. i remember one of the first times we both shot out laughing in ecstasy after we climaxed, brains cleaned, energy bodies refreshed.

now it’s not always like this (just in case you got really jealous there 😉 , but who’s comparing?! i hope you have some good sex in your life too!). and sometimes we don’t even climax … which is really nice as putting too much pressure on that end-goal every time can get boring, repetitive, or take me out of the moment too much.

yet in thinking over the past week, one thing that stands out is the great sex we’ve had. i finish feeling warm (love all those hormones!) … a warm feeling all over, in my body & in my spirit … more connected to myself, my body, my partner … i love sex! 

what about you? what are some of your favorite things/ feelings about sex?

knowing the hidden things

thanks for the inspiration, daily post!

We all have anxieties, worries, and fears. What are you scared of? Address one of your worst fears.

Today’s twist: Write this post in a distinct style from your own.

 

knowing too much. hearing your (thoughts). hi, nice to meet you. (well aren’t you sure hot, i’d love to bang you.) stammers, hey, how you doin’? … and then the time came when the risk was greater to remain in the bud … than to bloom. can i hear people’s (thoughts)? whose (thoughts) are they, mine or yours? a rising between us? fodder for healing?

(I feel like she is disrespecting me, but I won’t say anything; I’ll just keep smiling.)
Yeah, good to see you! (Boy, I really want to get out of here; this conversation is boring!) 
(I really hate myself! God, I am so ugly & imperfect.)

for some time now I’ve been questioning what the voices were in my head. when i’d get around someone old or someone new, new thoughts would enter my brain. thoughts i usually don’t have when i’m alone. is an extra sensory perception growing from within me? i’m afraid of knowing everyone’s thoughts. some, i just plain don’t want to know!

fear. lust. anger. jealousy. lying. cheating. hiding. thoughts of mal-intent faked by a smile. thoughts of inadequacy. thoughts of difference, otherness & being “better than”. Sex sex sex sex. fear. lying. rage. tumult. opinion. greed. the desire to know. nervousness. bigotry. judgment.

and also

love. joy. acceptance. gratitude. greatness of being. generosity. kindness. beneficial intention. dreams. beauty. love love love love….

i hear all of these things. i can sense your thoughts/feelings, and i am still growing into this perception. no, it’s not a “worst fear”, but the newness of coming into this perception is scary and brings up feelings of fear in my body. i can witness the fear as it moves through in big trembling winds. and passes. as the fear passes, as it always does, and i remain, cultivating love, breathing & growing in understanding of this growing perception. hell, it’s even scary to write about this; to disclose this. but it’s okay. i can learn how to use this in the best way. in fact, i already know how – i’m relearning how to best use my powers. and this one: knowing the hidden things. and treating them with care. myself with care. & with love.

coneflower

ech-i-naesh-eee ya

yella rudbeckia