Chapter 1 

About Me

I am writing this book for herbal practitioners.  I constantly mention herbs, and expect you to go to the many fine herbal books already published to research uses.  I repeat myself in various sections of the book because that is the way I learned to hold onto information.  You will read indications, hear stories, see tables and view drawings.  My intention is that the message sinks in on as many levels as possible.  The herbs I mention along the way are suggestions, not absolutes.  I certainly do not have all the answers.  Herbs are to be tested and confirmed from your own repertoire and maybe mine.  Jot down herbs you use successfully and draw lines you see on people into the pages of this book.  Share new markings you discover with me!  This is a sturdy book and meant to be used.  I explain very complex studies, like amino acids, in simplistic terms hoping to tease you into learning more.  I hope you enjoy this book. 

As practitioners, people will be drawn to us for the unique gifts we have created from our own life experiences.  Sit quietly and view your life to see what your unique gifts are.  What are your occupations, schooling, family life experiences, and personal experiences with health issues, therapy, life changes, and belief systems?  What other experiences have made you who you are?  Are you a serious person?  Is laughter a big part of your expression?   Singing?  Physical therapy?  Nursing?  Mothering?  Movement?  Does science excite you?  Value the work you have done and what you know. Do you just want the facts of the current complaint or do you enjoy the life stories of clients?  Is your gift sitting for twenty minutes and knowing the right herb? Are you a single-herb practitioner or a mixer?  Be who you are, don’t play a role.  It is you that your clients are drawn to, so be yourself!   Clients are drawn to you for your distinctive blend of knowledge and gifts.  Let me introduce myself and tell you of my colorful background. 

I am Margi Flint, and I have an herbal practice in idyllic Marblehead, Massachusetts.  Marblehead is a beautiful seacoast town that I have served, and it in turn has very nicely served me.  I have a family practice. People of all ages come for consultation.  All issues of health seeking and coping with disease “being out of ease”, enter through the doorway for herbal insights.  That’s where the term “Practicing Herbalist” came from.  I practice as I learn each issue, each herb, each constitution, and each spiritual effect.  I have had overlapping careers.

I have always loved to teach.  I taught Head Start back in the sixties and early seventies in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain, MA.  I loved those children and spent hours after school gathering supplies for them.  I soon realized I was incapable of detachment.  Teaching Head Start taught me to recognize the great potential in all people.  It also opened my eyes to the great injustices in our world. 

Teaching in middle school and high school taught me to learn not to peg people by appearance or by other teachers’ opinions.  Every human is capable of growth and the expression of joy.  I began to feel the power of thought being the absolute greatest force we can call on.

I began my herbal path in the 1970’s at the Gaia Herb Seminar, held at the 4-H Retreat Center in Ashland, MA.  I was in art school, waitressing nights and weekends, and had left my Greek husband.  Why did I leave him? Here is a good example of the power of thought.

I was unhappy.  I felt trapped in a marriage.  I was twenty-two.  My sister Kitty’s first baby, aged three and a half, had just died of cancer.  I was looking for security in the bond of marriage.  He was intriguing, from a foreign land and smooth, saying all the things I wanted to hear.  None of it was true.   After three months he said that we were married, I had to do what he said.  Our differences grew, as did my feelings of fear and confinement.  I developed symptoms.  If I didn’t leave the marriage my body would give me a route out.

A doctor sat across the wide expanse of his desk and papers and told me it was stress, some endocrine issue, or cancer of the pituitary.  I didn’t even know what my pituitary was.  He was cold.  If it was cancer there would be nothing to do, a year and six months to live.  I was to be X-rayed quarterly to observe changes in the calcium deposits around the pituitary and have mammograms to observe changes in my breasts.  Well, as I sat alone in the back of a cab in rush-hour traffic along the Charles River I thought “I’m not staying with this man if I only have months to live!”  I called my parents, packed up all my belongings and went home.  The first in my family to be divorced.  My parents helped me move and cooked my favorite meal.

I had undergone three of the four tests at Mass General Hospital.  I had thrown myself into art school and was dancing every night to blow off steam.  My symptoms began to disappear.  I danced and drew.  I was wild, and serious about my art.  I was nicknamed “Mother Earth”.  I lived.  I decided not to complete the tests. I felt I was impressionable.  If they told me I would die then I would.  So, I shifted into studying herbs, doing yoga, taking vitamins, seeing a Chiropractor, an Acupuncturist and reading spiritual books.  I shifted away from alcohol and men in bars.  I was actively raising my vibration.  Meditation and the quest for a spiritual life began.  I was creating myself with intention.

I taught art and Polarity Therapy in the 70’s and 80’s.  I married again, a twinkly-eyed improvisational jazz pianist spiritual boy.  Two beautiful babies were conceived and born at home through this union of the arts. We had a home full of music, creative juice and the constant coming and going of friends.  The guys would practice as I worked on etching plates and watched my Sarah, baby Gabe and little Hannah play or sleep. Hannah was James’ only child, a five-year old angelic being who fit right into our home life, tucked into bed with Sarah on those late nights of artistic fervor.  Days spent pulling the little red wagon to the local beaches in between working.  The marriage lasted all of five years, while those children I prayed for are souls with whom I continue to experience the depths of caring, sorrow, and joy.  Their dad focused on his own path. What I asked for was children.

The Gaia Herb Symposium sounded interesting.  There were forty-five or fifty people there, including the cooks and teachers, and we just thought it was huge.  One teacher I met and fell in love with was California girl, Rosemary Gladstar.  We admired each other’s lace petticoats.  I showed her my portfolio of etchings.  I soon began her correspondence course as a trade for my etchings.  At the same time, I began my career as an artist.

At that same Gaia Herb Symposium, I met David Winston, a founder of Herbalist & Alchemist and the American Herbalists Guild.  On the tables we sat, legs swinging, watching the people filter past us returning to their cars and lives after the symposium.  As the last people left, we continued our comfortable conversation like kids back home on a stonewall.  Since I had small children, and David lived in the Garden state, I hired him to come to my house and teach me what I wanted to learn.  I would gather a class together so that he would make enough money, and I would learn his wonderful blending of traditional medicine and science. He would also share one evening of talking about “remaking yourself, the path to becoming human”, the importance of dreams, stories and personal ritual.  Those evening stories were intimate kitchen and living room experiences that my kids still talk about.

Thanks to those two teachers and constant attendance at local seminars on herbal medicine, I began my path.  Soon afterwards, I began attending all herbal symposiums within New England.  Pam Montgomery held Green Nations Gathering in the Catskill Mountains.  There, I discovered the diagnostic teachings of William LeSassier.  I enjoyed many excellent teachers to excite my desire for deeper learning.  Then herbs took over my life completely.

In 1989, the Womens Herbal Conference, brainchild of the late Gail Ulrich, was tiny.  Those first years we camped on her rambling properties holding classes under the shade of blossoming apple trees.  We washed our dishes in rubber tubs and went without showers.  The feeling was intimate and nourishing.  My greatest gift to my daughter, Sarah, during her adolescent years was taking her with me.  Sarah has joined me at the Women’s Herbal since she was eight years old.  I think the last Women’s Herbal Conference had around 850 women participants.  The impact of positive attitudes shared by these women has had a huge effect on the woman Sarah is today.  The thoughts she carries in her heart toward moon-time, budding, aging, and the variety of shapes in bodies has developed healthy self-esteem.  She is all any mother could wish for.

Rosemary very conveniently moved east.  I joined her first east coast apprenticeship class.  As a teacher, I look back on this inaugural class, composed of headstrong, opinionated women and feel much sympathy for her.  We were so anxious to share what we knew that poor Rosemary barely got a chance to teach.  I can still see her in the front of the class with her patient smile, eyes raised to the ceiling, as one of us babbled on.

In my own classes, I sometimes get a chatty student who fills up a lot of class time.  I remind them that they already know what they know…. perhaps they might listen to receive the information they paid for.  Closet by closet, floor-by-floor, hour-by-hour, my life began to be filled with herbs.  The refrigerator had strangely packaged stuff in it.  I remember Gabe eating a vaginal bolus thinking it was candy.  Poor thing.  The kids really were part of my learning adventures.  They were the innocent recipients of my medicinal teas and early formulas.  And they did survive. 

Margi’s previous life as an artist

Etchings are created on wax-coated zinc plates, dipped in nitric acid, etched until the groove is the desired depth.  The plate is then cleaned, inked, hand wiped and run through an etching press to produce one print.  The process is repeated until the artist is satisfied.  My editions never exceeded 100 prints.

I began teaching tiny classes: how to make salves, herbs for family care.  Once I started teaching, I couldn’t stop.  I have a passion for herbs.  I learned that I could enjoy my work and have passion for work that truly feeds my soul. 

My friend Rosemary Gladstar orchestrated The International Herb Symposium: Traditional & Modern Uses of Herbal Medicine.  It was fondly referred to as “The World Church of the Holy Clovers”.   I was exposed to the top herbalists from around the planet.  Awakening, inspiring and humbling.

I also labor-coached for twenty years.  Being involved with birth, the first breath of life, has brought awe to my perception of life.  I try to retain that wonder with each person I see.  I am involved with people from before they are born, track them and enjoy their childhood and young man or womanhood.  I have practiced long enough to see my baby clients enter their birthing years!  I am a part of, not apart from this town.

My practice is very simple.  I try to keep it pretty manageable.  I tend to see one new client in the morning and one new client in the afternoon.  Now that eight years have passed since the third edition, things have changed.  One client in the morning when I am fresh, and the duration of the day to accomplish the rest of life.  Consults take an hour and a half, preparing formulas and billing another half-hour or two hours. Established clients guesstimate their re-visit time in 15-minute increments.  During re-visits, we will alter their formula to adjust to the improvements or to switch the flavors or forms of treatment.  The rest of the day I spend formulating, preparing salves or teas or tinctures for the office, preparing for classes, unloading herb orders or answering never-ending phone calls.  The desk has an ever-growing pile of papers.  Filing takes way too much time.

The practice helped to raise the kids too.  I know that the energy of the herbs has permeated the entire house. The herbs have powers that are sometimes subtle and all pervasive.  The overall peaceful, yet at times hectic nature of the practice has exposed the children to aspects of human nature and imbalance they wouldn’t see in a non-working home.  They have been a part of my office often, either by running through it, or by helping to prepare products, their shining beautiful faces looking lovingly up at my clients.  Ultimately, the kids would see what it’s like to fall into ill health or dis-ease, and I think it has helped them to make better choices in their lives about what they will put into their bodies and just whom they want to hang around with.  When they have pursued the temptations of their peers, they still have what they were raised on as a meter for their decisions.  Don’t get me wrong; we have not escaped the drama and heartbreak that all parents do.  I did the best I was able to protect them and I love those big babies no matter what frightening thing comes next.  Life.

Polarity Therapy taught me the power of energy work to release the buildup of cellular memory in the physical body.  I would recommend that anyone in the healing arts attune themselves to some form of energetic awareness.  After a few years of psychosynthesis and studying Polarity Therapy, I married once more.  This time I chose a man I thought was a good father, provider, and friend.  Michael’s daughter Emily joined our family on the weekends.  Hannah needed a loving home, and I already loved her.  My husband stated, ”No, we don’t have the money to feed another mouth.”  I said it was about a child not money.  Sometimes family is bound by more than blood.   She moved in.  Hannah grieved and completed high school and was loved by us.  Some days, I cancelled everything and held her while she felt her emotions.  Then we would walk or go out to the garden, and it would feel a little better each time.

My career as a gallery artist was at a high point.  The income from art sales carried my newfound addiction to studying and practicing with herbs, but my health was affected by the massive amounts of heavy metals in my system.  That year my body created a kidney infection, the result of many toxins from making that beautiful artwork and some psychological toxins from another destined-to-failure marriage.  Cobalt blue, cadmium, and zinc, not to mention benzene, asphaltum and a toxic array of solvents took their toll.  Two months lying on my side, slowly, carefully breathing.  Lots of intense pain with a side of broad-spectrum antibiotics.  Not fun.  And, the world went on without me.  Those two months taught me to have compassion for people in pain.  Pain is exhausting and takes the spirit to a low, and some days, hopeless, place.  And so, at the peak of my gallery career, I walked away.  My friends and family were aghast.  Well, walk away I did.  I stopped poisoning myself for “pretty”.  A few galleries continued to sell my work, which was a wonderful financial cushion.  I learned that you can walk away from fame and fortune to follow your true path.

Creating the balance in health for people is as valid an art form for me as my etchings were.  So, I really don’t miss my art at all because I’m still doing it.

Hannah Sparks when little

Sarah and Gabe when little

It took longer to wake up to my acceptance of the poisoning words and actions in relationships with men. My husband was the voice of goodness, a voice without actions to follow.  During our divorce my lawyer said, “Margi, you have more than most people in this courthouse, a loving family and a trust in your fellow man.  Don’t stop trusting men just because you chose a liar.”  Good, expensive advice.  Working hard allowed me to avoid the reality of betrayal and abandonment of commitment.  Why do I tell you all this?   Without support for change, a client may stay in a job or relationship void of happiness.  Life is about change and growth.  Personal choices are sometimes slow, sometimes fast, sometimes painful, sometimes unseen.  Your clients will need to make choices too.  Nudge them along.  Knowing and doing don’t always happen at the same time. 

It took me three years of therapy and trying my best to finally end my marriage.  As a practitioner, you may see the need for a shift before clients do.  Phrasing can be subtle yet deep.  Compassion for the human process is a necessary part of the job.  First learn compassion for yourself.  My Wasband and I continue to process our relationship, so that we enjoy our current partners in a better way.  The years went by and my Wasband appeared in my garden, apologized and asked forgiveness for the top issues we had shared.  And forgive I did.  We are on good terms.  He names products better than anyone, Ride and Glide© is his and the new line of male products are his as well.  You will crack up laughing.  He helps me and the kids whenever he can.  It feels so good, we who shared love with our dysfunctional protective devices coming between us for many years are now able to see each other, talk and process, and enjoy our current partners in a better way.  Practice, practice, practice.

Creativity really did not end when I stopped making etchings.  I work my art with clients who blossom into health, awareness and joy.  It’s very satisfying to have a client come in out of balance and not looking so pink and perky, and have them flower into the beauty of who they are before they walk out the door.  What greater creativity could there be?

I completed my application to become a professional member of the American Herbalists Guild.  The Guild is a peer-reviewed group of herbalists who “promote and maintain excellence in herbalism including individual and planetary health.”  I wanted to join the Guild to bridge the gap between herbal and modern medicines.  The next day the phone rang.  A sweet voice asked if I would do a lecture on herbs, for free, in Boston, at Tufts University School of Medicine.  “Sure.”  I responded.  “You will!  People will be eating their lunches and it will be one hour long.” the young Astrid Pujari said.  I agreed to go into the big city. 

I gave the lecture.  Students least supportive of integrative medicine asked to study with me.  Astrid called again and asked if I would teach a ten-week course, for free, at the medical school.  I said yes.  Astrid is currently with The Pujari Center in Seattle, WA, a fully integrated practice of holism.  The ripple.

We covered herbs for organ systems.  When the class began to glaze over with the overload of information that dominates our medical schools today, I would stop, jump into preparation of herbal products and play.

We made brain tonics, teas, salves, lip balms, massage oils, “Ride and Glide©”, bath salts and more.  The aromas would fill the room; the halls of abusive training would become Lavender fields and Rose bushes. The twinkle would return to their eyes.  Jaws would relax.  Shoulders would drop.  One day I turned from writing the body oil formula on the board to find all tops had dropped and the massage oils were being used!  Laughter cascaded and the simple joy of conversation filled the room.  Formaldehyde was forgotten. The exams put on the back burner.  People began to see each other as people again.  It was the most popular class of all of the pre-selective courses available.  I was supposed to have ten students.  I had up to twenty-four yearly.  We had fun.

The third and fourth year, I got smart and asked to be fully reimbursed for travel and supplies.  The medical students and I continued to enjoy the blessing of the plants and the exchange of knowledge.  We got to know each other in school and at times in consultation.  We had an organic, home-cooked meal at my home the last day of class for each group of students.  Warm food around a big table.   Candlelight and relaxation.  People felt free to bring instruments to play, or other simple sharing of their non-medical school lives. 

I began having office hours at Union Hospital in Lynn, MA.  This hospital truly uses integrated approaches to healing.  It had a healing atrium with classes in meditation, healing your heart, Qigong, Tai Chi, Acupuncture, Massage therapy, Reiki, dance, and Sound therapy.  Paula Gardiner, earth-worshipping medical student, was the organizing force behind a four-week clinical rotation offered to fourth year medical students.  Paula is a lovely, persistent bright light I adore.  I have adopted her as my own.  Her love of herbs supported her spiritually throughout her medical training.  She is now an MD and herbalist with a creative husband and two girls, Rowan and Ella.   She currently has office hours in Boston, teaches at herb seminars, and heads up integrative programs at Harvard and Tufts.

This clinical rotation was an accredited portion of the Tufts medical degree.  There was great diversity in this class.  In addition to the med students, we had organic farmers Rita Wollmering and Linn Stillwell. My Hannah took the month off and came home from Iowa to study.  Those four weeks were truly amazing.  We covered the entire beginning level apprentice program and saw clients daily.  The lecture series I organized had Ian White from Australia, formulator of Australian Bush Flower Essences, Deb Soule of Avena Botanicals, Betzy Bancroft from The Tracker School, Herbalist & Alchemist and United Plant Savers, Matthew Wood all the way from Sunnyfield Herb Farm in Minnesota, and many other well-respected practitioners from many modalities.

Our guest herbalists taught daily and gave evening lectures at Union Hospital.  We taught Flower Essences, Aromatherapy, all herbal preparations, formulation and facial diagnosis.  We ran an herbal clinic at the hospital to serve the community.  Sacred drum and prayer circle weekly.  That’s right, twenty-eight days of herbal whirlwind.  The exchange of information from this blend of spirits was fantastic.  The herbal spirit is a part of all their lives now. 

Rockport afternoon

We ended with an amazing medicine show.  Michael Greger, who had my favorite introduction line the first day of class “I am here to retrieve my soul.”  Tommy Priester in chaps, ribbon shirt and hat.  My parents accepted the invitation to this graduation, and for the first time, truly understood what my teaching was about.  Too bad it took the medical school affiliation to draw them in.  It was an exhausting adventure.  I had a minor nervous breakdown about a month later!

Alex Angelov was the doctor I saw when I broke down.  He had been recommended as an excellent, conscious, M.D., by numerous clients.  I entered his office disheveled and teary for the entire heart-centered visit.  At one point he looked me in the eye and said “We both dole out soup, dole out soup, when are you going to get in line?”  He recommended herbs, Flower Essences, walking in nature for an hour daily and cutting down on my client load.  He asked me to return in one month.  At that visit, I was back to myself.  He then asked if I would accept referrals from his practice.  We have been working together ever since.

I receive many referrals from doctors.  They were students or had patients of mine or have heard that I’m a practicing herbalist, and are comfortable referring clients to me.  Most don’t know the answers to the questions their patients are asking about herbs.  We are trying now to train more medical doctors in the use of herbal medicine.  In many countries, a medical degree is not given without a degree in phytotherapy.  Herbs are prescribed prior to pharmaceuticals in other areas of the world.  America is now waking up.  Another favorite person for me to refer clients to is Ray Waitekus, DO.   He is a great medical Doctor having traveled out of the U.S. and worked with indigenous healers.  He is quite open to plant therapies.  Find practitioners of many skills to fill in the responsible care of clients.  Now, I work with a Marc Sibella, D.O. who does hands-on work and has alleviated my numerous pains.  I change and my needs change.  The intention to help bring healing is shared by herbalists, doctors, pharmacists, and members of every path.

We are at a point of revolutionary change; an herbal renaissance.  The top schools, Tufts, Harvard, Cornell, and The University of Arizona, all have courses in herbal medicine.  Some have an official department, some don’t.  The door is open for continued working relationships between herbalists and doctors.  The size and acceptance of herbal medicine has definitely expanded, as has my practice.

I continue to hear from a third of the eighty-some odd devoted healers I taught at Tufts.  My students came into medical school with good intentions.  They are wonderful people today.  I feel good about my connection, my mission and the impact herbs had on their souls and in their practices.  They, in turn, are having good impacts on their world.  In these forty plus years of herbal-quest, I have given birth to Sarah and Gabe at home, had four major relationships plus one Goddess-child, Hannah.  I am blessed to have them all in my very full life.

I have endured surgeries.  Some saved my life.  All were very hard to recuperate from.  Most were full of surprises no matter how many questions I asked.  After one surgery, when I had stopped looking for the perfect father and love partner, Bill courted me.  A sensitive companion I never would have chosen.  He simply would not leave!  Twelve years shared with a gentle, quiet, pensive, pitta-vata man who taught me to laugh.  Life is so full of odd surprises.  He was always surprised that I maintained good relationships with my Wasbands, and now I do with him.  The kids refer to him fondly as their best father.  Well, love doesn’t die, it simply changes form.  

I now have a number of advanced classes and clinical programs for herbalists.  Virtually or live, monthly herbalists who want to hone their skills come to participate in “Practitioners Circle.”  Even when one of us cannot attend, the energy of the circle is strong.  Clients are able to attend at a sliding scale.  In this way, we weave in the community and they in turn allow us to practice on them.  It is a blast to come as a client; they receive the loving energy and focus of great herbal practitioners, my instructors’ comments and the wisdom of the circle.  This allows the client to go home spiritually supported and perhaps able to put more tea or a supplement into their budget.  Now I feel my energy is best spent teaching advanced classes. 

Just after my fiftieth birthday celebration, my earth-sister Gail came to my network of doctors and hospitals to find the cause of her illness.  Too late.  Remember that when a person has long-term candida or digestive issues there is a bigger cause.  The herbal community gathered to care for her, clean her house, cook her meals and rub her thinning body.  Her spirit was strong and clear to the very last breath three months later.

My dear herbal sister Gail Ulrich died of cancer in July of 2000.  Sarah and I were in a car accident, rear-ended at a red light, on the way to Gail’s funeral. 

Thanks to my acupuncturist, Lalou Bégué’s insisting on an MRI, a genetic carotid body tumor was discovered.  A knife to the throat.  I was told it is brought on by trauma and cobalt blue.  Now, how strange is that?  Really bad timing.  During those months, my Mom was always tired.  Bruising way too easily.  Gabe graduated from boarding school and we let out a sigh of relief.  Three days later he was off to New England Culinary Institute. 

What other background do I have?  I was fortunate to be raised by two wonderful, intelligent, loving, supportive parents.  All those years together, they still enjoyed fooling around and kidding with each other. They ran their business ethically, making sure all aspects were for the greater good.  They taught me those old-fashioned practices.  They have given me the example of giving back to your world and supporting your world in nature.  They donated part of their income to world peace, world health, and nature’s health. They also knew how to have a good time!  Two universities, one all Black, one all Native, a school in Jamaica and probably more they didn’t mention all thrived with their love.  They imparted a love and respect of all people, which has helped me to be, well, to not be a snob and to not be a prejudiced person, and that’s been a great gift.  I know that each day is a gift.  I am grateful.  Both were inspirations who have expired now. 

The week of Gabe’s graduation, my mother was diagnosed with terminal leukemia, only months to live.  I stalled my surgery for a date long past Mom’s proposed “date with her Maker”.  My sister Kitty flew up to share care giving for Mom with Dad, Sarah and me.  Kitty was simultaneously diagnosed with lymphoma and began undergoing chemotherapy.  That’s right.  Emotional overload.  I am including portions of two writings from this period of my life.  Please forgive my sentimental attachment.  These writings illustrate the intensity of transition, working toward healing, life and death, and acceptance.   

I remember going through transition when pregnant with Sarah.  In 1980 there was no question that we would have a home birth.  Our decision was partially due to extreme fears of hospitals and mostly because we trusted deeply in the process of nature.  Snug in the womb of our plant and music filled apartment, I labored.  Contractions began in earnest.  They were round, rolling up from the earth toward sky.  Our connection to all that is, all the mothers who gave birth before us, all the intensity of the desire for life to continue, all the energy we call on to give us the strength to be fully present.  We were in the pull of powers we had no control over, trusting in the wisdom of nature, her cycles, the ebb and flow.  Deep surrender.

Transition … My Mom is journeying into her big transition … leukemia … Months to live.  The contractions begin … feeling totally frustrated to lose Mom so young and so soon.  Daily I drive back and forth between two homes, juggling my herbal clients and teaching … I feel the pull of gravity, the tear of being forced to release when I don’t feel ready.  Yet I believe in the flow, allowing the deep, deep feelings to roll up from earth to sky.   To touch her arm and feel the warmth of her skin.  The familiar warmth and scent of my Mummy.  I offer her all the herbs and magic-earthy-pills I know of to help her regain her strength.

I remember being in transition with Sarah. I was through the worst of it and would have my baby in my arms soon. 

Now I feel like I am entering transition again.  Seeing clients and running clinic, some teaching, is all delayed until some unknown month in the future.  I have to change position to get through this.  Time becomes twilightish.  The days of the week and date of the month become irrelevant.  Nothing works.  My head is aching over my temples with brain cramp from trying to know the cure, what position to move to.  I take a deep, deep breath and surrender. 

A few short pushes, incredible burn, and whoosh …  Arms, eyes, fingers and toes opened to meet my eyes and the room filled with the smell of Roses.  Transition completed.  Birth of my Sarah Ellen ‘Princess of Light’.  All the intensity had such an incredible outcome.  My reward.

Today my baby sleeps upstairs and serves her grandmother during my Mom’s transition.  My world is shrinking as small as the apartment Sarah was birthed in.  The outside world has become unimportant.  … The veils become thinner as we journey into the flow.  My second born, Gabriel, is also journeying to his grandparents’ home … I was not the only one nurtured by the warmth of their love … She is the essence of “home” to so many; stability, security and warmth with a hearty dose of advice over a hot nutritionally balanced meal.

In my memory I will always have “home” as the long peaceful days spent in the woods, moss underfoot, duck in the briar ledge.  My home, a regularity of meals and bedtimes, of the child returning home to the security of simple existence.  My mummy sleeps now, labored breathing after another long day of being weak and exhausted.….

I wonder what this new transition will bring.  To be separated from the body of the mother I love so much.  To have the invisible umbilical cord created of earth cut.  I know there will be some reward.  I know that the contractions will eventually end and something wonderful will come of this. 

…  I must believe in the flow and trust in the process of Nature.  What will be birthed from this transition, from these long and irregular contractions?  The mystery opens before me.

As my mother would get swollen glands or whatever else arose, I would treat it herbally.  She continued to live and her will kept her going.  She was so strong.  My surgery was postponed.  I couldn’t have surgery until after… and Mum lived week after week.  My tumor grew and grew.  And suddenly, the second date had arrived and I had to have the surgery.  The tumor was big and fingered around both forks of my carotid, the vagus nerve and going up toward my ear.  Like a horror movie.  I couldn’t speak.  I was all swollen. And, I wasn’t just bouncing up and about like my Dad, sister Rebecca and everyone else in the family who had been operated on.  Gee, wonder why?  In two weeks, I was back caring for Mom.  My son was experiencing maximum first year exposure to all temptations of college life and falling into a deep dark pit.  Christmas was so hard.  Mom decided to end transfusions just as they stopped working.