" "How then," Taran exclaimed, feeling perplexed as he had ever been, "do you count on baskets and nets to bring you what you need?" He looked at the man in astonishment.
"That I do," replied Llonio, laughing goodnaturedly. "my holding is small; I work it as best as I can. For the rest - why, look you, if I know one thing, it's this; Life's a matter of luck. Trust it, and a man's bound to find what he seeks, one day or the next."
"Perhaps so," Taran admitted, "but what if it takes longer than that? Or never comes at all?
"Be that as it may," answered Llonio, grinning. "If I fret over tomorrow, I'll have little joy today."
So saying, he clambered nimbly onto the weir, which Taran now saw was made not to bar the flow of water but to strain and sift the current. Balancing atop this odd construction, seeming more cranelike than ever as he bobbed up and down, bending to poke and pry among the osiers, Llonio soon gave a glad cry and waved excitedly.
Taran hurriedly picked his way across the dam to join him. His face fell, however, when he reached Llonio's side. What had caused the man's joyful shout was no more than a discarded horse bridle.
"Alas," said Taran, disappointed, "there's little use in that. The bit's missing and the rein's worn through."
"So be it, so be it," replied Llonio. "That's what Small Avren's brought us today, and it will serve, one way or another." He slung the dripping bridle over his shoulder, scrambled from the dam, and with Taran following him set off with long strides through the grove of trees fringing the river."
So..... what has the river brought the Mathias family this week? A reminder that we can indeed rely on what we know, what we can learn, and what we can create to help ourselves.
A couple weeks after I wrecked our beautiful truck, I developed a horrible rash on virtually every bit of skin I possess. Like the worst chicken pox stories you've ever heard, I itched from my toes to my ears. The rash however, did not present with a typical, diagnosable pattern. It wasn't chicken pox or topical dermatitis from an external allergen. We could identify nothing that I'd done differently in my diet or environment that could have caused the reaction. And, as any little kid can tell you, all the messy oatmeal baths and chalky lotions only help the grown-ups who are trying to make you feel better feel better. Allergy medication did finally make the itch sensation bearable but it never eliminated it nor did it remove the odd thickening and texturization of my skin.
After two weeks of the torture, I began focusing on supporting my liver and cleansing the blood with lots of raw beet salad, nettle tea, and clay baths. It made my heart and mind feel better to be doing something. I'd reached the conclusion that my body was trying to process the residual toxins from the stress of the crash and dealing with the insurance company as well as the chemicals in the pain medication and dissolvable sutures. In addition, this was the last month of the year - 4th quarter for an accounting and payroll firm. I added a supplement specifically for my adrenal glands, put my back to the load, and pushed on.
Christmas arrived with a wonderful gift from Jeff's parents: DVD's from the Great Courses company. We watched some lectures from the Mysteries of the Microscopic World course, including a fabulous lecture on the 1918 Flu. A few days later, we switched to the Stress and Your Body DVD because I couldn't watch the subsequent microscopic worm lectures - they made me itch so bad I couldn't stay in the same room!!!
The river swept the banks, whispering soothing sounds and brought us the lecture titled "The Nuts and Bolts of the Stress Response". And I remembered. Jeff and I had studied the 1918 flu from the book Herbs and Influenza by Kathy Abascal while on Vashon Island where she makes her home. Wikipedia does an admirable job providing a synopsis of the Pandemic, drawing heavily on John M. Barry's noted text The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Greatest Plague in History. The website states:
"Most victims were healthy young adults, in contrast to most influenza outbreaks, which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or weakened patients...Tissue samples from frozen victims were used to reproduce the virus for study. This research concluded, among other things, that the virus kills through a cytokine storm (overreaction of the body's immune system), which perhaps explains its unusually severe nature and the concentrated age profile of its victims. The strong immune system reactions of young adults ravaged the body, whereas the weaker immune systems of children and middle-aged adults resulted in fewer deaths."In his Great Courses lecture, Stanford University Professor Robert Sapolsky showed a similar response of the autonomic nervous system to chronic psychological stress. Our body's stress response systems simply doesn't turn off - it continues to trigger and complete fight-or-flight mechanisms even after the acute physical threat has ceased. My nervous system was in overdrive, and I had been shoveling coal in the firebox. It was one of those "D'oh" moments.
In the next days, I continued supporting the cleansing work of my liver but stopped focusing on the adrenal response. Instead of slathering my skin with creams meant to combat an allergen, I took hot baths and then, with the skin soft and pores open, I massaged in St. John's Wort oil. We'd gathered the flower last Summer in the edge zone between our farm and the wilderness forest and infused them in organic olive oil. In addition, I began taking the California Poppy tincture we made our first Summer here to help soothe my frazzled system. Four days later, I've mostly stopped itching. My skin is returning to normal and I've regained emotional equilibrium.
It's tough. I told Jeff that the height of an itching disease is a terrible time to start looking for a cure to the itch. It's almost impossible to think of anything but the itch. All I could manage was the top two or three items on the Priority List and then I was simply incapable of focus. This meant that I could go to work and function as an accountant but I was pretty detached from my coworkers and friends there. I could make birthday cakes and holiday dinners but I would have greatly preferred to be in the tub coated with clay than enjoying the celebration with my lovely family. That's no fun.
Not itching is much better. Not itching because I understood the imbalance and had the knowledge and resources at hand to restore health to my weary system ---- that's priceless.
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