Here is something I hear all the time, “It’s all about awareness, we just need to raise awareness“. I always just itch to ask, “why?”. Why do you want to raise awareness? What will it do? I mean literally. Yes more people will know about the specific disease but what then? Here’s the thing, there are too many illnesses, we can’t possibly be aware of all of them at once! I don’t know how much you carry around in your head every day but personally, I have a limit, and there are already big sections dedicated to what I’m reading and writing, what Linus is saying (because he is most important…

It’s a new year and we are all so happy, excited, rip-roaring with delight towards all our new plans on our clean plates. Or perhaps not. How does the new year affect you when you are living with chronic illness? Facebook is full of resolutions to exercise every day, eat healthily, drink more water, loose weight, get fit, run a marathon, write a novel or take embark on a daily photography project. * Maybe you can’t get out of your pyjamas. * Maybe you have tried exercising more, and you relapsed. * Maybe you want to be well, to have toned muscles and cheerful thoughts but it’s just not where…

Yesterday I went to school in my bikini and scuffed old cowgirl boots. No, I wasn’t wearing just that, calm down dear. It is December, after all. I was in a lot of pain and the thought of putting on proper clothes was just more than I could stand. You know those days when everything hurts so much that you don’t want people to come within 5 feet of you, let alone have clothes weighing down your limbs and cutting into you? It was one of those. So we picked out my softest loosest clothes, fabrics like bamboo and soya and, as it happens my bikini. Did I perhaps look…

This earth, and all it’s birdsong, orchids, teacups, and toffee is already a living paradise. Perhaps we incarnate to experience sheer joy.   For ourselves and for the Divine.   After all, God/dess cannot run through a field, play with a puppy, paddle in the sea, enjoy a foot rub, savour freshly picked broad beans or make love. But we can, and through us, God/dess feels this delight. We need to feel joy so the Divine can experience these treasures. Maybe the world is meant to be beautiful.   In the Celtic traditions the world has good and bad equally alike in it, where curses are blessings and the bitter…