THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK:

There is nothing like a good casserole. An ultimate comfort food, they are fast and easy, nutritious and filling. This one-pot wonder is certainly easy to serve, and with the addition of a salad you have a well-rounded meal to satisfy most palates.

Day one of radiation. I had my CT scan a few days ago and the technician tattooed three tiny black dots around my left breast to guide the radiation machine. Now it’s time to go into the oven every morning for 16 days. I’ve escaped chemo, but radiation is not a piece of cake, as one well-meaning friend ineptly put it.

Identifying a mind/body connection, I stopped managing an illness and focused on getting well instead.

We wake up and live virtually every day feeling like we have the worst unrelenting flu in the world. Our bodies feel like they’re wrapped tight in a cocoon of fire, lined with nails, fed by a constant current of electrical shocks. Our beds are ‘nests’ made up of memory foam, pillows, heating pads, fabricated ‘bridges’ to keep covers off the most painful parts of our bodies and whatever else we can find to try to make lying down comfortable. If we’re lucky, we might even mana

I wanted a better life. I needed to start making some different choices. My whole life I have been scared of not being seen, not being loved, not being enough — scared of getting old, of death, of gravity, of disapproval, of shame, of my own body. I was scared of this betrayal. I was the most desperate person in the lineup for love. It is my best kept secret.

As I convalesced, I devoured books on cosmology, quantum physics and life after death. In the quiet of my study during a dark and chilly Victoria winter, I listened to online interviews with scientists and spiritual teachers from around the world as they reflected on the evolution of our universe through its endless cycle of creation-destruction-creation.

Managing chronic pain is a full time job. After years of living with it, my ability to manage it and continue to work full time came to an end. ‘It’ then became my full time job.

Caterpillars spin themselves into a cocoon and undergo a miraculous transformation. From blindly inching along the ground, they turn into light-seeking winged creatures, so drawn to the light that they often go up in a brilliant blaze from flying too close to a flame.

The Woman in the Mirror... "She lacks confidence, she craves admiration insatiably. She lives on the reflection of herself in the eyes of others. She does not dare to be herself.”

I have come to this place in the river of my life and there is no turning back. It’s a universal law. Loss is etched in the body and if I am lucky enough to stay afloat, it is the deep red and blue threads in the tapestry of my heart. At worst, loss could rip me away from my moment in time and drown me. I have decided to go with the flow.

I feel this way about the loss of my love. I still carry sorrow–like a backpack of stones on my back. But now, years later, it is not weighing me down– it has become a part of me. I am no longer a victim. I see that I am only a woman who is living her life in all its fury and exhilaration. I have found my freedom–my own paradise; and it is freedom to choose.

Over the holidays I did what many of us do around that festive time of year; gave myself permission to eat more sugar, forgot about the importance of roughage and ignored the fact that eggnog probably doesn’t have much egg in it.

I grew up in northern Ghana in West Africa, in the heart of what could be called the global shea butter capital.

I embarked on a journey of self healing, discovery, and learning. It was amazing and it left me knowing that my purpose on earth is to share what I learned with other mothers.

This was the beginning of my ‘work’, it seems; to go, to see, to feel, to meet; to listen, to document and to learn. It was a constant seeking of understanding of all our variations in how to live wisely, under disparate conditions, in all of our amazing eco-systems—separately and in dialogue with each other.

Dreams are an essential part of the human experience. Dreaming is the ability to see beyond our present circumstances and to envision something better: something that connects with our own heart and spirit.

What am I going to do now? That question had been dogging me for months. The years after my mother’s death had been ones of transition. My husband and I had moved from the urban mainland to a rural island.

“…but what really got me fired up was when he told me I had three things working against me…” Do what you love. For some this comes easy, for others it’s hard. Working to pay the bills is a reality, but what if that work was something you enjoyed? Don’t settle. I see people taking jobs for the wrong reasons, like higher pay levels, but sacrificing happiness. I was five years old when my parents bought their first house.

There are so many ribbon campaigns now–green, white, yellow, purple and pink and because I am becoming cynical, most of them are losing some currency with me. But the pink one still pierces.

Sometimes I think its best to tell yourself you don’t live where you live. You have more adventures that way, and you can always leave town.