“What I had, then and still have now, is something a lot to offer, teach and give. All of it time-tested and Mother approved.  Through the best of times and the worst, these practices have engaged my senses in Beauty and saved me from succumbing to overwhelming pain and despair.”

Hello again Lovelies,

Welcome to part two of the story. When I launched EngagingtheSenses.com at the end of 2011, I had a fleshy outline in hand and a signed contract with a well published editor for New World and Penguin. The time was now. After years of believing, working, weaving, and wading through the life’s tide pools…it was time to dive in!  I was ready, or so I thought….I couldn’t have imagined or accepted then that I would end up with motor nerve damage and be unable to write regularly for years to come. Nor would I have been able to accept the other losses and minor tragedies that have followed like books one after another falling off a shelf. More than my fair share..?

Though I did my best to keep my chin up, to focus on and Be the Beauty I loved and love, the years of unbroken pain, broken sleep and shattered nerves left me a shadow of myself.  Much of the time I lived outside my thin pain riddled limbs. Engaging my senses had sustained my soul! Now it was my body’s turn to heal. I moved to LA to get the medical care and neurological physical therapy I needed. It was hard but it was happening. I was recovering. I really was and I was also about to start writing the book. It was just before christmas 2014. Finally… I had three whole weeks to myself and then it happened. Out of blue. I never saw it coming. That made it even harder. Betrayal became the straw that broke my heart and allowed me to contract an autoimmune disorder. I was sick to the very core of my being. Even in sleep there was no reprieve.  I woke several time a night covered in sweat already in pain  because my stomach burned and my heart roiled. I was covered in rashes….You may have noticed that blog posts have been fewer and farther between since January. Just after christmas, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s.  There aren’t words to describe how very, very ill, empty and depleted. I almost died.. it might have been easier.

Begin to Listen from Within

It has been the hardest climb up I’ve ever experienced. The seemingly personal nature of the act… I now know that both nothing and everything is personal. And that what we do and don’t is a reflection of who we are. What I knew and chose then  was and is to keep my heart open and allow myself to feel everything, no matter what. Not all at once, but all of it in good time. It was and is an act of Self-preservation.

.. to do the work I have waited a life time to do there was and is no other way but to come from the heart and stay in the light. No matter what! 

I am recovering. I don’t throw up when the sun hits my solar plexus anymore, and I often sleep through the night.  Right now there is little if any margin. And yet, the healing is incremental and undeniable. And so I begin once again, inspired by Susannah’s  ecourse, to engage anew through the lens of photo meditation!

a new cover for my writing journal. It feels really good to be starting a new notebook and a new phase of life.

Happy Independence Day…Engagingly yours,  xoxoxoxSabrina