memories of Peru

* My two key Spanish phrases are "donde esta el bano?" (where is the bathroom?) and "yo necessito cerveza!" (I need beer!). In the cloud forests, Marianne and I were standing by the bathroom and I rescued a frog that was trapped in the bathroom stall, and as I held it, it jumped on my nose! Stunned momentarily, we started laughing when it jumped back toward the bathroom, and I said it was saying "donde esta el bano?!"

* I just loved the Yine children. I tried to show them how to do headstands at their recess, but I think they were a bit stunned at that one... I took loads of photos of them, they are so precious. I let Ludwig take some photos of his own and he did a fine job! Daline told me there is a documentary about how an organization put cameras in the hands of children in 3rd world nations. I think that would be wonderful.

* Marianne's laugh, joie de vivre, and humble attitudes toward everything are inspiring. In discussing situations that could easily seem extremely personally frustrating, in every case she had a positive way to look at it. She could always see the good that would ultimately come out of the situation, and in a very unselfish way. Even in situations when it would not help her business in any way, she was far more interested in the actual well-being and interests of the Yine - things that would ultimately benefit the Yine in terms of learning about situations or becoming more savvy about the way the Peruvian government works.

* Stringing sara sara seeds into a necklace with Chiky and Rene and Daline on one of the last nights there, drinking beer and wine and trying to communicate in Spanish (I am a very poor speaker of Spanish! Though I am learning!). I had a great time that night.

* Hanging out at the hot springs - it was such a beautiful spot, and we painted ourselves in mud.

* Painting warrior images on cloth with Berta in the Yine village of Diamante, and then having her paint warriors on my arm with huito, a rainforest fruit.

* Seeing the tamandua (anteater) swim across the Alto Madre de Dios river and then emerge at the other side.

* Singing Hullaballoo Kaneck Kaneck, the fighting Texas Aggie song, with Daline as we paddled up the river in the hollowed-out-log canoe.

* Teasing our rainforest guide Tina about her British accent (which I love) - particularly when she says "herbal tea" or "scarlet macaws" or "purplish jays."

* One of the things I enjoy about traveling is doing the photography itself; catching a spontaneous look in someone's glance, or a smile, or a moment. Shooting the sky and river in their glorious cloud formations, and trying to catch the mood of the moment through an image. I try to shoot at different angles sometimes, from high or low. I try to catch a person's personality through the candid image I shoot of them. And so one of my highlights was just this process of watching people and catching moments of people and also the scenery on camera.

On a separate note, a writer colleague sent me a link to this article in the Miami Herald about single mom rainforest biologist Margaret Lowman, and I enjoyed it. She has a book out about her adventures with her two kids which included trips to Peru among other places. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/

courage and self-doubt

I've been thinking of how the past 2 years post-divorce have seen me through so many different things - a leave of absence on the PhD, starting and leaving a full-time research job, a dead-end relationship....and just the divorce itself. All seem like failures on my part, even when they are not really. But they are so different than the past 15 years... Several months back I posted about self-doubt and a person commented saying, you have self-doubts and you're so successful?! After I met my exhusband I become a little pistol, self-determined and very successful. I went from being a party animal who did not apply myself fully in my academic studies to someone who made a 4.0 in all courses. I quit the partying, became healthier, graduated with honors then published my Master's research in the top journal in ecology, and finished in two years. I always tied this behavioral switch to my 5-months in Australia, where I discovered my love of wildlife and ecology, but I wonder if having someone to share my life with also didn't become the glue that held everything together. Having someone who loved me, and to love, made it all seem there was a purpose in everything.

Throughout my childhood, the subtle (and sometimes explicitly stated) message from my mom and stepdad was that I could not make it on my own, that I needed them, that I was irresponsible, that I was not good enough as I was, that what I thought and said was not really what I thought and felt. So maybe subconsciously I believed it, and though I am entirely competent, intelligent, and motivated to succeed - and believe my career shows this - maybe now that I am independent and solo somehow I don't believe I can do the same things once again? That I am somehow unable to succeed on my own? That even though my ex had nothing explicitly to do with my academic and career success that maybe somewhere in the recesses of my brain and soul, I believe that on my own I am nothing and can do nothing right? I don't know, really, but the thought came to me today during my morning meditations/prayers. I need to reverse it. Positive visualization seems to work well. The other day I sat yoga-style in my bedroom and just imagined myself fully and completely loved and accepted and forgiven, perfect as is in the stage of my self-growth that I am at... it was difficult but nice.

So... one foot before the other. One thought before the next. I am missing Peru. I see extravagant things in stores and think how much this money could buy for the Peruvian villages... the children... and while simply throwing money in their direction is not the answer, we certainly have a culture of extreme waste and squander and a total lack of appreciation for all the people in the world who could benefit from a little money and effort applied toward solving some of the world's pressing problems. Here is a world that still has enormous swaths of nearly untouched wilderness and will the country and the people learn from the mistakes those the world over have made in their lands? We know how quickly we can permanently alter ecosystems and plunder biodiversity - and even the Amazon has suffered already. How long until it reaches a tipping point beyond which biodiversity loss is irreversible? Will the people realize the benefit they can have to preserve their natural heritage? We didn't in the U.S. for the most part, can we be so bold as to warn and help others who are still at the stage of needing to meet the basic life requirements - food, clean water, shelter, health?

And how do I contribute, and how can I help? I plan to send some of my photos down there, the children and parents seemed to like to look at the digital photos on my camera itself after I took them. Such a small act, but one of love, to speak from my heart that I find them individually valuable and precious.

So now, I need to know implicitly and explicitly that my purpose is not for any man or even myself, but to serve a higher purpose - God. I am rereading the Purpose Driven Life along with a couple of friends. Sometimes what we know in our hearts already we need to let our minds know explicitly.

star wears red shirt, no pants to ceremony

Star wears red shirt, no pants to ceremony. Guess who?
Ha ha! This utterly cracked me up.

Love this quote:
In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
- Albert Camus

ayahuasca

Having just come back from the Peruvian Amazon, I was intrigued by this article in the latest National Geographic Adventure Magazine, Hell and Back. We spoke of this article while in Peru, so now back in the States, I looked it up. It is written by my favorite woman adventure writer, Kira Salak and it's brilliantly written and very powerful.

"All negative thoughts, shamans believe, are dark spirits speaking to us, trying to scare us into reacting; the spirits then feed on our reactivity, growing stronger and more formidable until they finally rule over us," writes Salak. "The shamans believe that whenever a traumatic event happens to us, we lose part of our spirit, that it flees the body to survive the experience. ... people may lose their sense of humor, their trust of others, their innocence."

It brought tears to my eyes, in the part when she writes, "I'm made to see that what is being purged now is a deeply rooted belief that I don't deserve to be alive, that no one can love me and I will always need to justify my existence."

I find it most interesting because the shamans, and those who use the hallucinogenic ayahuasca, experience and see what can be thought of as the spirit world. It's typically a dark hallucination experience it seems, not surprisingly perhaps since the use of ayahuasca is to heal, and since they view illness as being associated with dark forces, demons, devils.

To the modern, scientific, clinical days we live in, we separate science and spirit and for good reason. And yet as one who believes in both the spirit realm and the need for studying the natural world using naturalistic scientific inquiry, I find this article truly fascinating. I find it intriguing that most of the modern Church would reject shamanism and the visions as some sort of physical manifestation of the hallucinatory drug, whereas even Jesus himself clearly saw illness as manifestations of demons throughout his healing in the New Testament accounts. Not so different, perhaps. Maybe we have something to learn from this.

Peru photos and Mt Everest articles

I put photos from the Peru Trip on my website (http://www.wendeeholtcamp.com/peru.htm) separated into these categories: The Yine Project: People of the Amazon, The Rainforest, A Machiguenga Indian Village, Rivers and Lakes, The People on our Trip, and Driving Through Peru.

Also my latest publication is now up: Mt. Everest Field Guide to Animals and Medicinal Plants - Discovery Channel Online. (Click "launch" to get into the interactive game -- it requires you to have Flash installed (there is a link if you don't have it). Once the Expedition game loads, click on the "Guides and Gear" label and it will open a new scene, where you then click on "Mt. Everest Field Guide" which has sections on Animals, Medicinal Plants - the 2 sections I wrote - and Geology).

I also wrote several Tours of Everest Animals at the Animal Planet website.

Last I have a piece in the spring 2006 SEJournal, the publication of the Society of Environmental Journalists. The Joy of a Personal Blog, or Becoming a Blog Mama - available as a PDF.

amazon warrior woman returns!

Amazon jungle warrior woman (guerrera mujere de Amazonica!)

The Amazon jungle warrior woman has returned... just got in today, and will post more photos tomorrow. I got several great shots and had an amazing adventure! Hanging from vines, mud fights in the hot springs, swimming - and paddling - down the Alto Madre de Dios River in the Amazon basin, wildlife (monkeys, macaws, tamandua, many birds and insects and even a bushmaster - a very venomous snake), almost getting kidnapped by a cab driver in Lima, and being 'mosquito candy'.... but my heart was taken by the beautiful Yine Indian children who had such open and kind spirits.

Community-based tourism in Diamante, a tribal village of Yine Amazon Indians. I am trying my hand at painting traditional warrior images.

more to come soon...

packing for the amazon!

I leave for the Peruvian Amazon Sunday for ten days. My fanny pack contains a roll of toilet paper, a pen, a CD player, and chocolate: essentials! :) I studied rainforest ecology in Australia in the early 1990s, and have seen rainforests in Mexico and Costa Rica, but this is The Amazon. Larger than life. I can't wait.

I'm going for an article I'm writing and my best friend Daline is coming with me before spending 6 months in a Buddhist monastery. She is so cool - upon leaving Moab, she got rid of everything she owned that could not fit into her truck. Wow. It reminds me of how Jesus told the rich man the way to receive the kingdom of heaven is to get rid of everything he owned. Which he couldn't do... but Daline, bless her heart, could and did. Such a brave and wonderful person she is.

Re our Amazon adventure: I love that after 12 hours of commercial flights, we have to drive twelve hours on a road that you can only drive on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays and the return direction on alternate days... Then there's a six-hour boat float down the river and finally we arrive at the Yine Lodge (http://www.pantiacolla.com/yine/), a community-based tourism project where a Dutch biologist and her Peruvian husband have taught the indigenous Yine Indians how to run a tourist project which they will ultimately take over within ten years. The Yine wear Western clothing but still hunt and subsist from the rainforests' bounty. I hope to also see another indigenous Machiguenga village, which is in quite a different state than the Yine.

So this will be the next in the adventures of the lemonhead sistas. First the Bahamas, now the Amazon! Daline & I met when we drove together to do a beach cleanup on Matagorda Island with Texas Environmental Action Coalition when we were both at Texas A&M. We're both scientists, environmentalists, spiritual beings, adventurers! soul sistas! Wish us luck and send your prayers our way. I'll report back when I return, April 6.

I leave you all with this beautiful and brilliant quote from author William Faulkner!

"I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.

He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

-- WILLIAM FAULKNER, address upon receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Stockholm, Sweden, December 10, 1950.

why do Christians not use their brains?

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell.

Today I got my Texas Freedom Network newsletter with this quote from the televangelist Pat Robertson:

"They are racists, murderers, sexual deviants and supporters of Al-Qaeda -- and they could be teaching your kids! . . . These guys are out and out communists, they are radicals, they are, you know, some of them killers, and they are propagandists of the first order . . . you don't want your child to be brainwashed by these radicals, you just don't want it to happen. Not only brainwashed but beat up, they beat these people up, cower them into submission. AGGGHHH!!!!"

--Rev. Pat Robertson, attacking "radical" liberal professors on the March 21 episode of his show, The 700 Club.

I don't know about you, but... it got me thinking about a main reason why we have such problem with the attacks on science by certain religious fundamentalists, and how so much of the mainstream Christian crowd has followed them blindly along without much real understanding, is that Christians almost universally give other Christians more credit than any non-Christian. It's like somehow calling oneself a Christian automatically invokes some aura of authority, a spiritual verity that a non-Christian can't have. In a sense, those who bear the Spirit of Truth and follow the Way do have such an authority. But we are also told to test the spirits, to be as wise as serpents yet gentle as lambs, and that there are many who will claim "Lord Lord" who Jesus will dismiss in the end, saying he doesn't even know them.

Millions of people watch Pat Robertson. Why do supposedly educated Americans/Christians follow this garbage? You may as well be watching the devil masquerading as a preacher man. Get your brain out, Christians, and put it into action!

Science rescued our world from superstition and brought us so many technological, medical, and agricultural advances. Science can not progress with superstition, preconceived cooked up answers (like intelligent design) and attitudes like "well if I can't understand it, God had to do it." God is involved in everything, and yet the natural realm and supernatural must be separated, non-overlapping magisteria as Stephen Jay Gould called them. Robertson was relaying info based on a new book about "The Professors: the 101 most dangerous academics in America" (http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=19453). We need a book about the 101 most dangerous Christians to the faith...

North Country

I watched the movie North Country the other evening, a true story about a woman fighting for decent treatment by men in the coal mines when the men didn't want women around but were forced to by a Supreme Court decision. In the movie, Charlize Theron portrayed a woman who had a fighting spirit - she was not a husky hardened woman like some who worked the mines, but a feminine woman with a interminable spirit. She refused to let the men treat her - and the other women - in such an inhumane way even when the other women were too frightened to stand up for themselves against the abuse.

What wrenched my gut was the rape scene - not by the coal mine workers, but a flashback of her schoolteacher when she was 16 years old. Her character had sued the coal mine, and the defendant lawyer tried the "nuts and sluts" approach to discrediting her story by saying she had many sexual partners and didn't even know who the father of her son was (as if this had anything to do with the abuse by the workers). She never revealed to her father until the trial that her son's father was her schoolteacher who had raped her. And her boyfriend at the time, who currently worked at the coal mine, witnessed it but lied on the stand and told everyone that the sexual act was consensual. The plaintiff's lawyer finally got the witness to admit she was raped.

It - of course - made me sob as I remembered the rape I endured (and have written about before on the blog) at age 15. The movie didn't explicitly make the connection but I relate to her adamant insistence of fighting injustice even when it seems an impossible battle. In many cases, standing up for justice and truth and integrity has not gotten me ahead, though it has gotten me out of bad situations. But I also related to the fact that the witness denied it and blamed the victim - that happened to me.

A few years back, I randomly met the wife of the guy I was on the date with that night. His first words to his wife, after she relayed that she'd met me, were, "Was that the girl I dumped on her front lawn?" (indeed, yes). And then she relayed that he'd mentioned that I'd had sex with someone else on a date with him. (When in reality I was raped and yet he blamed me - though I was utterly passed out beyond the ability to walk). Interesting how he could not recognize that it was obviously a rape and - like me - had denied the power of that truth for that many years. He felt awful in retrospect but how strong is our denial sometimes!

Louisiana black bears

I just returned from a week in the field with biologists working on a program to relocate federally threatened Louisiana black bears from the Tensas National Wildife Refuge (the Singer Tract, which was the last known holdout for ivory-billed woodpeckers) in Louisiana to a Wildlife Management Area further south, Three Rivers WMA. It was a very interesting view into the project! Louisiana black bears have already started spilling over the border into Texas, and there are talks (but no plans yet) to possibly bring in bears to Texas but not without the support of the landowners. Louisiana has been very successful in that regard.

Here are a few photos from the week:

Two beautiful Louisiana Black bear cubs (Ursus americanus luteolus) before being placed back in a den box with their mama in Three Rivers WMA in Louisiana.

Biologists remove wintering females with cubs from their dens in the tops of hollowed-out ancient cypress trees (the whole tree is not hollow - just the den near the top). A climber will ascend the tree, anesthetize the mama, and use ropes to haul her down the tree and into a boat if the tree is in a slough, or into an ATV if on dry land. Because it is a warm winter, some of these bears are already active. The photo doesn't do justice to the size of the cypress tree!

The crew moving the bear from the piroe boat to the back of the ATV in the palmetto thicket, Tensas NWR.

It can take a long time to get the ropes in the right place on the tree, climb, anesthetize the bear, wait until she's gone to sleep, and haul her down. Hence the project involves a lot of waiting and standing around!

Dr. Joe Clark from USGS/University of Tennessee, and Paul Davidson, Executive Director of the Black Bear Conservation Coalition holding the paw of an adult black bear female.

Dave Telesco, BBCC Private Lands biologist, holding two cubs.

A bear cub looking wistfully from the safety of someone's boots.

The final step - mama in her new den box with her cubs, before closing the lid until she emerges permanently within a few weeks.

All photos Copyright (c) 2006 Wendee Holtcamp.

bears

I'm heading out Sunday with a group of biologists to relocate endangered Louisiana black bears for an article. I'll be gone for a week, and I would be more excited but I have been too busy to think about it! We will take bears from the Tensas National Wildlife Refuge and relocate to southern Louisiana. It should be very cool, because the momma bears have cubs with them in their dens. I hope to get some great photos.

For those who don't know, I worked on a project studying Alaska's McNeil River grizzlies via remote videocam when I was at Texas A&M a few years ago. I developed a curriculum program for biology students to learn about "Evolution in Action" by asking why grizzlies evolved aggressive behavior. You can see it online here. I developed the website, wrote all the text, and designed the actual curriculum module (which is an interactive Excel file). Some of the video clips were taken from the McNeil River grizzlies.

I'm also trying to get down to the Peruvian Amazon - was supposed to go at the end of March (even got my yellow fever vaccination today) but that may have to be postponed until April. I have some logistics to work out. Lots of cool travel planned in the days ahead, and lots of work keeping me busy!

overcoming fear of flying

Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today, I made yet another small step in overcoming a longstanding fear of flying, of teeny weeny planes and being at the mercy of the raging unknown land where I do not have "control".

I flew in a Cessna Skyhawk across Houston and it was an absolutely glorious ride!! I absolutely LOVED it. Takeoff and landing was a breeze! I thought it would be scarier or more bumpy than a jetliner, but in fact it was smoother and easier. It surprised me how quickly you take off of the runway, and how smooth the landing. I am sure it is not always this way, but today it was the perfect flight.

When I first got to the airport, standing outside the plane the size of a car, I thought, "What have I got myself into?!" Earlier in the week, I seriously considered just letting the videographer go with the pilot and I'd stay with my feet safely on the ground.

What you have to understand is I had a paralyzing fear of planes and flying for many years. As a kid, I flew back and forth between my parents by myself, from age 8 or so. After I met my then-husband and sometime after the big massacre in Luby's Cafeteria in Texas around 1992, I started to let fear stop me from doing certain things, including flying. I'd fly, but very very rarely. My ex and the kids DROVE 10,000 miles - to Alaska and back - if that gives you an idea of the preference I had to drive than fly!

They were certainly irrational fears. You could recite the statistics about how planes are safer than driving until you're blue in the face. Yada yada yada. Whatever. It didn't matter. When I let the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see grizzly bears up close at Alaska's McNeil River slip away because of my fear of a float plane, soon after, during my divorce I vowed to not let my fear stop me from doing the things I love. Which meant I better get my little hiney into some airplanes. And fly I did! I have flown a dozen legs, in the past 2 years since my divorce, to the Bahamas, to visit my dad in Oregon, to ski in Colorado (also a first), to New York City, to Virginia, to Florida...

But the little teeny weeny Cessna? Now that is a different story. I truly thought I was going to hurl - before we left the ground. But I said a prayer, crossed my heart, and felt lifted as on the wings of an eagle as we soared slowly up above the Addicks Reservoir, above the trees, across the suburban sprawl. What a rush. We flew up the San Jacinto River to view the sand mining devastation from the air. It was a bit hazy, but I think we got some great footage. I enjoyed it so much, I seriously considered that perhaps one day, I might just take flying lessons.

the cuckoo's nest

While I sat in the waiting room of the Colonoscopy facility I seriously considered jetting. I really was not keen on the whole idea. I had to argue with the administrative woman to find out how much the anesthesia would cost me. She started raising her voice at me, and I broke down in tears saying, look you are not the one about to have this horribly invasive procedure and at a cost that is going to break me... ok I admit I can get a little dramatic... but alas that is why I'm a writer :) Finally she figured out that I wanted "conscious sedation" which did not require an anesthesiologist anyway. Sheesh, you know you can tell your doctor but you still have to deal with the bastardly administrators to get anything accomplished and they don't know what the hell they're talking about half the time. (Wait, my sarcasm valve has flapped open again).

So finally, I got called back to the backroom. I changed into this extra large gown (the only available size). As an extra small person it swamped me. You try tying these two little ties at the top, gown opening to the back without your ass sticking out - it takes creative gown management. So the room had a nurse's desk in the center, surrounded by about 20 wheeling beds with faded orange curtains around each bed. I thought the procedure would take place in this room at first and I was shocked! There were some people recovering, with oxygen mask on their face, lying on their side. Others were being talked to my doctors or nurses about their medical history: Do you have constipation? Hemorrhoids? blah blah blah - how unprivate can you get? I can't believe it's legal - what was that damn HIPPA law about anyway?! And in some beds, people are letting out huge gas noises as they recover from their colonoscopy. I was freezing, and I started to cry. I was scared and felt very vulnerable.

Some of my friends don't understand why the whole prospect scared me so bad. I think it comes down to two main things. One, I don't like the loss of control that giving one's life over to medical professionals that I don't necessarily trust entails. I know one has to be one's own medical advocate, but when you do, you inevitably annoy the people who are used to not having patients question them (doctors, nurses) because most blindly accept whatever is doled out. Second, the last time I was totally unconscious like this, I was raped.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. So, here I am lying in this little cubicle with faded orange curtains that only barely cover the bed, and the nurse brings me a heated blanket because I was shivering. She said she was inspired by my recently getting a literary agent and being a writer. She had asked me what I did and turns out she has always wanted to be to a writer. She was born one day after me - same year too. Anyway so she knew I was scared and said she could give me some Valium to "take the edge off". I think that phrase is so overused it's almost funny. At first I said no, but then I changed my mind. I was afraid that the Demerol would not take fast enough so I decided I'd get a little Valium while waiting. Mind you I have not touched a drug in over 15 years besides ibuprofen. As soon as she put the stuff in my IV, I started to feel very loopy.

So after what seemed like an interminably long wait, they wheeled me into the procedure room, and gave me the increased meds to put me out. The next thing I remember, Matt was sitting there and the nurse was saying "You're done! The procedure is over" and I was like, huh? what? The doc talked to me and said a few things, looks ok, blah blah blah. Some cells in my colon are dead, and the lining is turning dark colors. I only found out later that they did biopsies from the written report. Now why, I ask you, would he not tell me that then? The doc is very good but the nurse back at his doctor's office is horribly annoying. She smacks gum and is very flippant and nonchalant about your questions. These people don't realize the fears that people have about these things. Just because it's common place to them does not mean it is to the patient.

So the procedure itself, I do not remember but that is good. However I did not get an amnesiac at my request and so I do remember afterwards. It took me a while to get to the point I could sit up and walk. When I finally sat up I thought I was gonna hurl. I slept in Matt's truck all the way home, then I slept pretty much all afternoon and night. That is the story of my first colonoscopy. Oh joy.

an unusual expedition

well i must admit, i thought about not blogging about this mighty personal new adventure of mine, but decided to. i am about to go get a strange flexible utensil - probably with a video camera on the end - jammed up my rear end and through my intestines. yes, its the infamous colonoscopy.

i am terrified. i have catastrophic thinking as it is, and i am a highly sensitive/emotional person. so of course i'm thinking of all the things like, do i need to write my kids a loving goodbye note in case i don't wake up from general anesthesia? i have cried because of the fear. i have cried to god saying, i want to help people! i want to stay here on earth and do so many good things for the world! i have fears of them finding cancer. i also have had some chest pains a lot lately, and weird blood pressure (108/80... so low on the systolic and a very low pulse but high diastolic. in other words, as i understand it, i have a weak contraction and yet my heart doesn't relax enough on the relaxation). so of course i worry that my heart will just stop beating. i also have night sweats sometimes so have had fears of cancer or illness on top of the present issues.

then i am also freaked about money. so finally i am actually doing fairly well with the finances and freelancing, so then what happens? i get some stupid "issue" and having self employed insurance with a high deductible, i am going to be out of pocket about $2000. and that's IF they don't find something major wrong. and that of course sends me into internal panic mode.

then the doc wants to give me this anesthesia called propofol. i did a bit of research and its an amnesiac. well i am 100% opposed to amnesiacs in anesthesia. i asked the doc when we were visiting about it (before i knew it was an amnesiac) - and the added cost b/c it requires an anesthesiologist as opposed to demerol which does not need as careful of monitoring. and he came back in with a breakdown of the costs - NOT including (i learned later) the cost of any biopsies or other procedures - just his fee and the facility fee, even though i asked "and this covers EVERYTHING, that's it?" i have no faith in people anymore!!!! you really have to fight for your own welfare, because i don't care what they say, the doctor does not care about you the way you care about you.

so now i have to figure out what to do. part of me wants to just cancel and stick my head in the sand. i'm sure i'm fine, so just fuggedaboutit. part of me wants to find out. i am really scared. did i say that already?

i will say that there are some things that may be routine to the docs and nurses but each and every patient who walks through that door has their own internal fears about death, illness, leaving their kids mommyless, and they need to address that person as if they had the same thing going on - because health issues are scary, and you want to feel like that person giving care has your best interest at heart and not their pocketbook, or how much time it takes to get you in and out of their facility.

so this all will go on thursday, if i go through with it.

photos of my latest adventures

The stringer of smallmouth bass we caught on the Blanco River Wednesday - myself and a bunch of biologists and grad students. Mind you, I caught the biggest one! :)

Three bass that look like Guadalupe bass - whiter in coloration than smallmouths, which were introduced into the river drainages. However research indicates most "apparent" Guadalupe bass in the Blanco have hybridized with smallmouths.

A wetland on the Amelia Island Plantation in Florida.

Some writers on a Segway Safari. They are soooo cool!!! Lots of fun! Soon you'll be popping wheelies! (ha ha, JUST kidding!)

my pastors and fragile flames

bless their hearts, i would be remiss if i didn't mention that after i emailed both my pastors my blog entry that they both contacted me and apologized and opened way for a dialogue about these issues. the head pastor called me before church on sunday and his calling me brought tears to my eyes. it touched me. i wrote the things i wrote in retrospect and contemplation of the past. i'm far beyond the place i was in during the separation and divorce over two years ago.

well time for bed, just wanted to post that little update. did you know i am in love with vegetables! i am in love with maple syrup! lol. just had to add that little tidbit of info since i have not talked about anything too quirky or funny lately, like frozen pee (see Nov 2005).

i was sitting in my bathroom the other day thinking about how it would feel to be an old person and know that life was running out. i used to think when you got old, somehow your mental state changed and you became ready to die just as your body wore out. now i know that your mind stays much the same, assuming you don't get alzheimers or other mental deteriorations. so you have to just deal with the fact that life is running out and you're going to die soon.

yet in reality it is for all of us. our time on earth could be called over at any time. i try to think about this often, not to be macabre or gloomy, but in contrast because i want to live my life to the fullest, to enjoy each day as best i can, and to not take myself or life's crazy happenings too seriously. sometimes it gets me into trouble as people don't always get my freewheeling spirit. but i try to hug all my friends and kids, tell them i love them often, and let everyone in my life know that i genuinely appreciate and care for them. people - as selfish as we can sometimes be - are also beautiful souls dancing like fragile flames through life, trying to keep the flame alive and to not wither. i like to try to see that beautiful flame in each person, and to give my own enough oxygen to breathe and thrive. sending you electrons of love, space, freedom, peace, acceptance, and joy...

nepal, houston & feeding the poor

I'm sleepy... Why does it always take longer than you think to do what you need to do?

I have been doing a writing project on Mt. Everest and Nepal and I'm enthralled. I have to get over there sometime. Definitely on my to-do list now :) Nature calls my soul right now. I see these wide open vistas, forests, glaciers, wildlife in images as I research the Himalayas and my soul longs for nature. I am blessed in what I have, but it does not bless my soul this home, this suburbia. I don't like how it makes me feel. I live in Houston's cancer alley. The poisonous air pollution comes from Baytown and Pasadena right up the San Jacinto River and Kingwood and Porter have some of the highest rates of cancer and respiratory ailments of anywhere in Houston. Dina Capiello did a great report for the Houston Chronicle last year on the air pollution in Houston. Developers around here are just chopping trees down as fast as their truffala-whackers can smack. It's such an un-green place - and I don't mean the color but the attitudes. And yet throughout Houston strides are being made to replant and green the highways. I tell ya though, what good does it do to plant a few roadside stick trees when developers are allowed to mindlessly graze hundreds of acres of 30-50 year old trees? The carbon storage and benefits trees provide are substantially greater for old trees... I know something has to be done, but I just wish there were a more concerted effort.

Anyway in following up on my thread a couple days back, I decided one thing I can do to help the poor in my life and career. I decided that in each and every article I write, I will explicitly ask myself the question of how this particular issue affects the poor and whether I can write about some angle that would help the poor. I consider the poor also those who don't have a voice to speak for themselves and that includes those who are unaware, and wildlife/plants that have an inherent God-given right to live and thrive. But specifically I will address the issue of how the situation might be written about in a way that will benefit the poor. For example, in the Everest piece I found that the use of non-traditional forest products and medicinal plants can benefit rural poor and indigenous people, but has to be done in such a way that the locals aren't exploited by businesses who come in and harvest without returning profits to the community. So I included some of this in my project. Raising awareness is a crucial first step.

further comments on the church

It seems like over the past 7 or 8 years I've been at my church, they have expanded their outreach to the poor both in our city and in other nations. They have so many opportunities for individual members to participate in such activities. I've always wanted to go on the Mission Trip to Mexico or elsewhere - doing construction etc. - but while I was married that wasn't an option. Now I definitely think I will sometime soon.

The church bought a million-dollar property to expand its "campus" and expanded its programs. But it seems to me the church has not taught itself how to reach out to individuals in the church, like me. It's one thing to offer programs and it's quite another, more difficult thing to talk to people and reach out to them and show that you care. One of our pastors did more for our family through meetings and prayers than anyone else that I can think of during the marriage itself, but afterwards I almost felt like hands were thrown up. Nobody really knows what happens within a relationship and it's easy to cast judgment and harder to "cast love." But this is what Jesus did for his followers.

For some time I've thought about finding a new church, because I don't like the feel of the big building as much as the old smaller one, and I don't feel particularly bonded to anyone in the church. People are friendly but few are intimate in friendship. I see a lot of what is written about in the Casting Crowns song from the previous entry. However I know their youth group is incredible, and I love the music and occasionally the message often says something meaningful and I want to keep my kids there.

Love, what is love? To be able to genuinely look upon a person and empathize with their pain. And to take personal action based on this knowledge - we all carry pain and some times in life are more painful than others. When someone fails, which a divorce inevitably is, the people involved need love more not less than other times. This love shown by the church (which ultimately just means the believers under the shepherd's guidance) - or not as the case may be - can drive that person to stay on the path or away from it for those whose faith may waver in the difficult times. Many people do throw out the baby with the bathwater and those people holding the flag have the most responsibility for expressing love through action toward the church members. Guy Doud - http://www.guydoud.com - who I heard on Focus on the Family - was a Teacher of the Year award several years back. He speaks of this and is such a powerful speaker and author.

failures of the church

A couple weeks ago in church they did a skit that was really unique. A college student was sitting in a chair with a sign that said "Confessions." A skeptic walked by and scoffed and the Christian said, "No you don't understand. I want to confess to you." And the guy was like, "Say what?" And the Christian went on to talk about his personal failures in holding up his own values, the way he may have made non-believers criticize the faith due to his own hypocrisy and mistakes, and the failure of the church as a whole - the Crusades, etc.

And I related to it for my personal life in many ways, but to turn the tables, it would be nice if the church actually did this for its members rather than just performing a skit. I like much about the church I attend but the whole thing would be more powerful if it were more than a skit. I feel like my church failed me in many ways during my divorce and separation. Nobody ever said anything to me, but that is just it. Nobody said anything to me. Both pastors have seen my ex and I in counseling. One met with my husband regularly. Why didn't either of them ever call me and see how I was coping? What about the dozens of times when in church tears welled up in my eyes, or that I cried so hard during the songs that I looked like a mess.

When I laid on my carpet curled in a ball desperately crying, because I had no choice, I was so physically desolate, feeling the weight of a lead blanket of depression over me for months, what about when I found a lump in my breast and my blood pressure was up and I thought I might have cancer. Did anyone ever once even check on me to see if I was ok? There is only one woman in the whole church who knew me both before and after the divorce who I can think of who I never felt judged by - because she acknowledged the divorce and told me about a group at the church for "single again ladies." Maybe the judgment was my own projection and my own feelings of failure for most people, but I don't know - the non-acknowledgment may seem politically correct but really it's a judgment.

I would have liked to think that our church was warmer and more forgiving a place. It's one thing to say it and preach it (i.e. the skit) and it's another to take the action and go out of your way to reach out to the individuals who need love, forgiveness, grace. And that includes every person in the church. Divorce is one of the most difficult things most people ever go through. You experience a real grieving - unless you just deny its pain and lessons. I fully recovered from the depression which I consider a natural grieving - without any antidepressants or "self-medication." I healed through time, enduring friendships, knowledge of God's grace, and self-love. But you know at the same time, I forgive the church. Like me, it is imperfect. It is just a body of human believers doing the best they can to follow the Way.

I relate to these lyrics from a Casting Crowns song. Although in contrast, I would not say I pretended to be strong or ok. I openly cried in church. And yet still the pastors nor the care ministers nor most anyone said a single word to me to see how I was, and if they could pray for me or help.
---------------------------------------------------
Am I the only one in church today feelin' so small
Cause when I take a look around
Everybody seems so strong
I know they'll soon discover
That I don't belong

So I tuck it all away, like everything's okay
If I make them all believe it, maybe I'll believe it too
So with a painted grin, I play the part again
So everyone will see me the way that I see them

Are we happy plastic people
Under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness
And smiles to hide our pain
But if the invitation's open
To every heart that has been broken
Maybe then we close the curtain on our stained glass masquerade

feed the poor and love your enemies

I was out in the field with biologists and water planners on a really cool wetlands water filtration project at Richland Creek Wildlife Management Area on Monday. Check out the photo of the before and after water. The water on the left is what it looks like coming out of the Trinity River, which comes downstream from the Dallas/Ft Worth area. The water on the right is after going through several wetland cells and several days in the wetland. Pretty cool aye?

I have been thinking really hard about how I can make my life and career to serve God and to follow Jesus' example. I always think that I strive to always help others as much as I can, and to do work - both paid and unpaid - that helps the environment which I know ultimately benefits humankind and honors Creation and the Creator. I strive for this with my writing and nonprofit work and just in my personal interactions with friends and colleagues. But I still wondered, just what is it that God commands us? I don't think it is the 10 commandments because those are the shall nots, not the shalls. I don't mean to imply we should neglect to obey them, I mean that Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God, and all the commandments are summed up in that one - if Jesus was about anything in addition to forgiveness it was to show how wrong it is to be legalistic about religious rules! They are for our benefit and must obey from love and a genuine desire. And at the same time we're all forgiven... Anyway, so the other command after Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind is to love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus also tells us to feed the poor, and to love our enemies. So as I was driving, and last night in my contemplative bath, I was wracking my brain to ponder, how can I do these things? Does my writing or teaching help the poor? Not really. How can I change this? Does Jesus' command include the "poor in spirit" as he mentions in the Beatitudes? I do feel I try to reach out to teach spiritual truths that I feel I have learned and that may help others that may be "poor in spirit." I can teach some things I've learned and can learn some things I need to learn from others.

But really I need to figure out how I can help the poor. I have a grand idea that I just need a benefactor for. I think that we should eliminate poverty in the third world nations by developing a well-thought out plan to eradicate feral hogs and package the meat and send it to those countries in need. This is not everything. Man can not live on feral hog alone. But it would be a way to tackle on environmental problem and a social one simultaneously. I don't believe people who say we can't get rid of them- they're too invasive, too omnipresent. If we could get rid of passenger pigeons that numbered in the gajillions, we can get rid of feral hogs IF there is a driving, concerted, well-planned out effort concentrated over a particular duration and not stopping until it's done. We used this strategy to do much evil in the world - now it's time to use it to do good. Feral hogs cause an incredible amount of environmental damage and cost a lot of money to taxpayers through the efforts state agencies must take to keep them from causing worse damage. We should channel that money toward eliminating poverty. But I would not know where to start with this plan. Any ideas?

The other thing is how to love and pray for my enemies. Who are my enemies? I don't think I have any real personal enemies (I hope!). But... there are environmental enemies. How do we love environmental enemies? Who are they? I think of corporate America. Not the businesses in themselves but the greed that can take over corporate decisions when even the individuals are good people. When a company puts the bottom line before people and that includes above the environment which we all absolutely need for survival and quality of life. How do I love the companies that make stupid decisions and just look for profit? Through education I suppose - it's the only way to teach people that they are ultimately harming themselves and their children's children. Inspiration and teaching appreciation for the beauty, grace, and joy that exists in a tree, a bird, a flower, a laughing child playing in the mud or catching butterflies... this is one way.