I'm letting everyone know here on my personal blog that I have started a new blog that specifically addresses hypnosis and politics (or, rather, hypnosis and those who wish us to do what they want us to do --- what I once called the "power structure"). I hope you will all stop by, as I get money when you do! The blog is:

http://hypnolibertarian.today.com

Why not do it here? Well, it is all centered around one specific subject, about which I have some strong feelings. A separate blog seems a good thing. And then, the today.com structure may give me incentive to do a little writing daily. I get a buck a post of 100 words, and 100 words isn't much. If I can write 100 words a day on a set subject, than I might be able to write more about other subjects, and it can help my writing as I deal with my headaches.

Wish me well, everyone. It's not going to help the bank much --- maybe a MacDonald's trip every couple of weeks --- but if it keeps me writing it is very much worth it.

I've written about a lot of things here. I'm not sure any of them has hit this close to home.

This week, at work, I am facing the fact that my continual chronic migraines / cluster headaches are not only keeping me from work when I am huddled in my bed, but also when I try to work. I am applying for long term disability.

It is so hard for me to write those words. It feels like giving up, like I am a complete failure. I don't like to think of myself as disabled. But the fact is my boss, my company, is not getting its money's worth, and I can't justify billing them or the customers.

Labels are so powerful. Disabled. Unabled. Not abled. Not able. Words are knives, cutting things out of us, out of me, cutting out the image of a person able to work, able to bring in a living, bring in money, that symbol of a fully functioning human being, a productive member of society. With every form I fill out, every box I check, every time I sign my name, my Name, my self, I state that I'm not a fully functioning human being, not functioning, not productive, not a member of society, not human, a drone, a hanger on, a thing, something to be dealt with. In the system.

From now on my job is to justify myself to insurance companies, to functionaries, to bureaucrats, to skeptics whose job is to find out that I am lying, exaggerating my pain, exaggerating my depression, exaggerating my discomfort, trying to cheat them out of their money by saying I am sick when I am not. Everyone I meet will turn problem solver, tell me why I have not done the right thing, that I need to change my diet, exercise more, do this alternative cure, heal myself with hypnosis (doesn't it work?), try this magic doctor, acupuncture, energy healing, reiki, haven't you heard of this or that, it's your past lives, it's the darkness in your soul, you aren't manifesting right, you are really *choosing* this. Thank you, thank you, yes, I'm sure that will help, of course that is the key to it, I never thought of that, thank you for your concern, I appreciate the help, in two and a half years I never tried that, of course I chose this, it must be my karma, it's just what I need, thank you very much, may I have another?

Disabled. My sickness, my dis-ease is now my existence. My label, my job, my chore. And it's not even official. I'm just started. Forms, talking to the neurologist, the insurance agent, on and on. Each one an admission, a statement, a declaration, shouting it out to the world. Disabled. Incapable.

Maybe it will be a few weeks. Maybe longer. I don't know.

On one of the groups I post on, someone did me the very great honor of saying, in response to a question of the day about who we admire, that I was one of those she admires. It was an amazing compliment to me. Having to do this makes me feel I am letting her down, letting anyone who has ever depended on me, helped me along professionally down. Disabled.

Maybe this will help it all resolve. I hope so. But in any case it reflects reality. I can't do the work.

Maybe I've been disabled for a long time, and am just now facing it.

I spoke a lot about shadows last time. I've been living with them lately, shadows, the darkness that is created by the light. Peter Pan lost his shadow when he went through the window, and Wendy closed it too fast. Sometimes I think we are the shadows here, shadows cast by the light, cast by something more real, more perfect, that our pains and our troubles are just shadows of little aches and stretches of the kinks of that perfect world, but we have forgotten it. We are shadows that have fallen asleep, forgotten our true destiny, our true reality as people who walk in the sun, and we dance as they dance, run as they run, laugh as they laugh, cry as they cry. We are Shadow Dancers, and we must wake up to our true life in the sun.

Aila has lost her battle with cancer, and has died. I know she dances in the sun now, dances with her face to the light, her hair streaming out behind her. Some of you knew her; some did not. She was always cheerful and optimistic in her fight. I exchanged messages with her several times, and always profited from it. She leaves us, leaves me, here in the shadows, watching her ascend to the sun, sorry she is gone.

War, elections, prostitution, cancer, pain day after day, loneliness, depredation, hunger, disease, death. Of course it is all dark. How can shadows be anything but dark? Darkness is what shadows are made of. If the real did not block the light it wouldn't be real. And the more real, the greater the reality of the shadows it casts, the more pseudo-real the shadows can be, the more you and I, shadows that we are, think we can become. Poor dreams, that think they are the all in all! And what wonderful things we really are that have fallen asleep in life's waiting room!

Or maybe I'm just trying to pass off a reality I can't stand any longer as something that will pass. It has a long tradition. But somehow I don't think so. Perhaps with spring my vision is clearing. If this be delusion, make the best of it; if pain has driven me mad, then madness is better than sanity. Or it may be a phase in an undulation, and despair will come again. But for now, I repeat my prayer of last time: even if I do not see it, let my pain make the good somewhere better. That's the deal. If the shadows are dark, it means the light somewhere is the brighter.

Somewhere. Not here. But somewhere. Please. Please. Please.