Granny Rehab: Chasing Quinine

There was a time when our grandmothers had a secret bottle and when their leg hurt they would take a couple of small little pills. Maybe not every day, but on occasion. And it worked- they could walk about again, go shopping. This lingered in my mind when I recently became an old woman. The leg spasms that I had not counted on after my double hip replacement hit me hard. I thought the operation would eliminate all the pain. And it has. For three blissful years I was a good as new.
Then the bones decided to settle. In this settling, kneecaps and femurs moved out of place. Pulled the muscles this way and that. The result? Once again I couldn’t walk. I lay around for a long time, and muscles got weak. Now they cramp and hurt.

When I take drugs against it, they make me sleepy, tired, and only take about 40 percent of the spasm away. I lose interest in writing when I am in pain.

Then I remembered quinine. A simple source of relief for malaria and leg cramps. I asked my doctor for a prescription. She refused. I asked why? She already gave me much stronger drugs. She had to look into it.

So did I.

When you Google up quinine pills you get first the drug companies campaign pretending to gather information about people who “got hurt by quinine.” If quinine hurts people, why wasn’t it a problem for the centuries it was already in use? Because the drug companies didn’t want something simple to cure a problem without them making profit from it.

I then read their entire advertising section. On the bottom it actually came clean, saying this is paid advertising and there is no evidence of anybody hurt or having died from quinine. Very small print.
The drug companies who didn’t really find a cure anything in the sixty-plus years I have been around.
Oh Michael Moore, you are so right. Profit before the people.
So now here I stand. Canada, which is where I buy my meds nowadays, also requires a prescription. (if you need them they are at RX Canada.com)
My doctor #14 is not in till Weds. I can only be needy on those days when they are in. I am chasing quinine, the remedy of grandmothers. Maybe we need an underground Granny Quinine network...

My final visit with Shekinah

Priestess Shekinah is passing. We were part of the mutual admiration society. She was a musician, I was a writer, we respected each other. Many of our students studied with both of us. In circles we sang her songs, she was often at events where I was invited as well. We were like points of strength on the same web, holding up the Goddess Movement. We both were called to this work, bring back the Goddess in the Consciousness of women all over the world. We both knew that if society elevated the status of women it would elevate humanity.
It was a couple of years ago I heard she was sick. Then I heard she has recovered. Then I heard she was stricken with cancer, and that she was very thin, under a hundred pounds. This lady was a big woman, I have never seen her when she weighed any less then 300 pounds. But I had dreamed of her sitting in a chair, in a waiting room kind of place, her hands folded in her lap. Calm. I said to her in the dream “I am coming Shekinah! I’ll administer your last rites.” She suddenly looked up. A faint smile.
It wasn’t easy to get to her. On Monday I drove down alone, my legs were killing me (I drive a stick shift 1988 Honda, hard to drive with this leg pain). But I had the wrong address. I called the caretaker. She never picked up her cell phone. Frustrated I stayed in Santa Cruz three hours calling seven times until I ran out of coins.
The caretakers around this dying woman were imperialists. They had no idea about how Shekinah wanted to see me, and that it was important for this priestess to get permission from a colleague to pass over in great style. When it’s my time I also want a peer to come and say to me, “The work was done. It was done well. It’s time to pass through the veil.”
Thursday I went down with Leilani, who was driving. The coastline was covered with thick cold fog. It’s August and we were in sweaters.
Santa Cruz had summer- it was warm there. We climbed up the stairs, a beautiful altar was burning candles, roses everywhere.
The Imperialist caretaker confronted me with her attitude, and as I was preparing to meet Shekinah, she told me to go in there first and just talk to her. Imperialist lady is ignorant how one doesn’t want to blow the energy for a ritual with chit chat beforehand. When I refused she almost yelled at me, to stop my preparations and do as I was told.
At this point I had enough.
Please don’t tell me what to, I am on my blessing vibe. She mocked me for the word vibe. It took all I had not to sock her in the jaw. I kept saying to myself, this priestess must be happy. Then she forbid to use the precious Bells I had from Tibet. “Too loud!” she said, never even hearing it ring once.
I entered the little room where Schekinah was laying on a bed. Dark room, filtered lights. Roses in the vase.
She was like a child small and fragile on her bed.
All those good memories flooded me that we had experienced together. The circles, the political rituals, her appearance on my TV show years ago, big smile on her face, big hugs on her bosoms.
I opened my arms and started an improvisational song that just came in like good sacred songs always do.
“Beautiful Shekinah! Gifted and true! Beautifully lived life! Now your chores are done! Open up to the Goddess, she has your place in her lap! Fly to her when the time comes, don’t tarry, don’t miss.”
I went on for many stanzas, now of course I don’t remember, because these songs are born for the moment and not for writing down.
Shekinah was smiling and receiving it. Then she wanted to say something and I bent down.
She said “Be funny! You were always so funny, make me laugh.”
Not everybody gets this kind of assignment, priestess is dying of cancer, everything hurts, nothing is functioning anymore, and now you make me laugh.
I said to her, “Let’s get the sacred business out of the way, sister. Let me anoint you now with my special rose oil. Amma makes it, blessed it, and it’s the best I have ever had.”
She said, “Let me smell it.”
I opened the small vial and she put her nose over it. This is a woman who knows her occult supplies. She has created many good oils herself. She nodded.
I anointed her forehead to remove all fear, her hands in gratitude for all the good works, her breasts for strength and beauty. Her genitals somewhere under the blanket, and her feet to walk the last steps to her destination.
The room filled up with the scent of roses. Just like a wave of Goddess presence, she closed her eyes and smiled.
I sang again over her with arms opened, stroking her aura. I could tell this was making her relax.
“Beautiful Shekinah! Now you’ll be like the rose. You open your petals, opening to the truth. She is awaiting, already holds you dear. Beautiful Shekinah your time is now near. Let the soul say thank you to the sacred spouse, your body. They were together many years, and now they will have to part. It’s a hard parting, the soul clings to her spouse. The body is failing, she knows her time has come. Beautiful Shekinah, you have done very well. All your works are finished now, Nothing more to do but bless.”
I realized about six sisters were in the room behind us, all witches, humming, underneath my singing.
Then I had Leilani read from the Summoning the Fates, a death ritual prayer to Kali.
“I take refuge in her, Mother of all beings
Who exists in all things in the form of power
Queen of the universe art thou and its guardian. In the form of the universe thou art the maintainer, by all women thou art worshiped, as thy daughters we have great devotion to thee.

You are the Earth
Creatrix of the world
You are water and in form of Diana preserve the world
You are fire and in the form of Pele build and destroy the world,
You exist in the form of Isis,
You are the air of the world.
You are primeval and auspicious one
Mother of all men, refuge of your women
Whoever moves in the changes of the world
The supporter of all yet yourself unsupported
The only pure form form in the form of ether
O Mother Kali be gracious to me!
You are intelligence and bliss, light yourself
How then can I know you?
Oh mother Kali be gracious to me!
You are which supports and yet is not supported, you pervade the world
You are in the form of the world
That is pervaded by you
You are both negation and existence
Oh Mother Kali be gracious to me! You are the atom, and ever pervading, You are the whole universe.
No praise is sufficient, yet your qualities prompt me
To praise you! O Mother Goddess be gracious to me.”

After this prayer I leaned down I said, “I got a funny for you!
When I was a young priestess just out of New York I read the White Goddess by Robert Graves, and learned that if you chew certain laurel leaves you get divine inspiration. I tracked down the tree. I could only find it in the Botanical Grandens. I plucked a few leaves and started chewing them. It blew my sinuses out like cannons, it was so awful I could not swallow it at all.”
Shekinah was laughing. A big smile and her body was shaking a little. It was a laugh.
“We were so much stronger then,” she whispered.
I visited with her a little more.
The imperial highness of the caregiver returned and wanted me out.
We left the room, promised her I come back one more time to say goodbye.
They had administered her meds, creams of morphine on her ankles, just before she drifted off to sleep I came back in her room.
“Good bye dear friend!”
“I love you Z!” she whispered. “Don’t forget me.”
And then I made a promise.
“I will never forget you and your work will be not forgotten, I shall preserve your legacy, and pass it on as you wanted to.”
“Don’t forget about me!” She said again.
“NO, I will not forget you, and the world will not either, I’ll see to it.”
Then I left the room.

The Healing power of a woman’s hug

Do you remember when you hurt your knee and ran to your mother and she hugged you? All the hurt melted away. Do you recall when you had your heart broken, and a good friend gave you a good hug? Your broken heart started to feel light again.
Hugging is free, and used all too sparingly. We’ll go to a therapist before we avail ourselves of the hugs of our friends. It’s like having the soul medicine always in the cabinet and we just not able to take it.
This is the reason I have decided to build a weekend workshop around hugging. I have read up about it: it turns out hugging reduces high blood pressure, promotes better digestion, heightens self esteem, creates a sense of well being.
I know I am under-hugged by humans. I hug my little dog in the morning, plant a few kisses on her little domed head, and I am making endorphins in my brain. Back when I had partners in my bed, the morning hug and kisses set my whole day on the happy track.
So now I am calling together the sisterhood for the workshop on the Experience of hugging. There must be more women then just me who needs more hugs.
Imagine in a redwood forest, near the coastline, women going through some Goddess hugging sessions. WE bring the natural power of the Goddess and extend it to each other. We don’t have to know each other, this can be human-to-human healing. We will know new friends at the end for sure.
Too intimate?
Hard to decide to commit?
Well, this is not a wedding, this is only hugging. And you hug as much as you feel comfortable with. I am not going to force you to hug somebody you don’t want to. These things are decided molecularly anyway.
I am also teaching about the Goddess, the season, ritual every day.
So it’s not all hugging. There are natural paths to take long walks on, there are many birds and the scent of the redwoods. There are no mosquitoes. And it’s shady and cool.
So please start your fingers typing and sign up!
We have one-day tickets as well. You can come to just Saturday’s workshops and ritual, for a hundred bucks. We get great food, nice beds, cabins, and sisterhood.