FREED-UP Practice: SAY 'NO' to Antibacterial Soap

Earlier in the month (July, 2011) The Canary Report posted an article about Antibacterial Soap. The month has moved along, and I pasted the article here until I had time to frame the 'evidence' and 'experience' described by guest blogger Rob Dunn.  Dunn's article "Scientists Discover That Antimicrobial Wipes and Soap May Make You (and society) Sicker" appears in Scientific America.

Susie Collins' The Canary Report is one of the Internet's go-to sites for the global community living with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities.  She posted the article on antibacterial soap with this lead sentence:

"Just about nothing gets most people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity sick faster than exposure to antibacterial soaps."

I'm one of those people who would get sicker if I am exposed to antibacterial soap.  Sitting at the key this morning, considering what to say, I'm reminded about the conversation I had with my friend and neighbor.  She's writing a book (she's an anthropologist and a nurse).  I asked her how her book was coming, and she said, "Good."  She's writing every morning.  The hard part of it is putting in what other people have to say about the topic.  "Can't just pretend you made every thing up yourself."  There you go, I said to myself.  So, what's to say about this antibacterial soap that combines what others say, and what I have to say.

THE RESEARCH.  When I started getting sick, I had suspicions about what was happening and used the best part of my intuition and researching skill to ferret out 'causes.'  I know more, but know I know not everything.  The Internet allows access to information:  if I have Internet I can search.  But, with time and experience I search more discerningly, and direct my energy differently.

The case for NOT USING antibacterial soap is laid out well in Dunn's article, and if you've come this far, maybe you are ready to read what's in antibacterial soap, and what those ingredients actually do to your body and the 'germs' aimed at annihilation.

THE EXPERIENCE.  Pete and I are on alert for the hand wipes, sanitizers and squirt bottles of antibacterial soap.  I mask up in public spaces:  the library, food market, restrooms, bank knowing the exposure is typical. 

Our one public success regarding the use of soap and hand-washing OTHER THAN antibacterial is the 'Good News' process we began on Mothers' Day at South Whidbey Tilthe.  Pete and I have been cleaning the two restrooms for three months now, and people who have read the article I wrote in our South Whidbey Tilth Newsletter  "The Good News Koan:  Clean the Restrooms" come up to me and say, "Are you these guys?"  "Thanks for the article."  "Thank you.  That is such a good attitude."  These are the things that make choosing and doing things differently the good news. 

OUR NEWEST EXPERIENCE:  The septic guys from SEPTIC ALERT! were here last week to check out the septic tank.  I was off the land when I heard the truck pull in, unsure of what an inspection involved, best to find out later.  I was thinking I would have time and energy to render a detailed account of the inspection, but at this point it's enough to say this:

Pete found the septic guy very "knowledgable and articulate."  The guy 'really knows his stuff.'  The tank is in good shape, doing what it needs to do to maintain and break down the waste from the main house, including toilet, baths, dish washer, hand washing, and one clothes washer.  The inspection involved checking the activity of microbial breakdown ... the organic composting of all our sh*t and chemicals, supplements, prescription drugs, soaps, and product end up in the septic tank.

Here's the part that got to Pete:

• Prescription drugs like antibiotics (and others I can't remember) really create havoc in the septic tanks.  Nothing breaks down and everything in the tank sits there, clogging it up
• "What about baking soda and vinegar," Pete asked.  "Oh, that's some of the best stuff!"  The septic guy said.  I think Pete could've kissed the dude, but he only kisses me!
• Wow, don't you love it when unexpected gifts show up ... in unexpected places.

THE CHOICE:  I launched and maintain this blog because it's something I can do.  Influence?  Who can really know.  If you are reading this maybe something here will give you a nudge to move in the direction of fragrance and chemical freed-upness.  The research and the experiences are there to make informed choice. Got a septic tank?  It could have surprising tales to tell you.

Go do it.  Try Freed-up Practices and see for yourself.







TO READ The Canary Report article on antibacterial soaps link here:
 http://www.thecanaryreport.org/2011/07/07/antibacterial-soaps-toxic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheCanaryReport+%28The+Canary+Report%29

Masked

A mask is an article normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance or entertainment. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes. They are usually worn on the face, although they may also be positioned for effect elsewhere on the wearer's body, so in parts of Australia giant totem masks cover the body, whilst Inuit women use finger masks during storytelling and dancing.^[1]-

-From Wikipedia

Summer in our town is either slow, or tentative.  Seated on a wooden bench under an umbrella, the sun and the breeze were great company.  The thermos of de-caf coffee had warmed my belly and my complimentary breakfast of herb-spinkled eggs sat in there as well.  Slowly, I am able to be in conversation with new folks.  My I Can Breathe Mask dangles off my ear like an appendage I slip quickly in to place if a scent triggers the put-in-place motion.  Today Pete and I had finished breakfast and a newly-made friend was quickly approaching.  She came to the bench across the table and sat.  We bantered with the don't remember your name thing for a few seconds, giggled at the social gamesmanship of it, and then had a good and neighborly chat about summer, sun, 'home', and then eventually the mask.

It's important, I think, to get a feel for how conversations from behind masks or conversations that start with the mask dangling to the mask in-place invite.  Rewound a few years, thick fear and defensiveness made masked conversations not only difficult but triggering experiences.  With illness bred from being safe only when avoiding, staying put to converse for any reason let alone about the illness or with a trigger (scented source) is risky business.  More often then not, I left the scene before conversation could sprout:  flee, not fight; flight then write.  Even when this masked one was able to converse, the brain chemistry and the memory needed to be calmed and refreshed before a place of ease returned.  This post is not about the science of masked conversation, though I weave in and out of the effects on a being's chemistry.  What is helpful to me, and perhaps to those who read, is the slow flowing comfort with social intercourse from behind a mask.

Picture this:  the mask I currently wear is 'decorative', black and green lace over a tan mask with carbon filter.  With my practice of living with PLAN BE, I have come to know the illness and the conditions for being in the public eye with a mask.  It has been seven years.

• Some of my hesitancy has passed:  I know I must wear it to remain comfortable.  I know what happens when I am without the mask, and know it's not necessary to tell the story of it all.  Trust must grow before a story is exchanged. 
•  The choice to buy and wear that lace mask was the Venus-in-me the love of pretty things that said, "Here's something pretty you can wear."  And, the thing that has happened for me behind that lacey mask is ... people approach the mask and say weird and wonderful new-to-me things:

'that's the coolest protective mask I've ever seen!'

'cool mask!'

'very decorative.'

I say, "Thanks, I think so too."

"I've heard about [chemical sensitities] but never knew ..."

With my mask dangling, I say, "Yes, what you say is sometimes true.  But it is unique for each of us ..."

I am more known to people at this Sunday morning setting.  There is some understanding and comfort with my ways of being, and I more comfortable with the limits I set.  People tell me about their experience with inciting episodes; an event triggers a change in a loved one and ripples out; because I clean the restroom I hear of others who might be like me, but not cleaning a public restroom.  Masks have been a source of protection, decoration, entertainment and ritual shape-shifting and in the everyday life of someone who heals from the affects of others' choices all those reasons for the mask play a part. 

Seasons of change are true for us all, tentative or late I suppose it only matters if you are counting on the change to plant your nature.  Otherwise, grow anyway.

Managing Set-backs

This blog began with a very real shift:  Plan BE made it possible for me to believe it was time to begin feeling better.  Earth Day was my point of reckoning ... from here I launched new beginnings.  I told myself new stories and re-entered my community believing I could be part of it.  I filled this new blog with examples of the new stories and success to Plan BE.  I have felt better and better for three months.

Last week-end I tried to do more than I could manage without tipping the new beliefs into territory filled with old triggers of over-load.  Freeing up myself from years of old experiences is still a process, successes build new foundations in increments, but there are no teams of elves laying in the corner-stones and fill overnight.  Walking into a department store, and staying in there (with my mask) for thirty minutes is a legion feat; riding through banks of Scotch Broom lined highways where newly sprayed Round-up edges are evidenced with the inimitable dead-brown tint; and then visiting friends in their new and wonderful for them kitchen set off the set-back.  Topping it all off, my long-additive choice to comfort myself with wheat (bread/toast/cookies) finally laid me back.

Recovery and healing from the effects of multiple chemical sensitivities is a multiple and unique journey.  My experience with the process re-introduces the methods of coping emotionally and physically with symptoms:  first, do I recognize the triggers; then, how do I respond(or react, each verb is different); do I give myself the compassionate gift of 'time' to accept what is happening.  I'm hear to put the process down so I remember that this set-back was not gracefully accepted.  I resist, and want this to be over so I can get back to the better-and-better feeling life I was having.

"There's no rushing the river."  Life if it is a river will flow or trickle with seasons.  All around us the forest has grown from hibernation to shoulder-high Bracken and boisterous berry bushes filled with bell-shaped blossoms and airports of bees.  I want to feel better now, but it will need to be in increments, sequentially-accessed by going through re-entry.  Count the blessings, and the goodness and use it as mortar in the foundation re-laid so far:  two days without wheat makes a difference (I go through with-drawal like an alcoholic freshly sober); Round-up doesn't clear quickly (I know that) I am weak and my nervous system quivers from head to toe; avoidance is still a necessary coping and healing strategy.

We were at MK's celebration yesterday.  Her beautiful photography was receiving the praise and attention it deserved.  Masked and present outside the home-office where the party gathered I sipped a glass of raspberry seltzer and felt part of the celebration.  How long had it been since I'd help a real glass of anything at a party?  Long enough ago that I don't remember. Two of the guests stopped to ask about the mask.  Both of them aware of chemical sensitivities they shared of other experiences with someone they know who lives with the condition.  "Until you know someone, you just think ...'ah, come on!!" one of the guests said.  A big old diesel truck drove past, but not until it had stopped at the STOP sign while I stood on the porch outside the front door chatting with a friend.  It was just minutes too long, that truck, that chat in the same place. 

Managing set-backs is a sequential access experience.  We have often described our life living in tiny spaces with multiple sensitivities using that description.  Seems it remains so still.

Are you easy with set-backs?

Standing in Line

This is amazing!

How is being in a line amazing?  Measurement is funny and we all do it.  "In this country, you always talk about things in the past based on a year.  We (in England) say "I was x-years old when ..."  Measurement by the moon or by the spoonful we all do it.  There's a spot just yards from my writing tray, a nice renewed for me TV tray that holds a renewed for us laptop.  That spot outside, just yards from this Quonset is being dug up and blocked up for a new tiny space soon to be a bath house.  Separate and small, a shower stall that might in time and opportunity morph into a Japanese style soaking tub will bring us from a pan of wash water to a shower of running, hot water.  Measurements we all do it.  I'm thinking "That will be amazing."

So, back to why is being in a line amazing.  Earlier this week I was in town, standing in a line.  I put my feet in my boots in a line with a bunch of other people aiming at ordering and purchasing something to eat.  While standing, in a public space, with people I saw someone I know.

"Hi,' I said when I saw he was done talking with the woman with things in her hands.
"Oh, hi."  We don't know each other very well, but in this small town when you know someone you become congenial ... friendly.  The man asked how things were going 'out there' familiar as he is with where and somewhat how we live. 
"Great!"  There was time enough to move the conversation into bits of detail while in line.  By the time it was my turn to order I saw that the only goodie I'd like was gone.  Something registered in me, while I experienced what I later described as a wrinkle ... Madeline L'Engle is right about the way time can do that. 

I turned to my neighbor and said, "You go ahead, that raspberry-almond scone is not there."  To my surprise he said, "Well, how about that over on the end, that looks yummy."  "Cinnamon roll.  Hmmm....  no I don't think so." 
"I'd be happy to buy you something." 
"No, thank-you."  Time measured forward.  It was but a few seconds.  I sensed something special had happened there.  I touched the friendly man on the elbow and said, "Nice seeing you," or something like it.  I walked out the door and the feeling somewhere between sadness and awesome tried to describe itself to me.

Later that day I wrote an email to my neighbor thanking him for the genuine kindness of his offer.  I described as best I could the wrinkle that happened when I turned down his offer, and said in some future time, we will be in a line and when he makes that offer again I will say, "Thank you, I'd love one of those raspberry-almond scones."  Being in a line, amazing.

Mokihana C.

Author's Note:  This post originated as a piece of writing done on the on-line creative writing group I conjured up during the months, not long ago, when I was lonely for the rooms and gatherings that were once common-place for me.  I am a writer.  I have loved the company of others, and loved being in the company of other writers.  Life changed, I needed a PLAN BE, but didn't know to call it that. 

I wrote this this weekend, and am thrilled with the fun of being able to spread a story through the many voices of blogging:  I'm absolutely sold on this write-and-publish venue.

more GOOD NEWS ... never under-estimate the power of a letter

Earlier in the week, my friend Eileen joined her choir for a gathering of song for Memorial Day.  I heard about the event through my husband Pete.  Eileen and MK share their land with us, and during the year we have been here she has become an understanding advocate for those who live with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities.  The process of becoming aware of this condition-illness does not easily move to acceptance for those living with or observing the condition-illness.  Time and willingness are two factors that must couple, and even that combination will be affected by circumstance.  The third-part of the process of change:  action can be a long time coming.  We know from experience the journey through awareness, acceptance and action.  The years of healing from MCS has brought us to today, and this is the good news.

The following (edited to exclude a full-name) email was sent to the members in Eileen's choir just the other day. 

"I want to say something about Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS). I knew little about it until Pete and Mokihana moved onto our land. (You all know Pete. He brought the risers to UU for us and took them back. Now he's repairing them so we can use them again with safety.) At first I was skeptical about MCS. It was difficult to make sense out of Mokihana's responses to the threat of chemical contact. It seemed inconsistent. 

Scents and fragrances are indicators of chemicals in the air. Individual responses can include itching, respiratory response, hives, feeling like you have the flu, fatigue, and a host of other problems that can last for days. The way I was able to make sense of Moki's responses to chemicals is that it is about being safe. To learn more about Multiple Chemical Sensitivities check out Mokihana's blog Fragrance Free in 23.  Mokihana was able to attend our Spring concert by standing at the back door of the church. She was so happy to be able to hear us.

 If you are willing, I invite you to consider creating our choir as a safe space for folks with chemical sensitivities. A number of folks in the choir besides R react to fragrances. Drier sheets, perfume, hair products even essential oils can trigger reactions in those with chemical sensitivites. Personally, I'm not sure that the fragrance that set off R's reaction was on one of us but in the practice room. I caught the fragrance and started coughing when we walked into the room and I was one of the first ones in there and I am fragrance free. One of the things that makes a huge difference to MCS folks is having a community that will stand with them, trust that the illness is real, and give up as many fragrances as possible. If you are not able to give them up. Then it helps if they are told ahead of time when you are wearing a fragrance, or if you detect a fragrance in a room so it doesn't take them by surprise. MCS is unique to each individual and each day is different from every other. Stress and fatigue, the intensity of the fragrance, the environment, the occasion all have an effect upon how the reaction will unfold. Thanks for allowing me to share my experience learning to trust and appreciate my new friend Mokihana and being open to understanding how I can support her and other folks with MCS."

Eileen

Mahalo Eileen for your trust, and your letter(email)
Love,
Mokihana

Multiple Voices: a choir

"I have seven active blogs,"  I told her. 
"Why?"  She asked.
I thought about my answer for a couple seconds, and said, "I've been a writer most of my adult life, and I love to write.  There's so much to write, slightly different voices, same life."  There wasn't much discourse from that point between us, though the question was asked by others in different ways.  Madeline L'Engle wrote, 'But I cannot write just when I feel like it, or I will have nothing to write with.  Like the violin, I must be tuned and practiced on constantly."

A couple people asked what happened to our 'old' blog, and I said the story had been told for three years, and it was time to stop telling that story.
"Do you think others have followed in your footsteps?" One friend asked.
"I'm not sure about that, though at least one couple is building a tiny home, and is in touch with us."
The friend said she had been to our our blog a lot.  I said she would be welcomed to see the archived posts; we could invite her to read them if she asked. 

Pete and I were gathered with a group of people who live with different manifestations of an illness diagnosed as Multiple Chemical Sensitivities.  We met these folks three years ago when my physical symptoms were the most difficult to understand, and support for this unravelling came from this group.  We garnered ideas, listened to the stories each shared and enjoyed the company of fragrance-free companions.  We so appreciate the experiences we heard back then.  We have often been, and continue to live a distance away from this Seattle-based group.  Our trek from South Whidbey is made with consciousness and preparedness.  The pollens are in sky-high infusion in mid-May, so my decision to travel is done with Plan Be, once again. 

1. BElieve I can do it.  My desire for the company of these folks is strong.  We  haven't seen these friends for nine months.
2. BE positive.  Knowing what I see as a good-thing and a step toward good-feeling (joyful company, catching up, sharing), I focus on the good and step away from resistence and feelings that distract.
3. BE prepared.  We travel with an oxygen tank, face mask, homeopathic remedies, glass jug of filtered water, and know to keep talking to each other as we pace our way from the woods to the city.  We plan the two hours journey into the city with ease and fun built-in:  ice cream cone for me, a good and healthy lunch even before the late afternoon potluck.

The weather was mild and allowed a pleasant few hours with our friends.  The stories and the voices were multiple, but focused mainly around the illness.  A new supplement for one woman aides her to sleep; another friend rests peacefully on a blanket laid on the grass beside our picnic table enjoying the sleep she hasn't been able to get as she wades through a multiple-month challenge of in-her-home invasion; bone-building physical stretches shared just before our 'good-byes' attracts the interest of three of us; a successful search for a new home is a victory shared. 

In one afternoon gathering the voices of experiences are multiple, and each voice and story fueled by a personal decision based on wanting to 'feel good.'  The varied choices and the progress toward good as diverse as is the dozen or so folk who came to the park that spring afternoon.  As Pete and I headed home, we recounted our adventure.  Though it was rush-hour our path along the alternative highway north was easier, fewer banks of the pollen that is most difficult for me made the journey a most down-stream experience.  We had napped earlier, sunning ourselves in the car as we waited for our friends to arrive.  So we had refreshed enough ... pacing ourselves to allow the good into our flow.  We could not share the driving because I needed to use the oxygen from time-to-time, I need to remember to thank Pete and appreciate him more often.

When we got home, we both were glad we adventured, but even more glad to be home.  What a nice feeling to know 'glad to be home.'  Back in the Quonset I stowed away the food and supplies we'd purchased from the city.  JOTS was still out and away in the woods.  Pete was off tending to the ducks and chickens.  When I peeked out the door, I saw him sitting at the nearly built wooden table now so comfortably a part of the orchard.  He and Eileen were chatting.  I turned on the c.d. player, checked to see that the sounds I wanted to hear were there, shut the lid on the player, pressed the PLAY arrow button and listened to the other part of my PLAN BE.  I am newly training myself to turn down-stream for my good news and good feelings.

"Be easy about this. Be playful about it. Don't work so hard at it. Let your dominant intent to be to feel good, and if you don't feel good, then let your dominant intent be to feel relief. Feel your way through it. If you think your way through it, you can get off on all kinds of tangents. If you feel your way through it, you can come quickly to your Core Energy, and when you do that only good can then flow to you."

--- Abraham
Excerpted from the workshop in Rye, NY on Sunday, October 12th, 1997

My choosing gets better with practice.  I listened to my c.d. and turned to the sink, and the bottles that needed to be refilled with filtered water.  I knew this choice to drive into Seattle was done on an 'Ole Moon when rest was the best choice.  I took a risk, and now I feel the price for extending beyond my reserves.  Before the tape was finished Pete came back, we traded places in front of the laptop. 

"Would you keep an eye on the bottle?  I need to go into the vardo for a lie-down." 
"Sure," Pete said.
"I can turn that tape off," I said before leaving the Quonset.
"No, that's okay, I'll listen."

I walked across the gravel path to the vardo steps, opened up the vardo saying a silent hello of appreciation, changed into my robe, straightened up the covers a bit and climbed in.  Rested from one more adventure in this life,I noted the different choices made by others on their path. I recognized the contrasting examples as research for my bettering-life.Those 'Ole Moons of the Hawaiian Moon Calendar are there for good reason, and when I push my will again the wobble of those resting moons, there are consequences.  My Plan BE, reminds me that I choose to tell a different story and keep deciding consciously.  It takes practice.  My new story is newly sprouted, cultivating a soul takes care.  I'll remember that, and it's my own dear soul over which I can care...mine alone.  Does it take 7 blogs to tell my story?  A choir is multiple voices, I like the sound of that. Here's a video of virtual voices ... a 6 minute 'different musical story'... ready?

FREED-up

It's a beautiful spring day in the woods, sunny with a breeze that sends the tower of hundred foot firs into a graceful movement of olapa (picture the most graceful of hula dancers).  Pete is in Seattle leaving truck and car in the gravel lot just around the corner from the vardo.  I have not left the woods in two days.  Something happened to me when I asked Pete the other day, "What did that cost to fill the Subaru?"  "$30" was his answer.  When he drives Bernadette the beast truck it costs a lot more, and the old girl needs a new carburator, so the emissions are no way near low-impact.

When we were living on the road, the option to leave Bernadette and Scout (the truck and the car) in place wasn't yet our see-it-do-it reality.  We needed both truck and car to move ourselves and chattel again and again.  But, in our dreams and in our imaginings there was a place to settling in; accessible to public transportation and services we needed.  The desire was amassing.  The years of driving both truck and car hither and yon was the crack in time between believing and allowing.  We were learning things, learning what we didn't want, and still the dream of what we did want and why we wanted it was alive and well. 

Our first winter honed down my resistence to believing this could be the place.  One week at a time, one experience at a time, I relaxed into now.  Now, I feel what it's like to be comfortable.  Now I know I can survive and then flourish even without a car to drive during the coldest, darkest times of winter.  With no resistence, my relexes and habit of struggling eased.  The habit eased some more.  Four months later, when I could be in the Subaru, I didn't want to be in it.  I'd become comfortable with the company of the woods, the quiet and with me.  The folks at STAR Store couldn't see the difference in me, though I was a daily shopper before the winter hiatus.  Pete felt the difference most because he took on the shopping tasks. 

It takes time and pacing to come into alignment with your dreams.  FREED-up from beliefs that no longer fit the version of our lives today, Pete's been on a bike, a ferry, on foot, on a bus, and on a train to get from South Whidbey to Beacon Hill in Seattle.  I've walked the trails with JOTS, watered the peas, and will make rhubard sauce and left-overs for supper.  I'm telling people, "We are thriving on the Island."  The change in my story surprises them.  Delighted for us, one of those friends asked, "How did it happen?  Was it emotional or physical?"  I told her "It was both."  "Which came first?"  I tell her about my winter with no car and the slowed down, freed-up release that has allowed me to believe differently, and to choose better-feeling thoughts. 

That's my hybid-trike!

I catch myself slipping on old habits and old thoughts.  But, here's the good news ... I catch myself sooner than later when it's easier to turn my attention down-stream where the good is.  What's down stream from here?  Well ... see that hy-brid trike?  It's down-stream with my name on it.

What's your good news?