in vivo integral

As much as I have figured out: 

I am a node of awareness conjured up out of a remarkable and dysfunctional family history, starting with my parents and turtles all the way back as far as I can see..... in my adult life I have incarnated mostly as a doctor and a mother, in that order but not in that importance. More recently, I am stretching out to some new stuff. 

Today, I am working for money doing emergency locums in a Northern Ontario town,  mostly, here, because my father, who is a surgeon, started coming up here, refusing to retire after a million years. This has been a great way to co-ordinate a visit with him, make some money to fund my children's education, .....and also check also on my mother en route in Collingwood, as she is losing her marbles, and she can be difficult, and I love her, and am not sure what the next part with her is going to look like... ...... 

I live in a further remote northeastern spot, where I did most of my medical career in a first nations community.   I started there back in the day when there was overwhelming poverty and infectious disease and the land claims had not been settles and the Innu were protesting establishing a Nato base on their homeland..... I watched as the largest Nickel ovoid in the world was discovered on the same land claim, and the impact benefit agreements brought attention and money to the Innu communities, along with an unfortunate enhancement of violence, neglect, suicide, gas sniffing, and of course Bingo....The proportions of tragedy were overwhelming and I still can cry about it, but less so..   I got fired from that job for speaking out about the corruption and the cognitive dissonance I was experiencing.... and then I became the Medical Officer of Health for Labrador.  This was not a good fit, as I was blossoming with integral ideas in a basically blue orange health corporation.  I mostly either bored or feeling helpless.  I was really happy to find a better replacement and move on though.  I discovered Ken Wilber around 2000, and I am so grateful for that he wrote all those books... they were my best friends through some of the most difficult times in my life, and they held the space for me to learn to witness what was happening without the horrible overwhelm I felt through much of the worst.

I studied integral body work/psychotherapy with Robert Master for a year and did a few more bodywork weeks of training with him.  I really appreciated this time, to look at my own contractions and conditionings.  I developed the courage to turn to 'face the dragon', yet interesting, that brought the demise of my relationship with him as well.    

I have always struggled with a compulsive eating disorder, which is in full bloom when I am under more stress or very bored, or a combo of the two.   I still circle around this, but less so.  A couple of years ago, I went to the Living Light Raw Food Culinary Arts and became a 'gourmet raw food chef and instructor'.... this was among my most favourite educational experiences ever!  I have also recently been for an internship at Innisfree Farm on Vancouver Island, to learn about biodynamic farming, and bring some tricks back to my garden in Labrador.  

My two boys are my favourite people to hang around.   I know this might sound sort of pathetic, but it is true anyway.  They are 'integral' young men now, age 20 and 22.  They have taught me more about the male perspective that I could have wished for, and getting to see them develop and grow and become such beautiful human beings has ended the gender war in my soul forever.  (the war actually started ending with Robert Masters, and witnessing men in groups 'doing their work'.... and for this I am very grateful too)  Both of them meditate and eat raw food and do yoga and jump off cliffs and study what is happening in the world, and they both care,  and are full of life and love.   I feel totally blessed about this relationship with them.  I know they will are going to go beyond where I am in this life as far as 'waking up to be fully present humans'..... and I wish for a world, a cohort of these young people like them, to take over the project of bringing peace and abundance into the world.  I have so much delight because of them.  I can't do enough for them!  I just got a note from my youngest son who wants us to run a canoe tripping business down the Churchill River here for the summer.... he is training in this sort of thing right now....... I can't think of a lovelier way than to spend the summer canoeing and being a camp chef...so it is looking like it has a good chance of happening....  I also would like to volunteer to go up to the Torngat Mountains in Northern Labrador and be a medic and chef one summer soon..... I love big spaces and wild places... I love this natural world......  

Though I make cash as a doctor, I am not  easily aligned most of the time with the practice of western medicine.  I realized very clearly that 'medical care' needs to be nested in a larger circumstance of healthy sustainable communities and healthy food and health agricultural practices, and healthy transportation, and loving families.  This is so rarely the case now.  I feel chagrin that 'medical care' is so highly funded, while upstream the problems are being pumped out at an overwhelming rate.  I truly believe that almost all chronic diseases and many acute diseases need to be addressed in a completely different manner than they are now.   I am taking steps to embody this both in my own life and in my practice.  I loved the video 'May I be Frank' that Ambo posted.  I think that video speaks far more to what it true for the largest masses of people than anything I could learn at most medical conferences. I know it is true.  I don't know yet how to bring that kind of healing to 'all of us'.   The little Innu community I worked at for so long is filled with pre-transformational Franks...... it is so easy to see how beautiful everyone is, and yet it remains a challenge how to stand in a real and practical way for the possibility of this kind of transformation.  I am figuring this out... though it seems to be a slow train comin'. 

My relationship history has been spotty.  there is a lot to say about this..... but through it all, I have become deeply curious about other people, about what they want, and about what I want..... I was run by various complexes for most of my life.... and this is shifting dramatically lately.  

When I finish the work I am doing in the next week, I will go back to Labrador.  I will ski every day for several hours for the next two or three months regardless of the weather(unless there is no snow) in the back trails with my dog Rosie.  I like it all, the snow storms, the rain, the crisp beautiful sunny days.....  I will fish sometimes up at the rapids, or out on Lake Melville.  I will write a lot every day......finishing the first draft of the book I am working on...... I will also continue working with my organization The River Traders, a group of people working to re-establish an economically viable base in our village..... sigh... there are a lot of set backs in that work, unless you have a million dollars to throw around!  I dream of having the Raw and Wild Cafe in Labrador, some version of Cafe Gratitude, but so far I am not clear how to do this.........  When I return to my home,  I will be back to the Raw and Wild diet that seems most natural for my bioregion.  I will 'pretend-to-meditate' every morning for half an hour, (it is all I can stand)......  my most beautiful meditations happen when I am walking and skiing.   I will love to watch the winter sky at twilight,  the blanket of stars, and the moon and Rosie and I will ski often in the night if it is not too cold.  We have the most beautiful Northern Lights..... unspeakably beautiful... sometimes it is hard to go sleep because of them...... I also have a little cabin 10' X 8' with a wood stove and no water or electricity 20 miles from my house down the lake shore.... there are bears and moose and sometimes caribou....I like to hang out there... sometimes I read old versions of People Magazine or the National Enquirer there.....  out in that space there is so much beauty, I am intoxicated most of the time.   On a cloudless day in Labrador , the radio broad casters say "It is a large day in the Big Land."  I love large days, I love being in them and noticing them..... when it warms up, I will garden, and canoe and walk...... and swim sometimes when the water is warm.... 

Sometimes I listen to music..... lately, it has been Wah! from the ISE conference.  I tend to like listening to one song over and over again, parsing into how a song was created, imagining what moved the composer in just such a way...... I like all sorts of music.... I have a  mediocre voice, but I sang at the North West River Beach Festival all the same this year... I wanted to see if I had the nerve and the composure.... it was scary and this felt fun..... luckily I had great back up musicians and  dancers... so it was okay....... I would love to sing like Ella Fitzgerald, sigh....this is not likely in this life time. 

I love to nestle into my home, sometimes with friends often alone, with a fire going, and the snow deep outside, when it gets dark...... my dominion shrinks to a size that seems manageable, and I have a deep gratitude and contentment for all of it.   I would love every person to experience this.... and I believe it is possible.....

I could live with less than I have very easily....... I love to share my stuff..... 

So that is sort of a sketch of who I am and what I do... and why it is important is because it is what is here as me, and it is my contribution to the whole...... and somehow through this cornucopia of lives we all have, we are creating the experience that we are collectively sharing...... and I believe that it is just as easy, and every bit as possible, to create a collective experience that is beauty and connection all the way down and all the way up..... and I believe it starts with each individual life, with MY individual life.  It starts with what I  most truly resonate with and stand for on the day-to-day.  This is how I believe the most lasting change is going to happen....  I am so curious as to how this will unfold.  I think this adventure is the most awesome miracle ever.... even if I don't really understand how it all came about... 

okay, so that was my supper break used up, and i must head back to the emergency room and see what has been stirring over there...  

Jane 

 The fabric of my life is the cloth with which it is my task to polish the lens of my own perception.