A Year of healing in Ecuador - Part 2, the Recovery

Back on the healing path in April, 2021 we had a series of 'weekend lockdowns' yep, only locked down on weekends (???).  And I had decided to step down off the prednisone which has to happen gradually lest you rebound back into the pain. Where I live is tranquil and our community on this ridge side of the sacred Mandango mountain that dominates the Valley calls itself the Hill Tribe, and 6 households live cooperatively centered around the Pyramid I co-created and built (and have blogged on) in 2012. The Pyramid was built and designed to attract and focus the energies of the Mandango. The Pyramid shaped bamboo frame and thatch covered roof (using scaled down dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Giza) is built over a 9m square earthen platform, the whole structure is in alignment along magnetic ley lines and the 4 directions very important to indigenous tradition. We share shamanic ceremonies there, plant medicine ceremonies, yoga and qi gong, meditation, women's and men's groups, workshops, sound healing offered by Hill Tribe members and people in the community.

Built with all natural materials the Pyramid is perfect for transformational activities; those that support people wishing to delve into their current illusion and evolve a different reality. As a natural structure, standing in a natural setting the Pyramid decays and needs renovation constantly, every-changing as is everything in our world. This representation of impermanence preludes non-attachment and non-judgement which are concepts inherent in nature and which while supported by traditions like Buddhism are so lost in our modern world. I believe this is largely where we have gone wrong as human societies, that we stopped living in and listening to nature. We have a running funding site to help support the ongoing rehabilitation of the Pyramid and I invite you to take a look and please donate if you can.

Lots of pix of the Pyramid here on the FB page @MandangoPyramid

What I wanted to say was that these lockdowns were in fact welcome weekend retreats for us, moments of calm. On each of the 4 successive weekends we the Hill Tribe led sessions in the Pyramid of movement medicine, meditation and breathwork, such a perfect way to be locked down! It is important for me to locate for you why this place has been so essential to my healing and why I travelled across the world and away from my sons to be here and do the necessary healing and be a healthier and better father. I couldn't have picked a better place to ride out the Covid-ness affecting the world.

I joined and left a 'polymayalic arthritis' online forum, a support group for people with this 'affliction', recognizing that most of the people were resigned for life to their medicated condition and coping with that. I was not one of them, I had from the beginning understood that there was a light at the end of the tunnel and that pharmaceutical medications were not the way forward. Life had been insanely busy and stressful and I took it that this condition of mine was the universe telling me to slow down and reflect on who I was and where I was headed. And I am forever grateful for all the lessons I continue to learn.

On my beautiful west facing terrace I started training with a new friend from Colombia, Daniel who embodies positivity, TRX and rubber bands for the isotonic approach. Many months of inactivity had caused my body to consider this weakened conditioning to be it's 'new normal' and certainly on prednisone while I might have been pain free I still wasn't anything like 'back to normal' in terms of strength and activity level. At this point I had been away from my sons' for longer than I had thought and it didn't seem like the end was coming anytime soon. In school in Switzerland and living with their Mum they were doing fine, each adapting differently to a new country and culture and curriculum and to my absence. It has been painful to be away from them, and I know that my resistance to reconciling this has not helped my healing but it has been part of the process and only recently as a result of heart-centered therapy have I learned possibly why this is so, I'll save that for another blog.

The training and nutrition regime was going well until one day I tweaked my left shoulder (another nemesis injury 11x dislocated) while training even though we were going slow and carefully, my body reacted saying it wasn't ready yet. Then over 4 weeks, once I had stopped the prednisone and with the shoulder injury, pain slowly started to return. What I know now is that I hadn't taken long enough to wean off the drug, mistake number 2. Closely followed by mistake number 3 when I did a 5 day water fast in week 4 without the commensurate colon cleanse, and I suspect toxins released during the fast that should have been flushed out, triggered again an inflammatory response and oh boy did I suffer. In late March, rebounding big-time, I fell back into pain and stiffness. There was more inner work to do.

This time I lasted 3 weeks losing mobility, independence, in constant pain, my spirit descended in a spiral again. In the early hopeful days as I was tapering off the prednisone and at the beginning of those 4 weeks I had been considering returning to Europe to be proximate to my boys and to try to set-up a wellness practice there. But that wasn't to be. Instead in late April I reluctantly went back on prednisone and was again, nearly immediately 'cured'. Amazing really the sense of being well again on this drug, and I realise that for many it is truly miraculous and I see why people stay on it. Unfortunately there is a plethora of side-effects of prednisone, some of them to the long-term detriment of the body's integrity.

Skip to the chase. I remained on prednisone through May, June and July, I was on it during my son's visit in July so that I was able to be pain free and mobile with them. The day they left I started to taper off again. This time the taper would take 2 months and by the end of September I was feeling like it was the moment to leave the drug altogether. I decided to stick only with the same diet and not take supplements of any kind so that my body could normalize and not be in anyway dependent on anything else besides what I was eating; food as medicine. I realised also that years of being 'toxified' were a part of my dilemma. I grew up through a time when fertilizers and pesticides were being introduced into the food chain, and when the genetic modification of food began. With respect to the scientific community and their efforts to improve crop yields and support farmers in poor countries, in the interest of ensuring the availability of food for more people, we have known since the '70s that the real problem with food scarcity has always been global distribution, not production and that these methods of chemicalization and modification do not necessarily support population health. Another heady topic.

In addition I have spent much of my adult working life living in countries where there has been a lack of regulation in the use of chemicals in food production. I have lived in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Nepal and Myanmar where poverty, war and corruption have resulted in the poisoning of the earth. In Myanmar for example the entire Irrawaddy basin, a food basket of rich and fertile soil is toxic. Getting an organic grower certification there is impossible because the water source is contaminated with chemicals. Ironically in many cases low quality fertilizers and pesticides illegally transported from China thwart the efforts of countries to regulate such additives because they are cheaper, and farmers are mis-educated to use greater concentrations on crops than is needed. So who knows what I ingested and what has accumulated in my system over these years. Also growing up in Canada at a time when so many things were being experimented with in terms of increasing crop yields. Wheat or beef or chicken or soy, etc are far from the same as what I started off eating as a lad. Nowadays you can't find GMO, glyphosate free wheat products on the shelf unless you go specifically for organics. Beef, chicken, pork and even (especially) salmon, anything 'mono-cropped' are all antibiotic, steroid and hormone 'enhanced'. In Afghanistan, in 2003 I was in the north-west province of Farya, the Iranians were shipping containers full of robust frozen chickens to remote town markets, a welcome change from the scrawny farm-yard chickens you could get in the market. Yet by their size these were chickens highly inoculated, hormone supported, being force-fed chemicalized grains chickens. The bird flu scare halted the importation of these chickens probably to the betterment of the general population and my personal health.

Statistically we have seen a steady increase in cancers over the past 30 years, particularly in those who are over 45 years old today. We should not be at all surprised given the abuse of the food supply by corporate interests. I don't think I am the only canary in the mine, I think we are many, a whole huge flock. I believe it is not in the 'corporate' (food industry), nor in the western medical community's interest to see this because if it was, we would be seeing big changes in how we steward the earth, and how we cared for ourselves.

Add to all this I have unknowingly injured myself with two more insults: one the mercury amalgams in my teeth and whatever ails they might bring to heavy metal toxification of the body. Secondly I should not forget air toxicity; I have lived in some remarkably toxic cities, like Kuala Lumpur, Kathmandu and Yangon and it can't be underscored how urban living in such places can only contribute to the toxification of body systems. Fortunately my lungs have had a break now and again with good lengths of time a year in East Timor, the coastal town of Dong Hoi in Vietnam where I lived for 2 years, and Vilcabamba here in Ecuador. I admit also to have been a more off than on smoker for much of my adult life and with long breaks, but still, that can't have helped.

Here in the Sacred Valley of Ecuador there is a firm growing commitment on the part of farmers to grow chemical free food, the air is clean clean clean and it is the perfect place to detoxify and heal the body and spirit. And so through this time here I have eaten mainly organic foods. We are not educated about the importance of the health of our gut, and the effect of the damage done to a healthy gut biome by antibiotics. In 2003 I had an insidious pneumonia on the upper right lobe of my lungs and this was treated with nearly 3 weeks of rather harsh antibiotics. I believe my gut was destroyed then and as soon as the doctor could give me a clean bill of health, I ended up back in Afghanistan right at the time when those steroid chickens were available. Who knows what harms came to my system then, and with the various stressors of the job and poor availability of nutrient rich food, no probiotics, certainly I did nothing helpful to rebuild my gut.

Another digression, I know but to explore the understanding that our gut is our second brain is huge. In fact many would posit that our gut is our first brain and without a healthy gut we really cannot think straight, do a search on this! I would concur, and healing my gut has taken time. Post-prednisone I took extreme care to ensure a proper balance of pre and probiotics, fiber, plant and animal proteins and nutrients were in my diet; I was finally attending to my gut biome. I became more regular with my meditation practice, and through this crazy 2 years of the Covid pandemic, have made decisions from the heart, not from a place of fear and this has all helped me to see things much more clearly than would have been the case without such practices. I blogged about my perspective on the global Covid response in January.

In December my eldest son came for a visit, that lifted my spirits considerably and it cannot be understated how a positive frame of  mind does wonders for reducing stress which in turn supports the immune system and thereby supports healing. I will be forever grateful that he made this trip (not easy as I describe in the 'Stuck in Paradise blog below). Thank you son!

A key step that I took was to do a liver cleanse in January 2022, using a clever protocol from 'the Medical Medium' that I can tell you about if you ask. I highly recommend anyone over 45 start a regime of a least annual colon and liver and kidney cleanses to mitigate against the possibility of cancers or other diseases resulting from our years of toxification, and of course to reduce the likelihood of a 'perfect storm'.

Here I am writing in March, 2022.  I now understand that healing really has to take time and is not only about the physical state of being. I have been pain free for nearly 6 months, though weak from a year of nearly no physical activity and nervous about over-doing it to rebuild. A year ago I bought a vehicle, because what is only a 10 minute hillside walk from or to town had become too much and I was constantly tired. Recently, though the original knee dilemma has been largely unattended, I have started to walk down to town and started going to the gym to try to bulk up my quads and shoulders.

It has been a long path towards healing, though as my wise friends say, it took a lifetime to arrive at the place I've come from. I am grateful for this time and place, for the people who have challenged me and those who continue to support me. This journey has enhanced my understanding of what others go through, those in 'chronic' pain who come for some kind of respite. And I am more than before an ardent advocate for prevention. Nearly 9 years ago, when I turned 50, I posted on my FB to my friends 'if you haven't evolved a movement practice by now, it's not too late' and I stand by that. Conscious movement is critical, what we eat should be medicine not poison, we need to cleanse and to be healthy of body and we need to be healthy in mind.

To people in need of support on their journey I am available, and for others I would request that you share my website email address: elementalenergy.daniel@gmail.com or message me on WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal: +(593)996545233 or FB/Instagram: @elementalwellnesstherapies with anyone you know who needs support, or just wants to start a meditation of movement practice.

Finally to my sons who I speak to nearly daily and who have come to Vilcabamba twice in these past 15 months, please know that I left when I did because I had to, you know I miss you. I am rebuilding. I will come to Europe soon, who knows for how long, it depends what works and if I can find work. I have to go slow in the process of recovery because I don't want to end up back down the rabbit hole of pain and despair. Despite whatever restrictions and all the challenges the current situation in Europe has thrown into the mix, I'll be there. Meanwhile I'm building my quads like a '......', great advice from my NZ physio friend who I was another man-mum in Kuala Lumpur 18 years ago! 

I know it has been a challenging time for Cécile, single-parenting teens! And it is wonderful that she has been able to maintain the boys in comfort and safety. That I didn't return when expected was not anticipated neither by me (or maybe it was a 'be careful what you ask for' by one or both of us moment?). At least an absence this long probably wasn't ever thought of. The problematic of staying in arguably one of the most expensive constituencies in the world, was anyway untenable due to Covid so even if I was healthy I wouldn't have been able to work. 

The whole Covid overlay has meant that their Mum has spent more time working from home and except for the end of term last year the boys have been going to school since they started in Suisse back in Aug 2020, so that is something positive. As most of this generation of screen-committed teenagers do, they retreat to their rooms after raiding the fridge after school, and emerge from their dens to again forage for food at dinner-time and then retreat again. It means Mum is around the place. I taught them to cook, and they are quite good, skills that are already proving to serve them well! It has meant a lot for my healing to know the boys are thriving, performing well at school, not without health concerns for our youngest, but overall they are doing better than ok. I will blog again about my concerns for this generation through a period of 'de-socialisation' which doesn't fit with our usual concept of a healthy environment for teens. Covid has kept kids at home and 'off the streets', for the most part, though at least on the street you're getting some sunlight. Anyway, this too shall pass and they will be fine. I am sure of that.

A Year of healing in Ecuador - Part 1, the Perfect Storm

I have been living in Ecuador for 15 months! A difficult year on many levels that began a healing journey after falling foul to a 'perfect storm' of circumstances that started with a small knee injury in France and led some painful months later to a diagnosis of polymyalgic arthritis and recovery in Ecuador. I write now early in March enjoying full recovery, pain free, meds free and mobile (yaaah!). This is the story of that journey.

For some of you in Europe where I had just moved with my sons after spending their whole lives and my past 25 years in Asia, or the Middle East or South America (most recently we lived in Yangon, Myanmar), in December 2020 I disappeared off the family map, remaining there only virtually. After 15 years of being the stay at home parent for my boys I was suddenly not where they were any more and this bears some edification because I know many of you have no idea what happened, or why I am still away.

It began in mid-October 2020 when I stepped off my bike on uneven ground in a field in France and injured my long-problematic left knee. We had arrived in mid August, the 6th country the boys have lived in, for them to start school in Switzerland (that journey is documented here!) and where Cécile (their Maman, my partner in co-parenting) had secured a post at the HQ for the UN Refugee Agency in Geneva. As it turned out she had to return to finish up her engagement with UNHCR in Myanmar until late November so it was me and the boys for the summer and much of the fall adjusting to our new reality after most of their lives had been spent in Asia and the Middle East. Anyway that day in October something slipped in my left knee and it became painful and inflamed.

This wasn't the first time; I injured my knee initially in 1983 and had a surgery then to fix my posterior cruciate ligament, these small mishaps had happened a few times over the years, but this time, a week or two of rest and anti-inflam/pain killers, just didn't work to get me mobile and pain-free again... maybe age had something to do with it; I'm 58 yrs on with many hard miles on the knee, from the Canadian Rockies to the Himalayas, the Alps and the Andes! In the ensuing two months as things really got worse I went to three doctors in France each one amping up the pharmaceuticals and none really helping. Between doctors two and three I was given a referral for imaging which showed a knee with little cartilage remaining to cushion the articulation between bones. Then I had lab tests, more imaging and an orthopedic surgeon who wanted me to have total knee replacement surgery (just shave 5mm off here, 7mm there, put in this cushiony stuff and sew you back up) in which ultimately they disconnect your leg at the knee and then reconnect it with some new bits inside and offer a 65% success rate.

I wasn't very keen on TKR surgery nor that there was a long waiting period for the surgery- and that the ski season would soon be upon us and I wouldn't be able make a turn for the whole winter so I'd be immobile, cold and miserable, and without an income.

To make a long story shorter (but not by much), over those 2 months I became like the tin man left out in the rain; stiffening in more joints particularly my hips and knees. This made walking, sitting, standing up, going up and down stairs all so painful, then my shoulders got in the act and then my hands. Not nice and blood tests were not revealing much, except that I didn't have rheumatoid markers which was a relief of sorts. Temporary relief came only from a hot shower in the morning.

I have reflected long-time about what got me into this situation, the perfect storm. Certainly the knee thing was where it started and just today I recall also how body-damaging scooters are (those 2-wheelers now popular in European capitals for 'scooting' around) and I had been a scooting fool around Geneva. It had become my main and preferred mode of transport. So, my lower back was compromised from over-scoot, that one-foot-lower-than-the-other-backward propulsion is not at all good for the lumbar/sacral spine. I had felt this before at some point scooting around London with the boys when they were little (a great tip for parents btw, kids too big to stroller love it and you can whizz around cities with ease) my back was killing me afterwards. The nerves that serve the knee exit the spine in the upper lumbar (L5 to be precise) and to confirm involvement at the spinal level the entire big toe nail on my left foot (the irony doesn't escape me), innervated from the same location in the lumbar spine, turned black as if I had dropped a brick on it. I liken the ensuing inflammation to a slow algae bloom the way it started in one joint and spread to the others supported rather than suppressed by the anti-inflammatory pharmaceuticals.

As winter approached and it got colder with humidity where we were not far from Lake Leman and Geneva, the cold got into my bones making matters worse. Nutrition played a role. It was part of the storm. Cécile had been there when we arrived in August and I continued cooking for two veggies and our two boy meat-eaters so once she returned to Myanmar in September I reverted to meat eating also to bulk up a bit for winter (or so I thought). I surmise that my diet changed too radically without the softer tropical fruits and veg I had been used to for 8 years and this change in my internal flora contributed to my troubles. 

Along with these physical changes (the climate, the nutrition, the inflammation, the meds) there were emotional and mental stressors; a relationship that had ended 3 years earlier far from a 'conscious uncoupling', logistics and lobbying issues around the school where Kasem was in one and Zaki in another (for the first month), problems getting a driver's licence transferred (that in itself is a story) meaning for a while I was driving on a Myanmar driver's license all the while daily crossing the border between Switzerland and France as you do as a 'frontalier' (cross-border dweller). Stress is a killer and I carry it in my lower back, the water element, the seat of emotions, the element of balance, potential and flow... ebb and flow so why be surprised when the nerves and I was not getting the reinforcement of a better perspective from community and so with everything else going on, I fell foul to my own lassitude, we are indeed our own worst enemies.

To add to the problem, Brexit was reaching it's writhing twisting finale for Brits residing in Europe. British people (am a Brit by birth) who could prove they resided in France by the end of 2020 had to apply for residency pronto. Cannot express enough how I loathe the 'rule Britannia' media driven bullsh*t that warped that appalling decision. There is a Catch-22 in many countries, where to get a bank account you needed a fixed address and to rent a place you need a bank account. Fortunately with foresight my name was on the tenancy agreement for where the boys and Cécile were to live in France (they have now moved to Switzerland). In France you can't work out of your house so you need to join or set up a 'cabinet' (clinic), you can't work without liability insurance, you have to register as a business; a minefield of administration and bureaucracy. And really I have a very strong aversion to bureau-crazy. I had registered and then applied to become a French resident just before the final deadline on 30 June, 2021 and still haven't heard back from the French, I'm told it could take years.

Unable to manage well and in such a declining condition in France with my status uncertain and sadly UNHCR and all it's concern for 'family reunification' of refugees doesn't extend that concept with visa facilitation to it's staff in 'blended' families. I was at a loss and dependent on one particularly supportive friend (thanks again Joe) to get me to appointments with labs and doctors. And then I spoke with another friend in Myanmar who suggested I needed to 'go home', and I am forever grateful for this advice (thanks Christina). And to her question 'where was home' I easily answered... Vilcabamba in Ecuador. Don't be too surprised dear reader who may not know me well, it is in Vilcabamba between Afghanistan missions 22 years ago that I established a presence (coming and going, sometimes for weeks, and sometimes months) in this little town of the southern Andes, building community, centered now around two houses and a project called the Pyramid on Mandango. The boys have been multiple times to Vilcabamba, a respite in nature's harmony. It is also Ecuador where friends in Vilcabamba had had success with more heinous knee problems than mine, through stem cell injections, a much preferred approach than hacking the knee apart, so going to Ecuador was not such a long stretch and though I haven't yet, it could still be that I have stem cell injections into my knees.

23 December 2020 I left for 'home'. This was a very difficult moment; my definition of home is where your family lives and my sons are my family, as their 'at-home parent' their entire lives my departure though planned to be only 3 months, was still heart wrenching. Over a year later my return to France or Switzerland where the boys are in school and living with their mother is pending a full recovery. Over this time it has been thwarted by the covid restrictions overlay (at the time of writing these are ebbing) that would require me to get vaccinated (against medical advice having an auto-immune reactive system) and make working as a therapist nigh on impossible in Europe. I am very grateful the boys are with their Mum, they moved from France across the border to Switzerland last year and very close to their school, they are 15 and 17 yrs old, young men. 

I made my first mistake early on stopping cold turkey the anti-inflam meds the minute I set foot in Ecuador. The trip had been alright, I was coked up on pain-killers and for the first time in my life I wished I had checked in as 'needs assistance' because the walk first through Schipol airport and later after a 11 hour plane ride, transiting Quito airport nearly killed me; but I survived. Arriving in the evening I lapped up the hot humid night air of Guayaquil my final airport. In the morning I went immediately to see the stem cell doctor, who straight away told me I was not a candidate for stem cells in my current 'inflamed' condition. He did a round of unexpected and very painful neural therapy injections (injecting procaine under scar tissue to stabilize the autonomic nervous system), well-based in science but doesn't help alleviate the pain at least not immediately. All in all my knee has seen more action than your average knee and is full of scarring. Said doctor sent me off with liver and kidney support homeopathics, and prescriptions for vitamin injections and advice to adjust my nutrition with the aim to reduce the inflammation.

I had arranged for a taxi truck to drive me to Vilcabamba, no flights these days to the nearest airport at Catamayo (LOH), it is a 9 hr drive east, climbing dramatically up into the Andes arriving at Ecuador's third (and most beautiful) city of Cuenca at 2400m and then south along a stunning road, running the spine of the Andes to Vilcabamba at 1600m. I was glad I paid the expense to do this as I am not sure I could have managed the bus. As it was by the time I got to Vilca after 3 days of travel, I was stiffening up big time, and within that first week when I was ensconced in my the guest room of my tenant's house I could hardly get out of bed on my own.

Those early days of pain are a bit of a blur, my memory is befuddled. I was hoping that following the good doctor in Guayaquil's protocol to support liver and kidney function and boost my immune system, this along with enzymes to try to reduce the inflammation and a transition to an organic dis-inflammatory and alkaline diet would reduce the pain. Alas I learned, that isn't how these things work, at least not as quickly as I needed it to. It was a good learning. Diet/nutrition adjustments and the appropriate supportive supplements can be mitigate the symptoms of many ailments, but they take time. I was in so much pain and while I had great care and compassion from my friends here, especially my friend and tenant (for 10 years) Rebecca who (put me up in her spare room, then cared for me until I could move into the small guest house, the Casita right next door). She brought me food and made nutritious smoothies for weeks after I arrived.

By February 2021, my spirit had spiraled so low due to the ongoing pain and loss of mobility and independence and also because I was acutely missing my sons, I had thought I would be away from them for 3 months which would be the longest period in their lives, yet here I was no further ahead and no end to this process in sight. This emotional stress did not support healing at all. I got a prescription for prednisone from a locally based Egyptian doctor. Prednisone is a steroid anti-inflammatory and by all accounts it is miracle drug for many. I could move freely and nearly pain free for the first time in months, within 2 days of starting the steroid... wow it was amazing. I kept on with an anti-inflammatory, alkaline diet hoping it would yield results given the chance to return balance to my system. I visited a reputable homeopath who diagnosed gout but neither did my profile fit nor did the diet changes and supplements give any respite, so it wasn't gout which would have made a fix easy. Then with the supportive counsel of a dear friend on Vancouver Island (thank-you Amanda), I saw a rheumatologist who diagnosed me with 'polymyalgic arthritis' a dubious condition that some say is lifelong and he advised me to take prednisone, a steroid anti-inflammatory that is to be honest quite the miracle drug. 

Among many things I have learned is that despite medical diagnosis and prognosis who will tell you differently, this kind of affliction is not permanent, and the medical diagnosis is self-defeating. The treatment does not serve to support a curative ethos, instead it prolongs the ailment and promotes the mind-set of a life-long illness and drug dependency. If the whole approach quite distasteful.

I had made that initial mistake of stopping the anti-inflammatories, and made several more along the way and in my own defense note also that I was without a 'guide' and advocate. This is a role I play for wellness clients in my occupation as a therapist. I knew I needed someone who had followed my process as close to the get-go as possible and who could give me advice as to 'what next'. Who could that have been? I needed someone aware of the pitfalls when a medical diagnosis for something not really explainable is only a description of the condition. I strongly recommend a health advocate if you are facing an illness that is characterized as 'chronic'. It happens to many folks, and they end up relying on their doctor who may not have the depth or breadth of knowledge to consider different approaches from the western medical model (or they are sold out to pharmaceuticals as the only solution). Diagnostics are tricky, finding a treatment plan that gets to source, explores all options and solves the problem, is even trickier.

'Arthritis' is a modern-time conundrum, more and more people become arthritic and it is thought nowadays to be an inflammatory response to an auto-immune trigger. In my case I discern that my trigger (the source) was a 'wrong' immune response to streptococcus bacteria; one of the first blood tests I had when things got so bad I couldn't get out of a chair without help (and a lot of pain), showed high levels of this streptococcus antigen (ASTO). So if I let a scratchy throat progress, my body thinks I may be getting strep, antigens are produced to fight off the bacteria but they get carried away (an over-response) and lead to an arthritic inflammation. Thinking back as I have over these months it is quite possible that I had a sore throat when I had that knee incident in the french farmer's field or soon thereafter, but these things never happen in isolation and this 'man from Asia' was not used to the chill breezes of autumn in the Jura mountains. The perfect storm set the stage, created the fertile field for illness, how to regain wellness became the question and the challenge.

I mentioned stress earlier and as a causal contributing factor it is pretty clear that at least in my case, going deep into this and finding where it comes from needs to be a big part of the healing. Here in Vilcabamba, there is an incredible menu of traditional and alternative healing modalities available from some very talented therapists. People from all over the world come and live here, holding workshops, seminars, classes and sharing therapies most of which are out of the western medical model, and that work. I benefited from many of these treatments, and from the easy availability of organic food, of amazingly clean air and water, and importantly the acceptance and support of community. 

I made some blunders on the way, suffering set-backs too painful to mention here, but all part of my path. I have seen a holistic chiropractor, had heart-centered therapy, muscle testing, worked on the question 'am I fit for Love', worked with RIFE technology, hypnosis, massage, taken courses, attended seminars, embarked on plant medicine journeys, and I have had a deep dive into my dark side. I realised that likely I was suffering delayed PTSD from a few incidents in Afghanistan, and had deeper scars likely originating even before I was born, and then adopted. With great gratitude I have been able to exchange craniosacral treatments for many of these therapies. I know this inner work has been essential and integral to my healing, and with the intention of preventing future 'calamities' of this sort.

Part 2 of this writing gives you a break, and will reveal some of what worked on this journey and where I am headed next.

55 Reflections: meanderings of a globalist

Yes, I just turned 55! Whew...


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1. The oldest person in the world died recently at 110yrs old, wow, so I'm half way there.

2. I'm 40 years younger than my Auntie Margaret who while 1 generation away from me is actually 2 generations older right? My eldest son is 43 years younger than me, he could also be my grandson.

3. I was born in 1963 as the jet engine was taking off (literally) for commercial passenger transportation. To emigrate to Canada in 1967 we had to fly from the UK via Gander, Newfoundland (bless) and then go through immigration at the Port of Montreal and then fly on to Edmonton in Alberta. (my Mum did this on her own with a mountain of baggage, 3kids under 4yrs old and my brother who was a very helpful 10yr old!) This year I flew from Singapore to London in one hop on the Dreamliner. Cool right? Yet it has to be said that jet travel hasn't changed much at all in terms of what it actually is. Sure it is more efficient in fuel consumption because planes are lighter and so they can fly higher, further, faster but they still burn fossil fuel in a turbine driven internal combustion engine. Thing is though they still transport us in a linear dimension from a to b over a continuum of time. Why is that I wonder? (hint: big oil)

4. All said, air travel is the miracle of our time imho, the way planes now fly at over 10,000m, at over 1000km/h, catching the jet stream, soaring over the poles... its all quite sick. Airports still suck... been to CDG in Paris or LHR or UIO (Quito) lately? Chinese airports like in Kunming… sheesh!  On the bright side there are airports like Changi in Singapore, the KLM terminal at Schipol and the new Indian airports which are beginning to help ease the pain, otherwise they are still like big bus stations and I'd still prefer teleportation from one couch to the next.

5. Music has gone wobbly, in the '60's it was fine, there were recognizable genres and some amazing innovations in Jazz, Hip Hop, Reggae, Rock n Roll, Punk,  etc... there has been a serious splintering a new genre every new album, electronic music has opened up a new esoteric (psychedelic) world and soon every band playing original songs will be its own genre if not already... does our understanding of 'what is genre' get wider or narrower?

6. Access to Music and music storage has changed incredibly in my lifetime from the radio, to vinyl records 45's, 78's, to 8 tracks, to cassettes to CD's, USB storage devices and now...  you can store your music on a cloud and still play it in your car... what’s the next thing?

7. Plastic has become the most evil thing on the planet, and it is really evil. Plastic came into common use in the 60's and every piece of plastic produced then and since then still occupies the planet... 8.3billion tonnes https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40654915. This is sick and it is now entering the food chain in a manner that will shout at us through our bodies and their illnesses. The consumption of fossil fuels is what will kill us and the planet.... oh yes, doncha know, plastic is made from oil and gas... google it.

8. My generation bears the blame for not waking up soon enough to the excesses and indulgences that we have enjoyed through our childhood and that have brought on the destruction of our ecosystem. We (and while we can blame corporations and Keynesian economics),we are culpable because we have ignored the warnings on global climate change passed down very clearly from the Earth Summit in Rio in 1990, 38 years ago. We have known things were going badly awry and we haven’t acted with nearly enough urgency not on an individual, collective, governmental (dare I say corporate?) or regional level to stop it. Government, big oil and corporate media share the same bed.

9. We figure we are the smartest beings on the planet, and yet we are the only species to engage in activities that are destroying it, Initially (the agricultural revolution) and later in the industrial revolution we didn’t really understand the science and anyway the population pressure didn’t really present our activities as much of a problem… now and for decades we have understood it and still we didn’t act, how smart is that?

10. Technological advances in the computerization (now the digitalization) of everything have been simply amazing, has it been a good thing? Or has it moved too fast? As we head into the kind of scary age of robotics I'm not very convinced we are ready for it.

11. Miniaturization has really taken hold, back in the day at my University the computer was in one big ventilated room, the work-stations, monitors and keyboards in another with cables connecting them all. It's a good thing everything has become smaller, carrying around a desk-top sized computer in your pocket is just not convenient. The question though is when miniaturization leads to skin and iris implants and the opportunity for constant monitoring of our everything… have we reached the moment to stop?

12. Unprotected sex is dangerous these days, has been for a while, though it hasn’t been like that forever. The sexual revolution of the 60’s and 70’s changed it all in the Western countries from whence I come. The condom, well its still the condom after all these years ‘bagging it’ is the same as it ever was. Flavours have changed, bumps, ribs and dots in various combinations but otherwise, a rubber is still a rubber. And still it is as disliked by men and women alike.

13. Being a man has never been harder, roles back in the day were well-defined (by other men) until women finally got involved, now the role definitions in many societies are changing forever, the process resulting in seeming unending social tumult as we roll from acceptance to rejection to acquiescence to what?... to embracing a more balanced understanding of our gender equality and living in peace and harmony? Really?

14. There are too many people on the planet, and the educated and wealthy few of them use up resources at a prodigious rate as well as create the waste that is choking the planet and retain the lion's share of the wealth. There is something deeply wrong and quite disturbing with this picture that has evolved during my tenure here on earth. The disparity of wealth continues to grow incredibly rapidly, no end in sight and no divine intervention to get the top 1% (or 10%) to realise that unless they spend and spend fast to support those down the line, we are all doomed. Whether you have an excess of $1Million or $100Million who needs excess?

15. Transportation remains pretty similar to what it was post steam turbine invention. Internal combustion engine, 2 or 4 or more wheels, close the door and broom broom... not very interesting. What happened to folding time on itself, teleportation, beam me up Scotty? Very, very unimpressed here.

16. Vaccines were heralded as amazing and who knows how many lives have been saved because of them, and now as well clinical treatments became better, and better understood and people are saved clinically. But things have become carried away and... its not clear how vaccines are good all the time and everywhere; from the debate about interfering in natural selection, the debate about their efficacy vs harms (autism, allergies), the debate as to whether they should be mandatory (shock/horror) and follow the 'protect the herd' formula. Is it black and white, or a murky shade of grey?

17. What to say about world peace? Politics have gone stupid-as. Seriously, led by the USA, the corporate takeover of politics or shall we just say the dominance of economic interest is very clear and 'people first' the underlying principle of any good governance... well you don't see it often. I had considered at one point of going into community level politics, but these days I am given pause when I see the nonsense that people engage in for their own self-aggrandizement or that of their business interests. It simply isn't worth the effort and the stress and grief. No wonder politicians are generally poorly equipped to govern, they are not the sharpest pencils in the box, the sharp pencils are running corporations that run the politicians.

18. Traffic patterns mirror society. Ever noticed that? How the traffic moves, how people react in their vehicles, the rules that are in place and how they are enforced are reflections of how a society functions, how well it is organized, how people treat each other, their levels of tolerance, etc. From Kabul to Kathmandu, Edmonton to Yangon I've been checking this out... blogworthy!

19. Taking off is more risky than landing.... a metaphor for life if ever there was one. How hard is it to bring about change? Get it off the ground? That is when all risk is taken on board? How many of us don't make changes because we don't like risk taking? And yet how many of us need to make the change happen? Landing... pishaw, how hard can that be when you have gravity on your side ;-)

20. We live in an era where a quick comeback can land you in a deep pile of doo-doo that you never expected.... people have a bit of a hard time taking a joke in these days of ultra-neo political correctness.

21. I'm single again! Single with kids and co-parenting. How does that feel? I don't know yet so new it is. More to follow but there is a lurking sense of liberty in there somewhere. Perhaps as I travel from East to West and back again this summer I'll feel it better. For now the transition isn't easy and finding the right place to be, the place that fits not an easy ask. For now it is a transition.

22. Back in the day, as a man, you could compliment a co-worker on her new hairstyle, or something she is wearing just as an off-the-cuff remark (and maybe even a wink)... these days, well, you gotta take care with that one... or youtoo could get the label... just sayin', the remarkable absence of men's voices from the #metoo discussion itself speaks volumes.

23. In just 3 generations (often only 2) we have forgotten how to grow food; how many people's parents grew some food of their own, how many don't grow their own food?

24. In just 2 generations (often only 1) we have forgotten how to cook our own food; how many people go out to eat at least once/day or buy pre-packed ready to cook meals (often re-heated in a microwave).

25. Food. Don't get me started... we have to recognize and realise and analyze and accept that the food we buy whether in the fresh market, in the super market or that we put on our plates is not what it used to be. Food has been adulterated, it has been tampered with genetically, it has been sprayed and messed about with and in ways we have no idea about. As I understand it, the manipulation of food production (glyphosate spraying, fertilizing, GMO, pesticiding, corporate farming, etc) is in the interest of producing enough to feed the world, when actually what we have is a distribution problem, is disingenuous. And we are poisoning ground-water sources and the oceans It smacks of corporate interest and is symptomatic of the takeover of yet another industry by the economically powerful and wrong-minded prioritization of commerce to serve profit not people. How did we let this happen? In 2 or 3 generations we have lost small holder farming, naturally organic growing and with it our food-connection to mother earth.

26. Travelling by plane is an economic privilege; some would argue it is a necessity because of where they live and for their work. But is it? Travelling by plane is also the single best way for an individual to deepen their carbon footprint and therein lies the conundrum, stepping into my footprinte would be a bit like falling into a rabbit hole, is that deep.

27. Where do I come from? Oh, you mean my Race? Ethnicity? Nationality? Identity? Residency? or do you mean did I just come from the pub? Please be specific, your question needs to reflect the intention, what information are you after, what is behind your enquiry. 

28. Where am I from? Having not lived in Canada now since 1997, have visited a few dozen or two times and still identify as Canadian and am a citizen as well as the UK from whence I sprung into the world. I am of Indian bloodline yetwas adopted early on and brought up by British parents. Where am I from? For my sons' that is another question, they have never had a sense of home identity, never lived in Canada or France where their Maman is from. Kasem at 11 has lived in 5 countries, where is he from? He is born in Malaysia but doesn't even have the right to citizenry there. The trendiness of being Third culture kids pales in comparison to this phenomenon that of ‘Multi-culture kids’ which is what mine are. Most importantly is this going to be a confusion as they grow into their years of establishing their identity or will they simply evolve into being global citizens of no fixed address and that will be okay?

29. Nothing is as it seems. Never forget this and you won't ever be disappointed.

30. People are not who you think they are, they are as complicated or as simple as you give them the perceptive space to be.

31. The vast majority of International schools are built on a business model. Be conscious of this all ye who are seeking one for your children. This is the lens to see them through when various quirks and twerks reveal that their prime motivation is to make money. Perhaps I am jaded, where my kids go to school in Yangon this has been clear, only skillful management can add the depth of quality to this equation without affecting the bottom line.

32. Once your kids turn 12 they pay adult fare to fly but on the majority of airlines still have to travel as unaccompanied minors with additional surcharges. There is something wrong with that. Either raise the age of paying an adult fare or get rid of the extra charges. The most important thing for an airline is weight, all their costs are fixed and it is with the weight that they play with their profit margin per flight. So how is it that a 30kg 12 yr old with hand baggage pays as much (or more if unaccompanied) as an 85kg adult with 23kgs of checked baggage and 7kgs of hand baggage? The whole air travel pricing system needs to rethink around who they are using as their profit centres.

33. $75 is today's price for 1 barrel (159L) of Brent Crude oil and the price is subject to global market forces which as we know affects the cost of petrol, of manufacturing and of goods... according to this article  https://interestingengineering.com/japanese-invention-converts-plastic-into-oil it takes 1kg of plastic to make 1L of crude oil, quick bit of math.... thats about $31/L. Some would argue that we need to reduce fossil fuel emissions not increase them but while we are ramping up and bringing down renewal clean energy costs, wouldn't this be the way forward? And who better positioned to bring this one in... than big oil. Government plays a role, for every barrel pulled from the ground one has to be made from Plastic... or you lose your exploitation rights. If you agree and if you have stocks in big oil? SPEAK UP, its the ultimate CSR, or remain part of the problem (see 48 below).

34. Speak up, the silent majority has to speak up. It isn't enough any longer to stay quiet in the corner nodding. If you see an injustice, say something, if you aren't actively involved and contributing to the solution... then you're part of the problem (see 49 below).

35 Balance is the key, at the individual level and on up through families and communities we have to find a balance everyone has yin and yang and yang has dominated for so long from left-brain oriented schooling to decisions based on economics (or politics!) not people... the state of the planet is the evidence, we bought into Keynesian economics and 'ran with the ball' and look where we are, loads of indulgent and wasteful prosperity but much more degrading, unsupportable, poverty. WE ARE OUT OF BALANCE.

36. Time for change

Men need to change up and accept women as equals. Salary disparities and unequal partnerships and everything in between need to be corrected. How long have we been talking about this? Weren't they burning bras in '66?  The shift has to come and it needs to come quickly, really frigging fast actually. You know I almost want to say, if you're over 50 and in a power position and you still think with your penis and don't know what I'm on about... step aside brother, you're done. Let us move on. 

37. WATCH the documentary: 'Occupy Love'

38. VOIP is amazing. Skype was the early-comer to voice over internet protocol (I know right ;-)) and I was as impressed then as I am now with all the copy cats... I mean free video telephony? Here in Myanmar people have gone from no access to telephony to deep penetration of smart phones with 4G in 4years... it is not clear yet how well this is going to go over in a society still very entrenched in tradition including how they communicate with each other and within communities. I have no doubt it will have far-reaching impacts both positive and negative.

39. WATCH Carl Sagan..

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWPFmdAWRZ0&feature=youtu.be.

40. I need to recognize the patterns in my behaviour that do not serve me well or serve well those around me. I need to recognize them, identify the source of what causes them and change up in order to move on into a better place. We all have our shadow side, reconciling with it takes work. Do the work.

41. You need to love your work, or do you? Is it enough to love the fact that you have work? Is that where most people are at? For any reason besides loving it, they go to work and believe they are happy. Is it delusional to think you have to love your work because thats the premise I work off, why else would I spend 40+hours a week of my life engaged in something I didn't like to do?

42. What is clear to me these days is that having a job where the work day is more or less defined for you (a regular job) is akin to a luxury because why, because what could be easier than having someone prescribe when you should work, how long and even on what. For some a luxury, for others like a shackle. Hats off to entrepreneurs and the self-employed to innovators and inventors, you have to figure it out for yourself, lately I'm discovering this latter is much harder.

43. And then we have to wonder, about work and how we got to where we are in the world today... are we better off or worse when we have less time to spend with our families and friends or hanging out in nature. Pre-industrial revolution and still in many parts of the 'less industrialized' world, work is around food production and distribution (including selling and buying), then it became around manufacturing. The different work ethics that evolved apparently suits the culture, apparently. But it could be this isn't true and it could be that the tensions in our societies are rooted in the simple fact that people have to work too much to support their families. Middle class North America... can't survive without a double income? Japanese salaryman spends 16hrs a day including their commute. The poor work themselves to death, often literally.

45. Global circumstances at the time of writing are sadly grimmer than usual, actually I'd suggest that since what the Vietnamese call the American War we seem to be spiralling back into an era of chauvinistic nationalism for which World War II was fought and for which peace was won and institutions like the UN set up to prevent. What happened? And who let these idiots out of their cages (don't get me started)!

46. And then again, there is the notion (is it a Universal truth or a cop out...) that you shouldn't worry about that which you cannot change and its corollary that if you can change something then what have you got to worry about, go ahead and change it. The fact is that we are often in a position to change things or participate in a change movement... and then decide not to do so for any number of reasons; thing is, and you know who you are, some of those reasons are not very good ones.

47 Tied in to the above is the decision not to take in too much world media because of its negativity and its impact on our psyche and some people make the choice to ignore the world outside their particular bubble. But if we don't know about issues for example those around social justice, or around voting and we can be part of changing things for the better then how will they ever change if we don't know about them.... hmmm do we live in this world or don't we. Do we have a responsibility for seeing to it that a dictator who is undoing all the good work and ruining the environment for us all is unseated? Does voting mean we agree with the system and therefore we shouldn't vote?

48. If you're not part of the solution then you are part of the problem, just sayin'.

49. In matters of injustice if you remain silent then you are complicit in it. This is fact.

50. Have you discovered yet the 'Heart of Yoga' practice, discovered yet the beauty of the basic Tai Chi Chuan 24 movements, discovered how to move energy with the Qi Gong practice of the microcosmic orbit? You haven't? I invite you to please do so. Don't delay, find a conscious movement practice that works for you. Especially if you're over 50!

51. Did I mention finding balance yet?

52. Democracy doesn't work very well as we are seeing. 'Nuff said.

53. Did I mention balance in the context of managing our lives? It is all about balance, the framework I subscribe to is one where our body system can become out of balance, and needs realigning, rebalancing and recharging. We have to be able to flow otherwise we invite ill-ness (as opposed to well-ness) and dis-ease as opposed to ease. Which would you prefer... (please don't mind the following shameless advertisement).

54. I am at a bit of a loss turning 55 that many people of my age cruise along perhaps happy, perhaps thinking they are happy, perhaps not happy, perhaps not aware they are not happy, perhaps unhappy and unaware they can do something about it, perhaps unhappy and aware that they must do something about it but don't know what to do... whatever the case may be, the common element is that we want to be well. That is a human thing. Be well, visit my website and find out how... https://www.elementalwellness.life/

55. Don't ever, ever forget to breathe: https://imgur.com/gallery/DqK7H0S