A few days ago, a storm galloped in from the sea. Sand gusted across the beach in lacy currents. Trees leaned to the side then whipped upward again. Our whole house howled.

Not literally, though. Throughout it, all the animals were chill. This was just a winter storm, after all. We get dozens a year.

But one moment, as my husband and I stood in the kitchen, we heard a high and persistent meowing from outside.

I opened the door and there sat Shnoodle, protected by the porch roof. She stared up at me.

 

 

“Do you want to come in?” I asked.

She sent me a silent message through intuition: No.

To back up her message, she stayed still, not making a move for the door.

“All right,” I said, “have fun meowing.” I went to close the door, when suddenly I felt it, like a tap on my inner senses. Shnoodle said:

 

I want you to come out here with me.

 

I blinked, but then I remembered. We’d done this before. It had been years, but we’d done it.

I slipped outdoors, slid my back down the side of the house and rested on the dry porch floor. Shnoodle let out a tiny mew, her face flush with pleasure. She leaned against me, tail sailing high. Her purr rattled.

As I scratched her head, I stared out at the rain. It fell with resolve, the downpour so heavy that I could barely see our spruce tree waving in the wind. It was white-out rain, the kind of rain that makes you glad you’re not on the road.

“Mew?” Shnoodle said aloud, startling me.

 

 

I turned back to her. As soon as our eyes met, she squeezed hers closed and rubbed against my hip. She lifted one paw to my lap, and then another, climbing up inch by inch until she was cradled between my chest and my folded legs.

When she does this, it’s like she climbs into my womb. I held her close, rocking her like a kitten. She dove her head against my hands. Her needle claws flashed in moments of cat ecstasy.

I stroked her, the rain fell, and I felt it again: the blurring, white-out sense of oneness, the liminal zone where I was not separate from Shnoodle, nor from the storm, nor the dancing trees, but part of it all.

“Meow,” I said quietly, my voice pitched to match Shnoodle’s.

She raised her ears, eyes wide in surprise. “Mew!” she said in response.

I grinned. Lifting my chin, raising my voice above the rain, I meowed again. Shnoodle responded. We sang together on that porch, through that white-out rain, through the torrent of water that washed away all edges, where nothing was distinct any longer. Dry and calm, we sang out to the rain, sang out to the storm, and Shnoodle rolled in my lap in clear and windswept joy.

 

A Storm of Elation

Today, the storm has calmed. Sunshine cascades from the trees. In my art-making space, I opened a wild indulgence: bottles of expensive acrylic paints in all their name-brand glory.

I don’t yet know how these paints work. But there is a storm of elation inside me for their color and brightness and texture, for their downpour of saturated joy.

I don’t think I know how to use these paints, but in that storm, in that rush of wind-whipped wonder, I do. I do know how.

Shnoodle gave me an intimate moment the other day as we sang to the storm. To me, this is the greatest gift I’ve experienced in learning to talk with animals: Intimacy with the present, with the experience. No matter the tempest, calm is always here, and humor is not far behind.

In my studio, I mixed a few drops of paint on a palette, added some medium, and brushed and rolled it onto my gessoed journal pages.

 

 

The result is a beginning. It’s not perfect, and it is perfect; it’s both, and it’s wonderful.

I sing to it, as Shnoodle taught me. I love it the way I love that rainstorm, the way I love the cat who rolls in the cradle of my lap.

In this expanded love, the cat is my child, the rainstorm my child, the painting, no matter how new and unformed, my child. We all are one together, meowing on the great porch of life, awash in paint and rain and laughter and beauty.

I am so grateful for the storms, for the art and the quiet, for Shnoodle, and for my whole life.

 

 

Later

After I wrote the first draft of this post, Shnoodle sauntered into my office. I lifted her onto my lap. As I read the post aloud, she purred heartily — until the moment the essay stopped being about her. Then she leapt away. The lesson? She said:

 

I like things when they’re about me.

 

So do I, Shnoodle. So do I.

 

 

 

 

Last week, I was starved for color in my art. In this week’s adventure, I fed that hunger.

But first, this word from my body:

Ugh.

Truth is, I’ve been sick this week. I had a terrible cold concurrent with an episode of anemia. And it’s been scary.

There was a good reason for me to be scared:

Once upon a time, I was ill for a long, long spell.

In 2012 and 2013, for a total of nearly a year, I was sick. So sick I could barely move from the couch.

Due to misdiagnosis and mistreatment, I had gone for six years without the medicine I needed for a condition called hypothyroidism.

For most of those six years, I bordered on illness. I drifted through depression, exhaustion, and suppressed immunity, constantly fatigued and overwhelmed by the emotional scars of this condition.

Then it came to a head. I crashed on the couch for almost a year.

I dropped everything – friendships, career, and dreams. I stopped work. I was so fatigued that I could not cross from the living room to the kitchen of my small home without leaning against a chair or sitting down halfway.

It is not a year I would wish upon anyone.

I don’t talk about this illness much in public. I’ve shared it privately with a few friends and family, but I haven’t written about it here.

Now it’s time. It takes courage to do this, but I it feels right today. It puts my last week into context. It also explains a little why color became such a pressing need. And it shows me that I can make art – goofy corgi art! – even when I’m not at my best (a very good lesson).

 

 

First, I want to offer reassurance to those who are concerned (and I love you for being concerned for me).

I have good medical care. I have an active and vibrant spiritual self-care practice. My thyroid tests are up to date, and my thyroid meds are effective and strong. I’m going to see my nurse practitioner soon and we’re going to get to the bottom of this episode of anemia. Though I think I know the cause.

When I caught a cold, I started eating raw garlic. LOTS of raw garlic. Unfortunately, excessive raw garlic can lead to anemia for me. (Same as with cats and dogs. How funny that I got an animal illness.)

In addition, for many months, I had been neglecting my iron and my iron-rich foods. But now I have said sayonara to garlic and am eating so much iron-rich foodstuff that I’m at risk of clinging magnetically to the refrigerator. Also, B12 is one of my very best friends. I’m feeling a lot better, almost back to normal. Everything is really okay.

Okay! Now on with the fun.

First of all, did you know that you can use intuition to look at your blood? It’s not at all scientific, doesn’t replace medical advice, and ain’t worth beans in a court of law. But it helps me enormously so I do it anyway (only for myself). This is how I’ve used it this week:

When I felt sick, I’d ask to “see” my bloodstream in my mind’s eye, where intuition plays out for me.

I’d “see” this blood as a river, cross-sectioned, from the bed of the river up to its surface. The blood cells populated the river like fish. I’d observe how they moved. I’d observe their color, their density, their shape.

 

 

When I started doing this, my river was pretty pale. The cells weren’t all that swimmy. They were heavy and hung at the river’s bottom.

Then I’d eat: pumpkin seeds, nettles tea, blackstrap molasses, homemade beef-and-bone broth, organic buffalo liver, chia seeds, and greens (not all at once, thank goodness).

And I’d rest. A lot.

A couple of hours after eating, I’d check my blood intuitively again, using the same method. I could see the color gradations change.

First, the bottom of the river became dark, so red it was almost black. The surface of the river was still pale. But soon I’d feel a corresponding strength rise up in me. I’d have a lilt of energy, and the color would return to my cheeks. I’d be flush with good cheer.

This well-being might last minutes or an hour before the fatigue set in again. But over the course of several days, the river’s color brightened. The cells rose from the bottom and began to course downstream. I found my vibrancy. I began to walk outside. I became well again.

Through it all, I started to paint.

I don’t have a lot of experience painting — just a few journal pages and a couple of what-the-hell paintings.

But when I do paint, I like to have fun. What’s more fun than a corgi? So this week, I painted my first Bossy Little Corgi. And I’m totally in love.

 

 

The Bossy Little Corgi is a character from a story I wrote for my mom. I haven’t published the story yet because I haven’t finished illustrating it (because I’m very busy teaching myself to draw from scratch and am also awfully busy with peering at my bloodstream and going “Ooh!”).

All of my corgis have been in graphite pencil. But lately, I have been yearning to see this little corgi in full, vibrant color. I’ve colored her digitally (see my header above!) but I wanted more texture, more mess, more oomph.

Just before I became ill last week, I started craving color, started needing it like a medicine, like a drug. Only now, after more than a week has whisked on by, have I made the connection between the lack of color in my art and the lack of color in my blood.

Today, I finished painting my Bossy Little Corgi. And yes, I feel healthier than I have for over a week. I feel colorful and alive. I feel strangely childlike and delighted. I also feel scared and vulnerable, too – recognizing how fragile these strong bodies of ours can be, and how fragile art is, just like hope and dreaming.

Which is why you won’t see that sweet painted Bossy Little Corgi today. That, and the paint is still too tacky for me to lay her down on the scanner bed. I’ll share her with you in a couple of days.

But even if the paint were dry, I’m not sure I’d share her right now. Today’s post is not really about art, or corgis, or animals at all, but about illness and intuition and courage, about nutrition and recovery and, most of all, gratitude. I’m so grateful for my health, more grateful than I could possibly ever be had I never experienced illness. I’m so utterly grateful to be alive and well.

For all of you who are struggling with illness, my heart goes out to you. May your blood be rich with just the right colors. May bright swathes of color decorate your heart. May you truly be well.

Love you,
Harmony