moving forward Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Yellow Jacket

Aaargh. I took advantage of the temperatures being ten degrees lower today than they were earlier in the week and mowed my part of the lawn. (For some inexplicable reason, Karl and I have taken to each mowing our own segments of lawn.) I hadn’t mown more than two stripes of lawn when I felt a searing pain in my left knee. I was surprised because I was in a really grassy part of the lawn, with very few stones that might accidentally get flung at me. But when I looked down, I realized a yellow jacket had entered my jeans via a large rip just below the knee.

Curses

I flailed and I hopped and I shook my leg, slapping at my pant leg and fearing there were more inside my pants. I’m sure you’re shocked to learn that I yelped and called that yellow jacket every name in the book. The only reason I know it was a yellow jacket (looked just like the one pictured in this article) was because it fell out onto the top of my sneaker as I beat my leg senseless.

But it was a singlet (thank goodness). I have no idea where it came from or why it attacked me. I suspect it may be related to the fact that Karl had a run-in with a whole bunch of wasps last week, when he was mowing ‘his’ part of the lawn behind the barn. He hit a nest built into the ground, and boy did they get him good. I think he suffered at least six or eight stings, poor baby. One got him so good it left black and blue bruises on his leg.

His reaction to the stings was a bit, shall we say, aggressive (albeit understandable).

My theory is that this single yellow jacket was a type of kamikaze wasp. It knew a human was associated with the roaring machine that cuts down everything in its path (including their homes). It knew what was responsible for attacking its home and family recently and it was determined to avenge their deaths.

Shifting Blame

Well, in addition to name calling, I also yelled at the yellow jacket that stung me (and any others that might be listening) that I hadn’t harmed them. I’d even tried to ward Karl off of taking revenge against the wasps that attacked him last week. I’d been their champion, in a sense – or at least their apologist. I couldn’t believe they were going after me when I’d done nothing to provoke them.

I have no idea whether my innocence was conveyed and a crisis was averted or if I just happened to piss off one solitary yellow jacket. All I know is, I’m glad I only got stung once because this single sting is causing me a disconcerting amount of sharp, burning pain. Perhaps it’s because I was stung on my knee cap. There’s not a lot of flesh there, and it’s also getting aggravated and stretched whenever I walk.

Mother’s Remedy

I immediately patted down the sting site with bleach – and took a couple Advil, mostly to no avail. I’d say the best treatment of the entire evening was holding a Ziplok-ed bag of ice against the swollen sting site. Now that the icy numbness has worn off, it once again feels like my knee is on fire.

I’m thinking about the fact that the sting took place on my knee. Since knees are associated with moving forward, it might mean that I’m being ‘provoked’ into taking affirmative steps to create the change I’ve felt approaching for some time now.

Or maybe we just have a bunch of really angry wasps down by our barn and they’re going to make everyone associated with the lawn mower pay.

Photo: Griffinpest.com

(T-104)

High Rocks State Park (14 March 2020) – Photo: L. Weikel

Banging the Drum

If you’ve been reading this blog for any extended period of time, you’ve probably caught on to the fact that I love taking walks. I’ve written about how vitally important walking in nature is to my life, including the profound impact it’s had on my marriage. And now I’m banging the drum about walking even more as we all do our best to develop new coping strategies.

Gratitude

I’m feeling grateful for the weather this past week, as it was nice enough for us to walk every single day. This turned out to be exceedingly important to my mental health, as crises on the national and global stages, such as the spread of the Coronavirus, to personal issues looming large with clients and friends seemed to erupt every day.

The perspective and pleasure afforded by simply being in nature and physically moving forward reliably helped me sort out my thoughts and feelings about all sorts of matters – even things I didn’t realize were weighing on me.

Karl and I have remarked a number of times to each other already how lucky it is that this pandemic didn’t land on us in November. With the closing of all the schools and the admonition to engage in social distancing, it just seems like having to endure all of that while being cooped up in our homes would have been even far more difficult. (And believe me, I’m not thinking or saying any of this is going to be easy.)

What in the World?

So you can imagine my utter distress when I encountered this sign yesterday at High Rocks State Park. I’d also received notification via text message that Lake Nockamixon State Park was closing as well. You can check out exactly what this closure means here, and also see which parks are affected. You can also use it to keep an eye on whether they will extend the closures beyond the next two weeks or include other parks as the situation unfolds.

While I can understand closing the administration buildings and rest rooms at these parks, I am puzzled over why they are closing the parking lots. Reading the link above, it does sound as though the trails themselves remain accessible, so hopefully they’ll go easy on enforcing the parking.

It simply doesn’t make sense to me that we would be restricting residents’ ability to get outside in the fresh air and walk, hike, bike, explore nature, go birding, learn about plants, and maybe even brush up on some survival skills, especially when the schools across the state are all closed for at least two weeks!

It Does a Body Good

Here’s an interesting article I came across today. While it’s not technically about walking or being out in nature in a recreational capacity (which seems to me would be even more beneficial), it does discuss some fascinating research and conclusions from studying the 1918 Spanish flu.

And if you’re questioning why the entire country seems to be implementing more and more draconian measures to help stem the spread of this virus, such as closing restaurants, bars, schools, and pretty much everything except food stores and pharmacies, here’s an article that explains the reasoning.

All in all, it will be much better for all of us (but especially our hospitals, which may soon get walloped by unprecedented numbers of people showing up all at once) if we can stem the exponential growth now. Every single day we wait to implement these measures increases the risks for all of us. So I guess the best thing we can hope for is to look back on the very weird times we’re going to endure and say, “It didn’t get as bad as it could have.”

Because that will mean these drastic measures worked.

Stay calm, stay centered, find something to be grateful for every day, and if you can – get outside and listen to those peepers!