years

Why Trees Stand Still and Branch Out

9/4/2016

Writing short stories and poems to recover from trauma

In the #years after creation, there was a war that devastated all life, for animals needed food to eat and vegetation was not yet formed upon the earth. Two of the animals at war with each other were the giraffe and the bird.

Now, the giraffe was a long-necked creature, and it thought itself better than the bird, and it often devoured the bird.

The bird asked the giraffe, “Why, O Giraffe, do you always eat my family and friends? What have we ever done to you?”

Then the giraffe answered the bird, “What do you mean? I need food to eat, and you birds are quite an abundant source of food, quite delicious.”

“But what about my family? What about my friends? It makes me sad to see them die, especially since a selfish animal such as yourself decides to use them as food.”

And the giraffe and the bird argued for years and years, but the giraffe continued to eat the birds for so long that the birds became indignant toward the giraffe, and they met together in the sky to decide what to do about their fellow birds being eaten by the giraffe.

“I suppose you all already know why we have gathered here today,” said the leader of the birds. “This wicked animal, the giraffe, has waged an undeclared war against us, consuming us for years and years without end. We must put a stop to this, my friends! We cannot allow this giraffe, this vile beast, to continuously attack us without penalty.”

“We could just kill him, eat him – a most simple solution.”

“A little too simple, I think. We need to teach him a lesson somehow. We need to show him the wrongness of his ways.”

“Hmm, a lesson you say?” said one of the birds. And the bird thought for a while, and then he said these words:

“May he who does what is evil be consumed by the darkness; may he roam around like a blind beast, unable to find the light.”

And the spirits of darkness, hearing those words, came upon the birds and inhabited them, but the form of the birds did not change.

Giraffe became hungry again, so he decided to eat some more birds. Only this time when he ate them, his mind began to falter, and his reason began to fail. He started to believe that a flock of birds would throw itself at him and peck him to death, and he fled to some faraway land.

Now, he was still hungry, and as his mind continued to deteriorate, he began to eat the dirt of the ground.

And the god of the ground, Uuma by name, said to the giraffe, “Why in the world are you eating my dirt?’

And Giraffe answered, “I am hungry, but there is no food to eat in this desert. What should I do? Eat my dung?”

And Uuma said unto him, “I shall create food for you, O Giraffe, so that you shall not empty the earth of its covering, and so that you shall not make the birds go extinct.”

So Uuma struck the dirt with her hand, and a tree grew from it. She designed the tree to stand securely in the ground with its roots and to bear fruit from its branches.

And she said to Giraffe, “For you, Giraffe, and for all the beasts that roam upon the face of the earth, I have created the tree with its fruit that you might have food to eat, that you shall no longer fight each other to survive.”

Giraffe ate from the tree, and he was satisfied, and he no longer ate the birds of the sky. This is why trees are stuck in the ground and why they branch out: to serve as a symbol of peace in nature. Giraffes, to this day, eat from trees rather than eating birds because the spirits that helped the birds still remain, destroying the mind of any creature that seeks to harm them.

#PTSDSupportAndRecovery #TraumaticBrainInjury #BPD #Depression #Bipolar2

So extremely excited to share that HealthPartners along with Regions Hospital are supporting a Minnesota Lupus Support Group, which is the first in its kind in years in Minnesota! I have been grateful to have HealthPartners as my primary care team and where my rheumatologist who diagnosed me & saw me through my hardest and humbling of years. This group got started with #Gratitude #thankfulness #recognition .
I got to honor my doctor with the #giftofgratitudeaward with Regions Hospital Foundation to share my story of nearly being 15 minutes away from death from septic shock, fighting for medication insurance approvals (4K monthly), sharing how my doctor and his team including his entire staff on the rheumatology floor would fight any and all the battles to give me the best care. Including; fit me into his schedule, referred to the best specialist based on the surgeries & sicknesses that I was up against urgently.
This doctor I regard as a not only a outstanding #physician , but also a very important and integral part of my care team.
I’m #thankful to him & his team and the foundation that were inspired to start a support group facilitated by their patient education team, to start this only #Minnesota based #Lupus #supportgroup of its kind! #Important #humbling #years #Advocacy #Lupus #Minnesota #SupportGroups #SystemicLupusErythematosus #DiscoidLupus #AutoimmuneDisease