Hello, I’m Sunday…
This is a story
of my own Mystery Illness (MI)
When I got my Mystery Illness, I didn’t know what was going on.
I only knew that I was used to taking 3-mile walks just to unravel my thoughts, and now I was feeling like I had the flu after walking three blocks and back.
I usually got through ten books a week; now I could read only a few pages until my mind froze.
And I’d slept soundly for years, but now I got only a kind of twilight doze, night after night after night.
I searched reputable journals and books for solutions. I took gluten out of my diet. Caffeine. Dairy. Tried medication. Supplements. Acupuncture. Atlas adjustment. And more.
None of it stopped me from almost passing out every time I took a shower, or even, some days, just when I stood up.
I finally got a diagnosis, but that didn’t help. I found it the way a lot of MI people do; a friend remarked that my problems sounded a lot like something her neighbor had: Chronic Fatigue.
I checked it out, and there were all my weird symptoms. But like all people with Mystery Illnesses, none of my many symptoms showed on tests. Because of that, I learned, conventional medical science says the disease doesn’t exist. The few doctors who believed it was real seemed almost as helpless as I was.
My prognosis? Progressive and terminal: get worse until you die.
I got worse.
I had to spend most of my time lying absolutely flat in bed; if I wasn’t flat, I would get dizzy and pass out.
One day, I was sitting in my usual haze, the few minutes a day I could be upright. In that stillness, I could draw on my shamanic experience to heal, even though I could barely move.
In my teens, I’d had a shamanic awakening. I didn’t know what it was; the people around me called it a nervous breakdown, mental illness. I was afraid of being locked up, so I did my best to hide and disguise that part of myself in music, in research, in things that were acceptable in that world. In my twenties, I went to live in the woods, without running water or electricity, to practice and learn shamanism from the earth and its elements. I stayed there for 28 years.
I could draw on that deep and wordless learning in the woods to heal myself, I realized.
I began to let down the guard I’d put up to the world, to see that what rational people called craziness was actually a talent. A skill that you can purposely hone. An ability to tap into a deep connection, beyond words, to whatever power it is that forms our planet, the cosmos it lives in, and everything we can see and touch.
Gentleness —not focus and force— gave me the most thorough results
I spent over a year working with an energy healer who knew that gentleness well.
She didn’t understand my symptoms, but when I told her what was going on, she could help.
By working with her for that long, I began picking up my own way of doing energy healing.
I’d always been sensitive to the feel of a room, of a person, of an object:
I now realized that my sensitivity —which I’d often considered a weakness—
could be used to tune into the frequencies that would heal me.
It was clear to me that I had to create my own energy healing system, because even that healer, who helped me so much, wasn’t able to get me upright again.
So I used that old, deep connection to the spirits of land, woods, water, and stars to explore what was going on inside me. I was ill on a molecular level: okay, then, I had to go to the molecular level to heal. And it might even be better to go to a deeper level, atomic.
And then I went even deeper —the subatomic level— and — boom!
I was out in the cosmos. The tiny amounts of substance in atoms looked like little stars in deep dark of space. Those atoms, and we ourselves, are much more space than matter. And the space held energy. I could use that energy to heal.
Healing turned out to be different from recovery
I couldn’t go back, but I could regenerate
I began to come into a new life by working with my own body chemistry: the cosmic rhythms and nature-spirit friends I knew so well began to have steady effects, effects that built on each other. Supplements and treatments and qi gong worked better, now that my body chemistry was a little more normal. I was able to read, a few pages at a time at first, then whole books in a few sittings. I was able to walk – at first only to the end of my driveway, then on the road.
Some results were surprising: my hair grew a foot and lost most of its incoming grey. My feet grew a size, and I had to get all new shoes.
I learned I could catalyze healing in others, too. I began to work long-distance with people who had the same strange symptoms I did – and, lying on my own bed in another time and place, I could help them. It amazed me at first; then I grew to rely on that gentle power. It always worked, even if what happened wasn’t always what was expected.
The shamanic view of the world is that everything material is alive and connected, in one working organism. I am a part of that powerful circuitry, and I can do a partner-dance with it to change my life, more and more.
These days, I’m no go-getter. I rest a lot more than most people. But I’ve walked a mile and a half of trail to the local river, taken a break, and then walked back again. I can read fine when I’m rested. And while I have off nights, most nights I sleep well and deeply.
Instead of getting worse and dying, my life is regenerating. Instead of a constant struggle with illness and life, I’m finding a peace and a power I never imagined were possible.
If you’d like to know how I’ve been able to help others, click here https://sundayoliver.com/testimonials/
Outside of cool shamanic stuff,
I also enjoy …
70%+ Dark Chocolate ( Hey, it’s medicinal! )
20’s and 30’s Jazz ( I was in a Jazz band )
“Queer Eye”
Wild and Heirloom Plants
Baking with Vintage Kitchen Gear
( and often, vintage recipes )
Officiating Wedding Ceremonies
