This dish is a traditional French dish called, 'merlan en colere', or, 'really pissed off fish'.
I recall once when I was a teen watching Julia Child make it on T.V. Instead of the fish making a circle and biting it's own tail, she actually brought the tail up from behind and had it sticking OUT it's mouth, straight at you.
I couldn't fathom a fish being put into that position! How was it possible?
And yet, anger, in its own way, brings us to positions just as uncomfortable, and unnatural, as this.
This is Howlite, a precious silicoborocalcite stone used for carving and jewelry.
I have a story to share.
I bought a four millimeter elastic howlite bracelet from my crystal store for seven dollars.
That's part of the reason why I made the unicorn bracelets. I was like, I can do better than that! LOL.
Howlite soothes rage, amongst other things.
My favorite nurse, the one who is most sensitive to the subtle energies, wasn't doing so well. She ordered a new bracelet, and I gave her my howlite right off my arm to help her get by until I could make it. I knew my friend was sending me one she had made, a nicer one, of Howlite too. It was due in a few days.
So...
I felt it when it was off, the howlite.
I had the necklace and earrings, but the earrings Spirit wanted in my locker at work to 'work' --they were needed and are safe in my tea tin. And the necklace I love and adore, but would tangle in my lanyard and stethoscope (those little bendy ends for the ears). I didn't want to lose it...so I left it home.
Later, this week, the nurse saw I needed it, and gave me the howlite back. It helped! I needed a double dose! LOL
Yesterday, I saw the nurse, and she asked to borrow the bracelet back, as SHE needed it, and I gave it without second thought.
She struggles with the money to pay for the bracelets I make for her. I tell her, 'don't worry, you need the healing, it will work out.'
It's funny, as she adores rhodonite. But as I work with her energies as she's outgrown it, she doesn't understand. Right now, she's on peridot, as it will help her in different ways, to be more robust, energetically. (everyone is different--I know her energy, where she is, and I'm like an energy 'orthodontist'--I know where her soul/energy is headed, and I'm making fine adjustments as we go)...
I was called on the carpet by Spirit in a very indirect and respectful way yesterday.
For my anger, and my rage...mostly for my tendency to ruminate and be like a terrier worrying a toy to bits in my mind.
How did this come to be?
I really don't like one Anthony's music teacher.
She doesn't care or act professional. She's dealing with parents and she gives like, no lead time before major events where the parents need to show up, like concerts. She is 'creative'--the whole bells and whistles of that 'type'--artsy, forgetful, not grounded, and also, not able to 'connect' well with others.
She even goes so far as to say, 'music is important and have your kids skip sports'.
How arrogant is that? Right?
This time, what set me off is after spending all of 2016 working with administration to get her to be more responsible for her 'scheduling' and straightening it out so she would give adequate advance notice, this year she selects the Friday night before the long weekend and gives two week's notice to the parents.
That's right.
You have airplane tickets and you can't go because your kid's grade depends on this concert.
In my case, he's the drummer. It's very noticible if he's gone.
Well...I got the triple whammy--it's the dad's live-in girlfriend's birthday, they are at a casino--and I'm first call. The sitter is out of town. The grandparents are in Arizona, forever now. They moved. Both sisters need like six months advance notice--can't be able to help in a pinch at this time--better not even think of it. Love is there. Ability to help isn't, for many equally good reasons and I don't judge.
I'm stuck.
I wrote a scathing letter to the class teacher, questioning the judgement of this decision, and further, explaining how Anthony would have no one to watch him play. She forwarded to the administrators, who said NOTHING.
Absolutely NOTHING.
And the music teacher gives lame compliments like, 'I LOVE that color!' (my scrubs?! WTF?)
Anthony and I passed her as we walked to Starbucks. She said that and I was like, 'huh?'
He commented, 'you really don't like her, do you, mom?'
I was shocked, I thought I was being polite, and yes, I REALLY don't like her.
I told him, 'honey, I am so mad, I am like, I want her to get fired, mad.'
I had been thinking very mean thoughts, ones almost like curses, to 'get even' as I was like the terrier with the toy, going 'at it' grrr...grrrr...grrr...shaking it to bits!
Again, this is a lesson.
Lesson 1: Carla, how do you get yourself out of this jam?
Answer: throw money at it. I rented a limousine to go pick up my mom, who can't drive, bring her to the concert, and home.
Answer: Level with a nice mom who had already agreed to take Anthony to dinner and to the auditorium with her son, and ask politely if Anthony can spend the night because I don't know when I 'm coming home.
Answer: Accept there must be a good reason--much as I hate it sometimes--for Spirit to want my butt in that O.R. at that time more than me to go to a concert. (trades are impossible, impossible, impossible on long weekend Fridays--the concerts used to always be mid-week...)
When I was in the O.R. with a hand surgeon for a long case, he's a friend, but he's notorious for having a temper.
As it stands, my OCD is compatible with HIS 'OCD' and we get along.
It was the same old thing, people scared of him, trying to please, and him just needing to calm down. He responds well to Reiki, I know, as well as to unconditional love.
Outside the O.R., he's the first one I call if Anthony has an injury, and we drive over to his office, and he never once charges us a fee...not even for x-rays.
He's a good guy.
I realized as I sat there in the O.R. that anger is part of the human condition.
It comes as frustration with limitation which we don't experience in the Higher Realms.
We want MORE. We want everything to WORK. We have 'expectations'...which set us up for heartbreak and sorrow.
I sent with Ross a special healing from us to the world, to dissolve ANGER.
I was surprised at how much I had towards the music teacher.
I'm so used to this anger, I think it's normal, you know?
She was just doing the best she could, with what she has.
In the big picture, Anthony and I have more 'good days' than 'bad days'--and this was a 'blip' in an otherwise good semester. My colleagues have been kind and let me go to things most other 'last minute' stuff, like the school play.
The teacher has no comprehension of my life--and therefore limited to no compassion--just as I do not comprehend HER life--low pay, long commute, two kids in diapers and a third on the way...She's never even come NEAR the arena of competitiveness, of life and death, of professionalism and sacrifice that is my bread and butter.
I did eighteen hours straight of anesthesia care yesterday...
So the problem with her was MINE, not HER, and if I could just push myself to be a little more like Ross, my lesson would be learned, and I could move on...right?!
I was thirty-three. I had remembered my molest/gang rape by neighbor boys (and the mom who covered it up in a cruel and mean way) at twenty-six. In residency I wanted to heal, once and for all.
I'd done the counseling.
I'd done the spiritual stuff.
So...
I wrote a letter to the mom, telling her I remembered everything, and I forgave her.
I did it because I was so desperate to feel better I would do ANYTHING, and I wanted to put this behind me forever, so I did.
There's two kinds of forgiveness.
There's the kind when you are ready and you mean it.
Then there's the kind when you are not in the right place, you mean well, and your heart it true, but you're just too vulnerable still...
I was the second kind.
When the woman responded with generous kindness, and gratitude for my setting her free, she sent a handmade blanket, crocheted, and a pin, an angel pin, with it's legs kind of spread as if it was riding a horse.
I was triggered by that angel, by her gifts, as it made it all REAL, and not just 'memory' any more.
Her gift backfired, and I was in a tailspin, and sinking fast.
Even though she sent a loving note, I was not ready to receive it.
My mother, when I showed it to her, detected my horror...and vulnerability.
She marched us right next door to my apartment, by the trash chute (that's how you get a low income apartment, right? clunk clunk clunkety clunk all hours of day and night)...and had me toss it ALL. The blanket. The card. The angel pin in gold.
She said, 'you have been through enough already and you don't need any more reminders of this.'
And after we threw everything out?
I felt safe...
So, with my most recent call, here I am in the O.R., with a patient who isn't expected to live, super technically challenging...while I know the band is playing.
I said, out loud with my heart not my mouth, to my guides, 'I give up!' (and I felt like, can we move on to happier things already?)...I knew I had all night, I wouldn't be home and my weekend would be ruined from the overwork and lack of sleep.
'You win! I give up!'
I still didn't understand the 'lesson'.
But the case was as bad as it gets.
I called it a 'slow peek and shriek'.
A 'peek and shriek' is when you open and you realize there is like, cancer everywhere and you can't operate, it's too late, so you close and stop.
The poor surgeon.
Trying to do right by the patient, and the more he tried, the worse it got.
It was even worse than our other worst patients...and together as a team we have had MANY!
The patient had anger. Lots and lots of it. I could see it. Both in the disease and in the weight (some people build a literal wall around themselves...)
The surgeon had anger. Lots and lots of it. Eaten alive with painful arthritis, which sometimes is triggered by anger. I knew the divorce hadn't been kind to him...he's on like, i.v. treatments for the anger, and every movement of the hands causes him pain.
I had stubbornness and grudging acceptance (like when you lose a war--you don't really feel like the other person is 'right' but you accept your defeat).
But I also have surgical training and experience.
Things weren't going well.
It was time to bail.
In surgery, you just pack the wound and head up to ICU. You put a huge iodine plastic film over the wound, and that's it.
Later, once things are settled, you go back, and sort things out in the O.R. with a stable patient.
Trauma surgeons do it all the time.
The swelling goes down in the abdomen.
Then everything will fit and you can close the skin.
In this case, I cautioned--with all the resection, you don't know the blood supply to what is left. Even if you reconnect everything, it might not be viable. Better to let it declare itself by the time you come back.
The scrub tech said, 'wow you are right!'
That's why I was there instead of the concert.
To save lives.
Not just the patient.
But the surgeon.
Together, with our hidden anger, the patient, surgeon, and anesthesiologist had manifested it, this situation...
It was time for healing to take place...instead.
Starve the LOOSH.
Don't feed it your energy.
Even though last night I wrote on the glove box, 'Starving and Saving lives'--because most of us in medicine now are so unhappy--mistreated and hungry and without sleep while the hospital administrators are laughing all the way to the bank...
When situations arise which bring up feeling of anger, you have in it your control how you react to it.
You can examine it for the lesson.
You can 'give up' and ask you teams to help.
You can forgive that the person--like the school and the music teacher with chronically poor judgement--who owes you a ho'oponopono and is NEVER going to give it...
(Ho'oponopono--Hawaiian legal term for 'making things right'. Takes four steps, in order. Person who wronged says to person who was victim--1) I'm sorry 2) please forgive me 3) thank you 4) I love you)
Just know it's not compatible with the Higher Realms to be on a rant like I was with the events..for like..two weeks in my heart.
As long as you can be 'friendly and polite' you don't have to seek those who hurt you out.
I saw in myself the truth:
- my work demands a lot
- I have little control over my work
- my unique single mom experience ISN'T anyone's fault but my own
- perhaps Anthony was meant to miss me
- At least I told him one of my favorite things ever is to watch him play the drums (he was quiet when he understood the sacrifice on my part)
- I helped 'improvise' and provided work for my friend the limo driver, and fun/family/purpose for my mom
- Anthony wasn't alone
- He enjoyed time with his friend and his friend/his friend's family enjoyed him
- Sometimes we are needed away from our families and the love is the same...it's never broken (Ross keeps trying me to understand that point, from so many angles...test after test...)
So...
Feel your feelings.
Don't let them fester.
Accept you are human, and take the good with the bad.
Don't take anything personally.
And...like Eugene Mizusawa my lab buddy and mentor once said, 'if you have to eat shit, eat it fast, and get on with the next thing.'
This is from both Ross and me...I hear him...and I agree so I'm writing it.
See the beauty.
Feel the love.
And heal.
Welcome to the Higher Realms.
Don't let anything hold you back in the Lower ones.
Let it go.
A little ho'oponopono goes a long way.
You can't say it too often.
Say it to yourself.
Anthony is singing downstairs...ahhhh! Bless him!
clap! clap!
Aloha and Mahalos,
Namaste,
Peace,
Ross and Carla
The couple
