Dear Friends: This is a letter. It is not research. It is not a rant. It is not anything composed with any intent whatsoever, except to communicate with you what I am feeling and experiencing at this moment.
I am experiencing struggles the likes of which I do not recall experiencing before at this depth; at least not in the recent past. I am someone who feels things deeply. Always have. In my lifetime I have experienced the gamut of deep emotions from profound grief and sadness to joy and happiness bordering on mania. Each of the emotional states on my personal continuum is accompanied by physical and spiritual states that correlate in vibration, hue, and intensity.
As a visual artist, I see and experience life in color. When I am happy, healthy, and hopeful I see the world around me through a much brighter lens. I am drawn to color and movement in nature, and when I am in a good space mentally, it is not only easy for me to paint, painting becomes a compulsion. Things that have been incubating for sometimes long periods of time come out easily on the canvas and the process is one that inevitably leaves me calmer and feeling rejuvenated. The spark comes in waves and builds until it comes out on the canvas, before receding again for a time.
I go through a similar process with researching and reporting. I am a naturally curious person. “Why?” was my first sentence and has without a doubt been my most frequent response, beginning in early childhood and continuing to today, when told I “should” or “must” or “have to” ANYTHING. I have a need to understand and a need to figure things out for myself. Controlling? Yes. Not unlike a whole lot of people who have experienced childhood and generational trauma, and not unlike a lot of adults who have experienced significant trauma and abuse perpetuated by those we have been socialized to trust without question. In either case, whether from childhood or more recently, and especially when trauma and abuse occur in childhood and is experienced again later in life, the result is often someone who cannot trust easily. Or at all. When this happens to someone with a naturally curious nature, along with a more creative approach to seeing and experiencing the world, and that person also happens to have a lot of “raw candle power” (higher than average intellectual capabilities), all of these factors combine to produce something that otherwise may not have existed in the person. In me. In all of us with similar experiences, to at least some degree.
At this point in my life, I am trying to let go of some of the control and to accept that I have done enough to absolve myself of the guilt I feel for having not exhibited these strengths (curiosity, stubbornness, faith in my own intelligence) when I, and especially my children, needed them most. So, I write. And I write with the goal of preventing the damage that my own inattention and inconsistency caused for those I love most.
Over the last twenty-one years, beginning in 2003 with my initial association with a holistic psychiatrist and naturopathic physician, I have been trying to understand not only what happened to me and to my daughter (and my other children, to a lesser extent), I have been trying to figure out how to help ameliorate the damage. To me. To my children. To your children. To all of our children.
In this quest I have learned from some of the absolute best experts about really important concepts like synergistic toxicity, susceptible groups, methylation, sulfation, nutrigenomics, and epigenetics. Early on in this journey, I was focusing a lot on the effects of environmental toxicity from farming and coal burning power plants, and from the effects of having coal burning power plants situated in the middle of farmlands where food is being grown. My interest in the effects of heavy metal toxicity was personal. My great-grandfather was a dentist in the early 1900s in Los Angeles. He, his wife, and their children were heavily exposed to mercury as a result of his dental practice, which was operated in his home at the beginning of his career.
My parents loved old houses. As a child, I lived in a home in California that was built in 1910. We moved in when I was three and moved out when I was twelve. From the age of twelve through my early adulthood, I lived in a home that was built in 1875. Both homes had lead paint. Both homes also had lead pipes. I distinctly recall absolutely loving the taste of the tap water, which was sweet. Lead tastes sweet. That’s why children eat lead paint chips. They taste good.
Heavy metals are mutagenic. They alter DNA, which is then passed to subsequent generations, making the offspring more vulnerable to significant damage from lower doses. Heavy metal toxicity occurs in children whose families have this kind of presentation and it occurs at lower doses than it would take, if those generational exposures had not occurred. Genetic mutations occur in the methylation pathway, making it even more difficult to detoxify, once exposures occur. Things build up. Exposure to mercury, lead, and other heavy metals causes damage to every system in the human body. For those with genetic vulnerabilities, from generational exposure and subsequent alterations in DNA, the damage is more severe at lower doses, including those that have been deemed “safe” by government agencies.
Early on, my research focused on heavy metal toxicity. After attending my first DAN! Conference in 2005, I started looking into vaccines and their ingredients as another, very direct route of toxic exposure. My family (me, husband, and our children) moved to Southwest Indiana in 2003, and for the first time, I personally experienced the toxicity of the lower Ohio River Valley, which has the highest concentration of coal burning power plants outside of China. The region is also extremely saturated with GMO farms and all of the chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, organophosphates, and glyphosate that go along with Big Ag and the production of genetically modified crops. Our daughter became extremely sick within a few months of living in Southwest Indiana. Her symptoms were considerably worse during planting and harvesting seasons, when the farm equipment was kicking up huge plumes of dust from dry fields and the chemicals and metals were shot into the air as if they were coming out of a cannon.
Combating the effects of genetic predisposition combined with multiple toxic exposures (those that were acute and those that were chronic and ongoing) required me to really immerse myself in learning about everything possible that might be helpful in promoting healing. I learned about nutrition (nutrient-dense foods and supplementation), the interaction of nutrition and genetics (nutrigenomics and methylation), and read books on nutritional balancing, supporting detoxification naturally, chelation, and how to reduce toxic exposures in the home environment.
I can truly say, I gave it everything I had. I can also say I shared what I learned in my best attempt to help other families like mine.
I have focused on those things that are within our control: vaccines, food choices, nutritional supplements, herbs, homeopathy, non-toxic living, as much as possible. In the past, I was fond of saying, “In a toxic world, it is even more important to take control of what is within our control. Vaccines are one source of exposure over which we have control. We can say NO.”
COVID changed that – at least to a large degree. It is true that long before COVID, our water supply was contaminated with pharmaceutical products. The hormones in birth control pills, for example. Women and girls take them, and then they urinate them into the toilet. Oral contraceptives (and other pharmaceuticals) get flushed down the toilet. Viruses from live attenuated vaccines like the polio vaccine and the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine have been found in stool and urine, and secondary infections are documented in the medical literature. It comes as no surprise that spike protein and other components of the COVID “vaccine” are now literally everywhere, all around us. Dr. Pierre Kory’s series documenting the “shedding” of the COVID injections makes it perfectly clear. There is no evading it. Our ability to “opt-out” has been removed with the implementation of self-spreading vaccines.
At the same time as the number, type, and concentration of chemicals from pharmaceuticals (including, but not limited to vaccines) has increased substantially, we continue to be exposed to fluoride in the water, synthetic folic acid given to pregnant women and added to flour and baked goods in the United States (folic acid which is toxic to those of us with certain genetic predispositions). Add in the effects of chemicals being rained down on us from the sky through geo-engineering, and specific frequencies emitted through cell towers and wi-fi, and the future looks pretty hopeless. And terrifying. And completely outside of my – or your control.
You have no idea how much I hate saying that. How defeatist I sound to myself. I have always felt strong and hopeful in my belief that all that was really needed was for humanity to reach a critical mass, and once that happened, things would change. I knew there would be a worsening before things got better. I never dreamed it would get to the place where we currently find ourselves, and certainly never thought it would happen as fast as it did.
I don’t like this me. I am hoping that with some time to reflect, I can reconnect to the spark of hope that exists somewhere inside me. I know that if I can find that spark, I will be able to ignite a renewed sense of purpose that will allow me to keep moving forward and find meaning in all of this. That is my prayer.
I am giving myself grace at this moment. The last few years have been very hard. So many losses. Toni Bark. Laura Chollick. Rashid Buttar. Most recently, Jim Meehan and Sheila Ealey. Along with multiple friends in my personal life. I have attended more “celebrations of life” in the last two months than I have in the last twenty years. And there is no end in sight. When I returned home from Sheila’s funeral in New Orleans I learned of the sudden death of a friend I knew, a fellow member of the Arkansas Retired Military Association. She died on Saturday, August 3rd, from a heart attack. Her name was Mary and she was a beautiful, funny, and loving soul.
Last night, I attended the celebration of life for another friend. Jim was a fantastic musician. A singer-songwriter, and really good pool player. He was also a father, grandfather, and friend to many hundreds of people who knew him as the kind, talented, giving person I knew. I know Jim received at least the first two COVID injections. He had a pre-existing heart issue (which he told me about prior to COVID). For some time after the initial two doses, he looked terrible. His color was awful. He was bloated and displaying the effects of significant, systemic inflammation. I worried about him for a long time. And then, he was better. His color improved. His smile was brighter. He looked healthier. At the time of his death, he was singing with a band at a wedding reception when he suddenly could not continue and left the stage. He couldn’t breathe. He walked a short distance before collapsing onto a chair. His eyes rolled back in his head. CPR was immediately started, but he never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead the next day. Massive heart attack.
Among my friends at the retired military association, there are some who experienced bouts of cancer in the early days of the pandemic, and who were refused treatment unless they complied with receiving the COVID injections. One of those friends has just been diagnosed once again with an aggressive form of cancer. Among my friends at the VFW, I know of two people who told me they were forced to take the COVID shots in order to receive treatment for service-related injuries (including PTSD and traumatic brain injury) at the V.A.
I feel like I am truly just waiting for the next notification. And I am just so very sad. And depleted. I want to be able to say that this is what happens when you hang around with people who are older. But Sheila was younger than I am. Jim Meehan was younger than I am. My musician friend Jim was younger than I am. Ginger Taylor (who experienced a hemorrhagic stroke, and who absolutely did NOT receive the COVID shots) is younger than I am. My friend who has just been told his cancer has come back with a vengeance is younger than I am. My two friends at the VFW are younger than I am.
I do know that the emotions I am feeling are compounded by situational grief. Ordinarily, I might say, “This, too shall pass.” But, under the circumstances, that statement does not ring true. It feels more like, “This, too, shall go on.” Indefinitely. Until whatever predetermined end-goal has been achieved.
One thing I do know is that I will not succumb to despondency. As Jewel says, in the song, Hands, “I won’t be made useless. Won’t be idle with despair. I’ll gather myself around my faith. That light’s the darkness’ most feared.”
“We are God’s hands. God’s eyes.”
Until the day when God calls for my spirit to leave this plane, I pray I can continue to work in whatever way possible to bring information that is helpful to others as we all strive against increasingly difficult odds in our collective quest toward physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health and well-being. Writing about hard truths is hard on the writer. I covet your prayers and am grateful for your patience as I struggle through the wake of realization of just how dire things really are at this moment.
I am not going away.
My goal is to continue to be able to publish one (and sometimes two) articles per week on this Substack. I know it’s been quiet here the last couple of weeks. I’m going to take a few more days to focus on rest and recovery. An attitude adjustment. I will be back. And in the meantime, I will pray my simple prayer:
Lord, help me to see what I need to see. Help me to say what I need to say. Not of me, but through me. In your Holy Name and for Your Glory. Amen.
The devil appeared to three monks and said to them: "If I gave you the power to change something in the past, what would you change?"
The first of them, with great apostolic fervor, replied: "I would like to prevent you from leading Adam and Eve to sin, so that humanity does not separate from God."
The second, a man full of mercy, said to him: "I will prevent you from straying from God and condemning you forever."
The third of them was the simplest and instead of answering the tempter, he knelt down, made the sign of the cross, and prayed: "Lord, deliver me from the temptation of what might have been and what was not."
The demon, screaming and trembling with pain, fled.
The other two were surprised and said to him: "Brother, why did you react like this?"
And he answered them: “First, we should never talk to the enemy.”
“Secondly, no one in the world has the power to change the past.”
“Third: Satan’s interest was not to prove our virtue, but to trap us in the past, so that we neglect the present, the only time God gives us His grace and we can cooperate with Him to fulfill His will.”
Of all the demons, the one that most holds men back and prevents them from being happy is “what could have been and was not.” The past is left to the mercy of God and the future to His providence. Only the present is in our hands. Live today loving God with all your heart.
Your journey has brought you much wisdom! You are not alone. There are many who are walking simular paths and still contributing to the betterment of mankind. Stay the course!