Something New

Life’s chapters fly hot off the press these days, seemingly faster and faster as I age, unfolding a dynamic saga I could never have anticipated.  There’s an air of expectancy as pages flip: voila, always something new!  Ongoing redemption in the midst of struggle.  Metamorphosis.

Let me tell you about one such recent chapter.

Some months ago I was introduced to a nutritional supplement company, Plexus Worldwide.  My response was casual since I already was taking quite an assortment of dietary supplements, and I also (true confession here) felt a twinge of skepticism (yes, that’s the right word).  However, as I investigated convincing Plexus consumer stories with growing interest, over time my ambivalence began to melt.  Eventually it thawed in the heat of mounting conviction until I knew I needed to try Plexus myself.

And so I began taking the Plexus product that balances blood sugar levels.  What I didn’t realize at the time is that blood sugar affects so many critical functions throughout the entire body. SO MANY. It wasn’t long before I noticed a shift. A heavy mantle that pressed me with a sense of pending doom - sort of an emotional weight accompanying my chronic tinnitus and hyperacussis - began to lift.  While the hearing condition(s) stayed basically the same, my tolerances improved, and I was better able to live beyond (maybe above?) the all-too-familiar stressors. Who would have thought?

Now fast-forward a couple of months.  I decided to add two other Plexus products, one targeting gut health and the other detoxification, to the blood sugar balancer.  These three products have been developed to work together synergistically at the most basic, foundational levels, and I was curious to see what effects I might notice.  The voice of my husband’s cardiologist also kept ringing in my head, reinforcing the decision: As the gut goes, so goes the rest of you.

When I placed my order, a Plexus ambassador reminded me that everyone’s biology is unique, and so reactions to Plexus, and the timing of them, will vary.  Within weeks of taking the three products, I noticed further improvement I can only describe as a sort of inner leveling-out or steadiness (and maybe buoyancy?).  My husband offered his two cents:  “That stuff is helping you, I can tell.  You’re…well…brighter.” 

The most profound effect still sends chills down my spine when I think about it.  For months I’d been noticing strange heart symptoms, especially at night – sometimes a racing pulse, other times erratic arrhythmias, and sometimes both.  I had planned to mention all of this to my doctor in November when I see him for my annual check-up.  And yet since taking the trio of Plexus products, all of these symptoms have disappeared!  Completely!  My heart beats slow and steady now.  The correlation seems beyond remarkable.

Let me add that the FDA does not allow supplement companies to make claims about healing this-or-that disease, which would work against pharmaceutical agendas, so Plexus is very careful to tame information when describing products online and/or via other public venues.  And yet I’m discovering plenty of reliable data by focusing web research in two directions: 1.) ingredients used in these products and 2.) stories of individuals who have had experience with these products.  I love what I’m finding, and want others to know!  My list of investigated testimonies just keeps growing, and I'd like to share what I've found to date – a roll of diagnoses that have been helped by Plexus, in no particular order:

anxiety/depression, restless leg syndrome, arthritis (typical and rheumatoid), migraines, digestion issues (IBS, Crohn’s, etc.), blood lipid imbalances, asthma, allergies, hypothyroidism (and other endocrine malfunctions), sleeplessness, lupus, endometriosis, eczema/acne/skin irritations, diabetes (either high or low blood sugar), chronic fatigue, acid reflux, gout, overweight, high or low blood pressure, food addictions/binge eating, MS, Lyme disease, fibomyalgia

Thanks, Plexus Worldwide, for giving me a new tool for my wellness box at this late stage in life!! 

Johnny Appleseed

A weathered, twisted-looking old apple tree grows just down the road from our house. Branches must have been grafted in when it was young, since it yields two varieties of fruit. Last fall this veteran tree lost major limbs in a nasty storm that literally tore it in two.  Still, one healthy branch continues to bear my choice variety of apple. 

Today I picked three of these preferred red orbs - flawless, with nary a worm hole in sight - and ate two within the hour.  They were juicy beyond description, tart-sweet and crisp.  The third I placed on my desk, a simple, beautiful visual treat. 

You see, there’s something special and endearing about these particular apples.  I am quite sure they are first cousins to those that grew from trees lining the driveway of our country property in The Old Home Town.  As such, their flavor and texture elicit wistful remembrances.   

Today when I held them close to my face and closed my eyes, a distinct saliva-inducing aroma - mouth-watering even before the first bite - called forth imagined scents from pots filled with golden cinnamon-sauce. Memories swept me back in time to our old farmhouse kitchen where my calloused fingers peeled and peeled and peeled some more until I could disrobe an apple of its skin and quarter it in a matter of seconds.  Where a big hot water bath canner on the stovetop happily bubbled and spit steam into the air, sealing jars of fragrant sauce for the winter.

Those were hard working, rewarding, earthy days.  And the apples I picked this afternoon brought it all back, all the sweat and dirty fingernails and goodness; the apple and sour cherry trees, sprawling vegetable garden, cackling chickens, and cows and calves bawling back-and-forth to each other.  The hot sun and warm soil beneath bare feet.  The tractors humming in the back field, running their courses back-and-forth all day.

I saved some of today’s apple seeds, even though our current yard is too small for another tree. I couldn’t help it.  Something in me longs to be Johnny Appleseed and spread abroad these seeds that carry so many abiding memories of life lived well – somewhere, somehow.

Defrost and Spoils of War

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to wage war on the ice in our upright freezer, a decent respect for optimal function requires that we pursue separation of frost from shelves (defrost). 

And so, out comes the weaponry checklist. Rubber floor mat (borrowed from the back of the car) - check. Plastic tubs - check. Sponge - check. Towels - check.  Patience - working on that.

Back when today’s project was only a glimmer of possibility, I spent weeks paring down our inventory of frozen food to a quantity that would reasonably fit in two large coolers during the confrontation.  (Use this venison and that bag of lima beans, and don’t be tempted to buy sale items that would add more…no more.)  Night-before-last, our remaining two cups of locally picked blueberries joined a few leftover red raspberries, uniting to make a gluten-free, sugar-free, crumb-top pie. 

Sort of like the spoils of war, I guess.

Final Showing

Bedded perennial plants are slipping away, slinking closer to the earth each day - drooping and drying out and dying.  Very few blossoms remain, and yet these waning veterans of summer seem to watch intently as ornamental grasses vigorously throw out their waving plumes for a final flashy show.

Restoration

Wilderness beckons

From beyond the bend,

An ocean of earthy smells

Where core calls to core,

Deep to deep.

Lofty green falls yellow to the earth.

I tread leafy golden coins

Leading to greater treasure,

Persevering to Bethesda

To watch for angel wings

Troubling the water.

+ + +

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up (troubled) the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. 

Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 

The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.”  And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. 

-John 5:2-8