I feel like I've eaten a nourishing meal after reading your stories. You spill your cream and lard into your writing and I'm here getting fed. Just became a paid subscriber! Thank you for the time and energy you put into empowering and sharing with us.
I had to stop 3 times trying to read this for crying. On so many levels the words and pictures resonate so deeply. To the core of beingness.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I am a new mother of a beautiful daughter and have felt stuck in the middle of “health” myself for the last 20 years and now with my daughter. I feel so alone. I was born and raised in a huge city and don’t have the skills or modalities. But I have the insight, the instinct, the intuition, a lot of time to just leave things be, and it is so heavily frowned upon when it comes to “health”. And I have to carry the worry too that I may be getting it wrong and I have no mirrors to show me in my everyday world. This sharing gives me so much strength in my own ability to know, and not to know when it comes to decision making for my daughter. I had an excruciating vasospasm when breast feeding/nursing and was told by my female general practitioner (that had been practising for over 30 years) that it was “unexplained nipple pain”. “Lactation consultants” here, two, didn’t see it either. I had to find a specialist doctor 7000 miles away in the US over zoom to get it diagnosed. I felt like I was dying the pain was so bad and I couldn’t nurse my daughter. I knew something was wrong and no one could help me it seemed. I have had to fight so hard just to be able to try to feed my child, physically, emotionally, mentally, myself battling illness and it’s a balm to witness your stories and strength. It’s as though I can touch the power of the mother. The fierce grace of the mother. It’s oozing out here and I know that essence too and I no longer feel alone in it/her. Thank you thank you. We all have access to it and you have blasted open the path to Her embodiment and forged more of a path to follow. I cannot express my gratitude enough. Thank you xxxx
Thank you for your beautiful comment, Nat. I have felt that aloneness, and, for what it's worth, I now understand why I had to be in that place, the things I learned by that trial by fire. I wish I could hug you. Wait, there, I just did, somehow, in someway. That something I shared brought you some feelings of connection is truly and deeply an honour. It's what I want to do, what I want to say. I was there, sometimes I still am. Anyone that doesn't know the pain of loneliness is either dishonest or just not able/willing to touch those shadow places. Sending you my love.
Thank you. Hug that traveled across oceans and time itself received thank you. And know after reading and writing here, feeling better, not so alone I found a doctor here in the UK! They have come for her 30 times to get her licence revoked but she practices and she publishes about what she calls “Ecological Health”. She has a medical degree and was a general practitioner for our NHS and now in her 60’s works privately and gives workshops. She says diet is everything (which we know!) I know it’s because I wasn’t feeling so alone that I found her. I knew I wasn’t alone and then I was even more “not alone”. I feel I have a medical professional I can trust to care for us and that feels like a miracle! Sending back a huge hug over the ocean and time. You are transforming lives by transforming hearts and minds. ❤️
Those are nice words and I thank you in return. By the way, I love your name. Josephine was my grandmother's name and she was a woman of great love and strength. It's a good name indeed. 🙂
I enjoyed this so much. So good. Enjoyed is probably not strong enough of a word though! I kept stopping and saying to myself, "this is me! this is me!". Sharing your journey taught me tons about myself. And it is my absolute delight to support you in your work. Thank you for offering me a chance to say a tangible 'thank you' for the 'Peter' type mentoring you are giving me now, like he gave you back then. Thank you!!!
What a lovely thing to say. Thank you, Janene. I hope we can all be a little more real and vulnerable with each other. The world needs a little authenticity injection, don't you think? Thank you, also, for your support. It was a bit of an unnerving evolution for me, but I'm so glad I did it. It's been so rewarding to get support, in all sorts of ways from such fine humans.
I remember writing to resources in the back of books that my family considered “dangerous”. I also remember (vi-vid-ly) as a new nurse standing at the bedside of my ICU patient pushing drug after drug into their IV line thinking “how does a body sort out all of this poison?” In my gut, I couldn’t make it okay. Not then. And certainly not now.
I have always been drawn to the hippie bookstores and small health food stores. They just feel right in my bones but, my only explanation was my rebellion (my uncontrollability). I can be rebellious without being oppositional.
Food heals so much but, you my friend, sewed in the land and love. I, for all of these years, was blind to their powers. Your writing and postings on IG are opening my mind to that bookstore that feels exactly right in my bones.
Oh, the courters of the dangerous! Beware! I am so touched that I was able to sew in bits of what were once an unknown gift shared with me. And isn't that how it should be? All of us learning and giving to one another? Thank you for your support, Andrea. It feels like such a nice corner of the internet over here. I hope we can all connect more deeply as I figure this stuff out.
I relate so much to this! My son ended up in the Emergency Room blue in the face a couple days after he received his scheduled vaccines. I was told everything was “normal”.
Just like you stated a parent knows when something is NOT “normal”.
I’ve lost “friends”, some extended family members think I’m “wacko” but thankfully I’ve found people (like you!) who have shared their experiences and have pointed me in the right direction to read and learn that vaccine injury DOES happen and it is NOT normal for your baby to have those reactions. This lead me to healing the gut with real food along with other ways to heal the brain. Which then lead me to a ton other rabbit holes which I continue to learn and read about. Thank YOU for being one of the educators! I am so grateful for you and for all the information you share!
I don't think many people choose the more bumpy path, but hopefully in time, they find the gifts in it. Love to you, Daniela. Maybe we'll bump into each other in one of those rabbit holes one day :)
Beautiful, authentic, wise . . . as per the usual. Thank you for having the courage to be this vulnerable and honest about your own journey and thoughts. I admire you so much, and also learn so much from you and from the way you live your life. Gratitude!
Your passage about learning to trust your gut, and having courage to listen to your inner knowledge is where I feel I'm at in life. Honing those skills and having confidence in them.
Funny enough the internet helped me on my path (though I certainly admit I can see how your journey would have been very different). I was pregnant with my 2nd daughter; after having experienced pregnancy and labor with my first daughter, I wanted to be more conscience this go around and started with looking into what I was going to eat to be healthier. Some how I was reading comments in a forum where someone had mentioned their chiropractor recommended they read "Nourishing Traditions" during their pregnancy... So I bought it. It's been over 3 years since then and it's led me on a long winding path to where ever I'm headed....which is somewhere different than I would've imagined just a few years ago. And where ever it is headed, it does overwhelm me with all the knowledge and skills I have yet to learn. Somehow it led me to your Instagram and by consequence you also led me to other people and books and essays. It's all a ripple- effect...a spider web from a center developing outward of new information and things to read and interviews to listen to.
I still hide this journey from most people. My husband and I are on it together. But as I still hone my confidence I shield my thoughts from many family and friends because I'm still figuring out where my convictions lie and as you put it, recognizing that "truth is in my midst." Im not prepared to explain my personal journey yet to people who will expect to understand by being told there's one podcast episode, or one article I read that may make them understand. It's personal, it's years developed and it feels spiritual. I can't direct them to one source in hopes that maybe they'll understand and not think I'm a mad person as I slowly move away from convention. Perhaps I should though... Perhaps that's the step to confidence and conviction.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Jessica. Your under no obligation to share anything you don't want to, but I think you might find that there will come a time when you recognize that the gifts you've been given probably need to join that ripple of compensatory actions and reactions. You have gained wisdom and experiences and others may start a journey of their own because of what you share.
Also, people won't. Some will think you're nuts. Some will think you're "extreme" or whatever word they want to use. And yes, that takes some confidence to handle, but I've learned that confidence is more a muscle than a trait. It gets stronger through use. You throw something out there, someone says something that hurts, you live to see another day.
Mostly, I just want to say that I'm so happy for you that you kept an open heart, you tried something new, and now your family is benefitting from that. What a beautiful gift of health you have given them all. I hope that brings some confidence into your heart, too.
"I am seeing something that I have chosen to believe is a gift: all of this online censorship is necessitating clever runarounds."
Exactly. I am trying to see the positive in this and have some hope. I am meeting with community this evening to figure out a plan for us all to work together and care for each other through this insanity that is the governmental response to the crisis du jour. In the end I think learning to care for ourselves and each other will make us stronger. We will not give up, or give in.
It was great. Some sad stories of people losing their jobs, but mostly people are just really fired up to fight back. We're talking about the various ways we can help each other. For example, some people can't afford to homeschool, but won't leave their kids in public school if the shot is mandated here in this state (which it will be), so people are talking about setting up homeschool groups, stuff like that. We have our second meeting coming up soon as well as lots of protests planned.
I foresee this post having such a domino—other mothers sharing their own experiences and potentially connecting with one another. Oh it brings me such joy!! Thanks for continuing to share your story and encouraging others to do the same. Though we humans come with our own uniqueness we are never alone. Much love from crunchy California 💕
I'm thinking that a Discord discussion group might be a nice evolution of this place if we could/might. Tea with Tara, where we can get together and chat. :)
I am a new subscriber. I am the mother of two and soon to be a grandmother. Your story was beautiful and reminded me of my own as a young mom. How we need each other right now in this strange life we live, separated but yet connected. Thank you for being brave as a mother and following your instincts. It is the most courageous of tasks to choose a new path in motherhood. I pray that my daughter’s journey leads her on the roads less traveled, or perhaps less recently traveled, but known by our ancestors.
Thank you, Shannon. I will pray the same for your daughter. And congratulations on soon becoming a grandmother! What a beautiful transition and evolution in your life.
I feel like I've eaten a nourishing meal after reading your stories. You spill your cream and lard into your writing and I'm here getting fed. Just became a paid subscriber! Thank you for the time and energy you put into empowering and sharing with us.
Thank you so much for your support and kind words, Elizabeth. I like that analogy!
I had to stop 3 times trying to read this for crying. On so many levels the words and pictures resonate so deeply. To the core of beingness.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I am a new mother of a beautiful daughter and have felt stuck in the middle of “health” myself for the last 20 years and now with my daughter. I feel so alone. I was born and raised in a huge city and don’t have the skills or modalities. But I have the insight, the instinct, the intuition, a lot of time to just leave things be, and it is so heavily frowned upon when it comes to “health”. And I have to carry the worry too that I may be getting it wrong and I have no mirrors to show me in my everyday world. This sharing gives me so much strength in my own ability to know, and not to know when it comes to decision making for my daughter. I had an excruciating vasospasm when breast feeding/nursing and was told by my female general practitioner (that had been practising for over 30 years) that it was “unexplained nipple pain”. “Lactation consultants” here, two, didn’t see it either. I had to find a specialist doctor 7000 miles away in the US over zoom to get it diagnosed. I felt like I was dying the pain was so bad and I couldn’t nurse my daughter. I knew something was wrong and no one could help me it seemed. I have had to fight so hard just to be able to try to feed my child, physically, emotionally, mentally, myself battling illness and it’s a balm to witness your stories and strength. It’s as though I can touch the power of the mother. The fierce grace of the mother. It’s oozing out here and I know that essence too and I no longer feel alone in it/her. Thank you thank you. We all have access to it and you have blasted open the path to Her embodiment and forged more of a path to follow. I cannot express my gratitude enough. Thank you xxxx
Thank you for your beautiful comment, Nat. I have felt that aloneness, and, for what it's worth, I now understand why I had to be in that place, the things I learned by that trial by fire. I wish I could hug you. Wait, there, I just did, somehow, in someway. That something I shared brought you some feelings of connection is truly and deeply an honour. It's what I want to do, what I want to say. I was there, sometimes I still am. Anyone that doesn't know the pain of loneliness is either dishonest or just not able/willing to touch those shadow places. Sending you my love.
Thank you. Hug that traveled across oceans and time itself received thank you. And know after reading and writing here, feeling better, not so alone I found a doctor here in the UK! They have come for her 30 times to get her licence revoked but she practices and she publishes about what she calls “Ecological Health”. She has a medical degree and was a general practitioner for our NHS and now in her 60’s works privately and gives workshops. She says diet is everything (which we know!) I know it’s because I wasn’t feeling so alone that I found her. I knew I wasn’t alone and then I was even more “not alone”. I feel I have a medical professional I can trust to care for us and that feels like a miracle! Sending back a huge hug over the ocean and time. You are transforming lives by transforming hearts and minds. ❤️
Sometimes the words "thank you" is all you've got. Thank you
Those are nice words and I thank you in return. By the way, I love your name. Josephine was my grandmother's name and she was a woman of great love and strength. It's a good name indeed. 🙂
Tara, your writing is so piercingly authentic. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing and for sharing the photos of your beautiful girl. Xxx
Thank you, Tania. That's the best compliment there is. The photos were of all of my beautiful girls, a gaggle of gorgeous geese. Thank you 🙂
♥️Thank you for sharing pieces of your world with us. Also, these pictures of your strong daughter are beautiful! Each one full of light ♥️
Thank you for reading, Alicia. The photos were of all of my daughters and they are all full of light :) xo
I enjoyed this so much. So good. Enjoyed is probably not strong enough of a word though! I kept stopping and saying to myself, "this is me! this is me!". Sharing your journey taught me tons about myself. And it is my absolute delight to support you in your work. Thank you for offering me a chance to say a tangible 'thank you' for the 'Peter' type mentoring you are giving me now, like he gave you back then. Thank you!!!
What a lovely thing to say. Thank you, Janene. I hope we can all be a little more real and vulnerable with each other. The world needs a little authenticity injection, don't you think? Thank you, also, for your support. It was a bit of an unnerving evolution for me, but I'm so glad I did it. It's been so rewarding to get support, in all sorts of ways from such fine humans.
My friend, fire .... 😭🖤
I remember writing to resources in the back of books that my family considered “dangerous”. I also remember (vi-vid-ly) as a new nurse standing at the bedside of my ICU patient pushing drug after drug into their IV line thinking “how does a body sort out all of this poison?” In my gut, I couldn’t make it okay. Not then. And certainly not now.
I have always been drawn to the hippie bookstores and small health food stores. They just feel right in my bones but, my only explanation was my rebellion (my uncontrollability). I can be rebellious without being oppositional.
Food heals so much but, you my friend, sewed in the land and love. I, for all of these years, was blind to their powers. Your writing and postings on IG are opening my mind to that bookstore that feels exactly right in my bones.
~A grateful subscriber
Oh, the courters of the dangerous! Beware! I am so touched that I was able to sew in bits of what were once an unknown gift shared with me. And isn't that how it should be? All of us learning and giving to one another? Thank you for your support, Andrea. It feels like such a nice corner of the internet over here. I hope we can all connect more deeply as I figure this stuff out.
I relate so much to this! My son ended up in the Emergency Room blue in the face a couple days after he received his scheduled vaccines. I was told everything was “normal”.
Just like you stated a parent knows when something is NOT “normal”.
I’ve lost “friends”, some extended family members think I’m “wacko” but thankfully I’ve found people (like you!) who have shared their experiences and have pointed me in the right direction to read and learn that vaccine injury DOES happen and it is NOT normal for your baby to have those reactions. This lead me to healing the gut with real food along with other ways to heal the brain. Which then lead me to a ton other rabbit holes which I continue to learn and read about. Thank YOU for being one of the educators! I am so grateful for you and for all the information you share!
I don't think many people choose the more bumpy path, but hopefully in time, they find the gifts in it. Love to you, Daniela. Maybe we'll bump into each other in one of those rabbit holes one day :)
Beautiful, authentic, wise . . . as per the usual. Thank you for having the courage to be this vulnerable and honest about your own journey and thoughts. I admire you so much, and also learn so much from you and from the way you live your life. Gratitude!
Thank you, Heather ❤️
Your words are so nourishing, thank you.
thank you, Kate❤️
Your passage about learning to trust your gut, and having courage to listen to your inner knowledge is where I feel I'm at in life. Honing those skills and having confidence in them.
Funny enough the internet helped me on my path (though I certainly admit I can see how your journey would have been very different). I was pregnant with my 2nd daughter; after having experienced pregnancy and labor with my first daughter, I wanted to be more conscience this go around and started with looking into what I was going to eat to be healthier. Some how I was reading comments in a forum where someone had mentioned their chiropractor recommended they read "Nourishing Traditions" during their pregnancy... So I bought it. It's been over 3 years since then and it's led me on a long winding path to where ever I'm headed....which is somewhere different than I would've imagined just a few years ago. And where ever it is headed, it does overwhelm me with all the knowledge and skills I have yet to learn. Somehow it led me to your Instagram and by consequence you also led me to other people and books and essays. It's all a ripple- effect...a spider web from a center developing outward of new information and things to read and interviews to listen to.
I still hide this journey from most people. My husband and I are on it together. But as I still hone my confidence I shield my thoughts from many family and friends because I'm still figuring out where my convictions lie and as you put it, recognizing that "truth is in my midst." Im not prepared to explain my personal journey yet to people who will expect to understand by being told there's one podcast episode, or one article I read that may make them understand. It's personal, it's years developed and it feels spiritual. I can't direct them to one source in hopes that maybe they'll understand and not think I'm a mad person as I slowly move away from convention. Perhaps I should though... Perhaps that's the step to confidence and conviction.
Thank you for your writing
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, Jessica. Your under no obligation to share anything you don't want to, but I think you might find that there will come a time when you recognize that the gifts you've been given probably need to join that ripple of compensatory actions and reactions. You have gained wisdom and experiences and others may start a journey of their own because of what you share.
Also, people won't. Some will think you're nuts. Some will think you're "extreme" or whatever word they want to use. And yes, that takes some confidence to handle, but I've learned that confidence is more a muscle than a trait. It gets stronger through use. You throw something out there, someone says something that hurts, you live to see another day.
Mostly, I just want to say that I'm so happy for you that you kept an open heart, you tried something new, and now your family is benefitting from that. What a beautiful gift of health you have given them all. I hope that brings some confidence into your heart, too.
"I am seeing something that I have chosen to believe is a gift: all of this online censorship is necessitating clever runarounds."
Exactly. I am trying to see the positive in this and have some hope. I am meeting with community this evening to figure out a plan for us all to work together and care for each other through this insanity that is the governmental response to the crisis du jour. In the end I think learning to care for ourselves and each other will make us stronger. We will not give up, or give in.
Wonderful, Rachel! How did the meeting go?
It was great. Some sad stories of people losing their jobs, but mostly people are just really fired up to fight back. We're talking about the various ways we can help each other. For example, some people can't afford to homeschool, but won't leave their kids in public school if the shot is mandated here in this state (which it will be), so people are talking about setting up homeschool groups, stuff like that. We have our second meeting coming up soon as well as lots of protests planned.
I foresee this post having such a domino—other mothers sharing their own experiences and potentially connecting with one another. Oh it brings me such joy!! Thanks for continuing to share your story and encouraging others to do the same. Though we humans come with our own uniqueness we are never alone. Much love from crunchy California 💕
I'm thinking that a Discord discussion group might be a nice evolution of this place if we could/might. Tea with Tara, where we can get together and chat. :)
Ohh! All in favor of this say aye!! 🙋♀️
So eloquently written. Thank you for sharing.
I am a new subscriber. I am the mother of two and soon to be a grandmother. Your story was beautiful and reminded me of my own as a young mom. How we need each other right now in this strange life we live, separated but yet connected. Thank you for being brave as a mother and following your instincts. It is the most courageous of tasks to choose a new path in motherhood. I pray that my daughter’s journey leads her on the roads less traveled, or perhaps less recently traveled, but known by our ancestors.
Thank you, Shannon. I will pray the same for your daughter. And congratulations on soon becoming a grandmother! What a beautiful transition and evolution in your life.