Revisiting the spirit of Fiji

It's coming up to one year since my trip to Fiji. I've been working on my Fiji movie and it's shaping up nicely. Or, to restate that using the language of ownership - I am well pleased with where I've been taking it.

Why am I making this video now, almost a year later? I had previously made a short video last year that I had posted to my Facebook account, and a couple of slideshows using iPhoto, but none of those projects encapsulated the full scope of the video that I envisioned making while I was there. I've just really really really wanted to do it, and I've been having a slow period with regard to client projects, so I just started doing it.

While I was in Fiji I did the pole-climb. I also took over 400 photographs and recorded several hours of video. I had it in my mind that I would make a movie out of all that and I started thinking about what my soundtrack would be. One song I kept hearing was Faith of the Heart. That's the theme song from the series Star Trek: Enterprise, performed by Russell Watson.

I was really hearing that song, I was really hearing the words, and they seemed totally, completely, appropriate for the experience I was having in Fiji.

It's been a long road
Getting from there to here...

It certainly was a long road getting from Toronto to Fiji. I took something like five planes, crossed the International Date Line, crossed the equator, and crossed so many time zones that I'm not even sure how long it took me to get there. I think it was about twenty four hours.

Physically, it was a long road getting from here to there, but also metaphorically - my life journey has been a long road.

Some of the other lines I was hearing...

I'm going where my heart will take me
I've got faith to believe
I can do anything
I've got strength of the soul
And no one's gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star...

Those words - I could just hear those words and they completely went with the images I had, climbing the pole. It's what the pole climb is about - I can do anything, I can reach any star.

It's now, almost a year later, I'm going back to that video and man, I need that inspiration now. For a couple of weeks now I've been feeling down and discouraged about my fund raising efforts for the trek in Machu Picchu for Joints In Motion. As I'm watching the pictures of me climbing that pole and hearing that music and listening to those words, I feel a reconnection with inspiration.

I've had some kick-ass wins recently so it seems irrational that I should be feeling down and discouraged. I should just focus on my wins and feel positive, right?

Maybe, but I don't believe in so-called Positive Thinking. I equate that with putting on a mask. I think I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge my negative feelings to myself and pretended I didn't have them. I think that sweeping them under the rug allows them to gain power over me. I've learned that I become stronger in the end when I acknowledge and respect my negative feelings and know that I won't stay in them for too long.

They're not gonna hold me down no more, no, they're not gonna hold me down.

I will see my dream come alive at last. I will touch the sky.

A homeopathic approach

I met with my rheumatologist last week and he told me that my CRP and ESR levels are elevated and increasing. I saw the chart - if it was a stock chart I'd be buying. They're not stocks though, they're indicators of inflammation. My rheumatologist wants to put me back on meds; I've been off meds for about three years now. I've decided to pursue homeopathic and naturopathic remedies for the next few months and if the markers in my blood work don't show a noticeable improvement within the next few months then I will start the meds.

I've talked to a homeopathic doctor that I know and she assures me with a great degree of certainty that as the cells in my body renew themselves, the joint damage will not only halt but can actually reverse itself.

Pick up your mat and walk...