In my shamanic teachings when you work with the winds of the South (Serpent) medicine you learn to shed your skin all at once.   This means that you shed your labels what you believe you are through the lens of your ego.

We can intellectually understand this but it isn't until you are completely undone that you really know what this medicine is.

In the past 3 weeks I have been playing a part of multi-personalities for my beloved.  He suffers from dementia and although this expresses itself differently for all those who  live with it, my beloved has a fragmented memory with role association along with emotional memory versus factual memory.  All to say that he sees me as 4 to 7 different women. 

I am seen and spoken to as the "therapist", "lover", "Carole - the wife", "sweetie" , "the old woman" and "the other lady".  It breaks my heart to no longer just be seen and experienced as his wife.  On the one hand being a "wife" is complex.  We truly do wear all these hats from one moment to another.  I would venture to say that I'm probably his mother somewhere in there too.

This experience has really unraveled me.  I never asked to be dissected.  I am made up of many moving parts and all those parts make up the one entity...until now.

This is the true medicine of the Serpent.  I am being asked to shed parts of me in the present moment he is "perceiving" me.  I am being asked to simply be one aspect.  This is no easy task and not one I wish on anyone.  It feels like day by day HIS beloved is being segregated, split, torn apart and soon there will be no identity left.  The Carole, the love of his life, his soul mate will have shed every label to nothingness.

I ask myself how do I navigate all of this?
Am I ready to shed all these labels? 
o I want to become nothing? 
Who am I without these labels? 

I am being stripped without request and I wonder what lies under the nakedness of this undoing?

Aho,
​Carole

When I heard those words they cut me like a knife.  The very vulnerable part of me that was expressing my concerns about my beloved's failing memory was diminished in one sentence: "He's always been forgetful!"

My immediate reaction was to slash out, rebel, plead my case, but I realized that was a waste of effort.  How would she know?  She spends a few days every five years with  him. 

How would she know?

Waiting and watching someone slip into the abyss of cognitive decline is not an experience I wish upon anyone.  And yet there it is for him and for me.

Those words were spoken a number of years ago and as his primary caregiver there isn't a whole lot of time to reflect for we are busy making decisions for two.  However, recently I sat with it, those words.  I finally made some sense out of them.

My beloved has always been forgetful if I am to be honest.  But my interpretation of that was he did not remember certain things because they held no importance to him.  He dismissed them. I always interpreted those instances as it wasn't worth the space in his head.  Move on!

Over the last decade a different kind of forgetfulness started to happen.  You know your birthday, anniversaries, special occasions, vacations once enjoyed, names of friends, places you've frequented often, streets, land marks, places, things.  We could fluff those ALL off as aging--sure for awhile.

Now it's evolved.  Now it's as if this world the one we've always known together is dissolving like salt in warm water.

On his behalf there is an awareness of it happening, but there is nothing for him to grab on to.  Nothing he can root down on.  He is the leaf and I am the branch.  His world revolves around me holding him to the one we share together.   This stage is tender, vulnerable and very very delicate.

I'm afraid it won't be long now. 
He (the leaf) will let go of the branch (me).

​Aho

PS I'm blogging about the journey of cognitive decline with my husband, Grant.  This serves 2 purposes: One it heals me to share the other it heals you to witness.

There is no denying it summer is on it's way out.
Are you feeling a little melancholy?
Perhaps it's a kind of grief.

The nights are getting much cooler.
The trees are loosing their leaves, and changing color.
We are getting ourselves back into routine, and
fall activities.

The FREE spirit of summer is quickly diminishing.

Personally I LOVE the fall!

I don't do well in the heat of the summer.
My senses are tickled by the array of colors and the smells.
The squirrels keep me amused as they hide their acorns all over the yard.
And I feel a sense of need to retreat and fill up my reserves.
I find myself planning for winter...freezing veggies from the garden.
Pondering on what kind of soups will nourish my soul this upcoming
season.

A gentle reminder that our bodies (body, mind & spirit)
need time to adjust
to the upcoming season.
Give yourself compassion, and
patience as you transition into the new cycle.

Aho!