Otherworld @ MindSay

Tired dolphin smootchies!
Hi ! I am back from "outer space": to write more about inner space! :-)
 That's where all this takes place you know, and most people don't seem to understand this. The greatest untamed frontier is between our ears!LOL! More properly , the "Third eye" right between the eyebrows, sort of, or at least that is usually how it is seen.
There is a gland there,( and I will have to double-check, because I haven't written about this in awhile) pituitary I think, that seems to be involved somehow... it is a very important area and has been shown to respond to sunlight, and seems to play a part in seasonal depression as well, not surprisingly. Many who study these things say it is quite valuable to allow this organ to get adequate amounts of sunlight for good mental spiritual and physical health.
Now I live in Ohio, one of the cloudiest states in the nation. We see very little sun in the winter, or even anytime, lol, and not surprisingly have a very high rate of people with seasonal depression. I am one, in fact! I suffer terribly during our winters and  so invested in a "sunlight" bulb this year to help manage it.. I must say, I think it has helped somewhat, and I have tried to allow what sun we have had to shine on my face a bit, even though I am freezing!
I guess I notice more due to my sensitivity,  that I can manage better if I can get even just a bit of sun.
I got into a discussion with a bus driver ( I get into discussions everywhere, lol.) about how people deal with our winters. He is a skier. He doesn't get depressed in winter. His doctor remarked that patients with outdoor winter activities don't generally get depression.This stands to reason of course.
 If cold doesn't bother you much, and you are outdoors, you are more likely to get whatever sunlight there is to get. You are apt to be more balanced and therefore healthier in general.
If, however, you are like me and want to scream when you get hit with a blast of cold air, you might tend to become more reclusive, less active, and therefore have more tendency to be depressed in winter. In fact, I tend to view people who ski as I would aliens, for I don't understand how they can find cold temperatures inviting, let alone invigorating. Add to that a tendency towards clutzyness, and I'd be hard pressed to find a single reason I should pay alot of money to freeze and risk broken bones in any event.
So what happened to me? My father was a full-blooded Dane and those people evolved in cold climates and invented skiing.
 He never took an interest in it, nor did anyone in my family.
In the world I grew up in, winter was a time of hardship when the car would most likely not start, people would get sick alot, and the holidays would just make every other problem worse!
 Plus, there is another component in the "feeling good " game...darkness. In order to manufacture seratonin, that "feel-good" hormone, the body also needs restful sleep, in darkness. If you don't get that, you are liable to run out of seratonin, which transmits signals in the brain, and feel crappy in general.
This is the reason most of the modern antidepressants are seratonin -re-uptake inhibitors. They block the body from recycling the seratonin so quickly, hopefully allowing the signals to be strong enough to make you feel better. Of course, if you are not producing enough, there's not much to reserve, so you can still feel bad. So feeling good requires a good balance of natural light and darkness too, and this is no surprise either.
Most basic metaphysical concepts relate to balance in some way. Finding the proper balance is in fact crucial to success in many things, walking being the major one! LOL! Ask anyone who has had a prolonged ear infection how much fun that is. But seriously, once again, I point out, the other planes of existance are very much the same in this respect!.
 Walking in balance is a catchphrase for giving everything it's proper due. There is a time to be out floating around the ethers and a time to be giving your earthly vehicle what it needs to remain strong and healthy enough to support your travels. This is why the concept of "grounding" is so often stressed in all these fields, the body is your bases, your home to come back to and share your experiences, digest them, integrate them into wholeness.
 Many times we find sensitive types are not really that happy in their bodies, for many reasons people may try to distance themselves from it. Many times addiction is a way of distancing, extreme anything, including religious practices may be another way, and then some people get scared out of their bodies and float above them, tethered but hardly ever fully inside.
 It took me a very long time to come to terms with being in a body, most of my life in fact! I vaguely recall it now, but know I was one of those people who decided early on this place was not much to my liking, just too painful and burdensome, and so found a way to float around above myself .
I strongly remember trying to describe the way I could see the part in my hair to a friend who was into supernatural stuff, and wondered how it was that it happened. I kinda remember people telling me I just needed grounding, having an extremely vague idea what it was, and trying like heck to be as down to earth as possible. But for me, this wasn't really something I'd had much experience with.
 When I went through the shamanic proceedures to check out all my connections, as it were, I found I had really not spent very much time comfortable in my body since I was about 5 or so. I'll write more about that later.
But then it started to make sense, all the symptoms were classic examples of what we'd shamanically call "soul loss". Part of me had dissociated itself and was off doing something else entirely while my poor earthly vehicle was languishing with scanty reserves and a driver who was distracted at the wheel.
 When I looked around and realized how widespread this phenomena was, it became obvious why some of the crazy things that happen to us happen And why the concept of grounding was so hard for me to grasp correctly, let alone perform. People always acted as if I could just do it conciously, and I guess physical chores do help in someone who has not become accustomed to nonpresence. Repetitive physical chores were just one more excuse to stay away!lol, and not really pay much attention to what my body was doing!LOL! So couldn't really do much for me.
 I'd get so frustrated with peoples attitudes I think I stayed away on purpose. I viewed the whole world as a puzzle, or maybe a big maze with a mousetrap at the end (like the child's game).
It wasn't until I went through a great deal of work and transformation that I finally knew what it meant to FEEL grounded, completely in my body and momentarily at least, safe here. I still have to be very vigilant I'm not still off awandering when I need to be here, but the connection I have built up seems to be holding fairly well now, as long as I keep strengthening myself.
 Here is a big sercret...guess what happens when you are not in your body all the way for long periods of time?
We will get to that a bit more next time.