About Me — Astaria
The wounded healer with a warrior heart, three cats and a passion for potatoes.
A member of Medium for just over a year now, it has been a lot of fun. I’ve expressed my emotionality through poetry most of my life. I just never sought to share it, until just over a year ago. The thought in fact, never crossed my mind until a close friend, Steve Massey (AstroMuso) encouraged me to stop keeping what I had to say a secret. Being on the world stage with music was easy for him, he had been doing that for all his adult life. For me, the idea of sharing my inner-most thoughts, feelings, and emotions was scary but once I put a few pieces out there, it became easy. That encouragement and support to take the leap, expose it all, is forever a gift that I have heartfelt gratitude for because without that kindness and encouragement, I would have continued to write for myself, and of course, I will always write for myself, but now, I have the warrior heart to put my emotionality out there and maybe, just maybe, my words may resonate, translate or instigate a deeper love within for those reading it.
The timing was never better because my mum received a diagnosis of terminal cancer around the same time and amongst the angst and thoughts of her imminent departure from this realm, I wrote a poem. It was truly an honour to speak my words at her funeral and now, life is forever changed as I and others in my family began to navigate our life path without her physical presence, love, hugs and voice of reason whenever we needed her. For the last couple of years, the table had turned somewhat, where I found myself mothering and caring for my mum in so many ways, but even though this was happening, I never lost sight of the fact, that she was my mum and would always have that role. This was true even though I was coordinating and overseeing some of her needs.
I like to be organised and have a plan, perhaps that's why I have this role in my family, to coordinate, manage and organise everyone! I do subscribe to the modern adage of Benjamin Franklin, “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”. This, juxtaposed with William J. Bowerman, “everything you need is already inside you” are words I live by. There was no better time to apply these quotes than in January 2021 when I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition. Shock and anger that my body, had, yet again let me down. Having had a long list of conditions from birth and feeling as though finally, in my early 50s life was on track because my body was behaving, it would all be a breeze, at least for a while. Then wham! Nope, there was another battle staring me in the face and asking me “so what are you going to do about it”. As we all know, the medical profession and pharmaceutical drugs offer very little in the way of solutions for the wide variety of autoimmune conditions that it seems, has an ever growing list of meaningless and disparaging names. The name of the particular condition I have been experiencing is Polymyalgia Rheumatica; extremely painful inflammation of the shoulders, neck and hip girdle that, when untreated results in an inability to move without extreme pain. Finding myself pinned to the bed the first morning that the condition expanded from just my right hip, extending to my right shoulder and culminating in both shoulders, I struggled to get out of bed, then realising I couldn’t lift either arm without extreme and agonising pain, I tried to make my way downstairs only to stare aimlessly around the house wondering what was going on and what I could do. I couldn’t dress, open the fridge, pull back the curtains. My arms would only move from the elbow down and my right leg would only move from the knee down. Those early days were frightening, confusing, limiting and life changing. The medication of steroids kicked in quickly and two days later I had gone from barely able to move to spending five hours in the garden nonstop. Suddenly, for the first time in my life I figured I had the energy of an ever-ready energiser bunny, and I liked it. No, I loved it, but alas, this was to be short-lived because as my dose got reduced over the coming months, the energy left me but the other side affects associated with long term use of steroids were beginning to emerge such as problems sleeping, weight gain, tingling in the legs, rapid heartbeat and many others. Now I could continue on this topic with the details of what happened, the side effects and the experience of dealing with the medical establishment but it would be wallowing in what is now the past and digressing away from the self-indulgent opportunity to tell you about me and focus more on how this experience became a gift rather than just one element that has come to an end. I am lucky, I found my root cause, it took 4.5 years, very expensive pursuits to try many things, but I found what worked and now, this is part of my past.
You see, those quotes I mentioned above, the ones I consider integral to the way I show up in life, they come in useful when you are presented with adversity and it is the kind of adversity where there is no one who can do anything for you, it is something that only you can conquer. The only upside I could find in my search for meaning about it was the fact that it showed up during the pandemic. Why? Because I’m a traveller and with COVID closing all the borders and limiting air travel, I didn’t quite feel so “grounded”, because everyone was, that was, at least, until the borders all opened, and I began to see life returning to normal for most people. For me though, it meant I was now “grounded” because without this condition I would have been on the next plane to somewhere exotic. My travel is usually focussed on ancient sites and ruins including Peru, Mexico and the Yucatan, and Egypt as examples. The risk associated with being amongst people when you are experiencing a compromised and suppressed immune system is that I could and likely would, get sick. How sick, well no one can tell you that because so much is unknown and putting COVID aside for just a moment. Getting sick could just be catching a cold that turns into pneumonia or getting a bug bite that with a suppressed immune system could turn into a serious inability to fight it or, at least, fight it without the ingestion of yet more pharmaceutical drugs. So, I was “grounded” and not in the good way, I was making no progress, spinning my wheels. I watched others on forums with this condition, moving forward, gaining traction, getting themselves off the meds in eight months and could not understand why I was standing still inside of this prison of inflammation and my immune system being at war with friendlies. The idea that friendly fire was going on inside me and the medication had the potential to impact on my organs and the snowball of that affect just didn’t fare thinking about, I was frustrated and angry.
Why, why, why does this keep happening to me I contemplated many times. Now I lead a pretty healthy life, not as healthy as it could be but I’m a non-smoker, I barely touched alcohol and I had been on a plant-based diet for a couple of years (mostly). If you recall, I said above, I have been plagued with illness since birth, no surprises, those conditions are now also included on the list of autoimmune, for example, eczema and endometriosis. The medical fraternity will tell you, if you have one, you are likely to develop more. Interesting idea, but as they don’t consider a trajectory of conditions and they don’t know much about prevention, there is little they can offer.
I recognised that I had a choice. I could do nothing and hope for the best that this condition would right itself in time — now, as I said above, how long that time is, no one knows. My aunt also had this condition and she was in her eighth year with it when I was diagnosed. There was no way I was going to lose my lifestyle for that long. So, in my usual need to know about things way, I began to research, and I became so embroiled in the literature and attending autoimmune forums and presentations and functional medical doctors talks that I embarked upon a certification in holistic health and nutrition, took it further and certified in mind/body practice and added to the list with mindfulness practitioner training and then, somatic therapy and metabolic nutrition. What was emerging for me was the opportunity to not only heal myself but in time, offer my experience, knowledge, and process to others. Just like Chiron, the wounded healer, I am now a wounded healer with a warrior heart. Life happens they say, when you are busy making other plans. Never could I have planned or thought that the gift of illness would set me on a path that not only speaks to my soul but aligns with a newly discovered purpose in life. After achieving my Masters in Social Anthropology and Diploma in Psychology during my thirties my life had taken a different path away from the corporate sector and later other roles that called upon my knowledge and skills in the area of the human condition, little did I know at that time that I was being prepared for the biggest performance of my life in deepening those skills and with the empathy of age and experience, bringing it all together to make a shift in perspective and know myself as if for the first time. Knowing myself in such a way, that nothing feels more right than when I’m working with someone who is walking their own path back toward health so they can live well and flourish as we all deserve to experience.
I live in Auckland, New Zealand but grew up in the country. A tiny little settlement called Oakura Bay in the Bay of Islands in the Northland region of the North Island before moving to Auckland at 16 years old. It was a quiet place in the winter months, perfect really, for a young introvert to wander the beach walking our two German Shepherds, and a ginger cat who tagged along while I wrote and day-dreamed about my magical future. I never spent a great deal of time at high school, instead I would take every opportunity to sneak away downtown to a little coffee shop called Tiffanys in an underground basement right beside a music shop. In those days, 1`s and 2 cent pieces were important in our currency and scraping together enough for a cuppa coffee while I browsed and listened to music at Musicor filled in a couple of periods that would either end the school day or allow me enough time to return to school at lunchtime for the afternoon classes.
So, when I write, I’m coming from the perspective of a creative, romantic, empath with a warrior heart and a name gleaned from the stars, Astaria. My pen name of course, and why not, for the time-being it feels just a little mysterious to have a pen name. I am now well and, I will remain well, I know that because I have the answers and I know what to do and that means …… Yes, travel will be back on my life agenda which in turn means, I will again experience feeling moved to write about the places that touch my soul and the demanding call from within to put pen to paper that I have answered so many times before. The process of flow as I begin to allow the words come forth and splash across the page as fast as my fingers can type both excites and fulfils me in a way that by joining Medium, I have even more purpose in making the space and time to bring that experience to the fore.
My writing includes poetry, short stories and there are three short books of my poetry available and these are mostly about impressions of places, love, disappointment and lessons learned — so any readers with an interest in my repertoire can expect to see a variety of offerings as I continue to navigate Medium and have the time to download before I upload. To hear more about how I came to write, you can listen by clicking on the Soundcloud link below or go to Spotify, subscribe and listen as I read my words.
For my books, please visit Amazon.com; Amazon.com.au; Barnes and Noble and Blurb Bookstore. Whispering Echo Poetry is on Spotify Podcast and SoundCloud.
