Since her arrival, I have been free of anxiety. Her calm and peace and her beauty have guided me. She came to tell me that my courage is remarkable. She came to tell me that moving was brave and bold and that my fear is normal and expected. I love her. I love her eyes. I see peace, compassion, gentleness, softness...I see myself in her. I see my own beauty through her.

Kindness. She is kind, so kind. She is generous, so generous. She is compassion, tender and sweet and present. She is here for me. She is the first angel that I painted for myself.

I was suffering from anxiety every morning, feeling directionless....scared...My feet were hurting since the move....Suddenly I was far away from my parents, on my own...

In the mornings I felt like an amorphous blob of anxiety...until she came through...


And she came through too....and another one which I haven't finished or photographed yet...

An angel of Courage to remind me that I am okay, that it took courage to move and that I will find my way here....An angel of gratitude to remind me to always ground myself in gratitude. Gratitude helps me cope with anxiety. It centers me and gives me the focus to see the blessings in my life. The blessings are my stepping stones. They guide me. So gratitude guides and grounds me and there is always room for more gratitude. Always.

The third messenger that came through is an Angel of Play. Oh and her message is so very beautiful. The message that came through her was 'You are safe. Remember to play.' I haven't stamped it on her yet and I have found a message that I love even more through a new friend of mine. Lately I have been connecting to women that have pudendal neuralgia from mesh. Their desperation is like ours. They are suicidal like so many of us have been and still are. (I continue to get incredible relief from pain from Nortriptyline) These new connections are meaningful to me. I want to include their names in my artwork. That is something that I am visualizing and it makes me happy. I would like to incorporate the names of women (and men) that want to be a part of my healing through art. Bringing their names into my artwork excites me. I feel excited now. It is such a nice feeling after so many weeks of stress. Excited. Inspired. Curious. Hopeful. Playful. Open, Receptive. Creative. Sexual?

I would love for my sexuality to be awakened too. I miss that vitality. Connecting to myself as a sexual being is an effort since PN. But my creativity and my sexuality are bound in each other. Naomi Wolf in her book Vagina writes all about the link between sexuality and creativity. I feel like I have been de-sexed almost. I used to be so naturally sensual and so naturally sexual. I don't really feel myself as a sexual being anymore.

I can have sex and I can very much enjoy sex. Even so, that part of me has gone away...I would like to call it back, to invite it to reside with me. I know that it is an important part of my creativity and it is a part of me that wants to express itself....but it just isn't here, not anything near the way it was before PN. Is it a part of myself that is still salvageable? Or is it a part that I can live happily without? I don't know. I want to explore. I want to remain open and curious. Maybe that is the best that I can do right now. Remain open. I thought that maybe I should make more of an effort...clothes and make-up. But I don't feel particularly inspired to present myself that way. I don't feel the need to be beautiful or sexy to the world. But I do miss that element of play. That brings us back to the third angel that I have yet to complete. And to the fox that I met. Play. Creative play, creative exploration and creative expression.

The quote that I discovered through a new friend is Rumi's :



It makes me happy. It makes me happy to allow myself to play, to explore, to learn...And I am also afraid, afraid of loving too much, of being hurt, of making choices that are wrong for me...I fall in love easily, too easily...usually I wake up a few months later asking myself 'That's the person you fell in love with? Wow, that was stupid of you Atara.' And then I am heart-broken and angry at myself for wasting my time, wasting my energy, But all of that was before PN. What feels like so many years ago, what feels like another lifetime, almost like someone else's life....

So, can I allow myself to remain open, receptive, sexual, creative,....without fear? I guess not. So, can I allow myself to remain open, receptive, sexual, creative and fearful too? I think so. And that is a fair place to start from. Fair to myself and fair to the foxes who I want to feed so that they will come and play with me. :)

I want to play!!! And one of the things that I want to play most is the guitar. If you'll take a look at the angels here you will see that one layer underneath their skin their are music notes. I really really really want to play the guitar. I have always really really really wanted to play the guitar.

Play the guitar.

Your excitement is healthy. Follow it.

Love,

Atara

My video of Dr. Assia Valovska on Pudendal Neuralgia

                             My video of Dr. Elizabeth Stewart on Vulvovaginal pain conditions.

I worked so hard to finish these so that I could leave Newton and find refuge from the leaf blowers. One day my work will be embraced, understood and appreciated by many. Today I am grateful for my peace and for my quiet. What I yearn for most is to be able to create my art in peace and quiet.

A fox. I've seen a fox today. I've never seen a fox before. I saw a fox today. I have never seen a fox before. He came so close to me. I felt a little fear. I saw a fox today. I've never seen a fox before. He looked into my eyes. He stayed with me. I saw a fox today. I have never seen a fox before. I saw a fox today. He looked so sweet to me. With dark brown legs and a bushy tail. He came to be with me. He sat across from you. I bent into the sand. He was beside me.

I remembered Siabonga. I remembered his blue eyes and his long nose. They used to say that he looked like a fox. And now i see, He really does to me.

I saw a fox today. I saw a fox today.

All of what I wrote above is to be sung. I sang this to the fox. He stayed with me until it got too cold for me. I asked him to come to meet me again.

Where do you sleep? What do you hunt? Do you have a mother or a brother? How do you survive the winters here? Come again to visit me sweet fox. Come again to visit me sweet fox.

Fox: wonder, new beginnings, joy, nature, love, courage

Fox: Courage

I was scared a little but I breathed deeply.

Fox: Courage to explore new beginnings.

Fox: Natures healing power

Fox: Medicine woman

Fox: Connection

Fox: Gift

Fox: daring to try something new

Fox: Initiation

The fox is an initiation into the healing powers of nature.

Fox: Survival.

Fox: Hunter

Fox: Guidance for the Deep Feminine

The Fox has come to initiate me into a deeper and more powerful...

It is hear to teach me something

to help me, to support me as i go deeper and deeper into the female psyche

I will be meeting more and more forms of suffering, i will be called upon to offer deeper collective feminine healing

I will need the support. Fox came to tell me that I am supported, that my courage will ...

"Go deeper. Breath through the fear. Stay in this moment. Witness. Gather the medicine. Return when you are ready for more."

This is the pathway where I met the fox. And fell deeply in love.

This is an explanation of where we are in our campaign to get all forms of CPP into the medical school curriculum and into the continuing education curricula. Right now I am focusing my efforts on Pudendal Neuralgia and Pervasive Genital Arousal Disorder because ACOG does not have guidelines or educational objectives for these conditions.

Who and what is ACOG?

ACOG stands for the American Congress of Obstericians and Gynecologists. ACOG determines what goes into the medical school curricula and into the continuing education curricula. ACOG creates the guidelines and the educational objectives for gynecology and obstetrics.

What are guidelines?

According to wikipedia:
Guidelines aim to present all the relevant evidence on a particular clinical issue in order to help physicians to weigh the benefits and risks of a particular diagnostic or therapeutic procedure. They should be helpful in everyday clinical medical decision-making.

The fact that ACOG does not have guidelines or educational objectives for PN and PGAD is shameful. This is how I feel:

My life was burnt to hell because of ignorance and indifference.

What do I do in order to cope with my own rage? I work hard to change the things that I know must be changed. I believe that I will succeed in creating what should have been in place for me but was not.

Guidelines and Educational Objectives are only the first step. New curricula has to be created and taught.

This brings us to our letter-writing campaign. On our facebook groups I have been posting about writing letters describing our suffering and pain and our desperate and endless search for diagnosis and treatment. We are sending these letters to three different people within ACOG.

Dr. Sandra Carson is the vice president of ACOG's department. Dr. Chris Zahn chairs the 'practice activity' division. Dr. Hal Lawrence is the executive director of ACOG.

We are sending our letters to Dr. Carson, Dr. Zahn and Dr. Lawrence. I have spoken with Dr. Carson a number of times. She has been kind and generous with her time. I do believe that Dr. Carson wants to help us. I have not spoken to Dr. Zahn or to Dr. Lawrence yet.

In our last conversation Dr. Carson urged me to send her peer-reviewed articles and names of experts that have researched and published on PN and PGAD. She wants to be able to recommend these doctors as consultants to the education committee. With their help the education committee will write educational objectives and curricula for PN and PGAD.

Dr. Chris Zahn is in charge of creating guidelines. Guidelines and education objectives can be created simultaneously.The urgency of our situation is that ACOG is writing a new edition of its educational objectives which it intends on having ready by January. We have a small window of time in which to work hard and fast. Every additional letter counts.

You have to believe me when I say that:

Your story very very much matters.