Kraut, Carrots, and Sacred Illness

First of all, none of y’all told me just how much this homemade sauerkraut was gonna smell up my kitchen. 🦨 Whatever. It’s fermenting. And it’s my first batch, so it might be a complete failure. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Only time will tell. The carrots I did are pretty tasty, though.🥕 Meanwhile, I picked up two new books about fermenting foods at the library, and another one called Healing Foods. 📚 And just in case I didn’t already think there’s a definite difference between store-bought and home or locally made, someone gifted me some locally made kefir. 🥛 It is now confirmed: distinct difference. Finally, someone sent me this sacred illness quote the other day. I recently read Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor’s book My Stroke of Insight. She had a debilitating and life-changing stroke at the age of 37. Today she calls it the best thing that could have happened to her. The book details her healing and learning journey and how she came to that conclusion. Sacred illness. I had to sit with that awhile. An illness? Sacred? 🤔 But it’s such a fitting explanation: “an illness that educates us from the inside out, provides experiences and therefore knowledge that we could not possibly achieve in any other way.” For Dr. Bolte-Taylor, a neuroscientist, that was true in very big ways. And the friend who sent the image and quote to me went through a similar life-altering experience. Mine seems less significant in comparison, but that makes it no less impactful for me personally. I’ve definitely been educated from the inside out. And I have learned so much on this journey. Wish I didn’t have to, tbh, but I can now see how I need to be where I am now and how this helped bring me here. 💜 And so tonight I am going to bed #grateful for the journey and the lessons learned; all the people who have played (and continue to play) a role in my recovery process; sweet smelling candles; porch-dropped gifts for health and healing and the friends who deliver them; and the chance to make tomorrow a better day and live another day in (hopefully) increasingly better health. Sleep well, friends. I’m exhausted! 😴