Disclaimer: in order to protect the sanctity of passwords all pet names have been omitted.

Suppose in this polarized and simplified environment if you agree with the anti-vaxers you are immediately dismissed and perhaps your sanity even comes into question. You may just be one of those conspiracy theory “nuts” and a mental warning flashes in one's mind "proceed with caution". But whatever happened to the variety of shades of gray in the in between?
For me this issue it turns out this is not only about vaccines, but it is about my life and how I came to be who I am and believe what I believe. I used to be a pretty square person who believed if in nothing else at least in logic. I would have made a good Vulcan at that point in my life I think. My art therapy teacher was very surprised to find my free spirit in my artwork, but art therapy is good like that.

I love animals and I grew up with a dog who was my best friend and mentor. She taught me about sex and freedom, telepathy, wisdom, friendship, and irresponsible doctors. She lived at our country house and was pretty much self sufficient, greeted us at the train station always knowing when we would arrive, mothered me like as if I was one of her puppies and sat with me when I was sad like a best friend would. At times she also mortified me to find her stuck to a dog 3 times her size on the main road, but she always managed to find a way out of her bind. To put it simply, I was Romulina and she was my wolf.
No, it was not vaccines that killed her. Veterinarians and vaccines for animals were not that common in the land of the dragons and vampires. It was a doctor sorely lacking in common sense and his family that killed my dog. They showed up for a visit and not finding us present they visited with my dog. Except she was peacefully eating a bone close to her size in her little house and was not feeling like entertaining visitors. Rightfully so, the trespassing kid got bitten or snapped at. Because she was not vaccinated for Rabies and because the doctor knew about the rabies but not about teaching his kids to leave other people's dogs eating dinner in their own doggie houses alone, they took my dog to test her spinal fluids for rabies. My mother let them. She provided me with reasons and explanations but 37 years later they are still not acceptable. So the trespassing doctor and his badly mannered family shoved my dog in the back of their trunk and drove away with her. I am pretty certain they did not have humane euthanasia in Romania back then. They hardly had toilet paper. I was away at the time serving time at a culinary prison camp, for if I were not I would like to think that I could have prevented my dog’s death one way or another. I wonder.
A few years in between and a continent away, I made sure that no lack of vaccine would cause my third dog’s demise so I diligently made the yearly pilgrimage to the vet and ensured that she received every vaccine and preventative the vet recommended. But each year after the visit my mother noticed that our dog did not feel well enough. I do not believe she shared her observation with us or perhaps she even doubted herself. If she voiced any resistance towards the yearly visits to the vet I blamed it on the cost of the visits. So every year we visited the grumpy vet and every year she received various vaccinatons until one year after such a trip she started declining.  We made even more trips to the vet for expensive tests and mega-doses of Prednisone. She received an impressive diagnosis Autoimune Hemolytic Anemia. The Prednisone consumed her muscles till she could hardly walk and my dog continued the waste away. The massive doses of medication could not stabilize her blood. She suffered and we suffered with her. At some point my mother decided that she did not want to watch her suffer any more and asked us to take her on a final journey. But this time I was present, had a computer and a healthy dose of resentment so I started researching. I learned that one possible side effect of vaccinations is Autoimune Hemolytic Anemia among other deadly diseases. I also learned that Homeopathic treatment has been helpful to dogs in her situation. In the past I would have probably dismissed homeopathy as wishful thinking or a placebo effect, except dogs do not experience placebo effect. As my friend Duncan would say, one of the biggest motivators for change is pain and I was ready to expand my horizons.
I was very fortunate to find a great homeopathic veterinarian, Dr. Sidney Storozum, in town as they are a rare occurrence. Off we went my mother and I and our sick little dog who in her healthy days was a fierce warrior to reckon with. As unlikely as it seems after starting treatment our dog made a swift and miraculous recovery. With the occasional homeopathic tuneup and energy work (Quantum Touch) she lived many happy years. Only a minute number of dogs diagnosed with this disorder even make it a year past the onset of disease. But our dog lived for many happy years and in the process she taught me about things like not giving up where hope is fading away and believing in more than what we can see and quantify. She also taught me about learning to choose the experts I listen to.
Later on in life when I needed a change of profession and a new challenge I decided to become a veterinary technician. I envisioned my life taking care of elephants and stray dogs and cats in a faraway countries. So I got myself a veterinary assistant job and went back to school. I became the person who was pushing the vaccines, the tests, and the preventives. Even though I was not comfortable with this situation it seemed like the only way to get to the elephants with some degree of medical knowledge. But I just could not do it. I could not understand how a great Dane the size of baby cow receives the same amount of vaccine as a 3 month old puppy. I could not understand that the pharmaceutical companies never really tested the length of immunity these vaccines conferred but arbitrarily recommended a yearly schedule to maximize profit. I could not understand that veterinarians did not hesitate to re-vaccinate puppies and kittens if they did not like the circumstances of their previous vaccination. I could not understand that even though it is malpractice to vaccinate pets when they are sick, vets do it all the time. I could not understand how they did not question the vaccination schedule recommended to them as it lacked proper research. Not until Dr. Jean Dodd and Dr. Ronald Schultz researched duration of immunity in vaccines was the recommended schedule revised by the AAHA to some extent.
So you see, you have to question the experts, you have to believe and not believe and believe that there is so much out there that does not fit in your box. When I was a child I felt like this little person trapped in a box that was nested in increasingly bigger boxes. I am still working on those boxes.

Something I read today made me sad, sad for the person who wrote it and sad for myself. During an average day many things elicit a variety of responses from me but not many entice me to contemplate and write about it. Therefore, thank you for challenging me to momentarily leave my idiosyncratic daily grind for a brief contemplation and reminding me that I am human or perhaps more than human. Which we all are by the way, but then again let me contemplate that one.
So….

I was lounging on the patio one sparkly afternoon when a long strand of spider web popped into my vision. It was just there all of a sudden glistening in the sun whereas a second ago it did not exist at all. As the sun slowly lowered itself in the sky the spider strand disappeared once again and other than a memory the spider web strand no longer existed. I considered myself very lucky to have witnessed this mini lesson in timing, perspective, and impermanence just by communing with nature on the patio. But then again, nature tends to have many gifts for us if we are receptive.
Our views and opinions depend on our vantage points and as we move through our lives our vantage points change. Inevitably our views or perspectives change. Or do they? What we thought was our objective observation or assessment of a situation becomes a dissonant frequency and with any luck a new subjective objective emerges. The task is to accept the elasticity of the process and reinvent ourselves in the light of the new information. We think principles serve us well. At least most of the time. We believe in good and evil, up and down, night and day, heroes and cowards, and generally most of the time we believe that no matter where in the continuum we find ourselves we believe we have The Moral Superior guiding us. But if we are too rigid in our beliefs, if we fail to allow ourselves to change and incorporate the new subjective objective reflected by our new vantage point, then we deny ourselves the opportunity to grow. Yes, 1 plus 1 equals 2, right? Even if when looking at a sunset one sees the beginning of the night yet another one a dying day.
Life is a sublime dance. Some glide with the tonal waves and adjust seemingly effortlessly. Some blunder weighed down by the embarrassment of failed expectations of different kinds. Some subscribe to belief systems that regulate the dance, how much we dance, how we dance, whether we dance, and the music of the dance, religion comes to mind here. And maybe some decide that they would rather just march through it all to avoid any sort of dance in a total mental rigor.
The question is why?
Fast forwarding through psychological and philosophical theories, perhaps like the ouroboros the answer comes back to the concept of principles. When we decide to bask in our self righteousness as solid upstanding citizens, we may become stuck in a belief system/pattern that no longer serves our evolution. To admit that a strong conviction we had months or years ago is no longer valid threatens the concept of a stable identity, or a coherent self. After all, are we a mere reflection of our vantage points? Have we not spent countless hours examining our beliefs, or constructing arguments in their defense? How much change can we incorporate in our minds with grace? How much empathy can we reserve for that which we can not yet understand? On a side note, lack of empathy is usually deemed as a negative trait and when present a person on the receiving end may take it for granted, yet ironically empathy is not owed, it is a gift of our spirit, a whisper from our better self.
Back to the subject, what does it take to shift from the rigidity of the mind to a more elastic frame of reference?
So we can evolve.
So we can understand and have empathy for that which terrifies us.
So we are not afraid of our own shadows.
So we allow life to thrive.
So we can reinvent ourselves at the opportune moment and thank our old self for allowing us to reconcile, incorporate, and extend in peace and wonderment rather than judge and begrudge like our old and at times two dimensional patriarchal gods frozen in time with archaic images which fail to open new vistas to a vibrant world.

As my friend and I were rolling down the road on a beautiful summer morning in deep conversation the “ego” jumped in tarred and feathered with scraps of dirty toilet paper fluttering all over screaming for redemption. It did not help that earlier today scrolling down on my FB page I came across a joke maligning the ego once again. And yes, I do get a bit irritated when people take a concept and turn it into a weapon, not even knowing that eventually after they confused the living crap out of everyone it is their own selves they end up hurting.
Yes, we are a big huge heard of bipeds and to some extent being agreeable is necessary for a society to function harmoniously. After all we do not really want to drive the opposite direction on a one way street. But how many people have the presence of mind, courage, and the skill to address a potentially abusive situation, stand up for justice when their well-being or belief system are threatened. As we keep scrolling down the electronic media of our choice which is slowly replacing our biological parameters and we see the problems of the world unfolding before our eyes click by click like a disjointed horror movie torn by blind greed, perverted by cruelty and poised on destruction we do what all good people do and seek to assign blame to something outside of our selves. And hence the ego took residence in our left field as the object of our scorn and the villain of the day.   
 
But really folks, who are you? Do you know? What is holding you together in this multidimensional world? Do you know? Every day brings new discoveries about the complexity of our reality slowly trying to replace our semi-fossilized belief systems. So what allows us to incorporate this new information into every level of our being? What is the internal compass that keeps us balanced and functional? What is the central core that filters all the incoming information and helps us recognize what is beneficial to us and discard what is not? What is the internal light house that protects us from the relentless flux of beliefs, opinions, mandates and helps us reorient towards our own light and our own truth? In psychological terms it is our ego my friends. It is us, our backbone, it is what keeps us healthy and pliable. It is what drives us to heal when we are injured. It is the internal shepherd that is on a mission to bring back the fragmented parts or our soul and psyche to heal the injuries of our existence in this corporeal manifestation of our selves.
 
We are here on earth to learn, and pain is one of the biggest motivators for change and learning. Unfortunately, pain and injury also have the tendency to fragment the soul and the psyche. An injured psyche develops defense mechanisms and false belief systems to do just that, make sure that the injury will not reoccur. If you have the curiosity to look up “defense mechanisms” in Wikipedia or grab a basic psychology book, you may realize that what you are mostly attributing to the demonized “ego” is truly maladaptive behaviors exhibited by people whose “egos” are not functioning in a healthy manner. Where and how that injury occurred? Who is to say. It certainly does not seem that we are born into this world with the same blank slate, which opens up the topic to a whole new topic of conversation. But it is safe to say that the stereotypical narcissistic personality is not so obnoxious because of the “ego” but because of all the mental contouring that define the personality into the being which is able to cope with the world in whatever way they can to get through the day by trying to contour the world around them.  Probably they are masking a deep debilitating depression and lack of self worth, constantly trying to measure up to an external idea of what they should be like and subjugate the external world to fit those parameters so they can come out the “winners”. Yes, it is twisted and seems kind of sick. Yes, their behavior is not excusable. But does that warrant everyone’s ego to receive the villain award? I guess you can draw your own conclusion. Point is, if we kick out an essential part of ourselves and malign it to no end, what are we replacing it with? False humility? A spiritual bubble with pink sun shades? Passive aggression?
 
So let us take the time to understand the terms we are using and weaponizing, as so often happens they may eventually sneak up and turn against our selves in ways that we may just find a bit difficult to comprehend in our dualistic simplifications ultimately leaving us wondering if anyone can rescue us from our own selves. Our ego has “left the house” and is out there gathering thorns and shards. Just don’t forget, one day you may just have to reunite…
 
Thanks Duncan my friend and teacher for expanding my understanding.