The Mindful Migraine

Everyone, everywhere, who suffers from chronic pain would love to have a magic wand that they could abracadabra their pain away. At least, I assume so, which is possibly overreach… but I doubt it.

Anyway – the idea of making myself a magic wand has been simmering in the backburners of my brain for some time now. A lovely friend of ours recently gifted the family farm two handmade walking sticks and holding the timber in my hands made the wand take a forward leap out of my memory-shadows and into my To Do List.

Moreover, the Universe was obviously keen for me to have a go, because, while I was doing my reading rounds late last year through Blog-Land, I came across a post that gave me some extra incentives and ideas:

Mindfulness is key to calmness presently. | Gray Summers

Gray, the author, uses a ‘staff’ made of timber (and decorated with beads and clay creations) as a focal point during meditation time. As Gray writes, such a staff “is a good focal piece to simply study while in Mindful thought. You can move the pieces and string, leather braids, etc. into various shape forms and patterns. Tactile (touch), alongside smell and a piece of music to listen to are my favorite senses to use when being Mindful.”

OK, OK, Universe – I get it – it’s time for me to get crafty and make that Magical Healing Wand that’s been lingering in my peripheral vision.

I did a brief bit of research about what to do and then got started – enjoying the process without concerning myself too much about the outcome.

Here’s what I did:

• I lit a fragrant candle and spent a few minutes sitting in the living room looking into the garden, imagining myself healing, slowing my breath and sending love into the back yard.
• With intentionality and care, I walked through the garden, searching for a stick that felt right in my hands and strong enough to handle my creative interventions (the one that I liked had a gentle curve in it, and when I picked it up and turned it over, it had a torn patch in the bark – a scar – that seemed fitting).
• Following intuition rather than rules, I looked to my craft supplies for items that felt calming and healing, greens and browns felt right in the moment… fabric leaves, which sounds unnatural but reminded me of healing, as did a toy butterfly ring, and a broken floral brooch.
• I used brown twine to tie my objects into place, and some ombre-green wool to decorate one end.
• I tucked a found feather into the wool, it’s green and gold color a perfect fit.
• Going a bit further afield, I found some blobs of kids’ clay, and although they were very dry, I coxed them into a circle and a heart and air-dried them into amulets (the heart broke – read into that what you will)… they were too heavy and fragile though, and didn’t make it onto the wand but it was a nice tactile excursion.
• Throughout the process, I imagined healing words floating around me and listened to my Healing Music for Migraines playlist on Spotify (here).

Here’s what my “magic wand” looks like:

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OK, so if you’re a Harry Potter fan, then even a plain stick has more Hermoine Granger vibes than what I’ve got going… my approach has some slight ‘Shaman’ vibes… but is mostly saying “kiddy-art” to me (see more here)… and yet – I’m loving it anyway… it gives me the impression that I can boppity-boop my troubles away with some good-witch Glinda moves… or that it might fly off on its own, with its butterfly-leaf-wings, and hover nearby, waiting for when I need it.

I’ve also recently discovered there is such a thing as a ‘smudging feather fan’ which is used to push cleansing sage-smoke around a room… something I have never done, but am curious to try. I like the idea of combining the elements of fire and air into a single event… hmmm… something to think about.

[Oh… and I there was a wonderful feather fan carried by the Buddhist monks on their Walk for Peace that was created from feathers found along the roadside – read more here]

Apologies if my craft project accidentally steps on indigenous toes, it’s absolutely not my intention to misappropriate your centuries old healing methods… I merely hope to heal… and I’m prepared to experiment, gently and respectfully, with any ways that might work for me.

If this all feels a bit ‘pagan’ to you – apologies too – but I guess I feel that if I’m not doing anything harmful to others, and I don’t start venerating my stick, or use it to put bad ju-ju on others, then it’s ok to use the object as a means of literally “handling” my pain…

And now that I’ve apologized profusely for a craft project, I’m off to meditate and journal what it is about “Good Girl” me that feels the need to always over-apologize for being my authentic, curious, creative, self…!

Take care taking care, mindfully, Linda x

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PS – the Pexels picture that I chose from the image database to headline this post, perfectly contains the sense of green-garden-freshness, care-free-youthfulness, and upright-active-wellness that healing looks like to me, especially in the moment I was making “my stick”… and if you zoom in, the kid is wearing a t-shirt that says “don’t ask me” – which seems super quirky and cool – and a lot like how I feel when I wonder about what the answer to healing is!!