Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Dysautonomia- In My Head, Sort Of



Fibromyalgia, like Chronic Fatigue and other syndromes are tricky.  Why is that and why "it's all in your head" is partially correct, but misleading, not the whole story.
These syndromes fall under the umbrella of what is referred to as Dysautonomia. It is another way of saying "Your nervous system/s is/are wonky because the brain signals to it are wonky". What exactly do I mean? Everyone should understand that your body is in constant conversation with itself, particularly the brain and other systems in your body. When that signaling system is functioning properly, your fight or flight and other responses are within a certain range, even under stress. With a Dysautonomia, your body is hypersensitive, and the slightest stress, even minute physical or otherwise can heighten the fight or flight response off the charts, and this hypersensitivity means that all your systems are always on high alert, so you end up with a range of health issues, including arthritis at a younger age than perhaps you would have if you did not have the Dysautonomia. Because the signaling system between your brain and your nervous system/s is off kilter, out of synch, your responses to weather change, everything can be hyper. When doctors immediately say to someone with a range of health issues to "go see someone for counseling", are very condescending etc... or say "It's in your head", to an extent they are right it is. However, not as a psychological issue, but a messed up signals very physical issue. Patients need to always have several copies of a good article on Dysautonomia with them, so when people, even doctors make these claims, dismiss you and what is going on, you can educate them, family included. It is a malfunction of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and for those of us who live with it daily, it is truly a journey and test of patience, of faith.

Shalom and Amen

Friday, July 18, 2014

Where Am I At With My Goals?




Where am I at with my goals?  What have a accomplished in terms of the goals I set in my relationship with the Lord and his calling as an artist in my life?  I realized the two are so intertwined, they can't be separated. 

The poetry e-book is published and included in that e-book are poems of faith, poems that don't water down anything, poems that stand by Israel, and also poems about my journey through life, and fibromyalgia, but also about love, nature.  My sharing the gifts of art that the Lord gave me to share has come to fruition, it has come to pass.  That goal and what the Lord placed in my heart has come to fruition.  I am also doing more examination of my conscience, and confession monthly at Church, as well as praying more regularly, studying more, listening more to Christian music, less to secular music.  I brought a friend to Mass with me, and he is exploring the Christian faith.

I still have not created the business cards, but that will come soon enough, but all in all with prayer, and strong in the faith I am making progress and have already determined the charities I will tithe to from the royalties on my artistic works, such as Dysautonomia research, and Doctors Without Borders.  I feel good about where I am at in life, even with the Dysauntonomia (Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue) because guided the Holy Spirit and in Christ all is possible.  A thank you ahead of time to all who purchase the e-book. Thank you.

Shalom and Amen


Spiritual and Artistic Goals July 2014




I have not posted for a long while as I have been posting on my website http://www.katherineappello.com 

I have set a few goals for myself for July in terms of my spirituality/faith and my artistic project, my book "Mosaic of Life and Faith in Poems".  Goals I am realizing are important, not so say they should be inflexible and writteen in stone, but they provide a guideline, something to reach for to keep one disciplined. Whether you are an artist or an admistrative assistant, even a stay at home mom, a most noble thing I might add, setting realistic monthly goals is a good thing.  They can be adjusted as needed.

July 2014 Spiritual Goals:


  • Monthly Confession
  • Anglican Rosary daily (I have not failed at daily rosary prayer, even to or three a day, as I love the Rosary, particularly the Anglican Rosary)
  • Mass regularly, including at least one weekday mass at Our Lady of Victory
  • Sharing the faith with other, not be shy about it
  • Regular prayer fellowship at Our Lady of Victory at least once a week
  • Seven day consecration of my life and vocation as an artist to Christ and the Blessed Mother
  • Apologetics study regularly, and Bible reflection regularly

I know that the Holy Spirit will help me in this and in all things, in my jouney to Holiness.



July 2014 Artistic Goals

  • Have an artist brochure ready by the early July  
  • Have a stamp with my name and website to stamp the brochures by mid-July 
  • Have business cards ready by mid-July 
  • Launch book for sale early July 
  • Engage full online promotion of book as of 
  • Attend events where I can network and distribute brochure at least twice a month, or organize events via meet up groups I belong to myself
  • Have begun putting together material for the keepsake to add to the Print version of the book to be released later on this year for the holidays

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Artist Website and Blog




Hello Everyone,



I hope you are all having a blessed day and a blessed week.  I have created a website, where I am going to be God willing, selling my music as well starting in Summer or Fall of this year, as well as my e-books.

I hope you will visit it regularly to see what blog posts I have put up and what is going on.  

Katherine

Monday, May 5, 2014

Getting Past the Frustration Isn't East





With each step, pain in the heel, knees, and hips, not drop to the floor pain, thanks to shots I get periodically and medication I take daily, but still, slows things down a bit.  It takes a lot of patience, a lot. Why?

I used to, at one time, walk 20 blocks going and coming back without any problems, briskly, I could go out twice a day walk 10 blocks each way, then in the evening to to the Village with my friend/s have dinner, go listen to some music, and then walk around the village for a while and then back home.  I was a spitfire in the physical sense, though in the vocal sense, poetry and songwriting arena I still am.  However, those days of walking 20 blocks etc... are long gone.  Today after six blocks my heels hurt so much and my knees felt sore to where I was limping.  Still, my reaction was, thought was "Buy thicker insoles, or add another layer of insoles, and walk slower."  I was still frustrated that I had to slow down, but then I started breathing, thinking of the Lord and I got peaceful, calm, and all was well in the world.  It takes a heck of a lot of patience to deal with the fibro etc. day to day and some days where when I get up from the couch, just walking from the couch to the kitchen is painful, quite painful, but I have learned to breathe through it and be greatful for all I have in my life and the direction I am blessed for my life to be taking in terms of re-discovering Catholicism and all its' truth, wisdom.  Quite amazing all the wisdom God's Church has to offer and the healing of spirit and soul our Lord provides.

Shalom and Amen


Turning God's Gifts Against Us and Him






As I engage in discussion with atheists, agnostics, see what goes on with liberals, progressives I realize that Satan has really done sin proud, and particularly the sin of deciet, smoke and mirrors, creating confusion, turning things upside down so bad is good and good is bad on a pretty wide scale.  He has been particularly good at doing so starting with the great schism in the Catholic Church that greated Orthodoxy and Greek Orthodoxy, then the Protestant Reformation, followed by Feminsm and Freedom of the 60's, and then science as the ultimate weapon against God.  How did Satan use deciet to achieve a destruction of society to move it away from God, from truth, unity under God, Chirst, and the Holy Spirit?

Let's start with the Church.  Society goes how the Church goes.  The Church is meant and charged to be the shepard of society, to guard moral truths, fixed, absolute moral truths across all time and space, regardless of what happens in society or the direction that society takes, so we don't all go down the path of Adam and Eve, of Sodom and Gomorrah beyond repair.  Paul charges the chuch not to divide, even if there may be some disagreements because a house divided, falls.  If the house falls, those in the house are confused etc.., and we see this with children of divorced families often.   Satan knows this, so what does he do, he first works on attacking the church, getting it to divide, early on gets people to think all kinds of wonky doctrines, out of line with the Old Testament, with what Jesus taught, what the Apostles taught, generating confusion.  That is why councils were created to have unity, to create unified doctrine and why Paul wrote to the churches, to Timothy, why Peter did also, to clarity, to bring cohesion.  He also says to honor what was passed down orally, not just in writing, so there is oral tradition from the Jewish faith, and the early church that is also to be honored.  What The Catholic Church does that, has done that, with councils, the Canon, theology, and also honoring the mystics of the Church, as John was a mystic, and Peter had his mystical experience, as did Paul, so the Church honors all of that.  Satan decided it had to divide it and did so beginning with the schisms of the Greek and Orthodox churches, which up until the Nicean Council had accepted that councils determined unified doctrine for the universal catholic church. That was Satan's first major attack on Christ's institution.  Then he decided, well that's not a large enough attack, so he then decided to use internal flaws of men of the church to create the Reformation, and that to entice a king to create his own state church so he could violate God's law divorce and re-marry, though he had no grounds to do so.  From that, the had a field day, creating more and mroe division, using vanity of men, obsessions of men,  to create division after division within the Protestant branch.  Was there then no unity, not unifying body?  Yes, the Roman Catholic Church, the one built upon the Rock Peter, as Rome was the place of authority everyone recognized early on as the center of the Church.  The Roman Catholic Church has a plethora of wisdom, theological and moral understanding that can unite the world in holy truth, God's holistic, just moral truth.  Even those in other denominatons are coming to realize that the fullness of truth is in the Roman Catholic Church, and Satan's lies. Hopefully soon many more will.

The other thing Satan used against us and God is freedom.  Freedom, in terms of a nation's Constitution, and found in Christ within the boundaries of the Ten Commandments and reasonable laws are a good thing, as they create stability for individuals, families, society, and nations, so it's good.  What Satan did was to say that freedom meant no rules, no authority of morality of any kind, other than what you decide, so NAMBLA thinks that a four year old should be able to have sexual relations.  If we go by relative morality, and say there is no fixed morality, then that man who wishes to have sex with that four year old would be within his rights.  However, because we are a society that to some extent, thank the Lord, has a semblence of fixed morality, we don't permit that.  We understand that no only it that child not capable of making that choice, but there is a moral reprehendsible component to that kind of relationship.  Anyone with any semblance of a conscience does anyway.  Satan has twisted freedom to mean that women having access to birth control ought to hate men on some level, see them as prisoners if they become husbands, to see marriage and motherhood as the enemy of happiness and joy, to see sexual pleasure as a means to an end, along with climbing the corporate ladder to have that big career as a measure of success in life, lots of money in the bank, swanky place to live, awesome night life and all that jazz.  That's the measure of woman, be like a gigilo man adn that makes you a success, that's freedom babe, yeah, that's freedom.  What has that really done for soceity, for men, for women, family etc...? Can you really think of anything really positive that this type of freedom had given women or men?   Turning women into sex and money making machines just like men, turning men into wimps and the enemy, had in essence for men made women the enemy, so I wonder the rise in homosexuality in both sexes, what contribution this definition of freedom might have contributed to it.  The freedom, free will given in love by God to us, has been twisted to something else, including the freedom to kill one's unborn child for any reason, even because it makes me look fat, or my dress wont fit, or I can't climb the corporate ladder fast enough if I'm pregnant.  What God intended for good, Satan has turned against us and God, creating a very topsy turvy, and not so nice society to live in.  Prayer is ongoing for this to change and hopefuly it will.

Science, a wonderous, amazing gift from the creator, from Yahweh.  However, one which has also been turned upside down.  Educators, having been inspired by Satan to live by almost the Sola Sciprtura, if it's not strictly in print, b/w in the bible I don't accept it, motto, to use God's gift to know him and his creation better, as a tool against him and even us.  What Satan has convinced humanity, portion of it is that if you can't put God and The Holy Spirit, angels in a petrie dish, they don't exist.  Creation, love, every human experience is evidence of God and Satan, yet Satan had managed to create the geatest deception, illusion of all time, that neither he, nor God etc.. exist.  He has also managed to inspire wickedness in some hearts and minds to use science in the most awful ways. The experiments done during the Nazi era,  here in the states by our own military and throughout history, abortion, especially late term are ways Satan has influenced science for the worst.  God has influenced it to save lives, to cure, not to destroy.  Satan will continue to try to influence to use science in the worst ways, the most destructive ways for soceity, and it is up to the Roman Catholic Church to speak truth and fight against the deceptions of science, as inspired by Satan.

There are many ways Satan wil try to inspire to have God's gifts turned against him and us, so that why a unified church with councils, theology, philoophy, scientific investigations, being appraised of all that is going on in the world is necssary and a church that is a unifiying shepard, that honors tradition of the OT, of the Jewish faith in some aspects at least, that has apostolic continutiy matters a great deal to socity and must never buckle to change and be what society wants it to be, but only what the Holy Trinity wants it to be, what the Bible says it ought to be, what the  Church Councils determine it ought to be.

Shalom and Amen


Friday, May 2, 2014

Medieval and Sacred Music


Midieval Times and Music






Music is such a blessing, can be on any number of levels, when it is not used to seduce, entice to sin, to debauchary. When a blessing, it can be a means to meditate, to connect to somehting wonderful.


When I listen to this type of music, I am transported to angelic realms, to a place of beauty, where there is love, kindness, joy, where babied are not killed, but loved, cherished, as is all life, are all people.  I hope to find a way to record some of this wonderful music myself in the near future.


Shalom and Amen.