Book of Eucalypt

I’m on a podcast!

A few months ago I had the honour of speaking with Adam from Voices of the Temple podcast, brought to you by the Temple of Witchcraft. We spoke about Herne, about the book, and about other things I can’t actually remember.

I haven’t been able to listen to the podcast because – I’ve discovered over the last few months – podcasts sets off my FND. I’m not sure what it is about it, but listening to podcasts as a whole activates a part of my brain that then shuts down my cognitive and slows my speech.

It is frustrating!

While listening please take into account that, at the time of this recording, it was 4am and I was newly diagnosed. I was trying my hardest to have a continual thought process, to utilise correct words, to speak clearly.

I did not want my new FND brain to stand between me and such an amazing opportunity.

I have written a few things since then as I don’t think I answered some of the questions to my best ability, and you can find them here and here.

I’m new – what’s FND?

FND is Functional Neurological Disorder. Some people have full seizures, struggle with walking and body movements. FND effects me by slowing down my cognitive ability, cognitive reasoning, speech troubles and vision difficulties.

I received my diagnosis the day after Herne the Hunter: Myth, Legend and Devotion of the Horned God was released in the U.S.A.

How my neurologist explained it to me: there is nothing wrong with the brain hardware, but the software can often malfunction and/or send incorrect signals, or delayed signals.

While I am learning to create new pathways to compensate for the “brain software malfunctioning” (or what I like to refer to as Brain Jenga) sometimes it just happens. It could be because I’m tired, or cold; dehydrated of hungry; maybe I’ve physically done to much (in the garden).

I have chunks of memory that has become inaccessible to me. Whole chunks – POOF! Gone. Can’t tell you what ones until they come up in conversation and I just…don’t remember.

I am having to start again in a lot of ways regarding my spiritual practice, which I have previously blogged about. This is because I don’t remember what I used to do, but what I used to do and how I used to practice needs to change because of how my brain operates now.

Example, I was led into a very deep guided meditation by one of my mentors. My brain played Jenga, and my ability to speak or form a structured sentence was gone and didn’t return for a few hours. Words did not exist, the thesaurus was missing.

I am incredibly proud and honoured to have been asked to speak about my book on Voices of the Temple. I just hope I did good.