This is why I don't watch nature programs much anymore. This is a picture of an ant that first became infected by a fungus. The fungus took over its brain and it got all whacked out. The other ants carried it away so it doesn't infect anyone else. Slowly, the fungus takes over the whole body of the little guy and he dies and becomes sort of like a flower pot for his new host.

Such uplifting stuff.

Anyway, I saw this on Planet Earth the other day and since then the image keeps coming back to me and I think I figured out why.

I am a carrier of at least one virus. No make that two viruses. But I suspect we all carry lots of viruses. I know we also play host to many organisms. Just recently there was a news story about tiny little bugs you can't see or feel that make a home on your scalp. But there are mutually beneficial to us. They eat the stuff we don't want growing on us.

Morbidly, I wonder if the whole purpose to one's life could be to simply house or provide food for other life. What if our reason for existence is that our carcasses make really tasty worm food, for example?

Anyway, my dad, he gets cold sores from time to time. It's not the STD kind but getting cold sores means you carry the herpes virus, even if you only get them on your lip when you have a fever. My dad shared this virus with me through hugs and kisses when I was a baby so then I got cold sores too. I became a carrier.

All through my childhood I'd get cold sores. And I’d touch them and they'd spread not just to my lips but to my cheeks and stuff too. Then as a teen if I ate anything acidic like an orange or apple I'd get one. If I got too much sun on my face I’d get them too.

I worried about them a lot. So I'd wind up with them right before a school dance or picture day. It sucked.

Then as I got older I just decided I was not going to get them anymore. I half decided that. The other part was I decided if I did get one I really didn’t care. It wasn't a big deal. My attention went elsewhere. I no longer was preoccupied with what I looked like or what people thought of me. I don’t think I have had one now since I was 19 or so, since I made that decision. Here or there I might feel soreness in the corner of my mouth if I get really sick but it never amounts to anything. So I still am a carrier, but somehow I no longer trigger the virus. The virus has no power over me.

So when I was maybe, hmmmm 26 I think, when I was first with my husband, I had to go to the OBGYN and I found out I had HPV. HPV causes abnormal paps and causes cervical cancer at times. Also can cause genital warts. Or it can do nothing at all.

I freaked out when they told me. Even when they said 80% of the population has it, even when they said I was okay. I guess just being told you have an STD can freak you out.

I kept getting abnormal paps and having to go through agonizing procedures to remove them. It kept coming back too. I worried about dying.

Then I got pregnant for the first time. I never had an abnormal pap since then. No idea why but I would venture that pregnancy changed my body chemistry or it caused me to focus my attention elsewhere. There was something else going on in my body now, something wonderful. I paid very close attention to my babies when they were in me. I felt everything they did, everything they felt, everything they wanted. HPV had no power against that.

When Abby was 2ish, I started getting sick. I was sick forever it seemed. Throat infection after throat infection for a year. Also, I was angry all the time and felt like I was not myself, as if anger itself had possessed me. And I got one single wart; I think it was a wart, on my inner thigh. I freaked out over it, even when the doc said I was fine, even when my pap was still normal. I was sure though that HPV was the cause for me being sick and not getting well again. I found out HPV was also linked to throat, neck, and head cancer. I had my tonsils removed and still I got infections which baffled the doctors. Of course now I cannot quite remember how I got well again. I remember a Reiki session helped, well it opened me and all these emotions came out but I had to work through them which took time. I remember writing a letter to my mother and burning it. Then I just decided I wanted to get better. I decided I was just going to limit my attention to it. I focused on wellness instead of sickness. I cleansed, ate well, exercised. As my focus shifted so did my health.

And then when I was well, I got pregnant again. Now that Christopher is almost 2ish, I suddenly feel possessed as if by an angry demon. My ears keep filling with fluid and I get treated and then they fill up again. The doctor's think I have Menuere's disease which also causes anxiety disorders in some. And lo and behold a single growth on my leg in the same place as last time. This makes me think HPV is an angry virus. The day before this growth appeared I felt a pressure on my forehead and I became angry.

The situation is pretty idenitcal to the last time. The cord between my child and I is diminishing. My hormones are changing, I know this because I am no longer capable of producing milk now. My husband is gone a lot. I am working through issues with my mother again. The point of what I am writing here is that I think certain viruses and illnesses may be triggered by certain emotions. When I grew up emotionally and began caring for myself and healing my childhood trauma, I never got a cold sore again. Herpes was not triggered. When I became pregnant and found such joy in nurturing, and joy in health (eating well for the baby, etc), HPV vanished. When I begin to feel the full separation from my children as well as my mother at the same time, I get this feeling of anger inside of me again, and boom- HPV outbreak.

Are we all just a culmination of parasitic entities? Is that what "me" really is? A whole myriad of creatures housing themselves in and on this body?

And then I have to ask myself, well who do I want to be in charge? We have destroyers, parasites, bacteria, white blood cells, insects, disease, viruses, angels, guides, light bodies, toxins, water, oxygen, amino acids, defense mechanisms, sub personalities...and of course we have GOD which is the foundation for life itself and the true essence of ALL. What will I choose to give my attention to? Whoever gets my attention gets the power, gets to be in charge, and gets to run the ship.

Do I want to feel a virus trying to take me over, because I can feel it if I want to, or do I want to feel the vitamins breaking down and making me strong, feel the effects of the exercise I do circulating my blood and ridding my body of toxins?

I can decide this. And I am not a virus, I am not a disease, I am not a body-shell. I am a God creature, manifesting my own reality.

Today I am choosing not to get lost in details. Today I am choosing to surrender to God and allow him to run my life. I put my trust and faith in the Creator. I give my worries over to Him. I choose to align with Truth, Truth is God, the underlying force of love within all of life. I choose to see God in all things, love in all things, the rest is fiction.