🔥 Why I Created the GoGeisha App 🔥

 

#heartonsleeve #transformation #isolation #buddingartist #braininjuryrecovery 

As a disabled person in childhood and adulthood I experienced a fair amount of isolation. Circumstances made it hard for me to reach out to make and sustain good relationships. Personal Creativity alongside Meditation offered itself as a great refuge. I was able to find a path to express and embody my inner Geisha and lightened a lot of hearts!!

Finding information to support my practice wasn't always easy and so I created GoGeisha, for myself and for YOU🌸🎋🌸

https://tinyurl.com/GoGeisha

📩 DM me the word "Reach Out" if you have any questions or feedback!

Let's create transformation stories in 2026 and follow the footsteps of other strong. I can’t wait to celebrate your successes! 🌟

 New Project! My epilepsy has been helped a lot by engaging with Japanese Arts (privately mostly - I don't have much energy to join groups and things between seizures). I have also benefited from having a few Mentors! 

Sharing an app I have created based on my experience and also wanting others to gain release of energy through art and creativity 😊

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💖Attention, Dormant Creative! 💖

I’m looking for creative people who are ready to make 2026 the year they wake up the natural power and energy of their inner artist. 👺

If that sounds like YOU, this is your chance to be part of creating the GoGeisha app - a year of activities to celebrate, grow and regenerate with!

https://tinyurl.com/GoGeisha 👀

As an early explorer of the app, you’ll:

 Be one of the FIRST to get access to the activities and give feedback 

 Celebrate every month of this year with creative responses and deeply resonant stories.

Revisit arts you have already practiced, with a Japanese flavour added, or try a few new ones!

This is your opportunity to finally just start DOING and feel the relief and happiness that comes with a natural creative flow through the year.

Follow the link below for this self-directed and nature-grounded wellness app!

 DM me the word “Reach out” to learn more! 😊

Your transformation starts NOW. Let’s do this together!

https://tinyurl.com/GoGeisha

Disability and Abuse - a crosspost from my YouTube channel 'Emily'sVisions'

I have been running a Youtube channel for a while and been sharing my feelings and things on there. I sometimes have problems with my wrists seeing as I communicate so much in text and also the fatigue that comes with frequent seizures. The occasional 'Vlog' has been a great way to encourage myself to communicate even when I have these setbacks :)

Posting a link here to my most recent video where I talk about 'Disability and Abuse' some thoughts I have been having recently. I enjoy relating to people but have often had to watch myself carefully as I am a very open person as a result of my disability and cannot spare energy to those who would enjoy me as a bit of a feast ^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAotHPc5Yoc&feature=youtu.be

Text from the video

"Hi everyone Emily here from Emily's visions. Today I want to talk about Disability and Abuse. 

The one thing I wanted to say today is just as disabled people may get benefits and help so that they can have carers to look after them and make life more easy. This helps to make life more normal for them making it more possible to rise above the obstructions their disability presents to them. (I'm certainly one of those people) - Just as caring is important to disabled people I think it's also important to recognise how easily how easy it is the disabled people to be abused. 

If you have a lack of care in your daily life or during difficult times then as somebody with a disability your ability and your mental state, your functioning as a human being will rapidly decline, rapidly recline. You will go from someone you can do a few things with help to finding that even the most simple things difficult. I think that all people can understand that a little bit because when anyone is ( for example getting knocked over by the flu) you can't think straight and you just have to struggle through until you get better. So we can all empathise with times like that. So if you have a lack of care as a disabled person that's the result.. if you get abused obviously even more so. 

Disabled people are actually more likely to get abused because people who abuse people tend to be impatient. They tend to have their own agenda and are not interested in other people having their own views about things... so a disabled person is likely to upset them quite a bit because they won't be able to do the things that normal people can do. So the Abuser will say 'just do this thing it is simple' because of course they wanted to be simple but you may find at a disabled person that you just can't do that thing.
I often find that that's a cause of a lot of friction in my relationships particularly as I have seizures that come and go. Also my mental state and brain capacity that comes and goes as a result of brain damage. 

So sometimes somebody will say to me 'okay you do that' and it may be that last Tuesday I was really efficient and I got it done PLUS but because of the current state I'm in I can't. Even sometimes with my husband he might say to me 'can you explain this thing' and if I can it will be a simple matter because there's a certain amount of understanding he's needs to gain in order to put the subject 'to bed'. But if my brain is like 'I don't understand' and in a bad state It is hard to be clear. For example if it's an object that is placed in a random place  I may not even remember placing the object there, or recognise the object or my relationship to it. So I just have to say 'no I'm sorry I can't do that'. I'm learning more and more to be able to say that clearly and recognise that I'm it in seizure or in an odd state.. over time that's something I'm working hard on :-p

So I just wanted to mention disability and abuse because I do think that disabled people or the fact that you can't do something can be extremely irritating to people. If you happen to have impatient people in your life who have a tendency towards abuse, they will abuse you. It's a fact.
I was talking to my friend about this the other day, that being aware that someone IS abusing you is the first step, to catch it rather than dismissing oneself and experience. I think sometimes I think 'I'm the one who is being difficult here' - therefore it is 'my fault' and then find it easy to dismiss the abuse. But then I'm not ready to look after myself which I think is a shame for other people in my life because they then don't get the benefits of me being in a good state.

While I was thinking about this I remember the sketch called Lou and Andy - I can't remember which comedy sketch show it was in but Lou and Andy but it was about a Disabled person and his Carer. Andy was in a wheelchair and the joke of the thing there was Andy wasn't actually very disabled so Lou would turn his back or go and do something and Andy would be out of his wheelchair and off 'doing his thing' - running back to the wheelchair before Lou got back. Also Andy was quite picky so he would say 'yes let's do that, I want to do that Lou'. Andy would say to his carer 'I want to do this, I want to do this' and they would do it and he would say 'I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it'.

So I find that quite interesting... I wanted to bring this up at the end of this thing because I can see the humour in the sketch BUT also I can see the passive aggression that was demonstrated in it. I think the frustration is very normal for people who have to look after someone who is hard work to look after. It can be a bit frustrating and I think it's there are times when anyone would think 'if that person try just a little harder then everything would be smooth and easy'... so recognising the frustration that comes up around Caring in Disability I just wanted to mention it today as something I've noticed and therefore an awareness I'm working on.

Nice speaking to you today!"

Another long break..

During which I had to deal with the trauma of my narcissistic mother offering her spare room to my eldest daughter and winning her away from me.

I think this is an experience that is more common than it should be for disabled mothers.. young people are easily confused and dissatisfied during their teenage years and I have to say it has not been easy energetically or financially being a disabled mum with uncontrolled epilepsy. It's then VERY easy for anything to be sold as 'the greener side of the fence'.

I have had issues with the belittling of my mother for most of my adult life as she often gave me the feeling that the life I had built for myself was uninteresting. Rarely did she visit my house (we live in the same town) for reasons other than to tell me what her next plan was and how I should fit into it. I also have learnt since the bombshell that she took the side of my ex in a lot of things, especially during the phase of my eldest daughter's early life - when motherly confidence is in short supply.

The main issue I have had with my mum is that she (naturally I feel) had a difficult time adjusting to my epilepsy. Only in adulthood have I discovered how marvellously subtle it is to have brain damage and the different types of effect it can have carrying around such a sensitive organ in a state of flux and compensation for said injury. During childhood a lot of symptoms were written off as me being a day-dreamer .. or over emotional (boy has she used that plenty of times to gaslight me into submission and alienate me from others). But also as a parent she has been disempowering and thriving on the attention one gets as a grandparent - working towards being my children's 'friend' and gossiping with them in ways that are entirely inappropriate. I had to stop her taking the kids out for a while when my eldest (who was 7 at the time) came back from the zoo trip telling me that grandma had said I was 'naughty'. More recently  (during the grooming 'come live with me' phase) it was reported by my eldest that she was saying things like 'when will your mum get a job' and also in reference to when I got beaten up as a child 'it cant have been that bad because she wasn't covered in bruises'.

I did try to go to counselling with my mum in Feb of the year she stole my daughter (who was 17 at time so everyone said 'she can make her own decisions'). The session was impossible but I gave it my best. As it was she refused to acknowledge anything I said as even my own truth.. saying 'i don't understand the pictures you are painting' when I was talking about things that actually happened. She only called me by my name once when she was pretty much telling me off for crying - it must have been very embarrassing for her.

Since then I went non-contact. I am disabled and don't have the extra energy I can give to this woman - so she took my child. I also could no longer bully my children into going along with her schemes - as they were old enough to start saying no :-p. Haven't heard from my child since then (we had not had any argument when she left) as my mum ramped up her natural anxiety to the point where she tells everyone she is scared of me.

3 of us left are now quite balanced and happy (I am going to regular counselling on my own) but that's pretty much what I have been doing in my year gap - most educational! Oh.. and having more like a seizure a day - stress probably.

Returning after a long break..

Why the break happened who is to say.. I will read up and think about that. I certainly have not been so 'busy with other things' that epilepsy has not been relevant to my life LOL

Still having 2-3 Complex Partial Seizures a week, and my kids are as independent as independent people still living in my house can be. I watch the development of all 4 egos in house with interest.

End of holiday...

End of holiday..... and so so very tired!
I am becoming stupider by the day and well overdue for a deep seizure - or thats what it feels like.
My seizures certainly seem to be a release from all the expectations and habits that I end up having to hold on very tight to to maintain my idea of who I am. It's dam scary to be lifted out of a constructed world at not much more than a moment's notice. And I mustn't really have a seizure before i have gathered the school uniform and bought some new shoes for the kids.

When i have a deep seizure it takes me 2 or 3 days to come back to understanding my place in the world. Steve, my husband and carer, is excellent and probably could get all the things that need doing done in my 'absence' but there is always that nagging motherly instinct that wants to be the best mother ever for my dear little darlings - and 'zoning out' is not one of those things that that 'best mother' would do.

The mother instinct is such a weird thing.. I remember when i was pregnant with my first child and so very worried that i would be too selfish or disorganised to care for it when it arrived. Then when she did, suddenly the parenting thing made sense on an emotional level (intellectually I'm not sure i came back to roost for at least 10 more months). But for a disabled mother I think that the awareness of how one is restricted by your disability constantly fights with the instinct to be the best mother ever for this miracle person who didn't exist and now does.

How does one 'care for' whilst being 'cared for'.. I wonder, wonder......
^^

Being Human

A lot of what we do is issue-based - I get that... but with a brain that, from my perspective, starts and stops all the time I have been making a study of what it means to be me. I forget all sorts of things when i have a seizure... things like my coping mechanisms, what i enjoy doing, the book i was reading and new friends i have made. So it ends up with me kinda being me specifically, as a practice between recovering from one seizure and the next.

Whatever people might say about finding a 'fix' for this.. when i took the meds prescribed by the doctor (they since have said i can choose either way whether to experiment with this as i have 'difficult to treat epilepsy') they levelled my experience so my life was more consistent.. but I strongly believe that this was a subsistence level due to the high dose i had to take and I prefer exploring the dynamics of who i am without correction.

No-one wants to be not special.. we all struggle to be different. We more specifically push real hard not to be like people we don't like - and I'm wondering how much that makes us avoid behaviour that actually we would personally enjoy. I don't want to be generic.. despite the fact my seizures stop me from developing the kind of personality which would be more natural if my mind was more of a stream of moments. I still want to believe that the parts i remember and practice between seizures are part of a strong 'me', individualistic and yet not solely issue based (ie made up of the things i grasp strongly at because they make me angry or scared). But I wonder... what bits am i leaving out..? What parts of 'being human' on a generic level are generic BECAUSE most people can enjoy them.

I tend to avoid things and behaviour that seems unintelligent to me.. I confess a subtle snootyness about that. But maybe they seem unintelligent because i can't see the type of intelligence that lies within the behaviour or.. lets face it,, i am ignorant of why people find it fun and interesting because I simply haven't tried it.

This has been interesting up to this point but I feel I need to illustrate a bit more what I am meaning so I'll try but its reaching into the area of stuff i find hard to talk about for whatever reason - so bear with me ^^ 

1) I had a childminder once who spent most of her day in her dressing gown, served us greasy food and often there was violence on the TV that was on all day while she 'cared' for kids. I think from that i have taking a guilt about lazing about in my dressing gown (which is a human freedom is it not).. and a fear that if one doesn't maintain constant and nitpicking vigilance while kids are around.

2) My mother is a wonderful person who I admire and feel grateful for her love in this life but her extremes from my perspective oscillate between someone who defines herself by work (when she was younger and not so ill mostly) and a fairly mousy person who doesn't have much sensuality in her life. From this I have been quite timid about intimacy with others and the rituals that surround them.. cards and random pressies for a loved one.. dressing up attractively.. wearing pretty underwear.. that sort of thing.

This also includes frivolous behaviour - getting drunk, random parties, having a dog, art for art's sake etc...

So I think i am embarking on a gentle study of conventional human objects and activities.. the things that 'a lot of people do'. This first few steps seem to reveal an interestingly easy happiness.. pleasure in simple things or whatever..

For the record...     ;)

Letter

Hi everyone...

Long time... spring and summer was really hectic. I wrote this letter to someone recently and wanted to share it.. I am constantly watching my epileptic patterns and trying to figure out how to assert what i really require from those who wish to consider themselves my friends. I am still learning how to be friendly to myself after all...

It frustrates me when I cannot fulfill the small amount of promises I have made. I like to be honourable and consistant with others (like thats every gonna happen with my inconsistant brain i mutter to myself). So I figure knowing my limits well will help me to know what promises I can make... so tho it looks maybe like selfishness I am trying to see it as a practice of honesty instead. Complicated ne?

Hi ***************,

I feel there is something I ought to tell you about me.. if I am going to mentor you in any way 

I am a temporal lobe epileptic from a brain injury i recieved when i was 8 years old. As as result of this i have fairly frequent seizures that take varying forms. One thing i get often is 'Jamais Vue' which is like when you have never seen or experienced something before. For example when i am in this state if someone gives me a cup of tea i wont know what it is, what to do with it, or how it is relevant to me.

The main result of this is that I have to work very hard to be able to do conventional things and have conventional conversations. The plus side of this is that I don't waste much time, the down side is that I am not really someone to mess with.

I won't get very angry if i get teased or corrected... just very tired. And if I meet someone who is often jokey in the place of true communication then I will eventually just give up - I just can't afford the time and energy. I suspect that this will actually make me a very good Okaasan in the end - one that can be trusted to be steady and honest both by those she looks after and those in the wider world who relate to them.

I know there are social reasons why humans jibe at each other... but as a human i also have the right to make mistakes. Please dont pick me up on little things, it will confuse me. - I am also fairly sure you don't want me to start doing it to you.. and even if i did correct you I suspect you would like me to do so in a gentle way so that you can learn from it. If something is worth doing... its worth doing well.

Please read this through slowly several times before you respond - I may well have upset or shocked you with this message which comes from where 'I' am, which i am humbly aware is not the conventional. Then you can respond in your own time and sincerely... after all words are powerful things and once said, they are never really erased from the world.

Hugs.........

Struggling

Things are going well for me.. my projects are all off the ground and approved by others which make it so much easier to give my energy to them. So that gives me space to think - I'm tired atm, and I had some painting to do. Easy peasy really... i have done the main detail of a piece i just need to fill in and around with black ink but... would my brain let me do it?

Its so wierd how things i find easy and am quite talented at can become a struggle in the space of a minute. Could i paint today? I lacked coordination, carefulness, strength in my hand, awareness of where lines were... yet still i pressed on. I really wanted to get the project to the next stage before I have another deep seizure and perhaps get wiped for a whole day or two... and I can feel it coming (lets hope i finish this post before i forget i ever opened the computer ;))

So i got it done... so i can take a picture for my other blog. But i knocked black ink all over the floor twice (i managed to clean it ok but geez) and i was not able to walk at the end and it took sooo much more energy and concentration than it normally does.

Really strange when normally it would just be a dance of beauty and pleasure...

so there ^^

Limits..

Time is a funny thing for me.. I guess with all the stopping and starting of my brain.

I think that I haven't reached out to others for a certain amount of time and then when i do my research I find I actually have. People seem to do be doing ok.. I guess I should stop worrying about my ability to care.

I have been feeling guilty about my lack of activity on this blog and on my others. I am an intense love for everyone in my life, including anyone who stops by and momentarily reads my words. Even in that instance we have a connection that could not be broken easily, its only a case of numbers and definition that makes it appear heavier or lighter - and goodness knows those human concepts are the most slippery of many i have encountered - there is an irony in there somewhere.

I have been thinking about coping.. and what it means.. I used to be able to cope easier, my seizures when they came were deeper and it was relatively easy to know what was going on (not that they weren't real scary) Now i have a more trembly brain.. it seems the things I feel most passionate about are the things that trigger it *typical* So it comes down to people, their feelings, their contradictions and their worries...

I love you all so much and you are more valid than a lot of the things that get you down. But what about the tangles in our minds... where worries impact on other worries and then take up the place of other worries. As an epileptic i have brain damage.. I think this makes it hard for things to flow past.. they kind of hit a brick wall... and then I am powerless to help.. to help you or to help myself. Then what?

Isn't it wonderful when we can workshop our feelings and grow through them. Or when we can distract ourselves by watching a drama on TV, or play a game where our character moves through stages of feeling. I am thinking that maybe I can't join you in your wild games.. not so much. You run along and have fun and I'll just sit here on the veranda of my mind and admire your energy. When you cut your knee and are truly ready to sit and heal for a time.. maybe even catch your breath.. I'll be right here, ready to share a secret smile.

Words and pictures

I have donated plenty words.. now here are some pictures.. I went on my 'first walk'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kWPkBWGt0s

Hope you enjoy watching and if you have any questions or comments feel free.. I shall enjoy reading them :)

Integration

Hello again, its been a while...

I have been thinking that its not easy being disabled when you want to be someone who cares for others in this life. As a person who could have a seizure at any moment I cant make promises or provide the sort of solid support that I know is enjoyable to experience. Perhaps it is easier to be selfish and insular, a person who thinks the world does to a certain extent revolve around them and therefore is not challenged by either the level of care they receive from their carer or by the lack of participation they have with others. I don't know what this would be like as I am the type who is frustrated by wanting to reach out and touch others lives, making a difference and upping their quota of smiles - unless my strong awareness of self and epilepsy makes me more selfish than most... (I guess we could debate that all day...)

Anyhow... it makes me wonder. How can I help people. I am not employable due to my many moments of 'being elsewhere'.. but I am very inspired by things and have interesting ideas. I cannot do a project that requires in any way systematic ways of being day after day as I can't be sure 'when' I will be 'well' yet... when I was younger my mother says I never had a fit when I was on stage... maybe just after the curtain closed but not before.

My seizures tend to come in lull spaces and if I dont let em come they build up into a couple of days maybe of confusion, tiredness and simple partial seizures.

BUT..... If I live to care and to inspire and empower my 'community' maybe those few days are worth it if I spent time putting off the seizures for the benefit of a project that is direct and fresh enough in that moment to breathe creative life and energy into those people I love right now and those I have have the potential to love in the future (which included practically everyone at a push ;))

So.....

I have a thought - well I have had it for a while but I am finally expressing it here. I am going to become a kind of community and street performer. And I'm going to perform within a community project I am going to call Hachisu Okiya 'the Lotus Geisha House'. I plan to give my energy in wearing bright silk kimono and following the path of a geisha as a person embodying art. I am open to others joining me and will run games evenings, learn to perform dance and have arts days for all ages. I think I can do this once a month - and dress up and go to the town when my seizures seem to be 'taking a break' for that morning or day. My carer can take me home when I am tired and I have already witnessed the smiles the bright kimonos bring to people's faces. So even though I cannot give 'solid regular support' to my friends, potential employers or even my family, I can sporadically make a difference to my town by demonstrating my 'being different' in a fun way. I hope ^^.

I have started a blog to illustrate my path in this... call this blog my Mind and the other my Body. As with the manifestation of 'Hachiko' (my Geisha name) I am reaching into the conventional truth my epileptic states aim to withdraw me from.

Feel free to visit.. as both inner and outer is an expression of 'Me' that we can share.

http://hachisuokiya.wordpress.com/

Emily x

Pile Up

When i have a seizure it is like a pile up in the brain. Too many objects with too many aspects and even ideas of themselves all in one moment. Like a hose thats been stepped on maybe.. the water flow restricted so it is faster and seems to have more of a presence as a result.

I have so many ideas and ways i could change things and make things different and i'm not afraid of work... if i see its not being done but should be hey! ill do it... then along comes another seizure and i am a mouse again. Odd.

Its good to be ambitious isnt it? Aren't many entrepreneurs and non depressive people applauded for it? Sometimes i think i should be like a queen or empress.. people could come from miles around and ask me what they should do. And i would have an answer for all of them i know i would... send them all off into the world with renewed focus.. taking the ideas that fly from inside me and embodying them for the benefit of those who were experiencing the hole in which the idea fits.. but hadnt quite got round to distinguishing the problem as a hole.

Maybe those angel beings who are made of light feel like this.. maybe i am a step down from that.. though not quite human either. So i experience slightly less frustration than the non corporeal beings i guess. I should be thankful for that. I can hug people and i am here when the people ask me for answers.

I wonder though... just how reliable am i?... comparatively of course...

Now you have the pile up in your mind maybe...

or something like it :-p

Apologys in advance,

Emily x

Ponderances

What a year 1009 has been! I have been used to my life gradually speeding up as i have grown older but this year has stretched out to feel like at least three. Perhaps it is due to my lazer eye surgery i had last november. My whole experience of things has been changed through this, everthing seeming crisper and having new aspects i could not see before (on many levels). The sea was the thing that got me most if i have to single out something from this new mandala i live in. It sparkled in way it had never done before without the glass reflecting experience away and i was able to walk down to it without worrying about whether my glasses where safe while i was away, leaving clear vision behind and experiencing the seascape as a blur. No, i could walk down to the sea, watch the seagulls and the waves in their fullness, happy to glance at my children knowing they were safe in a moment. It made me more brave to enter the wild sea surrounding the devon coast this summer, even with its chilling promises ^^ Using meditation as a prompt from my shivering state i imagined it to be an ocean of wisdom, my lover and manifestation of blissfull mind and dived right in emerging to watch the cliffs and builders of sandcastles with unclouded eyes. To be able to view my children happy and safe on the beach whilst surrounded by the peaks and troughs of the playful sea made me laugh and cackle, the Kate Bush bird song which lines the bowl of my petit mal joining in with me.

Leaving the council has also made a difference to me, giving me more time to watch and work with my energy. Sharing my sparks of inspiration in Second Life as meditation and querky workshops i have been achieving much more with bodisattva mind work and am growing myself into a fuller beast :-p

A post on another forum finally prompted me to write here... so here is that piece too.. smiles xx

"The interesting aspect of male and female in Buddhism is a celebration of them in their different forms. The male is associated with the Method or Compassion path whereas the female is associated with the Wisdom path. Where lineage is concerned one tends to find mainly male spiritual guides but rather than an indication of them being above women it is more an indication of their propensity to compassion and method - i.e. writing down what teachings and inspirations they have received and establishing systems by which themselves and others should put them into practice. The women are all there in the 'background' delighting in their propensity to wisdom; their wisdom acknowledged as the root of the male translated systems. This also relates to the 'dakini' who dances the path of wisdom in the 'sky', an inspiration for male practitioners and lamas alike."

My resignation from the local council was in the paper - i post it here. I was pleased i think it communicated well and help to raise the profile of different types of epliepsy - although it got complex and partial the wrong way round but hey preaching to the unconverted here ^^

Illness forces Emily to quit town council

Tuesday, May 12, 2009, 07:00

TOTNES mother-of-two Emily Rogers has resigned her town council seat for the second time in four years as she faces a continual health battle with epilepsy.

The 30-year-old artist mum was the youngest person on the town council when she reluctantly handed in her resignation last week.

Faced with suffering daily seizures which left her exhausted, she decided she had no choice but to stand down.

Emily said: "It was a very difficult decision for me. I wanted to help the parents and children and disabled people, but it was so frustrating not being able to fit in with the timing of the council meetings.

"I am quite passionate about supporting people in the community and representing them and it became so frustrating not being able to do so."

Emily has suffered from epilepsy since she was 10 years old, but over the last two years the nature of her illness has changed — and drugs prescribed for her either left her 'hyper' and nervous or turned her into a depressive.

She said: "My epilepsy has changed. It never used to be like this. I used to have a few complex partial seizures a month. Sometimes now I am having three or four a week. I am having one or two simple partial seizures a day."

She said a simple partial seizure leave her staring into space for a few minutes while a complex partial seizure leaves her disorientated without a grasp on reality which can last for up to 30 minutes. All the seizures leave her exhausted.

Emily, who lives with her husband Steve and two children Misha, eight, and Poppy, four, in Culverdale, first won a seat on Totnes Town Council in November 2002.

But three years later she and husband Steve, who was also a town councillor, both resigned in protest over the way the council was being run.

Then two years later they both stood again in the 2007 May elections and Emily pipped her own husband at the post by just one vote to win back her seat.

Emily and Steve invented the board game Buddhawheel, a game based on the Buddhist wheel of life involving players working their way up the reincarnation ladder, which has sold around the country and abroad.

Emily is a Bhuddist and said her meditation has helped her cope with her epilepsy.

"I am not freaked out by what is happening where I used to be before I had experience with meditation," she said.

Totnes Town Council is now faced with advertising the vacant seat left by Emily's resignation.

If enough local electors demand there is a by-election the council will be forced to hold one.

If that does not happen the town councillors will have the option of co-opting a new councillor.

Creation of an Artist

Good days, plenty sun and gardening :-)

We have a redevelopment soon to happen near us - bungalows being knocked down for flats. We are saving the plants that have become established in the gardens there by rehousing them in ours. Shove up weeds ^^

Interesting thing about the music artist Prince and how his epilepsy transformed him into a flashy performer...

Prince reveals epilepsy

What prompted the flashy, eccentric persona that helped make Prince a king of the music world? The singer was compensating for a painful childhood struggle with epilepsy, he revealed this week. "I've never spoken about this before, but I was born epileptic," the reclusive 50-year-old pop star told PBS host Tavis Smiley in an interview. "I used to have seizures when I was young. My mother and father didn't know what to do or how to handle it, but they did the best they could with what little they had." Prince also cited divine intervention in helping him cope with the disorder. "My mother told me that one day I walked in to her and said, 'Mom, I'm not going to be sick anymore,' and she said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because an angel told me so.' " But his struggle didn't end there. He was often teased in school, he recalled. "And early in my career, I tried to compensate by being as flashy as I could and as noisy as I could."

I love to act from very early on for a lot of similar reasons. Lots of my peers enjoyed 'fame' but my character parts allowed me freedom to breath into being odd and feeling different. People who complimented me would get my reply 'its not me up there on stage' my disconnected epileptic ego getting some respite of the rush to be one of the 'ME's"

Empathising with Flaubert

Done more research about creativity, epilepsy and watching the mind and found detail about Flaubert's epilepsy and his writing about it:....

The onset of his epileptic attacks allowed Flaubert to abandon his education at law school and, in many ways, created a space for Flaubert to live a life of the imagination.

He was working away at studying for his law examinations, had taken a brief break from his studies and returned to Rouen to visit with his family. While home, his older brother Achille and he had gone on a trip to look into the possibility of buying a cottage. On that ride in the dark which is unimaginable to us now because we live in a world that is perpetually filled with light pollution, Flaubert had his first attack of epilepsy. His falling allowed him to return to a life of reverie and, although there were innumerable fees to be paid to the gods of modern day medicine, his time became his own.

But what had happened? What had transpired in his mind? Later, he would write to his lover, Louise Colet, in a letter the following:

"Each attack was like a hemorrhage of the nervous system. Seminal losses from the pictorial faculty of the brain, a hundred thousand images cavorting at once in a kind of fireworks. It was a snatching of the soul from the body, excruciating. (I am convinced I died several times.) But what constitutes the personality, the rational essence, was present throughout; had it not been, the suffering would have been for nothing, for I would have been purely passive, whereas I was always conscious even when I could no longer speak. Thus my soul was turned back entirely on itself, like a hedgehog wounding itself with its own quills."

The fireworks of the self caught in temporal agony. The space of the self becomes expansive and vast. I understand this particular possibility of the self because it resonates with what I've felt in the past. The agony of seeing past the limit. The limit of the agony past seeing. The seeing limit of the past agony. There is a space of consequent understanding here which belies any simple attempt to map the mind.

A lot i can empathise with here, now where is one of his books... :-)

Forum post about Epileptic Meditation

:-) Another post i wrote going back to other way - into a community of epileptics interested in meditation ...

hope you are all keeping well. So busy today didnt stop but managed to stay fairly chilled by not setting aside mad energy for later :-p....

I have have temporal lobe epliepsy since 10 yrs old and started meditating at 16. I have been a practicing buddhist for 14yrs now and am very interested in meeting others that apply mediataion to their seizures. I find that as opposed to being a healing exercise for my seizures, my meditiation helps me to understand and work with the subtle minds that surface during a seizure.

I have found mostly negative outlook on epilepsy from buddhist who dont know much about it or the mind, and also from epileptics whose main aim seems to stop seizure through many medication experiments. I have epliepsy that is hard to treat and as such my epileptic state has become part of my spiritual path. Someone on a Buddhist forum mentioned that Buddha for example cant have had epilepsy because he was a blessed being, well they miss the point of a Buddha entirely...

Buddhas start as normal human beings, and from that point (hindered by an as-sortment of the sorts of things humans have to deal with e.g. epilepsy) they work with their obstructions gaining a deeper and deeper knowledge of them so, knowing their true enemy of delusion, they can become released from it and therefore help others who are also 'drowning in samsara'.

A true Buddhist would see nothing as a complete dead end to their path, even in the most difficult conditions. My meditation smoothes my seizures, i think when i am most successful i become one with them and gain much insight.

Long time no speaky...

I have just resigned from my local council :( I have been trying to represent young mothers and disabled but i keep having seizures couple of hours before the meetings when i am all prepped and ready to go. I think the stress triggers them.

So maybe i post here more often now i dont get all that paper work. Thankless task being a councillor, no pay, lots of paperwork and everywhere you go in your town people stop to debate with you whatever else you happen to be doing. Also you get blamed for anything people dont like and label as inactive by people who dont bother to stand for local councils or maybe even turn up to vote ... what a world.

Anyway i posted this today about Epilepsy and Tantric Meditation ...

Hey everyone :) I have been on a rolling sea journey with my epilepsy recently. I use to have sharper attacks but now they are smoother and put me in a different space for a long time. I have been working with a mahamudra relationship to my seizures for a while now, there is no room for attachment at all once they start to hit and i think this has been a great gift to me to make to most of where my path is concerned. The mind is wilder or deeper now than it has been in the past, my absence and simple partial seizures rolling into each other. The only thing that feels like delusion when i am relaxed is a fear of drowning. Like if i ride on the ocean of the mind in epileptic state i can feel more closely the actual waves and motion of it, but that entails looking into the ocean which is deep. A cave looks like the best option :-p If i let go i am not sure if convention will prevail and i am a busy mother of young children on that level. So i guess although diving seems like the best option for my bodhisattva mind... it is scary in its formlessness and i am not sure if that is what this manifestation of reality right now is about. Anyone heard about epileptic tantrists? I think my epilepsy is very different from grand mal from what i have heard from those who suffer for it - they pretty much 'leave the building' when it happens. I am there to witness the process of mind, which has always set me out as a bit strange and interested in deep process. :-p Just chatting ^^

Resting...

Well i had a good days rest yesterday, hoping that this Saturday i could spring out of bed and take the kids out, no such luck unfortunatley. I feel all spinny and achy today.. and a little tingly around my cheeks - oddness :-p I think.... yes i just had a complex partial seizure..

Maybe we can all have a relaxed Saturday and go out tomorrow.. although there are no buses then. Hope the kids can keep smiling, they can enjoy the sun in the garden. Steve has just reminded me that they have been a bit ill recently so they could probably do with a non-school, non-itinerary day.

On the plus side yesterday i finished producing a version of Giant BuddhaWheel for Second Life, one that avatars can walk around. We tested it with some friends and it went real well, lots been learnt and joked about. Wonderful!

Sending virtual love, i hope its enough ;-)