I’ve been dealing with a swollen big toe and it has been ruining me for days. It sounds silly as I say it, but it really knocked me out. For several days, I’ve had a flare up of Lyme. It has been two years since the last, and this isn’t nearly as bad, and for two days I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t sleep… and none of these things have been my worst problem.
Sickness isn’t sick. Disease may make you ill at ease, yet being ill at ease isn’t always bad for you. Fevers cleanse infection. Pain exposes wounds. People often harbor illness, wounds, and dysfunctions. Sometimes, often, sickness and disease are exposing what is already wrong. They are not – in and of themselves – THE problem. When we are broken, and weak, we are no longer capable of hiding from our fears, mistakes and trauma. Sickness is a time to dig deeply and heal.
I say it, and wham! I got sick. I was aware of the irony, yet I had more panic than I’ve had in a long while, at first. Am I crazy to think this way? Is it recklessly bringing on symptoms I wouldn’t have to deal with if I wasn’t so blasé with my attitude?
And yet I followed my own guidance. I stared at myself. Amidst the confusion of a mind gone wild, I learned about myself. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t stare at a screen, or walk outside, or even pee comfortably. So…
I came up, with loose ends. I like this term ‘came up’. It speaks to the truth of it. Pondering, wandering in the mind, is like diving. There is some form of spiritual Oxygenation that calls us back. I’m a whale, and I forgot things in the deep. I was getting dragged down, and I chose not to fight.
I comprehend being skeptical about mystical insight. I ‘get’ how people can write it all off as a placebo – a false belief that works to make us healthy as long as we believe the lie. And I challenge you to get over it. Move past the fear and doubt. There is something for you here.
Spirituality, intuition, mystical healing, all challenge paradigms. It can certainly be frightening and painful to explore health – and life – this way. It is worth it.
So here I was, diving deep like a spiritual whale. I aimed to go INTO the tensions. I breathed with them, and discovered, me. That’s right, me. I felt all these little shards of hope. Different dreams I held in the past. Dreams that are all gone now, yet they didn’t fully leave. I never closed them. They are frayed energy, leaking intention into nothing. Waddling about in my mind, getting lost. Preventing growth.
I remembered a woman I thought I’d marry one day. I never really said goodbye. I thought of a farm I thought I’d help revive, live in a little cottage by the river… and a city I thought I’d settle in before coming home… and a lost dream to live in the woods and choose silence for a year… and.
I wrote them all down. All of them. I lost the lines on the paper, and didn’t care. The squiggles emulating the chaos in my mind. I’ve been holding all of this down, and it made me weak. A weakened body cannot confront disease well. So when disease arrives, face what makes you weak
Do you know how to breathe into different parts of your body?
Here’s how it works. Thoughts and feelings are alive. They have a living presence, and even material weight. They are held in our body, and we feed them with our life-force. Sometimes, you can’t just say no. You can’t simply walk away. Some hopes are too strong to be abandoned so callously. I know this. I teach this. Yet I’d lost some serious dreams by the wayside, and never gave them back to the Earth.
Problems with the legs and feet connect in to the Root Chakra. Challenges to our place in community, and the way our needs are met. The Root acts to feed us. It carries the pattern of the life we are living, and teaches us whether we are in good shape to thrive. Do you have the support you need to live well? Are you surrounded by friends who believe in you, in your mind and heart? Is your service effective? Are you ready and willing to do the work the Earth is asking of you? What do you need to make it so?
All these shards I brought up within the swollen pain, were about huge life choices. At one point – a part of me – was willing to dream my entire life around each of these dreams. Without settling them more clearly, I have been nurturing extreme challenges to the life I’ve chosen. Because they are still there, saying “Follow me! Feed me!” And each of them would have me abandon the life I AM in. (Past dreams can be quite selfish. Afterall, THEY came first!)
I’m emerging from the cocoon of a new child. We are getting the hang of this parenting role, my wife Tali and I. I presume its the intensity of this life, that pushed me so deeply, to find the shards of days gone by, that need to go back to the Earth, now.
So this combination The Root, the Heart, the Chin, makes a very powerful chord. It draws energy up out of the Earth, through our spine and up into our head. It is a strong statement about moving forward. Activating it, and keeping it moving for a while, is a powerful prayer.
So I drew strength up out of the Root. I burned the list of lost dreams, and drummed. I prayed to let them go gracefully, as I embrace the life I’ve chosen. So I can fully be here, now.
Today I will keep the vibes alive. My very real infection, is leaving. My ephemeral haunting dreams, are leaving. And the song and drum call spirit up into my body to flush me clean, and prepare to live well, today.