Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
In sickness, and in bed – Happy New Year!
It’s a good thing I didn’t make any hard and fast new year’s resolutions this year or I’d already be disappointing myself with the fact that I am in bed with a very bad cold. A painful cold in fact, the kind that makes the throat and lungs groan with each sniffle and cough.
I haven’t been sick for over a year, and I’d forgotten how debilitating garden-variety illnesses can be, how quickly the body can be taken hostage by aches and exhaustion — but here I am, flat on my back on a day I am supposed to be working, listening to the rain on the skylights above me.
And I have to admit that even though I am physically uncomfortable, another part of me loves the indulgence of staying in bed for a day or two with books and music on my computer and a chance to practice some lying-down meditation as well. It doesn’t hurt that I have a clean and lovely room to rest in, plus my awesome nurse-husband who is not working until next week and is an awesome caretaker during these rare times of sickness.
At the moment, I am listening the album Light by Arvo Part, Gregorio Allegri & Veljo Thomas – and am wound up in two books: Denial of Death by Ernest Becker and A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki which I will expound more on at a later date. Suffice to say for now that both books are offering me perspective on some of my current philosophical interests, which is deeply satisfying.
I have decided to start the new year on this blog by posting a series of meditative reflections that comprised my final paper for last semester – the work I completed while at Rivendell Retreat in the first week of December. Though I have not received my final grade on the paper, it feels like the time to release it into the wild with the hope that it provides some insight into what a very early meditative path looks like for someone who is fundamentally secular.
Though it’s not entirely related, this news item caught my eye this morning – and it’s this type of study that first piqued my interest in meditation when I was writing about neuroscience innovation in the winter/spring of 2013: Study reveals gene expression changes with meditation
Now if you’ll excuse me I am going to return to convalescing. Hope your holidays were great and you’re on good footing for the new year!
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Red Cedar 
‘Denial of Death’ is a very powerful and awesome work. (I don’t know if I could read it when I was not feeling very well, though.)
Being ill stinks but yes, funny to say there is something kind of nice about it when the environment is clean and calm! In contrast to being ill in a nightmare sort of environment, arguments in the background, a mess, things left neglected. If one is rarely sick it is almost like a time of retreat, meditation, awareness.
Get well soon, though!