Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
as simple as building a fire
so i’ve been pretty depressed all week… some combination of pain in the nerve canal of my jaw and painkillers and being in my house all alone and not feeling motivated to do much more than a little walk down to the post office. people who were supposed to come visit either flaked entirely (don’t know what happened there) or had to cancel because of the snow (entirely understandable – it has been snowing now for two and a half days) – so the reprieves from my own company i had expected didn’t come as planned leaving me pretty glum by last night.
just before bed, i worked to stave off a full-blown anxiety moment with some brief cognitive therapy and a taoist breathing exercise – both things i should have been working with all week, but i am bad at routine therapy exercises when i’m actually in need of them….
today, i decided, should be different, i should relax a bit more with this pain thing and give myself space to do what i needed…. so this morning i relaxed in bed with a new novel, got some studying done over breakfast, called a friend for a chat this afternoon, made a fire for the first time this week (i have been really lazy, thus my house has also been cold as the electric heat doesn’t do a good job), and cooked up some chili-spiced rice and beans for dinner. even though as i write this i am in some pain (ibuprofen wore off and the stuff i took with dinner hasn’t kicked in yet) – i am feeling much lighter of spirit today than i have been all week – and i’m pretty sure that the cheeriness of the fire on a snowy evening has a lot to do with it.
i also updated my ical today with a todo list and the next two months of dates – which helped me to realize that my life isn’t totally out of control and i have more time to get things done than i was telling myself on the verge of my anxiety moment last night. being someone with control issues, list-making has the power of instantly soothing me in times of despair….
oh what simple creature – a todo list, a chat with a friend, a fire and a bowl of rice and beans – i have to remember this remedy for next time.
the fourth practice
illness frustrates me to no end – the seeming uselessness of lying in bed while the body goes through its healing contortions – the total lack of power, lack of ability to speed up the process, the reminder we are mortal wrought each moment we can not sleep because of the pain emanating deep from the bone. mostly for me it is the inability to *do work*, the feeling i am wasting time that nags at me – even though logically i know being unwell is a perfectly good excuse to do nothing except read novels for a week.
last night satish kumar, someone whose blend of spirituality and politics i really admire, was interviewed on cbc radio. during the interview he spoke about sleep as a spiritual practice and then told the following story (which is also in his book You Are Therefore I Am).
once the emperor of persia asked his sufi teacher, “what can i best do to recover and renew my soul?”
“my lord, sleep as long as you can,” came the reply.
“what do you mean? i can’t neglect my duties! i have justice to deliver, ambassadors to receive, taxes to determine — so much work to do, i have no time to sleep,” said the emperor.
“but my lord, the more you sleep, the less you will oppress!” came the sufi master’s blunt reply.
kumar then goes on to say “much of the time when we are active, we oppress other people and damage the earth, which damages our souls. therefore sleep is an act of tapas [the self-replenishment necessary for achieving spiritual growth]” – which was the point he was driving home in the interview last night – that when we rest we are at a state of non-harm, a state as humans we are rarely at.
it was obvious to me during this past week of healing process my body wanted rest, and yet initially i fought that impulse as though to sleep was to betray my mind, my drive to get work accomplished. turned around, in the framework of kumar, not only does my body need rest to physically replenish, but also for the purposes of spiritual restoration. here is a practice i obviously need to spend some time working on – although the practice of sleep seems to come naturally, the practice of adequate sleep or restful time is really more elusive than ever in modern society.
(the other three practices of tapas are humility, service and study)
in the home stretch
i am feeling wretchedly ill from the painkillers these past couple of days…. unable to do much except lie about and read and do the occasional stitching between naps… here is the latest installment on the rug… i’m in the home stretch now.
random notes for the day
the T3s and the pain have caused some disjoint in my logic processes and i seem unable to post a coherent entry – so instead here are some notes from my day….
it seems an odd thing to do – to add a memorial blog to your “people” list – but today i did just that for bob everton’s memorial website. as people are continuing to add to it, and i was informed today of a get together on monday to discuss potential memorial projects to remember and commemorate the life of our friend – it seems that his memory will persist in our work, and thus he hasn’t ceased in all ways, just some that are important to our mind’s understanding of “person”.
there is snow predicted for thursday night, friday and saturday – and very cold temperatures on the horizon (that is – cold for here – being -8). my mother is supposed to be visiting on friday but i am not sure with the weather if that will happen since the roads on both her and my end will likely be shot. they do plow the highway up here, but not always the side roads.
margot is coming on thursday and this will hopefully occasion us to work on two new/old blog projects… security.resist.ca being converted to blog form (easier to upkeep) and the old tao-van cookbook being turned into a community recipe blog (which may eventually become a print-cookbook as previously planned).
i have also been turning over in my head the need to actually get writing the book i was talking about a year ago – “the little sister’s guide to fighting big brother” which i did draft an outline and start writing for and then bailed on due to lack of motivation. i decided over the holidays (and at the behest of many people recently) that this project is still relevant and i am a very likely person to write it…. i just think i have to structure my time better – but at the same time it is hard to have so many divided attentions and writing a book takes a lot more focus than i have at the moment…….
i have gotten very little real work done today as my head is a bit fuzzy – though i managed to get some study-work done for an upcoming exam (and also had a quiz returned to me today with 97% marked on it! I am currently maintaining an A in both of my Psych courses….) i do however, have to get this ecopsych paper written this week just to get it out of the way so i’m hoping to find time to do that as well as the union writing on my schedule. see what i mean about divided attentions?
how come i can’t do everything?
need to buy ram – suggestions
i need to upgrade the ram in this laptop (ibook – came with 256 meg standard) – preferably by ordering online to a place that ships to canada. any suggestions on reputable dealers? macstation doesn’t seem to have ram chips over 64 megs in their catalogue, compusmart doesn’t deal in ibook ram, and the online apple store sucks rocks for finding anything that isn’t a whole system or ipod related….
so help? i can’t remember the last place i ordered from and i’m not googling it sufficiently fast enough for my frustrated painful state.
Red Cedar 