Category: Traditional Chinese Medicine

Shingles and Soul School

1/21/2016

“No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Shingles? Why me?!
I had the vaccine last year!

Well, apparently, the vaccine is 60% effective at preventing an outbreak and in the case of one, effective at reducing the severity of the symptoms and duration.

As one in the midst of an outbreak, I highly recommend getting the vaccine if you had chickenpox as a child. I have a fairly high tolerance for pain. All I can say about this is that the pain is unusually attention grabbing. Riveting. Talk with your doctor.

I had been contemplating a theme for the New Year and Completion came to mind: a year for finishing projects, releasing things I had great intentions for and now know will never be done, admitting to and apologizing for commitments made that I will not deliver on.

I also want this to be a year of a deepening awareness of my physical self, of learning to connect more with my body, of living inside an on-going awareness of my physical being, and observing how my body responds to situations, events, thoughts.

That intention got a jump on 2016 by a few days. On Dec. 28th my sleep was interrupted by a truly impressive headache. I’ve endured many migraines in my life. This was a horse of a different color: stabbing, burning, very specifically located pain. My left temple throbbed and spears were being put into my left forehead and skull. It was remarkably effective at calling my attention to my body, moment by searing moment.

Poleaxe
c. 1470-1480, Western European
Philadelphia Museum of Art

I think of most ailments as self-limiting. Unless bad symptoms last 2-3 weeks I figure, “This, too, shall pass.” It took me several weeks to figure out that a case of the flu I had was actually pneumonia.

After massaging my neck and shoulders (is this a tension headache?) I took some Advil and tried to sleep. Nothing. I tried Tiger Balm, sage tea, relaxation techniques, and meditation. The pain was relentless and broke through them all, non-stop, until 4 A.M. New Year’s Day.

Later that morning I met an old friend for coffee and our long-standing holiday gift-giving tradition. As I described my experience to her, she said, “That’s what happened to me when I had shingles in my eye.” I went home and Googled it. Hmmmm. No rash. Yet. Later in the afternoon pain started shooting up my face and into my scalp, and the rash appeared.

I started taking a wonderful homeopathic anti-viral tincture, B-complex vitamins, and eating all the high vitamin fresh foods I could: spinach salad with Feta, sweet potatoes, seitan with kale and garlic. I’d never bother a doctor on a holiday weekend unless it was a genuine emergency. I just soldiered on. Hardly. I sat in my comfy chair putting ice packs on my face and head, trying to distract myself, but this was calling my attention to my body quite effectively. I could have traced the nerve pathways with a Sharpie marker. The pain was that specific. Watch out for those intentions.

Monday morning at 7:30 I went to the offices of my lovely community family practice but there were no appointments available until 1 P.M. I returned home to ice my head. By that time blisters were starting to form.

The doctor confirmed my diagnosis, gave me prescriptions for an allopathic anti-viral, Gabapentin and something to help me sleep which I had a horrid reaction to and will never take again.

Many people presume everyone lives in their body and think it’s odd when I say I don’t. What I mean is not that I don’t feel my physical existence at all – I feel aches and pains, I know when I’ve cut my finger. But it is usually only illness or discomfort that calls my attention to my body. The rest of the time I’m up in my head. It can take me quite a while to realize how and what I’m feeling, or I don’t notice unless I’m asked. This is a legacy of growing up in a household where many things were inappropriately sexualized. Nowadays we recognize this as a form of domestic violence. It turns out attempted rape, among other things, did not occur in the homes of my school chums.

Therapy

I spent many years in therapy gaining insight into what was going on me emotionally, many years reading books on psychology, family systems theory, neuro-biology and -chemistry, and trauma. I worked hard to unravel my PTSD*. It was well worth it. I’m still triggered now and then but I understand my reactions and know how to manage them. Still, being disconnected from what I’m feeling in my body is my general state of being. I want to move beyond managing reactions. I want to learn how to truly inhabit my body.

Shingles started me down this path with fireworks.

Thursday I went to see my lovely and brilliant Five Elements* acupuncturist Janice. I traced the pain line along the Gall Bladder meridian for her, and we discussed the events and activities of 2015 that had led to a depletion of Water: physical energy and other resources. (More about that in another blog post.) We talked about how much I’d used my Metal last year, holding things together and dealing with a lot of grief. At the solstice/the turn of the seasons, my Metal was not letting go and flowing into Water. No wonder I’d been craving winter.

Janice treated many more points than usual, most to pull the heat down from my head, some with beautiful names like Foot Above Tears (Gall Bladder 41) and Gate of Hope (Liver 14). We talked about receiving – a challenge for me - and the Lung’s role in it. Lung represents the yin aspects and functions of the Metal element. I lay there like a Voodoo rag doll and went deep inside, feeling the past year. Tears began to flow as I experienced how deeply exhausted I am. Relief melted into my limbs. I rarely realize how much tension I carry in my muscles. “Normal” is not necessarily good or healthy.

My instructions from Janice, echoing those received during a deep meditation I’d had, were to rest throughout the entire Water season, to rest much more than I think I need, and then to rest some more. To paraphrase Brene Brown in Daring Greatly, 'It's time to let go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth.'

I am writing this from my comfy chair wrapped in a fleece throw of my father’s and a Fisherman’s knit afghan made by my grandmother. I'm holding an ice pack to my head gazing at a lovely tableau: the sweetest yellow tulips, a gift from Lisa, lazily posing in a Talavera vase I brought back from a visit with dear friends in Spain. Next to it, within easy reach, is one of the most perfectly designed teapots I’ve ever seen, pre-war Havilland Limoges, filled with Stash Double Bergamot Earl Grey tea (my current favorite) and a Royal Albert Princess teacup with it’s delicately painted rose and gold decoration, a gift from my late Aunt Ann.

It will be dawn soon. I suspect this will be one of my seats in Soul School this winter.

I’m feeling blessed.

_____________________________________________
*Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. For more information about PTSD, see the works of Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. or visit the website of The Trauma Center.

Traditional Acupuncture: The Law of the Five Elements

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Vernal Equinox: Winter or Spring?

3/21/2015

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The Station Bridge

Water represents a time for reflection, a deep, restorative period in which one's inner resources can be refilled. Plants are dormant, resting or expanding their root systems. In Winter we can revisit the Well and re-establish our wellness.

Wood Season is a time of increasing energy, with sap starting to rise and plants emerging from the soil. It is a time for scanning the horizon and envisioning possibilities, a time of creativity and building, a time for making plans, for emerging from stillness and getting more active. This is when we can plant our peas and imagine our own flowering.

Today we are blanketed in thick white snow and I'm grateful for what may be one last gasp of Winter. The past week brought temperatures in the 40's and 50's. Aconite, Hellebores and Snowdrops emerged as soon as they felt the sun's warmth.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine's Five Elements, Vernal Equinox is considered to be the point at which the energies of Water Season (Winter) transition into those of Wood (Spring.)

The watercolor "Vernal Equinox"

Hydrangeas in Snow

The equinoxes are the times when day and night are of equal length. From here on in, the lengthening of the days becomes increasingly noticeable.

As I write this a wren outside my window loudly proclaims the change of seasons.

I’m sad to see Winter go and feel like I did not get enough of it, enough lounging in Deep Time. The tasks of my outer-world de/re-construction project call loudly: time to finish tearing the wall down! Saw! Drill! Plaster! Prep! Paint! At least now I will have the energies of Spring to help me as I actualize these long-imagined changes.

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Leaning Into a Slothful Happy New Year?

12/31/2014

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A few of the cultural ideas I have absorbed about work/time/life include that work happens at particular times in particular amounts and that a given amount of time spent working, or amount of work produced, is acceptable and another is not. Both reduce to the Deadly Sin of Sloth. (I’ll leave the other Deadlys out of this discussion.) Keep that nose to the grindstone and all that.

Enforced sloth for over a week now has me questioning both “work-life balance” (what??) and William Blake’s great question, “Enough! or Too Much” *.

As I observe the flow of my energy I’m aware of the relative nature of time. Absorbed in painting, removing a wall or cleaning a newly discovered bird skull I take no notice of clock time. I’m engaged until I’ve had enough — minutes or hours, it makes no difference. I’ve simply arrived at an endpoint to that activity for the moment whether it is finished or not. If I feel tired it’s a pleasant weariness like a deep sigh or the release of a primal breath, markedly different than the wrung-out exhaustion of forging ahead at all costs.

I have a luxury that my commuter neighbors and friends do not. I can work, wake, sleep, eat, do laundry and walk in the woods as I please. Why, then, do I feel I must get to work by a certain time, work a certain number of hours (at least) and accomplish X number of things to feel productive, a Fine Upstanding Member of Society? Do I feel guilty that I can come and go as I please and they can’t? Is this some perverse form of empathy, to push on just a little further.

I’m thinking of conducting an experiment as I enter 2015. I will follow my energy, waking, working, eating and sleeping when I feel called to. I will listen more carefully to Yin and let Yang follow instead of engaging in my deeply rutted habit of pushing no matter what. (Tired? Push on a little further.) Why not stop, rest and refresh a bit instead?

Pushing without listening — to my body, my creative ideas, little pop-up thoughts (I feel like calling so-and-so) evolve to become muscle tension, headaches, grumpiness and a lack of interest or enthusiasm about most anything. Is it possible to exert effort without expense? A friend asks, “Would you rather use a rowboat or a sailboat to get where you want to go?”

Listening in to myself does not come easily, and as I lean in to this experiment I notice little fears bubbling up. What if I never accomplish another thing? What if I become a bag lady? What if, what if, what if.... Probing beneath those I find other little treasures about how my worth as a person is measured: by Doing or by Being? It’s uncomfortable in there. No wonder I’d rather stay busy earning external affirmations of my value!

January’s cold is the perfect time to undertake this experiment. The trees’ skeletons surround me as visual reminders of Being without Trying as they respond to wind and weather with unadorned clarity. They grow, leaf out, shed branches, drop leaves, provide habitat and die, each in their own time with no extraneous internal noise of ego or self-criticism. Sycamore, oak, cherry, walnut, and beech — no one tells the other how and when to grow. They don’t even have metrics.

Let’s see how this experiment goes. Let’s see if, as Bren é Brown asks, I can let go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as the measure of my worth. Let’s see if I can fearlessly flow through my days.

*from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake

1/3/15 post script - I just read a post on hibernation by ANDRÉANA E. LEFTON that says in a very elegant way some of what I've attempted to express above. You can read it here: http://bit.ly/1DfVrUx

May your new year be all that you wish

and may it include some of your heart’s desires.

PS. On a less philosophical note, over the next few months I will be undertaking the 3rd of 5 major studio renovation projects that have been in the dreaming phase for many years. Wish me luck staying connected with my inner listening while I roll up my sleeves and pick up pry-bars, hammers and buckets of joint compound. Some naps may be required.

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Shingles and Soul School

Vernal Equinox: Winter or Spring?

Leaning Into a Slothful Happy New Year?

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