Grief & Remembrance
It's past noon on Boxing Day and I'm still in bed. Feeling very reflective which has perhaps been needed more than I realized recently. Been so focused on my relationship and trying to not be alone this holiday season that I haven't been willing to turn inward enough. It's because there's a lot of grief in there.
I've dealt with such harrowing health problems in the past couple of years, and they continue. Maybe that's why I don't feel so victorious. There are moments of gratitude for being alive, like my time with Adolpho. I'm still here and that means something. I know that I am needed.
What triggered me the most this Christmas, surprisingly, was food... not being able to share a slice of pizza with Adolpho, or try some of his home baked treats. It got me researching online for potential cures, only to find that gluten intolerance is pretty much life long. I bought some GF treats for the two of us last night and they were garbage, pretty much. The idea of being consigned to having to always cook for myself in order to avoid exposures, or the idea that I can't share in deliciousness with my loved ones, has really hit me hard this season.
Intermixed with that is the general sense of not getting better. With each micro exposure I damage my gut, which hinders absorption, which sends undigested food into my colon where it causes inflammation. I have questions like... will I ever be able to really travel? Will my body ever have stability and safety? If so, will I be consigned to one location for the rest of my life? I think about the things I have here in Vancouver, like the organic food culture, the not-freezing winter, the general understanding of gluten free... I want to leave, but how could I? Where could I go? It's like I'm an astronaut with an oxygen tank. I have to have breathable air wherever I go, or take air with me. Food isn't joyful, it's dangerous... and it creates an oppression in my life everywhere I go. Yet all around me are people experieincing freedom to eat what they want, more or less.
This thing about digestion. Life being indigestible. Me being kind of like a hungry ghost... food everywhere but unable to eat it. It disturbs me greatly. It feels like a deep karmic lesson tied to health that I may never escape.
I think about Adolpho, and despite the great love and potential that exists between us, I wonder what I can really offer him. I probably won't ever work full time in this state of health. My acupuncture practice no longer feels right, like it's old news, like I should be doing something else; and I can't tell if that something else could already be happening if it weren't for this overshadowing health condition. In fact, I wonder about things like Adolpho's arrival in my life, about the trajectory that my life is trying to unfold with or without this health problem. Is the health problem just this karmic thing I'm supposed to live with, while trying to do what everyone else is doing?
There are times when I feel like my recovery is so close... like I just have to release one or two things, or iron out some old energy imprint in my body, and then boom I will be OK again. I believe in miracles like that. I believe in cures. But my faith is waning today... there is grief, there is sorrow, there is the sense that life is going to leave me behind. Even Adolpho, for all his altruism, compassion, and care... I wonder just how long he could tolerate my restricted lifestyle for before he would want freedom. I am with someone whose freedom is boundless and he won't tolerate stasis.
What contniues to give me hope...
1) Letting go of how I think things should unfold, whether my relationship or my path itself. My life may evolve into a situation, lifestyle or new paradigm that I can't possibly know or understand right now. There may be possibilities beyond what I can currently see. My current limited viewpoint may be what's injuring me and preventing me from moving outward. I can't look externally to people or things for signs of progress or guidance. My work in this life is clearly unusual and unconventional. (This is also balanced with the practical knowledge that I should be somewhat prepared for the possibility that this *is* a permanent limitation. Never being well or suddenly being 100% well are both opposite extremes. If there are expectations, then I'm somewhere in the middle.)
2) My condition may not actually be as permanent as I'm worrying about. Despite what the internet communities say, I could have a major downgrade in illness, or experience total remission. The "how" of the body is beyond scientific understanding in many ways. I know this. I have seen and experienced this. Just because I'm not yet fully recovered does not mean this fact is less true. In a way I am special - I don't mean egocentrically, but that standard models don't fully work with me and never have - and I don't fully believe that I have to be consigned to any way of living. In other words this may be a time locked situation that will eventually expire.
3) I have been in those overwhelming "What the hell am I doing with my life?" situations before. They were long term (lasting a year or more). They also felt intractable and impossible. Then eventually things shifted and I gradually moved into new ways of living. Change was not necessarily cataclysmic or radical. Sometimes I made it that way because I was impatient. In the end the change was gradual and even subtle, but profound. My life is all about subtle power, so subtle that it is often unseen. From the outside looking in it may seem like nothing much is happening, but the universe within is reconfiguring. What I know about myself is that, despite my ability to flow, I can also get really, really stuck. Each time I get stuck I am somehow supported during my stuckness. Each time it may become agonizing until the "next thing" makes itself known. Often that "next thing" is amazing and beautiful. In the end I am always shown all over again that I am never abandoned... that love, awe and wonder can come in again.
The trickster this time is my health -- and of course, part of that trickster is not knowing whether or not it's a trickster. Maybe it's real and not temporary? Maybe the onset of all these health issues around age 30 was part of my intro into adulthood. Or maybe it's not. Maybe I can heal. Maybe...
One thing that emerges as I write this is that I can skip a few of the usual steps by just practicing gratitude. There is beauty in the breakdown. I have moments when my heart really bursts open like a kaleidascope I remember everything... past, present, future. The immensity of the oneness and the god force of which I am part. The powerful love that connects everything. The arising and dissolving of everything like a piece of music, played by the great mystery that is beyond my understanding. And through tapping that unknown, I feel found again.
As usual it all goes back to spirit. I trust that I am guided even if I'm challenged. I trust that there is something bigger than me that I am also part of. Even in my timult and insecurity, I am exactly placed in divine timing, in divine trust, and with divine love.
Genevieve just sent me a timely e-mail, as I am writing this. She asked her friend Grace Fox to do a healing prayer for me. This was the prayer:
"Lord, Genevieve has asked for prayer for her friend Jason. You know his needs on all levels, and I ask You to meet them. Bring healing to his body and soul. Open the eyes of his heart so that he will know and respond to the depth of Your love for Him. Redeem this man from the brink and empower him to speak of Your power and mercy to others who need home. We trust You for great things, amen."
Everybody on earth knowing
that beauty is beautiful
makes ugliness.
Everybody knowing
that goodness is good
makes wickedness.
For being and nonbeing
arise together;
hard and easy
complete each other;
long and short
shape each other;
note and voice
make the music together;
before and after
follow each other.
That's why the wise soul
does without doing,
teaches without talking.
The things of this world
exist, they are;
you can't refuse them.
To bear and not to own;
to act and not lay claim;
to do the work and let it go;
for just letting it go
is what makes it stay.
- Lao Zi, Dao De Jing
* To believe that our beliefs are permanent truths which encompass reality is a sad arrogance. To let go of that belief is to find safety.
I've dealt with such harrowing health problems in the past couple of years, and they continue. Maybe that's why I don't feel so victorious. There are moments of gratitude for being alive, like my time with Adolpho. I'm still here and that means something. I know that I am needed.
What triggered me the most this Christmas, surprisingly, was food... not being able to share a slice of pizza with Adolpho, or try some of his home baked treats. It got me researching online for potential cures, only to find that gluten intolerance is pretty much life long. I bought some GF treats for the two of us last night and they were garbage, pretty much. The idea of being consigned to having to always cook for myself in order to avoid exposures, or the idea that I can't share in deliciousness with my loved ones, has really hit me hard this season.
Intermixed with that is the general sense of not getting better. With each micro exposure I damage my gut, which hinders absorption, which sends undigested food into my colon where it causes inflammation. I have questions like... will I ever be able to really travel? Will my body ever have stability and safety? If so, will I be consigned to one location for the rest of my life? I think about the things I have here in Vancouver, like the organic food culture, the not-freezing winter, the general understanding of gluten free... I want to leave, but how could I? Where could I go? It's like I'm an astronaut with an oxygen tank. I have to have breathable air wherever I go, or take air with me. Food isn't joyful, it's dangerous... and it creates an oppression in my life everywhere I go. Yet all around me are people experieincing freedom to eat what they want, more or less.
This thing about digestion. Life being indigestible. Me being kind of like a hungry ghost... food everywhere but unable to eat it. It disturbs me greatly. It feels like a deep karmic lesson tied to health that I may never escape.
I think about Adolpho, and despite the great love and potential that exists between us, I wonder what I can really offer him. I probably won't ever work full time in this state of health. My acupuncture practice no longer feels right, like it's old news, like I should be doing something else; and I can't tell if that something else could already be happening if it weren't for this overshadowing health condition. In fact, I wonder about things like Adolpho's arrival in my life, about the trajectory that my life is trying to unfold with or without this health problem. Is the health problem just this karmic thing I'm supposed to live with, while trying to do what everyone else is doing?
There are times when I feel like my recovery is so close... like I just have to release one or two things, or iron out some old energy imprint in my body, and then boom I will be OK again. I believe in miracles like that. I believe in cures. But my faith is waning today... there is grief, there is sorrow, there is the sense that life is going to leave me behind. Even Adolpho, for all his altruism, compassion, and care... I wonder just how long he could tolerate my restricted lifestyle for before he would want freedom. I am with someone whose freedom is boundless and he won't tolerate stasis.
What contniues to give me hope...
1) Letting go of how I think things should unfold, whether my relationship or my path itself. My life may evolve into a situation, lifestyle or new paradigm that I can't possibly know or understand right now. There may be possibilities beyond what I can currently see. My current limited viewpoint may be what's injuring me and preventing me from moving outward. I can't look externally to people or things for signs of progress or guidance. My work in this life is clearly unusual and unconventional. (This is also balanced with the practical knowledge that I should be somewhat prepared for the possibility that this *is* a permanent limitation. Never being well or suddenly being 100% well are both opposite extremes. If there are expectations, then I'm somewhere in the middle.)
2) My condition may not actually be as permanent as I'm worrying about. Despite what the internet communities say, I could have a major downgrade in illness, or experience total remission. The "how" of the body is beyond scientific understanding in many ways. I know this. I have seen and experienced this. Just because I'm not yet fully recovered does not mean this fact is less true. In a way I am special - I don't mean egocentrically, but that standard models don't fully work with me and never have - and I don't fully believe that I have to be consigned to any way of living. In other words this may be a time locked situation that will eventually expire.
3) I have been in those overwhelming "What the hell am I doing with my life?" situations before. They were long term (lasting a year or more). They also felt intractable and impossible. Then eventually things shifted and I gradually moved into new ways of living. Change was not necessarily cataclysmic or radical. Sometimes I made it that way because I was impatient. In the end the change was gradual and even subtle, but profound. My life is all about subtle power, so subtle that it is often unseen. From the outside looking in it may seem like nothing much is happening, but the universe within is reconfiguring. What I know about myself is that, despite my ability to flow, I can also get really, really stuck. Each time I get stuck I am somehow supported during my stuckness. Each time it may become agonizing until the "next thing" makes itself known. Often that "next thing" is amazing and beautiful. In the end I am always shown all over again that I am never abandoned... that love, awe and wonder can come in again.
The trickster this time is my health -- and of course, part of that trickster is not knowing whether or not it's a trickster. Maybe it's real and not temporary? Maybe the onset of all these health issues around age 30 was part of my intro into adulthood. Or maybe it's not. Maybe I can heal. Maybe...
One thing that emerges as I write this is that I can skip a few of the usual steps by just practicing gratitude. There is beauty in the breakdown. I have moments when my heart really bursts open like a kaleidascope I remember everything... past, present, future. The immensity of the oneness and the god force of which I am part. The powerful love that connects everything. The arising and dissolving of everything like a piece of music, played by the great mystery that is beyond my understanding. And through tapping that unknown, I feel found again.
As usual it all goes back to spirit. I trust that I am guided even if I'm challenged. I trust that there is something bigger than me that I am also part of. Even in my timult and insecurity, I am exactly placed in divine timing, in divine trust, and with divine love.
Genevieve just sent me a timely e-mail, as I am writing this. She asked her friend Grace Fox to do a healing prayer for me. This was the prayer:
"Lord, Genevieve has asked for prayer for her friend Jason. You know his needs on all levels, and I ask You to meet them. Bring healing to his body and soul. Open the eyes of his heart so that he will know and respond to the depth of Your love for Him. Redeem this man from the brink and empower him to speak of Your power and mercy to others who need home. We trust You for great things, amen."
Everybody on earth knowing
that beauty is beautiful
makes ugliness.
Everybody knowing
that goodness is good
makes wickedness.
For being and nonbeing
arise together;
hard and easy
complete each other;
long and short
shape each other;
note and voice
make the music together;
before and after
follow each other.
That's why the wise soul
does without doing,
teaches without talking.
The things of this world
exist, they are;
you can't refuse them.
To bear and not to own;
to act and not lay claim;
to do the work and let it go;
for just letting it go
is what makes it stay.
- Lao Zi, Dao De Jing
* To believe that our beliefs are permanent truths which encompass reality is a sad arrogance. To let go of that belief is to find safety.