POSTCARD #212: Chiang Mai: The sound of the alarm tone is in the dream I’m having… which came first, the event or my comprehension of it? Time-sequence resolves itself when I reach around to switch it off and life as it’s lived in ‘me’ returns to a familiarity I recognize as reasonably normal.
Five thirty in the morning, another Chiang Mai day in the rainy season, caution, check, the headache is still gone… yep it’s still gone. The only disabling thing now is the result of the body’s reaction to the headache – backache in the wake of hurricane-headache. I can lie here for a moment and get ready for the pain as I haul myself into the upright position… not too bad; the osteopath said it would get better. Okay hobble off to the shower looking for handholds on the way.
Remembering now how the osteopath looked at me standing there, and after a moment said it’s the body’s response to the last 10 months of 24/7 headache. Mind has pulled the body into a walking crouch – a kind of protective posture; shrinking into itself, slightly bended knees, bent-over back, and head sticking out like a turtle looking at the sky… the sky is falling, oh no the sky is falling, and that’s what Henny Penny said. (US: Chicken Little)
I couldn’t feel the pain of it then because of the super-pain meds I was taking. Now I don’t need the meds, the pain in the body is felt. It’ll take time for the vertebrae to ease back into where they are supposed to be. Square pegs do not fit in round holes, exactly, and I’m truly amazed by the elasticity of everything.
So much has happened in the last few days all that can be accurately said is that nothing is fixed, permanent, unchanging. This knowledge I simply stumbled upon, how the body reacts, responds, and the mind or is it circumstances (?) reveal there’s a deeper awareness in here, dormant until something like the correct password is entered then it’s activated.
Now there’s the sense of just waiting to see, no urgency, no problem about how long it takes. Something I can return to time after time and it’s not hard to understand that this embodied identity I call ‘me’ is just not important at all.
There are no words to say properly what it is. Language is inadequate. My 12 year-old Thai niece, M, has temporarily lost the ability to speak, transfixed as she is in the digital screen. I leaned over and asked what she was doing and she just sent the picture of the sky above (the header image) to my email… ting!
“Thus there is, in a certain sense, nothing that is directly experienced except the mind itself. Everything is mediated through the mind, translated, filtered, allegorized, twisted, even falsified by it. We are . . . enveloped in a cloud of changing and endlessly shifting images.” [C.G. Jung]
dhamma footsteps 
And now it’s time to get in touch with your body once more. Let the prana move through you and heal you my friend 💛
It has to be something like that Val and I assume it’s started already. The osteopath remarked on the 12 inch surgical scar down the middle of my abdomen from colonic cancer tumors removed 20 years ago and the inference was, it’s not just the recent PHN pain that’s caused this crouched posture. I’ve had it for at least twenty years. My awareness of it really shone clearly. I’m looking for ways to get in touch with the body, prana, healing. Do you think it’s possible?
I do think it’s worth exploring T. Look for someone trained in yoga therapy.
Thanks Val, I spend so much time coming and going I’ll never be able to follow up properly on yoga therapy until I stop moving. So that’s the first step.
The body can only take so much. One thing goes wrong and it sets off repercussions throughout. And you have had long terms and past serious stressor. I have three herniated disks in my back threatening constantly with the sprained ankle. I am doing exercises on the bed cause with the sprained ankle can’t get down on the floor. These are exercises a physical therapist gave me years ago when I could barely walk. It’s all connected. Anyhow basically they are yoga for the back and core strengthening exercises. Maybe your osteoporosis path can give you some to do every day. Glad the headachesame are gone!!
I’m sorry to hear you are suffering so badly. It can be that something serious happens and the body suffers in unexpected ways. There are also karmic events unfolding, and one thing leads to another not necessarily on a downward slope. I’m optimistic about the immediate future because of the discovery that the headache can be so easily eliminated – even though it might only be for a short time. At this moment I find it allows me space to move and see what my whole situation is. Whereas before this disabling headache arrived I’d no idea what was controlling my life.
I am happy for you that got relief and can step back and look. At least, now there is an alternative to relentless pain.
Thanks Ellen, this is it, my attitude has changed – even though the pain may return in a few weeks, I can get another injection. I’m no longer having to face the pain going on for the rest of my life.
Haven’t been following closely lately–but it sounds like things are smoothing out for you–painwise. Glad to hear that. Hope it continues.\
Thanks for dropping in Gary, yes things are a bit more cheerful after discovering how effective the Nerve Block injection is. You know how Thailand is, I found the neurologist on the internet, went to see him the next day and within 3 days it was done.