A knot of fire between my shoulder blades jolts me awake.
For hours, I wage a silent war against my own cramping body, desperate to turn on my side. I lie there, a prisoner in my own flesh, fighting the rising tide of panic that threatens to drown me.
In this stone-still darkness, my mind wanders down shadowed paths. The weight of paralysis presses like cemetery soil. Each shallow breath seems drawn through earth and root.
Like a moth drawn to flame, thoughts spiral toward future fears. Christmas approaches – once a season of joy, now weighted with questions. I picture my children’s faces in the glow of future holiday lights – will they remember their father’s strong hands lifting them to place the treetop star or the withered receipt of a life lived that will join their table this year?
The thought of contacting a lawyer tomorrow hangs heavy, a stark reminder that I must put my affairs in order.
My mind spirals, caught in eddies of fear. The disease’s progression plays out in vivid detail behind my eyes. I feel the weight of my chest, imagining a day when I can no longer lift it. Each breath becomes desperate, knowing that one day, they will fade to nothing beneath the suffocating pressure of my own breast. A draining sinus teases the back of my throat – once a minor annoyance, now the beginning of an endless and futile choking cough.
These thoughts loop endlessly. I fight to redirect my focus without tumbling into the abyss of panic that yawns beneath. The clock becomes both enemy and obsession. One, then two, then three. I check it compulsively, praying for the mercy of dawn.
I call out for help, my weakened voice a stranger to my own ears. But my caretaker sleeps the deep sleep of winter, unreachable as the moon. Nothing to do but endure the pain, struggle to cough, motionless, sweat beading on my brow, silently willing my straining bladder to hold through this long, dark night.
Today was the Winter Solstice – the longest night of the year.
Then, finally, in the velvet darkness, I remember not to flee from suffering or to fight it but to hold it as close as a crying child. What hurts? Where?
I breathe in and examine each unpleasant sensation as one might study a fallen leaf – its edges, its textures, its truth. How much space does it occupy? What parts remain untouched? Fear dissolves like morning frost as my mind greets each sensation with quiet attention. Pain may remain, but suffering ebbs.
My mind has spun tomorrow’s imagined sorrows into dark webs of fear, but this suffering lives only in my thoughts, not in this moment. Not in the world that is real.
The wonderful reality of this present moment holds only moonlight painting silver on bare branches, dry leaves whispering to the night wind, an owl’s call floating through pine boughs. The forest keeps its ancient vigil. The moon traces its patient arc across the sky. My sturdy house shelters me. I breathe. I am here. The blanket warms my feet. The darkness cradles me like still water.
All is well.
“He said: Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
-Rumi
One Response
What an incredible gift of sharing. Just reading the soft and beautiful passages help to calm the busy chatter just as the buds of flowers remind us that each day holds a gift. Thank You!