The Cold from H(eaven)

Someone I loved once gave me a
box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

~Mary Oliver

I wake this morning feeling fantastic, compared to the past 7 days, but absolutely lousy by any other measure.

Like manna from the heavens, this is The Cold that keeps on giving. I’ve heard about its tenaciousness for months on Facebook, but only now has it blessed me.

The beginning of this journey brought fever–and poetry–the thirst for more words than “sore” to describe a throat: crushed-glass; barbed-wire; broken-sticks; skinned-knee.

It also delivered sparkling clarity–about what I was and was not going to do.  I was not going to work. There was  no need for deliberation. It didn’t matter that the annual conference was just around the corner.

Instead of fretting, I slept.

I slept dozens of hours each night and more into each day, like I never had before.

…And then, there was a sweet reprieve–which I mistook for recovery–and headed back into the office and out to my son’s performance at the elementary school.

The cough came covertly. I was in a meeting on day 4, and seemed to swallow my tea down the wrong pipe. I quickly ran out of the office, and spent the next 10 minutes gasping for air in the bathroom.  It remained silent for rest of that day. Until I crawled into bed.

For three nights, I barely slept from coughing. At the end of each day, despite my exhaustion, I dreaded going to bed because of it. I worked, briefly, each afternoon, and spent my mornings in recovery.

By the weekend, the tickling cough turned nasty–with a sound that would make a smoker wince. Some nights it would let me rest, but then I’d wake even more toxic.

For days I had no appetite, and then on day 7, as if the sun appeared after a long storm, my stomach growled.

This must be the beginning of the end, I thought, but then I examined the facts.  My oldest was 5 days ahead of me, and he was still coughing, while the latest sounds coming out of my own chest would scare small animals and children.

This is truly a cold from Hell, I thought, but I’m assigning it Heaven. Though it appears it will consume weeks of my life (my youngest has only just begun sniffling), it has bestowed a deep presence to what is, and letting go of what is not; rivaling any meditation practice.

When I arrived for my yoga teacher training weekend, I had to listen to my body–more closely than ever–to know when to participate, and when to lie down–even in the middle of instruction. I had to trust my body when it said rest, and then trust it again when it said yes to Sun Salutations.

In this crash course in trust, I didn’t rush to the clinic, or to a thermometer, but instead, decided to practice “self-referencing.”  I know this practice will serve me well, long after this Cold from Heaven has left our home.

Kelly Salasin, April 16, 2012

the DARK in me…

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

—Carl Jung

I’ve been expecting this post ever since I first discovered–hate–living inside (me.)

But it didn’t come.

Instead posts like this arrived:  I Hate You, and this: The Things I Hate; and even this: The Toilet Bowl.

When my choice of a toilet bowl for my latest Facebook profile profoundly disturbed others, I knew that something bigger was shaping; something bigger than I felt capable of delivering.

But I’ll try. Here. With you:

…Years ago, when I first discovered yoga, it gave me the biggest, blushing high. Later, it was more hit and miss–sometimes releasing inexplicable anger instead of joy.

I blamed it on my neck. It had always been so tight.

But now I realize that it wasn’t my neck’s fault that yoga made me mad. My neck was simply releasing that which had been stored inside it for so long:

Unexpressed venom.

…In my life; in my conception of myself in my life, there wasn’t room for ugliness…. so I stuffed it or covered it up with something else.

Now, I’m much more aware and accepting of my feelings (a good therapist helps), but there are still some “unbiddens of old” lurking in the shadows. I mask them with anxiety or numbness, and if they are exposed, I label them as bad or wrong, even though I only strengthen them by doing so.

…In that first yoga session, twenty years ago, I awkwardly practiced the classic Sanskrit closing: Namaste, translated as: The light in me greets the light in you. How nice to live in the light!  How nice to be above all those who don’t.

At the end of each class, we yogis turned toward one another and toward our teacher–bringing our hands to our hearts–bowing lovingly, Namaste. There was once class, however, when my teacher did not end with Namaste, but instead added something else, translated as, The darkness in me greets the darkness in you.

This sounded like something from Star Wars; and I didn’t get it; though all these years later, it makes perfect sense.

Though I’ve never been able to track down that Sanskrit expression about the dark, I have found a deeper meaning for Namaste. Rather than the light, Namaste addresses the “spirit” or the “oneness” in each other. When we honor that Oneness, no doubt we must include both the dark and the light to be whole.

And so, it is, that I greet the darkness in myself, again–and in doing so pay homage to your own darkness too–in the hope that we can each see our own shit, and love it into consciousness.

Kelly Salasin, April 12, 2012