October 16, 2013
Early this morning, for the first time in about ten days I felt strong enough to rise from my sick bed and follow the wind just past the gate near my house—a place where I can lean against my favorite boulder, high above the dry river bed, sip my hot potion of lemon and raw honey, and take in the panoramic view of the mountains.
I was just thinking how great it felt to be steady on my feet again when a large wolf-like coyote appeared in the not-too-far distance. At that same moment I noticed that little Chico, who was supposed to be home safe in his basket, had followed me and the larger dogs. Chico—so innocent and oblivious– looked pleased that he had found us on his own. I wanted to linger and study the coyote, but I quickly shouted to the dogs and headed back toward the gate. This flurry of activity caused the coyote and his invisible pack to start yipping. My own pack and I bolted through the gate, and I locked my dogs safe inside the house.
I couldn’t resist having one more look, from the safety of a point just a few feet past the gate. Sure enough, there were now three of them, looking almost blond in the early morning light and trotting down the same path that my dogs and I walk almost every day. One stopped to pee—just like a dog. What did I expect? They were moving in my direction at a good pace so I slipped quickly back behind the gate and waited for them to walk by, but they took a different direction home.
About ten days ago Mother Nature had her way with me, snatching me out of my busy life and dragging me into the underworld of chills and fever. She slammed me into my bed and told me in no uncertain terms, “I gave you plenty of warnings, but you ignored me. Now I’m gonna show you who’s the boss!”
I can perfectly understand why primitive people believed disease was caused by evil spirits, because it felt like two conflicting devils were in a raging battle inside of me. But truth is, our modern-day superstitions that blame hokus pokus flu bugs are not much better. I can’t in good conscience blame germs for my sorry state; I brought it upon myself. And now I had no choice but to surrender.
I had dutifully pushed myself out of bed to teach an early-morning yoga class. The room felt cold, although normally I have good circulation and an unheated room doesn’t faze me. About halfway into the 90-minute class, it was like someone had suddenly pulled the plug. You don’t realize how much effort and energy everything takes until your energy system collapses!
In the middle of that last class, I suddenly became aware of the daunting effort of merely walking across the room. Still not fully realizing what had hit me, I sat on the floor and instructed the students to go into various restorative poses. The students seemed far away –almost as if they were in another dimension. I had a strong instinct that I needed to get out of the building while I still could. So I ended the class a few minutes early, left it up to the students to put away the props, and headed straight for my car, which seemed a long way off.
I remember thinking I might just drive to a nearby residential street to lie down on the front seat and take a little nap. But, as I drove down the street, I reasoned, “I’ll just drive a little further, to my parents’ house, and lie on their lawn, in the nice warm sun, till I get my strength back.”
Then, as I passed my parents’ house, I reasoned that I was almost home. I coasted down into the river bottom, past the pigs, parked the car, left my stuff in it, and collapsed on my bed.
Even then I was in denial, thinking I’d be fine in a few hours.
But Mother Nature had a different agenda . . .
Continued Part Two: Deep Rest is the Cure
Tags: dogs, earthly concerns, journal writing, meditation, nature, Ojai, outdoors, writing yoga
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