Thanksgiving Day Delights

I spent Thanksgiving in great form – wrapped around my toilet all day and night with a violent attack of both vomiting and diarrhea. It was the perfect storm of giardia, food poisoning and a bad cold. I have to admit I’ve had a great run of over six months of no major GI (gastrointestinal) illnesses, generally eating and drinking everything placed before me. I’m now spending a few extra days in the Nepalese town of Pokhara, a chill, lakeside village with all of the standard traveler amenities. I’m popping a full-suite of antibiotics and trying to muster the courage to put something non-liquid into my body for the first time in over 48 hours… Fortunately I have a good crew of friends here, including my friend Diane from home and a group of people that we met on the trek. It’s always nice having something of a community to put that smile on your face when you are feeling ill.Obviously being sick places my body at the forefront of much of my thinking and has given me something to write about today. During my battle with the stomach amoebas, I found time to do a Chakra healing session with a healer that a friend I met in Tibet recommended to me. It was a very interesting experience for me, my first with Reiki and singing bowls used in an energetic session. Sabine, the healer, acts as a medium between the universe and me. She did her thing as I relaxed and focused on my breath and body. Certain aspects of it were much more powerful for me, and I had a sense that she was pulling energy towards my feet. Afterward, we had a nice discussion where she highlighted several things that have been themes for me from either my own work or have been brought forth in prior spiritual readings:

1. I have difficulty grounding – my connection to the earth through my lower chakras is very weak
2. My throat chakra is blocked, indicating that communication can be blocked (specifically inward, i.e., following intuition).
3. I need to rest more, to recharge myself.

# 2, the part about intuition is a big theme for me, as I alluded to it in a previous post. I think this will continue to be a process for me of listening more and more to myself, shedding the social constructionist and outward pressures from society and myself that define me through my ego-body. But that is a blog post in itself…Grounding and rest are where I want to focus right now. First, rest. Frankly I’m exhausted. Obviously the Thanksgiving day fun is part of this, but even prior to getting violently ill, I was finding that part of me was very, very tired, despite how much rest I was receiving. There are a million factors, but primary amongst them are the difficulties of travel, always changing location, having a different bed and new food every day, moving, moving. It’s also quite difficult to ground oneself in these circumstances (at least for me). I’ve been ignoring my body and some of the obvious signs it’s been giving me. I’m becoming much more aware in recent years of how the body often mimics psychological, emotional or spiritual issues. For example, I’ve been experiencing issues with vertigo over the past year – the beginning of which began when I began making preparations to leave my job, my home and many of my material possessions behind to begin this trip. Most of the time the vertigo has been minor, but at certain times (usually when faced with major uncertainty), I have had days where I cannot function very well. Most recently this occurred to me as I was losing someone close to me.Recently I also mentioned some ‘big life decisions’ that I had made. One of these is to come home in December to rest, to reevaluate and reflect on my travels thus far. I also had ideas (and hopes) around some aspects of my life that included other people. One of these doors was closed rather abruptly the day before I fell very ill, dealing me a very heavy emotional blow. Connection? Of course there are biological explanations to what was going on in my stomach – but the timing is just too perfect. You can dismiss this as coincidence, or recognize the powerful fusion between the many aspects of being.I don’t think I’m doing a great job here, but I’m trying to show the body’s sensitivity to life events, and also highlight a major piece of work in my path – finding the ground. It’s ironic because most people would look at me and consider me very grounded…. Level-headed, practical, etc. However this is an outward, material existence and cannot be mistaken for one’s inward sense. Just in the past two days have I really started to look at the things that I may have (falsely) used to gain a sense of ground without my own work: Things such as a career, financial security, relationships (romantic or platonic) with people who are very grounded. I will be coming home completely empty-handed, no home to hide in, no woman or career to return to. I will have to consciously do my own work of rooting, grounding. I had a conversation yesterday with a friend who discussed meditation techniques involving visualization of growing roots like a tree. I am going to experiment with this subtle shift as often meditation takes me ‘up’, not ‘down’.Sorry for blogging a confusing work-in-progress. We’ll just consider this a conversation starter for later….I will be back in Colorado in mid-December. There is a part of me that feels ‘defeated’ because I didn’t complete a full year on the road. However, I am open to every and all possibilities. Life may find me on the road again in a few months or it may find me remaining in Colorado, exploring existence in my own backyard.