Well, the itching that I endured during an eight-day silent meditation retreat was not contact dermatitis after all. AND a yeast infection can be made worse because topical corticosteroids weaken the skin’s defenses and allow yeast infections to invade deeper into the skin. This week I have been on three prescriptions (oral and topical) and I am almost totally itch-free. This all ties in so well with themes from the “Awakening – As Sudden, Gradual and Both” Deep Spring retreat, and with a conversation begun this week with the Chairman of the Board for the Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center – a federally qualified health center in Kansas City, Missouri.
You see, as Barbara Brodsky stated so clearly, “Its not the agitation that is a problem, its the aversion to the agitation.”
Barbra continued, “The mind that is constantly worried about it is not part of the solution. The mind in stillness is.”
And then, “The only way we can resolve any of this is within ourselves.”
On the first day of the retreat, Saturday, October 29. 2022, Jackson (our 22 month old great grandson) had a seizure in the parking garage of Children’s Hospital at Erlanger in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he had been admitted on the evening of Monday, October 24. He was airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.
On the last day of the retreat, Saturday, November 5, 2022, he was re-admitted into PICU and placed on a vent.
“Sometimes you can not fix it. Sometimes you are living life one strobe light after another…” Aaron was speaking of Barbara’s having been awakened shortly after falling asleep many times hour-after-hour by a flashing, vibrating, strobe light. “She could not control the outcome. She could control what was inside her own heart.”
The folks in Kansas City are justified in being frustrated by the snafu in the system that leaves entire populations under-served and individual persons with less-than-optimal lives. But, every moment of agitation adds agitation to the universe. The world’s waters are chaotic.
Barbara Marx Hubbard told folks to ask what you are born to do and then follow the compass of joy. Samuel Ulysses Rodgers did just that. (See: More Than a Doctor: The Extraordinary Life of Samuel Ulysses Rodgers) The book demonstrates, through family stories of triumph over adversity, that core family values are the cornerstone of character essential to integrity-filled leadership.
Rodgers is not the only one who has a destiny to make a difference. One of India’s greatest spiritual teachers, Neem Karoli Baba, opened Larry’s heart and told him his destiny was to work for the World Health Organization to help eradicate killer smallpox. He would never have believed he would become a key player in eliminating a 10,000-year-old disease that killed more than half a billion people in the 20th century alone. Larry’s story, and his last name, is chronicled in Sometimes Brilliant: The Impossible Adventure of a Spiritual Seeker and Visionary Physician Who Helped Conquer the Worst Disease in History. Check out his TED talks about smallpox and Covid, and see if you might want to buy the book.
More importantly, please buy the truth: every moment of agitation adds agitation to the universe.
Thinking outside of the box, moving through experiences with presence, having an open heart, listening without judgment — these are the transformative results of RESTING.
Resting. Not wrestling.
I laugh about the many iterations of what we call everything other than allopathic medicine: alternative (coined by the AMA), holistic, integrative, functional…. the best comment I ever heard was when someone asked a doctor whether he practiced holistic medicine. He said, “Medicine is either effective or ineffective, nothing else.” Whether patient, doctor, nurse, care-giver — it is clear the system is in chaos. I could write a book about the ways a one-size-fits-all approach works (as well as with pantyhose). But, wrestling with it only strengthens it.
When I was a spokesperson for (at that time) holistic health in our wider community, I would say that a true holistic model considered the best of the West, and all of the rest.
My friend, Anna Marie, said imagine living with awareness of the wisdom within: “Somewhere in that person’s life, he or she has available the next thing needed.” I have said it only slightly differently: “There is no right thing for every one, but there is a right thing for this person at this moment.”
The love and support that is holding space for our Jackson is palpable. You could walk across water and never get wet we are being so held up. We do not know what the next moment will bring for him, or for us.
at Vanderbilt Tuesday, November 8, 2022.
What do I want to bring to the next moment? Awareness. Presence. An open heart.
Flight of the Garuda conveys the heart advice of one of the most beloved nonsectarian masters of Tibet, Shabkar.
This self awareness is naturally free from the very first. How amazing that it is liberated by just resting — at ease in whatever happens!
~ The Flight of the Garuda
