Subtle stress

Wonderful sleep last night, though presumably the Traz is the reason for the astonishingly vivid, deeply realistic dream, or sequence of dreams. In it/them I remember feeling the exact cancer-related physical sensations I have in waking life. I kept waking up or becoming conscious in a new place, not remembering how I got there, or what I had done. I had the thought at some point that I need to just go with it, that if all this crazy shit was going to happen, there was no point in fighting it. And things got easier. But I would kind of phase in and out of knowing that, and wake up in another place. Finally, I went into a Tibetan gift shop and asked the lady behind the counter if she'd be willing to help me if she happened to see me wandering around. At first she was skeptical, but then she agreed. I woke up disoriented, still thinking it had all happened (perhaps it had...), but that this time had managed to land in my bed. Still, I had that rare and wonderful feeling of having slept deeply.

Dawn practiced some craniosacral on me last night. So relaxing, and so much energy, too...vibration and release. At the end she said something like that the left side of my body seemed less alive. This felt true to me, too. I should clarify that the night of having slept deeply is more likely due to the craniosacral than the Trazadone, which doesn't work that reliably and so far, makes me groggy the next day.

Padmatara came with me to Feldenkrais this morning and loved it. She said it was like going on retreat, so true. It is a wonderful, subtly transformative mindfulness practice, and I keenly feel the change, almost a softening of the nerves, by the end of the class. At the beginning of the class I am aware of the subtle stress - this sort of jerkiness - in my body that smooths out by the end. The focus of the lesson was the softening of the eyes. It was fantastic. Then Lands End, which apparently doesn't have an apostrophe, was exquisite, though I have to force myself to walk. I think the shots are giving me motion sickness (just from walking) and if I might add, turning my bowels to rock. I could take yet more drugs to counteract the drugs counteracting the drugs... So I came home and had leftovers for dinner and wrote in bed for many hours with my new heating pad on my feet. Watched Sweet Home Alabama which made me tear up a few times even though, or because, it was so sentimental. (Candace Bergen was funny.)

Monterey Cypress at Lands End

Here's a talk I enjoyed giving at a Gay Buddhist Fellowship meeting recently. Today Bhadra commented on Facebook:

Thanks for posting this. I listened to it and was left with a sense of relief and gratitude brought about by your sharing with clarity and without drama your personal experience of the human condition. The close possibility of death and the perspective it gives has been taught many times but when it becomes personalised it becomes a very powerful teaching. Thank you.

Here's a very good book, so far, by the late Darlene Cohen: Turning Suffering Inside Out: A Zen Approach to Living with Physical and Emotional Pain.