Today I awoke with that feeling of dread. You, who are awake, or are awakening surely know what I am talking about. I mean you have this whole day ahead of you, and it’s like, “What the ___am I supposed to be doing?
8:30 am. According to the Book of Hours, it is TERCE. The time “to pray earnestly to bring "it” to perfection.”
In an effort to forestall this question, I drink my Nespresso with oat milk, and an image comes to mind. Two big, very big hands, as in bigger-than-the-whole earth-big—these hands scoop up the earth and smoosh it into a ball, like a wad of paper and then toss the kit and caboodle into a trash can.
The next thing I see are these sweet little humans crawling up the sides of the can, trying to get out, trying to leave the destruction, in order to survive.
Seeing the final collapse feels good in a way and the crawling of the humans out from the rubble, that feels sort of good too. But, the thrum of a dull ache continues to pulse in my head. And a heaviness in my chest is unrelenting.
In my quest to relieve my dread, I continue my morning with a series of “practices” that I rely upon for a sense of well-being. Those who have read a few of my previous posts know that I have developed a “Rule” of living following the 7 essentials of well being: food, movement, creativity, nature, mind/emotions sleep and transcendence.
It’s up to me to curate my activities according to the balm that’s needed at the time, so next on my agenda? Yoga. Then, read the Psalms. And here I ponder these words, “In you is the very source of light; and in your light do we see light.”
12 noon, it is SEXT—”Build the energy. Be ablaze with enthusiasm.”
Moving on toward the light, I go outside for my walk in nature, and it’s raining. Still, I walk to the Holmes-Foster Park well known for it’s stand of very old Oak trees. They seem to breathe in my exhale. So here I decide is a good place for my Wim Hof breathing practice. I lay myself out on a picnic table under a pavilion and begin to breathe deeply. No worries about picnickers, it’s February in the Northeast of the USA.
Besides deep breathing, the Wim Hof method asks you to expose yourself to the cold. Jump in a snow bank, lie down in a cold Pennsylvania stream, fill up a bathtub with ice cubes, take a cold shower.
Cold exposure does a couple of things, both physically and mentally. First, your blood vessels constrict and relax through the process thus bringing more blood through the veins and more oxygen everywhere—more oxygen, more energy.
Next, your brain just stops, stops as in good meditation stopping, as in no thoughts, no emotions, just stillness. Be still and know….
Wim Hof is one of my special teachers. I like to find ordinary people who do extraordinary things. It gives me hope for myself and everyone I know who is pretty ordinary.
You may have heard about Wim Hof because he has become quite famous in some circles, particularly those interested in the superpowers of human beings.
As we all know, but hate to face, it is through extraordinarily difficult suffering that we “find the pearl of great price.” And so it was with Wim. He lost his wife to suicide. She jumped out of an eight story building and left him with four young children.
His words: “Do you know what healed me? The cold water. It brought me back into reality. Instead of being guided by my broken emotions toward stress and sorrow the cold water led me to stillness.”
The three pillars of his method are deep breathing, cold exposure and mindset. And, here is the biggest secret that I am learning from my “special teachers.” It is when the whole of the human is engaged, mind, body, spirit, that the miracle happens. The switch is flipped, the light is turned on!
Jim Karol, a magician and mentalist, is my latest teacher for being a human. I like his backstory—a former steelworker from Allentown, PA, he wanted to connect with people in a positive way and found he could do that through magic tricks. But, he discovered there is more to magic than clever deception. There is an activity of mind, body and spirit that can unlock human potential.
He has gained a reputation for memorizing over 80,000 zip codes in the US. If you met Jim, you could tell him where you live and he would tell you the zip code! I am currently under his tutelage, through his book, Ultimate Memory Magic. Why? Because, I decided that I could have a better brain—one that keeps track of names, dates, purses and cell phones. His practice of meditation allows one to memorize anything, any amount just by stretching, breathing, and relaxing.
After my deep breathing with Wim, I take a little time for Memitation. I breathe deeply and then recite a bible verse that I recently committed to memory.
“Without love the nation’s counsel is for nothing. The peoples plans are futile.” I repeat this over and over and I relax more and more.
As I lay in my alpha state, I consider the possibility of beginning my speech about medical freedom and free speech to the county commissioners with the above quote.
And now here I am, according to the Book of Hours, at NONE—3 pm. It is time to “Bring our work to a strong finish.”
My work today was to overcome my feeling of dread, to replace it with a sense of purpose, strength, health and conviction.
It took hours upon hours of breathing, relaxing, reading, studying, writing, and connecting.
I am a human crawling out of the waste basket.
What did you do today?
Well, *yesterday* I composed my letter to a small group of fellow-truthers, asking for their collaboration in the project you outlined in your post; Can You Play the Cello? I won't face the "authorities" alone but will happily script it all if they'll come along for the ride.
Today is just a whole bunch of small everything days.
Fantastic Article Elle!
my personal mantra is 'We are pieces of the sun'
I no longer get that feeling of dread you speak of. My fear level was oscillating for years through this time until it flat-lined afew moths ago, then just faded away to nothing.
Don Juan Matis speaks of fear to writer Carlos Castaneda, when talking about the '4 enemies of mankind' FEAR, CLARITY, POWER and then finally OLD AGE. Old age, he says, is not something that can be overcome in a the physical but he believes that our awareness can be separated from our human mould before death, if we recount our lives honestly and share our total knowledge with the world before we die. (this is a simplification)
https://justindaws.substack.com