(Over)sensitivity; changes

The usual Tuesday acupuncture treatment; fortunately, I arrive not completely depleted, just with really low Fire and a little crumpled. A gentle treatment, to lighten the load and, for lack of a simpler term, a de-crumpling.

We talked about the extremes of sensitivity that MS can bring. One of the things that has definitely changed with MS is that I startle more easily, and much more deeply. He had some explanation for his theory on what parts of the brain might be involved in that phenomenon, but he said that another of his MS patients has the same "easy startle" issue, but in both of us he notices that we perceive things differently: he says we see more subtly.

Oversensitivity is making itself overfelt in other ways, too. Some of the problems I'm having driving is that I'm getting distracting, confusing data from my feet; and the bad data is, to borrow an auditory metaphor, so loud that it's drowning out the good data.

But, I'm basically feeling pretty good. I'm cooking again, something I haven't been doing for a long time (and something I've been doing for the nearly 24 years of my married life) and something I enjoy. I'm not really going all out, right now, I don't like standing that much or that long... but at least I'm doing it.

Also today, I discovered something within the I Ching that really resonated with me. One of my friends, whose opinions in such things I value extremely highly, said that in his reading of the I Ching, he had come to realize that the it was not divinatory in that it tells you what was "going to change," or what you "should change"; rather, it's about the process of change. Your life is so complex that you can't just up and change it, although major events, something like, oh, I dunno, maybe... MS... will change it, as would a death in the family or a move to Antarctica; instead, if you want to change your life, you make a small change, and that small change causes a small change that causes a change ... and eventually, your life changes. More of a series of dominoes than a thunderbolt.

Although, having been hit by a neurological thunderbolt, I can assure you that it does change your life... but now, you're left needing to make your own changes in your life, and you need to work the process. Slowly. Diligently. One piece at a time. (Much as I'd like to just have it fixed and get it over with... alas, it doesn't work that way. Oh well.)

And so, the hexagram that caught my eye:

The Wanderer:

Success through smallness.

Perseverance brings good fortune

To the wanderer.

Courtesy http://www.cfcl.com/ching/. Try it for yourself! What's most interesting with things such as this is not what it has to say, but what you hear when it speaks.