Alchemy; appointed tasks

People are changing.

I see it in colleagues, friends, and family. Sometimes, I'm sorry to report, for the worse; but those are the exceptions. The amazing bit is, that some--many--most, even--are changing for the better.

And not just "better;" they're changing substantially. Conventional turns of phrase would call it a "quantum change," but my physicist friends would probably grouse at that term. Rather, I would say, they are changing alchemically. Like changing lead into gold.

I see people becoming themselves. Yes, of course it has something to do with "what they're doing," but  it's more of a cooperative becoming/doing thing. These people have started doing what they need to do. What they were meant to do. What they were born to do.  What they're here on this Earth, in this reality, to do, with/for/among us. And in this transformation, they're becoming so... amazingly... radiantly... beautiful.

Now, what is one of the first things we M.S.ers learn, once we "join the neurological club"? You only have so much control, so much energy, so much... everything. Do what's most important, because you've only got so much to do it with. Choose carefully, because how you spent your fortune of time/energy/life matters very much... because you have less of it to spend than you think.

I know I'm starting to sound like a Victorian sundial (the era in which sundials that used to read "I count none but sunny hours" started reading "It's later than you think"), but we M.S.ers learn very quickly and sometimes very painfully, that every moment matters. My kyudo teacher, who is becoming a Zen monk (if he wasn't there already), teaches that there are no "unimportant" moments; walking up to the shooting line is as important as shooting, and cleaning the dojo before and after practice is as important as, if not more important than, the practice itself.

And I see more and more that we have a "thing" that we must do; because that's why we're here. To live in the moments that we live in, and do the things that we must do. That's why we're here, and that's what we're here to do.

And I see very beloved friends who have through other means come to that very same realization by traveling non-neurological roads, and they look great. Leading lives that many people would think would be tough and debilitating, they just keep looking better. More beautiful. More radiant. They are, as a friend of mine says, "spreading the shiny." Which to her thinking, and to mine too, is also what we're all here to do... to spread the shiny.

And blessed indeed are those who have found the road they are meant to travel. (What/who decided what they're "meant" to do? Not my problem; way above my pay grade. But when you see their faces, you can tell... they are indeed doing the things they're meant to be doing.)

As Galadriel told Frodo, "This task was appointed for you. If you cannot accomplish it... no one else can."

So here I am, neurologically "enhanced." I've been separated from the life I thought I was "supposed" to lead, that I very much enjoyed leading. I can't play the organ, timpani, drum set, or stand behind instruments in a percussion section; I've said farewell to the job as a high-school teacher at a place where I always imagined I'd die, Mr. Chips-style; indeed, I've said farewell to the entire "working world." I enjoyed that life, and that road, as filled with potholes as it may have been; but that road, clearly, was not my road.

And yet, I feel like this is the road that was appointed for me. I've been separated from the things, comfortable as they might have been, that kept me from this road, the road I've been appointed to travel. And now, being freed to travel it, it's time for me to travel it. With a wheelchair or whatever other assistance may be required, if that's what it'll take.

So this is indeed a gift of M.S. This is the road that was appointed for me. My doctor/acupuncturist/spiritual advisor/friend told me years ago, "You were supposed to get M.S." Well then, what am I supposed to do, now that I'm on it?

That, of course, is precisely within my pay grade. That is my task. And that...

I'm still working on. At least I know that I need to be looking for it, and that's the first step (if you'll forgive the locomotive metaphor) But, and this bit is very, very important...

I need to keep working on finding it. And then, finding it, really discovering what I'm meant to do... to actually do it.

A worthy challenge. For all of us.

Free lessons

Some "free lessons," courtesy of ... wherever such things come from. We each have our own name for the source of Life Lessons. One gets free lessons from That Place all the time, one just isn't always listening... But today, I'm not here to talk about the name of The Source, I just want to share the lessons it gave me.

One waking, one in a dream. And exactly the same lesson!

Waking: A very nice person is helping me load my wheelchair into my truck. The wheelchair folds in the middle (high-school-math flashback moment: if the X axis is the direction of forward motion, and the Y axis is the way your trunk goes UP and your legs go DOWN when you're sitting in the chair, the Z axis is the axis through which it folds). Anyway, in this moment of folding, he traps my ankles between the leg pads; I'm now trapped inside the wheelchair, the chair (and I) ain't going nowhere. Fortunately, I catch it, and stop him before he causes any harm.

And I respond very calmly, because I know instantly that he just didn't see what was going on... at least, not what I was seeing (and feeling, as the footrests captured my ankles). I had no rancor, no panic, no resentment, just ... realization. He didn't see it.

Dreaming: I'm back at my old workplace (or a "dream version" of it, which doesn't map geographically to the dream landscape, but like all dream landscapes, it has its own logic). A car is parked at the top of the hill, right next to the stairs that I'm about to descend... I get out of my wheelchair to walk--really walk--towards the stairs and the railing that I'm hoping to use to make the long trek down. I set my hand on the hood of the car, and its driver backs up (something I suppose he was going to do anyway). I don't hit the ground, losing my handhold on the hood of the car doesn't cause any harm to either of us; car backs away. I make it without incident to the stair-railing on my left, somehow attract the driver's attention; I'm about to talk to him, and then I wake up.

And awake now, I think... what was I going to say to him? I realize instantly that it was, "We didn't see each other." We didn't. No rancor. No resentment.

And the lesson is, I think, that there's zero rancor possible once one realizes that The Other was simply not cognizant of what you saw. They simply did not see it. There's nothing to be angry at, or about. They just ... didn't see.

Now all of us in wheelchairs have experienced this, or something very much like this. Our Pusher puts us somewhere, or leaves us somewhere, that from our point of view is a Bad Idea. And we forget that from their point of view, it was a Perfectly Good Idea. Or c'mon, why else would they have done it, had it not been a perfectly good idea?

And really, let's be honest, why do we--why does anyone--do anything? Everyone does everything for exactly the same reason...

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Life offers us many lessons. When they come free, without cost... the wise will listen.

And learn.

Moving targets; bean tossing

I've taken to describing my interfacing with the M.S. experience as "a moving target."

A couple/three days ago, I got up in the middle of the night to fumble my way to the bathroom, and I lost my "standing up-edness," and although I did have a hand on something to kinda control my descent, I hit the ground. Hard.

Your basic "land on your sacrum/butt" landing, but it was hard.

Ever since then, I've been feeling very "off." Plus, my butt hurts, as you could imagine.

Ever since then, I've been wondering whether I'm getting sick. With what, I don't know... not The Horrible Horrible Flu, not the fever/cough that my wife had for about a week. As of this moment, I think I may have... may have... left the "I'm getting sick" zone. Maybe.

But I think I may have returned to the "have to go to bed and sleep now now now" miasma. Not exactly "fatigue" as such, but an insistence that I have to go back to bed and have to close my eyes and maybe have to go back to sleep now now now...

I am so looking forward to my acupuncture treatment tomorrow. And very grateful that I finished the music people needed before they got to the "now now now" point.

Today is Setsubun, a Japanese spring festival. And although it's not astronomically equinox-ically "spring," I can definitely feel the change of seasons in the air. It's also the day after Imbolc, a Celtic "cross-quarter" holiday about springtime and renewal. A lovely day, a spiritual time.

So, in the Setsubun spirit, I'm going to go toss a soybean out the door, and shout "Demon out! Good fortune in!"

And then I'm going to bed.

We all celebrate spring in different ways. The Celts kindle fire, the Japanese throw soybeans at each other.

Humanity is amazing, isn't it?