Writing this post today feels appropriate somehow. The US has voted Trump. Germany is about to pass a law heavily restricting free speech. Gaza is being continuously, indiscriminately, bombed for over a year. Apartheid, occupation, besieging, oppression, war crimes…
Gut wrenchingly painful, super liberating. Liberating from delusion…
25th of December in 2001. I’m 17. Hallucinating in fever, shivering, refusing to go to the doctor. We had a Florida vacation planned. And oh my, how I wanted to go!
I had already started Yoga two years back. Well, my mum signed me up to counter the weed consumption and help ease my perfectionism. I loved the practice. Every Wednesday I was intrigued. By the power of the body-mind connection. Every Wednesday night I was at ease. Cleared. It was magical and worked. Every time.
That 25th of December my mum decided we had done enough home remedy and it was time to go to the hospital. They kept me that night and the next morning I was already in intensive care.
Toxic Shock Syndrome with Staphylococcus detected - never found the infection / entry - followed by multiple organ failure. Free helicopter ride to the next university clinic on New Years Eve due to kidney failure and the filling of the lungs with water. 3 weeks of artificial coma and multiple antibiotics, tests, treatments, meds, experiments, worries later I came back. And I wasn‘t the same.
Something happens at that gate between life and death. Layers strip, the veil falls, identification with body, stories, persona crumbles, it leaves a an empty, blank white page.
Friends and family, in their best intentions, wanted to reupload old stories. But somehow, they didn‘t stick. Not in the old way.
I reintegrated. Learned to breath, eat, walk again. Learned to trust my senses, balance, calculations again.
I took on my persona again - it‘s very hard to functions otherwise.
In retrospective I would say; it‘s been the most influential incident in my life. A liberation in its own. That extended and unfolded far into the future from that point on. A turning point. A discovery. Of the inner navigation. In some way also a clearing and tuning of the inner navigation. A stripping of layers that would never stop again.
I lost a lot of weight during that time. And so really painfully a lot of hair. Until I decided to shave at 3mm. Which was another death in itself. The identification with hair. Wow! How big, how strong, how powerful… how unnecessary. Another stripping of layer, very liberating.
Followed by many more very intimate changes in nutrition and behavior to serve a body healing from illness. 6 weeks of no sugar. No foods coagulating the blood…
So many experiences, news, diagnosis in this this time we’re gut wrenchingly painful and so liberating. Liberating from the illusions.
From the handshake with death I took a truth I later heard in a philosophy class about the recognition sutras by Christopher D. Wallis: Everything‘s in incredibly precious and nothing really matters at the same time.
That‘s the straddle. That‘s been with me ever since.
Life is so vulnerable, precious, so tender. Nothing‘s ever for granted, no thought, no breath, no movement, no connection, no hair.
It‘s all a gift. As long as it lasts.
And then when it‘s over. It‘s actually ok. There‘s nothing scary other then the things, features, love, desires, wishes, connections we can‘t let go of. That the only pain that awaits us.
That time I tested yoga from experience. And I have proof. Enough. For me.
There‘s something intriguingly liberating in seeing things as they really are! Not as we want them to be. But as they really are!
Leave a comment