I have been here in Sagada, Philipinnes for the last 40 days. It has been one hell of a time. I don’t think I have ever been quite so low. In the worst of it I typed into my iPhone the following:
“This is the bottom. It can only be up from here. Let us focus on that. Really, truly focus on that. Yesterday i was all but paralyzed. Both literally and figuratively. My neck is completely unmovable. Today, I can move a little more. I have no money, no way to leave, I am sick and now feverish. What to do. Nothing. There’s nothing to do but just be with this.”
Sagada is in the mountains. Jesus also spent some time in the mountains. 40 days in fact. Time spent in the mountains tends to bring clarity of purpose. Just what I need. But, boyI would never have imagined the clairty would come like this.
When I got to Sagada I wasn’t quite sure were I was headed next. I also still was mystified but what was wrong with me– this unnerving numbness on half of my body. Note, that I say ‘was mystified’. In the spirit of a 40 day mountain pilgrimage, clarity has descended upon me through the ardour, the plight and the pathos. Dare I say “Hallelujah”?
While being stuck here, I figured I would take advantage of what for a Canadian is incredibly inexpensive massages. We’ve launched 1Mandala print sales to a 30 person test group, and the dollars from a sale go a long way here. Thank you Luisella, Yasmin, Francine, Ron, Ian, Nadia, Helen, ! I found an amazing masseuse here.
After a couple massages it became clear that I had some immense knots of tension in my back and neck. The type of thing that pinches nerves and accounts for my strange neurological symptoms over the last year. The knots go way back. I know, because I have had lots of massages in the past, but I’ve never had them go this deep. The knots must go back eight years or more. I just assumed the big bump on my shoulders was normal. But its not. Its collosal nerve and blood vessel impeding mass. And now that they are going away… I can feel all my tongue again!!
Hallelujah!
The gratitude begins to flow. As I pointed out to my friend Ian in a recent e-mail, I would never have made this discovery if I hadn’t been confined to Sagada for this long. It is funny how it all works and comes together. I have found both clarity in myself and outside myself here. I can see where I go next. Where?
Here. I am going to stay a little longer and see the massage therapy through. And with that… I can feel myself emerging from this dark night of the soul.
Funny too… the masseuse’s name is Dawn!
