Owls and Orchids

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape”. –Charles Dickens

courtesy pinjarrahealthfoods.com

I am feeling more than a little worse for wear tonight, and that would have to be one of the most outrageous understatements I have made for some time. I have a high tolerance for pain, or a high pain threshhold. It’s really a matter of which way you wish to look at the situation.  Either way, the end result is the same, I have been pushed to the outer limits of my threshhold today and I am holding on by a thread.  There have been no tantrums but tears and many prayers. I have wondered if I lost any degree of sanity I may have laid claim to when I signed on for this. This being torture by any other name. 

 I described my “procedure”  earlier, this is the second part, the lumbar or lower back “procedure”.  Don’t  get me wrong, I have an amazing doctor and a wonderful assistant. They are kind and considerate throughout the entire episode, even asking if I would prefer to stop, have a break and start again. I appreciate their concern, however, when faced with 32 needles of varying sizes, (I should add that the small ones at the beginning, whilst being the smallest do carry a wicked sting and the rest simply become larger and, depending on the successful placement carry their own degree of ‘sting’ and pain!), it would take someone more foolhardy than I to agree to halt the proceedings.

courtesy oocities.org
To be fair I have been spoilt, pampered and cosseted since I left the doctors office by my wonderful and I’m sure long suffering husband.  Without him this would be no simple, never ending nightmare, but an ongoing and never ending sample of Dante’s Inferno!  Perhaps worse than the pain, which I know will eventually fade, is the feeling of facing future decrepitude.  An interesting definition, or description of decrepitude I found is:

“the state of being old and no longer in good condition or

 good health”

In other places it directly refers to being useless and feeble, both states I have felt in full measure this evening. There were times as I attempted to painstakingly shuffle from place to place that I had a clear and multicolored picture of a very old cottage, timbers riddled with dry rot, falling apart before my eyes. It was quaint, it was in some ways picturesque, it most definitely was real, and most importantly to me at the time, it accurately bespoke how I felt and saw myself in the future.  A future I should add that did not seem very far away! 

courtesy of wikipaintings.org

I was not feeling sorry for myself, this was after all, exactly what I had agreed to, and in the fullness of time, I believe I will be pain free and able to do all the things I have missed doing over the last decade.  Things I did and took for granted until I could no longer do them.

courtesy of 123rf.com

There was just one small hiccough to this positive frame of mind. Each and every time I sat down, or indeed moved, I got a clear and present warning that my back did not appreciate the treatment it had been subjected to.  What could I expect really? In all honesty could I expect my body to appreciate being used as a human pincushion! Of course not!

To add a little more interest to the night I was doing my Gratitude Journal, not as difficult as one might imagine, when I asked my Guides (spirit guides) to give me a sign that they were there, with me. It may seem nonsensical to some, but it meant a great deal to me.

 Suddenly, (doesn’t it always happen suddenly?),  I heard the sound of my resident owl calling, ‘whoo who, whoo who.’   It was my Mopoke owl. Depending on where you hail from, it is called a Mopoke, Boobook, or Tawny Frogmouth. He is beautiful and I love both seeing him and hearing him, but none more so than tonight when I was feeling more than a little low. This was the sign I asked for and which came so quickly. He stayed close by calling without pause for half an hour before he left. I am truly grateful for his visit. 

courtesy of thinktag.com

So, whilst still in pain, feeling somewhat decrepit at the moment, and unable to sleep, I have been shown that all is and will be well in my world.  I am going to find a semi comfortable position, find my meditation crystal, get my iPod set up with a good meditation track and rest.  Rest is what my body needs tonight and probably tomorrow and that’s the message from my owl friend, so that is what I will do. A few pictures for you which I cannot make my iPad cooperate with and “that’s all for me folks “. 

curtesy of davishypnosis.com

  “Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it…”