Something miraculous happened yesterday. A confluence of realizations that encompassed my whole Being.

For the last six weeks, I’ve been in the throes of extreme nerve pain radiating down the left side of my leg as a result of two bulging discs in my low back. Despite the maximum dose of a nerve pain medication, Ibuprofen, and a muscle relaxer, I have found each day a trial, functioning just above my pain threshold. Waking in the morning felt as if a faucet of pain had been opened. I rose painful from bed wracked with discomfort, contracted, crunched, humped, and whimpering in an attempt to walk from one room to another, to get my pills, start a fire, make breakfast, slowly, slowly feeling the pills unraveling my muscles until I could crawl, then kneel, then walk haltingly from support to support. In this manner, I’ve taught my classes two days a week and done the various forms of work I do from home on the other days.

Yesterday, I had an appointment with the specialist in Wenatchee, two hours south of here. It was a bright, crisp morning, and the drive wends its way along the Methow River through the small towns of this Valley and the vast, open spaces in between. I drove in silence without music or audio book feeling my slightly drugged mind and aching body. I was praying, as I have been recently, to the Mother of Compassion, accepting my thimbleful of the ocean of the world’s suffering as my due, offering my compassion to those who suffer. As I drove, the shadow of a bird flashed across the windshield, and I looked up to see an eagle soaring over the road from the river. I passed a sign, one of those Adopt a Highway signs that are prevalent everywhere, and beneath it was one word, Zen. In an instant, I merged completely with consciousness. I felt my body as a sort of blade slicing through the emptiness; I was both the blade and the space. I was subject and object. This feeling was deeply reminiscent of my embodied awakening as consciousness in 2011. I had been driving that time, too, and saw a bird in the New Jersey sky and a jet plane, and suddenly, there was a merging, an emergence of knowing that I was That.

In the office of the specialist, wearing the well washed athletic shorts they give me to wear before the exam, I sat in meditation while I waited. Again, I spoke to my body, honoring its process, and acknowledging the presence of suffering. When the doctor came in, I described my debilitating pain, my frustration, reliance on drugs to find a manageable edge with which I could function. As we reviewed the options for treatment, I asked him, “so you’re telling me that this is normal?” And he said yes. “You’re somewhere in the middle of this process. It could get better tomorrow, or next week, or in three weeks.” At this point, I burst into tears. “You mean I might have to continue to carry this for another three weeks?” It felt unbearable to me.

We decided to schedule me for an epidural injection of corticosteroids sometime later this month. He said, “you can always cancel it.” I got into the car and texted my beloved. “The good news is my strength is good. The bad news how I’m feeling is totally normal.” When I got home, we talked about the appointment, and I sketched out the treatment options while she cleaned up the kitchen. At last, we sat together, and I spoke my disappointment in learning that what the deep pain I am living with is normal for the process of healing bulging discs. She asked me what I had been hoping for. I’m not really sure. I guess I wanted him to tell me that he was going to fix it, make it go away. She said that when she got my text, she thought it was good news that it’s normal and felt relieved that nothing bad was happening in my body requiring some drastic invasive procedure.

Once again, the tears came, and I felt so deeply how disappointed I’ve been with this unrelenting pain. By my limitation, the constant fog of the drugs. At the same time, I realized that I’m always aware that I am resting in consciousness and can be present with all the layers of my Being, the drug fog, the pain, and my essential Being.

This morning, I woke a full hour later than usual. I was able to stretch out my legs and pull my knees to my chest to carefully roll into a sitting position. I stood up from bed. I stood up. Straight. No crunching, crushing, crouching; no whimpering. Yes, there’s still some pain in my leg, but I walked upright into the bathroom to take my pills, and then to the living room where I lit the morning fire, assembled my breakfast to slow cook on the stove. I walked back here to sit and write.

Am I healed? No. But something deep inside me has relaxed. My body, my embodied Being, has heard the news. There is a deeper surrender.

This is normal. It is normal for the body to break down. It is normal to have pain. It is normal to want to feel better. This is healing. This is how it feels to be alive in a limited, temporary, fragile body. I’m continuing to drop into this experience and savoring the sweet mystery of Being.