A funny thing happened… on my way to Egypt… in the year 2009. It crept up on me slowly from behind. The first part of it that I noticed was… systemic, one might say. I observed that, no matter how much went in… to my mouth… only a seemingly small proportion of it… was… coming out the other end.
There. Is that a polite way to say it?
SHIT ISN'T HAPPENING!
Late in the spring, early in summer of 2009. I noticed a lack of expression from my anus, then. As a result of aforesaid absence of normal profusion of bowel excrescences, I looked more deeply into the depths of the duat. I looked for a sign writ upon the face in the waters therein… for a message steeped within… the porcelain pot. There within the clear, still pool… half-floating, half-submerged… I saw a log. A rather odd log, or rather… a curious nug of feces
What I seemed to notice about this… odd stick, or, suspicious stool pigeon… was that it appeared be sporting a slightly reddish-tinged, clear gelatinous overcoat on the surface of its otherwise small, dark and dense character.
One might imagine that I was alarmed by the lurking specter of this anomalous anal oddity clothed in such peculiar glistening raiment in the morning bowl. But. It was a subtle thing. I made a note on a mental health chart, put it in a back drawer of my mind: Consider doing a parasitic cleanse at some undetermined future point. And let go of it.
But. It did’t go away. Even after a couple of months of… turning a blind eye and hoping. My way of praying. So. I ate some diatomaceous clay. Did an herbaceous colon cleanse. And studied my symptoms further on the computer, after looking up my notes from Heartwood, and… re-reading pertinent passages from Paul Pitchford’s good book, Healing With Whole Foods.
The clock continued to tick. I decided it was time to go to the Free Clinic in Arcata, California, where I was living at the time. To consult the local magi. To have a general check up. I had not had a physical, a medical exam, in decades. I was fifty-four years old. In the peak of health. Sort of. I surfed religiously, ate mountains of delicious organic whole foods, drank plenty of decent pinot noir, grew A-1 pot indoors for a living, and… fucked the socks off whatever came along on match.com.... for a maximum of four dates.
No. Actually. That was in 2008. My ignominious year of internet dating. But. We’re not going into that chapter here. By the summer of 2009, I had found my new “life partner”. Lisa Marie…
Back to story, please.
OK. So I knuckled under and went to the clinic to get checked out. There I met a nice young nurse practitioner who listened to my elaborate, highly detailed descriptions of… my list of symptoms. When I had finished filling him in, he said: Let’s see…. you are
fifty-four years old…. blood appearing in the stool… Have you ever had a colonoscopy?
Uuuuhhh. No. I answered him, sheepishly. I just knew he was going to say that.
I see you don’t have any medical insurance, he furthered. Is that right?
Why yes, I answered. I have always considered organic whole foods! to be my health insurance policy… and well… with no record of CANCER in my family history… I just didn’t think
I see, he continued. Well, I guess that’s what I would recommend at this point: That you get a colonoscopy.
How much is that going to set me back?! I pondered aloud.
Oh, about two to three grand, he admitted apologetically.
Jesus Christ of Ladder Day Saints… I mused. That’s more money than I have or care to rob from my old pappy, the pelican king!
So. I thought about it some more. And put it off. Put the unappealing thought… of a… an ice cold metallic robotic digital point-and-shoot camera winding up the dark dank… tender hamster tunnel of my ass…
Off for another day.
Then one fine day I was sitting at my kitchen table with a good friend of mine from Heartwood days. A Heartwoodie next-door-neighbor pal named Alfred. And I told Alfred about my symptoms, about my attempts at healing myself with whole foods, clay and colon cleanses… about the recommendations from the fine male nurse at the free clinic. And after going through a checklist with him of possible scenarios, the main one being pesky parasites
Alfred said, Nothing like a picture in black and white.
A careful re-phrasing of the saying: A picture is worth two-to-three-thousand….
And so I did it. Click Click Click… Or, they did. The gastro-intestinal team at Mad River Hospital.
And then it found me. The asp in my ass. The insidious scroll of signs. The murderous message sunken in my sigmoid. The meaning, the measure and the perilous porpoise…
Yes. It came from the east… a gift of water
It came to me last night, early into morning lying down in bed.... and that would be the best place to practice it.... just before dawn.... but, it really came as a result of a prayer, drawn from a moment of observation.... while walking along the banks of the Mad near the ocean mouth....
What I witnessed was.... the exact moment of stillness and balance..... between the force of water flowing down the Mad from the mountains to the ocean..... and the force of the high tide from the Pacific flowing up the river toward the mountains
Observing a stick floating in the river.... it became apparent that the stick was neither flowing upriver.... nor downriver... it had reached the perfect still point between opposing forces
Immediately, upon recognizing the perfection and power of the moment..... I sunk into a chi gong stance.... thrust my hands forward, palms facing the stick in the river, thumbs and index fingers of opposing hands touching, forming a triangular window....
Inhaling deeply, locking mula bandha at the bodily base, straightening and connecting my spine to the center of the earth magnet.... gazing through the triangular window.... linked, in deep seated well grounded chi gong posture.....
I felt deeply into the energy within and surrounding the all-encompassing moment
facing still river
vast expanse of clear
sky bleeding blue
beaming sun dances its bright reflection
scorching the surface of the river
ever-close ocean
with constant lion roaring
in my seashell ears
I thanked the River Goddess..... and the Great Ocean Goddess... for this demonstration of perfect balance, stillness and wholeness.... this perfect grounded, fullness of water.... this immaculate demonstration of peace.... sublime balance..... between two massively powerful, eternally opposing forces
this intimate moment of perfect lovemaking between the Pacific and the Mad
I stood long and felt into the moment.... watching the stick in the river.... rocking gently in a golden, flickering slash of sunlight.... angling from bank to bank across the surface of the stilling river
and then I asked to receive this powerful blessing into my body.... I asked to be allowed to feel the fullness of the moment....
the fullness, the completeness, the stillness of all of this magnificent power
held
perfect balance
in
