In a near-miraculous calendrical coincidence, it is both Pie Day and Steak and A Blowjob Day. So I hope you had a wonderful, wonderful day, one way or another. I had neither pie, steak nor blowjobs, but I did work from home and cook myself really good food for lunch and dinner, and go for a multi-mile walk through town. My body seems to have swung back into equilibrium, so I will keep eating strictly for a few days to solidify that, but I am overjoyed to not be sick any more.

Being sick, or having any kind of pain, is an excellent practice, because we want to shut it out, make it go away. Instead, if we explicitly allow it...if we accept it wholeheartedly, let it fill the whole of our consciousness if it wants to, and just let it be, quietly, it becomes an entirely different experience. The way I first encountered this was when lying in bed, and I'd gotten all relaxed and about to fall asleep, when something itched. I decided to see what happened if I declined to scratch it. The itchy point on my skin grows and grows in my mind, taking more and more of my attention, until the itch is my entire world, I can't think of anything else, it suffuses my entire being...and then, without really going away, it becomes part of my moment-to-moment experience. We harmonize like this all the time, accepting changes into the stream of our lives, like a new voice appearing, blending in and changing the character of the song: a new job, new relationship, ending relationship, a new car, a new food. If we pay attention, we can do this with everything, including our body, so we notice the ceaseless change of the world and adjust as it happens. My knee has been hurting this past couple of weeks, between the zazen and the aikido; if I don't fight the pain, it becomes part of each moment, often fading away entirely.