Chaos of Sound and Sound of Mind

crispy, dry leaves

Over a year and half later, and my mind often revolves around the events of late 2012:  strange feelings of unwell, couple of days in and out of daymares, hand-balances and arm balances and my near-enlightenment, imprisonment and the Alliance Health Center.

I returned home with a lot of hope.  I came home to a world that was changed and chaotic.  

My parents argued over placing Christmas tree lights on the tree.  So, in the hope of silencing them, I volunteered to untangle and place Christmas lights on a Christmas tree for the first time in my life.  I was thin and unsteady, but decided it did not matter.  I could not explain how hard it is to dangle upon a ladder with an aorta pulse swaying your whole body off balance.  I wanted to make the world better.  I wanted to be better.  I knew I could not explain how unstable my body was; it might be mistook for my brain.

This was to be the first Christmas with the first grandchild for my parents.  But, my youngest sister and her family had become estranged from our piece of the family.

Christmas Tree 2012

Baking Christmas treats to try to prove my cognitive function and to regain my patience and composure.  The whole world is more frustrating;  I'm absolutely overwhelmed by everything.  Sound is the most disturbing.  It is all amplified beyond my belief.  I just want to hear the natural world as it was.  I cry that I am lost in this loud place.  The subtlety of tree leaves moving in the wind, of crickets, of cats trudging gingerly through fallen dry leaves, are lost when all of them become exaggerated.  I hear electricity for the first time in my life.  I must be crazy, but I test my reality.  I plug the portable DVD player in, and I unplug the portable DVD player.  I hear the static, the charge.  I do this again.  I confirm it.  I am overwhelmed.  I jump at a sound that's too loud.  It is truly terrifying.  It is nearly impossible to tell where sound is coming from when it is all louder.  Is there someone in the garden or across the street?  I don't know what is wrong with me, but this is not something anyone should ever have to manage.  You can learn coping skills, but you cannot manage or control the modern or natural worlds.  

To see is not to hear, but we know what sound belongs with what image.

When you live in survival mode for weeks as I did, it is a great challenge to be patient and understanding with other people.  I just can't put up with squabbling over little things.  I can't deal with people who catastrophize everyday events.   I hold myself to a higher standard. I want to embody la petite yogini, who honors the yamas and niyamas. I struggle with my own bitterness and wonder what went wrong with my karma. Discovering and experiencing a darker side of humanity and a new level of ignorance is very difficult to come to terms with as my reality/our reality.