Comfort

…I crawled into bed and the sheets felt like velvet. These same cotton flannel sheets have, for weeks, been unhelpful bystanders while my skin popped and prickled with invisible rashes. For a month or more my skin has been so uncomfortable, alarmed at every touch, with little itches and bits of pain, as if rubbed raw even while the visual surface was largely untroubled and smooth. No position, no clothing, no ambience could be relied on, though certainly a harsh wind or a hot blast or prickly wool was reliably uncomfortable. None of this was the skin I’ve known. My skin seemed to voice the world’s tension flowing through me no matter how I sought to comfort myself.

Then last night, before bed, I did an evening Dancemeditation with lots of friends on Zoom and the ‘real deal’ energy effervesced through me. We didn’t focus on skin, but the foci were simple and singular and attenuated. We arrived in a quietude. I drew my drifting mind to the effervescence in my being. It blossomed. The energy worked in me and I was at peace. My skin finally calmed, even became capable of pleasure. When I climbed into bed, the sheets felt better than they actually are. Curled in the plant’s boll I lay, breathing, the miraculousness in the puff of white on a stem whispering a lullaby to my skin.

This is no small thing.

Inner work is mysterious. I apply my steady self to soothing my frantic self. Calm down, Calm down. With gentle effort, I draw myself to simplicity. Always this is the work. Though I want to control how I heal—fix this by doing that—this assumes that I actually know what’s wrong. In truth, I rarely know the depth of the difficulty in me. How many of us know the invisible nub of our cancer? It seems we are always looking inward as the ‘aha!’ slips deeper down just out of our grasp.

Over time, having practiced leaning on Succor, which comes to me with utmost generosity, I see that even if I know what is wrong, I very likely won’t know the cure. I won’t know how to find comfort. But I can sink within and let the work do its work. The medicine and the healing. We can sink within and let the work do its work.

Comfort. Nothing is more precious, that feeling of safety and ease. It is so particular to each one of us, so intimate. These words are not about skin conditions and illnesses, but about how the depth of a meditation removed me from a collective anxiety that had been rendering my behavioral defenses porous and inadequate. During the meditation, I slid deep into myself. Submerged in True Self, the solace of the All-Seeing Beneficence delivered me into velvet. And so I slept well for the first time in weeks.