I’m in pain. Physically, emotionally and spiritually. I’ve experienced an incredible amount of pain in my life. I won’t go too much into the details, don’t worry. I don’t want to make this into a complaining fest but the truth is, I’m sitting here in a metal rocking chair on my lawn in the Catskills amongst dying trees feeling into it.
A large Spruce, about a third of the way dead from the ground up.
Two Hemlocks, likely diseased.
A Sugar Maple, dying from the inside out.
A Hawthorne, damaged by a recent ice storm and heavy winds.
And, of course, countless Ash, eaten alive by beetles.
The sun is shining. The wind is light with frequent gusts. Chico found something unidentifiable in the woods and is sitting in the shade under the Spruce chewing on it, occasionally snapping at insects around his head. I notice the birds have devoured the seeds in the feeders again so will need to give them a refill. Spoke to my neighbor this morning about a DIY plan to repave the communal driveway with crusher run. The bulbs I planted a couple of weeks ago are shooting up even though I realized too late I chose a less than ideal place for them to grow. Oh well. I have yet another painter coming by this afternoon to give a quote for the porch. Hopefully sixth time’s a charm. So many projects around here. The garden… the fucking garden, ground zero for the source of recent marital trauma. Heavy motherfucking sigh.
The author Gary Shteyngart wrote a piece in the New Yorker about his chronic penis pain. I’ve been experiencing dick pain for almost two years now. His essay is long and filled with medical details and at one point (or more) along the way he even considered suicide. I’m not going to belabor it but this kind of pain wears you down. The constant worrying that something is wrong and the dearth of answers about what’s causing it. It’s a mindfuck of epic proportions. Recently, I threw in the towel and did something I would have never considered, received steroid and lidocaine injections in my pelvic floor. I’ve done one round thus far and will be going for my second round on Thursday. I swear to fucking god, the pain is worse after the first one last Monday. And my lower back is now inflamed.
I’ve been told that the pain is emotional and, for the most part, I believe that to be true. As I’ve reflected about endlessly in other Substacks, my root chakra is full of unmet needs, starting from infancy or likely even earlier, from the echoes of the womb room. I’m either holding on to something tightly down there or have endured a solar eclipse sized dark shadow that was never properly filled with love, I don’t know which. Maybe both. My insides are inflamed and I’ve tried everything I can think of to do, or has been recommended by so many truly supportive friends and healers. I have no hope that this second injection will do shit. No doctors have explained this other than the pelvic floor guy who says my tissues are spasming and these shots should clear it up. Urologists have no answers. They suggest that they insert a scope up my ureter so see if they can find anything. The idea of that sends me chills as I sometimes wonder if this all started with complications from my prostate biopsy in 2022. That night I couldn’t pee and had to go to the ER to get catheterized without anesthesia, the single most painful experience of my life. After that, four days of spasming and perhaps damage to my urethra from the hard plastic tube inserted through the tip of my johnson, all the way into my bladder. I simply don’t want to stick anything else up my dick but if this pain continues, I may arrive at the decision to risk it.
The physical pain, if Gabor Mate and others are correct, is the result of over five decades of emotional pain. Recently, the big three are: mom’s OD in November 2021 (and two year slow walk toward death), prostate cancer diagnosis in June of 2022, and the breakup of my family in July of 2023. I’ve been living alone for approximately a human gestation period since the big bang in the pumpkin patch last summer, sitting with tremendous grief, anger and fear - the other big three.
All the dude ever wanted was his family. That rug really tied the room together. Sorry for Lebowski reference but this is the “nugget” of my life. I’ve tried so hard to get my rug back or maybe, I should say, to find my very first rug. The single most important thing in my life is family because it represents an unmet need that I’ve carried 24/7 since before I can remember. Taking a “You-Turn” recently has been the hardest thing in my life. Endless seeking, discovering that I have the power to nurture and care for myself through recovery, therapy, somatic healing, parts therapy, Ayahuasca, blah blah blah blah blah blah BLAH! And yet, through this recent gestation period of birthing myself, I’ve come to realize, I cannot do it alone. I need LOVE. I need TOUCH. FROM OTHERS, not just myself. Fuckin’ A!!! The rug is me, yeah, but in order to tie the room together, I need the rest of the decor. My thinking around all this truly has been pretty uptight and after all, there’s a little Lebowski on the way (me). Oh no, that sounded hopeful, I’m trying to wallow in pain here! Oh well again.
Last night a friend led me through a visualization exercise which helped me reveal some interesting information about what may be going on down there. I won’t bore you with the mechanics of it but eventually an image of a chalice came to me.
I imagined it filling with blood and watched as it grew veins, like the roots of a tree. The holy grail of internal relief. I’ve come to believe, sans any outside medical advice, that the blood is not flowing down there. I wonder if my blood is stagnant and the solution is to get it flowing again. In googling chalice symbology, I found endless affirmations for this idea, especially in the realm of Tarot (suit of Cups). Again, I’ll spare the details but overall, I think my deeper mind may be on to something here.
Last night I attended an on-line workshop on the medicinal and spiritual benefits of Yarrow (Achillea millefolium), also known as “the herb of the blood” or “master of the blood”. Is it a coincidence that I signed up for this particular webinar? And is my Achilles heel, the blood flow issue? Or is it the vast hole of unmet needs? Hmmm. It’s been said that “where our blood flows, our awareness goes”. There is a ton, I mean a shit-ton, of Yarrow coming up here on the property. Yarrow, along with a potential combination of Corydalis, Ginger, Damiana, Blue Lotus and Nettle Root, may help my chalice fill with lifeblood and maybe, just maybe, will also help alleviate the PAIN.
Perhaps I’ll plant a chalice underneath every dying tree and see what happens.
If yarrow is growing all around you listend to it -- fantastic herb for boundaries as well as blood and sending good thoughts for your journey.
Catheterization without anesthesia? How cruel.