The Pneumonia Dilemma

I have a persistent cough which is getting worse. The cough comes on at around the same time each year, which is before Thanksgiving, and persists until some point in the spring. It starts as an uncomfortable, fluid filled sensation in my right ear, then the right sinuses start to drip down into my lungs, then the cough begins.

My ex-wife (or soon to be ex-wife) called the cough my "neurotic cough", implying that at the very least it was psychosomatic, and at worst it was a conscious choice.

I am not in the least certain that each individual hack I emit is itself an expression of some moral or spiritual malady, but I am more or less convinced that my getting the cough so regularly and on such a clockwork schedule is evidence of a strong psychosomatic causal connection.

Lately I have been attending the Christian Science Church and reading Paramhansa Yogananda on Spiritual healing, all of this out of a growing intuition that such work will lead to the evaporation of mental states/dispositions that have been troubling me for decades. In the case of the cough, which is currently worsening, I have to some degree been following these teachings on spiritual healing by not taking my antibiotics. Whether or not I will take them at some point is an open question. I also yearn to cease the use of psychiatric medicine and to rely on a higher source to lead me out of oblivion. We'll see what happens with that one.

In closing this entry, I'll quote from Paramhansa Yogananda's book on the topic of self-healing, "Scientific Healing Affirmations" :

"Perfect Father, Thy light is flowing through Christ, through the saints of all religions, through the masters of India, and through me. This divine light is present in all my body parts. I am well."

(Now, where are those g*damned antibiotics anyway!?)

Trailbreaking

I will be posting poems to this blog every now and then. Here is one from 6/04.

As you know the paths about your own home
So certain facts are well-trodden
In the castle of your Mind
But life has other requirements - if you wish
You might grow outward like some plant
There are new territories, then, to traverse

Why remain on these often strolled paths?
Physically, even the Town once removed
From yours might contain a treasure
What of unvisited courtyards of the Soul?
Strange, knowing it surveyed from the heights
They may choose instead to pretend its limits
As the fixed and binary walls of necessity

It is necessary to step from the cliff
It is also necessary to know the explosion
And to walk hours through Darkness
To break the wheel-ruts - before they become
Tracks which but faintly represent the concept of Destiny

The Underlying Assumption

12/27

Hi everyone. I'm sitting at a fake wood desk on a concrete floor of a converted garage in southern New Hampshire USA.

This is the first posting in my first and only blog, "The Transmission of Light".

The inspiration for the name comes from a Buddhist text that chronicles the transmission of the original mind from Buddha down through the successor of Dogen in Japan, and slightly beyond.

The reason I picked the name is pretty straightforward. I intend this blog to be primarily, but not exclusively, a record of my spiritual quest. Tangential to that quest will be the posting of poems, narratives, anecdotes, etc.

It seems to me that getting it down on virtual paper will be an interesting way to help myself grow, self-observe, and hopefully receive feedback from friends (old and new) throughout the world.

Now I am going to go see if I can actually access this blog. Bye for now!