I have been quite ill in bed with the dreaded nasty flu for days now. Having time to lie there in your own misery doesn't seem very therapeutic but it is interesting what realisations come to light. Being slightly feverish also puts a different slant on reality.
I have always believed that we get sick because our psyches, our souls get sick. Watching a program about Gurrumal Yunupingu last night on Australian Story reminded me about that because they talked about a time when he became 'sick'. They didn't explain it from a medical perspective but it seemed obvious to me that the poor man just didn't want to engage with all the Western nonsense associated with being a performer. Gurrumal was put under so much pressure to satisfy the greedy media and talk about his music and himself when all he wanted to do was sing. He got sick, which tells me that his soul got sick.
I think when we do things that don't fit our own sense of integrity we get sick, often just simply trying to fit into a world or belief systems that just don't work for us, doing things we don't really want to do. I have been thinking long and hard about that over the last few days because I realised that for me to get this sick, when I don't even usually catch a cold, there must be something pretty big going on.
I also watched a really interesting show on SBS about dogs, how intelligent they are, how they can detect cancer and illnesses in humans and just how immediate their emotions are. For the last few days I have had two wonderfully loyal toy poodles on the bed with me. They have been keeping vigil, even barking at Robin sometimes when he comes in to see how I am going. Dogs are just marvellous creatures, calmly waiting things out while I get better, just being there, often lying up against me and giving me 'poodle Reiki' - healing energy. Dogs just zoom right in there, they head straight for the heart and soul of the matter. They remind me that life is quite simple really, its just the stupid humans that make it so damn complicated.
