So Thursday morning while doing some dishes I noticed a brief spasm of pain in my lower back. I had plans to volunteer that morning for Operation Turkey so I was hoping a little stretching and a hot shower would mark this as something transient. Halfway through the shower that was shown to not be the case.

I managed to get out of the shower and dry my upper body before collapsing on the floor. I lay there for a while, persisting in the fantasy that with a little time this would pass and I’d continue on my day. Eventually I gave that up, crawled to the phone and called my friend JJR, then the front door to unlock it and then finally to the bed where I was able to drag myself into it.

JJR showed up and helped me settle in for the day. I’ll spare the details but in addition to bringing to my side bottled water a half-gallon plastic milk jug was repurposed for... (think about it. :-) )

So I spent the day in bed. I’d crawl out occasionally to use / empty the milk jug but that was it. It was not until a little after 10:30p that I could stand (after a fashion) without worrying I’d collapse from the pain.

Friday was a little better but I tried calling my (Western) Doctor’s office only to conclude after 10a that they were closed for the day (no message to that effect on their answering system) anyway. Between reading and some napping I had spent Thursday thinking about this in symbolic terms and so this was not unexpected - I did not sense that this was going to be healed via Western Medicine.

In consultation with my homeopath I had tried a remedy Thursday which seemed to initially help and then not. Looking back I think I expected too much too soon (many people will experience relief from symptoms within an hour or so from taking a remedy, I tend to see results when looking back 6-12h later). I talked to her Friday afternoon and she suggested I try my usual remedy which I took Friday evening and Sunday morning.

Saturday and Sunday seemed worse than Friday - it wasn’t until Sunday evening that I realized that this was probably due to taking my usual remedy - a remedy is not a tonic, it can aggravate a symptom instead of alleviating it - hence the importance of really being in tune with one’s body and monitoring changes in it after using a remedy - something I clearly didn’t think about over the weekend (I was instead thinking that I was experiencing stiffness due to muscles healing / being used / etc).

Sunday night as I was going to sleep I thought I’d try a Chakra balancing meditation. I finally had a good night’s sleep and woke up early feeling better than Sunday evening and headed into the office. Other than needing to stretch about every 30m - 1h I felt much better than I had the previous four days (I think being up instead of lying in bed had something to do with it as well).

To bed early Monday night and up again early Tuesday morning and I realized that I could turn over with some discomfort instead of pain so I think I’m back on the road to recovery.

During this time a number of well-meaning friends strongly encouraged me to see my Western Doctor for muscle relaxants and/or pain killers but as I had sensed Thursday this was not the right course.

As a Zetetic I was seeing this experience through multiple layers of meaning (models).

Wednesday evening I had been discussing my feelings of isolation with my friend MM who following her custom had some interesting insights and gave me a affirmation / mantra I began using.

Given my past experience that transformation is usually intense this was my first thought as to what ‘caused’ the problem. This is the symbolic interpretation.

After thinking about it awhile I realized that it was also possible that I had probably strained my back Sunday afternoon when I carried a large box of pecans my children had collected up the stairs to my apt. I figure my body waited until they were back at their mom’s and I had 24h alone to do some errands before it told me “Hey Bub, you’re going to like, rest, even if it feels like it’s going to kill you.” :-)

This is the linear cause-and-effect interpretation which I found that in general my friends considered the ‘right’ or ‘correct’ interpretation.

Monday morning a new thought occurred to me, that this was an experience which helped me to continue to learn to trust myself - both by accepting that seeing a Western Doctor was not the answer as well as realizing that I needed to stop using my remedy which was not helping. There’s a lot of power in learning to trust oneself. This is the “what am I learning from this?” interpretation.

Looking back I’m happy with my response to this experience - it obviously threw a huge wrench into my plans for the four days I had to myself and I could have moaned and bitched about it but I didn’t - I felt that I flowed with the experience - being able to see multiple meanings in the experience while it was happening represents for me a big step in my growth (Note to Universe: but I’d still prefer to experience something more pleasant on my Christmas break... :-) ).