Yesterday as I was nearing home after being away for the weekend, I experienced a state I’ll call “returning”. As I drove into my neighborhood, I suddenly became fully aware of having disconnected from my accustomed locations for a weekend.

I noticed a dance going on inside me between the strange and the familiar as I drove. It didn’t last very long. At first the commercial establishments on E. Cesar Chavez Street seemed nondescript, like they could be in any city, but very quickly I noticed an emotional lift, a connection, an attachment. This is my neighborhood, my turf, part of my world.

Nothing had changed in my neighborhood. It was me who had changed by going away and by returning, and by all the life that happened in between.

I wonder about all the countless times in my life that I have left and returned and did not notice this state the way I did yesterday.

My memories tell me that when I have returned, I have felt deep gratitude for the comfort of the familiar. I just never noticed that little dance before.

So. The retreat was wonderful. If you are interested in conscious dying, end-of-life decisions, home funerals, green burials, Texas law, how to prepare a body for viewing and burial, I recommend this workshop. Go to http://consciouslivingdying.com/for info.

In hindsight (hindfeeling?), it felt like a lovefest around the topic of dying. Each of those present contributed so much! Just by showing up, being who they were, sharing their experiences and personalities, feelings and thoughts, stories, even the Deadutantes! My circle has widened.

In my sitting, I have begun to converse with my pain. I feel it, and then I really feel it, even as it shifts. I ask it, “What are you about? To what do you want me to attend?”

At first the responses were about the difficulty of sitting still for 30 minutes. Yes, I know.

Then a bigger story about my body: You have persisted for 14 years at working on your body, discovering along the way that healing from that car wreck was complicated by previously existing scoliosis you had for decades. You have worked hard and found the right bodyworkers. After finally getting your spine aligned, now it’s down to the hips and adhesions. You have been cheerful as you moved, seekingly, from numbness to disorientation to pain and misalignment to more and more awareness. You received wonderful gifts along the way, like yoga and meeting healers and learning about anatomy and the body-mind.

This morning the pain’s story was simple. I feel sadness. I acknowledge it.

It’s been really hard.

I feel sad. And now, finally tears come.

What a strange day. Cold, snow expected. Did not get up early and meditate. Instead, I stayed warm in bed longer, then showered, dressed, and went to work.

Steady busy at work. Came out of a meeting to see snow falling. Glances out window while working, getting tea, talking with colleagues.

And then, it was too beautiful not to just stop and gaze out the window. We don’t get snow often in Austin, Texas, USA. Once every few years, and that usually doesn’t stick to the ground.

So I sat with my soup at lunch and stared out my window.

Snow is mesmerizing. The air seems much more three-dimensional when it snows than when it rains.  It seems to me that each snowflake being different, plus its lightness, make its fall from sky to earth unique.

Looking at snow falling is like watching a thousand tiny dances through the air. Some dancers are big and fat. Some are tiny.

I felt very connected to space, to the space between snowflakes, and to the space between you and me, to the space between everything. It holds it, us, all together, has a marvelously fluid nature, and is not water.

Then more work, colleagues leaving early, emails about nonwork issues such as how to plug a meetup and green cards. Work dismissed early, my skeptical mind rolling its eyes while inwardly exclaiming “whee!”

Home, sat, noticed sleepiness. Feeling peaceful, blissful, and now ready to go back out to a coffeehouse and do a little work before dark and possibly slick roads.

Today after I did my body scan, I recognized that I have often paid attention to my body in meditation — to pain in all its varieties, to pleasure, my chakras, my energy body, electricity.

My sense of hearing has been neglected. I gave it attention today.

I heard nearly constant sound from nearby I-35. A low hum, punctuated by an occasional loud vehicle. I can’t see it, but I imagine the louder traffic sounds are from big trucks or motorcycles and the low hum from cars.

Then there’s the sound of the occasional car driving past my house on this residential street. It sounds closer — the direction is slightly different.

I heard a conversation. It was between two men speaking English, coming from next door near the street. Laughter, a cough, as punctuation.

Inside my house, the slight hiss of the gas stove in the hallway.

The sound of my cat’s feet padding up to me, and her purr.

Then there’s the internal sound I usually filter out — the ringing in my ears. It’s  not exactly ringing like a bell, though. It’s closer to the sound a cricket makes, but constant.

I don’t know what this sound is. Am I hearing my own body at work? Is it my blood pressure? Or is it some malfunction of hearing that comes with aging? I don’t remember hearing it when I was younger. When I first noticed it a few years ago, I felt annoyed about it, and now I’ve gotten used to it. I am curious about the source.

My attention wandered from one sound to another. At times I seemed to hear it all coming in, and then I would notice something I hadn’t noticed before. My breathing.

I noticed that it is difficult for my attention to become engaged in an internal dialogue when I am attending to external sounds.

Everything I heard during zazen were sounds I usually ignore. Background noise, insignificant. Today these sounds filled the space around me and inside me. They entered my ears and filled my attention. The sounds of life as it is.

This morning, during zazen, I felt energetic pressure across the bridge of my nose. That area might be considered part of the third eye chakra. I’m not sure.

The energy was mildly pleasant and seemed to grow in intensity as I noticed it. It was a kind of light buzz, a slight tingling sensation.

It lasted for awhile — I’m guessing maybe 10 minutes.

Then it departed/my attention moved on. (Which of those came first, I have no idea.)

Later, I noticed it again, feeling lighter and milder than the first time.

The story that came to me about what’s going on is from my cranio-sacral therapist. She commented that our bodies are constantly rewiring themselves, and that rewiring occurs in a process that begins with intense activity, then a pause, and then a new pattern emerges. (My paraphrasing of what she said, don’t recall exact words.)

She said that the process speeds up with yogis and meditators.

So that’s what I think may have been happening. There was a pattern covering the bridge of my nose. That pattern had a burst of energy as it prepared to release. Then a pause, which was the release of the pattern. Finally, a milder sensation in the area, signifying a new pattern.

The story is really pure speculation on my part. I notice that I really want what I experience to make sense. I notice that I enjoy a really good story! I notice that I know it’s a story, and I don’t really know anything.

I don’t have a clue about what the pattern was, when I acquired it, how long I had it, or what experiences it was in connection with. This is often the case.

What’s most interesting to me is that my body/mind knows how to heal, if I get out of the way. And even without a story, the experience unfolds with mystery and delight.