Gateway of Consiousness

 Mornings continue to be plagued by headaches, although they are less intense and more easily managed than that massive one a few days ago. I’ve gone back to some of my training in massage therapy school, twenty eight years ago, to relearn some shiatsu. Shiatsu is acupressure, like acupuncture but using one’s fingers or other tools to apply pressure to the areas of the body where energy is stuck and release it. I have known for some time that my headaches are caused by a tight spot in my neck, just below the skull and a few fingers width away from the spine. I have treated this spot as if it were a trigger point, a tight muscle, and used ice/heat/ice to release the tightness as well as pressure from a massage wand. However, in my reading about acupressure points I’ve learned a couple of things.The pressure point in the neck, the one that correlates to the same spot that is causing my headaches, is called G20, which means Gallbladder 20. It is part of the gallbladder meridian and is known cause of headache pain. The treatment is to apply steady pressure to both sides of the head on these points and hold it for 2-3 minutes. This pressure point is known as the Gateway to Consciousness, because freeing up the energy that has become stuck in these points enables more awareness and clarity of thought. 

The irony of these points holding energy, causing headaches, and inhibiting my capacity to be aware, think, and attend to the very soul work I am on this sabbatical to do, is not missed by me. I have come on this sabbatical, to this quiet place where I am spending days and nights alone, with only my thoughts, my painting, and my reading, (and a little music) so that I can go deep. These headaches are a distraction from that work, especially because mornings are my favorite time to engage this liminal space. 

My companion on this sabbatical is Jan Richardson’s book “In the Sanctuary of Women.” On this leg of the sabbatical I am reading her reflections on St. Brigid of Ireland. This morning the reflection was on the complicated art of the book of Kells, and Jan’s own connection with how complicated life can be. She wrote” Given the choice between the easy way and the way difficult, I sometimes tilt toward difficulty. I’ve found that my soul often needs to have something to push against, something to forge and form it.” This is different than when one causes one’s own difficulty by being overly busy or whatever. This difficult way that she writes of is about the divine intervening like the angel wrestling with Jacob, or the story of Hagar in the wilderness. The challenges that form me most deeply are those in which I encounter the divine in the process and something new is revealed to me. 

Releasing the energy, the chi (energy, breath) that is caught in this pressure point in my neck while I am intentionally being still and listening, is like me wrestling with the divine one. My body is stoping me from a full encounter. For now I am at the gateway of consciousness, wondering how I can open it and move through.