The forecast says rain, and now the sky, also, says perhaps so. Yet earlier this morning I saw the sky full of pink light, and the clear, rosy brilliance of sun as the earth turned and gave the view of it over the lip of the hill. Hope. Affirmation of all things simultaneously present, the sun continuing to shine even if there are clouds, even if the place where I stand on the face of the earth is turned away from its shine, even if where I am it is night.

I live with Sjogren's syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue. There is no cure. That's just how it is. I've been down the Euro-American traditional resistance-to-illness road, and that led me to total collapse. From there I followed the allopathic path of Western medicine through lots of complicated, sophisticated testing and drug treatments. I dragged along, largely disabled. Then I began to explore other options. I found a medical doctor who also practices naturopathic medicine, who helped wean me off most of the pills. I simultaneously had acupuncture and massage and "energy" therapies. I explored yoga and tai chi and chi gong. I became ever more aware and intentional about learning about other cultures' spirituality, about practicing the kind of prayer that does not differ from meditation. I practice, practice, practice.

I learned to pay attention to my own body, to the flow of my very own, unique energy, to draw energy from the earth and air, wrap it around me like a warm blanket that comforts and heals me. I learned some ways that I can also, often, claim earth energy so that it can be drawn up to become firm and sturdy, a framework that supports me as I rise and go about in the world.

I learned my body lessons so that now I am often mistaken by onlookers for one who lives with blooming good health. Yet this chronic illness continues to exist as a fact of how I also am. And this recent respiratory infection has brought me back again to a necessary deep stillness.

This Thursday just passed, when I was going to miss yet another meeting of my journaling group, my dear friend and journaling group leader Dana Knighton said, "I have found something you must have now, I'll bring it by." (Such perfect gifts friends find for me, again and again, blessing me, blessing my life.)

She brought me a book by Kat Duff, The Alchemy of Illness (Bell Tower, 1993). Duff writes, "When I am bone tired, I cannot pretend to be happy or gracious, nor can I pass as perfectly competent; I am what I am and that is all there is. As a result, the ongoing exhaustion of my illness has slowly undermined my "good girl" persona and perfectionist habits I had learned as a child to steer my way through the land mines of adult psyches, and it has cultivated in me a self-attentiveness I now need in order to survive. I could not say I have the self-possession of a master, as my dream promised, but I do have the ability to pause and check in with myself while collapsed, and the license to say no to the things I do not want to do and yes to that which I must do for the survival of my body and soul." (32-33)

Yes. For myself, I find I often need to say no to many things I would like to do, to absent myself from things I would love to be part of, to limit my engagement with the larger world in order to not lose my ability to tend my close, immediate, basic survival needs. My body makes clear again and again that it carries my life in the most elemental way, and I must pay attention.

Your body, too, carries your life, and all your hours of experiences are included there. What do you notice, when you pay attention? How are you learning to pay attention?