03/06/10 – En Route to Eldorado Springs

Driving by the houses en route to Eldorado Springs on Cherryvale Avenue – the issue of resources and who has enough and who doesn’t are reflected in how each house is maintained. The poverty and seeming lack of life is reflected in some houses with boarded up windows. I can see in these properties how the scarcity of resources evokes anxiety, the showing of paranoia and need for protection of your homestead, your family and your possessions. People who don’t have enough tend to be afraid of their neighbor and to suspect a villain at every turn. To look at these houses I feel the austere danger of potential harm welling up in me at the thought of approaching a window and peaking inside. The kind of paranoia that accompanies the dilapidated house, yellowed curtains in the window, with a tire in the yard hanging from a tree, piles of fire wood, an old beat-up truck in the garage, and tin cans riddled with bullet holes is the kind of paranoia that necessitates strong resolve and the ability to plan for the worst case scenario. When paranoia is strong, it gives birth to such things as the second amendment – the apparent need to bare arms to protect your loot.

I notice in me how the lack of resources and my lack of security through not having work evokes a feeling of paranoia. Over the years of taxing my bladder reserves, and my Liver and Gallbladder through years of heavy drinking and constant stress at work further added strain to the two channels that support moving forward into the world with confidence (Bladder channel), and with the necessary judgment and decision making abilities (Gallbladder channel) to plot a clear, strong, and steady course ahead in life. These two channels are the primary channels of my hair loss, and of my left hip stiffness, sore shoulders and back pain that flare up on occasion when decision making and exhaustion take their toll. These two channels are what primarily give me physical pain as a result of the many years of stress, anxiety, and constant decision making at work in an environment where we had no idea if our company would survive through the many years I worked there.

I notice in me how my low reserves of the water element evoke a feeling of paranoia. When water is low, the fear of the bank coming after me, anxiety of bills having to get paid, of not having a job, not knowing where money’s going to come from gives me racing thoughts, darting eyes, and an overactive nervous system (Bladder meridian). Unlike the deep Kidney Yin fear of constitutional reserves, this Bladder Yang fear is all to do with gathering, storing, and measuring out resources for day-to-day survival. Feeling anxious, thoughts racing, this subject, next subject – what am I going to do, how am I going to earn my living. What’s next? This nervous activity is exhausting to my adrenals, and taxes all my abilities, cleverness, and resources in determining how to make my store of monetary reserves last.

Decision-making power (Wood) to pursue a particular course of action isn’t strong when the Water reserves aren't strong. Nothing can be resolved unless security is resolved first. It’s very difficult to make any decisions (Wood) unless you have courage (Water) and know that you have what it takes to beat through what needs to be beaten through. This anxiety seems to intensify for me as we get closer into spring – as things start heating up and the promise of new movement is starting to shake things up. There’s a pent up energy that is felt as people are rearing to go. They just want to go – they have this impatience. Waiting for the spring to hit as soon as is humanly possible – counter to what nature wants. When the spring is ready, the spring is ready. I’m impatient with impatient people, and I’m impatient with myself and with my progress in most things. I want the wherewithal to go go go and forge my future not some day, but now.

In the coming of spring the waters of winter are loosed and the snows melt and everything starts to flow. The same way when people are ready to embark on a new project all of their resources, skills, abilities and cleverness are put to use in the execution of plans.

At the cusp of Water moving into Wood – of Winter turning into Spring is this frenetic energy – when will this winter end – when can we stop resting and just go! After I finishing these thoughts, I turned on the radio and some guy in synchronicity mentioned that he too has spring fever. He can’t wait to get out into the garden and start planting new lettuces and spring vegetables. Takes only a few warm days in the spring to get antsy. It becomes even more frustrating when the winter snows come as Yin and Yang alternate rapidly and finally resting in equilibrium within the rising of the Yang energy of spring. In the same way, when we go from rest (Water) into manifesting an idea (Wood), that initial start/stop and the frustration that accompanies clearing the roadblocks manifest most strongly this time of year in movement of energy from the Bladder and Kidney Officials to the Liver and Gallbladder Officials.

The anxieties and fears of water remind me distinctly of two personalities I’ve encountered in my recent past both of whom I suspect as Water constitutions. When we are afraid, we seek reassurance that everything will be ok. When a person is constitutionally Water the issues of fear, anxiety, boundaries and reassurance rise to the surface.

I’m reminded of J and his watery and dazed eyes that stare into the depths and reflect on life. Not wide with fear, but unsure of destination. Clever, quick witted, yet cool, reserved, controlled, held back and with clear boundaries. He evokes in me an anxiety to be around him – not knowing where or what he will do next – whether what he said is in jest, or whether he is being serious.

K with no boundaries gets into my face and her eyes are wild, wide, angry and on point. We became quick friends as we traded verbal wit over the year we got to know each other on the island. She invited me to a going away dinner party at the end of my year after I announced I was leaving to move to Colorado. A couple of my friends and I turned up at her house to find her completely drunk. She said she was sorry but she had too much anxiety to be hosting for people and feels socially inept unless she drinks. Come to find out later she did the same thing to sabotage herself on her first date with a new guy. She drinks to quell her fear of social connection. During the whole evening that followed she begged me not to leave, and was then seeking reassurance over and over again that I would be back. She made me promise four times before I left for the evening. I had to hold her hands and stare her in the eyes each time as I did so – but no amount of reassurance would satisfy her and as I finally said goodbye for the night, she dismissed me, convinced that this was the last time she’d see me.

As the cold air blasts me and forces me to recoil and curl in to conserve what's precious, there’s a recoil when I’m confronted with the Water element. A pause of sorts – do I have what it takes to have this interaction right now, what do I need to react to the situation appropriately. I find my reaction to be similar around J and K.

Having reached the trailhead of Eldorado Canyon I parked, packed my backpack and headed down the unknown trail towards the jagged cliffs in the distance. As I wandered through the wilderness on a path that had an unknown, but hopefully fruitful destination, with no one in sight, and having told no one where I was going – would I have what it would take to confront a mountain lion if its hunger sought me out, or would I survive the night and be found if I fell down a ravine and broke my leg? I felt myself watchful throughout the hike, taking extra care on patches of snow and ice. I wonder if this is the life of a Water constitution – ever watchful, ever fearful, always looking behind their back, always taking time to calculate each step forward, or feeling immobile in their place if they feel inadequate to the task?

I approached a treacherous set of steps covered with snow and ice that led 200 feet down into the canyon. One false step and I would plummet down into the gorge and fall in the freezing raging river below. I paused, considered turning back, but after taking a deep breath I wearily proceeded to take one small step at a time, carving out holes in the ice with the heel of my boot and my hiking pole wherever I could. Descending one foot gingerly at one time, I would calculate each rocky ledge and angles of impact I slipped. I held on to whatever solid object I could find, whether a rock, a tree branch, or a rock wall for support as I inched my way down the steps of doom. When we approach something that is treacherous and we don’t have sure footing and don't have confidence, we can slip and fall and plummet down suddenly into the unknown which is assured to contain pain or even death. Is this why the Water constitution plans out each plan of attack with meticulous precision and cleverness, backing down from any challenge unless they have assured success?

Having made it back out the canyon and to the other side, knowing instinctively that I had taxed my body to my halfway point, I turned around and retraced the 3 miles I had come through this terrain back to my car. Coming out of the switchbacks along the icy mountain paths I emerged back on a path awash with light and warmth. The birds were chirping here with great excitement for the coming spring. Shouting little tiny shouts – meep! meep! meep! - tiny little shouts, with great exuberance – Yay! Life!

As I sat on the side of the road eating a cliff bar and drinking water, four strangers passed me by. A brief lesson in Fire: Each of them had a different way of expressing warmth. The first woman in a bright green shirt with fiery red hair, with a bounding red dog ahead of her smiled brightly and said hi! The one that followed said a quick ‘hey’. The two guys after – one said a quick and short ‘hi’, the one after didn’t say anything, but nodded. The last girl didn’t even look at me but sighed and passed on. I noted that the warmth decreased with each stranger; the leader greeting and the cohorts following. I wonder if when the natural order of that posse changes, the order of warmth would reflect similarly?