I should be writing a post-Ostara, pre-Beltane work-up post right now, but I'm not. Soon – Beltane is, hands-down, my favorite pagan holiday of the year. Some of that is it's the one I started celebrating first, and as such, as the most history with me now. Some of it is also that it's not connected, even tangentially, to any of the holidays I grew up with. There's no emotional baggage tied to it, and I can look forward to that every year.
Anyway. NOT the Beltane post. I mentioned, a few months ago, that I was going to try a kick-boxing/muay thai class and see how it went. I'm still going, and not only that, but I actually like it. Two times a week, mostly, though this week I made it three. It's strange, for me especially. I've never been overweight, at least, not by more than 10 or 20 pounds. This is because I realized early that I could counteract the effects of laziness by ramping up the laziness to the point of being too lazy to eat. Two meals in a day, or a snack in the morning and dinner at some point around 9 pm, has not been unusual in the past.
Throw in the sleep schedule (non-existant), and the fact that I've been running around in a state of mild-to-medium dehydration for the last ten years or so, and it would be fair to say that I'm good, even practiced, at ignoring what my body is telling me.
But with this new exercising thing, I can't do that anymore. I'm hungry all the time now, in a manner that I can't ignore. I'm more in touch with my body and energy than I think I have been since I was a kid.
That being said, my body is a noisy, complaining bitch. I don't know how people manage to take care of themselves properly and still get other shit done. Every time I turn around, I'm either hungry, or thirsty, or sleepy, or (and this is really new), I really want to go do something. I actually did squats in the bathroom at work last week, just to get my muscles to stop vaguely twitching. It felt a little like being some kind of addict (Like, really? You can't get through the workday sitting anymore? What's wrong with you? said the voice in my head). Also, because I'm drinking more, I have to pee, like, 5 times a day. It's bizarre.
I like yoga, and meditation, and all of those things, but they never put me in touch like this. Losing weight is nice, but the anxiety slowly resolving itself is even better. Score one for the psychic. When I went earlier this week, I had the sudden realization that I like being at the gym. It smells weird, and there's some kind of music I can't identify playing loudly (unless it's Rage Against The Machine. I can identify that through sheer dislike.), but in the corner my coach and one of the amateur fighters were beating the shit out of each other (laughing, both of them), and it felt good to sit down and get ready.
Why is it that the media interpretation of the monk is all about a guy who can ignore the physical – walk through fire, sit through snow, work without food or sleep – but everything that reaches us from the East is about slowing down and paying attention to exactly that? The dichotomy bothers me. I don't know anything about Eastern philosophy, because everything I've heard combines to not interest me. It's not my path (except the yoga. My family path is bad joints, so I'll deviate enough to hopefully avoid them for a few extra decades.)
Meanwhile, as I'm interrupting all my normal patterns – eating better, sleeping more, drinking more fluids – I can see a new pattern interruption coming down the highway. Squirt is visiting from FL in mid-May. You know how family patterns develop, and stagnate, as you grow up together. She's the aggressive, athletic one. I'm the tolerant, techno one. Always been that way. Neither of us are good at adjusting to change, at least for internal family behaviors. We're gonna fight.
At least I get to have Beltane first!
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
