A stupid reason for being sick
Published: Fri, 10/03/14
When I was quite a young child I had terrible problems with car
sickness. As soon as the car moved off I would start to feel
nauseous and on anything but the shortest journey I could actually
vomit. Not nice for all concerned. It wasn't as though I
didn't like going the the car, I have always been fascinated by
vehicles of all kinds and that love affair started at an early age
so it wasn't as though I didn't want to enjoy car journeys,
quite the opposite. Then someone explained to me why car sickness
happens, basically the movement of the vehicle causes the fluid in
your inner ear (which is effectively your internal spirit level
which enables us to keep our balance) to swill around and this
causes a sensation of nausea. It is however just a sensation and
has nothing directly to do with the stomach. But somehow the
ignorant brain thinks that the nausea must be something to do with
the digestive system and acts accordingly.
Once I heard and understood the explanation (I am not sure how old
I was but only six or seven I think) I remember thinking 'what
a stupid reason for being sick!' So the next time I got into a
car I told myself that any feeling of sickness was literally in my
head and my stomach could safely ignore it. I have never been car
sick since or sea sick. Many years later was an occasion when my
father and I seemed to be the only two people on a North Sea Ferry
during a very rough crossing who were fine. We were drinking beer
and eating salami rolls (the only thing the kitchen could provide
in the circumstances) while everyone else was either lying on the
floor hoping to die or heaving up over the side. I think my father
may have been the one who explained the reason for car sickness to
me, either way he had mastered the same trick.
So there is experience (the nausea from movement of vehicles or
boats can be real enough) and there is the response to that
experience which needs to be a matter of conscious choice. If you
eat something toxic and your stomach reacts by vomiting then it may
have saved your life. But doing the same thing because a boat is
rocking or a car is going around corners? Just tell your stomach
to mind its own business and your inner ear can mind it's too.
I have been thinking about this because the rune I am featuring at
the Stav Centre this week is Ur. Ur can mean purification and
strength through the process of smelting and refinement. The rune
poem talks of slag coming from bad iron, good iron is what is left
when the slag has been removed. The principle is simple enough but
the key to making this happen within ourselves is in silence.
Snori even refers to Vidar as the silent Aseir. It is so easy to
have a head full of thoughts and messages and ideas and all
conflicting with each other. The first step to finding our
strength is to silence all the sounds, inside and out which weaken
us. As a small child I learned how to silence the thought that the
sensation of nausea meant I had to be sick. The battle for the
rest of my life has been trying to apply the same lesson to all
other aspects of my life, as with everyone it is work in progress.
When teaching Stav it is as important to show students what not to
do, what is getting in the way and how to release it as it is how
to actually do anything. I will be happy to show you what I mean
on the 11th of October in Crewekerne or if you are in the USA I
will be teaching in Minneapolis on the 8th to 11th of May next
year. http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/train.html
regards
Graham