Dreamy woods and exploding skulls

Writing for me is bipolar. I have to wind myself up so that the ideas flow and then, once they do, they flow faster and faster until I make myself ill and come back down to earth with a horrible thud. The illness in my case is migraine.

It’s as if I’m fighting myself. Energy rises and then gets stuck in my right temple where it causes pain and nausea. Something is stopping me letting it flow safely on, upwards and out. I fear what all that energy will do when it reaches the top. Will it take me over? Will I go mad? Will I fall apart?

It’s the same fear that stopped me ever taking acid (LSD), even though when I was in my early twenties lots of my friends were taking it and living to tell the tale. I had too many dark corners in my psyche, too many monsters.

And it’s the same fear that stopped me ever responding properly to the hypnotherapy I tried in my late thirties. (Long story.)

Last week however, as I sat under an oak tree having signed off from the blog for a few days and with the migraine that had been dragging me down for days threatening to blow a hole in my skull, I thought bugger it. What could be worse than this?

I didn’t care any more. I’d spent the last forty years avoiding things because they ‘gave me migraines’. What if I stopped doing that and pushed myself over the edge instead? So what if my skull exploded? It was exploding anyway. So what if I went mad? I wasn't exactly sane now.

I did everything I could think of to disperse the blockage. I visualised the pain as a blood clot and massaged it with love so that it could relax. I did a chakra meditation: I imagined the energy rising smoothly, flowing out of my crown, and then falling back down like silver rain.  I sent my intention to the universe.

     

That evening my migraine vanished.

 

A couple of days ago, because I was bookless, I picked up my copy of The Magician’s Nephew, the first in C S Lewis’s Narnia series, to reread. I couldn’t finish it. It’s not one of my favourites (not like Prince Caspian  or The Silver Chair or of course The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) but one bit intrigued me. The two children are transported by magic rings to a wood:

    It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing.

    Digory wanted to stay but Polly disagreed:

    ‘This place is too quiet. It’s so – so dreamy. You’re almost asleep. If we once give in to it we shall just lie down and drowse for ever, and ever.’

    That’s exactly how I feel when I’m not writing, when I’m avoiding life because of my migraines, when I'm on my relaxing walks with the dog. It’s pleasant, it’s peaceful, it’s safe. But you can't stay there.

The dreamy wood Ellie and I went to this morning

 So here goes. I'm picking up the magic ring. I'm heading back to the real world. Wish me luck.