.
   A few days ago I noticed, when walking the dogs, a particular feeling in my groin, an irritation, as though a pubic hair had worked its way inside me and was digging in.  Didn't think too much about it until having a wee upon my return and noticing frank blood.  Haven't had a period for 15 years so this was abnormal.  Did nothing, said nothing, thought alot.
    Richard left the following day for an errand in town.  I was ready.  The irritation was now accompanied by a feeling of 'fullness'.  Can't describe it any better than that.  It was as though I'd put on a few pounds 'there'.  Once he'd left I got the hand mirror and the standing lamp with the flexicord.  Put the lamp on the floor, got the mirror, dropped my drawers and had a good look.
     The problem was, of course, I'm not familiar with that terrain.  What was I looking for?  There was no errant pubic hair.  There was nothing that I could see save for a slight bluish darkness at the furthest reaches.  Was that supposed to be there?  Or was it the visible manifestation of something far more sinister?  None the wiser, I pulled my pants up and got the yoga mat out.
     The mind is a wonderful thing.  My mind, when frightened, is a wild  banshee howling incoherently in the wind.  Even yoga was difficult.  Kept forgetting where I was in the sequence because of fear.  Fear of cancer.  All that sex, all those partners.  It was bound to catch up with me.  All those years of smoking.  All those times I wasn't nice, thought bad thoughts, did bad things, I was going to pay for my sins now.  My mind had got the bit in its teeth and was off.  Every lurid horrible detail; doctors, hospitals, needles, fear fear fear.  In downward dog I thought about putting my feet in stirrups while some entity in a lab coat tut tutted at the most intimate and vulnerable part of my body. 
     I started to cry. 
     So I stopped it.  Lay back on those reins and pulled my mind up short.  This has to stop.  I have always believed that you create what you fear. If I was going to fear this, by god, I was going to make it true. 
     In a kind of breathless panic which masqueraded as meditation I tried to fill my body with light.  Between Half Moon pose and Trikonasama I created a whirling ball of white light and pushed it into my pelvis.  Throw everything at it, positive think it right into oblivion, crush that mother with the weight of nonbelief. 
     But that was just fear with makeup on.
     When I finally sat to meditate, when I finally pulled the over-caffeinated hamster off the wheel and breathed, the words, 'Stay Calm, It's All Right' came into my mind.  I seized them like the rope thrown to a drowning man.  And hung on.  And breathed.  And made them my mantra.  After a while, I was calm. 
     I made my mind up about a couple of things.  My health was/is my responsibility.  No doctors.  The revulsion, total revulsion of my being, against doctors and their offices, would cause more harm than any illness.  Doctors are best avoided if  possible.  The next thing was, I can change this, whatever it is.  I'm made of energy, energy is malleable.  This creation, while loved and accepted, (yes, my thinking changed that much!) had to go, had to be recycled elsewhere.  So every time I sat down for a pee, I visualized peeing this thing away.  Not with hatred but with love.  I'm not ready to go yet.  I'm never ready for a long drawn out illness.  I will die peacefully in my sleep when my responsibilities are met.  Right now, Richard needs me, the animals need me, and I need me. 
     Today, no funny feeling, no blood, no fear but alot of gratitude.  And love.  It came to teach.