This morning when I wake, anxious from fear, I focus on the right thought to be accompanied by the right emotion: Faith in Baba, and Baba takes care of me, which I repeat silently. Within moments my body feels comfortable.
I look at my painting of a "kermode" bear, swimming in teal-blue water. Its artist Kathleen Gray, describes it as the one out of every ten bears that is creamy white in color, rather than black—the one known as a "keeper of dreams" by First Nations from British Columbia and Alaska. In legend, this bear was made pure white to remind people of the ice age, when snow and ice covered the earth.
My fear is of smaller proportion.
My mother lived eight years with Alzheimer's at a lovely nursing home in Rhode Island. This past week, concerned by changes in my memory, I made appointments at a health clinic for a neurology exam and a PET* brain scan.
For a year I’d had occasional difficulty in remembering a word and had created a memory file where I logged each word when I recalled it—taking ten minutes to two hours or several days, but the pattern had increased.
In a comprehensive exam, my neurologist reported that I had "no Alzheimer's, no mental dementia, and no brain shrinkage … yet." So I left with an alternative medicine prescription for memory enhancement. That night I slept eight hours to wake with an absence of the heavy weight I hadn’t known I was carrying.
My realization is, "Words of faith and belief in the caring aspect of God comfort; while appropriate medical action may undo binding cords of mental uneasiness caused by anxiety from fear."
*Positron Emission Tomography