Same old, same old

Interesting stuff this resentment. Rev Olwen pointed out to me that the clinging caused by it is that which needs tackling through letting go. So I'm trying... My skin is really misbehaving itself tonight, it feels like it has lots of shooting needles and crawling worms in it. I can usually relieve this with anti-histamine, but as I just found out I'm one months pregnant (too soon to be certain we'll have a baby), ah's are out of the window. I'm not happy with the steroid cream I'm using on my skin too, but my dr assured me it would be ok. It has been proven to cause cleft lips etc in rats (poor rats), but the official line is if thats the best option for you, then your dr will ok it. Obviously not an entirely great decision to make.

So here am I, showing willing by not taking anti-histamine, and actually and rather mercifully not feeling nauseous. Another really useful opportunity for practice has been my morning sickness - not thrown up yet, but I now have a nose that can detect garlic and petrol at 100 paces. So useful! As I said it would be a good opportunity for practice, but I'm finding it totally impossible to sit back and observe whats going on. I'm not sure whether its all new, or whether it is totally different to ME, but it certainly feels like it. With ME there would usually be a semi logical explaination, something I had to change etc for it to reduce, but with morning sickness, it's quite never ending. Maybe my attempt at practica can be to be more compassionate to myself. No matter how many times I write/think/explain my spiritual journey, I always forget number 1, ie COMPASSION. Sorry for making you jump, but I'm so forgetful. So thank you to whatever it is that made me finally get out of bed and write, rather than remain and scratch, thank you for the reminder about compassion. I guess it will have to be practical compassion, ie not just sitting around feeling my pain or whatever, but carrying on doing stuff, with a lighter, less grasping edge to it.

You many have noticed I reffered obliquely to being pregnant. As I said its only a month, and right now, the shock is just about passing, and I starting to grasp how organised I'm going to need to be to plan my final year of MA around potential baby. I'm getting quite a few stomach cramps, so I'm not sure how potential, potential baby is. It's such an odd feeling, I feel I'm like the vehicle for another beings karma. I guess in a way we all are, but the prospect of motherhood, and more specifically a being growing inside me really brings that into focus. Tibetan Buddhism makes a lot of mothers and their care for their children. We are supposed to honour all beings as if they were our mothers, for at some point in our myriad previous existences, they would have been. The gratitude that arises is supposed to be very powerful. Sadly when this practice was introduced to the West, Tibetans came into contact with dysfunctional families, so the words sometimes get altered. I naturally have problems with it, which is a shame. Despite all the beatings, and shouting etc, my Mum did actually bring me up. I never went hungry, naked, thirsty etc, so you know I do try to appreciate the good stuff went on. As well as realising that my folks were in themselves vehicles for my karma, which I have in some previous life created. The shared karmic bonds between us that ripened at that point were not 100% happy ones.

Still miss Dad a lot, still find Mum hard to deal with, unless I turn on the light-hearted compassion button. So interesting to see all these shadows passing, see how real I make them, whilest forgetting that which transcends all, ie compassion.