Arteriitis temporalis

Your temporal arteries are inflamed. Vessels that supply your brain with blood — with life energy, with oxygen, with everything you need to think, see, and perceive — are swelling, hardening, narrowing. The pain sits at the temples, dull, boring, sometimes throbbing. Chewing becomes agony. Vision blurs. In severe cases, blindness threatens.

Medically, Arteriitis temporalis is an autoimmune inflammation of the large arteries of the head — a condition that requires immediate medical treatment. Viewed psychosomatically, an additional question arises: what is happening in your head that generates so much heat, so much inflammation, so much inner pressure? Why does your own immune system attack the vessels that keep your brain alive?

Your body is waging a war. In the head. Against itself. And this war has a counterpart in your inner experience.