Pain. There's no denying it when you feel it. The experience of pain is an intense sensation. Love is strong, too, but it's a little more nebulous. Physical pain is specific and easy to identify. This hurts, here. For several days now my neck and shoulder on the right side have hurt powerfully. It put me in a bad mood only moments before seeing music I love last week. It made work a chore today because my focus fixed on the discomfort within and removed me from the task at hand. Even sleeping hasn't been easy with my neck is like this, and sleeping is as simple as it gets. Last week I dozed off in bed watching TV and then slumped forward for hours snoring blissfully away. The next morning was agony. But whenever my neck feels like this, there is more to it than just a pulled muscle.

Emotional pain is harder to identify than physical pain, but no less real. Stress is a wound to the soul, and the pain of stress always comes back to live in the deep muscle that attaches my head of thoughts to my burdened shoulders. Where hopes wrestle with facts and ideas tangle with fears, my soul spasms and aches. They are burdens no greater than others'. They are fears no different than those that we all face equally, daily. But like my skin sliced open on a slip of paper, or a limb snapped in the snowy throes of adrenaline, the burdens and fears of life are real and mine and I must find ways to soothe and heal. Love is the antibody for wounds of the soul: the other body, other's bodies, other people, friends and family that help to heal the hurts that do not bleed and you cannot band-aid. If I can ease the stresses and ice the shoulder, I should be good as new in no time. Until then, though, I'll survive.

We are powerful monkees that work together well to create incredible things. But of all our abilities, that we can love ourselves and each other to heal the gashes of the spirit is truly incredible.

Oh and our music is pretty fucking great, too. Sometimes, so good it hurts.