Sir Lance-a-Lot
Boils are small things with big lessons. They begin deep under the skin, swelling with pressure until the pain is impossible to ignore. For thousands of years, people have relieved this pressure by lancing the boil, a simple act that releases what festers and allows healing to begin.
The Egyptians described it in the Ebers Papyrus around 1500 BCE, recommending honey afterward to prevent infection. In India, the Sushruta Samhita gave surgical instructions for drainage. Hippocrates, in Greece, made it almost a mantra: “Where there is pus, evacuate it.” In the Middle Ages, barber-surgeons wielded their knives, while 19th-century physicians in cities like Munich refined the practice with antiseptic methods. What was once brutal became safe, though the essence remained unchanged: opening what hurts so that it can heal.
That history has been echoing for me lately. I recently lanced a boil of my own, metaphorically, of course. It had been there a while, growing silently. I ignored it, covered it, told myself it wasn’t that bad. But pressure always demands release. And when I finally cut into it, with words and decisions instead of steel, the relief was immediate. The sting of the incision was nothing compared to the freedom that followed.
And here I am, in Munich, of all places, during Oktoberfest. If there’s ever a city that understands both the science of healing and the art of release, it’s this one. The Wiesn (Oktoberfest) grounds burst with life: brass bands blaring from cavernous tents, thousands of voices raised in unison, the clatter of steins slamming together in a rhythm older than memory. The air is thick with the smell of roasted almonds, grilled sausages, and fresh pretzels, and everywhere you turn, laughter carries on the autumn breeze. Camaraderie here is not an abstract concept, it’s tangible, frothy, golden, and overflowing from one Maßkrug to the next.
The gingerbread hearts swing from ribbons around necks and stalls, like heeds from the necks of Mardi Gras-goers, iced with phrases of love. And when I walked into my hotel room to find a gingerbread cookie waiting for me, it hit me: Oktoberfest isn’t confined to the tents or the fairgrounds. It spills out into the streets, into hotels, into strangers’ smiles. It doesn’t matter where you are in Munich…Oktoberfest finds you.
That gingerbread heart on my pillow was more than a tourist’s trinket. It was a quiet reminder that this season is about more than beer and song. It is about coming together, even briefly, in joy. It is about severing the past that no longer serves and leaning into the sweetness that remains. Just as lancing a boil frees the body to heal, the rituals of Oktoberfest free the spirit to breathe again.
Munich, with its long medical tradition and its exuberant celebration of life, feels like the perfect backdrop for this reflection. Whether in the careful incision of a surgeon’s scalpel or the thunderous roar of a beer tent chorus, the lesson is the same: healing begins when you release what festers. And sometimes, the best medicine is a stein in hand, a gingerbread cookie around your neck, and the reminder that we are never meant to carry our burdens alone.
Chewey, if there’s one thing I’ve learned here, it’s that life, like a boil, can hurt when it swells unchecked. But lance it, drain it, let it go, and suddenly the world feels that much better. Tonight, Munich is teaching me that healing doesn’t always come in silence; sometimes it comes in the thunder of a tent, the laughter of strangers, and the sugar of a gingerbread heart. And I’ll raise my stein to that, because, my wise Tibetan friend, this boil is behind me, and ahead is only the feast.
