Since last I posted I have undergone yet another episode of synchronistic physical salvation but I have purposefully refrained from "telling this story" since these occurrences keep pointing me to continued and prolonged silent plunges deep into my soul.
I do not wish to appear glib, flippant, or breathless as I recount yet another providential pointing out of a physical peril. HOW to go about the narrative has been on my mind for months, and only now have I felt distanced enough to recount it as simply as possible. Why would this be an issue for me? Because to present it breathlessly feels too much like the sensational telling of an event that has sensitive personal meaning to me. This is juxtaposed against the sensationalization which is now the new normal of today's media, of all colors. Language itself has become corrupted in the race to capture attention in these oversaturated, overheated times, where the White Rabbit and the Queen of Hearts would find common ground with TMZ, The Real Housewives of New Jersey, and Fox news.
The other difficulty comes from the attempt to crystallize in language an ineffable experience. It is far easier to describe the medical findings that led to yet another "incidental" life-saving call than to describe how it was received in my gut, and what emotions fairly exploded along with the medical finding.
My "awakening" in November is another challenge. I am hesitant when I even type this word now, and I seek inside myself for that truth-testing that acknowledges once again the grace and amazement I experienced that evening, and how it shifted my being-in-the-moment forever after. Am I utilizing my highest integrity when I write about it here and now, or later? Can I look in the mirror and see a person free of ego gratification or exaggeration?
There is a certain degree of courage and fearlessness in looking into that mirror and seeing one's own face, says Dzogchen Ponlop. Our journey starts at that very reflection, and I am reminded that this raw reflection must not be compromised by drawing cosmetic changes onto the mirror, for once we move a centimeter, the changes stay behind on the mirror, not on our real selves.
It has been traumatic and testing for me to do just that---to look at that reflection with compassion instead of negative judgment, as had been my way. Others may see an idealized reflection in their imagination, and decide that the raw reflection must be an error on someone's part. But there is no external source that is creating that raw reflection, and getting a cleaner mirror or better lighting will not solve the problem. It is the curse and the gift that we see ourselves as we truly are in that mirror. No outside force or condition is responsible for that ugly image before us, AND no outside force is necessary for the revision of how we see ourselves...It is all at our own command that we begin our journey of working with our minds and our actions.
But the simplicity of this string of letters, "a-w-a-k-e-n-i-n-g", permits me to engage the reader in your own "take" on what I might have experienced then. It forms a dialogue with you when I type that word, awakening.....What does that evoke in you? Awe? skepticism? acknowledgement? I cannot control how you receive it, and to go into a lengthy description might be beyond my capacity to crystalize the fluid energy and emergence of such a gift.
As Ponlop reminds us when speaking of the pure essence of the dharma,
"This truth...can be likened to pure water, which we are trying to pour into various cultural containers. We can pour this water into an elegant, beautifully crafted Indian pot, a decorative silver and gold Tibetan cup, a beautiful European crystal glass, or a North American paper cup. The water will adopt the shape and reflect the colors of its container....The reflections of colors in the water are similar to the languages and social forms of each culture....When we reflect on this variety of containers, it is crucial for us to contemplate the nature of the pure essence of the water and not merely the container in which we find it. This essence is beyond all language and form."
So I type the word, I silently acknowledge that a dialogue has been tacitly engaged with you over the points and the waves, and leave it to work its alchemy.....
My dear guide Patricia helped me to revision the now ten month long retreat from interaction with the majority of the world as a fast, or what you might see as a retreat, or more pointedly, a bardo experience. What have I undergone since October? I have not been into a movie theater, have not dined in a crowded restaurant, have not gone into a mall more than once, gone on vacation, flown or taken the train, have not attended a funeral, wedding, baby naming, wake, or visited a friend in a hospital. My white cell blood count continues to decline, which is an effect of chemotherapy, and I must keep away from any possible source of infection. Along with the fear of infection, my energy continues to decrease which leaves me at home most days, often in bed.
Two weeks ago the effect of my 3 surgeries in the same area of my left chest plus the pain from the Taxol chemo cocktail left me in complete agony. My oncologist had begged me to see S-K's pain management doctor, and I kept refusing. When she heard that I was in despair and moaning from the bone and joint pain plus the 3 surgical sites, she went ahead and made the appointment for me. The next day I went obligingly, and burst into tears when this kindly doctor heard my story.
He mentioned that S-K finds it difficult to get folks into pain management; I have heard several hypotheses for this phenomenon, but mine was due to watching years of "House"....Here I was taking 2 oxycodones every 4 hours, and I was frightened that he would tell me that I had to be weaned off the only pain medication I was on. Addict, anyone??
To my dismay, he told me several facts: 1) my lung surgeon does not tell people the truth: that a thoracotomy will be intensely painful for one full year, and my 2 surgeries right by the thoracotomy site led to severe nerve damage and resulting pain. 2) Most patients such as myself are woefully undermedicated, and when cancer surgery is involved plus chemo, we need the strongest medications available. After all, I wasn't aiming to get a buzz on; I was trying not to consider despair as a way to get out of pain.
I left the office with the following regimen: oxycontin 2 times a day; oxycodone every 4 hours; Lyrica twice a day; lidocaine patches on top of the surgical sites and damaged nerves as needed. I am also still nauseated from my mismanaged pain medication, and am back on the anti-emitics of Zofran and Compazine. Oh yes... I can only eat white food now. Bizzare.
I also give myself 2 shots a day, because of the last (I hope) synchronistic medical finding.
In March I developed a sinus infection and a fever of 100.6. I had been schooled that this means an immediate trip to the local hospital, and a room away from any sick people....uh, this IS an emergency room, right?
But LO! When me and my bald head showed up at Valley Hospital, they put a surgical mask on me and rushed me into a far away side room with a closed door. The ER nurse put a blood pressure cuff on my right arm, since I cannot have blood pressure or blood drawn from my left side ever again due to the mastectomy and lost lymph nodes. I screamed, and my pressure surged to 180 over 100 (A need to put my physical being into context: I inherited my dad's very low blood pressure of 108/60, and anything in the higher 3 digits on top, or into 3 digits on the bottom is time to be concerned). Why did I scream, she asked? IT HURT, I answered, with less than intellectual specificity. After a bout of prodding, I explained that since I cannot use my left arm to carry anything beyond 5 lbs., I had been using my right arm to carry everything from groceries to boxes to pieces of furniture. And 3 days before I figured I had ripped a muscle or ligament, since I had a red, hot, ping-pong ball sized protruberance on my right arm below the elbow that hurt like hell.
She notified the ER Dr. who called for a vascular specialist, and LO! (I seem to be taken by these archaic forms of pointing out comments) I had a serious blood clot. I still wound up at Valley for 3 days of IV antibiotics for the sinus infection, but now chemo had to be postponed until I had a port surgically inserted into my right chest. That happened in early April, and that is where chemo or any blood draws are done. No Coumadin until I am off chemo; instead I inject Lovanox, a weaker form, that has dissolved the clot. The vein is dead and has left a depression on my right arm that looks like a 7" surgical incision. Yes, another life-saving incidental finding, and the "but for...." understanding.
My last chemo is July 5th, my personal Independence Day. Thoughts of my "new normal" have crept into my meditations. Little soft baby hair is sprouting everywhere, and soon I will be able to cast off the wig, which has been adorable but hot and "not natural". The breast prostheses are a difficult issue since they sit atop the 3 surgical sites and especially over the nerve damage from the thoracotomy. Every day I make the decision whether to endure pain for a balanced natural look, or to be myself and out of pain but obviously not in balance. I can put on the Lidocaine patches, but that causes pressure on the sites. So who will that new normal Lynne be? And how will I relearn to be in the moment with people other than the handful with whom I spoke and visited over this past 10 months?
This very situation came this week with our first dinner out with friends Thursday and a One Spirit Board of Directors/Leadership Circle meeting in NYC last night. What I learned is that I need to have the Witness evaluate the energy level that I "put out" into the field. Last night I was called to put forth some "fiesty energy" as one spiritual leader observed in order to make something happen that would be for the benefit of All. I wound up seriously energetically compromised today, slept 6 hours from 1 to 7 pm, and in some pain, but the cause for which I sent out from my slim energetic reservoir was worth the sacrifice. On the other hand, putting forth energy to meet the needs of another strictly to make them feel comfortable in a social setting is a noble move when the energy is readily available, which it is not at the moment.
Why have I called this entry "Exiting the Bardo", especially when we associate it with the Tibetan Book of the Dead? Because Bardo literally means "a period of time between two events", and it should be apparent that this is precisely where I am situated, leaving one bardo for another. What I will take out of this bardo includes incomparable understandings, realizations, comfort with life, death, impermanence and not knowing. I am comfortable with silence, always have been, as an only child. But now I can discern when my anxiety creeps up to prod me to "make someone else comfortable" at my own expense and in opposition to my own honest needs.
I have no need to sacrifice myself for the Other; I have held the glory of what I am without fiction or cosmetic application to enhance or obfuscate a perceived detraction. I deserve to be alive---yes, that has been a huge issue for me all my life. I can offer that which I have to offer from the clarity of my natural existence. I AM the vehicle through which I offer what I may, to we, to you and all of you. I have had superb guides in Patricia and Lorraine... I have had my two dear friends with whom we wrestle ourselves into freedom from error and mistake, Robin and Joanne... I have had a great cheerleader, my husband of 40 years, whom I have come to appreciate more than ever, Rick....I have an incredible noble and ethical daughter, Erica, and her loving and loved husband Simon....I have made subtle level contact with my grandson in utero, Adam, who will exit his bardo around Aug. 1st....I have my One Spirit cohort, especially Michael, with whom I hope to work for the rest of my life....and little soul Chloe, the best companion I could have wished for during the 10 months within this retreat.....
I will pause now and write more soon.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Borne Under the Sign of Cancer
I have a "blinking" interest in the entire subject of cancer.
By "blinking", I mean that I am a tad fascinated by this "emperor of all maladies", as Siddhartha Mukherjee calls cancer in his extraordinary new book. But at the same time I am looking through my fingers at it, wanting it not to be in my awareness even as my prickly bald head serves as a constant reminder of my daily engagement with clearing away any hiding cancer cells. My head now serves as a slide for the late winter winds that course down my back; scrapes my pillow at night with irritating groundhog-like spikes, and resembles a patchwork quilt due to the fact that I am not permitted to smoothly scrape it with a razor into a shiny reflective orb.
Thanks to the wonders of chemotherapy, nothing that goes into my mouth reflects a familiar sensory memory: water tastes like fish oil, fried foods must be banished from sight and smell; quinoa and black beans, a regular meal for me, can no longer even be present in the refrigerator.
I am losing that energetic "edge" I counted on my entire life to rev up my productivity.....the inboad engine that propelled me across personal and situational rapids is now still.....I bob up and down in the smaller licks of energy in this lake, taking the shifts left/right/up/down with equanimity, and, I must admit, I am enjoying being just where I am.
From Mukherjee:
"We tend to think of cancer as a 'modern' illness because its metaphors are so modern. It is a disease of overproduction, of fulminant growth---growth unstoppable, growth tipped into the abyss of no control....Cancer is that machine unable to quench its initial command (to grow) and thus transformed into an indestructable, self-propelled automaton."
He quotes Susan Sontag in her Illness as Metaphor when she compares tuberculosis as the illness for the 19th Century. Cancer, he argues, is our metaphor in this age of desparate individualism. The origin of the dreaded word metastasis "is a curious mix of meta and stasis---"beyond stillness" in Latin---an unmoored, partially unstable state that captures the peculiar instability of modernity."
Cancer is the pathology of excess, the expansionist disease, setting up colonies and raping the natives. "It lives deparately, inventively, fiercely, territorially, cannily, and defensively---at times, as if teaching us how to survive. To confornt cancer is to encounter a parallel species, one perhaps more adapted to survival than even we are."
Cancer thinks it is God.
It colonizes from one primordial Master Cancer Cell...and then it evolves! As this chemo in my body destroys the breast cancer cells, some that are more adapted to survival and growth can mutate. That is the ever-present fear.
How old is this scourge, so that we do not make the magical mistake of presuming it came upon us in modernity to serve as a warning bell? Louis Leakey found a two million year old jawbone that carried signs of lymphoma, and two thousand year old Egyptian mummies were found riddled with various bone cancers.
Apparently the first written record comes from Imhotep who transcribed his examinations of cancer patients in Egypt around 2625 BC. But then we do not read about cancer until around 440 BC when Herodotus wrote of Persian Queen Atossa's successful treatment of inflammatory breast cancer. So filled with gratitude was she, that she persuaded her husband Darius to invade Greece, which led to the Greco-Persian wars which altered Western history.
Regardless of these early mentions,cancer was a rare disease. Longevity and better diagnoses have added to the cancer figures annually.
Now to my personal "problem" with cancer: I was born under the sign of Cancer the Crab, July 12th as well as having two different types of cancer.
Being asked "What's your sign?" during the '70s and '80s would trigger my constricted attempt to rework my discomfort in having to admit that, rather than being Aries the Ram, Taurus the Bull, Gemini the Twins, Leo the Lion, Virgo the Virgin, Saggitarius the Archer, Capricorn the Goat, Aquarius the Water Carrier, and Pices the Fish, I was a feared disease or a nasty pincer in a hardened carapace. (In all fairness, let me note that Scorpio is a Scorpion, and Libra is the only inanimate sign of the zodiac. But still, cancer??)
"I am a Moon Child," I would coyly respond. Far better to be perceived as a luna-tic than a carcinoma. This dreaded word acomes from Hippocrates around 400 BC when we see the first mention in medical literature of karkinos, the Greek word for "crab", denoting cancer the disease.
"The tumor, with its clutch of swollen blood vessels around it, reminded Hippocrates of a crab dug in the sand with its legs spread in a circle....Others felt a crab moving under the flesh as the disease spread stealthily throughout the body."
This burden being carried about the body brought along a second linguistic association: onkos, Greek for load or burden, both physical and psychological, from which we derived oncology.
I will skip the centuries of misdirected and confused understandings of cancer, and will epecially skip over the horrendous radical cancer surgeries of the early 20th century. Such barbarism is best left to slasher flix.
It was not until the 1930s that "modern" oncology connected the disease to a hypothesis made by Galen around 160 AD: that "Crablike and constantly mobile, it could burrow through invisible channels from one organ to another. It was a 'systemic" illness, just as Galen once made it out to be."
And as the world drifted into a second world war, then into "cold" wars, the cancer researchers of modernity hit on a military theme of a Manhattan Project to "kill" the steadily increasing diagnoses of this horrific disease. We were at war. We needed an all-out attack plan. And in the forefront of our troops we had the Heroes, the Doctors! They were the Eisenhowers, MacArthurs, Pattons and Deweys of the War Against Cancer. There was one enemy, there was one cancer, and the Heroes could certainly track it to its roots and vanquish it.
But such was not to be the case. Cancer appears as hundreds of variants around a common theme. "Cancers possed temperaments, persnalities---behaviors." One size was not going to fit all. With the advent of chemotherapy, it became obvious that combinations of combinations of toxic drugs had to be infused, in a form of total therapy that the author refers to as "total hell."
To those who came before me, to those who endured 10-12 vomiting sssions every day during their treatment, to those who went under the scalpel numerous times in an attempt to root out the evil, I bow down to you for your trials. It is becasuse of you that I can sit at my computer and, although queasy and salivating what feels like fish oil, do what I wish to do today. I am so deeply grateful for your sacrifices, your courage, and your commitment to life when none could promise it to you.
Yet little by little, cancer by cancer, drug combination by drug combination, we began to see cancer patients in the 1960s showing signs that they coud remain cancer-free. The doyenne of cancer philanthropy, Mary Lasker, made liberal use of the moon landing in 1969 as the propulsive thrust to her War On Cancer which hit the national media Dec. 9, 1969. She used her wealth and media savvy to agitate Pres. Nixon to create a NASA-loke organization that could direct the battle against cancer.
Gone were the days of whispering about the "Big C"; from Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward to Brian's Song and Love Story, cancer had insinuated itself into the popular culture as it does into healthy cells. The enemy was within now, within us, maurauding, unheralded until such time as the system could no longer take the assault. The scalpel and the radical mastectomy heralded the Heroes of the War, with their rapier excellence hacking away at this cruel enemy within.
By 1981 the entire metaphor of combat had fallen into disrepute. The Heroes were actully butchering women; the chemotherapy trials were sadistic. The doctors fell back into being scientists looking at the data, if they dared....for the data did not prove their hypotheses.
We now recognize that the story of cancer is not really the story of doctors who struggle to survive:
"It is the story of patients who struggle and survive, moving from one embankment of illness to another. Resilience, inventiveness, and survivorship---qualities often ascribed to great physiciasns---are reflected qualities, emanating first from those who struggle with illness and only then mirrored by those who treat them."
And thus I come back to being born under the sign of Cancer. Such a dismal beginning from a socio-cultural point of view, far better the Moon-child that I can drape around my shoulders.
But what if----what if I read it to be borne under the sign of Cancer?
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Bear \Bear\ (b[^a]r), verb (used with an object) [imp. {Bore} (b[=o]r) (formerly {Bare} (b[^a]r)); p. p. {Born} (b[^o]rn), {Borne} (b[=o]rn); p. pr. & vb. n. {Bearing}.] [OE. beren, AS. beran, beoran, to bear, carry, produce; akin to D. baren to bring forth, G. geb["a]ren, Goth. ba['i]ran to bear or carry, Icel. bera, Sw. b["a]ra, Dan. b[ae]re, OHG. beran, peran, L. ferre to bear, carry, produce, Gr. fe'rein, OSlav. brati to take, carry, OIr. berim I bear, Skr. bh[.r] to bear. [root]92. Cf. {Fertile}.]
1. To support or sustain; to hold up.
2. To support and remove or carry; to convey.
3. To possess and use, as power; to exercise.
4. To possess or carry, as a mark of authority or distinction; to wear
5. To possess mentally; to carry or hold in the mind; to entertain; to harbor --Dryden.
6. To endure; to tolerate; to undergo; to suffer.
What do we glean from this reading? I am certainly not happy that I had to undergo this series of bodily, emotional and spiritual assaults. Had I a hand in this decision, I certainly woud have turned the "opportunity" away. My bald head is no mark of distinction. My wounds do not support me in any manner whatsoever.
But permit The Witness to apprehend the puzzling and dazzling patterns of my life as I have been borne by the encounter with cancer, and then let me attempt to sacrilize my journey.
I received the scary mammography report in September 2010 as I prepared for my ordination as the first Integral minister (along with colleague Michael Pergola) in Sedona, AZ at the end of the month. I had been working on the introduction of the Integral Mentors and Ministers program for a few years, and my energy was directed with laser-like focus on its professional unveiling.
As I sat with my gynecologist, I placed the program before any concern about my own health. I needed to know now if my life were in danger, so that I could cease enrolling students and end the program before encountering uncertainty over its ability to proceed. I begged her to find me a surgeon who might give me a diagnosis immediately, which she did. I raced to the surgeon's office and received her promise that she woud attempt a quick diagnosis. The results from the needle biopsy would be received the day that I returned from my ordination.
How and why does someone "create" an ordination for a group that has not yet emerged as any type of congregation? Because this is something that will emerge, I had no doubt, I felt that we should be prepared by maintaining an appropriate and supportive home. We have Christian ministries that are segueing into Integral ones, others that are commencing their functioning friom that all-inclusive perspective. Knowing how religious and spiritual orders have emerged and evolved in the past gives us a template by which we can best serve the future, andf this was my goal.
Not wishing to impose any dogma onto Integral spirituality, I hoped that by locating it at One Spirit with its tilt toward Integral, it would offer the best foundation for the future. And although I have no ordination or seminary training, I was a willing learner and participant. I concurred with Rev. Diane Berke's idea that I should take their 2-year interfaith ordination program so that I would at least have a modicum of seminary background. That began in September as well, but has had to be postponed during my treatment and recovery until next year.
With this consecration before me, Michael and I co-created the ordination before those who stepped forward in person in Sedona and on-line to form an Integral Spiritual Nexus. My thoughts on clerical garb were informed by my NYC Integral cohort, and we wore white outfits with 10 feet lengths of turquoise satin around our necks that drooped to our feet. The white was for the clear light to which we aspired, and the turquoise represented the level of self-development which we hope to achieve and within which we wish to function. Joining traditions was the fact that the long length of satin appeared a a yoke over our shoulders, which was to signify the yoga of our practice, and the self-selection of the "burden" of living within the highest expectations.
Michael and I co-ordained one another with the question as to whom we took as our spiritual guides, our inspiration, and those who would form our lineage. Mine were Plato, Hegel, and Ken; Michael spoke to his full Christian lineage.
Michael has spent decades within the world's wisdom traditions, but I, to be honest, have not, and have come to spirituality from my Jewish roots and then Buddhist traditions. Did I feel as though I were an Integral minister after the transmission? No, that, we agreed, would occur over time as I sank further into my covenant.
Many years ago I had covenanted with Spirit to live my life with as much authenticity as possible, and then engaged in deep reparative work. "To covenant" is to come together in mutual agreement, and I made this covenant aloud to the heavens forming as sacred contract that I would open myself to that which would most deeply align me with God/Love/The Mystery. To be very honest, I did not really understand what such a covenant with Spirit might entail, or I might have fudged the details a bit....
The ordination over, I returned to New Jersey where the oncologist met me at the door with a grim face. The biopsy was positive, and I made the instant decision to direct my care to Sloan-Kettering, the gold standard hospital of cancer protocols. As I have detailed before, it was a prudent choice given the three major surgeries I endured.
But I might not have joined together the synergistic events on or around the dates of thuis past fall: the diagnosis occured near the birthdate of my only child, my beloved daughter, 31 years before.
She became pregnant with our first grandchild on ior about the date of my mastectomy. THINK about this congruence. WRAP your minds around any karmic or coincidental understanding of this. The breast...the nourishing of my child when she was born 31 years ago that very month...the pattern repeats...I find it difficult even now to spell out what all of this might mean, or if it is just a series of inkblots on a page peppering patterns to our sense-deprived minds.
I have, nonetheless, undergone, tolerated, endured, and held up under extraordinary challenges. I have received blessings and awakenings to Spirit that I never would have assumed possible. I have also entered a time of respite, which comes from the Latin word for respect. I need to repair myself and to postpone any vestige of frenetic activity in order to respect the sacred changes going on within me. This does not make me special or distinctive by any means. It has never been part of my upbringing to openly respect my internal needs, and thus I am engaging in an overdue period of self-nurturance. It is crushing for me to admit that but for the 2 cancers, I might not have awakened to this holy need, and would have continued on a course of frenetic activity towards some ego-framed end.
Long ago dear friend and trusted guide Bert Parlee gave me a nickname of Righteous Rebel, and I have lived up to that tagline. Fighting for the good, the true, and the beautiful, I often overextended myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Being an admirer of Dzogchen Ponlop, let me now rename and reclaim myself as Rebel Buddha, one who is exploring what it means to be free.
I am in a Space I have never been before, a Space of luminosity, gratitude, quietude, and rest, rest, rest....I do not have the inboard boat engine revving up at exaggerated rpms to prove that I deserve to be alive. I breathe, therefore I AM.
I do not have the need or ability to scuttle crab-like hither and fro, nor to extend myself beyond my smaller self. Cancer bore me to this place, tho, as odd as that might seem. My birth destiny has somehow delivered me to this soft, quiet resting nest where I need to BE, quietly, as I expand, healthy cells to healthy cells, into new spaces that will offer my Self as best I can, in peace, authenticity, and Love, by just breathing in...and out.
By "blinking", I mean that I am a tad fascinated by this "emperor of all maladies", as Siddhartha Mukherjee calls cancer in his extraordinary new book. But at the same time I am looking through my fingers at it, wanting it not to be in my awareness even as my prickly bald head serves as a constant reminder of my daily engagement with clearing away any hiding cancer cells. My head now serves as a slide for the late winter winds that course down my back; scrapes my pillow at night with irritating groundhog-like spikes, and resembles a patchwork quilt due to the fact that I am not permitted to smoothly scrape it with a razor into a shiny reflective orb.
Thanks to the wonders of chemotherapy, nothing that goes into my mouth reflects a familiar sensory memory: water tastes like fish oil, fried foods must be banished from sight and smell; quinoa and black beans, a regular meal for me, can no longer even be present in the refrigerator.
I am losing that energetic "edge" I counted on my entire life to rev up my productivity.....the inboad engine that propelled me across personal and situational rapids is now still.....I bob up and down in the smaller licks of energy in this lake, taking the shifts left/right/up/down with equanimity, and, I must admit, I am enjoying being just where I am.
From Mukherjee:
"We tend to think of cancer as a 'modern' illness because its metaphors are so modern. It is a disease of overproduction, of fulminant growth---growth unstoppable, growth tipped into the abyss of no control....Cancer is that machine unable to quench its initial command (to grow) and thus transformed into an indestructable, self-propelled automaton."
He quotes Susan Sontag in her Illness as Metaphor when she compares tuberculosis as the illness for the 19th Century. Cancer, he argues, is our metaphor in this age of desparate individualism. The origin of the dreaded word metastasis "is a curious mix of meta and stasis---"beyond stillness" in Latin---an unmoored, partially unstable state that captures the peculiar instability of modernity."
Cancer is the pathology of excess, the expansionist disease, setting up colonies and raping the natives. "It lives deparately, inventively, fiercely, territorially, cannily, and defensively---at times, as if teaching us how to survive. To confornt cancer is to encounter a parallel species, one perhaps more adapted to survival than even we are."
Cancer thinks it is God.
It colonizes from one primordial Master Cancer Cell...and then it evolves! As this chemo in my body destroys the breast cancer cells, some that are more adapted to survival and growth can mutate. That is the ever-present fear.
How old is this scourge, so that we do not make the magical mistake of presuming it came upon us in modernity to serve as a warning bell? Louis Leakey found a two million year old jawbone that carried signs of lymphoma, and two thousand year old Egyptian mummies were found riddled with various bone cancers.
Apparently the first written record comes from Imhotep who transcribed his examinations of cancer patients in Egypt around 2625 BC. But then we do not read about cancer until around 440 BC when Herodotus wrote of Persian Queen Atossa's successful treatment of inflammatory breast cancer. So filled with gratitude was she, that she persuaded her husband Darius to invade Greece, which led to the Greco-Persian wars which altered Western history.
Regardless of these early mentions,cancer was a rare disease. Longevity and better diagnoses have added to the cancer figures annually.
Now to my personal "problem" with cancer: I was born under the sign of Cancer the Crab, July 12th as well as having two different types of cancer.
Being asked "What's your sign?" during the '70s and '80s would trigger my constricted attempt to rework my discomfort in having to admit that, rather than being Aries the Ram, Taurus the Bull, Gemini the Twins, Leo the Lion, Virgo the Virgin, Saggitarius the Archer, Capricorn the Goat, Aquarius the Water Carrier, and Pices the Fish, I was a feared disease or a nasty pincer in a hardened carapace. (In all fairness, let me note that Scorpio is a Scorpion, and Libra is the only inanimate sign of the zodiac. But still, cancer??)
"I am a Moon Child," I would coyly respond. Far better to be perceived as a luna-tic than a carcinoma. This dreaded word acomes from Hippocrates around 400 BC when we see the first mention in medical literature of karkinos, the Greek word for "crab", denoting cancer the disease.
"The tumor, with its clutch of swollen blood vessels around it, reminded Hippocrates of a crab dug in the sand with its legs spread in a circle....Others felt a crab moving under the flesh as the disease spread stealthily throughout the body."
This burden being carried about the body brought along a second linguistic association: onkos, Greek for load or burden, both physical and psychological, from which we derived oncology.
I will skip the centuries of misdirected and confused understandings of cancer, and will epecially skip over the horrendous radical cancer surgeries of the early 20th century. Such barbarism is best left to slasher flix.
It was not until the 1930s that "modern" oncology connected the disease to a hypothesis made by Galen around 160 AD: that "Crablike and constantly mobile, it could burrow through invisible channels from one organ to another. It was a 'systemic" illness, just as Galen once made it out to be."
And as the world drifted into a second world war, then into "cold" wars, the cancer researchers of modernity hit on a military theme of a Manhattan Project to "kill" the steadily increasing diagnoses of this horrific disease. We were at war. We needed an all-out attack plan. And in the forefront of our troops we had the Heroes, the Doctors! They were the Eisenhowers, MacArthurs, Pattons and Deweys of the War Against Cancer. There was one enemy, there was one cancer, and the Heroes could certainly track it to its roots and vanquish it.
But such was not to be the case. Cancer appears as hundreds of variants around a common theme. "Cancers possed temperaments, persnalities---behaviors." One size was not going to fit all. With the advent of chemotherapy, it became obvious that combinations of combinations of toxic drugs had to be infused, in a form of total therapy that the author refers to as "total hell."
To those who came before me, to those who endured 10-12 vomiting sssions every day during their treatment, to those who went under the scalpel numerous times in an attempt to root out the evil, I bow down to you for your trials. It is becasuse of you that I can sit at my computer and, although queasy and salivating what feels like fish oil, do what I wish to do today. I am so deeply grateful for your sacrifices, your courage, and your commitment to life when none could promise it to you.
Yet little by little, cancer by cancer, drug combination by drug combination, we began to see cancer patients in the 1960s showing signs that they coud remain cancer-free. The doyenne of cancer philanthropy, Mary Lasker, made liberal use of the moon landing in 1969 as the propulsive thrust to her War On Cancer which hit the national media Dec. 9, 1969. She used her wealth and media savvy to agitate Pres. Nixon to create a NASA-loke organization that could direct the battle against cancer.
Gone were the days of whispering about the "Big C"; from Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward to Brian's Song and Love Story, cancer had insinuated itself into the popular culture as it does into healthy cells. The enemy was within now, within us, maurauding, unheralded until such time as the system could no longer take the assault. The scalpel and the radical mastectomy heralded the Heroes of the War, with their rapier excellence hacking away at this cruel enemy within.
By 1981 the entire metaphor of combat had fallen into disrepute. The Heroes were actully butchering women; the chemotherapy trials were sadistic. The doctors fell back into being scientists looking at the data, if they dared....for the data did not prove their hypotheses.
We now recognize that the story of cancer is not really the story of doctors who struggle to survive:
"It is the story of patients who struggle and survive, moving from one embankment of illness to another. Resilience, inventiveness, and survivorship---qualities often ascribed to great physiciasns---are reflected qualities, emanating first from those who struggle with illness and only then mirrored by those who treat them."
And thus I come back to being born under the sign of Cancer. Such a dismal beginning from a socio-cultural point of view, far better the Moon-child that I can drape around my shoulders.
But what if----what if I read it to be borne under the sign of Cancer?
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Bear \Bear\ (b[^a]r), verb (used with an object) [imp. {Bore} (b[=o]r) (formerly {Bare} (b[^a]r)); p. p. {Born} (b[^o]rn), {Borne} (b[=o]rn); p. pr. & vb. n. {Bearing}.] [OE. beren, AS. beran, beoran, to bear, carry, produce; akin to D. baren to bring forth, G. geb["a]ren, Goth. ba['i]ran to bear or carry, Icel. bera, Sw. b["a]ra, Dan. b[ae]re, OHG. beran, peran, L. ferre to bear, carry, produce, Gr. fe'rein, OSlav. brati to take, carry, OIr. berim I bear, Skr. bh[.r] to bear. [root]92. Cf. {Fertile}.]
1. To support or sustain; to hold up.
2. To support and remove or carry; to convey.
3. To possess and use, as power; to exercise.
4. To possess or carry, as a mark of authority or distinction; to wear
5. To possess mentally; to carry or hold in the mind; to entertain; to harbor --Dryden.
6. To endure; to tolerate; to undergo; to suffer.
What do we glean from this reading? I am certainly not happy that I had to undergo this series of bodily, emotional and spiritual assaults. Had I a hand in this decision, I certainly woud have turned the "opportunity" away. My bald head is no mark of distinction. My wounds do not support me in any manner whatsoever.
But permit The Witness to apprehend the puzzling and dazzling patterns of my life as I have been borne by the encounter with cancer, and then let me attempt to sacrilize my journey.
I received the scary mammography report in September 2010 as I prepared for my ordination as the first Integral minister (along with colleague Michael Pergola) in Sedona, AZ at the end of the month. I had been working on the introduction of the Integral Mentors and Ministers program for a few years, and my energy was directed with laser-like focus on its professional unveiling.
As I sat with my gynecologist, I placed the program before any concern about my own health. I needed to know now if my life were in danger, so that I could cease enrolling students and end the program before encountering uncertainty over its ability to proceed. I begged her to find me a surgeon who might give me a diagnosis immediately, which she did. I raced to the surgeon's office and received her promise that she woud attempt a quick diagnosis. The results from the needle biopsy would be received the day that I returned from my ordination.
How and why does someone "create" an ordination for a group that has not yet emerged as any type of congregation? Because this is something that will emerge, I had no doubt, I felt that we should be prepared by maintaining an appropriate and supportive home. We have Christian ministries that are segueing into Integral ones, others that are commencing their functioning friom that all-inclusive perspective. Knowing how religious and spiritual orders have emerged and evolved in the past gives us a template by which we can best serve the future, andf this was my goal.
Not wishing to impose any dogma onto Integral spirituality, I hoped that by locating it at One Spirit with its tilt toward Integral, it would offer the best foundation for the future. And although I have no ordination or seminary training, I was a willing learner and participant. I concurred with Rev. Diane Berke's idea that I should take their 2-year interfaith ordination program so that I would at least have a modicum of seminary background. That began in September as well, but has had to be postponed during my treatment and recovery until next year.
With this consecration before me, Michael and I co-created the ordination before those who stepped forward in person in Sedona and on-line to form an Integral Spiritual Nexus. My thoughts on clerical garb were informed by my NYC Integral cohort, and we wore white outfits with 10 feet lengths of turquoise satin around our necks that drooped to our feet. The white was for the clear light to which we aspired, and the turquoise represented the level of self-development which we hope to achieve and within which we wish to function. Joining traditions was the fact that the long length of satin appeared a a yoke over our shoulders, which was to signify the yoga of our practice, and the self-selection of the "burden" of living within the highest expectations.
Michael and I co-ordained one another with the question as to whom we took as our spiritual guides, our inspiration, and those who would form our lineage. Mine were Plato, Hegel, and Ken; Michael spoke to his full Christian lineage.
Michael has spent decades within the world's wisdom traditions, but I, to be honest, have not, and have come to spirituality from my Jewish roots and then Buddhist traditions. Did I feel as though I were an Integral minister after the transmission? No, that, we agreed, would occur over time as I sank further into my covenant.
Many years ago I had covenanted with Spirit to live my life with as much authenticity as possible, and then engaged in deep reparative work. "To covenant" is to come together in mutual agreement, and I made this covenant aloud to the heavens forming as sacred contract that I would open myself to that which would most deeply align me with God/Love/The Mystery. To be very honest, I did not really understand what such a covenant with Spirit might entail, or I might have fudged the details a bit....
The ordination over, I returned to New Jersey where the oncologist met me at the door with a grim face. The biopsy was positive, and I made the instant decision to direct my care to Sloan-Kettering, the gold standard hospital of cancer protocols. As I have detailed before, it was a prudent choice given the three major surgeries I endured.
But I might not have joined together the synergistic events on or around the dates of thuis past fall: the diagnosis occured near the birthdate of my only child, my beloved daughter, 31 years before.
She became pregnant with our first grandchild on ior about the date of my mastectomy. THINK about this congruence. WRAP your minds around any karmic or coincidental understanding of this. The breast...the nourishing of my child when she was born 31 years ago that very month...the pattern repeats...I find it difficult even now to spell out what all of this might mean, or if it is just a series of inkblots on a page peppering patterns to our sense-deprived minds.
I have, nonetheless, undergone, tolerated, endured, and held up under extraordinary challenges. I have received blessings and awakenings to Spirit that I never would have assumed possible. I have also entered a time of respite, which comes from the Latin word for respect. I need to repair myself and to postpone any vestige of frenetic activity in order to respect the sacred changes going on within me. This does not make me special or distinctive by any means. It has never been part of my upbringing to openly respect my internal needs, and thus I am engaging in an overdue period of self-nurturance. It is crushing for me to admit that but for the 2 cancers, I might not have awakened to this holy need, and would have continued on a course of frenetic activity towards some ego-framed end.
Long ago dear friend and trusted guide Bert Parlee gave me a nickname of Righteous Rebel, and I have lived up to that tagline. Fighting for the good, the true, and the beautiful, I often overextended myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Being an admirer of Dzogchen Ponlop, let me now rename and reclaim myself as Rebel Buddha, one who is exploring what it means to be free.
I am in a Space I have never been before, a Space of luminosity, gratitude, quietude, and rest, rest, rest....I do not have the inboard boat engine revving up at exaggerated rpms to prove that I deserve to be alive. I breathe, therefore I AM.
I do not have the need or ability to scuttle crab-like hither and fro, nor to extend myself beyond my smaller self. Cancer bore me to this place, tho, as odd as that might seem. My birth destiny has somehow delivered me to this soft, quiet resting nest where I need to BE, quietly, as I expand, healthy cells to healthy cells, into new spaces that will offer my Self as best I can, in peace, authenticity, and Love, by just breathing in...and out.
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