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.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
The Healing Heart
It is 3 am Eastern Time on a cold and sodden February night. The deer herd we feed every day has come and then trodden away into the moonless night. For days earlier they could not reach our patio for the midnight snack of honey oats. The snow was piled 3-4-5 feet deep with a 3 inch fondant coating of ice which proved too slippery to manage uphill on hooves.
This month has been so strange for this region. We've never had so much snow. The whipping winds snapped towering trees that crashed broken into unsuspecting houses and flattened cars. The chill came and stayed. Except for the days when it warmed to 60 and we could dream of flinging off salt-crusted Uggs. Yes, spring will come, I promise.
Why mention the weather? It is a state experience that we might merge with and feel one with the manifest realm. Ken writes, "I no longer witness the clouds, I am the clouds; I do not hear the rain, I am the rain; I can no longer touch the earth, for I am the earth...." What a test for me! Do not flinch from the icy blast as I exit the car, for I am one with the icy blast. I will also be the crocus daring to poke its precious bud above the residual snow.
But I am also that Witness who will disappear and reflect back these manifestations as an empty mirror, rather than being any one of them as self/other.
For the exercise that I have created for myself of being in this body/mind and using the dis-ease of cancer for serious spiritual growth, what do I take from the lesson I am trying to teach myself?
"My body may be tired or excited, sick or healthy, heavy or light, but that has nothing to do with my inward I. I have a body, but I am not my body."
Why then do I manage to care about the affirmations, visualizations, and meditations, plus the chemo, the 10 daily pills, the cautious eating and Purell handwashing in which I mindfully engage? Patanjali felt that identification of the Witness with the instruments of seeing, the subjects and objects of our daily awareness, created our state of bondage. Am I in bondage, then? Does my agreement to obey the trances of both the orthodox medical establishment as well as the science of mind that advocates visualization, meditation, and affirmation to relieve me of suffering create the cause and effect that will keep me trapped?
The cause/effect dynamic has been proven by the masters and by my own experiences that by beginning with the protocols for dealing with gross reality we can, by grace, achieve the Witness and then Unitive consciousness. At the same time, once Unitive consciousness has been....unveiled, made clear...felt, the need for action becomes of not the slightest interest or importance, and at the same time immediate, natural and simple step to take.
I struggled so with the concept of my own death. Here I am, 65, not young but not too old to die, heaven knows. Why should I expect any special dispensation from fate? "Oh no, why me?" was the piteous mewling that I could sense in my craw, yet I also knew that there was no answer to that dejected complaint. What I did feel badly about was that I had, at last and with great effort, rewoven and healed my ego's terrible wounds, and achieved a new sense of rest and tranquility.
Ha!
I was one mammogram away from terror and crawling fear.
"Not fair! I have done all of this deep reparative work and I haven't even had a chance to put it to good use for the highest good of the Kosmos!" I was sooo frustrated.
And thus I was ready for a spiritual awakening.
"We have seen, then, that the special conditions of spiritual practice show the individual all of his resistances, while simultaneously frustrating them at the very deepest levels....The turning-point comes when the person sees that everything he does is nothing but wave-jumping, resisting, moving away from now in search of wetter waves. Spiritual practice, whether a person realizes it in these terms or not, hinges on this primal point."
I have reported in earlier blogs about that transformative spiritual experience, a powerful hit of Unitive awareness, the realization of shunyata, or emptiness with bliss, heart-opening, and freedom, that lasted for two months. What I have not spoken about was its unraveling for a week of a hapless return to suffering and the effects of a return to duality. Ironically, its origins were meant to bouy me as I approached my first chemotherapy treatment.
I have been led deep into my very cells to rally them to focus on the not-me, the not-healthy; I have manipulated the fractured chromosomes with my hands and breathed wholeness back into them; I have merged with the cancers before their surgical excision, gotten familiar with their growling indifference to the health of the All, and drawn boundaries against any further aggression of healthy tissue. Those UL experiences galvanized and reassured me.
But when I meet with my oncologist at the end of January 2011, fresh from both spiritual and physical rebounding in January, she informed me that I could, after all, have chemo.
NOOOO!!
I thought she told me that hormonal therapy would be sufficient. PLEASE no further assaults on my still quivering bodies.
Well, she admitted, she thought that there had been so many intervening surgical events that I would be out of time, so to speak, to warrant chemo. The protocols have tested its cancer-killing potency for varying months after surgery, and 4 months post-surgery is the outer marker for its effectiveness. The end of February, she found out, is the cut-off point.
But what of the hormonal therapy I had begun?
She laid out the statistics for me: for a 10 year rate of recurrence/metastases of the breast cancer I had, having no further treatment would put the chances of recurrence at 46%; with just the hormone therapy, 26%; but with chemo, it drops to 17%. Do I have any sane alternative here?
And at this point I began to cry in her office.
I do not cry.
Ever.
I realized that the fearless trust I had enjoyed for months had abandoned me. Or rather, the blissful emptiness state experience had come to an abrupt end......
Says Dzogchen Ponlop, "Unless we accept our pain, acknowledge our agony, and are willing to discover what these experiences are all about, the heart of the bodhi cannot arise.....we have to approach the basic heart of suffering and pain with courage and curiosity. We are all afraid of this experience, and because of our fear, we have difficulty developing the basic vision of enlightenment."
What was so agonizing to me that I broke down the next day and sobbed non-stop? Acceptance of what was to come plus a lack of trust that my body/mind could cope with the seemingly limitless effects of chemo. I had read the discussion forums of Breastcancer.org, an invaluable site, and cut/pasted a small book of their wisdom for how to cope with the onslaught of side-effects, from how the scalp hurts before it falls out in radiation-sickness-like clumps, to how to suck on ice pops to keep from vomiting. Having connected on a deep level with my body, I heard its loud complaining and cries that this was too much to expect of it after adjusting to three major cancer surgeries in 60 days. How could I impose this further assault on it for 4 months? My joy dissolved; my trust vanished; my heart shed tears.
My guide Lorraine worked with me to go into that fear as Ponlop advised. What I discovered was that the identity I had created via nurture was that Lynne Suffers. My earlier posts even frame this entire journey as one further tale of suffering, of unjust victimization and outrageous assaults. What she had me do, so brilliantly was to say goodbye to that incarnation I had been handed and that I had self-imposed for 64 of my 65 years.
I visualized greeting that sad self, as she approached me I had nothing but loving compassion for her, how she struggled against the role she had to inhabit to win the acceptance of her family. I held her closely to my heart, and turned away from her as I walked back into my freed Self. I looked over my shoulder to see her sad and beaten countenance smile slightly at my receding back.
And I walked back into the radiant Emptiness.
This month has been so strange for this region. We've never had so much snow. The whipping winds snapped towering trees that crashed broken into unsuspecting houses and flattened cars. The chill came and stayed. Except for the days when it warmed to 60 and we could dream of flinging off salt-crusted Uggs. Yes, spring will come, I promise.
Why mention the weather? It is a state experience that we might merge with and feel one with the manifest realm. Ken writes, "I no longer witness the clouds, I am the clouds; I do not hear the rain, I am the rain; I can no longer touch the earth, for I am the earth...." What a test for me! Do not flinch from the icy blast as I exit the car, for I am one with the icy blast. I will also be the crocus daring to poke its precious bud above the residual snow.
But I am also that Witness who will disappear and reflect back these manifestations as an empty mirror, rather than being any one of them as self/other.
For the exercise that I have created for myself of being in this body/mind and using the dis-ease of cancer for serious spiritual growth, what do I take from the lesson I am trying to teach myself?
"My body may be tired or excited, sick or healthy, heavy or light, but that has nothing to do with my inward I. I have a body, but I am not my body."
Why then do I manage to care about the affirmations, visualizations, and meditations, plus the chemo, the 10 daily pills, the cautious eating and Purell handwashing in which I mindfully engage? Patanjali felt that identification of the Witness with the instruments of seeing, the subjects and objects of our daily awareness, created our state of bondage. Am I in bondage, then? Does my agreement to obey the trances of both the orthodox medical establishment as well as the science of mind that advocates visualization, meditation, and affirmation to relieve me of suffering create the cause and effect that will keep me trapped?
The cause/effect dynamic has been proven by the masters and by my own experiences that by beginning with the protocols for dealing with gross reality we can, by grace, achieve the Witness and then Unitive consciousness. At the same time, once Unitive consciousness has been....unveiled, made clear...felt, the need for action becomes of not the slightest interest or importance, and at the same time immediate, natural and simple step to take.
I struggled so with the concept of my own death. Here I am, 65, not young but not too old to die, heaven knows. Why should I expect any special dispensation from fate? "Oh no, why me?" was the piteous mewling that I could sense in my craw, yet I also knew that there was no answer to that dejected complaint. What I did feel badly about was that I had, at last and with great effort, rewoven and healed my ego's terrible wounds, and achieved a new sense of rest and tranquility.
Ha!
I was one mammogram away from terror and crawling fear.
"Not fair! I have done all of this deep reparative work and I haven't even had a chance to put it to good use for the highest good of the Kosmos!" I was sooo frustrated.
And thus I was ready for a spiritual awakening.
"We have seen, then, that the special conditions of spiritual practice show the individual all of his resistances, while simultaneously frustrating them at the very deepest levels....The turning-point comes when the person sees that everything he does is nothing but wave-jumping, resisting, moving away from now in search of wetter waves. Spiritual practice, whether a person realizes it in these terms or not, hinges on this primal point."
I have reported in earlier blogs about that transformative spiritual experience, a powerful hit of Unitive awareness, the realization of shunyata, or emptiness with bliss, heart-opening, and freedom, that lasted for two months. What I have not spoken about was its unraveling for a week of a hapless return to suffering and the effects of a return to duality. Ironically, its origins were meant to bouy me as I approached my first chemotherapy treatment.
I have been led deep into my very cells to rally them to focus on the not-me, the not-healthy; I have manipulated the fractured chromosomes with my hands and breathed wholeness back into them; I have merged with the cancers before their surgical excision, gotten familiar with their growling indifference to the health of the All, and drawn boundaries against any further aggression of healthy tissue. Those UL experiences galvanized and reassured me.
But when I meet with my oncologist at the end of January 2011, fresh from both spiritual and physical rebounding in January, she informed me that I could, after all, have chemo.
NOOOO!!
I thought she told me that hormonal therapy would be sufficient. PLEASE no further assaults on my still quivering bodies.
Well, she admitted, she thought that there had been so many intervening surgical events that I would be out of time, so to speak, to warrant chemo. The protocols have tested its cancer-killing potency for varying months after surgery, and 4 months post-surgery is the outer marker for its effectiveness. The end of February, she found out, is the cut-off point.
But what of the hormonal therapy I had begun?
She laid out the statistics for me: for a 10 year rate of recurrence/metastases of the breast cancer I had, having no further treatment would put the chances of recurrence at 46%; with just the hormone therapy, 26%; but with chemo, it drops to 17%. Do I have any sane alternative here?
And at this point I began to cry in her office.
I do not cry.
Ever.
I realized that the fearless trust I had enjoyed for months had abandoned me. Or rather, the blissful emptiness state experience had come to an abrupt end......
Says Dzogchen Ponlop, "Unless we accept our pain, acknowledge our agony, and are willing to discover what these experiences are all about, the heart of the bodhi cannot arise.....we have to approach the basic heart of suffering and pain with courage and curiosity. We are all afraid of this experience, and because of our fear, we have difficulty developing the basic vision of enlightenment."
What was so agonizing to me that I broke down the next day and sobbed non-stop? Acceptance of what was to come plus a lack of trust that my body/mind could cope with the seemingly limitless effects of chemo. I had read the discussion forums of Breastcancer.org, an invaluable site, and cut/pasted a small book of their wisdom for how to cope with the onslaught of side-effects, from how the scalp hurts before it falls out in radiation-sickness-like clumps, to how to suck on ice pops to keep from vomiting. Having connected on a deep level with my body, I heard its loud complaining and cries that this was too much to expect of it after adjusting to three major cancer surgeries in 60 days. How could I impose this further assault on it for 4 months? My joy dissolved; my trust vanished; my heart shed tears.
My guide Lorraine worked with me to go into that fear as Ponlop advised. What I discovered was that the identity I had created via nurture was that Lynne Suffers. My earlier posts even frame this entire journey as one further tale of suffering, of unjust victimization and outrageous assaults. What she had me do, so brilliantly was to say goodbye to that incarnation I had been handed and that I had self-imposed for 64 of my 65 years.
I visualized greeting that sad self, as she approached me I had nothing but loving compassion for her, how she struggled against the role she had to inhabit to win the acceptance of her family. I held her closely to my heart, and turned away from her as I walked back into my freed Self. I looked over my shoulder to see her sad and beaten countenance smile slightly at my receding back.
And I walked back into the radiant Emptiness.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Possessing Faith
I must confess....I had been taking "No Death, No Fear" along with me wherever I went for days, and now I cannot find it. I have a pile of books next to my bed which I rotate reading. My present stack includes cosmology, "Awakening the Sleeping Buddha", "Cellular Awakening", two books on recent prenatal findings, one on what my dog sees, and a re-reading of a favorite, Sharon Salzberg's "Faith". I find myself finding new meaning from it as I move from cancer surgery to cancer treatment.
I had originally been told by my oncoligst that I was beyond the time after the mastectomy for chemotherapy to have any positive results; but upon her re-reading of the S-K protocols, she found that, should I begin a 4 month course of chemotherapy beginning Feb. 24th, my chances of recurrance of breast cancer drops from 40% to 17%. The lung cancer has been obliterated, and the surgeon informed me that my lifetime recurrence possibility is well over 90A+%---PRETTY GREAT ODDS, I'd say!
So why my current confusion? Why the emotional state of passing fear clouds about chemo? Notice that it is not about death any longer; I have let go of that fear. Now it is fear of having toxins infused into my body 8 times. What IS this dull gnawing at my core? How do I idntify its origin, its deeper meaning, so that I can apply Integral methods of breaking apart the doubting jaws?
Salzberg understands that we are a meaning-making species, and that we interpret our own fragmented experiences into narratives that can explain and map them. Unfortunately, some narratives lock us into fragments that we mistakenly attach to as the whole, whereas other narratives reaveal the whole, relationships, and connection with others and with the All.
I was an intuitive mystic from an early age, perhaps genetically predisposed that way; but my family of origin locked me into those negative fragments that I was told represented the All. I believed with all of my heart that my problem was with who I was and the terribly choices I made, that there was no way out for me, and therefore very little reason to have faith in myself and a belief that I could change my life around.
There was the much-referenced "Curse of the Greenbergs", my mother's maiden name. She and her 2 sisters fervently believed that their family was innately superior to others and also innaterly predestined to tragic fate. When my mother wrote of the horrors and grief of her family back to her great-grandmother down to her own misery, she told me that MY chapter of suffering was to be written next......
And I lived out that narrative for 64 of my 65 years. That is how new faith has been for me. Even reading through this blog, my belief in my and my family's suffering comes through like a growl, a keening lament of generations of suffering that I held close to my heart. Since the "awakening" I experienced in the hospital in December, however, I see this as such serious error. I read the entries as if typed by another's hands. This could not have come through my beliefs, I keep marveling. How could she have thought that way? What a terrible waste of energy. How did I make that magnificent and major change from believing that I was destined to suffer, to belief that I had the ability to change my life, and to live a life free of suffering?
Buddha's Third Noble Truth involves liberation from my distorted concepts of who I think I am, by seeing who I really am in stark reality. radical truth, free of the overlays of our parents' or cultures' superpositions. But that would require my abandonment of my self-hatred and belief in my own limitations to now include boundless, unimpeded love for myself and others without exception. One of my problems with this came from my family's dualist belief in the ultimate superiority of our family members plus a belief in our complete inability to stop our continual suffering. How does one connect this into a coherent narrative that supports an evolving life? That gives me the strength to wake up every day and to continue marveling at each snowflake and frozen tree branch? that permits me to meet the newest life challenges?
When the legendary vile nihilistic figure of Mara set out to dissuade Siddhartha, soon to evolve into the Buddha, from his attempt to become enlightened, he chose to attack Siddhartha's belief in his own potential.
What an interesting choice.....Our modern culture forces us to "fluff" our resumes, and if we can get away with it, to blatantly lie on them, be it for office or for college admission. At the same time, we are to resist being prideful, let we be attacked as "stuck up". In my high school, the cause of 80% of retribution was aimed at those who "thought they were better than" the one doing the attacking. How dare they?
Siddhartha resolved this dualistic tension by asking the earth to bear witness to his right to be sitting under the bodhi tree, his right to aspire to full understanding and infinite compassion. With his arising the next morning, he was enlightened.
I have the right to be happy. No genetic disposition, no ancestral curse, can interrupt that right. The glimmer of possibility can cut through to all of us. I can envision a better life for myself, and for you and you and you....Thus is faith admitted into our world.
Faith is a verb in Pali, Latin, asnd Hebrew. Why? Because it is something that we must do. It is the willingness to take the next step. And where will that next step take us? Into the darkness. Into the unknown. It is a journey, not a destination; the verb takes us into an unknown land where we must risk it all, because of faith. What must we give up in this journey? The firm belief that we are in an unchanging place that will stay as is, for our security.
But what would that really mean for us? It would rid life of possibility. It would keep us stuck in this suffering state, unable to try anything new.
So where am I in this journey right now? I have had three major surgeries in three months, have endured continuing pain from one operation to the other, with my chest still calling for oxycodone to eliminate the pain, and now as I look forward to this pain inching away day by day into pre-surgical normal existernce, I will be infused with poison that will disrupt that status quo and cause new and unknown side effects well beyond the loss of my hair:
• Nausea and vomiting
• Hair loss: Sorry. No two ways about it, you'll lose some or all of your hair.
• Increased risk of infection: You'll be losing white blood cells; the drugs will destroy some of them, along with the cancer cells. You'll be at your most susceptible starting 10 days after treatment, and extending to the next treatment. In fact, you'll get a blood test before each treatment to make sure your white blood cells aren't TOO depleted, putting you at too great a risk of infection.
What can you do about this? The usual things you do all winter to prevent a cold; avoid crowds, wash your hands often, stay away from people who are sick. Remember, an infection you get now will be more serious than a cold, so use your common sense. Don't put yourself at unnecessary risk.
• Loss of appetite/metallic taste in your mouth:
• Sores in your mouth, on your lips, or in your throat: Imagine cold sores inside your mouth-OUCH! These may crop up within a few days of treatment. Try to prevent them by chewing on ice chips during the first 5 to 10 minutes or so of your injection; this works for some women.
• Fatigue: As you advance through your treatments, you'll probably find yourself feeling more and more tired. This fatigue can range from mild (increased difficulty climbing stairs) to major (staying in bed all day). Try some gentle exercise, no matter how bad you feel; even walking helps.
• Loss of fertility Not an issue for me at 65. At least this one doesn't apply.
• Heart damage: In rare cases, "A" may temporarily damage the muscles of your heart, and thus interfere with its pumping action.
• Susceptibility to sunburn
• Bladder irritation
• Bruising or bleeding more easily: You may notice you bruise more easily. Or maybe your gums bleed when you brush your teeth, your nose bleeds when you blow it, you see some spotting in your underwear... your bone marrow is producing fewer platelets, which is what helps your blood clot. This isn't a serious problem-it's not like having hemophilia-it's more an annoyance, something to be aware of. And, along these same lines, don't panic when your urine suddenly turns reddish-pink directly after your treatment: it's not blood, it's from the drugs.
• You may have pretty significant joint pain that (hopefully) lasts just a couple of days, but may stretch beyond that. Ibuprofen, taken at fairly high doses, usually helps with this. Ask your doctor how much to take.
• You may also have tingling in your hands and feet. Not much you can do about that; it's annoying, and can affect your balance, if it's in your feet (since it feels like your feet are asleep); but it should go away once you're done.
• Chemo brain: This rather disheartening side effect is experienced by many women as they go through chemo. And in about 15 percent of women, it lingers for years. Short-term memory loss and difficulty concentrating are its main characteristics. You may forget your best friend's name, your own phone number, or which way to turn a doorknob... any number of heretofore simple tasks are made more difficult, simply because you've (temporarily, hopefully) lost some short-term memory.
So how am I to journey through this with faith? I CHOOSE LIFE. I ALIGN MYSELF WITH THE POTENTIAL INHERENT IN MY LIFE. I GIVE MYSELF OVER TO THAT POTENTIAL.
I had originally been told by my oncoligst that I was beyond the time after the mastectomy for chemotherapy to have any positive results; but upon her re-reading of the S-K protocols, she found that, should I begin a 4 month course of chemotherapy beginning Feb. 24th, my chances of recurrance of breast cancer drops from 40% to 17%. The lung cancer has been obliterated, and the surgeon informed me that my lifetime recurrence possibility is well over 90A+%---PRETTY GREAT ODDS, I'd say!
So why my current confusion? Why the emotional state of passing fear clouds about chemo? Notice that it is not about death any longer; I have let go of that fear. Now it is fear of having toxins infused into my body 8 times. What IS this dull gnawing at my core? How do I idntify its origin, its deeper meaning, so that I can apply Integral methods of breaking apart the doubting jaws?
Salzberg understands that we are a meaning-making species, and that we interpret our own fragmented experiences into narratives that can explain and map them. Unfortunately, some narratives lock us into fragments that we mistakenly attach to as the whole, whereas other narratives reaveal the whole, relationships, and connection with others and with the All.
I was an intuitive mystic from an early age, perhaps genetically predisposed that way; but my family of origin locked me into those negative fragments that I was told represented the All. I believed with all of my heart that my problem was with who I was and the terribly choices I made, that there was no way out for me, and therefore very little reason to have faith in myself and a belief that I could change my life around.
There was the much-referenced "Curse of the Greenbergs", my mother's maiden name. She and her 2 sisters fervently believed that their family was innately superior to others and also innaterly predestined to tragic fate. When my mother wrote of the horrors and grief of her family back to her great-grandmother down to her own misery, she told me that MY chapter of suffering was to be written next......
And I lived out that narrative for 64 of my 65 years. That is how new faith has been for me. Even reading through this blog, my belief in my and my family's suffering comes through like a growl, a keening lament of generations of suffering that I held close to my heart. Since the "awakening" I experienced in the hospital in December, however, I see this as such serious error. I read the entries as if typed by another's hands. This could not have come through my beliefs, I keep marveling. How could she have thought that way? What a terrible waste of energy. How did I make that magnificent and major change from believing that I was destined to suffer, to belief that I had the ability to change my life, and to live a life free of suffering?
Buddha's Third Noble Truth involves liberation from my distorted concepts of who I think I am, by seeing who I really am in stark reality. radical truth, free of the overlays of our parents' or cultures' superpositions. But that would require my abandonment of my self-hatred and belief in my own limitations to now include boundless, unimpeded love for myself and others without exception. One of my problems with this came from my family's dualist belief in the ultimate superiority of our family members plus a belief in our complete inability to stop our continual suffering. How does one connect this into a coherent narrative that supports an evolving life? That gives me the strength to wake up every day and to continue marveling at each snowflake and frozen tree branch? that permits me to meet the newest life challenges?
When the legendary vile nihilistic figure of Mara set out to dissuade Siddhartha, soon to evolve into the Buddha, from his attempt to become enlightened, he chose to attack Siddhartha's belief in his own potential.
What an interesting choice.....Our modern culture forces us to "fluff" our resumes, and if we can get away with it, to blatantly lie on them, be it for office or for college admission. At the same time, we are to resist being prideful, let we be attacked as "stuck up". In my high school, the cause of 80% of retribution was aimed at those who "thought they were better than" the one doing the attacking. How dare they?
Siddhartha resolved this dualistic tension by asking the earth to bear witness to his right to be sitting under the bodhi tree, his right to aspire to full understanding and infinite compassion. With his arising the next morning, he was enlightened.
I have the right to be happy. No genetic disposition, no ancestral curse, can interrupt that right. The glimmer of possibility can cut through to all of us. I can envision a better life for myself, and for you and you and you....Thus is faith admitted into our world.
Faith is a verb in Pali, Latin, asnd Hebrew. Why? Because it is something that we must do. It is the willingness to take the next step. And where will that next step take us? Into the darkness. Into the unknown. It is a journey, not a destination; the verb takes us into an unknown land where we must risk it all, because of faith. What must we give up in this journey? The firm belief that we are in an unchanging place that will stay as is, for our security.
But what would that really mean for us? It would rid life of possibility. It would keep us stuck in this suffering state, unable to try anything new.
So where am I in this journey right now? I have had three major surgeries in three months, have endured continuing pain from one operation to the other, with my chest still calling for oxycodone to eliminate the pain, and now as I look forward to this pain inching away day by day into pre-surgical normal existernce, I will be infused with poison that will disrupt that status quo and cause new and unknown side effects well beyond the loss of my hair:
• Nausea and vomiting
• Hair loss: Sorry. No two ways about it, you'll lose some or all of your hair.
• Increased risk of infection: You'll be losing white blood cells; the drugs will destroy some of them, along with the cancer cells. You'll be at your most susceptible starting 10 days after treatment, and extending to the next treatment. In fact, you'll get a blood test before each treatment to make sure your white blood cells aren't TOO depleted, putting you at too great a risk of infection.
What can you do about this? The usual things you do all winter to prevent a cold; avoid crowds, wash your hands often, stay away from people who are sick. Remember, an infection you get now will be more serious than a cold, so use your common sense. Don't put yourself at unnecessary risk.
• Loss of appetite/metallic taste in your mouth:
• Sores in your mouth, on your lips, or in your throat: Imagine cold sores inside your mouth-OUCH! These may crop up within a few days of treatment. Try to prevent them by chewing on ice chips during the first 5 to 10 minutes or so of your injection; this works for some women.
• Fatigue: As you advance through your treatments, you'll probably find yourself feeling more and more tired. This fatigue can range from mild (increased difficulty climbing stairs) to major (staying in bed all day). Try some gentle exercise, no matter how bad you feel; even walking helps.
• Loss of fertility Not an issue for me at 65. At least this one doesn't apply.
• Heart damage: In rare cases, "A" may temporarily damage the muscles of your heart, and thus interfere with its pumping action.
• Susceptibility to sunburn
• Bladder irritation
• Bruising or bleeding more easily: You may notice you bruise more easily. Or maybe your gums bleed when you brush your teeth, your nose bleeds when you blow it, you see some spotting in your underwear... your bone marrow is producing fewer platelets, which is what helps your blood clot. This isn't a serious problem-it's not like having hemophilia-it's more an annoyance, something to be aware of. And, along these same lines, don't panic when your urine suddenly turns reddish-pink directly after your treatment: it's not blood, it's from the drugs.
• You may have pretty significant joint pain that (hopefully) lasts just a couple of days, but may stretch beyond that. Ibuprofen, taken at fairly high doses, usually helps with this. Ask your doctor how much to take.
• You may also have tingling in your hands and feet. Not much you can do about that; it's annoying, and can affect your balance, if it's in your feet (since it feels like your feet are asleep); but it should go away once you're done.
• Chemo brain: This rather disheartening side effect is experienced by many women as they go through chemo. And in about 15 percent of women, it lingers for years. Short-term memory loss and difficulty concentrating are its main characteristics. You may forget your best friend's name, your own phone number, or which way to turn a doorknob... any number of heretofore simple tasks are made more difficult, simply because you've (temporarily, hopefully) lost some short-term memory.
So how am I to journey through this with faith? I CHOOSE LIFE. I ALIGN MYSELF WITH THE POTENTIAL INHERENT IN MY LIFE. I GIVE MYSELF OVER TO THAT POTENTIAL.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
No Death, No Fear by Thich Nhat Hanh
No Death, No Fear by Thich Nhat Hanh
This book has become a primer for me as I face dual cancer threats. I could not have traversed through this nightmare-ish thicket without a 4 quadrant approach beginning first with the excellent medicasl treatment at Sloan-Kettering. But as we are all aware, when we go deeply into the scientific protocols of the LR and UR, the more we encounter the unknowable and the shades of gray. I will begin this blog by referencing my health challenges and then enlarging the applicability of this book's philosophy to every oen of us, and particularly to those who find resonance with Integral spirituality.
With my twin cancers, I find myself outside of the heavily researched protocol that dictates that I begin chemo 4 weeks after mastectomy. This was not possible with me, as I had two surgeries after, and now I am protocol-less. So here we enter into the art of medicine. My medical oncologist, DeenaGgraham, had nothing to tell me about my chances for survival with or without chemo, and will have to assemble her team to try to creatively assemble a treatment plan.
I presume that next Monday I will hear her best guess for as longer life span, but I also presume that any statistics she offers me will be a random median statistic which will not be at all predictive of my actual chances to stay alive for 5 years or more.
The best I can predict for my own well-being is fiound on p. 1:
"When conditions are sufficient we manifest and when conditions are not sufficient we go into hiding. "It's as simple as that."
"The Buddha has a very different understanding of our existence [than fears of our annihilation]. It is the underwstanding that birth and death are notions. They are not real. The fact that we think they are true makes a powerful illusion that causes our suffering.
"Buddha taught that there is no birth, there is no death; there is no coming, there is no going; there is no same, there is no different; there is no permanent self, there is no annihilation. We only think there is. When we understand that we cannot be destroyed, we are liberated from fear,. It is a greaat relief. Wse can enjoy life and appreciate it in a new way."
[more tomorrow]
With my twin cancers, I find myself outside of the heavily researched protocol that dictates that I begin chemo 4 weeks after mastectomy. This was not possible with me, as I had two surgeries after, and now I am protocol-less. So here we enter into the art of medicine. My medical oncologist, DeenaGgraham, had nothing to tell me about my chances for survival with or without chemo, and will have to assemble her team to try to creatively assemble a treatment plan.
I presume that next Monday I will hear her best guess for as longer life span, but I also presume that any statistics she offers me will be a random median statistic which will not be at all predictive of my actual chances to stay alive for 5 years or more.
The best I can predict for my own well-being is fiound on p. 1:
"When conditions are sufficient we manifest and when conditions are not sufficient we go into hiding. "It's as simple as that."
"The Buddha has a very different understanding of our existence [than fears of our annihilation]. It is the underwstanding that birth and death are notions. They are not real. The fact that we think they are true makes a powerful illusion that causes our suffering.
"Buddha taught that there is no birth, there is no death; there is no coming, there is no going; there is no same, there is no different; there is no permanent self, there is no annihilation. We only think there is. When we understand that we cannot be destroyed, we are liberated from fear,. It is a greaat relief. Wse can enjoy life and appreciate it in a new way."
[more tomorrow]
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Welcome to the Cancer Dance
This is the view outside my office window today. Gorgeous, magical and musically tinkling, illuminated with frozen light from within.
These are humaan lungs. The trachea divides into the two main bronchi that enter the roots of the lungs. The bronchi continue to divide within the lung, and after multiple divisions, give rise to bronchioles which are termed the bronchial tree. This tree continues branching until it reaches the level of terminal bronchioles, which lead to alveolar sacs.
"Alveolar sacs are made up of clusters of alveoli, like individual grapes within a bunch. The individual alveoli are tightly wrapped in blood vessels and it is here that gas exchange actually occurs. Deoxygenated blood from the heart is pumped through the pulmonary artery to the lungs, where oxygen diffuses into blood and is exchanged for carbon dioxide in the hemoglobin of the erythrocytes. The oxygen-rich blood returns to the heart via the pulmonary veins to be pumped back into systemic circulation." (Wikipedia)
As without, so within. Look at the resonance between the beautiful ice-frosted branches and the bronchial tree, which exists in the rainforest within the lungs. Patterns repeat in nature in the most unexpected of places, as confirmed by my view outside and my lungs inside.
In Tuesday's, Jan. 18, 2011 Scinece Times p. D1, I read Roni Caryn Rabin's article on "A Pink-Ribbon Race, Years Long." She tells the story of a woman who had metastatic breast cancer, a sad category of 4 to 6 % of women who are found to be Stage 4 upon their original diagnosis. With her cancer already attacking her spine, she had come to a local support group. Those in attendance were "survivors" who had small localized cancers that were vanquished years before. When it came to her turn, she could not stand to share her story.
Thus the success and the stalemate of dealing with cancer, that relentlessly kills 40,000 women annually.
What I did NOT know until I read this article is that 25% of all women who are diagnosed as Stage 1, the smallest, earliest and easiest to heal from, will battle with metastatic disease eventually.
I have figured out that the medical establishment in its wisdom does not lay out all of the grim statistics at the beginning. For example, after my mastectomy, Rick and I sobbed with relief as the gentle genius Dr. Sacchini told me that I was Stage 1, and now all I had to do was prevent a recurrence. Yes, I admit that I individually am not a statistic, yet I now understand that having this disease is not like getting the flu. One cannot easily get "cured."
"All too often when people think about breast cancer, they think about it as a problem, it's solved, and you lead a long and normal life; it's a blip on the curve." said Dr. Eric Winer, Director of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
"While that's true for many people, each year approximately 40,000 people die of breast cancer---and they all die of metastatic disease. You can see why patients with metastatic disease may feel invisible within the advocacy community."
Those who are at Stage 4 are incurable, even though medical progress permits them to live incrementally longer. Think of the late Elizabeth Edwards. She survived for several years with the metastatic disease; but the median life expectancy is really 26 months, and fewer than 1 in 4 survive for more than 5 years.
"This kind of uncertainty keeps many patients from throwing thenmselves wholeheartedly into the ethos of hope and empowerment that helps sustain many women with less aggressive forms of the disease.
Dr. Herbert says that while the pink-ribbon campaign has raised awareness about breast cancer, it masks a relentless killer.
"People like the pretty story with the happy ending.... You always hear stories about women who 'battled it' and 'how courageous' they were. Cancer doesn't care if you're courageous. It's an injustice to all of us who have this. There are women who are no less strong and no less determined to be here, and they'll be dead in two years."
I was shaken after reading the article. I am a somewhat awake and aware woman of moderate wisdom, and I need to position myself in relationship to this disease. How can I create a new framework by which to live my life, and face challenges that come with this cancer?
My thoughts turned to this weekend and our last class where I will probably teach via Skype due to my level of continuing pain. Then we host Terry Patten with Deborah Boyer and Michael in a substantial offering which I will describe in a bit, and shortly thereafter we launch into the major portion of our 2 and 3 year programs.
I can hardly digest all that has transpired for me personally since the launch of this first class. I left for Sedona at the end of September with the biopsy for breast cancer yet to be finalized; I became the first Integral Spiritual Minister; and the next day upon my return found out I did indeed have that diagnosis. A mastectomy was performed Nov. 4th. That in itself would have been quite enough to deal with, but it was followed by a serious infection leading to major emergency surgery; and having barely recovered from that experience, I had lung cancer surgery Jan. 10th.
I would like to give you a report in the 4 quadrants as to what transpired during and after my 5 day stay at Sloan-Kettering as it might serve to inform you for your futures as individuals and as members of a spiritual community..
I had been told that 90% of patients receive arthroscopic surgery for lung cancer which leaves the patient with very little pain and three small scars. Upon awakening I was informed that I was one of the 10% who had to have a formal thoracotomy, which is the most serious of the cancer procedures, and results in the greatest level of post-surgical pain.
Was I entering ito a "why me" thought pattern? No, not at all. My mind-set remained one of curiosity moment to moment, and I watched for the moments of gratitude within my experience. I was not happy about the level of pain, and am still not pleased with its slow dissipation, but it is a very tiny blip in the larger scope of gratitude for having discovered the cancer so early.
I was expecting the thorasic floor to be one populated by aged men with craggy faces and yellowed fingers from years of smoking, my stereotype. I found instead many healthy looking young men and women. The range of the thorasic service covers esophogeal cancers which are experiencing a rapid increase, and my particular surgeon is an expert in handling them. I spent some time looking at the faces of the rooms' occupants to get some sense of who might be there, and for what conditions. I cannot say I gleaned any answers from my curiosity.
One condition that earned my everlasting gratitude for good fortune was my roommate. The last time I had had a truly ratttling roommate experience. I will not go into much detail about her or her extensive family; I have, though, become an advocate for careful selection of rommates for the health and well-being of the other party. I am averse to loud noises, boisterous gatherings with loud cackling laughter, and a party-like atmosphere of relatives and friends ordering in copious food platters as if they were attending a Super Bowl party. They basically had no boundaries about it being my room as well.
There---that exposes my petty side, but it also served to irritate my nervous system, deprive me of much-needed rest, and challenge me to race to my own bathroom before one of the 10 relatives got in there first. When she was alone and fearful, however, I went over and talked with her and offered whatever insights or information that I could to ease her fears. And in return, both she and her husband were gracious to me in other ways.
This time I was blessed with an elderly Roman Catholic woman who possessed that beatific smile, darling laugh, and continual bouyant life force that held her throughout her pain. We quickly bonded across our diversity, and when we both left, we cupped each others' face as we kissed on both cheeks. I felt nourished by her presence, and I do stand by the belief that a quiet room setting can be a medical ncessity for some of us, an enviornmental factor that should be taken into account.
Engulfed with pain I had never experienced before, I was subdued as my husband walked with me into the family lounge. There seated across from us was a very handsome woman with red eyes. I am now familiar with the S-K dance, where someone really does want to unload their grief and story but also does not wish to intrude or place more on another sufferers' shoulders. After dodging one anothers' eyes for a while, my husband offered up the cold weather as an extended hand, and she and he found commonality in where they had both grown up, and where she now lived in Florida. Rick moved there during his youth and we are planning to buy a second home there, so the conversation formed a safe platform upon which to place her grief which came in due course.
Her 42 year old attorney daugther lives in Fla. with her husband and 2 young children. She had a lumpectomy and chemo 3 years ago. Last year she began to experience intense pain around the top of her spine. Long story: after many fruitless tests it turned out she had a metastasis of the breast cancer wrapped around her sternum, and a surgeon at S-K was the only one in the country who could safely perform the surgery. She had to charter a private plane to get her up here duirng our recent blizzard.
A short time after being put under, she was awakened, and told that the surgeon could not perform the surgery. The tumor could not be removed and must remain inside her....growing..... She might have 3 months....or longer...no one knew. The mother was in that white hot state beyond grief.
We spoke and cried for a long time. Then I went to speak to her daughter for a while. My husband noted that during that time, as I became involved in their situation, my entire body began to move with less agony, and once again it came to me that I could offer them the gift of an Integral perspective, gently and non-didactically offered, as soft as chick's down, that spoke of radical truth while infusing the message with hope and a different and elevated understanding of life.
I am still in great pain, but I have come to accept that those of us with cancer and other life threatening diseases are living within a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person perspective on them and their particular pathological chaos.
Let me explain what I am noticing.....Before this surgery I had been in 3rd person relationship with both cancers. They were "IT" to me, something that must be gotten rid of, as something alien to me. It was a medical problem for the doctors to figure out the best medical and surgical interventions to free me from their tentacles so that my body might resume its happy rhythm.
But the reality that I have had 3 major surgeries in three months, one of them highly invasive that actually cut out and disposed of a lobe of my lung, shifted me into a 2nd person perspective of "You and Me". The cancer has moved into being in interaction with me, and the cellular level work I have been doing plus the depth psychological evolutionary and generational analyses have shoved the cancers into my face, so to speak. YOU and I are in communication at a very deep level.
I have had repetitive dreams that have gone on for weeks, which I realized in a flash as this shift to 2nd person:
I am back at my school, but the 3 men who harassed me are just adults in the place; they have no energy around them, they are just people moving around and speaking. It is my class that is giving me trouble...Night after night I try to get them under control, but try as I might, they are out of control, not responding to any force that I exert. I can FEEL how strongly I try to wrestle them into their seats; into getting them to take notes; into comforming withg my expectations. I cannot and do not succeed, night after night after night.
Welcome to Cancer 101.
Nothing that I can do will tame them or get them to be orderly or healthily functional. It is beyond my ability to change them. I must address new UR realities that might not lead me toward a happy conclusion of "a cure". I realize that in the LR I am no longer covered by any medical protocol where the oncologist can promise that "this chemo will lead to a 14% chance of metastases". I realize the truth that BOTH cancers can metastasize anywhere, at any time, and I will be called into their chaotic dance.
I have identified my Master Cancer Cell. That is when I own it as within my 1st person awareness. I see that I cannot deal with it on any egoic or gross level myself. I must surrender, more deeply than I did in my earlier awakening, and OOOH, there is far more that must be surrendered. For my LL I will be most discerning about which groups I associate with so that I am not compelled to deny any part of my situation. I am not "the walking dead", nor am I a "she-ro", all chirpy and skipping around at race to the cure events with my bedazzled pink ribbon in tow.
Ken advised me that the huge discovery about healing is that much of it is under our control. Meditation, visualization, and affirmation all can play a key part in how we patterrn our dance steps. I will continue to revise and strengthen my UL and my entire ILP.
I will remain a vital part of my beloved program. I am excited to share what has become embodied within me. We will co-create so much of what is necessary as we Baby Boomers---I am the very first of us---hit the age when life issues and illnesses will confront us with urgency, and our skills will be called into practice.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Meditation and Lung Surgery
Friday, Jan. 7, 2011
My lung surgery is scheduled for 11 am Monday morning, Jan. 10th. I met with S-K personnel this past Monday, all day Wednesday, and for an hour today. I am a bit worn out from all of the procedures. Quite a bit of redundancy. I did find out from the nurse that they are discovering more and more Stage Ia lung cancers as accidental findings from scans and X-rays.
I am also "growly", which is a combination of emotions characterized by frustration, disgust, annoyance, and a desire to remain just where I am. I have created a sanctuary here in my house....The three plantings outside of my kitchen door, the upright and proud green and blue spruces with the tan drooping feathers of the ornamental grasses between them have been decorated by the recent snow in precisely the way I desired, and they offer their beauty to me at every glance. The firs wear shrugs of puffy snow, while the trees behind them stand tall with icing on every branch.
Deer, possum, raccoon, cat, and skunk tracks create intricate embroideries of paw and hoof prints in the snow up to the feeding platters we have set out for them for their winter picnic. Chloe stands erect at ther door hoping to be incited by a fleeing or teasing grey or black squirrel, although I half believe that she woofs for the sheer exhuberance of the output.
I am also resentful that my meditation and my contemplation must be disrupted by a return to S-K where I am plopped amidst the busy-ness of the hospital, the every-3-hours vitals check, the lack of tranquility and of self-direction about every bodily functions.
Sat., Jan. 8, 2011
I immediately notice that this "growliness" has permitted suffering to re-enter my life!
"If we get caught in our notions and concepts, we can make ourselves suffer and we can also make those we love suffer," says Thich Nhat Hanh.
Notice what I had been doing to myself----I was in a state of bliss while resting in the moment in my beloved kitchen with my 3 acre view outside; by choosing to switch out of the moment to Monday, all of that bliss has been replaced by a mild version of suffering, which manifests as agita as I cling to my seat and the view from my kitchen. I lept forward to not-being there, to the loss of that moment.
"Our freedom, peace and joy in the present moment is the most important thing we have. But without an awakened understanding of impermanence, it is not possible to be happy."
I have put conditions on my happiness, which destroys it. That which I am not looking forward to in the hospital---and it os neither the surgery or the pain, but rather some very pedestrian gripes---cannot be predicted as I sit here typing and ruminating. The busy-ness of the hospital itself, the interruptions of tenuous sleep, the annoyance with rommates and their families, all these will manifest in ways I cannot even imagine, and I must allow them to do so without placing conditions or fears or anger upon them.
Was I not given an extraordinary gift during my last stay? Did I not come to awaken to what others have so exquisitely crafted from their own experiences over the ages while striding the halls?
Sun., Jan. 9, 2011
I am happy and content.
My husband and puppy (she is going to celebrate her 3rd birthday on Wed. but at 7 lbs. we still think of her as a perenntial puppy) are here with me as I tidy up before my 3-4 days away. Chloe does not take her eyes off of me, as I am sure she fears the moment when the suitcase comes out and she senses that I will soon not be around.
I am doing routine "chop wood, carry water" tasks that fill me with love. I am living in the moment and am taking pleasure from every glance out of my office window at the snow blanket with random naked spkes of plants resting until spring calls them once again to manifest their renewed life cycles. Birds are flitting to and from our numerous feeders. I am particularly attuned to avian life ( they represent spirit), and thrill at their aeronautical swoops, darts, and coordinated flight paths. I surely have mirror neurons that light up as they flit within my vision, so that I am flying along with them in my body-mind.
And isn't that part of the Mystery?
"Touching the earth, I let go of the idea that I am this body and my life span is limited....I see that thius body, made up of the four elements, is not really me and I am not limited by this body. I am part of a stream of life of spiritual and blood ancestors that for thousands of years has been flowing into the present and for thousands of years flows on into the future. I am one with my ancestors. I am one with all people and all beings, whether they are peaceful and fearless or suffering and afraid....The disintegration of this body does not touch me, just as when the plum blossom falls it does not mean the end of the plum tree. I see myself as a wave on the surface of the ocean. My nature is the ocean water."
No Death, No Fear, pp. 168-9
This is precisely what I experienced upon the birth of my daughter----being the midpoint of all of my ancestors, all of the mothers and fathers leading up to my manifestation, and then zooming into the future with all the mothers and fathers who are destined to manifest.
When my breast had to be removed, I felt no real personal connection to its loss. I had successfully and lovingly nourished my daughter through it, and had experienced sexual pleasure from it. In a sense, it had done its work in my 65 years, and could be removed with my deep bow to the role it played in my heart-body and the lives of those who shared it with me. I would have had a different feeling had I been 35, however, I am sure. So the loss was a sweet adieu, not a wrenching grief-stricken event. Being involved in cellular meditation, I did grieve for the loss of the healthy cells surrounding the tumor, who had been doing their job s yet who had to be sacrificed for the good of the whole. I hope that I paid my respects to those minute body parts laden with my consciousness so that there was an understanding of my intentions toward the surgery.
Tomorrow's surgery gets me into more serious and problematic territory---my lung. The lower left lobe will be removed. I will be heavily medicated with morphine, my first experience with it.
The surgery is done robotically and arthroscopically with three relatively small incisions in my back. But this surgery is deep inside me, and it involves the very organ that makes meditation possible: "breathe in, breathe out"
From No Death, No Loss again:
"Breathing in, I know that I am
breathing in.
Breathing out, I know that I am
breathing out....
Breathing in, I am only aware of my
in-breath.
Breathing out, I am only aware of my
out-breath."
But the very act of doing that will involve intense pain and effort. What will I learn as I contemplate the paradox of the supposed ease of in-out breath being one that causes intense pain? I am an asthmatic and tend to have bad brochial attacks. I know what fear I experience when I cannot take a breath. I am phobic about suffiocating as a result, which is why I cannot scuba, and have to manage panic attacks when I snorkel, an activity I adore. So the simplicity of the in-out breath will become a challenge for me beginning tomorrow, and I will have to sink into that feeling of suffocation with as much presence as I can.
No, I am not my body, but how far can I live within that understanding without the automatic ease of taking a breath? I will become curious asbout that over the following days.
My lung surgery is scheduled for 11 am Monday morning, Jan. 10th. I met with S-K personnel this past Monday, all day Wednesday, and for an hour today. I am a bit worn out from all of the procedures. Quite a bit of redundancy. I did find out from the nurse that they are discovering more and more Stage Ia lung cancers as accidental findings from scans and X-rays.
I am also "growly", which is a combination of emotions characterized by frustration, disgust, annoyance, and a desire to remain just where I am. I have created a sanctuary here in my house....The three plantings outside of my kitchen door, the upright and proud green and blue spruces with the tan drooping feathers of the ornamental grasses between them have been decorated by the recent snow in precisely the way I desired, and they offer their beauty to me at every glance. The firs wear shrugs of puffy snow, while the trees behind them stand tall with icing on every branch.
Deer, possum, raccoon, cat, and skunk tracks create intricate embroideries of paw and hoof prints in the snow up to the feeding platters we have set out for them for their winter picnic. Chloe stands erect at ther door hoping to be incited by a fleeing or teasing grey or black squirrel, although I half believe that she woofs for the sheer exhuberance of the output.
I am also resentful that my meditation and my contemplation must be disrupted by a return to S-K where I am plopped amidst the busy-ness of the hospital, the every-3-hours vitals check, the lack of tranquility and of self-direction about every bodily functions.
Sat., Jan. 8, 2011
I immediately notice that this "growliness" has permitted suffering to re-enter my life!
"If we get caught in our notions and concepts, we can make ourselves suffer and we can also make those we love suffer," says Thich Nhat Hanh.
Notice what I had been doing to myself----I was in a state of bliss while resting in the moment in my beloved kitchen with my 3 acre view outside; by choosing to switch out of the moment to Monday, all of that bliss has been replaced by a mild version of suffering, which manifests as agita as I cling to my seat and the view from my kitchen. I lept forward to not-being there, to the loss of that moment.
"Our freedom, peace and joy in the present moment is the most important thing we have. But without an awakened understanding of impermanence, it is not possible to be happy."
I have put conditions on my happiness, which destroys it. That which I am not looking forward to in the hospital---and it os neither the surgery or the pain, but rather some very pedestrian gripes---cannot be predicted as I sit here typing and ruminating. The busy-ness of the hospital itself, the interruptions of tenuous sleep, the annoyance with rommates and their families, all these will manifest in ways I cannot even imagine, and I must allow them to do so without placing conditions or fears or anger upon them.
Was I not given an extraordinary gift during my last stay? Did I not come to awaken to what others have so exquisitely crafted from their own experiences over the ages while striding the halls?
Sun., Jan. 9, 2011
I am happy and content.
My husband and puppy (she is going to celebrate her 3rd birthday on Wed. but at 7 lbs. we still think of her as a perenntial puppy) are here with me as I tidy up before my 3-4 days away. Chloe does not take her eyes off of me, as I am sure she fears the moment when the suitcase comes out and she senses that I will soon not be around.
I am doing routine "chop wood, carry water" tasks that fill me with love. I am living in the moment and am taking pleasure from every glance out of my office window at the snow blanket with random naked spkes of plants resting until spring calls them once again to manifest their renewed life cycles. Birds are flitting to and from our numerous feeders. I am particularly attuned to avian life ( they represent spirit), and thrill at their aeronautical swoops, darts, and coordinated flight paths. I surely have mirror neurons that light up as they flit within my vision, so that I am flying along with them in my body-mind.
And isn't that part of the Mystery?
"Touching the earth, I let go of the idea that I am this body and my life span is limited....I see that thius body, made up of the four elements, is not really me and I am not limited by this body. I am part of a stream of life of spiritual and blood ancestors that for thousands of years has been flowing into the present and for thousands of years flows on into the future. I am one with my ancestors. I am one with all people and all beings, whether they are peaceful and fearless or suffering and afraid....The disintegration of this body does not touch me, just as when the plum blossom falls it does not mean the end of the plum tree. I see myself as a wave on the surface of the ocean. My nature is the ocean water."
No Death, No Fear, pp. 168-9
This is precisely what I experienced upon the birth of my daughter----being the midpoint of all of my ancestors, all of the mothers and fathers leading up to my manifestation, and then zooming into the future with all the mothers and fathers who are destined to manifest.
When my breast had to be removed, I felt no real personal connection to its loss. I had successfully and lovingly nourished my daughter through it, and had experienced sexual pleasure from it. In a sense, it had done its work in my 65 years, and could be removed with my deep bow to the role it played in my heart-body and the lives of those who shared it with me. I would have had a different feeling had I been 35, however, I am sure. So the loss was a sweet adieu, not a wrenching grief-stricken event. Being involved in cellular meditation, I did grieve for the loss of the healthy cells surrounding the tumor, who had been doing their job s yet who had to be sacrificed for the good of the whole. I hope that I paid my respects to those minute body parts laden with my consciousness so that there was an understanding of my intentions toward the surgery.
Tomorrow's surgery gets me into more serious and problematic territory---my lung. The lower left lobe will be removed. I will be heavily medicated with morphine, my first experience with it.
The surgery is done robotically and arthroscopically with three relatively small incisions in my back. But this surgery is deep inside me, and it involves the very organ that makes meditation possible: "breathe in, breathe out"
From No Death, No Loss again:
"Breathing in, I know that I am
breathing in.
Breathing out, I know that I am
breathing out....
Breathing in, I am only aware of my
in-breath.
Breathing out, I am only aware of my
out-breath."
But the very act of doing that will involve intense pain and effort. What will I learn as I contemplate the paradox of the supposed ease of in-out breath being one that causes intense pain? I am an asthmatic and tend to have bad brochial attacks. I know what fear I experience when I cannot take a breath. I am phobic about suffiocating as a result, which is why I cannot scuba, and have to manage panic attacks when I snorkel, an activity I adore. So the simplicity of the in-out breath will become a challenge for me beginning tomorrow, and I will have to sink into that feeling of suffocation with as much presence as I can.
No, I am not my body, but how far can I live within that understanding without the automatic ease of taking a breath? I will become curious asbout that over the following days.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Relaxing Into Hopelessness
I have written the last two posts with the knowledge that they are centered around an optimistic time with the two cancers that have crept into my body's functioning. I dodged the bullet of impending death and hopelessness, so to speak. I wanted an uplifting Oprah-esque narrative that told of hope in the face of despair which would coincide with the holiday and natural cycles of reborn light.
Yet I am keenly aware that this dodging of the hopelessness bullet was an illusion, and I must continue to work with the truth, rather than the temporary illusion. I turned to Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart to reorient me to both death and hopelessness as the motivation for my awakening in the hospital:
"When we talk about hopelessness and death, we're talking about facing facts. No escapism...Giving up hope is encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, to not run away from yourself, to return to bare bones, no matter what is going on. Fear of death is the background the whole thing...But if we totally experience hopelessness, giving up all hope of alternatives to the rpesent moment, we can have a joyful relationship with our lives, an honest, direct relationship, one that no longer ignores the reality of impermanence and death."
That is precisely what led to my spiritual experience and resulting peace....
Today and Wednesday I return to Sloan-Kettering. These visits have dominated my life for several months and will continue to do so. The first time I heard of S-K it was in the context of an acquaintance going there for treatment who later died. I associated anything to do with S-K with death and suffering. It was, to me, the building of the walking dead. Whenever I heard that someone had cancer, it was usually whispered, perhaps with the same underlying fear and panic that the inhabitants of the pre-modern world associated with lepers, and which the 1980s associated with AIDS sufferers. The response from the recipients of the news of diagnosed cancer in someone they knew would be a bowed and shaking head followed by the muttered "poor bastard."
The first time I walked into the Valley Hospital Cancer Center in Paramus, NJ I dissociated. This isn't my place, I silently affirmed as my body leaned away from the front entrance. Not me, not here, I am not meant to have this health problem...Yet once inside I met caring, sweet, emotionally validating nurses, staff, and physicians. I felt that this was not a charnal house, but a house of hope and promise.
My next stop was S-K and Dr. Sacchini who offered a second opinion about the breast cancer. S-K was well beyond my imaginings. It is decorated so welcomingly with waterfalls, soft oils and lithographs, and a color scheme reflecting the necessary polarities of hope and despair. Too cheery with tropical colors would offend me if I were receiving a terminal diagnosis; too bland would pull me down into fretfull ruminations of bad news Each floor has Internet, beverages and snacks, and a staff that is super-competent. Their IT is incomparable....I went for a sophisticated biopsy only to have Dr. Sacchini reading me the results within the hour. The physician at Valley was awed when I told her this; she said that such a reading would have taken 3-4 days.
My allegiance switched permanently to S-K, and for the 2 hospital stays and the biopsy I was cotninually astonished by the superb care of my body and mind, if not my spirit. From tea and cookies served by a uniformed food service worker at 4:30 to the extensive and yummy meal selections, from the spacious hiospital rooms to the wondrous 15th floor activities center with 2 story windows overlooking York Avenue, from the nurses and physicians to the lady who emptied my garbage can, I could not have asked for more attentive or caring staff.
But consider where I was for those two hospuital stays---where women were recovering from surgery and then released....I never saw a death, never encountered a terminally ill patient. The ICU is on another floor. So for a while, a stay at S-K came to mean an average hospital event, except that everyone there has cancer. And that also numbed and reassured me. If everyone has cancer, it becomes the norm of your experience. No more walking dead. We all face the same peril.
This next time, which I will find out about on Wednesday, I will be on the 6th floor with other lung cancer patients. When I told the nurse that my lung cancer was at Stage Ia, she teared up...She had never met anyone with beginning earliest and treatable stage lung cancer before. So I know that I will be amongst very sick cancer patients, and my lessons in hopelessness will be even more grounded.
"Death and hopelessness provide proper motivation---proper motivation for living an insightful, compassionate life....We're always trying to deny...getting old, getting sick, losing what we love---we don't see those events as natural occurances."
Yes, I have dodged the cancer bullet.... for now. That says nothing about what I can hold onto, what the possible addiction to "my good luck" can lead to if more cancer is detected. The awakening that I experienced must not be pushed aside by any temporary mindset of victory.
"Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hiopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time----that is the basic message."
Yet I am keenly aware that this dodging of the hopelessness bullet was an illusion, and I must continue to work with the truth, rather than the temporary illusion. I turned to Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart to reorient me to both death and hopelessness as the motivation for my awakening in the hospital:
"When we talk about hopelessness and death, we're talking about facing facts. No escapism...Giving up hope is encouragement to stick with yourself, to make friends with yourself, to not run away from yourself, to return to bare bones, no matter what is going on. Fear of death is the background the whole thing...But if we totally experience hopelessness, giving up all hope of alternatives to the rpesent moment, we can have a joyful relationship with our lives, an honest, direct relationship, one that no longer ignores the reality of impermanence and death."
That is precisely what led to my spiritual experience and resulting peace....
Today and Wednesday I return to Sloan-Kettering. These visits have dominated my life for several months and will continue to do so. The first time I heard of S-K it was in the context of an acquaintance going there for treatment who later died. I associated anything to do with S-K with death and suffering. It was, to me, the building of the walking dead. Whenever I heard that someone had cancer, it was usually whispered, perhaps with the same underlying fear and panic that the inhabitants of the pre-modern world associated with lepers, and which the 1980s associated with AIDS sufferers. The response from the recipients of the news of diagnosed cancer in someone they knew would be a bowed and shaking head followed by the muttered "poor bastard."
The first time I walked into the Valley Hospital Cancer Center in Paramus, NJ I dissociated. This isn't my place, I silently affirmed as my body leaned away from the front entrance. Not me, not here, I am not meant to have this health problem...Yet once inside I met caring, sweet, emotionally validating nurses, staff, and physicians. I felt that this was not a charnal house, but a house of hope and promise.
My next stop was S-K and Dr. Sacchini who offered a second opinion about the breast cancer. S-K was well beyond my imaginings. It is decorated so welcomingly with waterfalls, soft oils and lithographs, and a color scheme reflecting the necessary polarities of hope and despair. Too cheery with tropical colors would offend me if I were receiving a terminal diagnosis; too bland would pull me down into fretfull ruminations of bad news Each floor has Internet, beverages and snacks, and a staff that is super-competent. Their IT is incomparable....I went for a sophisticated biopsy only to have Dr. Sacchini reading me the results within the hour. The physician at Valley was awed when I told her this; she said that such a reading would have taken 3-4 days.
My allegiance switched permanently to S-K, and for the 2 hospital stays and the biopsy I was cotninually astonished by the superb care of my body and mind, if not my spirit. From tea and cookies served by a uniformed food service worker at 4:30 to the extensive and yummy meal selections, from the spacious hiospital rooms to the wondrous 15th floor activities center with 2 story windows overlooking York Avenue, from the nurses and physicians to the lady who emptied my garbage can, I could not have asked for more attentive or caring staff.
But consider where I was for those two hospuital stays---where women were recovering from surgery and then released....I never saw a death, never encountered a terminally ill patient. The ICU is on another floor. So for a while, a stay at S-K came to mean an average hospital event, except that everyone there has cancer. And that also numbed and reassured me. If everyone has cancer, it becomes the norm of your experience. No more walking dead. We all face the same peril.
This next time, which I will find out about on Wednesday, I will be on the 6th floor with other lung cancer patients. When I told the nurse that my lung cancer was at Stage Ia, she teared up...She had never met anyone with beginning earliest and treatable stage lung cancer before. So I know that I will be amongst very sick cancer patients, and my lessons in hopelessness will be even more grounded.
"Death and hopelessness provide proper motivation---proper motivation for living an insightful, compassionate life....We're always trying to deny...getting old, getting sick, losing what we love---we don't see those events as natural occurances."
Yes, I have dodged the cancer bullet.... for now. That says nothing about what I can hold onto, what the possible addiction to "my good luck" can lead to if more cancer is detected. The awakening that I experienced must not be pushed aside by any temporary mindset of victory.
"Relaxing with the present moment, relaxing with hiopelessness, relaxing with death, not resisting the fact that things end, that things pass, that things have no lasting substance, that everything is changing all the time----that is the basic message."
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