Monday, June 30, 2008

I have to beat this because everyone expects me to

Some days it seems like a lot to ask. Somebody defined a nightmare as
1. Bad things are happening and worse things are threatened.
2. you are powerless to do anything about it
3. There is no end, no time limit, no 'only two more days or years' and it'll be over.

The difference between a nightmare and a bad dream is if you change any one of these. So there will never be a time when I am 'cured'. I'll always be under the threat of anything can happen at any time. There's no denying that number 1 is true. There's not much 'bad' happening at the moment other than relatively subtle daily warnings of tenderness, fatigue and some swelling. The symptoms kinda feel like a 'tease' ongoing, always there. So number 2. I'm not powerless if I choose not to be. Let's turn this from a nightmare into a bad dream. Problem is that I don't want to be strong EVERY Flickin' day! It's tiring, its boring and its not real.

Nietzsche said "When things are really bad, being sane is an insane response".

So back to the beginning. I feel like I need to beat this because everyone wants and expects me to. That's a heavy burden in itself. Here's the list:
"Take your pills every day"
"Only eat healthy"
"Exercise a lot"
"Do your spiritual work" Hey, If I die, I wasn't spiritual enough. Now there's a big responsibility.
"Do your emotional work" Hey, if I die, I wasn't emotionally mature enough (to suit everyone else.)

I might die. If you have a problem with it, "YOU TRY PULLING THIS OFF!!!"

Saturday, June 28, 2008

It's constant it seems

We're all on fire here in North Cal. Weird people are telling us its because we let gays get married now. God's punishment. People are strange, so insulated from reality, out to lunch. I stay away from that part of the population, I guess. Anyway, we're breathing a ton of smoke up here and that just doesn't help much. I take a nap and wake up tired. I know I can't just keep going. That won't work. I did go get some organic vegetables so i could start juicing again and fasting, but I also got a bunch of other organic stuff that I like to eat! Hard to start a fast when the fridge is full of good stuff, huh? Part of my life has felt like 'there's never enough time'. That belief system needs to change. I have to go back to 'just say f*** it'. I'm trying. The cancer will make me if I don't do it on my own. I know that.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Spring Celebration

I awake to a cold house on a spring morning before sunrise, make coffee, do a little writing while trying to keep the neighbor kitty out of my face.
Then I walk to town.

Sleeping part of yesterday away, burned I guess from several weeks of being very responsible,
I dream healing, get-back-into-my-body dreams.

Walking to town through the long rays of spring morning light, chilly pure air,
I remember having walked this road, in this light, at this hour and this time of year and then...
I am twenty.

I know this magic, tears start, the sudden knowing.

A rusty chair in the garden, facing renewal, the sunrise.
It is magic. The nettles spring up an inch a day through weathered cedar boards.
Birdsong. Millions of years of evolution and they honor each spring with iridescent, glowing vitality.

Every growing thing celebrates, Audaciously!

Black, barren soil collects the warmth to incite crocus and daffodil to herald the four-and-a-half billionth coming of Christ or Vishnu or Matakwease or Celtic goddess or just Spring.

Faded seed packets mark early greens in my garden planted before the last frost

Snow dripping, water gathering, moving down crystal.
Branches trailing wakes in a powerful icy river, refreshing the sea.

Magic says if you honor more, you get more.

Then, Jake plunges into the river as two small ducks drift by in their search for breakfast.
I yell at him. He says looking at me puzzled,

“I know I could catch them for you, just let me at them. You’d be so proud of me. I know
you’d like to have them”

I laugh out loud. He’s so sincere.

So... you’ve been given the power, honored with it. GO CREATE!

Only humans forget what the rest of the growing things always remember.
Is it my work, to help remind? The highest form of creation for me?

I guess I am a priest, not a warrior or healer or king, and I’m afraid to take the responsibility to always remember. Always. Myself. Now.

Spring-warmed barren hearts, Arise!

Plunge hands, wrist-deep into warmed black soil. Celebrate!

Love Neverending

I’m sorry youse guys are so busy. I know how that can be. I’m working on just saying, “Fuck it”. The pile does not get any smaller so then it becomes an issue of just how fast you want to go. Shall I weld the rototiller today, put in the air conditioner, extend the watering system to include the new bed and the squash plants? Should I make some headway on my speeches that are due sometime next week? I could work on the computer all weekend and then I’d be ahead of the game on Monday morning. Even as I type these things, the anxiety starts building because I’ve lived this way all of my life. Really, my heart starts beating faster, my breath quickens, I feel the tension and anxiety, JUST FROM TYPING THIS! You HAVE to jam an hours worth of work into the next 15 minutes or the whole world will collapse, the IRS will show up at the door, a customer will be less than totally thrilled, the rabbits will die of heat exhaustion and what about that fire line I want to dig down to the river? NOW THAT”S CRITICAL!!!! Ohmygod! I have to get all of these things done before the sun sets (or I could forgo my sleeping tonight and get more done!).

It’s called living in fear and in not enoughness. There isn’t enough love, time or money. If there is, then I will only deserve it if I work really, really hard.

Know that I’m not typing this for you all, I’m writing it for myself. It’s my baggage, but I send it to you because I think you can relate to it.

Fear says, “I can make you safe”. Love says, “You ARE safe”. The soul doesn’t care if you weld the rototiller unless you do it from love and joy, then it would have the equivalent value of spending the same amount of time enJOYing watching the birds at the feeder or laying in the grass looking at the clouds pass over.

Deeksha was good. It’s the same story. Its your intention that you invest in it. If you intend to get something out of it, you will. Will I go again? Well maybe something will settle in that I haven’t felt yet, but otherwise, probably not. There is NO DOUBT that we have to share this JOY and LOVE or it doesn’t do us much good either. I think for me there are other ways I’d like to intend it. I’m having a hard time in group not wanting us to sing (just something goofy like Amazing Grace or Simple Gifts). I’m chicken to bring it up. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. What a wimp, huh?

I feel compelled to help people more who are diagnosed with cancer. Maybe over at Feather River Hospital. Alternatives, emotions and spirituality. I’ve ordered a few more books on it. It’s almost time for a fast again. I can feel it coming on.

I hope you all don’t mind being a sounding board for my process. You don’t have to reply to it.

I send you buckets and buckets (there is no end to the amount. It just keeps flowing from all directions to all of you. It never ends. There is no limit. The flow is constant. In an hour or a day or a month or a year, you can come to the realization that it is STILL flowing uninterrupted and always will flow) of LOVEJOY!

Friday, June 20, 2008

today's messages

Not to merely 'accept' but to wholeheartedly EMBRACE the full catastrophe that is life.

I am not longing for love (or anything else. I have all the love I can stand), but just being here with an empty heart, devoid of anything but full of light.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

After her beloved children were taken away from her by lying lawyers and a broken court system and I abandoned the place I loved, lost in another unfair divorce, god threw me and my gal into the ‘people processor’ (again) and turned it on high for awhile. Cancer, hospitals, doctors, medical bills, two totaled vehicles in 72 hours, the worst winter in Albuquerque history. When we climbed out of the whirligig, we were dizzy and disoriented and incredibly thankful to find that we could still walk and talk (well, sort of, since she broke her leg on Halloween and still can't walk). We love each other. We love this place, but she doesn’t even know who she is yet and we aren’t too sure about me neither. :-) And Spirit doesn’t give a shit, but would like us to move forward with our soul’s path, regardless. I guess it never ends as long as we’re walking this earth. Light your feet and light your head and burn your soul’s candle at both ends.

We both know that we have been blessed, though and are thankful for that. Nor Cal is a beautiful place to suffer no? :-)

Monday, June 16, 2008

Your Friendly Family Oncologist

Why in the hell would I go see an Oncologist? Just because I was diagnosed with terminal cancer? Why would anyone go see a cancer doctor? They are completely worthless to me because the only things they have to offer are:
1. Poison? Nah, I'll pass. I saw the Snow White movie a long time ago. Not in to poison. It makes you very sick, you quit breathing, you're weak and gray and throwing up all the time. Maybe you'll survive it and slowly over the course of a year or so get better and be able to play and have fun again. Nope. Don't like poison. What else you got doctor?
Oh I know, I know!
2. A referral to a radiator (one who irradiates your body with other, guess what?, toxic rays!) Yup, now THAT sounds like a great plan. You don't feel anything. It's just a very high dollar big buzzing box. Oh yeah, I did that and after 8 sessions had 2nd degree burns all inside my mouth and throat. Then they were going to put in a stomach tube. I remember the first little Indian woman oncologist with the unpronounceable name (a 'highly regarded oncologist). She stood there crunching a piece of hard candy, spent 5 minutes in the room and billed me for $600. I did the math. There are 12, 5 minute periods in an hour, so 12 x $600/hour is $7200/hour. Pretty good wages! First thing she was going to do was put a feeding tube IN MY BODY because I probably wouldn't be able to eat or swallow after she got done with me. That is FUCKED up, in case you didn't notice. These people are insane.

OK, radiation, fucks up your immune system. Not good when you're trying to fight off cancer, that's for sure. It'll shrink tumors if it's well targeted so I guess if the tumor was choking off your esophagus or something that might make sense for awhile to give you some additional time to cure yourself with HEALTHY things. (did you Oncologists ever consider helping a PATIENT with a DISEASE get HEALTHY instead of sicker? Now there's a novel approach. I'll pass on radiation as well. Remember class, ONCOLOGISTS can't even DO radiation. They have to refer you to some person who can. So even if you WANT radiation, you still have no reason to go to an ONCOLOGIST. And what is an oncologist again? Oh, yeah! A CANCER doctor. We still have not come up with a reason for a CANCER patient to go see a CANCER doctor! How interesting.

Ah, but CANCER doctors still have one final tool up their sleeve! They can REFER you to a SURGEON so you can have the cancer surgically removed. Again, they can't do it themselves but through the power of their almighty prescription pad, they can send you to a surgeon to whack that bad boy out of there. In my case the surgeon (working with the CANCER doctor) decided to whack open my neck and remove every lymph node in there, about 75 of them I'm told. This is called radical neck surgery. They generally cut the carotid artery (they said you have another one and one is probably good enough) in the process and dig around through your neck muscles and basically fuck you up. This MAY leave you with the inability to control the facial muscles on that side AND you may not be able to use your arm very well (That would be my right arm, the one I use all the time). So THAT's fucked up. I said 'No' to that one too.

OK. To recap, an oncologist is a cancer doctor, someone who specializes in the treatment of cancer (which I supposedly have, like in spades). The only thing an oncologist can do is 1. either REFER you to someone else to FUCK you up, OR they can poison you themselves without outside assistance. They don't know anything about how to enhance your immune system or help you look at the emotional underpinnings of cancer or do ANYTHING to help you get healthier. They can't help you with those things.

It would be really nice to talk to someone who is a specialist in my 'disease' who could actually do me some good, help me get healthier, talk with me about my treatment options, but no, you can't go see a cancer doctor because they don't KNOW SHIT about CANCER treatment. It is an interesting world...

Friday, June 13, 2008

I'm interested in becoming more of who I am

Anything that gets in the way of that seems like a negative. I want to play more music and write. I can't quite make out the pattern in the weaving of my life, but can see that there is a pattern as I get older. Not a pattern of activity, but some thread of continuity that flows through the fabric of my life.

Men and Fish

Why is it that women's magazines are mostly about catching men and men's magazines are mostly about catching fish?