email to a dear friend

I'm so glad your blood tests are good! That's fantastic. Guess you'll just have to stick around on the dirtball, huh? Sorry about that. :-) That kind of stuff always drops me into, 'OK, what do you want me to do with this time here? How do you want me to show up? What do you want of me?' I'm not talking about some god thing necessarily, but it seems like there's SOME point to being here besides running out the clock. I'm just talking about my own process, not suggesting anything for you.

Today is my 5 year anniversary since diagnosis. M asked if I ever thought I'd make it this far. NO WAY, but I have, thus the fairly constant curiosity.

I know that gratitude for still being here is what I mostly feel about it, but sometimes I get a little snarky too. That 'What the f are you doing to me?!! Can't I be freaking done yet?' I know I have a strong preference for staying even if it means lots of self work or showing up for the hard stuff or whatever. Freaking tears over that one.

I'm now truck shopping. I've looked a a few, but no decisions. It's not a totally rational process, it's allowing the right one to appear. Sometimes it feels like, "It's not ripe yet." the decision, you know?

I've been listening to some current Adyashanti audio. It seems that when he's doing his rant, soliloquy thing, he's speaking to those who are pretty far along in the process of awakening or whatever you want to call it. So I get to hear about all the places I probably won't get to in this lifetime. :-)

He said something kind of interesting, describing 3 different levels of awakening. Take it with a grain of salt, but it made sense to me cuz I've had some of the experiences. He stresses the difference between intellectually understanding this and having the actual experience and that there's no point in striving for any of it. Jed would say, just slay the very next thing that's in your way and then clean up the mess and keep going. 'Further.'

The stages Adya talked about are:
1. Perceiving the world not as an I but as just awareness without the mind. You ARE just awareness.
2. The experience of being 'all that is' (if you will). That you ARE the mountain, the table, the other person and in fact everything.
3. No 'I' which he couldn't really say anything about that 'I' could relate to, go figure. He just skipped over that part.
:-)

The tumor didn't like flying to NC of course, but it's not only that that seems to be causing it to not shrink. It's a bigger than it was, more painful, still not interfering much with my energy or at all with swallowing or artery or nerves or breathing or any of that. It's a freaking mystery to all of us.

There are times when I notice that I don't take a full breath. In that, I recognize that there is a fear of complete surrender to whatever might happen. Like by somehow not taking a full breath I can control the outcome. It's hard to take a full breath into 'I might die in the not too distant future and I totally embrace that.' I'm just not allowing myself to have all the feelings. Not all the time, but sometimes. I'm tired of not showing up for all of it. All I want to do is BE afraid when I'm afraid, BE sad when I'm sad, live fully, not hide from any of it. If I have to live every day all day with tears streaming down my cheeks, so be it.

Still planning on HI, working towards it, bought tix for 1/12.

Gee, I wonder what will happen next? "Will they make it to Hawaii? Will Dan last long enough to teach P how to homestead and garden or will he recover or maintain for some years to come? Will he reach some place where he's really at peace with whatever happens or is he going to hang out in some level of angst?"

Stay tuned, huh? That's all I'm doing. It's all I know how to do.