Update

The universe is demanding a total refocus of my time and energy. There are no danoparticles of material, nor danoseconds of time remaining that will not be completely focused on staying embodied and whole. The divine has placed in front of me a number of sources of material to further define what is unfocused energy mostly in the form of human interaction.
The divine has shown me the way forward.
1 Fully embrace my personal power.
2 Limit all interaction that doesn't further wholeness.
3 Research and follow without deviation the best medical path forward
4 Visualize apoptosis of cells in my body that don't serve me
5 Step into and fully process any beliefs or ideas or emotional content that limit this process.
More to come...

Hospice

Yeah, now don't freak out. We signed up for legal reasons and for pain mgmnt. Legally, Pamela is in the clear if I'm listed and something happens to me and they have WAY better ways of dealing with pain, basically fentanyl patches that are time release so I'm not constantly trying to manage the place in between dingyness and being in pain. I'm AMAZED at how much of my energy that was taking, just holding the pain and then being too messed up to be able to do anything. I'm very happy and feeling SO much better and so much more able to participate. Of course there was some emotional fall out, having to ask for help, receiving, etc and then the little packages in the mail with all the 'what to do ifs' and weird bottles of pills and stuff, but we're over that and having fun again. Love to all.

Sadness is both a natural and healthy expression of loss. It's integrative. It can also be an expression of resistance to what is real when overly indulged. I am struggling with it this morning, asking the divine for more ability to cope. Always heart breaking more open.

I think there is meaning in everything, some reason that we should work to illuminate. I have yet to find value in chronic pain. Any theories? I'm grateful for opiates. Thats all I got so far. :-) Not looking for sympathy, looking for ideas. Pain makes me cranky. Robs my motivation. Gives me compassion. But day after day? Responses: "Maybe the value isn't in the experience itself but in the ability to be able to transcend it....however that may be.... I bet Steven Levine has some beautiful words about it.." "I hear ya brother. I hate pain. I'm lucky that I haven't had to experience much of it but when it arrives it gets real old real fast. When I've been able to really release myself into my pain, you know, become one with it and let go of my suffering and attachment to not having it...then it's okay (not great but okay) But that is a very difficult thing for me to do. Very difficult. I hate pain. It makes me cranky too." And my reply: Thanks for all your help everyone. There is no doubt that being in resistance to it improves neither the pain nor my happiness. I've been holding onto the way I USED to experience my body. Attached to that. Such an engrained viewpoint and source of ego pride. The power of the subconscious programming always amazes me. Rewiring. Feeling the little neural pathways detaching, finding new connections.

Pololu Valley Rainbow

At the end of the day we drove to Pololu lookout and saw this lovely rainbow.

Last shot of the series. Heading back above the mountain road toward Waimea before dropping off to the dry side of the island to land back at Hapuna. Old cinder cone in the photo.

NE Coastline, Big Island, Valleys and Waterfalls.

Waipio Valley, Big Island Hawaii, Helicopter

Leaving the east coast of Hawaii, we start approaching the Waipio and other valleys along the NE Coast of the Big Island. There are a bunch of corrogations up here, five or more super deep valleys that are virtually impassible. Waipio has some native old family (Kamaina) inhabitants/farmers living a homesteading life, growing Taro and other food. All photos by Pamela Huggins.

Hilo and the Hamakua Coast of Hawaii

All of these pictures, by the way, were taken by Pamela Huggins on a cheap Kodak EasyShare set at low res (my fault) through the acrylic bubble of the helicopter. And BTW, use Sunshine Helicopter on the Big Island. They are great and our pilot Grant was not only awesome but the ladies thought he was hot. :-)

In this final shot of Pu'u O'o crater, you can see the crater (the entire round surface is a lake of lava covered by a thin crust), the hole in the 'ice' that spits out lava while you watch and the expanse of the underground lava tube leading toward the coast.

Hawaii Big Island Helicopter Tour

Helicopter Pix of Pu'u O'o crater near Volcano, HI. The crater is the active lake of lava that sometimes spills over the top of the crater and heads toward the sea (Makai). Currently the lava is mostly running under the ground in a lava tube. You can see the smoke rising from the tube heading toward the sea, but the lava is running inside. This stretches for many miles. Don't know how many.

And then there's this. Being prepared at any time to leave the body thing behind with all that entails (sometimes fear of what comes after (the unknown), sometimes fear of how the process might occur, some kind of weird longing for the events I might miss as an embodied being) and at the same time, knowing positively that this can be healed NOW (maybe will be, maybe not and it's not up to me) and that my direct and powerful participation is required for that to happen.

Let me try this on. I'm talking to myself here so don't take it as anything more than that, k? Any of us could die before the hour hand completes another circuit of the clock face. It's not about dying well. Die kicking and screaming if that seems appropriate. It's about how I show up for the LIFE part. "Carpe F'ing Vitae!" as Jed M. would say. Living fully in every moment, not just fully in the mind and body, but also in the being that temporarily INHABITS the mind and body. This is not something to try to remember or a goal because it is not something that the mind can achieve or even strive for. The mind CAN be used as a candle to dimly illuminate THIS, but neither the candle nor its light IS THIS. So how does it occur then? Intention is helpful, but much more than that is required. Hmmm. I'm doing it in this moment (or more accurately expressed, it is occurring, since it ain't me doing it). How did I get here?

Life, my attitude and Kanaloa

Working to not only maintain some sort of normal life, dishes, cooking, laundry etc after a major medical event, putting those pieces back into place, but also to be attuned, to not only listen but ask, "Should I do this, that, lay down, do some work?" At the same time observing the attitude with which I navigate the moments. Am I in resistance to this event? How does pain affect that attitude? The growth on my neck looks increasingly bizarre and I'm sure even more gruesome to many people. I don't want to freak out the general public. It even smells bad, probably negatively affects the romantic side of our relationship. And through all that it IS! It just is what it is. Very real. Sometimes I avoid looking at it for days in a row, but that's just avoidance. I've been wearing a hand towel folded in thirds long ways around my neck held in place by a cut off yoga belt. I'm sure that looks interesting. Maybe I need to get a cervical collar so it looks more normal. Mostly my attitude is good, I'm almost always happy, but sometimes the snark creeps in. Just trying to deal with reality. Went to the rocky ocean front last night in the dark in the wind. Kanaloa, ocean god said, "Yeah, I have the power to blow you and your truck right off this rock into the ocean and You/I have the power to heal that thing on your neck too. Continue your work, not prove your worthiness, but go deeper than you've imagined you can, further than anyplace you thought could exist. Keep going." What do I say to that, right? OK then, ok.

There comes a time when we realize that we are the ocean, the singularity and that the singularity is omnipotent. This is not faith or understanding or knowledge, it is not mind stuff, it is instead knowing. Then the choice becomes are we (am I) going to live that knowing, accept that much power, or are we (am I) going to continue to choose to identify with the little me, controlled and buffeted by some imaginary deity that we imagine is separate from ourselves?

I realized at some point that all of the mind's many questions about consciousness were no more than it's desire to be considered important and did nothing except inhibit truth.

‎"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves... Don't search for answers now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. You will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." -Rainer Maria Rilke. Shared from Deva Premal.

Another Pololu Valley photo.

Kohala Peninsula near Hawi town

Now for some fun pix.

Recent photos of 'growth'

It scares me to post these things. I don't want people to be afraid or feel bad. Heck, I don't like looking at them either. Much more fun to be in denial about the whole thing. For contrast, our healers say it looks bad because it's dying in all the gnarly looking places. We choose to be optimistic. Why wouldn't we? What did I used to say? "It may kill me, but it's not going to beat me." I'll go with that.

The thing that is inherently unfixable

The truth is, the realization is, that I can't freaking fix this and even if I could, eventually I'd have to face this truth again, that I can't fix my life in such a way that there is no death, if you will. The death thing is the ultimate unfixable situation, that's why I'm using it here. Other issues may or may not be solved by employing thought and action but this one thing is inherently unfixable. If we can come to terms with that sooner rather than later we can face all of the events in our lives in a way that maybe gives us a great deal of peace and freedom. It feels to me that accepting that ultimate existential reality opens a gateway in myself that allows an appreciation for the beautiful things to flow in and through me. The 'if only' dissipates, the denial of what is true evaporates like the specter that it is leaving nothing between myself and the greater part of existence which from this window looks like late afternoon sun on the grass, the smell of plumeria blossoms and bird song.

Life is...

It does what it does. Disatisfaction is inherent in the experience of being alive. Even in a perfectly happy life, eventually there is aging and disability and death. Much more commonly there are many experiences along the way that are painful or feel "wrong". Maybe not until there is a problem that the mind can't solve, that action can't overcome do we finally recognize and perhaps employ a completely different operating system that is so far removed from thinking that the two are not even in the same universe of experience.

Dissatisfaction and suffering propel us to inquiry

Dissatisfaction and even suffering are what propel us to inquire, to ask, to wonder about life, about our existence, about what is real beyond material things and activity. What is true?

First days in Hawaii

First days in Hawaii. Still not quite here. Sleeping, looking, listening. After weeks of doing "Am I attached to this, can I let that go?" Living in the world of STUFF so much more than living in a world that is integrated with both stuff and truth. Making the shift slowly.

James Baldwin

‎"Any REAL change implies the break up of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or thought one knew to what one possessed or dreamed that one possessed. Yet it is only when man is able, without bitterness or self pity, to surrender a dream she has long cherished, or a privilege she has long possessed, that he is set free-that he has set himself free--for higher dream, for greater priveleges. --James Baldwin

Real Change Implies the end of your world as you know it.

‎"Any REAL change implies the break up of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one identity, the end of safety. And at such a moment, unable to see and not daring to imagine what the future will now bring forth, one clings to what one knew, or thought one knew to what one possessed or dreamed that one possessed. Yet it is only when man is able, without bitterness or self pity, to surrender a dream she has long cherished, or a privilege she has long possessed, that he is set free-that he has set himself free--for higher dream, for greater priveleges. --James Baldwin