coincidence and grace

Went to Santa Cruz for spiritual talk on Saturday, spent the night, breakfast on the pier, cruised the downtown markets. On Sunday stopped in Oakland to visit an old friend on the way home. Got home Sunday night and had the one of the worst nights in this 3 year adventure. The next morning felt like I had swam 5 miles. Very weak and tired. Rested on Monday.

Tuesday I was going to move the RV to an RV park in the area, but was too weak. Wednesday I ran errands in Paradise and for some reason decided to get the tires rotated on the truck. I am planning on selling it anyway and seldom rotated the tires even when I kept my rigs. After they did the tire rotation at the shop, they backed it out and basically the front end fell off the thing. If I’d driven it away and especially tried to move the rv, I would sooooo have been killed. The repair is only going to be a few hundred dollars and should be done today, Friday.

Then the folks who bought the land called and said they wanted to buy the RV too! Another good reason not to move it. I’d put off calling the RV park that I’d scoped out to rent the space for a month and couldn’t figure out why I’d kept putting it off.

Then there was the 60 year old man at the tire place who started talking to me out of the blue about his daughter’s death from cancer. After a bit, he asked me if I knew what stage 4 cancer was and I told him that I did and why. After our 5 minute conversation, he was in tears and rose to hug me as I left.

The little egoic me wants to be frightened that I now don’t have land or an RV. It wants a home. Given all that’s happened, I don’t know why god wouldn’t supply me with one, but I’m open to whatever develops. Maybe there’s some other plan. As if I’m in charge, huh? Isn’t it pretty obvious that we’re not?

Enjoy The Simple Things in Life

Read the writing on the bench. Santa Cruz for Adyashanti satsang, November 09

So much more to say

Things have been happening so fast that all I've had time to do is scribble them down and not had time to make any sense out of most of it. I will publish more in the ensuing days. I'm off to a meditation in Chico, CA.

having faith

I don’t know if I’ll cure this or how I’ll make it through or what the process will look like or where I’ll be at in 6 months or a year or 3. I’m told that this path is one of increased faith; a faith walk with God. I’m to trust with all my heart, head, soul and strength. ‘No matter what you see, what you feel, know that the healing has taken place, is within you now.” Tears. “God will heal you so others can see the light of God’s love and see that his strength is without limits.” I’m filled to overflowing, but there’s always room for more and if it overflows and pours out of me, then others will just have to see it and be with it and experience it and it will strengthen their faith. Rise up! And be the man that God created me to be. I’m told I’m going to need a mighty strength. Belief beyond measure, Blessed beyond measure. Allow him to carry me.

I want to create an altar outside in the yard. An altar of thanksgiving. And the sign.

Stanford, Remove Primary, Treatment Options

Haven't posted in a while. Blogger's been messed up for a few days, but I've been messed up for a much longer time. Went to a week long trade show the first week of November, came back from there and on the anniversary of my original biopsy went to Stanford to the Head and Neck clinic for consultation. They scheduled another biopsy for the 21st, so did that. They took out some bits including right tonsil and found the primary in there, so completely removed that tonsil. I was on liquid hydrocodone with a massive sore throat for about ten days. Throat is still sore 16 or 17 days later.

Went back 10 days later to explore treatment options. Of course it's chemo/rad vs. a suicide in their minds. I wrestled so hard with all of that and finally opted for a combination of faith and my organic methods. They were surprised that I was 'doing as well as I was' two years after dx. It's been a very tough decision, but conv. treatment... well, I'm tired of talking about it. It's horrendous and would probably involve things like bankruptcy and dentures and being really really sick for quite a while.

Massive interpersonal relationship issues on top of that. Ah, life. I've been in a state of shock. Just coming out. See previous post.

Changes

I don’t know where to begin and I don’t know how to say it. I could start with the light of the fall morning on the slopes across from my window. I could start with the tears that I’ve shed over the changes in my physical capabilities or the ones that start when I survey the damage that I’ve done to myself. Not damage, really, but life energy expended, never to be retrieved except through the learning. And what to do with that learning? Who would I teach? How would I codify it?

It’s so not about who you vote for. It’s not about your retirement account or where you live. How do you love and who waits for you so patiently and quietly that you so seldom realize His presence? There is no time. There is all the time. And now is the only now we have.

The candle does not gutter low, neither is it as tall as it once was. It is the only candle we have. This day begins like others have and will and there are things that must be attended to.

Pass by the people on the street, the ones on bikes, the youth, those who strive to win and change the world. The world will not be changed. It is. Life is not. There are greater things.

Sometimes I wish the Cancer would make up its mind to either kill me or leave me alone. I grow tired of living in between. I am grateful that I am healthy now, though tired at times but one wonders every day if this is the day or tomorrow is the day or next Spring or late February or just exactly fucking when.

Another Wednesday on the Road

There is so much to say to so many. It will all be said.
Damp sea air, long beach predawn
The smell of god, waves crashing unseen, unheard, somewhere relentlessly.
People drive too fast to acknowledge let alone offer love to the pines and eucalyptus trees in the median.
Just another 'thing' at 40 mph, like another car or a stop sign.
I walk through the median among the traffic and touch each one and tell them I love them.
And I will soon be in a cab, then a busy airport, then a plane, then an airport, then a cab again.
I am my lesson, this body, this mind, this open hearted connectedness.
And so I stop to listen and notice, for me and for all of us, just for this moment.