forgiving myself

Lying in bed last night, waiting for the blanket of sleep to wrap its comfort around me, I noticed an almost rigid tension engulfing my body.  This was a feeling I did not want to carry forward into my future.  With each new exhalation, I envisioned my rigid being melting, releasing all holding, surrendering and letting go of all fear. Even now, as I write, I can feel my shoulders drop, my arms lengthen and my heart lift.  The next thing I remember is waking up this morning amazed that I was able to fall into the darkness.

In today’s meditation, I recognized a similar holding pattern, a pushing against the tragedy of reality, a desire to pretend that a perfect life is possible, that it just such a life only requires a gallant effort.  In her interview with the poet and philosopher, John O’Donohue, Krista Tippett explored the meaning life, of love and beauty.  John reflected on times he had sitting at the bedside of they dying and in particular with those who had lived staunch, unrelenting lives. John said that after two or three days he noticed these people literally softened and became visibly more radiant.  When Krista asked how he would explain this phenomenon, John said the dying person realized the way he/she had been living could not serve them now – that holding on and pushing away from the darkness only served to separate them from the light.

Annie Dillard describes just such a realization: “In the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us. But if you ride these monsters deeper down, if you drop with them farther over the world’s rim, you find what our sciences cannot locate or name, the substrate, the ocean or matrix or ether which buoys the rest, which gives goodness its power for good, and evil its power for evil, the unified field: our complex and inexplicable caring for each other, and for our life together here. This is given. It is not learned.

Today I set an intention to notice when I am holding tension, when I am pushing away from the harshness of reality.  I choose to forgive myself and all others and most especially I forgive life for all its incongruences, its injustices, and its inherenttragedies.  I surrender into the unified field of love, “the house of belonging” -David Whyte

legacy

trying to grab my

hand, to lay her shroud over

me.  dare I look away

down under

turn over the rock

of impatience and you will

find an angry worm

stand off

like bickering bamboo

we stand face to face waiting

for the next storm to brew

 

Processing

Okay good.  Went to a yoga class.  Did pranayama and meditation.  Feel better.  Glad I will not be drinking for 40 days.  All good.  Amelia is coming to spend the night tonight.  Our friend and yoga teacher, Chris Coniaris, and his girlfriend, Bridgette from Cincinnati are here to spend a couple of nights with us.  Jordan gets home from LA at 5:45 pm.  So we will have a full house.  I’m glad.

I really got myself worked up about the cancer over the past few days.  Really started on Friday and just went right on through last night.  I just wanted to get drunk and forget about it.  Pretend it isn’t happening.  Well it is happening and I am going to deal with it.  I guess I just had to get pissed off.  It really did very little good.  I do not have to go there again.  Grasping, avoidance, dulling the senses, none of these strategies really helps me to cope with a second round of cancer.

I also need to admit that I have catastrophized about it, it being cancer, attacking other parts of my body.  I know, don’t go there.  Well all I can do is watch my mind and try to maintain witness perspective.  I will play the part of the observer.  Here is what I see…..

 Mind in action:  Do I have cancer in my bones?  Is that why my shoulder hurts all the time.   What about the chronic back pain I have had for the past year.  Should I tell the oncologist about that?  Yes, I should.  I want him to know everything that is going on with me.  Even if I want to ignore it, I believe it is important to practice full disclosure when going to see an oncologist I have cancer in my bones?  Is that why my shoulder hurts all the time.   What about the chronic back pain I have had for the past year?  Should I tell the oncologist about that?   Mind taking over again:  What if he, he being the doctor, wants me to have an MRI?  I cannot do that.  Just thinking about it gives me an anxiety attack.  I have such terrible claustrophobia.  They will have to knock me out.  Do you think I am getting just a little ahead of myself?  

Enjoy this moment.  Breathe in and out and emphasize the exhale, the letting go.

I love you Sarla.  We will get through this.  We will.

 

Cancer – One Day at a Time

My cancer is like Putin.  It moved silently into my body.  I did not even know it was there.  But, like Putin, it has consumed a part of me.

I went to a cocktail party tonight.  Example of several conversations I had.

“Hi.”

“HI.  How are you?”

“No how are you?  I was so sad to hear your news.  You beat it last time.  I know you can beat it again.  Call me if you need anything.”

When did cancer become cocktail talk?  Well, I guess if I put my whole life out there for everyone to see?   If I live in a glass house, people are going to look in.  How can they not?

I don’t know whether to be scared or not.  Yesterday I was angry, today annoyed, really annoyed and after the party tonight, slightly paranoid.  Should I be more concerned?  How would that help me?

wringing my hands

I just noticed I was wringing my hands.  Today I am afraid to die.  Some days I am not afraid,  This is not the kind of fear that takes the form of anxiety.  I do not feel anxious.  Yesterday I was angry.  Some days I want to play the victim role, but it really no longer suits my personality or my level of understanding.  Life is a gift and to spend it in the role of the victim is such a waste.  So depressing, self-absorbed, lonely, whiny, always complaining about how had life is and what a bad rap I had as a kid.  So what?

My childhood does not define who I am today.  If it did I would be sitting in some bar drinking my lunch or I would be living on the streets like my brother.  Wringing again.  I just did it again.  I stopped writing to wring my hands.  What is up with that?

As I was driving down Waynoka today on my way home from Kroger, I had an ah hah moment.  My life is a miracle.  It is a miracle that I am alive today.  My mother, step-mother, father, grand mother, brother are all dead.  So are Jimmy’s parents and his sister.  Life is fleetingly wonderful, one Hell of a roller coaster ride.  I am not much for roller coasters, the ones at the fair that go straight up and then straight down.  Not so much.  It’s a little easier for me to ride the ups and downs of life, which even when they are brutally challenging, are never as extreme as the rush you get when hit the top of the ride and start flying down at a million miles per hour.  Too much.  Too fast.

I am more of a Goldie Locks kind of girl.  I want things to be just right, even if only for one nano second.  Just to say, “Yes, this is the bowl of porridge that I want.  It is just right.  Yes, this is the bed I want to sleep in with you.  I love you and I love our bed.  Yes, this is the chair I want to sit in and read.  I love to read.”  Life is good.  Right now, in this very moment, with my belly full of my home-made corn bread, life is really good.

compassion

care for those who are

fearful angry jealous over-

powered by addiction

 

anger

do your best to let

the thoughts dissolve wake up

drop it and relax

 

Arbeit macht frei

work makes you free find

the path to virtue through labor

in concentration camps