Two months ago I was diagnosed with a metastatic breast cancer recurrence. Frankly the details of it bore me at this stage–this stage of feeling better. Two months in I’ve finally settled enough, having experienced what feels like a life-time’s worth of mental and emotional turmoil and growth and pain.
Like last time around I’m embracing what seems like the 7-course meal approach to healing. An amuse bouche of prayer, an appetizer of meditation, a first course of cranial sacral work, an entree of chemotherapy, a side of body work, a palate cleanser of naturopathic supplements, and a dessert buffet of love and support, leaving the sweetest taste in my whole body and spirit!
I have no idea what this new journey holds but with the love and support of this giant community I look forward to all sorts of new possibilities, to getting back to cooking, to keeping this space open and welcoming, to learning from you all and your journeys of growth and turmoil and pain. There is so much suffering AND so much love and beauty in this world.
I leave you with a poem by Mark Nepo from his book Inside the Miracle: Enduring Suffering, Approaching Wholeness
Knowing God
Oh lone crazed bird
singing in the night —
you sing with your whole body
while the rest of us sleep.
I go to close the window
when my wife touches my arm
and we listen.
You call out
like a saint robbed of words.
Are you blind and trapped
in a vision of sun?
Or do you simply see farther
than the rest of us?
Do you see the light coming?
Do you feel the beads of warmth
forming in the dark?
Oh what has stirred
that thing in you that sings?
Stir me now
Sing me clean.
