Journal Entry to Remember

Last Wednesday I feel like I had a glimpse of what scholars call enlightenment, or the awakening.  I have never thought much of it before.   It always seemed so abstract to me that I could never quite get my brain around it.  I've certainly had my share of experiences in life to know that there is something greater than we can understand or explain.  Then my brain gets too involved, and feels like I need to put definitions to it and rationally can't do it.  How can we explain something we don't understand, or know, or have proof, other than talking about the experience?  I can't seem to go on blind faith.

Anyway, I still struggle with the definitions, and have realized that it doesn't matter.  Just feel, just experience, just lessen the resistance, open the senses....and see what happens.

So Wednesday...well, I guess I can say it started on Tuesday night.  My dear friend Erin, who've I've known since I was 14 was in town for the holidays.  She's a planner, and two months ago sent out an e-mail inviting people to a Cork and Canvas event where you go and paint and drink wine (kombucha for me!) with your friends. Now, remember two months ago...everything was up in the air.  And then even two weeks ago, I knew I'd be getting chemo and not really sure if I would feel up to it.  But, last round of ICE left me feeling pretty good by Tuesday, so I thought this would be the same so I said, YES! I'll go!

Well, ICE did not leave me feeling great by Tuesday.  It was actually a pretty rough few days leading up to it.  But, my mom said, don't worry, I'll come and get you and we can go together and we can leave early if you want to.  This was so sweet of her because I was definitely not on the way, and I knew it was a late night adventure that'd put her even later after dropping me off again.  But she insisted and I was grateful because I get so spacey that driving is a chore.

SO I get myself off the couch, put on makeup and try to make myself presentable.  And we show up and immediately I feel better from all the warmth of Erin and her family there.  They are like family to us and so much fun to be around.  There are always smiles and laughter, and that can be healing of the best kind.

And then we got to paint!!!  It was SO much fun!!!!  Three hours flew by like it was nothing and we all said we could have kept painting!  Art therapy...boy I tell you, it is good!!  I wish I had a picture to post of the paintings.

So that night helped so much in bringing me out of the chemo funk.  I awaken on Wednesday morning and head to yoga.  My body is still achey and weak and trying to talk myself out of going.  But I went with the promise that I could just lie there, as long as I was there.   Fortunately it was a small class because of the holiday, and the wonderful teacher, Essud, seemed to pick up on the fact that I needed a restorative yoga class that day.

Now, I've done my share of yoga in my day.  I even attribute it to the reason I am married to that sweet man of mine.  Since this illness I haven't done as much yoga, but have been introduced to QiGong and have found it resonates really well with where I am...learning to be aware of the subtle energies, and the movement of the energies.  I have really been charged by this practice and found it more uplifting than my previous yoga classes.  Essud also teaches QiGong, and that is why I started going to him. But there was no Qigong that morning, just yoga.  Either way though, I needed to move my body.

Little did I expect, but that yoga class totally blew my mind.  I realized that yoga awakens the subtle energies too, moves them and uplifts the soul too.  I just had to be open to it--I had to situate the brain that way.  I took moments to stop and just feel, and it was ecstatic!

So I left class buzzing in the soul despite the dumpy physical drag.  It was a strange combination of feeling good and bad all at the same time.

...and then I had to go to the post office....where there was a line out the door with one clerk on the job.   But instead of getting bothered, I found myself in a place of profound love and connection with all of the people in that line and the clerk himself.  I felt that cosmic collective consciousness and connection between us all, and got totally zoned out on the heartbeat there.

After that strange experience I headed to the local tea shop where we hold our women's circle.  I had to pay for the next round and stopped in for a cup of tea while I was at it.  I was sitting at the bar and I hear the door open with a jingle and I look over and this woman is coming towards me with tears in her eyes. And all I could think to do was to give her a big hug.  We embraced and then she sat next to me and told me that a week ago she went in for a mammogram and found out that she had breast cancer.  She was still in shock, and in the whirlwind of appointment nightmare, decision making, fear, and the unknown.  She said when she walked in and saw me with my scarf covering my bald head, all she could think of is this might be me.

So we talked for about an hour.  And I was working hard to hold her up in my heart and help lift some of this heavy burden she was carrying for I know all to well that the phase she was in is one of the hardest she will have to go through.  The beginning is scary.  Very scary.   And during that time of fear and emotional havoc you are called on to make important decisions and deal with insurance companies and choose doctors, etc.  It is tough.   So I listened and tried to give encouragement and love.  And now we've got this connection and I think we are going to have tea again sometime soon!  I hope that I helped ease some of her worries and fears.

I sailed on to the rest of my day with a call from Michael, my beloved, who never ever ever leaves work early.  But today he said he was coming home and we were going to go buy a 4-wheeler.  A back story---he has been obsessively looking for the best 4-wheelers to buy for a couple of weeks now.  He's been up at 6 in the morning to go look at possibilities.  We've been looking because we've got land that we need to develop.  So no, this isn't a toy...it is an essential work vehicle ;p.  But he had finally found the perfect one, the only problem was it was south of Atlanta, and the dealer was only open until 5pm.

He picked me up and was giddy like a little boy. It was so cute.  I enjoyed so much seeing him happy and smiling, he has certainly deserved it.  He brought me along because I am the haggler...he's so nice that if he were left to his own devices, he'd buy it outright at sticker price!  So despite the nausea in my belly, and the ache in my head, I was still high from the day and seeing him made it even better.   We went, we haggled, and we bought the best 4-wheeler ever :-)

And we made it home just in time for Patty and Mary to come over for meditation group...I couldn't believe how lucky I was to end such a cool and strange day with meditation with those two.  I wasn't disappointed.  Far from it. I think we had some of the most intense mediations of yet.  We had several meditations, back to back with different intentions, and boy, how powerful.  We were all three together, yet all had deeply intensely different meditations.  My most memorable left me in a puddle of ecstatic bliss that I couldn't put words to afterwards when talking about the experience.  Silence seemed to be the best words.

I was totally blown away by my day.  The yin and yang.  Interesting to have such a good day while still feeling physically blah.  It was a nice lesson.

Thursday was an interesting one as I had to pack for Michael and me to go out of town.  It took me forever because my brain just wasn't working.  I even had to stop and throw a bit of a tantrum because I just couldn't get it together to figure out why I was in this room or that, or what I had packed and what I hadn't and even find some kind of order to the way I was going about all the tasks.  After that difficult experience I went for acupuncture with the pleading begging to fix my brain.  So I had a pretty intense session.  My brain has truly suffered from these drugs and I just hope that it finds its way back to health.  It has gotten better since then so I am hopeful.  We did make it out of town, finally, after an even more surreal trip to Whole Foods for groceries for the weekend.  I walked around that store, spacey and a bit sweaty, probably 10 times trying to figure out what to bring.  But I made it, and Michael and Curtis and I escaped to the mountains for an incredible start to the new year.  I had a noticeably harder time hiking the mountains, but slow and steady, I made it to the top by golly!!  I just hope I get my stamina back. I will....  In the meantime, the peaks are even brighter the harder you work to get there (or that is what I am telling myself :).  We had a beautiful ceremony under the Hemlock tree in the rain to let go of the lessons from 2010 and welcome health, gratitude and love for 2011.  It was the highlight of the weekend.

I am back now, and expecting to be back to normal.  But again, toss those expectations out the window. I was extremely fatigued yesterday that I, after a 10 hour nights rest, slept for a solid 3 hours in the middle of the day.  It was crazy how tired I was, and I didn't even party hard for the new year!! And I slept like a baby last night too.   It didn't occur to me until I read my friends post this morning about how her 6-year old son slept 12 hours last night and woke up visibly taller.  And I thought, hey!  That's my problem!  I've been taking these shots that stimulate my bone marrow to produce cells, and my body is warn out from all that work!  I'll listen to the words of my Qigong teacher and say "I love my body, and thank you for taking care of me"  So I just need to be gentle with myself.  Take each day and each experience as it comes.

I also found out yesterday that a friends husband has passed on, and my heart breaks for my her and their young daughter.  Life is delicate and fleeting.  We need to cherish each moment because you never know when it will be your last.  I don't envy this healing process for them and I hold them solidly in my heart for strength and love and rememberance.

Well, this was a long post, and I think I mainly wrote it because I wanted to remember this time for me.  I wish I were better at explaining the mystery, and have had so many of these experiences these past months that I guess I am just going to have to go on memory until my tongue catches up with the sensations.

Love to you all, and Happy New Year!!!  2011 will be one to remember, it will be a great year.