Tag: Mortality

21. Terminal

We are all on the track.  Some have been running a long time and are nearer the end than I.  But the difference is that I KNOW I am in the race.

pexels-photo-2402777Who knows what?  That is becoming an issue.  As more diagnoses have evolved, as more people have a baseline, it gets harder to remember what information has been passed.  It is certainly not self evident what interpretations transferred into each person’s view.  And there are pods of folks who don’t know, and that I cannot conceive of the right way to express the information.  Ironic.  Work knows.  Friends don’t know.

Today Starfeather commented that I used the word “terminal” for the first time in her knowledge.  Inoperable and terminal are synonymous in my mind.  I also speak a lot about the chemotherapy goal, which is to shrink the colon cancer but not remove it.  Colon cancer in the lymph system tells a tale of sending radical cells to new and creative areas of the body.  Terminal.

We all die.  Humanly, there will be a perceived cause of death.  

My mind rocks back and forth between “I’m living a glorious day” and “remember the impermanence of this moment’s situation”.  Inevitability.  

I feel no sadness.  I feel an inexplainable race against time.  “Leave right.”  Pack the baby gifts for Rosanna and Indrayani.  Write notes of appreciation to all of you.  Say what needs to be said, do what needs to be done.  Prepare stuff.  Finish stuff.  Enjoy the journey, enjoy the journey, enjoy the journey.  Feel the breeze.  Laugh.

We are all on the track.  Some have been running a long time and are nearer the end than I.  But the difference is that I KNOW I am in the race.

15. Insights

A couple of months ago, I accepted death.  And then, I have been told to accept life.  Both.  Here and now.  I’m gonna die, eventually, some day.  It might be a surprise a couple of weeks from now.  It might be a miraculous decade or more away.  But it will be right, on God’s terms, on Universal principle… not in my time, not my decision.  And I will always be one with the earth, one with you, Divinely available forever.

This week, a vision keeps popping up.  I am inside of a mountain, looking out.  There have been a lot of earthy pictures in my head. 

But spiritually, I have loved deserting this world for higher planes.  Friends used to say that “I need to ground”.  What that means is that it isn’t good to fully leave this world for the God realm (like where meditation can take a person, becoming an addiction to God focus) without bringing it back into this one.  Over a decade ago, it was difficult for me to pick the human world over the space of realization.  I preferred to be in that fuzzy, soft, unconditional love space that I had found within myself.

There was kick back!  My feet slammed to the earth with a divorce and all that came with it.  My balance was forced, and then tipped back to earth based reality.  But you can’t really remove awareness and realization.  What has been seen cannot be unseen.  I would say that it can feel like God deserted you, or that you are starting back at the beginning on that seeking quest.

The cancer has been a gift, like it took the earth base away, and opened my eyes.  And this week has brought the rock, the inside of the mountain, me looking out of the mountain, an integral part of the earth itself.  Balance.  

pexels-photo-346885

11. Land Under Wave

Yesterday’s Reiki meditation had a lot of water energy.  We all started there, with the water, or in the water, or under the water.  Being at the ocean or visiting the falls or going to the river by the Shinto shrine feeds my soul.  A shower can do the same thing!  

Michele_Stowell_Land_Under_WaveIn my Reiki session, Amisha saw a large manta ray swimming above me.  The visions were fluid and deep.  I connect with that in a way that is very difficult to explain.  I can remember dreams where I have drowned (happily) and become one with the water, peace and love.

Google shares some manta ray wisdom.  The creature is symbolic of graceful strength and wisdom.  Manta ray points to a life of helping others, of not taking life for granted.  Beautiful.  (Better http://shamanism.astrologyclub.org/animal-totems/manta-ray-symbolism-meanings )

My mind goes back to Tiffany in the Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett).  She is told by the Kelda that her name means “land under wave”.  And when her enlightenment is unfolding, she becomes one with the sea, with the creatures, with the history that actually become the chalk, the ground on which her ancestors and lineage stand.  She was always that.

We are always that.  It slips away in the daily grind.  And when the awareness returns, the eyes never quite shut completely.  

“She closed her eyes, and closed her eyes again. 

She felt it all draining away.  It was like falling asleep, sliding from that strange wide-awakeness in just normal, everyday… well, being awake.  It felt like everything was blurred and muffled.

This is how we always feel, she thought.  We sleepwalk through our lives, because how could we live if we were always this awake?”   (Wee Free Men, Chapter 13, Land Under Wave)

2. Stairway to Heaven

I danced up the next dozen stairs, happy and elated to be on the journey home!

Stairway to heaven

In a Reiki session, my mind was still going crazy with thoughts and “to do” lists. 

As the fog started to clear, I saw an endless white staircase to the clouds.  I stood on the third step, looking back, and crying and crying for those I left at the bottom, hands reaching for me and mine for them. 

Then my gaze redirected.  I danced up the next dozen stairs, happy and elated to be on the journey home!

0. Welcome!

Embrace my mortality and your own, as we walk down the path of this incredible level of existence

Severe intestinal pain brought me to surrender.  On March 7, 2020, we drove to the Bellevue Urgent Care in Washington State. After multiple blood tests, prods, and a CT scan, the doctor bluntly diagnosed “a large mass around the intestine and two smaller ones in the liver… it looks like metastatic colon cancer.”  And indeed, a week of hospital testing verified it, and further scans added one or two unrelated cancers in the uterus as “the cherry on top”.

Life ended.  Life, as I knew it, ended.  A glowing, painful, death defying, frustrating, challenging, and vibrantly glorious and spiritual new journey began.

Come with me on the adventure.  Ride the roller coaster.  We are all counting down to our last day!  Embrace my mortality and your own, as we walk down the path of this incredible level of existence.