These are raw notes but I’m really happy doing this. This time now is the opportunity. I have a great network of communications, really unprecedented. People are interested in sharing their stories and personal experiences. Through the internet I connect with the people who have been through the kinds of things I've been through and who are interested in exchanging information on how do deal with these difficult personal situations. I have all kinds of connections on many levels with all sorts of people. The magic of the current cultural contexts of the amazing technologies arising today make these contacts possible.
For years I’ve been put off by the overwhelming nature of expressing what I have to express. Actually for many years I’ve tried. For one thing I’ve not found the words. Other people have not understood. And of course, there’s been several crises in my life. The cancer is not the first close encounter with death. As a young man 45 years ago my world came apart in a different way. I was very ungrounded. I “went off the deep end” and entered fields of energy and experience that quite put me under. I almost died in a three-story fall. I lived in intense dream worlds 24/7. I really couldn’t cope with ordinary life at all. Diagnosed as schizophrenic I was consigned to a New Jersey state hospital and treated with extreme medications as well as physical abuse. This is a whole other story, not part so much of my cancer odyssey, but a story I hope to express through another blog.
Saturday May 9, 1998
Here I am. I’ve got cancer. What am I going to do with this? Gotta let the process unfold and just take one day at a time. There are some fears. What if I lose all my energy? What if I’m unable to work? Somehow I’ll get through. I have some good support, some good friends.
Strange that I have cancer. I could die. I’m pretty young. Always thought of myself as healthy. I guess I’m not so healthy. Weil says cancer represents a breakdown of the immune system.
Gotta keep moving. Writing’s a part of movement, just keep my fingers working.
I feel like I’m coming right up to the deadlines. I meet with oncologists next week. Wednesday, only a few days away really. They might want to start chemo or radiation right away. And where will that put me? Might really lay me out, change my life. Might disfigure me. I gotta accept all of this. Although alternatives may be effective I’m not really in a strong place vis-a-vis my body. My body’s systems have broken down to this point.
And what about my son Kenny? And what about my work? Gotta take it all one step at a time. It’s putting me in touch with the real limitations. I’ll only get done what I get done while in a body. How can I benefit others with what I have done? Then again, I might move through and recover, perhaps even recover completely. I might be in a whole new place.
Sunday May 10, 1998
On my way to Allentown to visit Drew and Maggie.
It’s up to me to find the way to hold my own space and find the way that I am finding support with others. Actually I do have people that care which is a tremendous, precious gift.
My online friend Ladybear writes that she’s “with me”. She’s such a precious gift. I think others are with me too. Some are afraid to say they want to be with me.
This morning I read a recent interview with Whitley Streiber by Sean Casteel at Casteel’s site. In some ways I don’t really relate to Streiber and in some ways I do. I really feel that Streiber in some ways could do with some more loving but I guess it’s not my place to say. At any rate, I think what he says about meditation, taking the focus off the mind and putting it on the body, is really true. Focus on the body is focus on the breath.
Furthermore, I still really love the Tibetan imagery. I would like to work with the Medicine Buddha. I really need to come up with more personal visualizations and I need to practice these visualizations. This is part of my healing. I think the walking, the moving and the exercise are critical as well. These are things I can do.
I think the part that is hardest is with the food. I eat so much junk. I guess I gotta accept that this is a component and just maintain my awareness. I’m not into erecting “steel barriers” within myself, some kind of hard discipline, seemingly what it would take for me to get into the serious diet. However, a different approach may work. I don’t have a definition of this approach but it is something to do with just doing out of a gentle awareness, not making any big deal out of it. Really this is how I quit smoking, by saying “just today I won’t smoke.” This is the way I’ve been able to move ahead with my PMHCA work and I think it’s the best way for me.
Heading back down from Drew and Maggie’s. They are just some really beautiful people who are true friends.
So much to say and I’m only gonna be able to say a piece of it. Still it’s important to say what I can. I’m thinking of Mike Susko’s biology of fragility. It seems my whole body, my whole mind, the infrastructure of who I am is very fragile in some ways. However, there are powerful energies at root. So I may have to move through some of these structurings coming apart, like the PMHCA connection and I don’t know what other relations. The good news is that there is transcendent beauty behind all of it.
I’m moving into the completion of that original dreamlike image I had many years ago of “cancer ward” and our tumor infested bodies being thrown together into a tank to be placed in the center of the earth. A shamanic communion. A lot is manifesting. It’s really time to tell my story in terms of shamanic crisis.
Monday May 11, 1998
Despite the high degree of “voidness” or insecurity or lack of objects to cling to I’m still present and I can move through. Or not. Whatever happens it is true that I still need to let go, to be present. The teachings still apply. I’m called to put some radical stuff into place.
But who am I? Lots of folks have been called to “give it all up”. Really there are many others who have had it far worse than me. I’m lucky. The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. The Tibetans that had to flee Tibet on a moment’s notice.
I’m still alive. I still have good things happening. I can rebuild. Perhaps things are best this way.
Kenny is one of my main concerns. Doesn’t look feasible to hang around here in Reading. Should I go to Harrisburg? Should I take Drew up on his offer and move in with him and his family? Should I try to get a place of my own together around here? I wanted to stay in place for Kenny. But from here it looks well nigh impossible. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to support him adequately with my health situation. I don’t know whether I’ll be working. Lots of “I don’t knows”.
Wednesday I confer with the doctors. I’ll know some more about further possibilities and course of treatment from there.
I gotta stay present with my responsibilities. It’s a challenge but doable. I gotta keep my job and work going.
I gotta call on my special energies. I gotta call on God. I gotta see this through. I gotta focus on my work. It’s definitely doable but I can’t fuck around.
No comments:
Post a Comment