Cancer, The Alchemical Spirit - Part 1

Dear Friends, this article (split into a 3 part blog post) wrote me, and a surprise to me it got written at all.  Such innocent unveilings there are no words for, as you walk a very silent talk.  The events shared are real and as they unfolded to me through my unique lens, as you will receive them through yours.  When I sat down one day to write, I did the only thing I could do which was to tell it as it offered itself to me, and trust that just as Divine intelligence brought this 'rite of passage' into my life, so now will it reach the hearts and lives of those to whom it is intended. This is simply one part of a larger and 'transformagical' picture of which I will share more as we go along. Whilst writing this piece I have had a magical black pussycat called Atticus, and a joyous black bunny rabbit called Violet Light sitting next to me for much of its duration, they both deserve a mention.  As does my husband Frank, who is my Anam Cara, Gaelic for soul friend.  In Celtic tradition, an Anam Cara is someone you can share your innermost self to reveal the hidden intimacies of your life, your mind and your heart. This friendship cuts across all convention to create an act of recognition and belonging that joins souls in an ancient and eternal way.

“The eye with which I see God 

is the eye with which God sees me.” 

(Meister Eckhart)

For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out, and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction (Cynthia Occelli).  To the lovers amongst us, we know this is the calling forth of beauty.  We are each of us grooms being asked to join in sacred matrimony with amazement herself. There is a quote by the famous poet Kabir which says: “If you cannot ‘cross over’ when you are alive, how can you when you are Dead.”  This is a story about crossing over.  

We are conditioned in the superficial, versus the real, so when we meet the real, it can be frightening.  Yet until we are willing to go within and meet our deepest fears, which ultimately at their core is the fear of death, we will always remain in a bind, in a world of separation and striving, isolated from the still presence of Well-Being. That which is our core nature underneath what has become hardened, wounded or forgotten within us.  The creative potential in the presence of death is immense, be it physical or psychological each are a call into the invisible world, an entry into the presence and power of Spirit within.  In facing what we are most afraid of we embody a more challenging, deeply self-compassionate, and worthy fullness of ourselves.  Here we meet the one Beloved that everything arises from and out of.  Here we transmute endless wanting and desire to eternal devotion,  - freedom from, and within ourselves. 

A  friend of mine Jack, sent me a message for my 53rd birthday.  The message read  'May you Die well to Live well'.   I can't tell you how that made my heart sing, such an enlivening, unreserved and wise comment.   I told Jack I may have to covert that one from time to time, and I have.  Yet it is fascinating to me that at times in conversation when I have used this  saying, which describes well the virtues and salvation in psychological death, that it has never been met with the same appreciation and acknowledgement, not to mention understanding with which my heart greeted it that day.  I trust what I share below will shed some light, an example of this metamorphic process where destruction and creation become one, where we whole heartedly invite the Divine into our humanity.  

There is a Sufi saying …  "Our Soul is covered with a thousand veils".  To me, the true nature  of our spiritual life's work, and principal purpose for Life itself  is the dissolving of these veils so we can sing our own unique Love song.  Authentic spirituality is not a high, not some exalted ‘display’ of consciousness, no 'final destination of safe harbor, and by no means the mind’s version of ‘blissfull’ as is sometimes put forward in the sales pitch approach to spirituality. If anything, it brings us closer to 'reality' which is not always comfortable, whilst reducing our self identification with it.  Eventually any truly sincere spiritual longing becomes not the avoidance of, nor want of anything, no matter how nobel, holy or seemingly humble, but at its deepest core becomes an impersonal sojourn where we align with the knowledge that Life is always endeavoring to realize itself, and that body of Life as me will take me where it will.  It is a crucible for both light and dark, embracing all of love’s sweet and scary moments.  In essence, we could say the symbolic entry into this selfless domain is where we switch from living in the head to living from the heart - regardless of its request.  Heart centered wisdom is never logical, as it's  navigation system is deeply rooted in this truth.  As questionable and seemingly problematic as it’s requests may sometimes appear, the cosmic heart is always steering us towards the realization of Life as Us.  An eternal ceaseless pilgrimage into the realization of Love, what it is, and more importantly what it is not, aside of all concepts and conditioning often used to avoid life’s more challenging and heated moments.  As Victor Frankl said: “What gives us light must endure burning”. 

Near four years ago,  at the age of 51 in July 2011 I received a breast cancer diagnosis, and entered a time of serious veil removal of which I have many stories to tell, many love songs to sing.  This is just one small, yet 'leading' note in that great melody

 In June 2011 I found a  lump in my right breast and was told 7 days later it was malignant .  Those early days were filled with deep shock, fear and confusion, and as the days passed I noticed there started to arise in me an unexplainable and profound sadness, that felt 'ancient' at its core - ‘thee sadness’.   That, that we all carry in our heart and souls where we have left the truth of what, not who, we truly are for whatever reason be it trauma, pain, cultural conditioning, or imprisoning belief systems. The deeper I stepped into my inner landscape, the more profound became the stillness that spread itself inside me, and the more this thoroughly ancient sadness appeared to infuse the whole of me, and the whole of existence.  I would lye on a mattress some days in the living room looking out to the garden weeping with my husband Frank lying beside me, his arms wrapped around me.  I remember telling him how unfathomable this sadness was to me.  It was deeply in me, so I was answerable to it,  yet it was much bigger than I, and notably impersonal at its core.  It was all consuming, everything, everyone, everywhere.  I was being brought into my heart, and there was a veil of deep grief surrounding it - timeless, ancient grief.  What I didn't know then, but know now was this was the beginning of a most blessed and choice-less sojourn, to uncover, re-cover and more importantly fully embody this long abandoned truth that was here all along.  I/We are pure Spirit, pure vital Life itself.  The formless truth and presence behind everything and everyone.  There is no death.  This ancient grief and sadness was the 'light bringer' and all I had to do was accept, allow, and open to receive what it had come to rouse within me.  To greet it with a compassionate heart.  This awakening was walking hand in hand with the mighty alchemical Spirit I call cancer.  Walking right alongside all the shock, confusion, and brokenness of that harsh and frightening reality of those initial days immediately after diagnosis.

I came to see cancer as a dark Angel with pure white transparent wings, who like all Angels carries within her the blessing of profound Grace.  When she comes to sit on your doorstep, her power is mighty and her ways a mystery.   She even has the medical profession mystified, or does she?  Perhaps their focus is in the wrong order - out instead of in, cure instead of cause.  She will break you open and beckon you inward, to where the real source of Life and healing reside.  She will invite those closest to you, those that truly love you, take this same choiceness journey with you, if they can.  Together you will ride the wave of destruction and creation, death for rebirth.  

It reminded me of a phrase I coined many years ago after coming through a difficult period of deep transformation, a most bless-ed crucifixion whilst living alone in the wilderness of Ireland.  "When it appears things are going terribly wrong, they are probably going terribly right”.  Superficial appearances are never the truth.  Deep metamorphosis can often  appear as a blood bath which we see evidenced at the birth of every child and animal.   Profound transformation doesn't always look pretty.   Life is always, and in all ways, happening for us not to us, offering us goodness, benevolence and re-birth in the changing and challenging circumstances of our life if we choose to embrace the offering.  By now in my life I had grown 'comfortably uncomfortable’ with sitting in the fire of any pain, discomfort or emotion that difficult circumstances may waken in me, and allow Life shower me with gifts of new beginnings and deepened awareness according to its timing, not mine.  In those early days, a little poem/song would often come and sing itself to me.  It was the sweetest little love song that came out of nowhere.   I knew it was the divine messenger that had come to foretell this rite of passage. The melody came from the play ‘Joseph and the technicolor dream coat ‘ and these words would often joyously sing themselves to me.

"I closed my eyes,

drew back the curtain

to see for certain

what Love can do"

And now I wake

and look around me

to see Love has found me

shining bright and new.”

(Continued in Part 2)

Cancer the Alchemical Spirit - Part 2

This awakening process lasted for 3 weeks and then gone when the job was done.  What I did not know then, and can only recognize now was this was a culmination, and integration of my past 20 years sincere self enquiry.  There was not then, and has never been, any grasping in me for this communication to appear again, nor wishing it could have stayed longer.  Some moments were more intense than others, as I lived, breathed and resonated with what  I knew to be my essential nature - all embracing vital Spirit, pure alive awareness.  In every cell of my body I was this sacred substance parading as a physical being.

This still aliveness, transcendent joy, and depth of wellbeing that embraced me had always been my  love, my God, and what I clearly remember as my origin and my home.  This vital presence, this Light was me, completely ordinary, yet extraordinary.   It was utterly sufficient unto itself, no fanfare, and nothing sensational in me to want to speak about it.  From this time forward, I was quietly and without any decision called to align with this power as my teacher, healer and guide through my passage with cancer.   To whole heartedly embrace this ancient knowledge just as indigenous cultures have  lived  for thousands of years, and just as all non-human life forms are naturally connected to, and sourced in.  I took my lead from the natural world.  It was instinctive, and in no way separate from the rest of my life .  It was a most simple and innocent remembering.  It is only looking back at my Life and experiences, some of them challenging that followed from this time, that I see now how deeply I was to be refined, and my life transformed from this communication.  It was not about the disease called cancer, that was simply the word given for an imbalance within me sent by Grace to remove.  The body sends us symptoms to 'heal' not to hinder.  Dis - ease and discomfort are gifts of wellness if we know how to listen and act accordingly.  When we stop running from death (the death of our egocentric conditioning) we are then free to truly embrace Life.

It  became clear to me then moving forward that a mastectomy, radiation and drugs, as were urgently suggested to me by my surgeon, were not my path.   It was not about beating the disease with my focus on survival, but about true whole hearted healing from within - dead or alive.  Some have died from cancer free, you might say, for them truly healed. Some have beaten the disease yet remain emotionally and spiritually entangled. This was my offering to Life.  It was important for me to belong to my truth, not the obedient.  With the knowledge of how ready, willing and forever available the mind is to make a story of our life, and with the discernment to know this was an ‘opening’ to let go of any story I may have at a deeper level,  stillness and silence were my way.  I gratefully declined many of the compassionate offerings given to me to speak to other women of their experience through cancer, so I could keep to a minimum my minds potential for fearful projection which was significantly enhanced at this time.  It was imperative I nurture my intuitive body by not feeding into other peoples stories.  I did speak to two women early on and became profoundly struck, because of where I was,  by how strong in both the overwhelming emotion was to survive.  Although this is a natural 'survival instinct' to which I could absolutely relate, another part of me, the Light in me,  saw this to be a limitation to being fully alive.  Both women were open to whatever medical treatments they were told would keep them alive, and prolong their life.  Unfortunately both these beautiful women are no longer with us.   They may have passed fully healed, I have not the knowledge of their process.

Although my journey was taken in much stillness and inner quiet, creating a conscious vacuum, I was none the less deeply rooted in community, and vulnerable to my need of it.  For us as a humanity it is a vital part of our healing as we each make it possible for the other.  Aside from Frank, who provided an open, safe and authentically loving space in which I could flourish, and a few intimate friends,  I was deeply called to root myself in nature, and ‘She’ became the heart of my community.   I immersed myself in her, in the stream of her plant spirit medicine and healing plasma that surrounded me here in our magical garden that Frank and I had built together.  She embraced me, and I her.  She became, as is the truth for us all,  my ‘portal to presence’ manifest in the physical.  As I entered the natural body within me, and aligned myself with the nature around me, the same awareness shining in me was shining in Her .  She became my way-finder, my inner compass, and my deepest peace and well-being.   When we  meet our most fragile self and are in need of support in finding our own healing,  it is the pure nature of another we long to connect with, and be held by that same love, innocence and simple kindliness - everything else becomes obsolete.   These junctures in our evolution are precious truth telling opportunities where our psyche’s are propelled wide open. I learnt to choose my community wisely, to look at what people around me were ‘bringing to my table’ as though it were my last supper.  

My approach to cancer I see now was my dharma, and the destiny I chose as the highest expression of my life.  It was a journey to be taken in stillness,  and one where often I felt alone in the wilderness, with moments of feeling lost, afraid and unsure.  A 'pioneering pilgrimage' where there was no one I knew of around me I could call upon who had chosen this pathway to self healing.  There was only a choiceness deep inner calling to heal in this way.  The words kept coming to me:  ‘It's God's world  (Spirit) or Man's World’ ( matter), as though there was a choice - two different paths for me to walk.  Everything in truth is of the one universal intelligence, but I was being presented here with a fork in the road.  The patriarchal  power of our times has separated the physical and the spiritual, afraid of the feminine's magical nature,  which in the end will be our saving grace and that of our Mother Earth if we are to survive.  There must be the blending and acknowledgement of both.  I seemed to be born raging against the patriarchy and yet, looking back, that rage  in it's unconsciousness within me often had me as its servant trapped in patterns of  powerlessness and repression, particularly in relationships.  I was called to align Spirit with Matter as One, to bring Divine Light into matter, and embody that within me.  This was not a decision based on reaction or denial, nor one of hope, but one of authenticity, truth, and faith. One of 'what would Love do?'. 

It appeared to me God's world represented trust, owning my healing and living my truth.  A heart centered journey with no guarantees of survival, yet the highest expression of the Life I had been gifted.  A place more of absence, yet working with the substance of  Life, Light and Spirit to guide and heal.  A knowing without knowing anything.  A merging of Spirit with Matter, bringing Light into matter as Me,  and then offering that back to the world.  A place of opening and receptivity, absolute acceptance but by no means resignation.  There was no ‘fight against cancer’, and no inner armies called forth, but instead a ruthless and  practical process of  re-tracing, facing into, and bringing awareness to the whole of my life from the beginning and beyond.  A whole hearted cohesion of body, mind and spirit, a pathway that appeared suffused in freedom and breathed my liberation as  I gave myself to what felt true and vital.   I was not called to play by mans law, but the law of the natural world, just as any animal in the wild would do.  I have just now learnt years later via an interview with professional animal communicator  Anna Breytenbach, that at no point has an animal in the wild ever been found to die of cancer.  Her reasoning as to why is in direct alignment with the principal truth of this,  my healing journey.  (see interview below -  at 23min)

Man's world  seemed to me robotic in its approach, with each cancerous tumor unique in its emergence and display, yet each offered the same regime of treatment.  A world of information, facts and figures, addressing people in parts rather than the whole.   It seemed to me more the imprisonment of matter,  often rooted in fear, and it felt disempowering.  The more I researched this disease, and our man made ‘war against it’, there became a  growing disturbance inside me at the corruption being generated by the big business machine called cancer, often sourced in patient vulnerability and fear.  In the gnostic gospel of St Thomas Jesus said: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you”.  Within each of us is the power to heal, the solution is always an inside job.  The medical profession does not endorse this truth, but may indeed say: “You gotta be out of your mind”!  Yes, I was out of my mind!  I have always been an adventurer, and all adventures in the end are an inside job.  When we travel, we travel to a place inside ourselves.  This disease is a unique crossing for each individual, it asks for courage and honest discernment to unearth what is seeking to be rebalanced and often rebirthed within us. We are complex creatures with minds that love to put things in boxes.  Healing is multi-faceted, yet decidedly one pointed. Just as it is not wholly about diet, nor is it wholly about cutting off our breasts.  

(Continued in Part 3)

Cancer the Alchemical Spirit - Part 3

I remember the day I met with my surgeon for the initial consultation after being diagnosed.  I felt his energy to be kind and caring and there seemed to be an opening in him towards both Frank and I.  During our consultation I told him I was not afraid to die, but was afraid of what he wanted to do to keep me alive.  I could see a light come on inside him, where he then looked at Frank curiously and concerned, and Frank replied: “no, no, she has looked into this, she knows what she is saying”.  And with that he smiled at me with a sense of liberation and a heaviness lifted and said  “Gosh I'm so  pleased to hear that!  For most people it is the other way round, they want me to save them from death of which I cannot, but I can do my best to keep them alive.”   And the day shortly following where I  meet with the Oncologist, who told me a woman in my condition, at the very least should be taking Tamoxifen if nothing else.  So I asked "what would be the purpose of taking this?” and he replied “just in case cancer were to spread to your other breast as well” and I responded, “thank you, but I don't live just in case, and I particularly don't want to put a drug in my body just in case… I shall take my chances, and face that should it ever happen".  

At the same time in those early days whilst Spirit made its full bodied descent down into me I remember balmy September evenings lying naked at 2am in our backyard down by our little stream.  As I lay there with my legs wide open reaching deeply from within down into my womb, I spoke silently yet wildly:  “Mrs Moon, Mrs Moon, fill me with your bright white golden healing light”, the depth of vitality and undefined vastness that was me as I spoke these words indescribable.   All the while I was  embodying this forsaken truth - ‘I am this Life, there is no Death’.  

The initial phase of healing, and there have been many, seemed the most difficult and arduous of them all as I started to clear what I knew to be generational pathology, generational suffering.  Our ancestral DNA that gets passed down through family lineage and sits in our cells like an insidious virus affecting and infecting our psyche's, our bodies and our unconscious behaviors.  Often cancer is gestating in the womb.  I was clearing the 'living dead' from within myself, none of them me.  My mother's suffering and pain was the initial ring leader.  I could feel her, all that in essence she was not, yet embodied in her life due to neglected trauma and pain, as it is for us all.   I had a great love of my mother and took her on at the age of 4 - I became her husband. This type of suffering, the 'sins of the fathers' is sticky, pervasive and the hardest to shift for us all.  Because it is not us, yet dwells within us as unconsciousness itself.  This is the real foundation for changing our DNA.  It was very hard for me being in any form of relationship at this time, I was alive only to myself.  I had nothing to give to anyone, even had I wanted to, which I did not.  All my energy was totally engaged in this choiceless process of cutting ties with generational dysfunction (the past)  appearing as me.  Sometimes love is a fierce embrace of Life.  My psyche felt so bereft of Life, and my mind in a state of anarchy and disarray.  Looking back  I was probably deeply depressed, my mother's depression, of which she often took barbiturates for.  Pretty little speckled pills hiding in her bedroom drawer of which I would often admire as a child.  I wrote this piece in my journal during this period about the relationship between Frank and I.  It was a time of great personal intimacy for we both, within our own psyche’s and hearts as  we were asked to let go and allow love lead anew.  Not from foregone identification, conditioning or concept,  but enter the mystery of Love from a place of absence, innocence and incertitude.   An opportunity to love without looking for result, an opportunity disguised as loss, that in time ripened to become a blessed relief and liberation for we both.  

"Frank and I are in the winter of our relationship.  I am cold and contracted a lot of the time towards him.  Holding on to nothing which is frightening to any projection my mind may have into the future.  All I have is a thin golden thread of ‘absent knowledge’ that we are here together and it is where I am now."

When I first got diagnosed the brokenness of those initial days had me one day say to a friend: “why, what have I done wrong that this would happen to me”, as my mind anxiously scrambled to make sense of one moment in time that was a part of many others, to make known the unknown, to find a why so my mind could fix it.  I saw in that moment how the cultural conditioning of my early religious days and much of my adult life spent deeply devoted to what I had now come to see as a conceptual, patriarchal and intransigent spiritual teaching, gave rise to this  statement of shame and self-abuse.  It is often in our moments of deep brokenness and vulnerability where all belonging disappears, our psyches split open to the light of awareness, and there we catch a glimpse of what lies deep within our unconscious.

There have been many moments of profound and illuminating healing that followed this initial phase, each imperative to this crossing over, and pivotal to the melody of this love song.  I see how each was interconnected, integrated and woven together in perfect sequence and harmony.  Each phase of healing has been a profound emptying out followed by a deep refining and re-integration process, the final and most rigorous being the physical, as my body sought to realign itself with my psyche.  I was bringing through into my humanity that which had been transcended.

I am reminded of a verse from a song by  Ray Lamontagne called 'Empty' .  

Well, I looked my demons in the eyes

laid bare my chest, said "Do your best destroy me.

You see, I've been to hell and back so many times,

I must admit you kind of bore me"

The depth of gratitude for this most powerful and alchemical of Spirits I call cancer having entered my life is immeasurable and unnameable in words.  Words would only sully the pure experience and sense of divine blessing that today, and each day, inhabits my heart.  There may be some wanting to know have I healed cancer, and for that I have no definitive answer in the absence of any medical testing, it was never about cancer.  I am here ‘Now’ - along with a recognition and embodiment of the Principal of Life, whether in this physical body or not, which for me has been liberating.  Have I healed the imbalance within that cancer brought undeniably to my attention?, yes, and more.   I am no longer the woman who entered this journey in ways simple and profound.   By laying claim to all areas of trauma, energetic dysfunction and conceptual conditioning whether personal, cultural, spiritual or otherwise, my cells now vibrate to a new and authentic tune not one filled with other peoples notes and rhythms.   Where once my energy would move to meet others, it now remains still and immutable.  Many things now pass me by that are not an energetic match, but what is ‘for me’ remains, and is not connected to a thought process.  I’m still deeply drawn to help and serve others in their life, nothing gives me more pleasure, but not unconsciously at the expense of my own.  Yet, the greatest revolution that has come from this, which I continue to observe, is the abiding and choiceless alignment with Presence, Spirit and Soul intelligence as the supreme power here.  This original divine substance is my inner compass and most truthful, gentle advisory beyond this dream.  This has been most comforting should my egoic conditioning become confused, or destitute as it did in the early days when viewing this 'vacant lot' that was once so alive with the  experience of itself and the endless need to ‘Do’.  Now there is an absence of drive or energy to materialize and manifest as is our ‘insatiable’ conditioning, but to simply allow and align to what connects me with peace, beauty, and my inner sense of creativity.   A life of paying attention rather than setting intentions. When our 'get up and go has got up and gone' we can probably assume we are on the right track. Life, as this cosmic creative potential, always knows were to find us in ways extraordinary and unimaginable. This is by no means a disengagement nor indifference towards community, worldly or planetary issues - the days of sitting around contemplating our voids and our gurus are over and have clearly shown their flaws.  Sometimes the unimaginable is full engagement with what calls us from a sense of personal responsibility. 

I share this as a blueprint for true healing, in faith that in time as a conscious responsible humanity we will live from the inside out, where our first response to healing will be to look  within to where Life, this timeless Spirit wisdom and presence resides.  To embrace it as ‘Thee power’, our innate power to heal not just our bodies but our lives.  We are each our own unique fingerprint of God - as within so without.  Our human awareness is poised and ready for a more fulfilling connection to Mother Nature, to the Universe, and to ourselves as this Divine principal.  All illness and disease at its deepest core is a 'poverty of Spirit’, where body and Being are at odds with each other.  A ‘disunion’ within us from source energy - the natural, nature-all intelligence that in truth we are, and everything here arises out of.   This has nothing to do with intellect, but enters a tangible cosmic dimension within us.  Until we start to bring ‘presence to our pathology’, disease and disharmony will continue to populate and hold dominion over our bodies, our psyches and our planet.  Backwards is the new forwards!  Just as wealth has nothing to do with money, nor is our connection to Spirit dependent on anything money can buy, or on any external source - it transcends all materialism and possession.  It is never our spiritual body that needs healing by one more workshop,  guru, soul-mate, success story, pill or potion - it is always resplendent and whole.  It is our effortless and silent appreciation of what we are naturally born into that is its nourishment, deeply our own, and our Mother Earth's.  This inner provence uses the circumstances of our life to gain our attention.  How attentive, open and willing we are to enter stillness - the ground of self inquiry, wisdom, and our natural body, this then becomes the depth of our realization and ultimate well-being.   Once you see what is in the way, the way is clear, and it's already done - what's 'in the way is the way'.  Here we bring Life into living, within ourselves, within our lives, and within the collective consciousness.  The more we can bring harmony and Oneness to ourselves, it is this which will guide and produce Oneness in our world. This is true healing, and the greatest offering of our life. 

We cannot do this until we stop running from Death, be it psychological or physical,  but instead befriend death's divine potential for transformation and transmutation of our bodies, minds and psyches with an understanding that any pain or confusion serves as motivation to enter our hearts more deeply and embrace the healing power of Spirit that resides within us all.  When we truly embrace death being both the end, and beginning of a new cycle of life, in any of its myriad of forms, this is the bedrock of our soul’s evolution and our restoration.  We are then free to whole heartedly embrace Life in the knowledge that WE are this most powerful Divine substance, and this our potential to heal whatever is seeking to be restored and liberated within us.  All pain needs to be witnessed, with acceptance and compassion - we feel it to heal it.  It is in our darkest moments where love draws closest to us, and is a most powerful catalyst in pushing up and forward what is waiting within to be made conscious and set free.  These are moments of ceremony and initiation, where we are being divinely ushered to greet a new, more harmonious and vital place of presence within us.  If we become still enough, present and accepting of what is, we will intuit this is love doing it, and be guided through our own unique process.  These are not our darkest of times, but our brightest and most Divine of moments where we are given the opportunity to transmute matter (our pain and dis-ease, our greatest teachers) to consciousness, to Light and Liberation.  

Lest we forget that Life is always happening for us, and can never be against us, because we are this Life itself.  As we turn tragedy to triumph, these are our greatest of successes, and our only true  momentary purpose for being.  Our most enduring of love songs!  

Finally, I finish with a bow in reverence, and heart felt recognition, to each my brother and sister who has gone before and after me, and been altered by this mighty alchemical Spirit called cancer.  No matter what passage you have chosen to walk, or has chosen you, I am with you always, and in all ways, in Love.  

 May we each 'begin' with our inner garden and bring that nectar to the world,
for that is what feeds us all. 

One Vision

Day and night, no difference. 

The sun *is* the moon: An amalgam. 

Their gold and silver melt together.

This is the season when 

the dead branch and the green branch 

are the same branch.

Nightmares fill with light like a holiday.

Humans and angels speak one language.

The elusive ones finally meet.

Good and evil, dead and alive,

everything blooms

from one natural stem.

You know this already, I'll stop.

Any direction you turn

it's one vision.

-- Rumi --