Day 15 of the Fast

I was just thinking how lovely of a relationship I was having with the bugs around here when no more than 3 minutes later I was bit on my left toe by a red ant. Man that hurts bad! I didn't kill the ant but thanked it for the bit. I know sounds strange,7a but maybe it was a good thing. I have read the first book in the Anastasia, Ringing Cedar Tree series, by Valdemir Megre, I highly recommend it. In the book it discusses bugs and the relationship of Man with the earth and all of our surroundings. I have always treated bugs with respect (mostly).

The analogy of my bug bite and going along thinking that life is dandy and all is well, then an awakening happens like a bug bit, or you get side swiped and confronted with things that one should just not have to confront.

The weekend was interesting. I participated in a sweat lodge Friday night and it was great. Darol watched Kanyon, being that he feels too weak to do a sweat.

Thoughts and contemplation of what and how I want to play out the next steps of our lives, where I might like to live, re prioritizing, and feeling all sorts of emotions mixed up in it all.

I find myself angry at times, being hard on myself, and being triggered into the fears of disbelief , death, and not being good enough, not able to do enough, heal enough, make enough money, do it all on my own enough, love enough, be patient enough, breath enough.....sometimes I have just had enough.


....and then Kanyon smiles, says mom, wants me to jump on the trampoline and I'm pulled back into some positive playful lighthearted life that's still here waiting for me to join in.

I am not looking forward at all to going back to the city. We have created a culture and society that feels hard, stress filled, and unnatural, disengaged from so many of the magical elements of nature and consumed with consumer issues.

I get to go play with Kanyon now.

A Shared Sensation

 The following is an email I received today from a dear friend/family member. She was inspired to share it with me and I am inspired to share it here because it sums up some of my shared feelings with this author, especially the part about the feelings and speaking about cancer itself- that it is not a fight or a war, it is an opportunity to heal.

A photo taken by me. 

Enjoy.

Hey there friends,

At this point most of you know about my new life adventure. If not sorry to bring you in late in the game, you can catch up by looking at my facebook wall.

The following is an email I wrote to my family that I edited a bit for this crowd because some of it wouldn't make sense.  It still has a intended audience of my family so but it will help you to know where i am at in my process.



In general I have been thinking and feeling that this whole thing has been much much harder for those who love me than for me. I have come to realize a number of things. I have been pretty much preparing for this all year and maybe for a few years. Not knowingly of course or I would have warned you all that there was another big one coming your way, but rather in my life choices. I purposely left myself open this year to experience life, to accept adventure as it came, to find out who I am and what I need to feel good and whole. Starting out my year with helping at a traumatic birth followed two days later by the loss of Sue (my aunt who died in the plane crash outside of Buffalo) helped me know that the freedom in my schedule was exactly as it needed to be. My heart was torn open and out came joy and gratitude (along with the suffering and sadness and grief). I spent time this year exploring things that I had decided were things that I couldn't do well
 for one reason or another like writing, singing, being an artist, playing the violin without self judgment, enjoying alone time, etc. Just before I got the diagnosis I was thinking about how happy I am that I made my year what it is and how much I have learned..... acceptance, mindfulness, self-love, a lightening of spirit, openness, listening to my heart more, etc.... I was noticing how loved and supported I feel in my community, how much love I have for our family, how many amazing friends I have,  enjoying my garden and all that surrounds me.

At this point I feel prepared to receive this adventure too. For me right now I mostly am connected with the only path that seems available to me which is that of an exciting journey on the edge of life that brings about a feeling like when I bite into a homegrown asian pear.....sweet and super juicy, a little bit of sour overtones, sometimes some gristle but overall I am always amazed when I bite into them at how one fruit can hold so much sensation. Each bite is as exciting as the bite before (this is always how I feel not just now that I have cancer). This year was the first year that my asian pear tree bared fruit (they are not as good as the ones I am describing that come from a skyhouse tree but still pretty good). I am not delusional, I recognize that there is another possibility on this path and that is death. The thing is I realize that  death if it comes is not so much about me as it is about you, the people who love me and who will feel the
 pain. I recognize that there could be some level of pain for me before death and yes that is scary but having never experienced death or severe physical pain I have nothing to go on. It is a kind of empty thought process. It provides a lesson in recognizing how fear plays into pain. I am working on noticing when my pain is just fear and dealing with the fear so that the pain just becomes another sensation. At this point none of the pain has been that bad in itself, it is more the fear of "what if it doesn't subside ever before it gets worse." The point is thinking about death is just way less juicy than thinking about life and healing and the human body and the experiment which is me and my mind and my body. When I was a kid I had a conventional pediatrician who helped me heal a wart on my hand using only my mind. I thank him for this because at a young age I learned about the power of the mind and have been using it and honing it ever since. In the
 last few years I have become inattentive to this skill because my focus is generally more spread, scattered, and I have less passion for the kinds of things I used it for. I am spending a lot of time these days relearning it, finding out what it looks like as an adult.

In general I do not see this as a battle or a fight, those words feel aggressive to me and do not help me feel loving towards my body...even towards the cancer which is actually made up of my body also. I am looking for words which connect to the seriousness of the situation without invoking aggression to describe this healing journey.  So far that is the only request I have...please when you are talking about it try to stay away from words that invoke aggression. By all means if you are feeling aggression in relation to all this please let it out, go out and kick something or break something or whatever works for you, but when it comes to my journey please find loving and peaceful words......if you have ideas for words that capture the intensity and also the healing please share with me...

I am feeling so much love coming from yall. I have limited energy to keep in direct contact (you wouldn't believe how much email I am getting, three days to stardom....want my autograph) because I am in general prioritizing Sharon and my parents right now. It has been hard for all of us to not have seen each other yet. It probably good that they didn't see my in my full yellow glory because it was kind of scary. It will be better now that I have dropped my fake Mediterranean glow.... back to European skin tones.  I imagine that once my immediate family is together it will free up some time for more personal contact.


I love you all

 End of email.



I do indeed love you all and thank you all for your love and healing energy, thoughts, and prayers. -Spring

Photos of our Healing Space

They are fasting from food, but not from their real addictions: technology, look at all three of them geeking out on the computers:),,,

The Bathroom.

The Kitchen

The front patio

The bedroom/living space.

Kanyon this am playing with daddy and his markers. He has his dad's tongue trick.

Desert D-Light

Walking up the path to sit and write my blog I saw a butterfly flutter about. It's so lovely here. I fall more in love with this place every day. Last night  the sky was so clear and magnificent. I sat a chair out off from the front porch and nursed Kanyon while star gazing, imagining, and asking the universe for a miracle healing.
I had forgotten how magical the night sky truly is and how much we rob ourselves of when we live in densely populated and polluted area. Darol lay on the massage table out on the porch covered with a few blankets, resting after I was able to give him a massage. How lovely it was to connect with Darol, while Kanyon's uncle, Darol's older brother entertained Kanyon in his van. Uncle Deon and Kanyon have a great time together. Deon is also fasting. We have the three D's (Darol, Dan (Darol's Dad, and Deon) out here in the desert having a desert delight, with no food for them. Tomorrow we will receive another D, grandma Dana, Darol's mom will be here to visit and fast, so it will be the four D's in the desert with water for dessert. 

The weekend had it's turbulence, with Darol and I working on our communication and relationship with a healer/therapist that is staying here. We also packed up most of our things and had many of Darol's siblings come to visit. So we drove about 45 minutes away to a town called Kanab, and stayed in a hotel for one night with them, and enjoyed time by the hot tub, and the next day we went to visit sand caves, an animal sanctuary, and then Pink coral sand dunes. All in all it was a beautiful day and I really enjoyed the company of his family. That day though Darol was having his most visibly uncomfortable day. Pains in his stomach, and tired. He sat and rested a lot, it felt like his family was coming to say their goodbyes a bit, which is a possibility, although one I don't want to face. Them being here did allow me to face it even more so I teared up many a times. Darol is now 131 lbs., looking and feeling thin, his regular weight is about 30 lbs heavier. It's not easy seeing my  lover feel ill and be so thin, revealing even more of the lumps in his body. It breaks my heart and I wish I could take it all away.

Life out here is healing, connected, and peaceful, the sounds of nature are all around us, I hear doves off in the distance as I type out on the patio. The breeze is refreshing, the sun, the occasional rain, the crows, the ants, the coyotes at night, all of us living intimately in harmony. I wonder how I can go back to the city.

My dog Shato seems happy too, wondering about and enjoying this place.
Here are photos of our time here and with family.  

 

I love his smile!

 

                                                                               Uncle Deon & Kanyon

 

 

   Diane Darol's sister giving Darol a Piggy Back up to the Caves.

 

 

 Kanyon loves the sand!

He loves his uncle too.

The Allen Family who came to visit.