This time of year can bring random joy. A rogue daffodil, a bright green shoot from a forgotten bulb, songbirds trilling, encouraging young tree buds. Early Spring also brings my birthday, and March 6th, 2022 is significant, encompassing seven decades of life on this planet. A White Lightening birthday.
Reaching this milestone was made uncertain by a few storms. A year-long spell with pneumonia in second grade was spent under a sheet that covered a card table, a trusty vaporizer pumping out camphor, eucalyptus oil and menthol ~ Vicks VapoRub. I appreciate those healing oils and tinctures still. Snug under the tent, I read everything from Mad Magazine to Pearl S. Buck, watching 40s and 50s films, particularly struck by the fictitious bio pic of the marvelous George Gershwin. Fully captured by mystic Catholicism from birth, I negotiated with my Guardian Angel about sticking around the planet, as I was ambivalent. But stick around I did.
At the close of 2009, I was rocked by a breast cancer diagnosis. Stage one, but complicated by a different kind of tumor in each breast. I had only felt the lump in the left. My new oncologist said my condition was very concerning. I was terrified, resigned and confident, and again ready to leave the planet, that old both/and. On the advice of wise master guide and teacher Eon, I took the chemo treatments as sacred medicine, along with intense vitamin infusion, Pranic healing, acupuncture, massage, soul retrieval, a mad and wrong love affair and playing Fishdom on my laptop.
Facing a life-threatening illness tempers the soul, body and mind. A certain drama of death is accepted, and the prospects of fate, luck and self-will come into play.
Are we better or braver for experiencing cancer, or any potential life ending experience? Maybe, maybe not. In general, my bull sh*t meter is in play often, but I listen, connect, and love deeper than ever. And for that I'm grateful, as it makes me a compassionate artist, intuitive, metaphysician.
