The Spiritual Journey Into Breast Cancer: Inspirational sharing
Comments
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This looks good. Will look for it!
I just finished Proof Of Heaven by Eben Alexander - a neurosurgeons story of Near Death Experience. I loved it! Was reading it when my friend passed away this week and really found comfort in it.
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Shayne, I heard Eben Alexander interviewed on internet podcast and was fascinated. I ended up researching a lot about him and the book. One thing that kept coming out though is the fact that he is admittedly Christian and that his experience seems to be highly correlated with his root faith rather than purely a universal experience. What do you think?
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I read his book and dont remember him saying he was christian, or getting that feel from the book, at all. He was a scientist that needed proof, and had no belief whatsoever in heaven or the afterlife. Its what is so fascinating about his book. The part of the brain that remembers, registers thought and feeling - it was dead. gone. not working. He was hooked up to machines to measure this part of the brain, and there was nothing. Yet he saw, felt, had emotions, heard, and astonishingly, remembered it all. To come out with this story was taking a huge chance, and Im sure some of his collegues think he is crazy
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This book, I want to read. I have many books to read here too, I need to get reading, take time for the small stuff like curling up with a book and tea each day.
On my spiritual journey right now, I am reconnecting with a part of my life I lost with my memory when I was dealing with the cancer and did not realize. I use to be a flower essence whatever and knew all there was about the flowers from some major places in North America and Wales. And lost my memory to them completely. So have been exploring that world again, sharing it again. It makes me happy.
Also have added writing in my blog more often, a place I have fun. Something I do not do enough. But the writing is fun. Considered writing another novel, just picking one from some of the books that have been outlined and are on my bucket list but don't feel called to do so just yet. Instead I have been given during my sleep some of the pages for a different book on this experience and what I have learned. But it stopped last week after seven pages. And I wait? Or forge ahead? It's just that now, waking in the night with these perfectly formed sentences pooled in my mind and writing them out is so cool. This had not happened in so very long, years I think but do not recall exactly. But that is not how the novel was written completely, only sometimes, so I suppose this time too?
If I felt as restained and confident as I read back and think I might sound just now.... but I feel giddy and alive and yet very nervous that no one will ever care.
Let's talk about "Bucket Lists" and the spiritual journey to get them done too. I am going to add bucket lists to the intro paragraph I shared so others may add to the discussion.
LOVEEssa
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"but I feel giddy and alive and yet very nervous that no one will ever care."
hey, madblueessa, I am so happy for you that you feel giddy and alive! I DO care, and I am just a randomish person reading about you! go for it!
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I think my true challenge is to find the way to smooth sail through life no matter what is happening around me.
I think that is why I am married to Hubby so he can remind me and test me daily, LOL.
I think I absolutely must find the peace and spiritual connection that heals just from the calm.
I think I will go to bed and think and dream about it.
LOVEEssa
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"Believe and you are halfway there...." Theodore Roosevelt
Was on bulletin board in my new oncologist's office.
Never once did this doctor take an ounce of my hope energy from me. He spoke in positives. About alternatives, his stodies and goals though he knows almost nothing on them now, his mind is open. I NEEDED him and there he was for me to get the almost immediate appointment. Following the footsteps to where I need to be. Relief.
Comments he integrated into our conversation.
If you decide to use any of the chemotherapies now, then we will find the alternative choices you can use with what we choose together.... no contraindications or conflicts in healing....
This could be gone....
This could have worked for you and there is nothing I can give you that is better than what you are doing....
The area you are concerned about could be increased lymphedema that has become even more painful....
I am grateful for finding this team member to have my back like the others, he will be with me too, on the spiritual and physical healing journey of what is the rest of my life.
LOVEEssa
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Now that I know the cancer was 'there' from when the mass was discovered, seems that it could be perhaps even much much longer when we look at the reports and complaints and health issues, and now the MOs conclusions. Now I look at the path I have been on. I think perhaps the answer for healing.. or experiencing QOL for years to come anyway.... has been given to me a few times and I have been too angry to see the truth because I thought the messenger was the problem. And they were a real problem, but also they could have been THE messenger. Perhaps.
Strange how when you take a story and rewrite it, there can be newfound harmony and a miracle inside the rough shell.
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When the music changes, so does the dance.
Hausa proverb
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I was just organizing my favorite topics and almost deleted this one completely which I could choose to do since I started it long ago.
But I got to reading and re-read each post. And I needed it. I am a mess right now, regrets, grudges, indecision, frustration, physically not doing so well since airways are pressed upon and an upper lung lobe is collapsed. I have been bounced upon my arse. Splat. Now. Sit still.
I found this. That was Autumn. Spring is happening now. I will find the book and a message to add soon.
Essene Meditation for Autumn Morning Focus
Softness fills my days
In this season of autumn light.
Gentle joy of life returning
To know its roots again.
Joyful completion
Of the outward surge of growth,
Preparing me for that to come
In the darkness before birth.
Who will l laugh with on this day,
Expecting nothing,
Sharing all?
Essene Book of Meditations and Blessings, Danaan Parry
For everything there is a season......
Anyone is welcome to share what inspires them, brings pause, or fear.
LOVEEssa
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I watched a movie last week. Keep finding myself watching movies about writers and artists. And people who are about to die. sigh
Touched with Doris Roberts as the dying author Norma Boswell.
here is some dialogue I wrote down to share....
"It's not the perceived value of the work that matters. It's the creation, the agonizing frustration and the blissful discoveries of the process."
"There are principles of style and form, of course. We're all artists. Children, really. We try and try but we can never reach the end of the rainbow."
"You don't need an idea... that's the beauty. Making art is the purest form of self improvement and realization."
"You just have to look for things and feel it and paint it."
"Creating art is like discovering your soul. You can't expect to know yourself unless you express yourself."
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She Let Go
She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of fear. She let go of the judgments.
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her.
She let go of all the 'right' reasons. Wholly and completely,
without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn't ask anyone for advice. She didn't read a
book on how to let go… She didn't search the scriptures.
She just let go.
She let go of all of the memories that held her back.
She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.
She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn't promise to let go.
She didn't journal about it.
She didn't write the projected date in her day-timer.
She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.
She didn't check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.
She just let go.
She didn't analise whether she should let go.
She didn't call her friends to discuss the matter.
She didn't do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
She didn't call the prayer line.
She didn't utter one word. She just let go.
No one was around when it happened.
There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked her or praised her.
No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort. There was no struggle.
It wasn't good and it wasn't bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be.
A small smile came over her face.
A light breeze blew through her.
And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.
Here's to giving ourselves the gift of letting go…
There's only one Guru ~ you.
―Rev. Safire RoseWILD WOMAN SISTERHOOD
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Passage Prelude and Across the Sky
It's not true that we come here only to live.
We come only in passing.
We do not own all that is given to us.
On this journey we eat, sleep and dream.
And whenever you are ready, oh Maker of Life,
I will come home to you.
And whenever you are ready, oh Maker of Life,
I come home to you.
Joanne Shenandoah & Lawrence Laughing from Orenda CD
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bump
Sometimes I just get lost. I want to spend more time with this thread. I spend time on the Steam Room thread. And the Insomniacs thread. This one will be another of my steady checks and postings. After all, I started it. So I do own some responsibility to the life of this thread, in my way of thinking.
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I am bringing forward this sentiment that was posted by someone who shared and read this thread. I just love it.
"A myriad bubbles were floating on the surface of a stream.
'What are you?' I cried to them as they drifted by.
'I am a bubble, of course' nearly a myriad bubbles answered,
and there was surprise and indignation in their voices as they passed.
But, here and there, a lonely bubble answered,
'We are this stream', and there was neither surprise nor indignation in their voices,
but just a quiet certitude."Wei Wu Wei - from Ask the Awakened
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"I have reached the inner vision and through Thy spirit in me I have heard Thy wondrous secret.
Through Thy mystic insight Thou has caused a spring of knowledge to well up within me,
a fountain of power, pouring forth living waters, a flood of love and of all-embracing wisdom
like the splendor of eternal Light."From "The Book of Hymns"
of the Dead Sea Scrolls -
Bluebird- I frequently come to this site for the material. This is my first post on this site. "She Let Go" moved me deeply. So simple. So glorious. Thank you
Jo
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Jo - : )
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Recycling a post from 2012
"The Earthkeepers live in an environment where the dreamtime has not been pushed into the domain of sleep like it has for the rest of us. They know that all of creation arises from, and returns to, this creative matrix. The dreamtime infuses all matter and energy, connecting every creature, every rock, every star, and every ray of light or bit of cosmic dust. The power called 'dreamtime' or 'infinity' .... the Earthkeepers believe that we can only access the power of this force by raising our level of consciousness. When we do, we become aware that we're like a drop of water in a vast, divine ocean, distinct yet immersed in something much larger than ourselves..... It's our sense of separation from infinity that traps us in a nightmare......."
Courageous Dreaming: How Shamans Dream the World Into Being, Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D.
Years ago, a woman wrote to me. In real life, her young son was dying from disease. She kept dreaming that he would wander into the ocean and she was at the edge to take him out but the whales were there, taking him away yet keeping him from being consumed by the sea. She was relieved and saddened.
Dreams are powerful. They are healing. They are infinity. Dreams are meeting places.
Night before last, I encountered someone from my past in my dream.... my eldest daughter's father. Though not a perfect man, I was reminded of the impact he had on my life, the lessons, the additional journeys I would take because of him, in spite of him... the R&B music that would forever remind me of his singing and way to share and that music became my favorite genre........ How he reached beyond the curtain of life to help our daughter when she needed him and I could not find her........ That it seems after my mother passed over that he and my mother conspired to help me find my daughter.......... He had passed over ten years prior and I didn't even know until I was trying to find him to take our daughter to him...... How he zinged through both of us like a spray of energy when we were together, showing he was there, we could not deny.
My cancer took my memory of most things for almost two years. With it, I lost the memory that he ever existed. Until that dream two nights ago.
Was he the love of my life? No. I think I have not met that person yet.
But he was more. He was a journey of spiritual growth and faith that I had forgotten until now.
Why do I lack faith after what I have encountered in life already? It is all out there, hand out, helping me along if only I am open for the experience.
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Since November 2017 I have been facing off hospice with a tough as nails attitude that I am not yet done with my one wild and precious life. (Paraphrasing Mary Oliver) More to do. If I died before I got this other done, my life would be incomplete. Or so I thought.
Then I realized that the soul encounter I have had with myself has been going on for years, decades. The dialogue has been deep. I bring to you some passages that reminded me, though there is more I want to do, I am done when I am done, not when I decide I am done. And meanwhile I have been preparing for those final peaceful days for all these decades. My story is great, for me, and pieced together in a quilt of experiences that are not to be explained or even claimed. They are wholly not coincidences. They are the real life I have been living.
Last night I re-read the final chapter in SoulCraft by Bill Plotkin.
"Soul initiation is the moment an answer wholly claims you. In that moment, you fully accept, deep in your bones, what Viktor Frankl calls your "own specific mission in life." The answer takes the form of an image, an image burned into your soul before birth, an image in the presence of which your heart first opened, as Albert Camus pit it. This image, this symbol, is the gods' way of sending you off to life with a destiny and a task, with a template of how to be in this lifetime."
The chapter speaks of the soul initiation. And I was reminded of this course through breast cancer and feeling like I am on the losing end of the stick. And I am reminded of a head on collision that sat me back down when I thought I was up and ready to run and play. Then breast cancer again. To this moment.
"The initial encounter with soul requires extraordinary circumstances.... a profound restructuring of self-concept, of who and what we experience ourselves and the world to be. ...... "Initiation is a process "costing not less than everything, to use T.S. Elliot's phrase."
I really identified with these sentences.....
"The conversation: living your soul gifts..... The conversation itself is the process through which the soul's desire is further revealed. It may turn out that the conversation has been taking place for awhile outside your awareness. Or maybe it has been like barely heard fragments of speech in a half-understood language. But after your first soul encounter you find yourself sitting face-to-face with soul, gazing into each other's eyes, speaking the same language."
My friend in Canada once wrote: "It is astonishing, examining the strong currents beneath the thin veneer of modern life. And when we do we never again view a coincidence in the same light."
Because now I see my life as not the writing completed but the process of each writing being tha communion with my soul. Not the education received but the spiritual lessons and deepening understanding as time moves. Not the children born but the lessons carried forth from each to offer to my growth. Not the man married but the way that person fit into my life and I into his so my life, his life, had the chance to uphold needs and fears to face.
It is about the time an Angel, or whoever it was that was in charge of my life continuing, held the wipers on my windshield in a terrible night time rainstorm when my radio was too loud, I was unable to drive forward at the green light across a two-lane highway. And the semi blazing through with horn at full force did not crash into me. Not a coincidence.
The time, no... enough about me.... it is your turn.
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bluebird-😇💗 your inspirational texts always make me think and grow spiritually. Thanks
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We agree, Bluebird you are truly inspirational
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Oh wow - when I noticed the mods had posted before I pulled this thread up, I thought, "oh no, I've gone too dee." But I see you like it so I breathed that sigh of relief. Thank you. This thread helps me more than anyone can understand. I almost deleted it some months ago but when I started re-reading I decided it needed more time and not less. So many others had posted too.
Diane
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Little miss Bluebird! How did I find you again??? YOU have such a beautiful way of writing your thoughts and experiences down! Reading you, is like opening a sweet novel, and learning something new every time!
Some of us just "live".... but then there are those of us who love to squeeze out every moment of every day, just looking for something to fill our hearts with! Maybe it IS hanging curtains, or like me, gardening!
None of us "know" when our time will be over.... but the secret, is trying to live as well as we can, every minute of every day! Sometimes life knocks us back down, but hopefully we can find a way to spring, (or maybe it's crawl) back up and try it all over again.
Good for you sweet Bluebird! You are MY inspiration! So good to see and hear from you again! xoxo Chevy
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Chevyboy - We meet again. I remember your puppy!
I'm up and down. I need the inspiration so I dig up the inspiration. And the adage is if you need something then give it away.
Today there is rain like it is really Spring. I want to go out and walk w an umbrella but not possible given pain and weariness.
Comfort food for a rainy chilly day. Potato chowder.
Sometimes that is all we've got is the smell of Spring rain and a mug of potato chowder. A good movie or book. Turkey vultures soaring. Wrens fussing. Deer in the meadow. Life is good.
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Sounds beautiful! After I recovered from that broken hip mess, and spending a lot of time with my youngest Daughter watching Shirley Temple movies, and her watching over me, I just always wanted to go run with her on the grass in the rain! Something about the rain!
We are STILL going to do that someday! Take our shoes off, and go run around the yard in the rain!
It snowed yesterday here.... But nice enough to walk up to Starbucks in the sun today! I am frying a little Italian sausage, and frying potatoes with it... Hah! Anything with potatoes is good!
We just have to find the good, or fun in everything I think.... Even when we aren't feeling good.... Tomorrow will be better.....
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Friends-
I was just informed that Bluebird (Diane) passed away yesterday. So sorry to be the bearer of more sad news....
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masonsmawmaw- I was just asking about bluebird on another thread. She provided such beautiful spiritual writings. I will miss her. My sympathy for her family.
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Reposting
So...I have just received a message from Bluebird's (Diane) niece Shannonand maybe others here have too. She has given me her email and also Diane's DH contact info. Please PM me and I will forward to you. She said Diane passed away peacefully on May 22nd surrounded by family and friends just as she wanted. So sad for my friend Diane. I did receive the news at the time while on a trip. I think her niece would really appreciate all of our responses. Thanks.
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