What Else Am I Doing?

Please read previous post as it is the beginner for this one...otherwise it might make no sense to you and you will think I am a fruit cake writer. Well.

Anyway, what ELSE am I doing? Dancing alot. As much as my body will let me. Doing Yoga as much as feels right. I have recently started taking Belly Dance because I kept getting the intuition that I needed to get more in touch with my Hara, my solar plexus, ya know the ole midrif, belly wise place. And anyway, the chics are hot and the music rocks and all in all, you just get to do things in front of the mirror they told you good girls didnt do. So its my kinda scene. I try to get to the park and nature more often, but I find I get so wrapped up in everything I am doing, I kind of fall out of it sometimes.  And then I get antsy like crazy and feel like I am about to hop a plane or else I will start rolling in the dirt like a dog. Except the dirt in NYC has trash and needles in it and I wouldnt let my dog, if I had one, roll around in it. I was hitting the beach a few times which was nice. Out on Long Island...but then I found garbage floating in there too and I got the skivvies. I have been spoiled in Costa Rica....and I am thankful. Plus all the people at the beach, who can relax....I did take a nice walk at sunset but again, had to dodge the trash. Really, who would ever leave trash at the beach and why would I want to live around them?

I try and think positively and not go into the fear box. But it happens. Not so much about cancer, just about life....money.....love,....manifesting dreams.....getting older.....being childless.....2012......looking at the scar on my breast....wondering how God is gonna work all this out into some sort of happy ending fairy tale. Worried if I keep hanging back and expecting God to do everything, it won;t get done because he is waiting for me to do it....miscommunication. Mercury in retrograde kind of situation. But I thought you were gonna do it...No I thought YOU were gonna do it. And then it never gets done. Except I dont think it works like that. I keep trying to remember how it does work and then I realize I still don't know so really, WHAT am I worried about? Then I think about some sort of tatoo that will make my breast scar look hot. But is it good to put ink into the skin where cancer has been. HAS BEEN...Cancer is now a HAS BEEN....Fuck you doctors. Oops I am not supposed to say that....I am supposed to be grateful and feeling blessed by their presence because everything is God. Well then, the fuck you is too. And I am grateful for them. But ya know....they can stay the f*** away from me for now.  Somehow I become a ghetto porn star when I start to talk about doctors...they bring it out in me...maybe cause they all seem so white and civil and like they need a good lay.  Thats another post.

I try to speak my mind MORE. Its been a bit awkward. I think I burned a few bridges with some folks. But I didn't do it lying....so ...so be it if they are really burned.  I feel the Kali in me coming out super strong, burning and slicing with her sword...just the things that are false. It can look negative, but what I really think it is, is just FIRE. And letting go of this idea that I have to be a nice girl all the time. I feel like I wanna get really BAD but then I also realize this may not go over well with certain people. I have to learn this art of the bad girl.  Who knew this could be the healing for me....Of course gratitude and humbleness....this is always the teaching. Arrogance and righteousness, I still struggle with am I being arrogant or am I just BEING the fire that is my flavor?. And then I see that anger is not a feminine trait I have been conditioned to accept as being okay.  And so I have stuffed it into this breast and look at the mess it got me in. So thank you, I will get angry when it is appropriate and be grateful for its force and fire.  Honor the force that is anger...the wild storm of Kali has her place too next to sweet and humble Kuan Yin.  I can feel my breasts getting perkier already....

What Am I Doing?

Well now that Chemo has been taken off the list....now what? Many people have asked me this, with a bit of a look of bewilderment in their eyes....so no chemo? And....now what...?  Now what I ask myself.

Well there is the physical reality, such as herbs and supplements.  I think in another post I will list them all. To think of them all makes me dizzy...In fact right now writing this I realize I need to order about 10 more, because I am running low. So there is that. Herbs, supplements and more hard core therapies like Vit C IV, Avemar (an immune booster) and soon Mistletoe Extract. Mushrooms (not the psychedlic ones-yet). Liquid this and liquid that...all the things for my smoothies...maca. bee pollen, flax, spirulina, berries, green powder. I eat mostly raw, lots of greens, smoothies, green juices...its boring. An indulgence is natural potato chips in olive oil and almond butter. Pms is brutal....all I want is veganaise. Its pathetic. Sometimes I am so tempted to just order a bagel with Tuna salad and swiss cheese-my favorite comfort food, and I wonder...Really? Will this one meal really impact me that much? But then who wants to find out down the line sometime......thats the rattle in the head. And I go to my standard avocado on rice cakes....big splurge! I am not supposed to do rice to much if at all and limit my fats. With fat in the blood the oxygen can't get in and thats what we want to make the cancer go away. Oxygen...muy.

Yes I have a Holistic Doctor. He is jewish, he wears a suit and tie, he folds his hands neatly on his desk, he seems to be talking to something "out there" because he rarely looks at me and when he does his eyes are very penetrating. But the flicker a bit when I meet his gaze undisturbed...no doctor is every going to intimidate me again and I let them know with one look "listen buddy, I am just as smart as you and I may not have been to medical school, but I got an intuition that will bite you, so just simmer your Mr. Hotpants Brainiac down". So far its working... He has a new daughter and her picture is on the desk and I pointed to it and said,,,ah so is this  your daughter, to which he replied with a smile....Everybody has that soft spot for their kids. That was our one heart to heart. After that he was back to business. He wears a yamulke ....no idea if I spelled that right.

I go in 1-2 times a week and they pump vit C in me and its cold and I read Alex Grey's Transfigurations which sits on the table and watch all the interesting sick people come in. The other day I watched a 5 year old get held down by 3 adults for some shots. Its live action in this place...They lay me out on this nice leather lazy boy where the bottom comes up for the feet? And I just pretend God's breath is being shot into my veins and that Alex Grey is speaking to me thru his visions. I think this all might be true.  The other day a very annoying guy with dyed hair was sitting across from me, very obviously agitated by the nurse not being there yet, and very much wanting somebody to know he was agitated and I had so much fun, pretending I was so absorbed in my book, I hadn't noticed.  Just letting his agitation arise from not getting the attention that he wanted....I kind of was absorbed in the book, this Alex Grey has some good stuff to say. Then when the guy was like borderline ridiculous, jumping out of his chair every 3 seconds looking for the nurse thru the plexiglass, I looked up from my book at the guy and said "Why dont you just go and find her?" to which this seemed to be the okay for him...it was like I had released him from  his little prison...its okay to be agitated dude, do something about it already. Jeesh. I am trying to let God in here please...thank you. He kept whipping out this little brush and combing his dyed hair too, it was really weird. Nervous tick or something...Grace is the nurse and she is the best thing about the place. I am sure she works way to hard.

But besides this....what else am I doing?

You see the thing is, this cancer story is not about "not dying". Its not about getting rid of cancer so that I can live a long and happy life. Of course it is about living a long and happy life, but if I am truly honest with myself, before the cancer, I was having some deep things troubling me and I don't think I was living as in tune with the soul as I deeply wanted to be. There were pockets of intense separation from life, of missing something I could not put my finger on, moments of finding it so full and rich and deep inside, only to be lost again in the darker corners of self rejection, and a sense of belonging no where, of not finding a sense of rightness, of connection, of purpose. And of aching to find that "fit" I thought others were finding with a partner or work or a place....a sense of belonging.  The truth is I had those things, but when the darkness of the soul comes, it covers everything in grey, and the gems of your life look pale, as if their sparkle was the lie, not the actual lie itself.  Its tricky that part of the soul. But it plays it's part in the healing and the growing, in the flowering into the actuality of our light. We are light. Its not a nice spiritual idea. Its the truth.

So the thing is in this chemotherapy/breast cancer journey is on the outside it looks like one must save their life, prevent death.  But, to me what I have found, is what life? What life am I preserving? Because even before the cancer I was in a way rejecting my life, and not fully living. Many people would argue with me and say "oh you live this fabulous life between NYC and Costa Rica with these amazing communities of dance and living in a tribe and celebrating the healthy life on the earth....and this is true, life has showered me with blessings. But inside, there was a disconnect happening, a deep rejection, a sense of carrying something in me that would always be broken, that no matter how many dances/ceremonies/people I could find, this broken part could never be fixed.  And I feel the breast cancer came to wake me up out of that lie, and to give me back life, to shake me out of that dark corner of illusion.

Its tricky with western medicine. I want to believe their charts and graphs and studies are based on something I can hold on to.  That the men in white coats can be my heroes and "cure" me. Except their work is based on an idea that makes absolutely no sense to me. That the body is somehow separate from our souls, that it is just this machine we have to fix, and that our hearts and minds have no bearing on it. There is a whole branch of medicine and science that they simply don't look at, that they aren't allowed to look at and an industry that is making a ridiculous amount of money off of the same treatments.  How can I blindly follow that? Especially when I know this cancer is not about "saving" my life, but about living life, that to really live life, I MUST follow the inner heart, the inner knowing.  To really stand for what I know is the truth. And the truth is we don't know life's plan for us. And one day we will die, life is not "ours", we will have to surrender these bodies back to the earth, and continue on in directions none of us really knows, but can only trust are there and are kind. So the real issue is not preventing death, death is inevitable, the real source of contemplation is how do we want to live?

From that question, I arrive at the knowing that chemotherapy is not the only way and that nature is our friend and ally, she is our mother and she does have the ability to cure.  I am sure I could do the chemotherapy and be fine, minimal side effects (maybe-hopefully no long term ones either) and I would move on with my life, its not like chemotherapy is the outright devil. . I don't look at it that way.  But chemotherapy does tax the body in an intense way, it kills not only cancer but healthy cells as well and there is no guarantee that the cancer wont come back. There is no guarantee that a cancer cell may have split off after the chemo missed it and now, the immune system is so depleted after the chemo that it can't do its job to take care of it as it would naturally.  But to do chemotherapy without at least allowing in the wisdom of nature, without at least looking for alternative ways that are based on the foundation that the body/mind/spirit are all connected, seems to me backwards.  Chemotherapy should be a last resort....unfortunately cancer has become such a big ugly thing, that the fear factor kicks in and I have found myself making decisions from a place of panic rather than giving myself a chance to take a breath and tune in. Why would a health care provider want me in a state of fear, if he or she really understood how that impacts our health overall?  What kind of awareness is that?  And do I want to follow that kind of guidance? Coming from that kind of thinking?

This is the way of life I wish to return to, a way of life in trust, to create life out of this cancer challenge. A new LIFE...not a fear of dying, or a running from dying. But a deep embrace of life, a deep embrace of living fully. And I just think that life lived fully is about trusting the body and listening deeply to her call. Cancer is not a death sentence, and it is not an evil monster, nor is death....To embrace life we must embrace death, to embrace timelessness we must embrace time, everything in its right place, every part plays itself in harmony with all the other parts.  And I have no doubt chemotherapy is playing its perfect role as well, except for now, not on my time.....