olé...!

a few days ago it became clear that i'd lost my edge and needed to shake myself up more than a little. i'm now couchsurfing and living a bit like a gypsy, following an overwhelming need for change and some alone time in the wilderness so to speak. the cancer has blossomed beyond my wildest expectations... it quickly took the inch stress gave it to spread to bone and throughout the abdomen... i have tumours all over the ribs and sternum, in the subclavicular notch, along the spine (but not attached to it), the sides of the body, and in the groin. so far the inner organs are holding it off which pleases me greatly for as a homeopathic empiricist would observe, my body is keeping tumour activity to the exterior shell of the body, protecting organs of greater importance, which means vital force is still strong. the pain has been quite intense and while i am med free some days, increasingly i need narcotics just to get thru and keep head above water. i feel more than anything that the net purpose of this acceleration has been to push me at last out of my routines and comfort zones in the most extreme way, to get me to step back from everything familiar, looking at what my life has become with fresh, dispassionate, curious eyes, and to take up, even incautiously, the different paths of self-discovery, transformation and healing that beckon and appeal, no matter the fear, no matter the pain of new. in sum, i'm keeping one foot in a worse-case scenario practicality and one where i truly want to live most of all, a place where anything is possible.

i've been getting lots of attention from the spirit world. lots of teachings. for example, one night my guides, for lack of better term, appeared to literally 'drive' home the point that all is not as it appears. i was leaving the oxygen clinic when i noted the time. it was truly far too late for me to expect to travel the distance and make it to the yoga class i'd planned to sneak in (i was leaving dufferin/401 at 737p and needed to be at chester and danforth for an 815 class). nevertheless, and in spite of the season's last major snow storm adding to all this, something in me pushed to keep to plan. as i was driving along the still-congested-from-rush-hour 401 at snail's pace in heavy blizzard conditions, intuition pushed forward and asked me just how much i've really invested in the notion that space and time, like matter and energy, are fixed and firm and unresponsive to psychic will? it was given to me that i will only come to unlock true healing potentials if i unravel my notions about what's possible. it was close to 8 by now and inconceivable that i could possibly make it to this class. i was asked a pointed question... how much do you want to get there and just what are you able to believe? for if you are willing to believe, you can bend the principles of nature... they are more elastic than you know! if you can believe you will arrive exactly on time with not a second to spare because this class is important to you, we will help you get there, but first you must believe. so i decided to believe.

i did not freak out behind the wheel or get into speed demon slaloming. i kept alert and followed my instinct. each time a doubt would pop into consciousness i would pop it back out. how will i get down the DVP in time? don't look at the clock, just follow the flow. how will i find parking? don't lead with a worry, lead with confidence that everything will move according to intention. sure enough and quite impossibly enough, there was a spot on the street right outside the studio. i made it up the stairs, did my check-in and change room, and was rolling my mat out into the single last spot available in the room just as the teacher was starting the class. yes, i made it and with not a second to loose.

though i've had many experiences like this in my life, i've tended to take them for granted. up until recently i've never much considered what might be possible if i lived according to these expanded laws instead of the limited ones we take as rational and just the way things are. now i need to fully explore the limits of possibilities if i'm to still be here when the snow is gone, so i'm, let's say, motivated in a whole new way.

another example of this, i was staying for a few nights at the oxygen clinic in the quiet room. for some reason i felt the urge to research what the causes of death might be and might be like if this cancer in my lymphatics gets the better of me. i wasn't feeling morbid, i just wanted to know. but as i started researching, i began reading more and more material about end of life issues, and at some point crossed the line from mere detached research to being drawn as if by magnetism into truly seeing myself in the role of a dying person.

we're all going to die, there's no reason at all to avoid the subject. surely its healthy to be cognizant and on speaking terms with how it happens, what it might be like... and what preparations need to be made. but attention follows thought, and something in me must've crossed that line and started to dwell more than absolutely necessary on the subject. i was engrossed and kept reading anyway, soon feeling a kind of resignation for cold company. i'd had a good many days of breathtaking pain and profligate tumours joining the party, one after another after another, so it's easy to understand why i might've been temporarily fascinated to consider every possibility. still, opening the door to death in life is a tricky affair and needs be distinguished from properly being at ease with the subject. the latter can easily lead to the former and when you're walking a fine line, such an unguarded move can have disastrous, unnecessary consequences. the ultimate mind-body deception.

i'd only been reading for less than half an hour when suddenly and with no real physical explanation, my tea cup which i was cradling on my tummy took on a mind of its own, and together with my hand holding it, leapt out of its spot, tipped and emptied itself all over my chest. luckily it wasn't so hot anymore as to do me injury, it just made me jump out of bed, look down at my soaked shirt and, later, giggle at myself a bit. i guess the higher sense in me said enough of that! direction follows attention! this is not the way to go!

the EFT (tapping) i've been learning and now doing on my own a bit has been enormously helpful. it allows me to smooth out fraught situations that need my highest-minded participation so that i'm not adding unnecessary complications or cleverly sabotaging as i've tended to. more important, tapping's been allowing me to keep from being put off my center or influenced by negative factors or other people's conditioning or unconsciousness. this was especially helpful today when i had to consult with my GP in order to change my narcotics prescription. i knew at some point it would be part of his professional responsibilities to tell me that i am, in western medicine's view, terminal, with recourse only to palliative care, and that further, i have very little time left. this can be a powerfully unsettling thing for people to hear and it can turn a situation of limitless potential into a self-limiting one that bears out the hocus pocus of death prognoses. knowing it was coming i did some tapping before and it stood me in such good stead. i was able to take the opportunity to get my end-of-life wishes appended to my medical records, something that needs to be done whether you'll be needing them sooner or later. i was also able to make some choices about which palliative care ward at which hospital i would enter if such a thing becomes necessary, and knowing all these details have been settled is a great relief... i can focus on continuing to do, two steps forward one back on the ultimate highbeam, what they say can't be done.

o yeah, in a few days time i will be at a retreat center for five days doing a training in colon hydrotherapy which i'm super stoked to do. having goals to look forward to and new tools at hand with which to build a new professional life are just as important, if not more, than all the other things i'm doing as i gaily dance this dance of dances. olé!!