I am ready

I figure, after all the spiritual and emotional work I have done these last few weeks, I have earned the right to drop a Valium. I did just that last night and I don’t regret it a bit.

For those of us still reliant (if judiciously) on Western medicine, living in Santa Cruz can be tough. After all, this is ground zero for woo woo-ness. I suspect there are more alternative health care providers in Santa Cruz per square mile than almost anywhere else. A masseuse is probably living next door. Acupuncturists? A dime a dozen. There’s a chiropractor on every corner, not to mention the homeopathic doctors, hypnotherapists, naturopaths, craniosacral therapists, reiki energy healers, and psychics lurking behind every tree.

It’s easy to laugh. The flowing, formless Indian print skirts are so central casting. The soulful sound of Native American drums, the smell of sage and lavender, the walls decorated with Tibetan peace flags, and the calm countenance of the “airhead” practitioner are all easy marks for the Saturday Night Live sketch artist. They are so mockable while the guys in the white coats (the medical kind, not the psychiatric variety) are so damn clean and reasonable.

I’m from the East Coast. I understand. But in the last few weeks my fear drove me to experience many of these modalities (as they are so officiously referred) for the first time and I am better, stronger and wiser for it. I arrived at the appointments with my patina of skepticism and my bullshit meter hidden in my purse. With each “cleansing breath” it collected data to be analyzed later.

Well, time has passes. The data has been examined. The day has arrive and I am ready. My body is oddly calm this morning, sans Valium. The hot coals of my fear seem to have dissipated. In 3 hours, J and I will get in the car and head for the Surgery Center. I may or may not pop a Valium between now and then. But, if I do I will do it knowing that it is not to calm my spirit, for my spirit is clean and clear. I am running from nothing, hiding from nothing. I am ready. Yes, I am ready.

Thank you all.

This afternoon I fled the construction site that is my house for a picnic bench by the ocean. With my laptop screened by the shade of the eucalyptus trees, the following message arrived:

This powerful lure is just down the street, a stone's throw away, yet mostly you ignore it. Just because it's here all the time doesn't lessen it's significance. There are times in your life, Cathy, when the sameness of life blinds you to the truly magnificent. Your “to dos” roll one into the other, never ending, never finished. The ordinariness of your responsibilities overshadows the miracle that is right in front of you. Life is an uncanny and perpetually exciting balance between the everyday and extraordinary. Even that word, EXTRAordinary, is wrong headed. There is nothing extra about it. What you would call extraordinary is, in fact, ordinary. Put on your other glasses and you’ll see of what I am speaking.

What glasses?

You should know by now I don’t answer questions for which you already have the answer. I am here to serve, not save. Close your eyes and you will see.

More than meets the eye

I place my anxiety and worry on the proverbial altar. There among the remnants of my past and devotional illusions I place my anxiety and worry to be tended by God. I hand my concerns over to the spirit of wisdom, strength and patience that I am not, at present, able to feel. There, on my imagined altar, among the fresh cut roses and gifts given to me with love, I place the anxiety and worry that impairs my ability to be fully who I am.

For those among you who think this is all a bunch of hooey, I have only one thing to say — and this I know for sure — that there is more to life than meets the eye. There is more than we experience in our five senses, more than we can see, hear, smell, touch or taste. There is another dimension, another reality that is, in fact, grander and more significant that anything in our petty physical world.

Yes, there is more than meets eye.

There —right beyond the obvious (the black of this keyboard, the smells of morning, the sound of passing cars) beyond all the things in life that seem tactile and irrefutable — is where Life lives. Beyond the three dimensional manifestation of our labors, right there on the other side, around the corner, underneath, in between, behind and right in front of us are the formless qualities we most crave.

Love itself has no form but it takes form through us. Courage has no form, in and of itself, yet we know it when we see it displayed in human behavior. Compassion itself is not a thing we can grab hold of and put on a shelf yet we see it at work in people everywhere. Wisdom. Serenity. Creativity. Strength. Clarity. Power. Health. They exist only when we choose to allow them expression through our embodied lives.

Let’s go back to love. You can’t go to the store and buy love. Yes, you can buy a roses and present them to your partner with a kiss but they are not the love itself. They only represent love. They are a vehicle for the love, a physical manifestation of the love not the love itself.

What of health? You can’t pick up health at the drug store (despite what many try to convince us) and store it in your medicine cabinet for future use. Yes, you can buy medicine that you ingest that changes your physical state and facilitates what we call health but you can’t buy the health itself. Health is beyond the physical.

There is more than meets the eye and that which is beyond the eye is the essence of what we all want. We are born to harness and expression those spiritual qualities through our unique physical form. By expressing those qualities we are in service to life. The truth of who we are is not found in the stuff we have or the things we do. The truth of who we are is in the intent with which we create our stuff and the intent with which we interact in the world.

The family photographs on my mantelpiece are priceless not because of the paper they are printed on or the silver that frames them. They are valuable because of they are a vessel, a conduit, for the love in my life. So it is for me and my body. My body is a vessel for health. My body has form, sinew, muscles, nerves, blood and cells, all of which can be counted, weighted, measured and quantified. Cells can be extracted and put under a microscope for examination. Skin can be cut and stitched back together. Blood can be flooded with chemicals that my heart distributes to every corner of my body to eradicate discomfort or bring on sleep but there, right behind the physicality of the chemical compound, right beside the shape and characteristics of my cells in the Petri dish, right beyond my sleeping slumber at home in bed is the healing.

There is more than meets eye. This morning I bring the unseen to the forefront of my mind. That is my prayer. I claim the health that is my divine right. This I know for sure.

Bridges

Just as I published the blog entry below, I sat back in my chair and caught sight of the warming morning sun falling across the framed picture of Prague I have hung above my computer. An image I look at every day now has a new meaning. It is the perfect metaphor for my mind / body quandary.

There they are, the gorgeous bridges of Prague spanning the Vltava River, connecting the old city with the new. Strong and black and formidable, they stand in stark contrast to the delicate spires and golden cupolas that decorate the river’s banks. The bridges, once illuminated by my great grandfather’s lamps, form the whole.

Past and present inextricably linked. Mind and body connected. A unified whole. It’s all good.

Making small potatoes big

Cathy, there is a thin and porous membrane between mind and body. Set aside the idea that the mind is to be exalted and the body ignored. It won’t serve you. One is not better than the other. Don’t judge. Don’t rank. The body is not an enticing dwelling place for the devil nor is the mind the answer to all your problems. They exist equally in your life to serve you. Listen to both equally. Examine their messages then choose.

I am having surgery in a few days, eight to be exact. I have a papilloma in my right breast. Essentially, it’s a polyp in a duct. It’s not cancerous, of that I am sure. But scalpels and full anesthesia and foreign objects inserted into tender spots is in my near future. In the grand surgical scheme of things, it’s small potatoes. But my breasts are not that small anymore (I couldn’t resist reveling in the good news ☺) and emotionally it feels big.

What’s been striking me more acutely than usual – and what inspired me to start this blog -- is the gift of life’s bumps (no pun intended) and how much there is to learn from all of them. Big and small.

This morning, I woke up before the sun and immediately became aware of anxiety in my body. A not-so-subtle unease, a skin crawly, first-day-of-school butterflies kind of feeling. It was a visceral, undeniable reality. I felt the sensation before my mind assigned an explanation. My body spoke before I did.

As I wrote years ago, “If our eyes are windows to the soul, then our body is it’s voice”. This morning my body’s voice was loud and clear. On some level, somewhere, somehow, I am afraid. I am not safe. I am not at peace. Threat looms. Undeniably and inexplicably, my reptilian brain has formed a government and staged a coup.

I gotta say, I hate when this happens. My body is betraying me and I don’t know why. I want to understand the source of my fears. I want an explanation, god damn it. I want peace talks between my messy reactive brain and my civilized thinking brain. And, if I can’t have an explanation I want it to just go away! Grrrrrrrrr.

Breathe, Cathy

This is my mind on fear. This is my mind craving control. Where should I put my attention that will serve me?

I could swim around in the why forever or I can get to work letting go and accepting. So, I say “yes”. What am I saying ‘yes” to?

I’m saying ‘yes’ to the truth of this moment, right here and right now. I’m not saying the roots of our pain are not worth exploring but there is a time and place for everything. In the midst of all that is about to unfold, this is not the time for why. Not anymore. This is the time for acceptance. This is the time for vision. This is the time to fill my mind with hope, serenity, trust, faith, peace, power, vitality, health, strength, healing.

Really. Think on each of these words. Go back. Hope. Serenity. Trust. Faith. Peace. Power. Vitality. Thriving. Strength. Healing.

Cathy, your mind needs to swim in these words. You need to step aside from the worry, the anxiety. You need to put those on your alter and let the power of life, real life and love, heal them. Set them aside and bring to the fore what is infinite and eternal. That list of words is your salvation. I am not your salvation. Those words and their capacity to heal you in this moment, THAT is your salvation. I am not here to descend from the sky and pluck the pain from you. I am here, in your head right now, to remind you of your choices. You have many choices. You can worry. You can dig into the past. You can moan and groan. You can deny. Or you can accept what is, welcome it in your life, say thank you and put your mind on the good.

Understanding Polly

Years back, my dear friend Annie gave me the nickname Pollyanna. As our friendship grew the endearment was truncated to Polly. While the moniker was offered with love, I accepted it with some trepidation because, to me, it seemed to come with a modicum of derision. In between the wry smile and tinge of jealousy was the suggestion that maybe I was in deep denial. I bore the chiding with a happy smile, as any good Polly would, but just below the surface was a souson of embarrassment, like maybe I was delusional and everyone knew it but me.

In response to the good-natured mocking, I would quip, “Yes, I broke my leg and I’m just so happy I didn’t break the other one”. Chuckle, chuckle. The original Pollyanna was an orphan and the title character in Eleanor H. Porter’s best selling children’s books. A paragon of optimism and glad tidings in the face of cold comfort and tragedy, Pollyanna had a glass-is-always-half-full sensibility that, in these cynical times, is perceived as immature and naive. The subtext is that Pollyanna needs to wake up and smell the dysfunction. Could it be that the rose colored glasses I was wear were obscuring a minefield laid out right in front of me? Could it be that I am a victim without knowing it? Could I have spent my whole life smiling while I had spinach in my teeth?

My understanding of Pollyannaism has deepened over the 12 years since Annie handed me the name tag and I placed it cautiously above my heart. Countless al anon meetings have been logged. Scores of $10 co-pays have been paid to therapists and body workers. And, most importantly, I’ve spent hours upon hours with my eyes closed and mind open in meditation and prayer. After all that searching, the name Pollyanna, now rings with a different timbre.

I have never denied my inclination to smile my way through the storm. Seeing the good among the bad comes naturally to me. What has changed is that now I am consciously aware of the gift and know how to harness its power. Today, I am willing to look at all of life’s eventualities, square in the face, and say, “teach me”. This morning, as I write what I suspect will be my first blog entry, I understand the power embedded in the nickname and I embrace it willingly, without hesitation.

Derision is deserved for the unconscious Polly but, the conscious Polly? She's a girl I will happily follow anywhere.