North's Journey Journal

UPDATE: Stef and I are getting Married on December 16th!!!. After the Marianne Williamson event we both realized, why wait ‘til April. I am so delighted to see Stef so happy and enthusiastic. This journey has been so demanding on her and to see her bright lights shine like a Christmas tree is so heartwarming. Both the prospect of a beautiful wedding with close friends and family and being in love together, as a married couple, is another confirmation of how blessed I am. Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da Life Goes On .

Another reason I feel blessed is that the last PET Scans showed a marginal improvement. The cancer did not get worse, although one lesion grew slightly, the others shrank and some activity disappeared. Overall they called it a 10-20% improvement. So we bumped the Chemo Dose higher and we’ll see what happens next. Another scan will be in January. That is the beauty of medicine and science— we get a dose of certainty that can comfort us. Sorta’ like enjoying hot chocolate on a winter night. There is a high probability that it will be warm and taste good. Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da… and then perhaps not. Can we still sing Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da regardless?

The greatest challenge I am finding is learning to not expect certainty, as life just does not flow with solidity. Sometimes the hot chocolate spills or gets cold too fast. Stef and I are simply learning how to surrender, stay open to Miracles and be receptive to how wondrous life can be. Not an easy state-of-mind to maintain, but acceptation sure beats the disappointment of unfulfilled expectations. A little over a month ago, I had an incredible experience that helped me realize how to approach a more Peaceful state-of-being. It was with Byron Katie and a process she calls “The Work”.

At the invitation of friends I went to a Byron Katie public workshop in LA on Saturday October 28th. There were 400 people in the room complete with lights, sound and video recording of what transpired on stage. I had committed to be one of the volunteers to go on stage and sit with her and engage in a dialogue she calls “The Work”. An examination of how thoughts trigger feelings that may or may not be warranted and how in turn that creates experiences and beliefs that often only lead to more stress, separation and fear. As I sat in the audience, using her questionnaire, I scoped out the heaviness of cancer on my thoughts and heart. I watched two others sit in conversation with her on stage. Through a loving and firm conversational style, she would ask and probe what their responses and thoughts. When my turn came to sit with her, I immediately felt the presence of Love and Truth. She has beautiful Spirit filled eyes. They are mortal but hold the wisdom of a Goddess. Her own life experiences have given her the gift of going through significant life challenges such as cancer and near blindness.

Katie immediately focused in on how much I wanted cancer to stop growing and leave my body and how I described it as greedy, unfair, and self-absorbed. I shared with everyone that I no longer wanted it to continue hurting my body and my loved ones by creating tears and loss. She took those thoughts and held them out for me to examine and recognize the negative emotions that they triggered. She encouraged me to consider who I might be without them and how I would feel. To be brief, after about 45 minutes with this magnificent teacher, I left the stage a changed man Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da.

As I sat with her, I realized that I had been at war with the cancer. And in that state of mind, nothing but loss and stress could be the outcome. She keep pressing a hypothetical outcome— “How will you feel if you keep going back to the Doctor only to have our prayers go unanswered as the lab and scans show evidence of the cancer persisting.” My immediate realization was that all my war efforts would be demoralized…. only my fear and stress would become solid and constricting. What would I become then? She was not insisting that cancer would persist; she was challenging my attachments to outcomes, so that I could open to a greater truth. I realized that while at war, I was not living from my Faith or my true essence as an expression of Spirit. If I am to be True to myself, I must embrace all of Life. Life has pain, suffering and difficulty. And it is also Beautiful, Joyful and full of Love. To reject and be at war with any of my Life is to shortchange my experience. I suddenly realized a better and more consistent option would be to learn to Co-exist with it. From that revelation, Katie helped me to realize what a blessing accepting “what is” can be. This does not mean, I have surrendered to cancer being a victor. It means I stand in the flow in my Faith thoughts and let the insurgents or my constricting thoughts dissipate. This means my thoughts about cancer are not solid, but Life filled. I am seeing the circumstances of my Life in a new Light. Life is so diverse and so infinite. It is an expression of God- or however you hold a sense of a Higher Power that created and energizes this material field of existence. Who am I to pass judgment on any part of this Creation? In doing so, I am missing the opportunity to embrace it fully.

My Grandmother, Maw-Maw, told my Dad and he often reminds me of what the Apostle Paul said to the Disciples- "Having done all, to stand. Stand therefore..." (Ephesians 6:11, 11, 14). I had taken this passage as a metaphor of surviving difficult times as if at war. Stand your ground. I now believe it is more a resolve to Love and accept Love. For me, constricted thoughts about the predicaments of my life have only lead to a belief that I was separate and alone on my life Journey...at war with possible rejection, illness, and suffering. I interpret the verse now to mean … Love Life As It Comes and Stand in the Faith of Knowing We Are Safe in Spirit and Not Separate From It No Matter What Happens.

As I left the stage, Stef said to me “Do your realize that every eye in the room fixated on you? People laughed and cried at your story and your openness?” As we stepped out of the meeting room, we must have had 30-50 people come up and extend appreciation, kind words, references, and Love at what had transpired.


As I listened to their comments, I thought of the pictures my Dad had recently sent me of the beautiful fall leaves in the Smokey Mountains, where I grew up. They were unusually ablaze this year. Greater than they have been in decades some say. As they fall away, they leave the trees bare- ready to regenerate a new fresh vitality across the landscape. Letting our thoughts drop away frees us. Then we can stand as a tree, rooted in our deeper roots of Joy. I thought about Robert Blys’s poem and how I was drawing up something deep from within the great root of Life.

We did not come to remain whole.
We came to lose our leaves like the trees,
The trees that are broken
And start again, drawing up from the great roots.
(Complete Poem Below)

As I reflect back over the past month— Byron Katie, Marianne Williamson, new PET Scans, so much generosity that has been extended, and an upcoming marriage to Stef, I feel such depth to Life. To sum it all up, I’ve had the opportunity to sit in the presence of Divinity- everyone in those gathering halls was a face of God with their own story of Living and Loving life to the fullest. The Doctors offices are no different. Just as the outpouring of support we have received in calls, cards and donations. In each I join in that great magnificent field of Life that we all share. In that place I play, sing and dance my fear thoughts away. Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da.

Thank You for Taking Time to Read This
North


A Home in Dark Grass by Robert Bly
from THE LIGHT AROUND THE BODY

In the deep fall, the body awakes,

And we find lions on the seashore
Nothing to fear.
The wind rises, the water is born,
Spreading white tomb-clothes on a rocky shore,
Drawing us up
from the bed of the land.
We did not come to remain whole.
We came to lose our leaves like trees,
The trees that are broken
And start again, drawing up from the great roots;
Like mad poets captured by the Moors,
Men who live out 
A second life.
That we should learn of poverty and rags,
That we should taste the weed of Dillinger,
And swim in the sea,
Not always walking on dry land,
And, dancing, finding in trees a savior,
A home in the dark grass,
And nourishment in death.

from THE LIGHT AROUND THE BODY