Happy 15th Birthday........to me

It's been so long now that often times I forget...that I got a second chance to live (and love). At first I wasn't sure which date to count as my 'birthday', the day of my diagnosis or the day they said I was in remission, or the day I was done with treatment. I think I find the day of my diagnosis most appropriate because it was the day everything changed. I did remember on June 13th of this year, but this year it came at the very tail end of several hectic weeks, so I was just too tired to celebrate officially.

I was listening to my favorite radio show recently (KOPB's Speaking of Faith on Sunday nights at 7pm, although I usually just listen to the Podcast) and Kristen was interviewing a woman who was a Universalist Chaplain, so she is very acquainted with death and as a UU has a unique perspective. She said that "Even when the miracle is of a life restored, it is really only a temporary restoration. But most of the time the miracle can only be the resurrection of love beside the unchanged fact of death." Of all the things I lost and found during that time in my life, I count my greatest gift as the beginning of my discovery of how to find peace with my inevitable mortality. The chaplain points out that if you decide that the most important thing is life, defined as breath in a body, walking around wearing clothes "then you've lost, because we are all going to die. But if you decide that the most important thing is love, then you have something to do."

The Tibetan Buddhists speak of "practicing dying". I have had the opportunity, through my Shamanic studies to do just that and it was the final nail in the coffin of my fear around the actual physical process. I managed in 1993 to get to a place of accepting that I ultimately had no say in the matter and learning to allow it all to be ok on a religious understanding level, although inside I could still panic at the thought of being told the end was in sight. The panic wasn't so much about me leaving, but about how I'd manage the task as a young mother and the effect on my children. I had a scary plane ride during my first pregnancy that left me an anxious flyer thereafter, for years. Not to the point that I wouldn't get on a plane, but I also never really relaxed and was hypervigilant listening for sounds, etc. It wasn't until last year that I finally completely overcame it and can now just relax and enjoy. I was able to do so through practicing the Buddhist philosophy of saying, "Today would be a very good day to die". Without boring you with the actual practice, I can now say it and mean it.

I had a teaching on Wednesday around security. I was leaving for work and as I approached my car I saw that a spider had spun it's web between a nearby bush and my side view mirror. Quite an intricate web at that. I'm one of these weird people who don't kill bugs (unless they are hurting me), so I felt a pang of regret that I'd have to move my car. The teaching was about what we attach to, and a remeinder that I not attach my security to 'things that can/will move'. Certainly, I've struggled with the loss of my townhome due to it's movement, and was way more attached to what it offered and represented than I ever knew, but I appreciated the gentle reminder. My Shamanic mind reasoned that it was possible that the spider observed my car there for quite some time without moving, and deducted it as a safe and stable anchor. My car had been parked for almost a week when I used it that morning, so it wasn't an altogether crazy assumption on his part that it was a good choice.