I'm beginning to really like the martian images of me with no hair. It's a bit cold to wander around completely bald, but I rather like how it looks. However, I don't think I'll keep it up once I am capable of growing hair. I look forward to having very short white hair. I'm rapidly slipping into cronehood these days, with my enforced menopause. I notice my skin losing elasticity. Enforced idleness is resulting in lost muscle tone. I look forward to the day I can ride a bicycle and lift weights again. I have been taking 20 minute walks, however, and that is helping me to feel a little less constrained.
I threw my back out carring my geriatric dog up and down the back stairs so she can pee. Just when my energy is getting better I'm sidelined with a bad back. Andrine gave me a massage yesterday and that helped, but I'm still in somewhat rough shape.
I have a few things that I’ve been thinking about lately. Of course, the big question for cancer patients is “why me?” The corollary of that question, of course, is “why not me?” I believe there are karmic reasons for this and that on some level, we chose this challenge. Life isn’t supposed to be easy. Those who have easy lives are not necessarily evolved beings, quite the contrary, in fact. Adversity is often a precursor to developing compassion, and that’s what I think it’s about.
Merry Wingfield sent me the blog address of Ken Wilber and pointed me to the excerpt below. Previous to this he talks about nearly dying after having a series of 12 grand mal seizures in a row as a result of a major illness. His is an illness that makes cancer look like a piece of cake, and yet he handles it with humor and grace.
I forwarded this in email to a young woman that I’ve be corresponding with who found my blog online. She’s a blogger herself and is facing cervical cancer right now. She just had a hysterectomy yesterday and she’s been in my thoughts a lot.
I suppose we’re burning off a lot of karma here.
Karma and Illness
By Ken Wilber
..but just let me make a few very brief points. Many people hear of situations like this, or perhaps suffer similar ones themselves, and imagine it must somehow be retribution for some horrendous crime in one's past. But keep in mind that karma doesn't mean that what happened earlier I've dealt extensively elsewhere with the concept of karma and illness-in Grace and Grit, for example, and more recently in Excerpt A of volume 2 of the Kosmos Trilogy. But it remains one of the most confused areas of understanding imaginable. I'm not going to get into it at any length herein this life is finally catching up with you; the orthodox doctrine of karma actually means something that happened to you in a previous life. According to the doctrine of karma, in this life you are reading a book that you wrote in a previous life. Many people draw the erroneous conclusion that because, e.g., they used to yell at their spouses, they now have throat cancer-but that's just not the way it works.
As a matter of fact, from at least one angle, the "bad things" that are happening to you now actually indicate a good fruition-it means your system is finally strong enough to digest the past karmic causes that led to your present rebirth. So if you were reborn-that is, if you are alive in a body right now-then you have already horrifically sinned, and unless you work it off in this lifetime, guess what? You're coming back. Illness itself does not cause more karma; your attitude towards illness, however, does. Therefore, if you are undergoing some extremely difficult circumstances right now, and you can meet those difficulties with equanimity, wisdom, and virtue, then you are doubly lucky-the causes that led to your being reborn now are starting to surface and burn off, and you're not generating any new karma while you burn them (as long as you meet them with equanimity and awareness).
I only mention this because all too often, people undergoing difficult circumstances of one variety or another add a type of New Age guilt or blame to an already difficult enough circumstance, and truly, that's not only inappropriate, it's inaccurate. If you would like to pursue some of these concepts in this more integral fashion, please check out Excerpt A. In the meantime, if you're undergoing some sort of truly difficult or even horrific circumstances, please don't kick yourself when you're down. That, indeed, would create bad karma. The good news is that you are finally ready and able to burn off the karma that led to this rebirth, and this is good news indeed-if you meet it with love and openness and a smile.
I’ve been fascinated by a book called Journey of Souls by Michael Newton for some time now. He’s a hypno-therapist who regresses people not to past lives so much as to life between lives, the bardo, as it’s known. He gets remarkable similar insights from them. When I read the book and its sequel, Destiny of Souls, it made perfect intuitive sense to me. I’ve always had the sense that this is not all there is, that consciousness, like matter, is neither created nor destroyed, and that there is an eternal soul, that living in physical body is like taking a college course. However, amnesia isn’t usually a part of the college experience, whereas it seems to be part and parcel of taking on a human form for a while. And evidently this is one of the harsher planets to reincarnate upon. I can believe that. Carol Schneidman and I refer to it as the Trashed Planed of Pain and Suffering, noting that we’re probably better off than 95% of the inhabitants and we’re still complaining. Deborah Michel contends that it has “nice beaches, horrible deaths.” So why is it that we cling to life with such tenacity? I guess that’s part of the deal and one of the reasons for amnesia. This planet is Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (a now defunct ride at Disneyland wherein one rides in a automobile that careens from one disaster to another. I suppose the idea is to get into the spirit of the thing. No one comes out alive, though.
The next and unrelated thing that crossed my path was a excerpt from a small booklet from Dr. Hubbard’s office, the naturopath who treated my hemorrhoid, which technically was a fissure. I found this oddly reassuring because it describes just how painful a fissure can be. Aside from childbirth, fissure was the most painful experience I’ve been through. And although my first labor lasted 88 hours, 16 of them on pitocin, the fissure was much more long lasting, if not as dramatic. And definitely not nearly as rewarding. Anyway, here is the description:
FISSURE:
Extreme pain is the one outstanding feature that characterizes this disease. A hot, smarting, sickening, unbearable pain comes on during or shortly after a bowel movement and lasts from a few minutes to several hours. Rectal fissures (rather than anal fissures) are slit-like ulcers located just within the anal opening and sometimes extending the full length of the canal. It resembles a tear or crack in the skin lining. The muscles become tense and irritable, the opening tight…Even the thought of a bowel movement turns the patient frantic with the fear of the smarting, burning pain, which is sure to follow. Strong people have been know to faint at this time. The morbid dread of bowel movement causes many to put it off as long as possible. If the stool becomes hard then the tissues are torn again exposing the nerve endings lying beneath. Moderate to severe pain and bleeding usually occur with each bowel movement.
I sincerely hope I never have to relive that again. That was purely due to the chemo. Some people get mouth sores. The digestive tract can be severely affected at any point from mouth to anus. I managed to get an anal fissure. And it seemed to accompany the neutropenia both times. That fissure must have burned up a lot of karma. Reducing the chemo dosage by 25% seems to have solved that problem, though.
Merry Wingfield sent me the blog address of Ken Wilber and pointed me to the excerpt below. Previous to this he talks about nearly dying after having a series of 12 grand mal seizures in a row as a result of a major illness. His is an illness that makes cancer look like a piece of cake, and yet he handles it with humor and grace.
I forwarded this in email to a young woman that I’ve be corresponding with who found my blog online. She’s a blogger herself and is facing cervical cancer right now. She just had a hysterectomy yesterday and she’s been in my thoughts a lot.
I suppose we’re burning off a lot of karma here.
Karma and Illness
By Ken Wilber
..but just let me make a few very brief points. Many people hear of situations like this, or perhaps suffer similar ones themselves, and imagine it must somehow be retribution for some horrendous crime in one's past. But keep in mind that karma doesn't mean that what happened earlier I've dealt extensively elsewhere with the concept of karma and illness-in Grace and Grit, for example, and more recently in Excerpt A of volume 2 of the Kosmos Trilogy. But it remains one of the most confused areas of understanding imaginable. I'm not going to get into it at any length herein this life is finally catching up with you; the orthodox doctrine of karma actually means something that happened to you in a previous life. According to the doctrine of karma, in this life you are reading a book that you wrote in a previous life. Many people draw the erroneous conclusion that because, e.g., they used to yell at their spouses, they now have throat cancer-but that's just not the way it works.
As a matter of fact, from at least one angle, the "bad things" that are happening to you now actually indicate a good fruition-it means your system is finally strong enough to digest the past karmic causes that led to your present rebirth. So if you were reborn-that is, if you are alive in a body right now-then you have already horrifically sinned, and unless you work it off in this lifetime, guess what? You're coming back. Illness itself does not cause more karma; your attitude towards illness, however, does. Therefore, if you are undergoing some extremely difficult circumstances right now, and you can meet those difficulties with equanimity, wisdom, and virtue, then you are doubly lucky-the causes that led to your being reborn now are starting to surface and burn off, and you're not generating any new karma while you burn them (as long as you meet them with equanimity and awareness).
I only mention this because all too often, people undergoing difficult circumstances of one variety or another add a type of New Age guilt or blame to an already difficult enough circumstance, and truly, that's not only inappropriate, it's inaccurate. If you would like to pursue some of these concepts in this more integral fashion, please check out Excerpt A. In the meantime, if you're undergoing some sort of truly difficult or even horrific circumstances, please don't kick yourself when you're down. That, indeed, would create bad karma. The good news is that you are finally ready and able to burn off the karma that led to this rebirth, and this is good news indeed-if you meet it with love and openness and a smile.
I’ve been fascinated by a book called Journey of Souls by Michael Newton for some time now. He’s a hypno-therapist who regresses people not to past lives so much as to life between lives, the bardo, as it’s known. He gets remarkable similar insights from them. When I read the book and its sequel, Destiny of Souls, it made perfect intuitive sense to me. I’ve always had the sense that this is not all there is, that consciousness, like matter, is neither created nor destroyed, and that there is an eternal soul, that living in physical body is like taking a college course. However, amnesia isn’t usually a part of the college experience, whereas it seems to be part and parcel of taking on a human form for a while. And evidently this is one of the harsher planets to reincarnate upon. I can believe that. Carol Schneidman and I refer to it as the Trashed Planed of Pain and Suffering, noting that we’re probably better off than 95% of the inhabitants and we’re still complaining. Deborah Michel contends that it has “nice beaches, horrible deaths.” So why is it that we cling to life with such tenacity? I guess that’s part of the deal and one of the reasons for amnesia. This planet is Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (a now defunct ride at Disneyland wherein one rides in a automobile that careens from one disaster to another. I suppose the idea is to get into the spirit of the thing. No one comes out alive, though.
The next and unrelated thing that crossed my path was a excerpt from a small booklet from Dr. Hubbard’s office, the naturopath who treated my hemorrhoid, which technically was a fissure. I found this oddly reassuring because it describes just how painful a fissure can be. Aside from childbirth, fissure was the most painful experience I’ve been through. And although my first labor lasted 88 hours, 16 of them on pitocin, the fissure was much more long lasting, if not as dramatic. And definitely not nearly as rewarding. Anyway, here is the description:
FISSURE:
Extreme pain is the one outstanding feature that characterizes this disease. A hot, smarting, sickening, unbearable pain comes on during or shortly after a bowel movement and lasts from a few minutes to several hours. Rectal fissures (rather than anal fissures) are slit-like ulcers located just within the anal opening and sometimes extending the full length of the canal. It resembles a tear or crack in the skin lining. The muscles become tense and irritable, the opening tight…Even the thought of a bowel movement turns the patient frantic with the fear of the smarting, burning pain, which is sure to follow. Strong people have been know to faint at this time. The morbid dread of bowel movement causes many to put it off as long as possible. If the stool becomes hard then the tissues are torn again exposing the nerve endings lying beneath. Moderate to severe pain and bleeding usually occur with each bowel movement.
I sincerely hope I never have to relive that again. That was purely due to the chemo. Some people get mouth sores. The digestive tract can be severely affected at any point from mouth to anus. I managed to get an anal fissure. And it seemed to accompany the neutropenia both times. That fissure must have burned up a lot of karma. Reducing the chemo dosage by 25% seems to have solved that problem, though.
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