Spirit Hands

This blog is a continual story that begins with the first posting in the Blog Archive, The Journey Begins. Click down the list to read entries, and click on arrows to reveal monthly drop-down menus.

A few days after the biopsy, my surgeon, Dr. Johs, called and let us know that I did have stage 3, grade 3 adenocarcenoma of the breast, and they wanted me in the office right away to ramp up our offense strategy. In these two weeks between my diagnosis and my talk with Walden, I was so weakened by my cancer that I often floated into a dreamy, otherworldly state, and was drifting magnetically towards the other side. I felt one foot tip-toeing on earth and the other tip-toeing in heaven. Focusing on the practical realities of my situation was very difficult for me. For instance, I could barely tolerate listening to my surgeon, who is a very kind and gifted man, as he explained the results of my core biopsy. Thankfully, my partner, Ken, and my soul sister, Pat, were with me during that important consultation, asking lots of questions and taking notes. As I sat there with my stomach quaking and my attention fading in and out, the doctor took out a pen and drew a cutaway sketch of a breast to show how milk duct cancer develops. Even though I greatly appreciated the doctor's care and concern for me, the last thing I wanted to look at was a drawing of my diseased breast. Wishing that I were anywhere else but in that room, I leaned back and took in a deep breath. Suddenly, I felt two spirit hands land gently on my shoulders, and a wave of relaxation flowed through my body. Then tender, motherly energy streamed into me, and I felt wrapped in a blanket of love. This event marked the beginning of the internal part of my healing journey, which has continued to unfold in remarkable ways.

That evening, I could still feel the loving hands of my motherly spirit guide lightly resting on my shoulders. As an explorer of psychospiritual realms for many years, I have learned how to attune to other levels of consciousness, so I relaxed my mind, opened my senses, and asked to see an image of her. I saw the face of a middle-aged native American woman, and when I asked her name, she said, "Mother." Then I felt myself drift into a confined space that smelled like smoke and sweat, and I heard moans of pain. Suddenly, I dropped into the body of a young native American woman writhing in the throes of a breech childbirth. My head was being stroked by my mother's warm, capable hands, and when I looked up, I recognized her as the spirit guide that had been comforting me all day. When death finally came, my soul left my body in a state of deep grief, and I was left with a distinct impression of my full breasts, swollen with milk that would never nourish my child. As I emerged from my trancelike state, I felt a synchronistic connection between the stagnant, souring breasts of this young woman's corpse and the stagnant, toxic tissue of my milk duct cancer.

This sort of experience is spoken of in many healing traditions. Native people might call it a shamanistic vision, Carl Jung might have called it an exercise in active imagination, and a hypno-therapist might call it a past life regression. However it's categorized, an inner sojourn like this offers rich, psychospiritual content that can be plumbed for meaning and brought to a state of acceptance, wholeness and completion. To me, this experience had the flavor of a past incarnation, but whether or not I really was this woman in another life, I knew that she represented a part of my psyche that needed healing. The next day, during a walk in the Rocky Mountain foothills near my home, I felt the calm, peaceful presence of Mother, my spirit guide, and I was moved to do some inner work. After summoning the energetic presence of the young, grieving Native American woman, I imagined her permeated with acceptance and love. Then I visualized her expressing the milk that her body had created, spraying it onto the earth like a goddess feeding all of life with the sweet nectar of the Divine Mother, and I visualized myself expressing toxins from my own stricken breast, which the earth was able to accept and transform into compost. My final step was to imagine both of us filled with radiant white light that dissolved the remains of noxious, stagnated grief.

Sky Women - Moment in Flight by Bruce King

This inner sojourn relieved some of the leaden weight bearing down on my heart, but I could feel many more knots in my psyche that needed untangling. It was then that another blessing emerged from the source of divine love that has impelled me on this journey. Her name is Devi, and not only is she my dear friend and soul sister, she is also a masterful body-centered psychotherapist who volunteered to guide me through the terrain of my unconscious. When we had our first session a few days later, I told her about Mother, my Native American guide, and about my inner connection to the young woman who died in childbirth. Devi helped me to release my connection with her grief by asking her guides to lead her soul to a place of healing in the spirit world. As I watched her go off with her spirit helpers and fade into a field of loving light, I felt immediate relief.

Then I worked with the part of me that didn't want to go down the torturous road of chemo, mastectomy and radiation. My conversation with Walden hadn't happened yet, and I was still struggling with the decision to fight for my life. Here is a quote from my journal entry on that day:

I do not hate my cancer. Even as it claws at my flesh, I am able to accept my aberrant cells as an expression of an urgent need for transformation. I am committed to healing, but I don't know what my healing will look like. Will my body survive this intense initiation? I don't know. My job is to do karmic clean-up, and whether I live or die is in the hands of Spirit. It's strange - through some miracle, I love my body more now than ever before. It's a tender deer that is enduring the flames of suffering in order to provide a ground for my soul lessons. I am reminded of these lines from Rumi: "The time has come to turn your heart into a temple of fire. Your essence is gold hidden in dust. To reveal its splendor, you need to burn in the fire of love." My soul asks, Do you live in the center of love, Ria? Are you love itself? No, not yet? Then sit in the temple of fire and let it consume you until you know that you are love. Cancer is the center of the flames. Life devouring life. Some inner fire is raging, and must be quenched with the liquid gold of divine consciousness. And where does the divine resonate within the continuum of life? It is everywhere, within and without. It vibrates the silvery threads of light that hold together the web. The seed of my cancer is a divine ache crying out for the healing touch of love.

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