sharing—and may we all shine going easy filled with light

From G-upon  seeing e.s Elm- 

                   ~•~

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such a hint of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from the branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

Mary Oliver


THANK YOU DEAR GREE

Synchronizing ones' actions—radioactivi…TEA

This morning I took the first 2 of 36 prescribed deximethosone tablets, tiny robin's egg blue pills the size of baby aspirin with perfect little scores across the middle, 16 mg per day. I will take 4 each day beginning the day before, the day of and day after each chemo-infusion- I rather love that word, infusion- conjures up an image of a russian or english tea house with scones and cubes of sugar, gloved hands amid the silver utensils administering the freshest brew, above all—manners, decorum, polite conduct…

The tea ceremony——The Royal Society of Chemistry's Dr. Andrew Stapley has written about the chemistry behind brewing tea, and some traditional ceremonies using leaf tea appear to closely mimic his suggested method, including the idea of synchronizing ones' actions with the temperature of the water. 

Meanwhile, in the studio window this morning—the elm tree branches are swelling against their skin- synchronizing their own leaf blooming actions with the temperature of the air…

So far what I'm hoping happens is that the steroids will mitigate the terrible inflammation and unbelievable weakness I've been experiencing in my right, (or the non-surgery side) arm. For months prior to surgery, when the cancer was a mere twinkling in a young radiologist's eye, my right arm injury- a late summer round of tennis service gone awry, has brought tears to my eyes.  I've been heard saying I feel like a plastic baby-doll with it's arms pulled out! however, if I don't deceive myself, just now my right arm just managed a full 360º shoulder roll with out the fireworks, so my fingers are x'd.  

INFUSION ILLUSION  SECLUSION DELUSION CONTUSION RETRIBUTION ABSOLUTION — a certain ……tea

3 AM meditation ends today with : …"may I free all beings". In the tradition of buddhism, we dedicate our efforts of mindfulness (with an intention for bodhichitta arising), not for our own benefit, but the benefit of all others, the irony of course is without a clear intention of also benefitting ourselves we are no use to any one else, the bodhichitta does not arise. I look at the elm- I think, 'in a few weeks it will be covered with small perfectly green leaves, benefitting itself with sun catching chlorophyll producing intention', but it's shade, it's oxygen-production benefits all beneath it. What has happened? 

Q. What do we intend to free all beings from? A. The ocean of suffering, in sanskrit: samsara. Samsara or suffering as practiced with, through insight mediation, is the cyclic [grasping- desire- wanting, of] birth and the [aversion, disdain, hatred of] death of being- - the confusion particularly for westerners is we often only think of one kind of birth and death in our limits of imagination. But here I'm speaking of a birth and death of 'BE'-ing-  Being…  being, ……………… and I understood in a synchronistic moment of dedication and intention, an action of mind, as the un-birthing, the undying, and the un-be-ing of 'ME'. With the words …MAY I FREE ALL BE INGS" freeing ones', capital 'S'-self. Call it altruism, call it generosity, or selflessness, it is the freedom from BE- ing, ME-ing a freedom from reactivi-……tea

I like to imagine the japanese nuclear workers in a tea ceremony of ultimate proportion. Ultimate bodhichitta, a gesture of selfless ness, the un-being of the atomic workers in Japan, as they dedicate their efforts to the freeing of harm to their families, their country, the selfless un-being of the hundreds of rescuers, the un Be-ing of stranded thousands at the food shelters passing up their ration of water for another who may need it more- their kindness saves them, their un-Be ing benefits first themselves, and as consequence, then others, for no water is as nourishing as the wisdom of self-lessness, there is no thing more beneficial than the freedom of an awakened heart full of un-be ing.

This freedom is a kind of NON-action a no-brainer in the strictest sense of the phrase-, like the elm as a symbol standing there outside of samsara, outside of suffering- no causes, no conditions or movements of a mind concerned with self—just swelling with certain tea.

—this post is for the Japanese nuclear reactor workers-——"synchronizing their actions with the temperature of the water"…

Revised - A steroid and Asteroids

Looking East over East River NYC. 

Looking up on WWW for full moon with Pleides (astroids)

Looking into the future:

• Coming up this Thursday/Friday/Saturday: dexamethisone [Dexamethasone is a potent synthetic member of the glucocorticoid class of steroid drugs. It acts as an anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressant. It is 20 to 30 times more potent than the naturally occurring hormone cortisol and 4 to 5 times more potent than prednisone.
• Anti-inflammatory   / 

  Oncologic uses

• Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy are given Dexamethasone to counteract certain side-effects of their antitumor treatment.
• they told me to keep my lungs and heart from swelling!!

• Side note: Long term use of dexamethasone under the brand name Oradexon is widespread among prostitutes in Bangladesh in spite of the dangers, because it helps them develop fat easily, an attractive feature in this poor country.  Ha!! IT MAKES YOU FAT, because you want to eat everything in sight!! Nice!]

• a steroid, 2 pills am / 2 pills pm •  dexamethisone a steroid, on Friday (2) am • taxitere and cytoxin 1pm  (3 hours) • then more deximethizone, a steroid on Friday (2) /pm • and deximethizone a steroid, on Saturday (2) am/(2) pm• ALL L COINCIDING WITH largest full moon on equinox with ASTEROIDS (actually stars) (Pleides) • Sunday • whew - no drugs — SPRING!!!!!!!  

& well, Yes, it's a lttle sad and a little scary- breathing in  & breathing owwwwttttttttt…So where am I with all this? and where will I be??

here's  a little multimedia answer to that- 

 looking out my window!!

(view from my geranium)-Enjoy!

Trial B-47 with shoes

https://www.ctsu.org/public/data/protocols/NSABP/NSABP-B-47/ec.pdf

Well, I struggled all week deciding if I should do the B-47 trial or not- A chance to be  a real live human guinea pig, advance chemical medicine, a chance to put my metta where my mouth is, a chance for, of all things, cancer redemption?— Or How to be a help to the cancer patients behind me, honoring the cancer patients in front of me who were in trials and also how to make some proverbial  lemon meringue pie of these cancer lemons -

I'd been out shoe shopping- yes the mundane joy of shoes--with Margaret,  I tell her the dilemma I am agonizing over, selflessness of serving myself up to science with chemo every three weeks for a whole year, (afterall I'm managed to side step radiation, shouldn't i sign up for a little more chemo?) , versus self preservation and safety - taking the 4 lumps Ihave coming and getting back in the game?  Margaret makes a washing machine motion with her arms, circling in ever widening arcs, laughs at me, and says. "REALLY?", We laugh together coming up with the metaphors for being in a spin cycle, hottest -hot water for brightest whites, second rinses and tons of bleach— washing machine loopty loop- so, how many cycles do I need before I'm CLEAN ??

As fate has it--

I get home with my new little heels with daisies on them and pick up a voice mail from my ONC mentor Dr. Menter, who apologizes saying it turns out my chemistry doesn't exactly fit the profile on a certain protocol, so I'm not eligible! It just gets curiouser and curiouser…meredith wrote one time: "we move toward separateness (wholeness)  guiltily"… the trial is very interesting if anyone is interested now or in the future-

You don't hear this very often!

1973- When I was a kid, 15 years old, feigning illness, I went to bed early, around 7:00 pm. Within 20 minutes I'd snuck out of my bedroom window - stuffing pillows under the blankets, and drove with a kid who had a dark green (if I remember right) 1968 Oldsmobile Hurst, 150 miles south of my home town, Willows, to the Oakland Coliseum to see a Bob Dylan concert- . We got to the concert just as Dylan was taking the stage, around 10. 
Dylan played for about 3 hours, the concert was epic! He gave one encore- the song:  'Senior'. He told the audience, "Tonight my SON was born, (I think it was his 9th kid)-  and I wrote this song for him!"


You don't hear this song played very often—maybe it's too personal?  but I found this fresh little video that someone made, and it is an odd collage of interesting images and is weirdly empty in the best sense of the word! I really don't know how it applies to anything… much… except love. And it simply makes me happy to remember how gutsy foolish brave, and wild i was as a kid, and still am in the most important ways!

Real Eyes a post-meditation meditation

You'll disappear one day- not all of you disappears at once but all at once you do begin to disappear, not because you lose yourself in some kind of daydream you forget to wake yourself up from- but more like bit by bit you'll begin to lose parts of yourself. You're sitting up in bed one day and notice, your hands no longer occupy any space below your wrists. There is no pain, no sudden shocking syndrome, just simple sure disappearance of hands. You don't panic, not at first- you just notice—ahem, 'no hands'. Then just within that pure second of noticing "no hands",  snap! There they are! right where you last saw them, manicured or not, clammy or not, cold, rough or recently lotioned, there they are. A kind of rehearsal for invisibility plays itself out in a shudder of awareness not easily replicated.And You forget they were gone. And the amnesia is very deep, it is very real. As far as you are concerned your hands have always been EXACTLY where they are…Of course you disappear a little every day- the cells sloughing off and with each passing hour less and less of those cells lineup to divide and replace the sloughed off ones. Less and less mass, [ some figure less than 1/12 the mass of an atom of carbon of YOU ] disappearing every nano-second, never to be replaced ever ever again. You are one of a kind. You REAL EYES this slowly over time, and that it is true of everyone, and everything. You realize this truth as the truth shared completely with all others, not in theory, but because you experience the disappearances the uniqueness directly. With tenderness, and complete forgiveness you wait it out, this rehearsal of some making…Rilke's bee of the invisible busy at its otherworldy hive, where perfect-invisible honey of the invisible drips from the fingertips of the hands you forgot were gone! Taste it, it's unknowable sweetness will also soon be gone gone gone beyond, gone beyond beyond…

over the hill and through the woods to Vitamin Cottage we go

When one does metta (translated: "loving-kindness")  practice - one cites a simple prayer directed at ones self, ones closest friends, and family, others whom one knows but not well, example: the mail delivery person, others whom one is aware of but feels neutral such as the persons at a stop sign, on a bus, or people in the check out que with you. Next you include persons whom you may not know, but have ill-will toward none-the-less, example: the driver at the stop sign who cut you off, or Momar Kadafy. And finally, we add in all those whom you know quite well, but whom you have a great discomfort, unease,  or even hatred with, the difficult co-worker/boss, an ex-spouse, or ex-lover, a belligerent neighbor, etc.…


One says simply, quietly always beginning with ones self first:

• May I/You be happy. 
• May I/You be safe. 
• May I/You be well. 
• May I/you be peaceful, and at ease.

My teacher who often travels abroad loves to practice in airports. There he sits in the tiered rows of seats at the gate smiling gently to himself: … may you be happy, may you be safe, may you be well, may you be peaceful and at ease. Over and over again… he is so high by the time he gets on the plane only half the jet fuel gets used!! The pilots checking and rechecking gauges and mileage chart! Really it's so beautiful. May you be happy… may you be safe…may you………

These days I am focusing on the may you be well, may you be well, may you be well, sentence. I just got home from my first job interview of 2011. Video production manager for internal staff education at VITAMIN COTTAGE!! i love these interviews: The wide pie in the - sky is the limit questions like: 

VC: "What are your goals"?

This is verbatim from interview process

Me: Professionally- "To work for a company, (if I must) that is dedicated to serving the greater good!

Personally- To become more healthy, to invest in more understanding of health as it relates to a greater happiness and well-being for myself, and my family.

may i be well

may you be well

may we be well

VC: Do you take supplements?:

 when was the last time that was on your resume? 

Me: Yes, I take vitamins, fish oil, lysine, vitamin B and C, if I knew more I'd probably take more.

this is where the position i applied for comes in: I would (if elected to serve) be providing the staff of Vitamin Cottage stores the tools via video vignettes and training to approach and engage potential supplement users to try different products that will enhance their health, nutrition, and over all well-being- Education videos!! 

I am just so happy i had this opportunity- No!, i did not tell them I had just had a mastectomy- let's wait until the second interview! 


I loved Jackie, my would-be Training Manager- cute as a button, smart of course with the uber-cool style sqwashed horn rim glasses and long thick black braids down to her waist! Her sweetness and unobscured goodness was almost criminal- Wouldn't it be grand to have chemo and make videos about the supplements that would mitigate the ill-effects of chemo at the same time!!??  I think so-indeed!

[insert] unabashed plug for VC

Shop Vitamin Cottage people! they are the REAL wholesome FOODS, not Whole Foods! For a little taste here is a lovely easy QUICK guide to this month's hot topics- Check out GABA! and eat your vegetables!

http://www.naturalgrocers.com/health-hotline/features

may you be happy-may you be safe- MAY YOU BE WELL- may you be peaceful and at ease-