Oh chemicals. Oh rain. I have moist eyes today. They won't weep but they won't stay dry. They are cloudy like the sky. The sadness comes and goes, goes and comes. Right now it is here, but it will go. Soon enough, it will depart. I think the chemo does not help my mental state...the chemicals make me feel kind of heavy. It has also been raining outside non-stop. Just have to be patient. Just wait it out. This too shall pass. My sister showed me this song the other day because of my recent metronome purchase. I watched it again today. It gives me shivers up my spine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuK2A1ZqoWs . Especially the part about leading the nation "with a microphone, with a microphone, with a microphone" ...it is a powerful combination of images, words, and melody. It shows the tension...the dramatic tension of our world. I like feeling the ecstatic tension. There are layers. I like it when my heart breaks open and the love soars out.
Good news in my "cancer experience"- only four more chemo treatments to go. My last day will be June 15. The next step will be radiation, which is generally considered a wise move in the case of tumors that got to be as large as mine. As modern as our medicine may be it is also like modern day shamanism, at least in my mind. Scaring the demons (cancer cells) away with the chemo. Telling them not to come back by hitting the tissue with the radiation rays. On days like today I cannot wait until this is all over and I am back in college...learning and working toward individuation, toward self-realization, toward a career, toward independence, toward strength. It is always most important to be in the moment...it is just these moments are...so uncomfortable emotionally. I know it is an illusion yet I feel so mired in the muddy feelings at times like these. The news is good, the track is good, life is good, my friends are good, it is just...my heart feels like it is being torn apart. I feel like I am being nailed, over and over, to this emotional spot. Something in me is stuck. Perhaps it is time to create some new artwork....
I read some Rumi yesterday during my infusion. This poem struck me in particular:
Offer Your Life to This Work
Abandon all arrogance, all vanity, and acquire Majesty.
He said, "Am I not your Lord?" You replied, "Yes."
What is your reward? To pass through ordeals.
The secret of that "Yes" is to beat constantly
At the door of poverty and annihilation.
Purify yourself totally and become dust
So from your dust flowers can keep springing.
When you become a flower, dry, and burn joyfully
So from your burning Light may flame out.
If through your burning you turn yourself to ash,
Your ashes will become the philosopher's stone in the Invisible
Which birthed you from a handful of dust
And created the whole earth from the foam of the sea
And built all the heaven from black smoke!
This is the sacred stone that takes a piece of bread
And turns it into power for our whole life
And transmutes our vital break into consciousness.
Offer your life to this work and this matter;
Poverty becomes lavish when it offers up its life.
You give up a life dark with every ordeal-
What do you receive? Happy, limitless existence!
