cancer the disease

Sunday poetry: Why not get started immediately

Verius Photography

We are just out of Cancer season, but Mary Oliver wrote this poem when she was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2012.  In these current times, we have been made aware of the finite nature of time and this poem is more relevant than ever. ❤️

The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac

1.
Why should I have been surprised?
Hunters walk the forest
without a sound.
The hunter, strapped to his rifle,
the fox on his feet of silk,
the serpent on his empire of muscles—
all move in a stillness,
hungry, careful, intent.
Just as the cancer
entered the forest of my body,
without a sound.

2.
The question is,
what will it be like
after the last day?
Will I float
into the sky
or will I fray
within the earth or a river—
remembering nothing?
How desperate I would be
if I couldn’t remember
the sun rising, if I couldn’t
remember trees, rivers; if I couldn’t
even remember, beloved,
your beloved name.

3.
I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.

so why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be urgent as a knife, then,
and remind […]

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By |2020-07-26T07:57:40-04:00July 26th, 2020|Inspiration|2 Comments

Sunday inspiration: Why me?

Art by NC Wyeth Art by NC Wyeth

I have two good friends with cancer, so this question is coming up a lot these days. And recently I did a reading for someone who was taken ill with pneumonia and since then suffered a seemingly never ending series of health problems and pain.  I’ve had clients who have been in terrible car accidents that paralyzed them.  Horrific abuse as children. Being fired from a job at which they excelled.

These events may seem terrible on the surface, and it would be easy when undergoing a drastic and terrible time to feel like Job in the bible on whom Jehovah visited a never ending series of trials.  But hidden in nearly all of these events is a kernel of magic that can transform our viewpoint and the way we see our world.

Cancer has been much on my mind lately because of my friends.  The last thing they want to hear from me is that there is a gift of magic hidden in their cancer.  I’ve never had cancer, so how do I know?  And is that really helpful?  What if they can’t find that gift, does that make them somehow a lesser person?  And yet there are many stories of people with serious illness who have found a new way of looking at their lives that completely transformed them.

Nine years ago I wrote this article about “the bright side of cancer.”  In this article I quote a number of people, including Lance Armstrong who said “Cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said. “I don’t know why I got the illness, but it did wonders for me, and I wouldn’t want to walk away from […]

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By |2016-10-08T12:17:06-04:00August 14th, 2016|Favorite posts, Inspiration|2 Comments

The astrology of cancer surgery

I have been trying not to take too much fodder for this blog from actual client charts for fear of violating privacy rights, but occasionally something comes up that is too valuable not to share. When this happens I try to present the information in as vague a form as possible so as to maintain the privacy of the client’s identity.

I saw a woman today who had had two different cancer surgeries but we did not discuss the details before the session. I try not to know too many details about the client before we start the session so that I’m taking the information strictly from the chart.

This client has an exact and angular opposition from a Capricorn Venus to Uranus which denotes a traumatic (Uranus) history with respect to her value as a woman (Venus). During the reading I felt she had an energy blockage in the belly area at the second chakra and saw this blockage as a wounded part of herself that she had long ago rejected around her attractiveness as a female and her lovability. She disclosed that one of her cancer surgeries had been for cervical cancer and that she had worked with different modalities to try to release blocks in that area. She also shared that as a child she was told by her mother that she was ugly and worthless and carried a great deal of pain with her as a result.

We think of fighting against cancer as if it were a being separate from ourselves. Those of us who have worked for a long time to heal old psychological injuries have tried hard to rid ourselves of the residue of this soul damage. We cut cords that bind us to toxic loved ones. We clear our chakras. We do […]

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By |2018-07-15T07:41:38-04:00October 20th, 2007|Health & Healing|0 Comments