Womb Talk: Introduction

 This is the beginning of a short autobiographical piece that I will post in sections.

We see two direct images of speaking here, one from the center 

(think of the expression 'gut knowledge'), the other from the womb.

- Rachel Pollack,

The Shining Tribe Tarot,

Speaker of Stones card

 

 

For three and a half years, they called it a cyst.  I knew it was adjacent to my uterus and left ovary, but it just sat there, and so it was not a concern.  Cancer was the concern, my diagnosis of and treatment for retroperitoneal leiomyosarcoma.  A mouthful, that, and equally large as a life threat - aggressive, fast-growing, and likely to spread and recur, even after being removed by chemo and surgery.  This stable cyst raised no alarm bells.  My surgeon paid no attention to it, although now I wish he had.

 

It began growing last year, around the time of my first recurrence and my 4th cancerversary.  They biopsied it, a painful and horrible experience, and then kept us waiting several weeks for the results (which they'd said we 'd have in a few days).  After all of that, the results were vague and inconclusive. It did not appear to be the same kind of sarcoma. In fact, they didn't describe it as cancer, but I didn't trust the report.  Along with my doctors, I made the decision to remove it, no matter what it turns out to be. My surgeon at Stanford referred me to his colleague, an OB-GYN oncological surgeon, due to the tumor's location.  The new doc and I were on the same page - let's take out the ovaries and uterus, too, as the tumor now appears to be growing into the uterus.  I want it all out, even if it's only to deprive cancer of another place in which to grow.

 

This surgeon spent a good amount of time with us when we met, and I liked and had confidence in him right away.  It turns out that he is the same age as my son Max, which we found out when I kidded him about how young he looks.  He didn't trust the biopsy, either.  The big surprise was that he will try do the surgery laparoscopically.  I didn't even know that this was an option. If he can, it will of course make recovery much easier than abdominal surgery would.

 

So, now I am waiting for the procedure.  Dr. Karam's staff had advised me that it would probably happen in three to four weeks.  After a day or two of not hearing from the scheduler, I called her.  Five and a half weeks was the soonest.  He's a busy guy.  As fast as this bugger is growing, I was not thrilled at the wait.  He sent reassurance that the timing is not a problem.  Not only is

the delay longer than I'd hoped, it also will mean we will miss going to Mt. Shasta for a Rumi's Caravan performance.  Disappointing.

 

But between this and a myriad of other medical appointments, including tests on other places in my body that have lit up on scans, and infusions of immunotherapy for my recurrence, I knew that I needed some project or focus so that my whole attention is not obsessively focused on health issues.  I decided to consult the Tarot, and one line in the text leaped out at me about the Speaker of Stones card, which sat in the place of the reading called "the crossing card", or what needs to be integrated.  The line calls for letting the gut and the womb speak.  The gut and womb are the two places in my body that are plaguing me. 

Rachel Pollack, Shining Tribe Tarot

I realized that in my eagerness to get this tumor out, I had not considered the grief I might feel at losing my uterus. Of course, I am long past child-bearing years and hardly alone in having to have a hysterectomy. But this is the seat of fertility in my body, the home place for my two sons' beginnings. i don't know if I will experience grief, or how much, but the possibility has led me to this writing project. Womb Talk. I knew I wanted to begin with the history (or herstory) of my womb, so here we are. Maybe she will then speak to me. Maybe poems will come. We shall see.

It’s been a while since I looked at any of the poems in my recent book.  After revising and proofreading them so many times, I really thought I’d never want to look at any of them again!  But, for some reason, as my three-month scan cycle is approaching its end, I opened the book to look at my Going to Hel section, which includes a bunch of poems from when I was actively dealing with cancer.

I have been fortunate to be 2 ½ years in remission now. Sometimes, life almost seems “normal” now.  Sometimes.  Almost. But then scanxiety (a word I'd never heard until cancer) unavoidably creeps in. And today I re-read the following poem:

Undying Companion 

 

Once upon a time,

         the word cancer

evoked such terror

         that merely reading

or saying it superstitiously

         tempted a raging

death curse into

         the body.

 

How things have changed,

         now that the interloper

invisibly insinuated its rapidly

         growing presence inside.

I can say the word now,

         without flinching.

Even after surgical removal,

         this disease has asserted

its place as my undying companion,

         and always will.

 

I will walk with cancer.

         I will dance with cancer,

I will sit with cancer, and

         I will sleep with cancer,

until I sleep

         for good.

 

It is not that the terror

         has dispersed.

It is only that uncertainty,

         which is true for all,

has traveled from a

         complacent distance

to take hold

         of my hand.

            

Uncertainty is truly what we all have. Here it is again, my undying companion.

Navigating Mystery, Part 6

 I intend to write my way into healing.

That sentiment came to me once before, in the depths of a life-threatening illness.   I came to understand that I also need to heal how I think and how I live. I know that healing does not necessarily mean cure.  There may be no cure; there wasn’t and isn’t for my illness, at least not according to the medical authorities, at least if I assume their authority.  Giving them authority is what I was trained to do.  There are doctors and there are patients, those who know and do, and those who do not know and who are done to. To whom and to what I give my authority and why are bound up with my fear.

 

Writing has been my lifeline, ever since I was ten years old and received my first diary, the kind with a tiny lock and key and a fake leather cover embossed with a multi-colored jewel-like pattern and the words “My diary.” 

 

Heal (v): to make whole.  If I need healing, if I am not whole, am I broken?

 

There is an old story, a very, very old story about brokenness and healing.  In the Kabbalistic tradition, it is said that God created ten sacred vessels to hold divine light.  The vessels, however, were not strong enough to contain all that brilliance, and so they broke into pieces that scattered all over the universe.  It is our job as humans to restore order and harmony, to gather the shards by living prayerful lives and acting in ways that are of service to the world. In Hebrew this is known as tikkun olam, the repair of the world.

 

And so, according to the story, the first step of healing is to live a prayerful life.  It is what my illness taught me, as well.  Before I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, I was already old enough, of course, to be thinking about mortality, but only in a vaguely troubling and distant way.  When it got directly in my face, I realized to the core of my being that there was no time to lose.  Whatever work remained to be done, whatever gift I carried had to be delivered to the world without delay.  In the words of the 15th century Indian mystic Kabir:

 

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now,

you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.

 

If I stayed trapped, I foresaw being consigned to that apartment in the City of Death.  I have heard there is an old saying: When death finds you, may it find you alive.  That is what I want. I want life!  Mine, others, to see it everywhere.

SoulCollage® card - Dealing With the Medical System

The Beauty of the Process

 If you saw my last blogpost, you’ll recall seeing this SoulCollage® card:

 

To recap, I made this card to help me overcome my fear of the statistics around my cancer diagnosis.  I have struggled to come to terms with the methods and nature of the western medical establishment in which the disease is treated rather than the person.  But this is just backstory, as you’ll see.

 

Here’s one of the beauties of SoulCollage® - while the process of making these collaged cards is very simple and a lot of fun, whether done alone or in community, it also can generate far greater insight than you might expect. There are basically two ways of making cards: have an idea of something you want to make, something you’d like to include in your deck, and look for images to capture that; or just pull images that you’re drawn to and see what evolves.  I always thought that the second method yields the most surprises.  Often, you don’t understand the import of what you have made until after (sometimes long after) you’ve made it.  But with this most recent collage, which was clearly created with a specific intention, the same kind of surprised awareness arose well after the fact.

 

Let me explain. The young woman’s image at the top of the card was cut off a photograph of her rock climbing.  I wanted a picture of a woman overcoming some difficulty, and this picture seemed ideal.  And so, I placed her practically climbing over the doctors who formed the lower background. On one level, this clearly achieved what I intended.  Mission accomplished. 

 

I selected the photo of the field of sunflowers for the lower background because it was full of life and new growth. As the sunflower is the chosen image of life and hope for sarcoma patients, it embodies even deeper symbolism. (And this was before the invasion of Ukraine and all the resulting sunflower images, but another synchronicity, for sure.)

 

The doctors are in their operating room, peering down at the little figure on the bottom left – me: small, bald, and fatigued from their ministrations.  April was the month I was diagnosed, and so I included the calendar page along with numbers representing the awful statistics concerning this disease. 

 

I will say I did feel some strength and resolve after completing the card.  But it didn’t end there.

 

A few days later, I sat with the card again, and another realization leaped into my mind and practically bowled me over.  Truly, the woman is no longer a rock climber.  I succeeded, as SoulCollage® inspires us to do, in giving the image an entirely new context.  She is now picking flowers in a field.  She is leaning over to pluck one.  Oh. My. God.  She is Persephone!  Of course she is!  And the medical establishment sits in the underworld beneath her.  Well, I have obviously been on an underworld journey.  And yet, the little me in the corner holds a big bouquet of sunflowers.  She will arise.  I have.

 

But is Persephone about to be pulled down like when she first picked the flower?  Or is She in this field during one of her subsequent annual ascents?  The card does not say, but in SoulCollage® we let the image speak.  What the woman said when I first made the card and before I understood Her significance was, “I am one who has been at the will of the medical system, for good and for ill.  I am one who has climbed out of the mindset that I have to be one of their statistics. I am one who chooses life and who refuses to be intimidated by their statistics.”  So, knowing this, I can be assured that we are viewing one of Persephone’s returns in the Spring.  She and I have already been down there.  There will be other descents.  But not now. 

 

And what about the central doctor?  Is he then Hades?  That’s a tricky question.  We can never approve of Hades’ actions in abducting Her, but is He evil?  What a terrible job He was assigned!  I can’t blame Him for not wanting to bear it alone.  Sadly, in the ancient times of the myth’s origins, Greek marriages were often conducted in this manner, or at least without the women being consulted, yet alone giving consent.  I do not condone his methods, even so.  But it is also true that through this awful act, Hades made Her a powerful queen. Her life and purpose drastically changed, and who can say whether this was a good thing or bad?

 

But back to the doctor – he did save my life (and I truly love my surgeon who called me “my miracle patient” and who, interestingly, was born in Greece). He, unlike Hades for Persephone, was not the cause of my troubles.  But he did drastically change my life.  Then he, they, western medicine, left me in this place.  My surgeon gave me the chance. If I want to be truly healed, I must use what they can offer but also take it into my own hands. I’m the one who can harvest the sunflower.

 

I have always tried to imagine Persephone’s story forward, beyond what we’re told in the myth.  It is up to Her to choose how to proceed.  Hades offers Her tremendous power in all the realms. I like to believe She took it on.

 

What the card does not show, and so perhaps I need to make another one, is that there is community.  I may often feel alone, and in many ways my suffering and path are all my own, but as the sunflowers grow together, connected, in the field, I am not alone.

Update and a Poem

 Usually, after my every-three-months scan comes up clear (and I’ve done this often enough now to be able to say “usually”), I breathe a sigh of relief and happily face a few months of reprieve.  This time, however, I had a different response.  Don’t get me wrong – I am truly grateful and can even say thrilled at the results.  Many are not so fortunate.  But the worry did not completely abate.  Partly it is because my primary oncologist told me that he wants to continue scanning every three months for three years (from my surgery), instead of the two that I had anticipated.  That isn’t the worst thing in the world, and I can only hope that I make it three years in remission.  And I do understand that it is good to catch things early.  He just reminded me that my rare cancer recurs frequently, and that my specific version was aggressive.  This isn’t one of those “make it for five years and you’re pretty much home free” types of cancer.  This kind (leiomyosarcoma) is a “you’re never home free” variety.  I don’t think I’ve heard a single story of “one-and-done,” although that doesn’t mean that it has never happened.  I suspect anyone who may have made it into that camp dropped out of the support group, and we just don’t hear about them.  I do know of some twenty-year survivors.  But the statistics aren’t good.  You don’t want to know the five-year survival rate.  Let’s just say, it isn’t great.

 

In addition, I had a melanoma cut out of my leg last month.  My dermatologist says it was early stage, and she got clean margins.  I assumed I was done with it, but when I went to my local oncologist after my recent scan, she told me to watch out for swollen glands and lumps in my groin, which would indicate the melanoma having spread to lymph nodes.  Sigh…One more damned thing to worry about.

 

As Annie Lamott says, “Life is just too goddamn lifey sometimes.”

 

Despite my gratitude for it having saved my life, when I’m immersed in the medical world, I all too easily fall into fear of the statistics.  I know the docs don’t really intend to scare you (at least not the ones I’ve dealt with), and I realize they have seen all the worst-case scenarios played out.  And I suppose it’s better that they do inform you, unlike the old days when the truth was so often hidden from patients.  But our emotional responses are not really their concern (and yes, there are still so many ways western medicine sucks). 

 

If I allow myself to live in the grip of the statistics monster, I don’t know how to have a decent life with whatever time I have left.  And right now my life is way more than decent, despite cancer, the pandemic, climate collapse and political chaos.  I have a loving family, a good home, healthy food, poems to write, communities to be part of, and that medical care that I’m complaining about.  And I don’t live in a war zone.

 

So, after dealing with all the doctors in their stark white, intimidating and impersonal exam rooms, I have to spend a few days shaking off the fears and the statistics.  It’s not easy.  I wish I were the kind of person who can more easily shrug things off and move on.  Before I had a life-threatening diagnosis, I didn’t have a clue about what life is like for those who have.  Now I know.  Let’s just say, it’s a lot to come to terms with and I hope you never have the experience.  I’m not writing this so you will feel sorry for me.  You have your own bag of worries to carry around.  But writing is something I do to help me let go of the fear.  I debated about sending it to you, but I decided that it could help (me, if not you) to give you a glimpse into my world, into my lifey life.  I don’t know about you, but I do appreciate hearing about what is really, truly going on in my friends’ lives and struggles.  Maybe you do, too.  No point in hiding, is there?

 

I do feel determined to not let these situations run me.  I would dearly love to turn my attention outward and away from myself.   

 

Here’s the poem that is part of my banishing the statistics demons:

 

Victimized by Statistics

 

The news is good,

I tell myself.

Free and clear for

three more months.

Then I enter

one of those horrid

little white rooms

where I am only

another statistic

waiting to tally.

My relief drains away

under the palpating

hands, and I shrink into

an uneasy and smaller

version of myself.

True, they royally grant

me my reprieve, but

along with it comes

instructions to be

vigilant and wary.

As if I needed

one more dose

of fear. As if

there is paltry hope

beyond their statistics.

As if it is of no concern

that once again

I feel like a

ticking time bomb.

 

 

After writing this, I decided to take one more step in healing this situation.  so, I made a SoulCollage® card that is about moving beyond being a victim of the statistics.  Here it is:

 

  Sorry for the repetition for those who read this on CaringBridge.

I Dream of Swan Bones

The other night I woke up with a dream image; it was a plastic bag or a basin full of bones in liquid.  I knew they were the bones of a large bird, and I felt that they must be swan bones.

I've had a thing about swans since childhood.  When I was growing up in Baltimore, we used to go ice skating on a frozen stream, and there were often swans there that I loved seeing.  I also fell in love as a young ballerina with Swan Lake.  And then there was the story of The Ugly Duckling.  Who among us hasn't felt as though we didn't fit in?  

After sitting with the dream image for a while, I had the thought that one possible meaning was that I am about to embark on a new phase.  Tomorrow is my last chemo, and when I recover from that, I will be considering how to put my life back together.  This past 8 or 9 months has been a kind of spiritual dismemberment.  Maybe the dream is showing me that I need to reassemble the bones and reanimate them.  And not in the same way, not back to some old sense of "normal."  There is no normal now, not for me, not for any of us.  What will life be like moving on, especially taking into account all the uncertainties?

So, this poem came:

Stripped down to the bone.

the essential pieces of a life

float in a basin of liquid, waiting.

They were not buried or burned

but are held suspended, so that

they might be fleshed out again.

Wing bones, leg bones, long and white

wait for what happens next.

Will the feathers still be white?

Will the eyes be fierce and dark?

Will the swan swim and fly freely

once more?

I am also reminded of the story in Women Who Run with the Wolves of the one who gathers and reassembles the bones.  It seems a worthy task.  

Also, another swan association is my SoulCollage® card for my 4th chakra (sorry it's not a great copy - just a phone photo):

A New Poem: Forgiveness

 

A New Poem: Forgiveness

Tomorrow I head into the double-dose chemo of round 6 (second of four potential rounds post-surgery).  This past week ("chemo lite" week as I call it) has been relatively easy, but I know starting next Saturday I'll be feeling it.  Nothing easy about this, as you know.  I'm just grateful that the air has been breathable, that I've been quite able to go for walks and to eat well (even if everything tastes weird and bitter), that I've had family around me and friends in contact, that I have a good home to live in.  It helps to feel gratitude in these difficult times.  My inner experience is pretty much in line with the outer experience of life in this chaos.

Forgiveness

My body 

did not betray me.

I am in need

of forgiveness, and

who I must forgive

is myself.

Meting out judgments

harsh and punishing,

I found a culprit 

to blame - the body

I've never rested easily in,

that never has lived up to

my required standards.

I've had so little tenderness

for its failings and foibles -

the belly wrinkled

from pregnancy,

the young girl's

awkward height,

the invisible issues

of the blood.

What I want 

is to cradle

my body-self and say,

"Shh!  It is all right.

You are loved."

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A New Poem: Forgiveness

Tomorrow I head into the double-dose chemo of round 6 (second of four potential rounds post-surgery).  This past week ("chemo lite"...

The Fires of Initiation

Heading into the second day of infusions of round one (or five, depending on how you count it).  This is the double dose day.  I woke up feeling strong and calm after a few days of some anxiety about it.  I've gotten through this before.  I can again.  I woke up in the night with the words "The fires of initiation" and I had the title for this poem.

Below are two SoulCollage® cards - one is my card for the fire element; one is a card of offering to fire.

What is happening in my body

is happening in and to the earth.

The fires rage, burning their way

to cleansing and renewal.

This is not easy for the people.

Lungs struggle to breathe.

Houses burn to ash.

Forests and animals are

struck down.

To the earth, we are the interlopers,

greedily pushing our way

into places we have

no business occupying.

 

And me?

My body has

interlopers, too.

I am being initiated

by fire.

I am becoming

a fire priestess.

I follow the burning

in and through channels

and watch things die.

I learn to stir a cauldron

bubbling over flames, cooking

down all that needs

transforming, everything ready

to melt into new form.

 

And so I say –

Fire, your power is

undeniable; your genius

rolls out over many fields

Here is an offering.

My basket is empty now,

my water gourd running low.

May renewal come.

  

I hate the way Blogger is formatting this, but can't see a way to change it.