The Personal and Planetary Chrysalis

It wasn’t long after my son and I began to work on this website back in June of last year that I badly injured my leg—during of all things a yoga exercise.  While facing that challenge, and going through physical therapy for the painful leg injury, I began to experience within myself excruciating emotional pain that seemed to be directly attuned to the physical agony of my leg.  I shared this realization with my physical therapist. Within myself I called it "the river of sorrows."

I was in emotional agony. My mother had died months before and I began to remember.  The body is the great repository for feelings, buried long ago for the sake of salvation. The hidden memories and feelings flooded back to my consciousness, along with powerful dreams fraught with strange symbols as I opened up to understand the greater meaning and let it all in.  I had no choice. Like it or not, my body registered its truth. While cleansing through this river of sorrows I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer.  "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."  This was and is my fourth bout with breast cancer. Many excruciating medical choices later, and finding an excellent compassionate surgeon who supported my decision to once again refuse a mastectomy, I opted for a lumpectomy and the aggressive tumor was removed.  I was lucky.  Its poisonous formation had just begun and it had not spread.  I began to do extensive work on my inner self. The illness and leg injury had slowed me down to a snail's pace and I began to view the world and my relationships with enlightened eyes.  Cancer always means change your life, and it's not an easy thing to do. What needs to change? we all can ask. Sometimes these hardened ingrained patterns lie buried deep and hard. The unstoppable river of sorrows flowing through my body proved to be relentless, and forced me to again endure the painful necessary transformation.  I had to look within myself about my life and trust the painful emergent feelings in my body to show me the way.  I had to take a good hard look at my relationships with my family and others.  You need to feel it to heal it, and this emotional pain was ruthless in its truth. I had to endure it with patience and courage.  I began to see myself in a chrysalis of protection where the chemical reactions within me would one day allow me to step out and fly.  This would be in God's time, not mine. I had to surrender.

Now this global pandemic has changed the world for us all, and as a global community we must face and endure the unknown.  The master doctor in filmmaker Kurosawa's Red Beard spoke about the human condition with these words, "Behind all illness is great misfortune." Meaning not the illness itself, but the roots of illness.  I have found this to be true.  Now we are enduring illness, death, and the fear of death—our greatest fears coming to light. I have witnessed the fear and anger around me, and within me as well.  I also see with gratitude those who raise our spirits with hope and love. Right now I am in isolation as you are, and in our community we are not allowed to receive visitors. This is not a hardship for me personally, as I enjoy my solitude.  I am in a chrysalis now, as we all are. 

We are all in this together, and now that my website is up I am eagerly awaiting the new healthy relationships we will form on the internet and on the phone.  Life is mysterious. For so long now I have mourned the loss of the feeling-level between souls, thinking it  due to the spread of technology, yet what I saw as a curse is now a blessing that brings us near to each other and allows us to connect and share and find peace together. Everything that happens, no matter how agonizing, seems to me at this juncture of my life to have a gift and a purpose that brings me nearer to God.  And so in the midst of this global pandemic my dreaded computer springs up as a life source and a blessing. All of us can connect—it’s a miracle!  We can now meet with each other in a very personal healing manner, and heal and grow together.  We can deeply appreciate each other and the love we are blessed with. We can revere and adore life as a gift because the threat of death is so near.  We can feel the value of kindness  and give thanks. We do have power to love.  Have faith, dear friends!  Life is an enigma wrapped in a blessing if we only have the courage to find it. There are healing lessons of great worth and value here, right now. When there is loss and great suffering,  how can we see through the darkness and mine the good? What can we do to heal our own lives and refresh and restore the lives of others?

We are all in this chrysalis together. When the time is right, the lessons are learned, the chrysalis will open. And like beautiful butterflies we all will fly free.