Sunday, February 3, 2013

Return to Wholeness

This post's title is a title of a book written by Dr. David Simon in 1999. The subtitle is: Embracing Body, Mind, and Spirit in the Face of Cancer.

Dr. Simon self-diagnosed his own brain tumor in June 2010. He died 1.5 years later in January of 2012. I feel connected to this man and his work. It is beyond the cancer that is connecting me to him. It is how he said the word 'sweetness' in the videos that I watched, produced by his son Max.

Here is the link:
http://returntowholeness.com/

The title "Return to Wholeness" is my mantra right now. In Dr. Simon's introduction to his book he explains how Diane Connelly once said, "All sickness is homesickness." The healing journey is the returning to home. But where is home? What does that mean?

These are not new questions for me. I have asked myself this before. I was first prompted to allow this question to come up after encountering the book Women Who Run With the Wolves. I have been working with WWRWTW for years now. I have been living and breathing the teachings by this beloved author, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

Honestly, I have been struck a little numb and dazed by chapter nine, the chapter is titled "Homing: Returing to Oneself." I have thought before that this is the chapter of WWRWTW that has perplexed me the most. I couldn't understand why I wasn't receiving the messages that, say, my friends seemed to be getting.

I gave a copy to one of my friends, the fearless leader of our fire dancing troupe, and she was so inspired by chapter nine, that she created a whole fire spectacular performance based on, and dedicated to, that chapter alone.

Right now sitting right next to me, I have my own sweet copy of WWRWTW that Dr. E signed when I traveled to Colorado last June to start a training with her. (More on that later)
It is worn and torn with coffee grounds spilt into the chapter list. I carry this book with me almost everywhere I go. It went with me to my first chemo treatment. I am going to re-read chapter nine on Homing and Returning to Myself and invite myself to listen at a deeper level inspired by Dr. Simon's work and, of course, the fact that I have cancer.

I personally don't believe that my cancer is happening for no reason. Perhaps, I need this life belief to make sense of it all. But really, it matters not, for I know that part of my own inner and outer work is to find my own soul reasoning behind my illness.

xoxog

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