Thursday, July 19, 2007

When the shit hits the fan

Since my last entry here, my life has been turned upside down. It recently became necessary for me to have surgery, and the surgeons discovered a tricky cancer inside. They removed as much of it as possible. Now, however, I am faced with the necessity of chemotherapy, and my mind is suddenly a swirling brew of feelings, reactions, ideas, hopes and fears about the healing process.

Today I talked to a friend of mine who has had cancer 4 times. She is one of the most positive thinkers I have ever met. She emphasized the importance of getting exercise, continuing your normal life, laughter, and maintaining a good attitude.

As readers of this blog might have observed, I am very interested in sustainability issues. Everyone has read about global warming, some people are aware of the possibilities that peak oil could drastically change our lifestyles; and there are many other limiting, unbalanced areas of our lives that can make one feel very pessimistic. Many people are thinking about what we will all do when the shit hits the fan.

Then, bingo, life intervenes, and the shit indeed hits the fan, and suddenly you want to shut out all the news, all the popular culture, and you want to jettison all of the difficult or uncomfortable areas of your life. Suddenly, all I can think about is healing, about prayer, about poetry, about beauty and beautiful music, about gratitude, and all those other former preoccupations are burned off in a new resolve to live in a better, more pure, optimistic way.

What I am wondering is, if this new attitude I am bringing to life is the one I should have adopted all along? If we all prayed unceasingly, created beauty unceasingly, strove for compassion, what kind of world would we be creating? Change may be happening one person at a time, one cell at a time, it could even be starting with me.

All for now. Thanks to those of you who have told me you check in from time to time.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Martha,

Thanks for your reflective nature, welcoming change within you and all around you. When seeking the beauty of life, we do find it. Seeing it is a part of the seeking.

I have always appreciated your ability to depict the beauty and the beast, the balance between the light and the dark. Your soul is open to the sustenance of life itself. Your openness then touches and inspires others with invitations to live life in a more conscious way. What seems most unceasing to me is the BE-ing that IS in the beauty, in nature, in ourselves, unceasingly existing in and through the Mystery of some Source of All That Is! Thanks for sharing a glimpse of the unceasing Being that abides in you! Namaste--yes, I greet that Source of All Goodness within you!