I am in Sedona at Mago Retreat Center still…today is the last day of the conference; Reciprocal Healing: Health, Nature and Vitality. Yesterday I guided a short experiential piece on being in relationship with mystery.
I promised to write Wednesday night but my time and energy has not felt like my own here and yet, it has been a good place for me for this time immediately following my appointment with Dr. ShanaWingo in Phoenix. Shewill be my surgeon and her field is Gynecologic Oncology.
The date for surgery has shifted to Friday, one week from today…the 15th at something like 4pm. My body quivers a bit as I type this. It will be at Banner Thunderbird Hospital in Phoenix…doesn’t that sound mythic somehow?…may I be the phoenix in my own story..rising from the ashes of my own story and my old body to a new (albeit strange) Jade bird!
My angels of mercy for the journey to Phoenix on Wednesday to meet Dr. Wingo and plan for surgery, were my dearest Delisa Myles who has been an honest and prevailing friend and soul sister of the fairy/owl clan for nearly 25 years here in Arizona, and one of my newest friends in Prescott, Dani Joelle, who is an astounding beacon of fearlessness in the fields of facing the realities in birth and death with grace, and what it is to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, and to continue to step forward with love in spite of that….
…and because of it.
We all really liked Dr. Wingo and felt her professionalism and experience mixed with a kind, curious, delightfully light and loving bedside manner. You might imagine we were quite the trio when Dr. Wingo walked into the examining room…and her curiosity only grew as she asked each of us about who we are in our worlds…I mean…really? A nature-based guide, a midwife and death doula and a “soul” dancer and teacher and all of us involved in advancing and promoting community death care education? (and those are extremely minimal words for the likes of the three of us…but you get the picture.
No?
Ok…try this one on for size?
Yes, this all began with a dream but I have to tell you, it is now more dream-like than the night dream that shook me awake to the situation. I’m not sure I’ve ever had such a surreal experience…and its only just begun. Some days I have the experience of walking, leaned in, as if into a storm…a storm of so many forms of precipitation and I simply endure the experience and do my best to trust each as they move through me…the fog of disorientation, the torrential downpour of tears, the frigid dark night frosty fear and yes….the balm of a warm desert-fragranced sun filled breeze. All are here and each are necessary.
Allies.
Friends, already I have noticed my relationship with life and love and beauty changing. I have long believed in the potency of facing our mortality and its extraordinary power to bring us blatantly face to face with what is important and to carve away the extraneous, leaving us shivering naked in our soulful truth…speaking with life in no uncertain terms. But ya know, mostly I have guided others in a mythic portrayal of this potent cycle of our humanity…a metaphoric set up to confront our descent and to “practice dying” in order to live for truly to our nature, and now…well, I’ll tell you, this kind of facing truth pierces far more deeply and pulls no punches. Its an ass kicker already and I highly recommend it…I think. . . . well, something like it perhaps.
Already…ALREADY, my Loves, I have been slayed repeatedly by how YOU all have shown up for me with torrents of love and support…you are vanquishing my loyal, fiesty independent one who has virulently resisted (but secretly longed for) someone to hold her…to lean on…to let her know she wasn’t alone and didn’t have to take care of the world.
This time, I appear to have no choice.
Clearly I am far more attended and loved than I could ever have imagined and this…this….
Hmm…this thing called being cared for by you is a fierce and extraordinary game changer.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I have always known I was loved and appreciated…but damn…your love and attendance now brings so much clarity around my desire to live!! To have still many years before me!!
And oh, did I mention beauty?
Beauty digs deeper now…already…and I haven’t even gone under the knife yet!!
F-ck…the world is STUNNING!!
Back to the details for the week.
Oh wait…and then there are my sisters…talk about angels!!!! I am surrounded by angels of every shape, size, endorsement, visibility and more…but MY GOD…if you don’t know this, I have three sisters who are my blood and my body…heart and soul…my constancy and surround, and I can’t even begin to imagine stepping towards this uncertain future without them.
Thank God I don’t have to…though we all live in various parts of the country, we are together…in daily, sometimes hourly contact…the tears and laughter and truth telling and care flow unceasingly and I think we are all astounded that our love for one another could continue to swell to even greater proportions. And it doesn’t appear to be slowing any time soon.
A wise woman friend shared with me some words that are a sharp blade of experience in me now, 28 days into this journey. This woman, whose young son was diagnosed with cancer a year and a half ago, said this to an audience of people, “I don’t wish this on any of you, and I wish it for all of you. We will all experience this level of fear and heartbreak. When you do, I hope that you allow the medicine of receiving from your community to soften and work you in profound ways….” . She went on with an amazing “prayer” that can only come from a woman whose heart has been drug through a road of uncertainty and loving so big that we lose site of our selves and are dismembered decisively by life.
Love re-members us.
We grow wise on that road…if we are lucky.
All of you, are already helping me to re-member me…even before I am quite literally dis-membered.
Thank you. . . . forever
Ok, really Jade…you DO need to sleep….
This week is all about preparing myself on every level to enter the terrain of surgery and the results of the surgery. I will not share all the gory details but I will tell you that at this time it is highly likely that this will be an invasive surgery (i.e. a vertical incision into my belly) first to remove the mass ever so carefully. They must carefully get it into a bag that then carries it to be biopsied. Once biopsied, if it is not cancer, I’m simply sewn back up and have only the recovery from this removal to deal with…and any repairs that will have to be done if it is attached to other organs. She believes it might be one large mass that actually encompasses both ovaries, and it might also be attached to the colon or bowel.
If it is cancer, then the rest of the cutting begins as she may have to remove lymph nodes, and possibly repair and resect the colon or bowel. Though she did examine me, we really don’t know until she gets in there.
It is possible…IT IS POSSIBLE, that the blood tests were an anomaly and this is not cancer.
Dear Creatress, let this be true.
I will likely be in the hospital for 3-5 days with a recovery of 4-6 weeks. If there is cancer, then there are all those decisions that will have to be dealt with. Ovarian cancer is a cancer that likes to return so the doctor would probably recommend chemotherapy.
This terrifies me.
And it is, of course, my choice.
This topic seems to generate alot of strong feelings…I want to humbly request that you not share your advise or opinions about that with me, unless I ask. I will need to find my own clarity there.
And we are not there now.
It seems daily I swing between a fear bigger than I’ve every experienced and then a ….yes, a joy and almost excitement that is new. Thank you fear for ushering in this thing called love that is absolutely joyous and all encompassing.
In my years of apprenticing to death I learned long ago that there is a deep and abiding relationship…a marriage between death and big love.
Yes, even just the encountering of the truth of how freaking short our lives really are, no matter the length…opens the door to the Love
…if we are paying attention.
ok, I’m gong to close…really.
My sister Barb…my big sister, and her dear partner, David will fly in on Friday morning to meet me and Dani, who I believe will be my chariot driver to the hospital next week. I imagine they’ll all hang around … then the other sisters will come in sequence, each with their own particularly immaculate gifts of healing and big sisterliness. And the rest of you…we will see what happens. . . your offers to come are astonishing.
I could not do this without all of you…you are my backbone, quite literally and I don’t mean just physically.
I am most scared about what news I will wake to find when the surgery is over.
And thanks to dreammaker, I do trust there is a bigger, deeper, more soulful story going on here that is mine to live inside of.
I love you all…more than you can know…even those of you who might read this that I hardly know…you still matter.
We need each other.
This is the country called life.
In humbling gratitude,
Jade, Janice….Earth Echo, Orcanina….
ps. My friend Jeffrey has offered to set up a caring bridge for us to gather virtually at…I am still feeling into what way of being in contact works best and feels right.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and for your care.