Quick thoughts
The pain clinic appt went well. The doc was very sympathetic and knew just what to do to start to combat this pain. He gave me a pain patch (the fentynol like I was on before) and a drug called topomax (sp?) that stops nerve pain, which is my worst pain. I'm worried about the patch, since it gave me terrible withdrawl when I went off of it before (and it hurt my digestive system) but the doc pointed out that the amount of percocet I have been taking is/would be doing the same thing basically. I can take percocet for intermittant pain. I had asked for a non-drug approach, but because of where the tumor is, he didn't want to mess with anything until I received all the treatment I could for that area. So here's hoping this new mix of meds helps!
Since I am very tired (what a long day...) I'll just give a little quick preview of what I'm contemplating lately in terms of spirituality. After this, though, I'm going to take another huge nap...I need it!
Ok. So there are three things that lead me to come up with this 'ultimate metaphor' that has been comforting me so much. They are:
(1) The Lion King. Yes, the disney movie my little brother made me watch a zillion times with him. In specific, the part where the dad (Mustafa) is talking about how when the lions die, their bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass, and lions eat antelope...everything is a "circle of life". This always appealed to me, this notion that everything was connected and dependent.
(2) After my diagnosis, I had time to 'stop and smell the roses'...literally, I was able to spend much time simply watching nature and the seasons change. Witnessing this had a profound impact on my sense of what the world is...how such dramatic changes happen over and over, and have done so forever, with no interference on man's part. In particular, the Fall to Spring period is just so amazing if you think about it...things go from vivid and full of green to dying to dead to sprouting anew.
(3) I read more about the yin-yang symbol. I always thought it just kind of meant harmony or something, but if you really look at it, it is interesting. The two shapes become one another, they are in motion, and each has a portion of the other inside it (the "eye"). The symbol was described to me as representing a mountain--one side in light, the other in shadow as the day begins. As the sun moves across the sky the light side begins to have shadow to it, the shadow side begins to have light to it, until they are completely transformed into the other.
I love this idea of it not being dualistic--not black versus white, but two integrated sides. You can see this applied to a lot of things. Even take cancer...it certainly is something I'd consider "bad" and yet there are good things that have come of it for me, too...it isn't all evil. It is a relief to see that black and white duality isn't the only way to look at things (I knew this before, as many people do, but in light of recent politics it seems that more and more people are perfectly happy with good versus evil, without actually identifying that there are bits of both in each side to every situation.)
So there was my jumping point. After reading The Idiot's Guide to Taoism (really, a fantastic book, dispite the silly title...) and thinking a lot about Taoism...meaning 'a person running along a path'...and how a 'tao' (lowercase) is basically a path, a way...
I came to the idea of a river that begins at the beginning of time (cosmos) and ends at the end of time (cosmos)...it flows as a river does, without any motivations or intentions...it just IS. In this great river, I imagine all these paddle boats with their wheels that turn slowly with the river's flow...again, without malice or intention, it is simply guided by the river's natural flow. I imagine that when a person is born, they rise out of the water on one of the spokes of the paddleboat. Their life consists of the time they spend revolving around on that spoke...rising up, and then, because it is a wheel, descending until the life ends at the water--what happens when a person hits that water in death is an unknown--something we can never know, but is inevitable and such should not be feared. It could be something wonderful, it could be something awful, it could be something neutral, it could be that you simply disappear.
The big thing this image (that I'm describing poorly, so I understand if it doesn't do it for you all, dear readers)...is that this wheel turns and the river flows out of no malice, no intent. There is no one to blame for your turn of the wheel, no one to exhault but the natural forces doing their own thing...and that thing happens to have allowed your life to occurr, as it has millions and billions of other lives (human, plant, animal, etc). It has no preference for one of these types over the other, everything is all together in an integrated system--no one part better than any other...all are subject to the flow of the river.
I know this probably isn't making a ton of sense, and I'll talk more about it tomorrow maybe with a picture or something. And definitely some quotes from Taoist books I'm reading, since they are able to articulate this kind of thinking a lot better than I can. For now, though, the thing that comforts me is picturing myself on that spoke making my turn...appreciating all that I see and experience as a part of me, as I am a part of it, as we are all a part of the great path that all life follows.
Ha, that ended up being not so quick. :) I bet I'll read this tomorrow when I feel less drugged out/sleepy and it won't make as much sense as it seems to. If so, tomorrow perhaps I can clarify. :D
Since I am very tired (what a long day...) I'll just give a little quick preview of what I'm contemplating lately in terms of spirituality. After this, though, I'm going to take another huge nap...I need it!
Ok. So there are three things that lead me to come up with this 'ultimate metaphor' that has been comforting me so much. They are:
(1) The Lion King. Yes, the disney movie my little brother made me watch a zillion times with him. In specific, the part where the dad (Mustafa) is talking about how when the lions die, their bodies become the grass, and the antelope eat the grass, and lions eat antelope...everything is a "circle of life". This always appealed to me, this notion that everything was connected and dependent.
(2) After my diagnosis, I had time to 'stop and smell the roses'...literally, I was able to spend much time simply watching nature and the seasons change. Witnessing this had a profound impact on my sense of what the world is...how such dramatic changes happen over and over, and have done so forever, with no interference on man's part. In particular, the Fall to Spring period is just so amazing if you think about it...things go from vivid and full of green to dying to dead to sprouting anew.
(3) I read more about the yin-yang symbol. I always thought it just kind of meant harmony or something, but if you really look at it, it is interesting. The two shapes become one another, they are in motion, and each has a portion of the other inside it (the "eye"). The symbol was described to me as representing a mountain--one side in light, the other in shadow as the day begins. As the sun moves across the sky the light side begins to have shadow to it, the shadow side begins to have light to it, until they are completely transformed into the other.
I love this idea of it not being dualistic--not black versus white, but two integrated sides. You can see this applied to a lot of things. Even take cancer...it certainly is something I'd consider "bad" and yet there are good things that have come of it for me, too...it isn't all evil. It is a relief to see that black and white duality isn't the only way to look at things (I knew this before, as many people do, but in light of recent politics it seems that more and more people are perfectly happy with good versus evil, without actually identifying that there are bits of both in each side to every situation.)
So there was my jumping point. After reading The Idiot's Guide to Taoism (really, a fantastic book, dispite the silly title...) and thinking a lot about Taoism...meaning 'a person running along a path'...and how a 'tao' (lowercase) is basically a path, a way...
I came to the idea of a river that begins at the beginning of time (cosmos) and ends at the end of time (cosmos)...it flows as a river does, without any motivations or intentions...it just IS. In this great river, I imagine all these paddle boats with their wheels that turn slowly with the river's flow...again, without malice or intention, it is simply guided by the river's natural flow. I imagine that when a person is born, they rise out of the water on one of the spokes of the paddleboat. Their life consists of the time they spend revolving around on that spoke...rising up, and then, because it is a wheel, descending until the life ends at the water--what happens when a person hits that water in death is an unknown--something we can never know, but is inevitable and such should not be feared. It could be something wonderful, it could be something awful, it could be something neutral, it could be that you simply disappear.
The big thing this image (that I'm describing poorly, so I understand if it doesn't do it for you all, dear readers)...is that this wheel turns and the river flows out of no malice, no intent. There is no one to blame for your turn of the wheel, no one to exhault but the natural forces doing their own thing...and that thing happens to have allowed your life to occurr, as it has millions and billions of other lives (human, plant, animal, etc). It has no preference for one of these types over the other, everything is all together in an integrated system--no one part better than any other...all are subject to the flow of the river.
I know this probably isn't making a ton of sense, and I'll talk more about it tomorrow maybe with a picture or something. And definitely some quotes from Taoist books I'm reading, since they are able to articulate this kind of thinking a lot better than I can. For now, though, the thing that comforts me is picturing myself on that spoke making my turn...appreciating all that I see and experience as a part of me, as I am a part of it, as we are all a part of the great path that all life follows.
Ha, that ended up being not so quick. :) I bet I'll read this tomorrow when I feel less drugged out/sleepy and it won't make as much sense as it seems to. If so, tomorrow perhaps I can clarify. :D