Tag: light

On the Other Side of Identity

After I completed treatment for breast cancer three years ago, I went through several months of transitioning back to daily life without doctors’ appointments, tests, or procedures. Relief and gratitude came first, along with deepening trust in my soul’s journey as it unfolded. But then, unexpectedly I also felt a wave of sadness and apprehension about “what’s next?” I was a survivor (yay!), but I wasn’t even certain what that meant. As the days and months passed, I experienced an odd mixture of profound appreciation for life along with wondering if I had lost some of my life-force energy. I found myself not as interested in many familiar, but busy, activities. The one thing that continued to deeply engage my heart and soul was Nature. Walking among the trees, bird-watching, gazing up at the ever-changing colors of the sky and clouds. I guess I would say I was most drawn to being rather than doing. 

In some ways, it was not that different from how I had lived life previously; yet there was a certain “emptiness” to it that made me wonder: Had my core essence died with the cancer cells during chemo and radiation? I puzzled over this off and on for some time. Then I remembered a moment of spiritual transformation that occurred during my treatment process: the loss of identity! My identity—eclectic pieces collected over a lifetime (flower child, feminist, spiritual seeker, etc.)—fell away with the hair on my head and the physical appearance I was used to. When I looked at my body, I saw a temporary home for my spirit, or soul, which is in fact eternal. And the soul peacefully observed my life and identity with neutrality.*

Looking back at those life-changing moments of complete soul awareness, I realized that I was now living my life in an entirely different way. My identity was no longer filtering everything; it had faded to the background. What I thought was emptiness or loss was the vast beingness of spirit resting in my heart and soul. I was the observer, or witness, so often referred to in meditation teachings. An almost indescribable feeling: To be in a form but to feel formless, unattached, much of the time.

Our human minds tell us this world is real; our souls see it as a passing illusion, one we come here to experience and then finally break free of when we die—or sometimes beforehand, so that we can live freely, peacefully, as soul while still “alive.” The identity is the costume you wear on Earth; it dissolves at death or perhaps, unexpectedly, during a health crisis or other life-shattering experience. It may take time for you to feel fully at home with just a shadow of identity left; that was true for me. Patience and acceptance are part of the process.

When the identity falls to the wayside, your consciousness enters a different dimension. You realize that human inventions, personalities, and events come and go in the material world. Beyond all those transient illusions is something greater: a Light of Awareness that births all of life. This light is experienced most clearly in Nature, and that is why individuals often feel deeply connected and aware when they walk among the trees and flowers, listening to birdsong. In truth, it is everywhere.

When you look up at the stars sparkling in the infinite cosmos, there may come a moment when you feel one with all you see. If you have lost a loved one or your own sense of “self,” the vastness of the universe still holds you in its loving awareness. More and more now, I understand that that awareness is my soul’s home—on the other side of identity. 
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*See also the chapters “Shedding” and “Body and Soul” in my book Breast Cancer and Beyond: An Unexpected Soul Path: https://amzn.to/4aka0eu.

Find Something to Celebrate

Every morning, I look for something to celebrate. Something that makes me smile or laugh. Something that fills my heart with gratitude. At times, it can seem unlikely when each day’s news headlines bring something to feel fear or sadness about. Yet there is much more to life than those unsettling news stories.* I’ve discovered that my path to inner peace and optimism lies in looking for something positive to focus on. Something to celebrate in the world, rather than shed tears. It could be my partner’s sweet smiling face; her beautiful artwork. A neighbor’s kindness or a friend’s sense of humor. A Mary Oliver poem. Jon Batiste at the piano. Often it’s in Nature where I discover the inspiration to continue believing life is good.

One day last week my celebration was a flock of robins eating ripe red berries from winterberry trees as I walked by. Hearing them excitedly calling and flying all over in the cold winter air was such a thrill! I love robins—their rosy breasts and bright eyes. When I was growing up in the Midwest, we always thought of them as harbingers of spring, and they still hold that energy for me here in New England. New beginnings, sunshine, birdsong.

Yesterday I heard the warm-up notes of a male cardinal’s spring song. Every year in January or February those first “rehearsal” notes are heard here in Massachusetts. It’s not a rise in temperatures that triggers their song; it’s seasonal timing, the shift into a little more light each day. Gradually, spring is coming, and all the birds sense it. They too celebrate the “return of the light,” as humans do at the solstice.

Bird or human, the light connects us to life, to the positive overview. When I look out the window and see the morning sun sparkling on the trees (whether snowy or spring green), I feel the magic of the unexpected beauty that Nature brings us again and again. Every season moves us through our lives with new and exciting moments of wonder. Even if somewhere in the world there is harshness or hatred, here there is softness and love.

I never tire of the dynamic energy of winter transitioning to spring. It always gives me hope that whatever may be weighing on me can be lifted instantaneously with singing birds and blooming flowers, longer hours of sunshine and warmer temperatures. Winter holds us gently in hibernation and rest; then spring opens the door to the light, and our bodies and spirits move with renewed energy in the world again.

 When you smile with delight seeing bright yellow daffodils or hearing a wood thrush’s ethereal song, your smile may then touch the heart of the next person you meet…perhaps then continuing onward, person to person. In this way smiles can circle the globe, hearts opening along the way. Celebration can be as simple as that, and it changes everything. In your day and in your life. So wherever you find something to celebrate, in the wonders of Nature or the eyes of a loved one, hold that feeling of joy and appreciation in your heart, and it will switch on the light within you and in the world.
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*Read about everyday people living their lives for a gentler, more peaceful Earth at “Good News Headlines,” https://www.spiritofchange.org/.

Parallel Lives

My life partner Anne and I are often mistaken for sisters (even twins!), but we never imagined our similarities would extend to both of us being diagnosed with breast cancer. My treatment took place three years ago; Anne underwent surgery last week. Hard to believe at first. Again?! Both of us? Yet here we are, living parallel lives on yet another level. This is the soul design we were given. Once again, physical health came up, fear of mortality came up. Life shows you the full cosmic picture at times, and how you view it is up to you. Each person’s life unfolds exactly as it’s meant to, even the fearful, uncertain parts. And each person handles their life’s events in a way that is unique to their own individual journey.

Anne and I approached the experience of breast cancer in ways that are similar and yet quite different. We went to the same breast center, so we both have had wonderful care there with some of the same practitioners. The location of the lump in Anne’s breast, however, varied from mine (lobular vs. ductal), so her surgery was a bit different (both lumps removed successfully). How we each have found ways to come to peace with the whole process is a further variation. Anne gathers and organizes information; the more specifics she knows (up to a point), the calmer she feels. I, on the other hand, find peace and calm in the spiritual overview that everything is unfolding according to my soul’s design. Each synchronicity uplifts my spirits and centers me in inner peace.

So Anne and I move along our life paths separately yet lovingly intertwined. We each share our perspectives, so it is always a mutual journey. I am learning things I did not know before from Anne’s exploration of the details of her diagnosis. And I think Anne appreciates the surprise synchronicities too. For instance, Anne’s surgery day was 7 Tijax in the Maya calendar. The number 7 stands for “balance,” and Tijax is the energy of “cutting through all negative thoughts/feelings to experience the miracle of healing.” Very powerful alignment—and then the added “aha, yes” was when Anne noticed that the number of her pre-op room was 7! We both laughed. Moments like that make you feel that you are part of a flow of universal Intelligence that includes all life everywhere. The cosmic kaleidoscope, I call it.

Another synchronous occurrence was that her surgery was two days before Thanksgiving, and because it went very smoothly, it became a beautiful reason for both of us to feel thankful. In addition, we had almost identical experiences of gratitude after our individual surgeries. I lay in the recovery room feeling surrounded by compassionate bodhisattvas, each one extraordinarily gentle and caring. I floated in an infinite sea of kindness, tears in my eyes. Anne, too, felt intensely the generous spirit of her caregivers. The feeling was so powerful that it carried over into the hours after her surgery: She wanted to call every one of them together to personally thank them for how open-hearted and kind they had been to her.

These are the gifts that each moment can bring, when you experience the magical connections between people and events. A health diagnosis can crack open every door and window inside you so that all you see is the light and love at the core of everyone and everything. Soul vision. It’s in the details and the overview, and it’s what moves our lives in such parallel, yet distinctive ways. My treatment was successful, and deep in my heart and soul, I trust that Anne’s will continue to be successful too.
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*Yet another similarity is that both Anne and I have written about our breast cancer experiences: she on Caring Bridge and me in my blog (and book). It seems to help each of us to share what we are feeling—and to know that there are so many others who have also felt this way.

The Big Picture

The universe felt overwhelming to me when I was a little girl. One late-night thought of the vast unfathomable cosmos, and my five-year-old brain would freeze in terror. I learned to distract myself as I grew older, but the background fear never disappeared entirely. In college, a class in astronomy activated it again. It was only in later years, as I began to pursue a spiritual quest that some sense of meaning and safety in the universe came to me.

Over the years I have grown in my acceptance of what Native Americans have called “the Great Mystery.” It is multi-faceted and not a puzzle to solve but a vision of oneness that humans eventually learn to surrender to—either in life or in death. In life, we often get lost in the details and a need to control them. But if we can let go and accept everything in the span of our lifetime, inner peace arises within and remains with us always, even, or especially, at death. Some people call this peace God, or infinite consciousness. Language does not capture it, but the heart knows it. In moments of heart-centered connection to the people and the world around us, we are one with a presence beyond words.

When I am in that oneness, I see the perfection in all things, in my own life and in all life. There are no mistakes. In every detail of life is a light visible throughout the cosmos. When we accept our lives as perfectly unfolding, that light shines everywhere, and we relax into what has been called peace beyond understanding. For we cannot really “understand” life and death; we can only surrender to it and thus experience what is outside of the realm of understanding: Presence.

In that space, I have had the most profound sense of being part of a complex tapestry of beingness, every thread interwoven with every other thread, always connected and evolving within Presence itself. Each soul on an infinite journey to know itself. God experiencing God. My soul and divine intelligence chose the design of my life so that I could experience all the details of a human existence and eventually come to know everything as Heaven on Earth. Ultimately, there are no divisions in the universe. Humans experience division in order to return to oneness and know it as who they are. To know the universe as oneself. This is the Big Picture.

It has taken me many years to reach this perspective. Yet within it, I realize that there really are no “years,” or time as humans have defined it. The greatest sages have spoken of the eternal Now. This sweet moment of timeless time is what we have been given. When I surrender to that wisdom, the peace of my limitless soul informs all my life, and every “picture” before me, big or small, becomes one with an ever-changing cosmic kaleidoscope of light and divine connection. And as the full moon rises perfectly over the dark trees outside my window, my fear is replaced with gratitude.

Solstice and Light

Today, December 21, is the Winter Solstice here in the northern hemisphere, the shortest day (and longest night) of the year. Tomorrow the light begins to increase infinitesimally until it reaches the Summer Solstice fullness in June. The Winter Solstice has been called the “Return of the Light.” An illusion, of course, because the sun never leaves. It is our experience of its light that shifts over the course of a year. And what a miracle it is that our particular planet, Earth, is perfectly placed in our solar system so that life is possible as it rotates and revolves around the sun with mathematical precision each day.

People since the beginning of time have acknowledged and celebrated how light moves through our lives, yearly and daily. Ancient structures like those at Stonehenge in England and Chaco Canyon in New Mexico have been built to exactly show astronomical alignments. I remember when I first saw a film in high school about how the sun appears through a small aperture in the huge standing rocks of Stonehenge exactly at dawn on the solstice. Such amazing alignment and synchronicity! How can you not believe in greater meaning in the universe when you witness such a phenomenon?

Over the years I have always been drawn to magical moments at sunrise or sunset, wherever I lived or traveled. In college in San Diego, two friends and I often drove across town to the beach to see the sun setting into the Pacific Ocean. In Hawaii, I watched sunset through wispy clouds at the top of Haleakala Crater on Maui. Hiking at Bryce Canyon in Utah, Anne and I saw the rock spires magically illuminate like candles as the rising sun touched them. In Guatemala with Maya elders, a group of us rose before dawn to witness sunrise from the top of a Tikal temple, the jungle birds and animals awakening below us. On the other side of the world, the animals in South Africa came to the Olifants River at sunset to drink and eat as we humans watched the sun burn brilliantly red in the evening sky.

All living beings seem to respond to the sun’s light. Our cat Lily used to sit on the back of the sofa in the late afternoon, eyes closed, as the setting sun shone on her face and fur. I have sometimes seen groups of birds sitting in trees watching the rising or setting of the sun. Just yesterday evening, I noticed a dozen or so finches perched at the very top of a tree, facing west, their breasts shining with light, like tiny angels silhouetted against the sky. A perfect solstice alignment—did they know instinctually?

The mystery and power of Light and its relationship to Earth have been part of our collective consciousness for thousands of years. We carry memories of dawn and dusk ceremonies in our genes. Whether instinct or historical memory, we Earth creatures have known that light is at the center of our lives, and we are moved to celebrate it, whether individually on a beach or gathered together at a temple for ceremony. Somehow, deep within us, we realize that we ourselves are made of light. We shine in this world, a reflection of the suns and stars in the greater cosmos we are part of.