So it turns out that cancer isn’t as much fun as it’s cracked up to be—and it doesn’t improve that much the second time. I have found the recovery from this second surgery much harder and more painful than I had anticipated. The little lumpectomy three weeks ago was so easy for my body that I had expected this surgery to be similar. Wrong.
And I think it’s also that the little lumpectomy wasn’t supposed to be a cancer operation, so it didn’t have the heavy toll that this one has had, emotionally. But wow I have found myself in a dark place these last couple of days, even as the springlike weather transitions from driving rain to still and spectacular sunshine. My inner weather hasn’t caught up with the outward shift.
And so today a blessing for all of us who are feeling the weight of life heavily on our shoulders.
Beannacht
John O’Donohue
On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
25,000 dawns 
Beautiful, Jennifer…and may you feel the love of all of us whose lives you have touched and changed as an invisible cloak that is always with you…holding you and protecting you…love to you, Beth
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Thanks Beth. It really does help. Love to you too…
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I’m sending you very much love and colour Jennifer, Karen
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In the darkness of despair (even if also tinged with hope), it’s hard to remember that we are surrounded by community, by multiplicity, that the journey is always a shared one. It’s too easy for those of us not in your shoes, in your body, to run from the fearful place, pretending it’s not really ours. To send you our love as if you and we and the love are separate things, instead of really standing together as one, being that invisible cloak surrounding you with love, facing the fear together because we’re also holding the joy that you’ve been invoking with these many shades of dawn and other joys as well. Together, we are much larger than the fear, and that’s a comfort and a support.
It is also now Rosh Hashanah, a time for new beginnings, to remember the blessings of each moment, each new dawn, and to stand together in community to celebrate all that life has to give us, especially when we face it together. May you and all of us be inscribed for a good, happy, healthy, joyful, loving year. That is, may we see and really appreciate all that is good and happy and healthy and joyful and loving, no matter what the outer circumstances bring us.
Lots of love, Jim
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Thanks Jim. This is a lovely reminder of the ways we are connected, even when I feel alone. L’shana tovah
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