Lord Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles

I have had one weepy day today, and for such good, happy reasons. This week has been sort of a cataclysm of events coming together to ensure that I get my cancer treatment sooner, and thus, go to Africa. That's the short version.

The longer version is that I was originally planning to schedule my surgery for mid July, well after my two late-June clients were due to have babies so that I wouldn't miss their births. I'm supposed to have radiation treatment about a month after that, and probably won't feel well for weeks afterward as we get my new thyroid medications adjusted to suit my personal body. It was looking a bit hairy for me to go to Shanti on this timeline. In the midst of my treatments, I need to schedule the fundraisers that are happening and make time for them, as well as the henna events I have already paid to do or been paid to attend. 

It was feeling like a lot. Too much. I started to reconsider going to Shanti. Realistically I was struggling with prioritizing the cancer treatment over what my heart told me to do, what my Dreams led me to. I was very conflicted.

Monday morning, I got to have two quick, lovely births- both of my late June clients! Suddenly I can move my surgery date up by quite a bit if I want to and it's even occurred before I meet with the surgeon so I don't have to deal with calling back, rescheduling, etc. So convenient! My third birth happened yesterday- another fast, peaceful waterbirth at home - and now I'm totally off call. What a relief! I started to think that now that I could move my surgery up by several weeks, maybe I'd be well enough to go to Shanti after all. But I was feeling very discouraged about getting stalled at about $850 out of the $5000 I am trying to raise, and uninspired to convince people to chip in more. 

I decided to just turn toward Shanti until I got clear information to do otherwise. I posted the YouCaring link to my blog and one of Randy's co-workers and Randy and I started chitchatting about the trip and joking around.

Suddenly, $1500 dropped into my YouCaring account. No joke- FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS. Today, another $470.

So, to put it all together, suddenly, in that one motion, I went from giving up Africa and worrying about clients and trying to work around treatments, to no more worries about clients, and the timing now totally works for me to go. 

I can't write it down and articulate how it feels to be able to look back and see things click into place - in this place of being between the worlds, with cancer - do I get a future? Of course I do, here it is, happening in the present! It's happening NOW. 

It made me think of Lord Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles. I love archetypes. They connect me to the Divine, it's a facet of the Spirit that makes up all of us, and everything. Today, Lord Ganesha came to my mind and heart over and over as I thought of his great love and compassionate ear, and his great axe to cleave away the things that would get in our way of success.

I feel touched by this, deeply, and Divinely touched with assurances that whatever is meant to be, will be given every opportunity to happen- whether we like it, or not. This time around, I get lucky. I get obstacles to Shanti removed. 

What's totally interesting is that after I dreamed about Shanti, the first time the word came up was in a video of an elephant that plays music. The next was about the clinic where I'm going. AWESOME. 

On to cancer.

I had a revelation today that might be controversial but I'm going to say it anyway. First, I want to say that the cancer I'm experiencing is something very curious to me. It causes me to wonder, inquire and puzzle. Cancer? Really??

I was puzzling over the fact that I haven't felt a lot of anger about this, and haven't spent a moment really angry AT the cancer. I realized that, contrary to how I've experienced other people talking about cancer, I do not feel that it is 'something else'. It's not an invader, or a parasite. It would require the cancer to be made of something other than my own cells.

This cancer is OF me. It's a voice of my body, that something is energetically out of place, out of control, not acting within the boundaries of health and alignment. The cells that make up my cancer are my own cells. They are not a foreign body injected into me.

Surely, as I create these cells, I can release them. Maybe it will take a surgery to do so, but I bless the strong voice of my body that it can tell me something isn't right. That is in itself, a miracle. Cells talk to each other, they coordinate with each other, create complex systems and live, replicate, die, in that system. The complexity boggles my mind!

Today I was henna'd by a friend, and I finally got the design I'd always seen on my throat- a lotus. I am not particularly Eastern in my spiritual philosophy, maybe a little, but the only henna designs I've ever seen as 'treatment' for my cancer were chakras or lotuses.


A lotus is a beautiful flower that rises from the mud, to bloom on the surface. Water is symbolic of our creativity and intuition. The stalk of a lotus is easy to bend, yet hard to break.

From the mud, rises something beautiful - and that is how I feel about cancer.