Tomma's Healing Journey

Temporary Ending

2009-08-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

We have returned from the mountains and the lake... in the end we had such a wonderful time. I did a lot of writing, Jimmy did a lot of resting, in between we swam and kayaked.

Back home life is continuing to weave a new strand for me, one I'll have to observe and nurture and give time to grow, before I want to publish any of it.

So, here is where my tale ends for now.

I still intend to collect and write down everything that feels relevant and see if in the very end it will be a book worth publishing. I will keep you posted.

In gratitude to life in all it's splendor!!

Escaping into Middle America

2009-08-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

Thursday, August 13th

It's the first night of our writing retreat.

We are in the Adirondacks, in Piseco, at the Irondequoit Inn.

At first, the place is a bit of a disappointment. On the website the rooms looked more well cared for, the landscaping more spacious, the beach more secluded, and the parking lot and tennis court right next to the building had not been completely visible at all. Yes, the view is utterly beautiful, and yes, the inn has historic charm... BUT... there are a LOT of little buts... and I watched how each of us got tangled up in several of them.

On arrival we ran into a group of people sitting on the front porch celebrating happy hour with drinks, pretzel sticks and potato chips. Friendly as they were, something repelled me, was it that they talked a little too loudly with alcohol infused voices? Was it that they acted a bit too much like they owned the place? Was it that their way of communicating was long winded in an irritatingly impersonal way? While waiting for the Innkeeper to appear we soon learned that all of them have been coming here from their respective home towns around New York City for years, every summer...

Next Jimmy found the smell in the house objectionable... it reminded him of a gas odor... while I though it merely an old house smell. The room was quite too bare for his taste, and the colors too muted. The interior a bit too run down.

Then the seats in the sitting room downstairs looked pretty worn out... when I tested one of the cushions, I could feel the wooden structure underneath my butt, and I started wondering whether there would be be a comfortable enough seat anywhere in this inn where I could be sitting for long stretches of time in order to write...

Walking down the little trail downhill to visit the beach, we passed four cabins. They were built, even though mostly out of sight, right smack below the inn, each with view of the water... walking past them I felt all of a sudden like we were going through other peoples front yard, all of a sudden the remote beauty of the lake below the inn was inundated with various large groups of unexpected strangers, who had spilled out of their small windowed brown cabins, complete with barbeque smoke and beach towels spread out to dry... maybe worst of all too many car tires had violated the soft ground and had turned it into an unkempt dirt road which cut through the natural grass area in front of the beach. What I had imagined as an uninterrupted flow of lovingly tended nature from the steps of the inn all the way down to the beach didn't exist.

I had pictured myself walking down to the lake to go for a swim at night before going out for dinner, but now that somehow didn't feel inviting any longer.

Our boisterous new friends had informed us of the dining options and discouraged us from visiting the Ox Bow Inn, which Chad, the owner, had recommended as a place with good and inexpensive food, a place where one can get "all that good stuff". All of a sudden I remembered he had used the same phrase on the phone when I had asked him what they serve for breakfast, and he had said: Oh... eggs and omlets and waffles and pancakes and "all that good stuff". Curious little phrase. And what was it again he said when he showed us our room? Pointing at the small stack of white towels: These are your towels, we give you fresh ones every day and "all that good stuff". Hmm... Anyway, the good stuff he alluded to at the Ox Bow Inn didn't sound all that good from their experience and they directed us toward the Speculator Inn for better dining. There were other choices too, but how they distinguished themselves had been lost in the longish drawl of the advice. One place served tex mex... Jimmy liked that. We thought it was the Inn.

The first thing I noticed when we entered, was a worn out dark wall to wall green carpet which in the path of the entrance had been reduced to it's gray backing. A fleeting thought crossed my mind: don't ever eat in a restaurant with a dirty old carpet... but I ignored that warning. The walls above the paneling were dark green too. So were the blinds, half of which were drawn... and... below the ceiling... yes, there were last winters season decorations: plastic pine garlands entwined with christmas lights...

When we took a look at the menu it was clear this was NOT the tex mex restaurant. Jimmy made a feeble attempt to talk me into leaving, but didn't pull me out of my hesitation. My hesitation in turn didn't stem form wanting to be here, but from a purely strategic worry: if this was indeed the best place in town and we now left for the other restaurant and it was even worse, and we wanted to come back here, then it could be embarrassing, more embarrassing even than leaving now.

So we stayed, and we regretted it.

I realized something. I realized how spoiled we are. How much we take good eating for granted. I had forgotten how unsettling it is not to be able to eat at least good, nourishing, fresh, simple food. The outlook onto three days of malnourishment, of carelessly, uninspiredly prepared meals began to seriously depress us. It didn't help that the waitress was just as unengaging as the food she brought us. The one and only highlight was a truly wonderful homemade blueberry pie Jimmy needed to order to bring himself back to life after chewing through the awful meatloaf with ungracious amounts of mystery gravy, and the glob of watery mashed potatoes.

On the way home we checked out the other restaurants and concluded that we must have indeed ended up in the worst place of them all. Even the ominous Ox Bow Inn looked cheery with its red and white checkered curtains and its sun washed wood paneling. Looking forward to a peaceful night in our little old fashioned room, we found the sitting room of our Inn occupied by the same group of people, still with glasses in their hands... had they been drinking all night long? I was surprised by my own judgement when I noticed that they actually annoyed me, even ever so slightly. What was it about drinking I objected to?

We could still dimly hear their voices upstairs in our room. After the first five paragraphs of writing I ran out of battery juice for my computer, and discovered that the electrical outlets in our room had never been upgraded to the three prong plug. Wondering if that might be enough reason to leave the Inn the next day I laid down to sleep. Jimmy was already twitching in his dreams next to me. The bedframe is a bit screechy, but the mattress nice and soft, the pillows a bit too thick and puffy, but the sound of the summer crickets and the soft gurgle of a mountain stream made up for it with it's sweet lullaby.

We woke up to a white fog shrouding the trees outside our window and footsteps and vigorous voices coming up from the porch. The shared bathroom is cute enough and only steps down the hallway, but ran out of water as soon as I wanted to brush my teeth in the morning. The omlet I had ordered with a choice of tomatoes, scallions, mushrooms and cheddar cheese, featured the tomatoes and mushrooms in their canned version, the orange juice of course was not fresh either, not even make belief fresh with pulp, but at least they had some herb teas.

But right now... all woes are washed aside.

Now I am sitting with my labtop on one of the brightly painted green chairs on the front porch. The flowered pillows provide just enough cushioning beneath me, Chad has given us some very "good stuff": a plug adapter and an extension cord, feeding my computer with new energy, I have just enough shade to be able to see the screen clearly and I have this enchanted view in front of me: over the lawn to the right down to the silvery water, the sparkling treetops straight ahead just low enough to see the mountains at the horizon in their blue silhouettes... the sky is filled with a boundlessness of white fluffy clouds, the warm breeze plays a soft music with two little chimes, some human voices wafting up from the beach now and then, some teenage boys are playing tennis on the court all the way over to the right, and our friends from yesterday, who at times seem to gravitate annoyingly to all the same places we want to be in, have finally left this part of the porch.

Half an hour later, after reading some e-mails, the weather has changed, the breeze has turned into chilly gusts and rain is falling out of the sky.

Oh, how fragile, our little thin zones of comfort. How hard we work to match something around us that makes us feel GOOD. That makes us feel safe... and at home... and healthy. How many nuances there are that we think we need to reject in order to feel that we have been true to ourselves.

Now it's beginning to pour, and people are coming back from everywhere to find shelter under the roof of the Inn. We had considered taking the double kayak out onto the lake to paddle to the little island... now I am glad writing took up more time and we stayed in.

Somehow it seems we needed to leave the comfort of our home in Old Chatham, the almost prefect way in which it fits our lives, and surrounds us with comfort, in order to encounter the different needs and habits of middle Americans escaping from their daily life, enmeshing themselves into this timeless idyllic land, this eternally beautiful spot of nature. If that is so, we are in the right place after all.

Passing the Test

2009-08-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 30th

My father keeps struggling after his return from the hospital. It's now been five weeks and he is weaker than a couple of days after the surgery. Ted has worked on him twice without any lasting results, I have tried to help him via other channels, through Byron Katie's work, and just talking and being there and holding him in nothing but love and trust and knowing that this too shall pass... as his condition remains the same... week after week.

Mami, interestingly, has tapped into an unexpected source of strength feeding her. Throughout this period of non-recovery she has been remarkably strong, without doubt or despair. She, who felt so weak in April, who was sure she wouldn't survive the summer herself... now is able to take care of Papi and the house and the garden and the shopping and the cooking and the cleaning without ever running on empty. She is resting in the knowledge that he will get better. She also firmly believes that for some undiscovered reason this is something he has to go through. He wants to believe this too, but it is so damn hard for him... all this weakness, all this numbness, all this pain in his skin, and his back, the ringing in his ears, the intestines so sluggish, the appetite for food so small... the body's troubles keep him from sleeping well... and this lack of good sleep has now accumulated since they first put a tube into the old kidney when I was there in May... that's over two(!) months ago... a long time to be losing sleep. He tries to catch a glimpse of: why, oh WHY is this happening to him... again...??? and receives no answer... he envies Mami's and my ability to communicate and receive guidance and resolution and an understanding of purpose for what is there in front of us... but no matter how hard he tries, he can't receive such messages, can't create such lasting peace of mind.

Oh, I feel with him. There is a peculiar added layer to his suffering, a part within me that feels I should be able to find something that helps him. If I can't reach him through the Journey, why isn't there something else showing up that works? And... is it for me to find that for him? As it is I can do nothing but reassure him that what IS, must be right. That has become my conviction through my experiences.

Last night Mami received one of her messages through her Christ energy. She heard: he has passed the test, now he can recover and he will. She heard: I too have passed the test. Papi is relieved to some degree, much of him trusts these messages that come through to Mami, mysterious as this source that communicates to her is to him, it is so close to him, it speaks out of her mouth, and in her loving voice. But... He doesn't know what the test was.

I myself wonder if for my part this was another exercise to let go too, to come anew face to face with my desire to relieve suffering, and to have to just... let it be. To imagine that this indeed is what is best for him right now, even when he can't feel that.

Tuesday, July 25th
Daily Practices

Much to catch up on.

In the meantime I have been to one very, very different kind of workshop at Kripalu... the divine feminine weekend, and then back to another three days of teaching Mahamudra practice with Mingyur Rinpoche at the Monastery in Woodstock.

When Jimmy and I got back from Garrison we started a new daily rhythm. We wake up and sit right up in bed and meditate for 20 min. The getting up part is usually the hardest, even more so when I don't have a schedule forcing me to jump out of bed. Without school, without any regular work, the temptation to just linger and stay curled up daydreaming under the soft flannel sheets is almost irresistible. Meditating in bed tricks us both into doing it pretty soon after the alarm goes off at 7:30.

Ideally we are done and out of bed by 8:00 and on our way downstairs to then do Yoga. If we use the yoga CD we began using last year, we are busy twisting our limbs for another 45 min, even after editing and cutting some of the very slow bits out of the sound track. If we are in a hurry, we either skip one or two exercises or we do a spontaneous variation which I talk us both through... a combination of Uwe's favorite Yoga postures and our CD. That's the new part of the morning.

Next I take Jacky for her eagerly awaited morning walk, while Jimmy starts making breakfast, faithfully after over 3 years that still consists of buckwheat, or more precisely: cooked kasha over copped up celery, cucumber, tomatoes and avocado. All of it gets a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, Braggs aminos, and tahini. We love that stuff. It's from our alkaline diet. Zippy breakfast. That's what they call it in the book. Mmmm.

If we are not under too much time pressure, we read after breakfast, which really means Jimmy reads out loud to me, whatever book we are currently savoring.

And that completes the morning portion of our daily program.

At 6:00 pm we intend to stop whatever we are doing and meet in the living room for another 20 min of meditation. I say: we INTEND because we don't always manage to keep this in our schedule, but hey, those days are the exception right now. On top of that Jimmy had intended to stop work at 4:00 and put in some physical exercise, but that has not happened yet. Not once. Shows you how much work he's had.

I am really proud of us. Adding meditation and yoga in every day feels like a huge accomplishment. I have been wanting, and trying, and attempting to meditate daily for years and years, and never managed to keep it up. Now it's all of a sudden soooo easy. Thanks to Mingyur Rinpoche.

What I have learned from him about meditation has turned my world almost upside down. It seems as if what I am doing now is almost the opposite of what I was aiming for in the past. Then I thought meditation was there to give the brain more examples about living in a more right brain state of being, going for the totally expansive and source like state of mind... somehow I think I imagined that at some point your brain experience reaches a critical mass and it simply switches over for good and at that point judgements and striving and pressures are all left behind for ever and then you'd be... almost enlightened.

Now I have a new understanding of meditating. "Resting in awareness". I wont attempt to explain this in more detail here, Mingyur Rinpoches does a much better job at this than I ever can... suffice it to say that his way of teaching meditation has not only made it easy to do twice a day, but has also created the possibility to transform any other activities into meditation. So, I do a walking meditation when I walk Jacky, a driving meditation when I drive around, a watching or listening meditation when I am around other people, a thinking meditation when my brain idles without a job... whenever I think of it, I do whatever I do with awareness.

It's amazing to me how much useless stuff constantly washes through the brain with my unfocused thoughts. I am noticing the categories that return over and over again: Improving some situation or helping someone... things I could do to create success for my work... things I could have said in a better way to explain myself... or things I could say or do that would make me more seen or respected... hmmm... yes, those come back over and over again. Interesting.

I wonder if this expansion of awareness, this surrendering into the simplicity of self in action in the moment, has a similar effect as surrendering into an emotion when we do a Journey. The emotion disappears... successively all layers of emotion disappear until there is nothing but the vastness of source. I imagine that in a similar way the continued surrender into the self might cause all the layers of the self to disappear. Woooosh... gone.
Well, much slower of course. We'll see.

Attachment

2009-07-13T11:58:00.000-07:00

During our retreat in Garrison, I understood something about attachment. For the first time.

Before each meditation segment we recited a dedication prayer. The fourth line was : May they (all sentient beings) dwell in great equanimity, free from attachment and aversion to those near and far. (You repeat the four lines of the prayer three times whenever you sit down on a cushion.)

Free from attachment.

At some point it dawned on me that included myself.

Attachment? This is something I had never paid attention to.

Wanting something, hoping for something, that's attachment, isn't it? All the dedication and work and effort I have put into building my Journey practice, hoping it would grow, hoping it would serve a lot of people, hoping it would support me, hoping it would confirm to me that I am on the right path, that I made the right choices... that's an attachment I think. And a big one.

Over the last weeks I had already been in the process of shedding more and more of this particular attachment, and I have been feeling the breath of letting go, a gentle, loving liberation.

On the last day Mingyur Rinpoche said something very casually, that hit me with a burst of incredulity: When your meditation becomes an amazing experience, that's when you stop.

What? That's when I stop???

I thought this was the whole purpose of meditating, to reach those wonderful transcendent states of being, to go into those states of oneness, beingness, free from ordinary thought, resting in just pure awareness... wasn't that the goal? Practicing that?

No, apparently it was not. Not at first. Because at first you get attached to the result.

All of a sudden that makes sense. Of course! You get attached... to a goal. You start to rate yourself. Without noticing you are drawn into your personal version of the inner drama of your own judgement... swinging forever back and forth between good and bad.

So yes, I think I understand.

Attachment is as much part of our illusion as aversion, as any form of our story that makes us get upset, depressed, angry, or afraid. Either one tells us we need something in order to... xxx ... and in each habit of thinking we believe we'd be really happy, IF we only had... xxx. All along we miss the truth that we are chasing something... very temporary... impossible to reach because it forever keeps changing names.

I had never noticed how much of my thoughts evolved around making something happen, or rather: yes, I was aware of that, but in my mind I was working with the law of attraction, I was matching my vibration to something I desired. Now I am seeing this use of my thoughts a little differently. Very possibly I was setting myself up for the ongoing duality of failure or success. If something didn't happen, it was because I had not done a well enough job in attracting it. That never feels good. On the other hand, once success is there, it is not a stable state of being either. Maybe that's why life had felt like so much effort at times, maybe that's why I have those regular experiences at night when my energy just deflates from my body like a punctured balloon... there used to be lots of days when I was so tired I could hardly get myself into the bathroom to brush my teeth... and all I had done was sit at my desk all day.

Maybe life doesn't have to feel like that.

Struggle. No, that doesn't need to be here any more.

Something of that may have drained from me. In a mysterious way. On the last full day of the teaching we practiced a "watching meditation" by watching a video of a performance Mingyur Rinpoche had given in Taiwan earlier this year. A combination of teachings and sound through music. We were given the assignment to watch this: with awareness. That was all.

Big stage. Mingyur Rinpoche sits on a little pedestal on the right side of the stage, a Chinese translator sits on the left.

He speaks briefly, very simply, in short, chopped up segments about meditating and using music to help the mind from running all over the place, he makes a few jokes, and instructs the audience what to do when the music begins... in a moment of silence we see the word of the first theme: EXISTENCE... and then a blueish light goes on behind him in the center of the back stage, an orchestra becomes visible through a veil on the raised platform, and the music begins: a beautiful, yearning melody, sung by a flute, wrapped in the sound of all the many voices of the full orchestra, magically washing us with a sound... so complicated, so touching, so precise, so skillfully, so passionately drawn from each of all these different instruments... oh, all these people all joined together in the service of this sound. This moment, this achingly beautiful music contained all of the dedication, all the years of learning... the hours and hours of daily practice on their instruments... these intricately crafted objects that had each been created with such knowledge, a knowledge grown into a mastery that had evolved out of centuries and centuries of perfecting the art of instrument making, fueled by an eternal love for sound and music... born out of the striving for a creative expression of beauty and truth and joy and exaltation, all of that which had forever provided a counterbalance, a healing nectar for the lives outside... the daily life in the world... the human life that has throughout the eons, jolted us through fear and anger and pain and frustration, and greed and hardship and suffering... Suffering... so much suffering.

All of this washed over me in one fell swoop within the first few moments of this sound entering my body, and tears began rolling down my face. I gave in.

I wasn't able to put what was happening in those exact words I just gave a wooden handed attempt to describe it with. I just looked at my teacher... There was Mingyur sitting in a soft, warm spotlight on his little pedestal in his deep red monks gown, his face still, his eyes closed, his hands resting in his lap... so small. His head hardly as high as half of the big cello bathed in blue behind him. He so still, so peaceful.

And behind him all of human existence, with all it's fragile moments of utter love and beauty and all it's striving and all it's millennia of suffering, present in this sound of this orchestra, recorded months ago on the far side of the globe for me to witness in this moment.

Something unraveled inside of me. I don't know what it was. I just kept weeping.

Maybe my soul understood the different between attachment and freedom in that moment. I don't know.

I know it came to an end when the piece was over. I know it didn't return when the next piece started. Beethoven's fifth, the first movement. This was called EMOTION. But no emotions flowed. Maybe I knew it too well. I know there were a few more tears with the next piece: FREE, a Mozart piano concert... and that was all.

The next morning at about the same time I entered the small private sitting room Mingyur Rinpoche was using during his stay with four other people and took refuge.

Now I am giving my being the space to learn there is no goal. Not in meditating, not in life. I do this every day. Twice. For 20 minutes. That's a lot of learning.

I imagine ... the ease... the of being present... breathing with unhurried gentleness... moving from one simple task into the next... collecting each little completion like a pearl that slips up on the string of memory, collecting like a precious necklace in the soul.

New Update from Hamburg

2009-07-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

This is the next chapter in my fathers journey through his current health challenge.

While still at the retreat with Mingyur Rinpoche I spoke with Ted, who I had learned, works over the phone and is able to shift many things long distance. Ron in Ottawa had been impressed that his back pain, which had kept him from bending down and doing the unavoidable spring yard work, found this pain had completely disappeared. Natalie, his sister in law, who had joined us for the weekend, had apparently worked with Ted more than once, and referring to the speed he works with, she described she has a whole list ready to go through with all the little aches and pains she wants to address.

Enough recommendation for me to try him out, especially since he had a very low hourly rate at the time.

Ted talks very fast, almost in a hurry, and it takes me a few minutes to realize he is not just summarizing for me what he sees, but he is also adjusting and releasing things at the same time. I take notes and try to be present with all he is detecting and unraveling simultaneously. Within the hour he had swept through several past lives, death by poison, karma with the surgeon, acidity levels in the body a clogged lymph system, habits and beliefs of needing to do things alone, old stories trapped in the bowls, disempowering beliefs in connection with the second kidney, emotions within the family in response to these events, my mother's source of strength, and even a little bit on my own story with the cysts... Phewwwhhhh...

Papi got better, although slowly and with setbacks. His bowls again were the main stumbling stone.

On Wednesday they sent him back home, where he arrived happy but still very weak.

By Friday his bowls had come to a halt yet again and his family physician, a wonderful woman, who Mami describes as someone with a rare willingness to take her time to listen and be present with her patients, strongly recommended to him to go back to the hospital. She felt staying home over the weekend he might risk another locking up of the colon. Not a good thing. He experienced that four years ago. Nothing you want to repeat.

So, on the third day home from the hospital, he went back into the emergency room one more time. Anyone who has ever been through surgery knows how much of an effort it is to be up on your feet for more than 30 minutes during the first 10 days of recovering, but to go back into the emergency room, with all the waiting, the in and out of examination rooms for blood and urine tests, and new examinations. ... It was another four hour ordeal, but at the end of it all he was sent home ... after the bowls did come back to life through some simple magic.

It was only then that he felt he is finally on a steady way to recovery.

Knock on wood...tok, tok, tok... the old bowls have been doing fine since.

The Question of Refuge - Update on Papi

2009-07-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

Sunday, June 28th

I have the unanswered question hanging over my head whether or not to ask to take refuge with Minguyr Rinpoche.
I have talked with a few people about this during the last couple of days.

And today I have gained some clarity about my hesitation.

Yes, here it is with some surprise: This hesitation has its roots in fear.

I am afraid of some things!

I am afraid that once I make this official commitment, that I might fail to meet someones expectation, that I wont be considered a good enough Buddhist, that I could disappoint or fail in some way, because I am aware that I don't think of myself as a Buddhist and maybe never will, but I am thinking of myself as someone who is on a path toward enlightenment.
I am afraid that I will loose my freedom to explore other spiritual parts of life, of locking myself in.
I am afraid some people around me might have some kind of a judgement about me choosing the Buddhist path.

Yikes! Good to know what's been hiding in there.

Later...

After our second teaching of the day, the Rinpoche sat for a while with the discussion group I am in (about a third of the participants), to answer questions ... . The first two groups had their meetings with him earlier today. I had been chewing on my question for a long while and when the time came and I had the microphone, I said:
"I have been carrying the question of taking refuge with me. How do I know it is time to take this step, and how do I know I am not making a mistake?"
I was wondering if he might ask me what I was afraid of doing wrong, but he didn't.
He simply said: "When you are ready to accept the Buddha and the Darma and the Sangha as your path, then you do it."
and I thought: "Shit, I don't even remember exactly what the Dharma and the Sangha is." but I was too embarrassed to say that, and my next thought was: "Well, clearly... until I don't really know what it is I am committing to, I guess I am not ready to do it." and I was a little at a loss what to do with his answer. He said a few more words to expand the explanation... I don't remember right now. I noticed I felt a little... disappointed.

After dinner Jimmy and I walked to the edge of the little park that overlooks the river. Upstream, perched on the cliffs of the opposite bank we could see Westpoint Military Academy. What a curious placing of contrast! Then we saw a little trail leading into the forest that we took, that became a bigger trail, that joined a bigger path, that led over a bridge across the railway tracks and past a tiny beach onto a group of rocks with a bench on it. Crossing the railway we had seen a family of foxes play on the tracks! Was this a good omen?

Returned to our Institute there were 30 Min left of the evening meditation practice. As I sat on the double cushion, I practiced what we had learned today: a gentle surrender into whatever catches the meditative awareness away from simple, non thinking spaciousness... let that be sound, sight, thoughts, physical sensations, or emotions. Whatever shows up, you simply watch passing through by bringing it into your awareness. Toward the end I drifted into the emotions surrounding my decision about refuge, or lack thereof. I felt the fear, became aware of it and something started unraveling.

I sat there tears rolling down my face as I felt what it would be like to say YES. To say yes, in spite of all that I don't know, in spite of all that I have doubts about, in spite of all worries about what this might ask of me that I might find hard to meet... I felt this YES in my body and I sensed that the time of saying MAYBE was over, that life, yet again had put something in front of me... and that living fully meant, yet again, saying yes. In the same way I had said yes to becoming a Journey practitioner, I had said yes to the surgery, and I had said yes to going to Ottawa. Did it matter that I saw my mentors lining up and bowing to me? I don't know. Maybe I wanted to see them that way. What mattered was the intensity of the emotion and the sense that something old, timid and limiting was leaving with this decision.

I will have to wait until silence ends tomorrow to speak to someone, and to find out if this little ceremony can actually take place before I leave on Tuesday.

Saturday, June 27th

Dearest friends, just a little update on my father...

Not all continued they way he had wished. In spite of many offerings of pain medication, both orally as well as by IV, his pain did not subside during the first night. It was in fact quite unbearable. The pain pump could not be repaired as the clog was located in the surgically inserted portion. Not sure what the heck they were giving him... I had raved about Delauded, but their stuff has different names... so I don't know. Only know the pain stayed with him during the next day and into the next night. Yet again hardly any sleep.

I heard about it after we came out of morning silence here at the retreat. Gave him a call via skype and heard his tired and exhausted voice, he didn't even want me to lead him in some guided meditation, he was too worn out to give energy to anything. I contacted an energy healer my hosts in Ottawa had raved about, and also checked in myself... saw something like a crab. an entity, in his belly and removed that. There were some disempowering beliefs that had been lodged into this area and a new awareness that opened up when it was gone... not sure how much that actually affected him, but today he is overall feeling a little better. Later tonight I will work with Ted from Canada via phone on Papi and we'll see how that goes.

Now back down again into my discussion group.

Otherwise we are having a great time here!
Love you all
Tomma

Realizations

2009-07-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 16th

During the meditation practice after breakfast I had a whole series of realizations.

When Jimmy and I arrived last night and sat down in the old dining hall for dinner, I was aware how I observe people I don't know. The two women across the table were talking and talking and didn't look at us at all. Now, I am almost embarrassed to write this down, but this is what I paid attention to: I noticed the jewelery they wore, both more than me: rings with many sparkling stones, a watch, and yes, that could have been an expensive watch, the hair: well combed and cared for with fashionable sunglasses pulled up over the forehead on one while the other hair was rather fluffy and out of bounds, the gestures and body language of the first: relaxed and selfassured.

I wasn't naming those observations to myself, I just took them in and a little later I noticed that I was reminded of watching the really cool girls one grade above me during the break at school - from a distance. And I thought: This is really an old habit that creeps in here.

So, this morning during meditation I thought back to this experience at dinner and all of a sudden it became very clear and I saw what I have been doing for most of my life. I am evaluating people. In this old way of looking at a fellow human being, I try to read whether this person is wealthy, powerful or influential, valued by others, educated maybe, creative or interesting looking, and... here comes the conclusion: I am doing this, because I want to find out whether this person ranks above or below me... if this is someone who has something I don't have, something to GIVE to me... or if it is someone who has nothing much to offer.

And the following confession is embarrassing too. Next I realized that I have played a game over and over again, a game in which I will pick a person somewhere above me and make it my goal to be recognized by this person, in fact I don't rest until I have worked my way up so that in the end I am able to give something to this person, all the while I dream of being someone important to them. And I don't always succeed. Wow. THAT'S what I have done?? Yep. I think so. More than once.

What if I could meet another human being without all this old crap? Just free. Just in complete welcome. Seeing the perfection of this meeting. No matter who. NO MATTER WHO.

That was # one.

Next I thought that it would be really nice to speak with Jimmy about our intention for this retreat. To massage some juice into a really good experience. What am I hoping for is not only to learn something about meditation, but also... to meet people, people we might both have some synchronicities with, some interesting and inspiring conversations with, maybe even people who will end up leading me further in my life. And then I stopped myself and thought: Ho, wait a minute! WHAT am I doing here? Am I not setting myself up with a whole set of best, ok and disappointing results from this retreat? Am I giving myself a goal here? Isn't that what I did with my cysts? And wasn't I totally turned upside down? Yes. So why don't I absolutely let go of that? Why don't I just leave it up to life to give me what I need. And I wont care if I don't meet a single new person.

That was # two.

And finally, just before Mingyur Rinpoche came in for the first teaching of the day, I had another realization. About my work, my private practice. All of a sudden I understood something about why the first years have felt like such a struggle. It goes back to the question of giving. While it looks like I showed up with something to give to my clients, I really started from a place to needing them to need me. It actually feels like my need to be needed was bigger than my ability to give... of course that creates a mixed up energy! How would it have been if I had been able to give my work with pure generosity from the very beginning... with pure compassion? Doesn't really matter now, does it. What matters is that I now see the difference. It's not that I had a hard time interacting from that place once someone sat down with me in my living room. That was easy. I am talking about the process of attracting clients. Generosity and compassion, It feels like those could be a true anchor for my work and I will not forget that.

And that was # three.

Listening to my Body again

2009-07-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 26th

It is our first morning at the Garrison Institute, the first morning of our meditation retreat.

I am looking out the window onto a small strip of the Hudson river framed by massive oaks and maples. Green everywhere. Morning fog still hangs in the branches. It's going to be a hot day today. We are on the third floor of the building, it's an old Capuchin monastery, a grand old stone structure built in the 1930s, with tall ceilings, bone white walls, and dark wood everywhere except for the blond parquet floors. The vegetarian food last night was delicious.

Last night we also had our first opening teaching with Mingyur Rinpoche. More than before it struck me how funny he is. What a sense of humor!

This morning we had a choice between an hour of meditation practice and an hour of unsupervised yoga... from 7:00am to 8:00am
I took a short bath in the lovely hot tub and then went to yoga.

When I did my postures, I couldn't fail to notice how much stiffer I am. No regular practice since last winter, clearly, and I noticed how I wanted to stretch to reach my old marks, and then I thought: No, I want to listen to my body, I want to find the point that feels absolutely delicious, the point where my body says: this is where you are right now, right at this moment in your life, and this is perfect. And then I thought: I should do this practice as if I have never done yoga before, as if there is no past. Oh, of course: no past!! Isn't that how we would live, when we have left all of the old baggage behind? Without a past?

Reaching for a standard instead of listening to my body. To reach for an outside standard by comparing myself to another person or following an instruction is one thing, and I have been letting go of that for a long while now, but today I noticed that the standard and measurement I put up for myself from within my own body, from my own memory... is yet another matter, and just as destructive.

So I think I want to do this yoga practice now as if I had just been born and I am exploring and experiencing this body for the very first time.

Leaving an old Duality behind

2009-07-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

Monday, June 22nd

One of my big experiences during this weekend was a vow process that we exchanged very much at the beginning, on Saturday. The plan was to remove any beliefs or limiting vows that keep us all from being successful in our business. I had not really thought much about that... we had just done some guided meditative pieces and some elicitation, but not a lot had come up for me... and as fate had planned it, I was paired up with an older woman, small, with short white hair and tight lips and a slight air of resignation hovering about her, and I remember thinking, oh well, this will probably not bring me a whole lot.

Normally, when you do a vow process you go back to a time earlier in your life when something happened that caused you to make a vow, take on a new belief or when the perception your reality changed ... in a way that was necessary at the time, because it offered a solution to the situation you were in... but now it has become unwholesome, unhealthy, or unnecessary for your life.

Now, to my surprise, Ann, my partner had also just done a shamanic workshop the weekend before... and when her time machine had landed, she said;" oh, I am back at the akashic records. I am in that very same library I went to last weekend, and there is my book, my record... We ended up shifting an irrational feeling of fear, a fear of exposing herself. A story unfolded that gave us glimpses of experiences when she had be prosecuted and hated by a lot of people. When her life had been in danger or even lost. Possibly all of this goes back to a lifetime when she had been executed for being a witch. When we were done and had cleared out the past, the image in her book had changed from one of a black witch to one of a lovely fairy. This was very unusual! I am mentioning her part mostly, because her process may have set the tone for something more unusual to happen for me too.

So when I started going down the stairs the first thing that was really different were the stairs. In a vow process you only have five steps, and as I got ready to step down the steps, they started expanding, started widening at the bottom and for a moment became something like a grand staircase, and then they kept on expanding until they had created a full circle, so that I was now standing on nothing but a little itty-bitty round spot at the top and steps were leading down all around me, so that there was no coming from or going toward, other than a going deeper and wider in all directions. Very unusual, something I had never seen before.

I had two mentors a male and a female... and our time shuttle was a human size version of these little cylinders that transport messages through little air tubes... where you put a little capsule in it and then: puff!! it gets shot into another part of the building. So, my time machine was a large cylinder, big enough for us to step into, and ready to shoot us to wherever we needed to go. And when we pressed the button to take us to a vow or a belief that was in the way for me building my business, I felt this capsule shoot us up into the sky and circling the earth and within moments we had zoomed around three times, with incredible speed obviously... faster than a rocket... and after three round trips it came straight down, voomm!! and landed in Egypt.

In Egypt, I arrived at an elevated, rectangular garden that was connected to the palace. It was built, balcony like, raised up from the ground, supported by high walls on three sides... and somewhere beyond the garden to the left was the temple, and the palace itself was over to the right.

Curiously this garden looked almost identical to a place I had seen during a journey with one of my clients in Germany, when she uncovered a time in Egypt where she had been a priestess at the temple. This was the same kind of garden... I though this was peculiar, almost as if I had landed in someone else's story. Didn't quite know what to do with that. My mentors had no information for me... they were just standing by my side on the gravel path, next to the lush flowers... I could bring the image of my client as a priestess and her soul mate into the picture... they could be there... or they could not be there... and it didn't really make a difference. Strange!

Then there was this slight pull into the palace and I wondered whether this journey had to do with the lifetime when I had been a member of the royal family and I had committed all these atrocious cruelties against the Jewish people. But none of that really showed up, it only hung there as a question, but didn't materialize as an image or an emotion. So, I kept wandering through the palace for a while and kept asking: ...what is this about? ... what is going on here? The first thing I finally heard was that it was about a duality of power... and I thought maybe it was about the duality of the religious or spiritual power on one side, and the power of the palace on the other, maybe there was a separation, or a conflict, or a competition of power... but no response on that... so we kept moving... and before long we wandered into the cellars of the castle, following a certain pull to go deeper. The castle was carried by many columns that were all black... The foundation of power? Again I wasn't sure what that meant... and before I could get an answer, we started sinking into the ground, and I let it happen. We sank deeper and deeper and finally arrived... in another time zone... an archaic or stone age time of human existence.

Here I felt myself to be male and I felt myself holding a big club and sensed that this was a moment of discovery, a discovery of a new, physical power through the use of the club. I could feel the surge and the excitement of that new power rushing through my body.... the exhilaration and the expansion of my life force and my territory. Here was the root of the duality: this club, this physical power, was being used against someone or something: against animals to be eaten, or against enemies to be killed or injured or threatened... and I could feel the imprint that this power came with. This power was made up of two parts: while something was gained for me, something was always lost for someone else.

I understood that it was time to remove this duality from my being. I sensed that it might have been this very duality that has kept me from using my power, because in this lifetime I don't want to use it against anything any longer, but up until now I hadn't been able to separate the power for something from the against something. I sensed I must have been brought here to remove the paradigm of this duality from my consciousness, or from my vibration, or my identity... hard to put into words. The image that represented the old energy was one of a large root growing inside my whole body. A root with two strands that separated at the end and reached down into my legs, one side white, one side black. Somehow I knew this old duality would be removed by pulling this root out of my body... and indeed, my two mentors took care of that, and as they did, I felt an an unexpected wash of emotion, of sadness, of pain, of old stories, of suffering, and suffering, and more suffering... so much suffering had been held in that duality of power being linked to gain and loss. Took a long time until this root was all out, almost as if it was extending as it was being pulled... stretching the ends of the root longer and longer, a stickyness, a sucking that pulled out all these old emotions with it... quite an experience... When it was done, and it was time to replace the old with something new. But what? There was no answer from my mentors, no words, no image... but after a while I became aware of the presence of a sound. A sound both audible and then also visible... that washed through everything... almost dissolving the boundary between me and everything on the outside. Melting away the separation, and what remained here and there was as thin as a membrane. This was the sound of oneness. Oneness in a sound... quite indescribable.

And that was the conclusion to the vow process.

The future integration was interesting, I could feel a spaciousness the next day.

A week into the future I knew I would be sitting in the middle of a Buddhist meditation retreat Jimmy and I had registered for, and I could feel experiencing the oneness in that environment, it felt almost as if I could slip into the experience of the teacher there, and the expansiveness of that state was quite exhilarating. The retreat appeared like a playground to experience this oneness in, in interactions with other people, in the experience of meditating, of doing yoga, or of eating.

Interestingly Anne skipped over the one month time line and went straight to asking me to step into the future six months from now... and that felt sooo far away... it was so different, it was almost as if my brain couldn't compute what it would be like, and instead just slipped back into what it had always been. Initially that was a bit confusing and then I understood it as a range of possibilities. Again, I kept asking: What IS going on in six months? ...close to Christmas, what IS life going to feel like? And it seemed the answer was: there is a very big range of possibility at that time, depending on my choice, depending on how I choose to use this oneness in my life. It could not have a big impact, it could not create a big difference, if I didn't chose to use it all that much... and life could slip back into something very similar as it has been in the past. But I could also use it a lot, and the endpoint of that was almost not visible... if that makes sense.

When Ann asked me in the second, one week integration : Did you integrate it? In that moment, that was a odd question, because it didn't feel like a ME was integrating anything, it felt like a ME was not there so much. A ME was falling away. It was not something that was added to a ME but something that I was blending into. At six months I couldn't even make that out any more.

Very curious to experience this unfolding. Much mystery ahead.

Driving Home from Ottawa

2009-07-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

Monday, June 22nd

A rich and full weekend is behind me.
What a privilege to stay with too highly successful Journey practitioners, Don and Marie-Sylvie, both psychotherapists who have both adopted the Journeywork into their practice.

Marie Sylvie didn't take part in our NAJPA weekend, because she was participating in a shaman training, a healing practice she was speaking about with highest praise. She had also just returned from a Journey event for a native American Indian tribe further north in Canada. A community that has an extraordinarily high suicide rate, where sexual abuse among children and teenagers is at a rampant 90%, and alcoholism has dissolved much of the foundation of the social fabric. They had a translator there who had to translate the work into "inu", their native language. It was a four day workshop, held for the entire tribe. The chief who had asked for the Journeywork to be introduced to his people had also just before banned all alcohol from coming into the community, so the upheaval was enormous and the anger was palpable, but in the end the transformation, the way she described it, was stunning.

It was an inspiration and a gift to experience this weekend from the vantage point of their lives... and to see such a different approach to working with clients, as they have pretty much maintained their schedule of one hour sessions and don't often go beyond that. The most they will schedule is a two hour session with a client. So there is not that long intensity of a process that tries to clean up everything that presents itself at once, but there is a more gradual, a more continuous and a more ongoing rhythm to the work... and that seems to serve their clients more than these big "all packed up in one" processes that take a long time to digest and have less of a continuity. Bob Levy, who presented at the weekend has the same approach. He sees clients for short amounts of time and his practice is overflowing. He is also a very gifted speaker and he gives a lot of intro talks. That's how he attracted all the people into his practice. He only completed the accreditation two years ago and he has already become a new presenter for the Journey Intensive Weekends. I understand why they picked him. His example is so very inspiring - very different, but very inspiring. I will have to restructure the way I do my work from the ground up, redefine my whole approach, including my follow up system, and my intake with people. Hmm, a lot to think about, a lot to digest, a lot of inspiration.

Meadows

2009-06-30T19:20:00.001-07:00

Friday, June 19th

I am getting closer to Canada now. There are these meadows, these soft green yielding surfaces, luminescent even on this overcast day. I can't take my eyes off of them. I cling to the little spots of color sprinkled in. All the flowers known and unknown... daisies for sure, yellow little fluffy things, bright yellow clover, these yellow flowers that look like mini sunflowers with their straight up stems and that same type in a reddish burnt orange. Other white fluff stuff.

Meadows, all these meadows here! Vast openness! This land looks very different. I am so draw to meadows, I m not sure why. Most of these meadows are just that, nothing else, not sure if they are being used for hay, or if they are just growing wild like that. A meadow is a land welcoming you to walk through it, to see through it. Meadows have always felt to me like the open arms of a landscape. I love these meadows here, I can't stop drinking them in. Sometimes there is a little brook running through, just now... sometimes there are trees, single ones or little clumps, sometimes the meadows have given way to shrubbery.. low and still open and you can see for miles. Stone looks different here too. On the first leg of the trip, where passages had been cut into the rock, it was a dark blackish shale. Here the stone is light gray and warm, and softer looking. Good land.

I wonder about Montana. I have seen pictures of Montana, seen these wide openings, those grassy slopes crowned by soft hills. I would like to go there sometime. Other people are drawn to the ocean. Not me. I am drawn to the hills and the meadows. It's always been like that.

Diamonds

2009-06-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

Still in the car on my way to Ottawa. A while ago I passed by Herkimer and I remembered there is something called the Herkimer diamonds and I wondered if this is where they had been found. I could tell that something different had happened in this landscape.

There were those remnants of industrial exploit: iron skeletons of some died away rusty use, large lots of with heaps of gray rubble, pebbles and rocks... a particular quality... of something forlorn and discarded. And seeing this float by my window and melt back into the green waves of the pregnant summer landscape I thought: isn't it true that we humans live like this with the earth ... wherever there is something valuable, we run to use it up or take it away. And then: isn't it the same with those humans among us who have something valuable to offer: others come and want to take it. Isn't this a form of exploitation too? Examining this idea I realized there are nuances both on the earth and among us humans. Yes, there are places on the earth that hold something valuable that hasn't been discovered by that many people yet, places that have remained more secret, more hidden, less exploited, less run over, less visited... less SEEN. And it was also true that the amount of visibility or exploitation has nothing to do with the value that place holds. In fact there might be places of enormous value that are still completely hidden.

And my thoughts wandered into applying this to myself: did I want to become someone who was more hidden or someone more visible? If I had the choice right now would I want to become someone as visible as a Byron Katie, whose face is pasted on book covers and book covers and more book covers? Who travels around the world offering her message, giving something of herself that feels valuable to other people to those other people. That is her life. At least much of it.

I had always thought of that as a beautiful way to live, but all of a sudden, for the fist time, I could see the beauty in being a more hidden person. Just like a landscape that has remained unspoiled and lives in a more gentle harmony with the fewer people that walk through it or live in it. That becoming well known and run over wasn't the ultimate best thing that could happen to me; that the measure of who I was, was not determined by how visible I would manage to become; and that I could probably lead a exhilaratingly happy life in obscurity. This realization is new in it's quality... like with so many things these day this is not a thought I hadn't had before, or rather this is not a conclusion I wouldn't have been able to draw in my brain, but the feeling of ease and groundedness it comes with is new. A different resting yet again.

Faith and Masters

2009-06-30T15:16:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 19th

A few days ago I read my mothers memoir.

She had not intended to cover her entire life, she had been interested in writing down the steps and the stages that had brought her to the place of faith she is in today. She wanted to record the unusual, mysterious and sometimes unsettling experiences she has had, to put it all together in one place... I believe mostly to give to my siblings, because I imagine she thought in writing these things down they can be taken in and digested at a time when my sister and my brother would be ready to do so.

I think you could call my mother a Christian mystic of sorts. She hasn't always been that, but has been led very clearly and very steadily into this direction for decades.

None of the experiences she describes were new to me. She had always been eager to share with me what was going on and valued the welcome, the understanding and the feedback she got in return, I was in fact one of the few people she could talk to. So while the stories were not new, it was new to read them all at once, in one fell swoop, to get an overview of their entire map... and when I was finished I felt something almost like envy... that this path had been so clear for her. That there had never been a question which religion to follow. It was always the Christian faith and increasingly the Christian mystical path that she was here to walk.

I have never experienced that kind of clarity in my life.

I look at other people, other friends like that Lilia and her love for her teacher Tai Situ Rinpoche and her faith in Buddhism, Uwe my yoga teacher and his faith in the Yogic tradition and his master Guru Mai, and Martha, who was probably the first person I encountered who had a master, who already then did meditation daily... Stefanie and Adnan Sarhan. Eileen and Valerie and my friend Joan, who are all connected to the same master form India: Maharishi. Even more recently Annabel found Traleg Rinpoche. I had always been curious about a master, been curious about meeting someone in whose presence I would feel something like a calling, a place of home maybe, a trust, a knowing, a sense that this is "my teacher", this is "my guide"...and... it has eluded me.

I am recalling now the many places I have looked for this experience.

I remember as a teenager - still living in Hamburg - I went to an Indian master, or healer once, I don't even remember how I heard about him, don't even remember what I went to him for, but somebody told me, somehow I knew he was there, and somehow I ended up going. It was in the eastern part of town, Klein Flottbek maybe? An undistincive place, not a church... someones home, or maybe a center of some sort... in a low, modern, one story building. I remember waiting in line and I remember entering the room where this master was sitting and I guess I must have told him my request, and then I remember being taken aback by something ... by a lack of response, a lack of connection, a lack of understanding, a lack of significance really... I think I was struck by the brevity and simplicity by what this person was doing... and thinking "this might all be a fraud" "this person might not have any healing powers after all, might not be what he had been advertised as"... that must have been my first encounter of that sort.

In America, after I had moved there in my twenties, I got caught in a group around another master... I met these people at some convention I think, a woman in particular, I now don't remember her name, she was in a booth with some other people at this fair... and I remember making a connection with her, she seemed to reflect something back to me about who I was. I recall words like:"you are such a bright spirit, such a bright light, such a this, or such a that " Fairly flattering. I think I felt recognized, I felt called maybe, and curious too, and so I got instructions on how to work with this master. There was a certain ritual you had to do. There was a photograph, there was a candle and you had to sit and and look at the eyes in the photograph... and meditate with open eyes... and recite something... I don't actually remember the details.

I even went to a gathering where this master showed up and people were all excited about her arrival. They were talking about the wave of energy that would flow through the room when the master would enter . A lot of people: hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands - it was somewhere on the upper west side - and... I didn't feel anything. She walked into the room and down the aisle, not far, past the row I was sitting in, and... I didn't feel all that much, it left me disconnected. At some point I thought it odd to be looking at somebody's face and into their eyes, almost as if I was being hypnotized by a photograph. It began to feel a little cultish to me... at the time, and I stopped doing it.

Then for a while I had been to the Daoist center on 22nd St. During my last years in the city. Greg had been going there and they served a nice lunch. Sophia and Anina were still very small and I could bring them along. And again the people there praised me for the quick learning of the meditation style and my consistency in showing up and my progress. After a fairly short time they offered to do a ritual with me that would release me from the chain of reincarnation, that would set me on a path to... as I recall... complete my life in this lifetime. It seemed like an honor to do be asked to do that, it seemed like it would be adventageous to not have to return into a cycle of suffering, and... so I did that. I still have a certificate somewhere I believe. Did I feel different afterwards? I can't tell you. Maybe. Maybe not.

After I moved to the country, there were the years I went to weekly Sufi classes in Great Barrington with Stefanie and to some longer workshops with her master Adnan. I loved the classes, and the workshops even more. Those were my first experiences of deep meditation, maybe even transcendence, and connection to a larger energy. But no feeling of connection with him either. Lise, who was also going there for a while, described it very accurately: "When you hug him, it feels like you're hugging a rock."

Then there was Yoga with Uwe and his path and very clear communication about choosing a master. Not entering into a path of enlightenment without a guide. He would talk about that repeatedly in his classes. The huge difference it makes being connected to an enlightened master. And here too I was waiting for a sign to go to the Ashram, to see Guru Mai. And somehow that sign didn't come. Somehow I didn't feel the call.

Now there's been the time with Lilia and studying Buddhism. Which initially I did out of curiosity, out of fascination. I also did it because Lilia was so blunt in her description that yes, she was here to reach enlightenment, in this lifetime, on this earth. I had never heard anybody say this so boldly. And I admired that. I admired her dedication and her clarity and her path and I loved to go to her house once a week to meditate and to study some Buddhist scripture.

There are some things within Buddhism that don't connect for me, that leave me sceptical, or distant, and so I had never felt the urge to take the first step and take refuge with one of the masters, or one of the teachers. It is only now that I am contemplating to do this on my retreat next week. Maybe I will.

Back to Ooms

2009-06-30T15:10:00.000-07:00

June 19th

Last Sunday Jimmy and I went back to Ooms for a walk.

Oh those wonderful summer meadows! Oh, the smells of summer in the air, of moist earth, lake water, and flowering plant life everywhere! The grasses were hip high now, strewn with daisies and clover and other blossoms I have no names for, the water had already bloomed with algae. There was a family standing at the bank, each of them holding fishing rods in their hands. Birds singing in the trees, meadow larks jubilating in the air, the wind wafting through the grasses. They are too tall for Jacky to run through, so she has to stay on the mown paths. The sky was clear, the clouds were luminous white and puffy, the temperature perfectly beautiful.

The last time I had been here with Jimmy, Constantin, Sophia and Anina, it had been so cold and windy it made my ears ache, and I hadn't been strong enough to walk around all of the lake. Now nothing of that was left. I walked past the pear tree the bird had perched on that had arrested me with it's singing and thought back to that timeless moment of slowness when I was gliding by under it's branches... now they were laden with leaves, sparkled by the sun.

It's good to feel strong again.

Yoga is a bit of a different matter. I haven't resumed a regular practice and a week ago I went back to Karen's Yoga class at Kripalu. This is a more vigorous class than the practice I do at home, but in the past that had been fine. This was the first time I had been back here in over six months, and, yes, my body feels different. My muscles just didn't want to work that hard. My brain kept saying "it's all right, you can take it slower", or "go ahead, you can sit this one out". But there is that odd pull of the group, the odd need to participate with what everybody else is doing, the strange power that holds you back from doing something different than everybody else. I made it through that class but my bones, and my flesh, and my muscles did not like it all that much. There may be a time in the future when that pace will be right for me again. For now it seems my body wants to move more slowly and less vigorously, and I will honor that. If I go back I will simply tell Karen that I am going sit a few exercises out in between, just so that I know I have an "ally" in the room and that ally will be the instructor herself in front of the room and that'll help.

Two days ago I worked in the garden most of the day. It started out being chilly, then it got warm, then it became colder again and I changed my clothes accordingly. I just puddled along all day with what I wanted to do. This does feel different! In a good way. There is a new luxury in the availability of the thought that I can let it go, that I don't have to meet the hypothetical goal I have set for myself. I can leave things half done, and time will embrace all of it lovingly. It doesn't matter if not all pots are planted; it doesn't matter if one flower bed never gets weeded this year. Time has become more of a friendly companion than an anxious competitor.

Questions and Dreams

2009-06-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

Friday June 19th

I am speaking into my little digital recorder in the car on my way to Ottawa... to a NAJPA weekend (NorthAmericanJourneyPractitionersAssociation) to rethink my practice.

There are questions. There are things I wonder about... how to use this time after the surgery, the pain, and the recovery... and my failed attempt to use the journey for my cysts. I am wondering if people are shying away to use this work because they know about this failure. I am wondering if I am being led into a different direction... a different way to run my practice.

Life seems to give me a big opening right now. I have not had a single client since I am back from Germany. And the two workshops I had scheduled at the center in Delmar didn't get ANY registrations either. That surprised me, because back in January, when I presented the Journeywork to them, they seemed to be so excited about it. It seemed they couldn't wait for me to start working there. And now there wasn't a single person who wanted to do the workshop. Curious.

Maybe I am just given time to write this book. Maybe that's what I most need to do right now. Who knows. Most of the time I can relax into that awareness. Once in a while the old fear of not doing enough for my practice, not doing enough for Journeywork, not finding effective enough ways to spread the word about the Journey catch up with me. Then I do get a little nervous, then I do get a little restless.

More often though I can remember what I learned: that life never makes a mistake. It seems that's the word that fits for me these days. I don't call it God any more. I call it LIFE. I don't call it universe any more. No: LIFE. Life never makes a mistake. And if life doesn't make a mistake, it's giving me a lot of time right now without work. It's giving me time to trust that I am being taken care of. It's giving me time to trust that the support that is coming from Constantin is enough right now. That's beautiful. In many ways. The timing of Constantin's business doing well matches in a peculiar way with where I am with my work. And if it is so that this was the time where he was meant to support me and I was meant to be... off the hook... if this was the time to release - at last - the pressure of making a living, it is curious that that time seems to be now. Why would it be now? Why not a couple of years ago? The struggle was painful enough then, wasn't it?

I don't know the answer... and I guess it doesn't matter. Now is the time. And now I do have a story to tell.

I also still have this desire to bring Journeywork into the school system. It's a big dream to do that. I would love to find a way to make that happen... or rather: I'd love to find a way to participate in the process. I don't imagine it will be me by myself. I imagine there will be more involved.

To have Journeywork in all public schools in America. Just imagine. So many of the problems in the schools would be addressed, so much could be shifted, so much could be set into motion for an entire generation of students, so much could be opened up, so much could be released. God... just imagine!

Questions continued

So what are my questions for my practice?

I am passing this big river, wide and quiet it flows in a soft curve right next to the highway. The landscape green, rising up on both sides of the bank. This is not the Hudson. this is the Mohawk river I think. Rivers have shown up so often in my experiences of source... images of rivers, rivers as metaphors... those feelings of being carried... by a stream of energy that flows like a river... and now I see this river... hmmm...

What are my questions for my practice?

Do I need to redefine my focus with my clients? Do I need to enter into client relationships with a new clarity that the healing the journey provides is not always physical... even when that is what someone is looking for? That the healing the journey offers is not always a direct response to what someone is looking for. Sometimes the desire is for a physical manifestation, and the journey will not make that happen. Sometime the desire is for an emotional shift, and the journey will not make that happen, because sometimes the journey heals away the outer layers first and doesn't get to the core right away. Sometimes... very rarely, a client will not feel a difference. This is rare, but it happens.

Sometimes a client has big hopes and is disappointed when the journey doesn't create the fast and miraculous healing that has been expected. It does happen. I always try to let someone know that they have just started... that even though they don't perceive any change ... things have been set into motion... that there is more they can do if they stay with the experience... if they keep using the work with what is surfacing after the first session. Often these very people don't seem to believe that it is possible... they give up... they don't stay in touch with me. I feel bad about that. In such situations I always wish there was a better way for me to reach them, to pass through the layer of disappointment, through the veil of hopelessness.

I wonder if I have put too much hope into providing change - in the past. When there is hope, there is the seed of disappointment. It seems I can only hold a door open. It is not up to me if someone walks through it or not, it is not my job to make someone walk through it. I just have to hold it open. There are a few clients in my life who have not walked through the door. I still sometimes talk to them in my mind... long afterwards. I still try to reach them. - Interesting.

The knowledge that this is not my responsibility is not new. What I am moving toward is possibly more of a clarity, more of a constant knowing, more of a restedness, more of a visceral being in that awareness that it is not up to me... that I am just a facilitator. Maybe it really doesn't matter. I breathe differently.

If I think about my practice now in an ideal way, it is not seeing myself working every day, week after week. An ideal practice for me would be to have three or four clients a week, and to be able to write. I love the writing. I hope there is a need for my words, no, a place for my words. I also hope I can make some money with my words... I hope I can write more than one book. Books are powerful... even in this computer age.

Papi's Surgery

2009-06-24T18:30:00.000-07:00

Today Papi had his kidney removed.
He arrived at the hospital yesterday. He felt ready and confident.
He liked his room, he liked the dark wood parquet floor, he liked his roommate, he liked his bed by the window and the view too.

I did the surgery prep session with him that Lori had done with me from memory, and he was open and able to imagine this whole experience unfolding in a very clear and beautiful way... he felt so much happiness and gratitude at the conclusion.

Friends were praying for him in Hamburg, Theda all the way down south in Chile, and here along with me even some of my mooncircle sent him prayers and good thoughts. Mami saw him in a peach blanket surrounded by a beautiful violet light.

Today most went well. The surgery itself very well. The cut ended up even smaller than predicted, only a bit over 10 cm, and he didn't have to wait all day like his room mate yesterday to be taken into the surgery.

Some lack of communication. The staff sent my mother home from the hospital where she was waiting for him to come out of the wake up room. They told her it could be another two hours and she should just go home, which she did - by bike - she doesn't know how to drive a car - and when she got there, she found a message on their answering machine from my father, he had just been released, and had already called her from his room upstairs.

Some unfortunate malfunctioning. Interesting that this should happen. His pain pump. It's supposed to pump medication right into the tissue surrounding the surgery. It sounds like it never worked when he was starting to use it. Clogged. Pain quite uncomfortable. Not a lot of response to this situation from the nurses. He was given some drops, but they didn't make a difference. And instead of demanding higher dosages, he resigned to wait until the anesthesiologist would get back out of the next surgery she was in. When I finally spoke with him around 8:45pm he was still waiting and the pain had increased even more. I encouraged him to keep ringing that bell until they had given him a high enough dose that would blanket the pain. This is not a time to suffer. This is a time to be pleasantly plunged into a fog of medication. I made him promise me to do this - first thing after we hung up.

He is glad it is over. Mami said he looked quite well. She is glad it is over too.

Fate and Perfection

2009-06-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

Sat, June 13th

I am back home from Germany for more than a week already.

Yesterday my surgery was three months ago.

Last week I finally saw Suzi, whose surgery is now almost two weeks ago.

And one week ago we got this vague e-mail from Lise that she has "a man down again" ... and we wondered a bit about why she didn't show up at the moon circle, small as it was this month at Peggy's house... just Annabel and Mary and Lydia and me. Patrice had been there briefly for abundant hugging and then took off to another meeting.

Time passing... and strewn in between other life changing experiences are unfolding for my friends. What a most curious accumulation of those in our circle.

On Tuesday night we got this in response from Lise to Lydia's question posted on Monday: "waddaya mean, have a man down again?":

"3 days of hell, schuffling to the Sat. matinee, down for the Gala, schuffling to Aniela's graduation, with appendix erupting inside apparently, tore him away to the Emergency yesterday at 4PM, needed to get him hooked up to an i.v. bag, really going downhill, surgery last night at midnight, erupted appendix encapsulated by a twisted intestine holding all threatening toxins somewhat at bay, in for a week?, so much emotion, won't go there just yet, have to keep moving and figure out my new life for the moment, felt you all there, each and every face there holding me being with me last night as I waited, your strength beauty humour, I was strong
xoxoxo
L"

OMG!!!!

He landed in the very hospital I first went to thinking it was my appendix that was about to rupture, and now his actually did.

Each of our experience in some way eerily similar... yet so different.

When Suzi found out about her cysts in her uterus, it seems it was clear to her from the beginning that it was time to say good bye to this part of her body. I don't recall her questioning this decision. But I will need to ask her again about this.

And look at how she went about to celebrate this departure... giving a good bye party for her uterus two days before surgery was just the culmination. What amazes me is that she was able to keep her ovary. I thought this wasn't possible. But no, it is still inside her body happily producing hormones, which is why she has not been plunged into menopause like I have.

Makes me wonder if my ovaries really had to come out. Dr Morrissey never spoke about the ovaries, he only referred to the tubes. Cysts were grown into the tubes and that's why the ovaries had to go too. At the time that seemed logical to me, in my mind the ovaries were the end point of the whole reproductive shebang and attached to the tubes, so of course they would come out... like an apple hanging on a branch... when you cut the branch the apple goes with it. Not actually true for the ovaries. They have their own attachments in the body and the space between tube and ovary is OPEN. Of course! That's why they call ovulation EISPRUNG in German: "Eggjump". Because it has to jump. I had known that at some point, I had just forgotten.

So why the heck did Dr Morrisey never speak about the ovaries? I think these surgeries are such a routine procedure for these surgeons, they maybe do not deliberate all that much. They don't even remember afterward what they cut out of which body. At least that was my experience with Dr Morrissey. When I saw him for my first post op check up 11 days after the surgery I had wanted to ask him a few more questions about the two cysts. I had seen the two photographs he had taken and promptly e-mailed to Jimmy, but the description as to which one was the dermoid and which one was the fluid one and which one had done the twisting and caused the pain was still unclear to me. So I had wanted to print out copies of the photos and ask him. Of course in the turmoil of the first departure from home, I forgot the photos and so I thought I'd describe to him the two images, easy to do - dramatically different as they were - and get the information that way. This did not work. He did not remember. Like a child being questioned by an adult, and child who is on guard after having done something questionable, it felt like he was on guard with me sitting in that small examination room, as if he was eager to get me out of there as quickly as possible. So when I asked him which was which he said the dermoid was the one that had been on the left, the one that had been football size.
"FOOTBALL size?"
"Yep, football size. It was really good we had taken that one out. It had been hight time."
I didn't dare to say: are you SURE?, or: I really think you are mistaken... that seemed impolite, but I ventured:
"I was under the impression from all the previous imaging reports I got that that one was the smaller one, kind of elongated... no more than 10 cm."
I showed him with my hands. I was sure he had made a mistake and I wanted to give him an elegant way to correct himself. But he didn't.
"No, no, that one had been football size. Really big."
"Really! "
"Yep."
My brain was in upheaval. Was it possible he was right? No. No, I had seen the reports, all of them, I had written down the numbers, I had even made the drawings. Should I press him further, would I have to prove him wrong? God, no I couldn't do that. Maybe he was right??? Could it have grown since the last imaging?? But then the photograph. You could see the fingers holding it, the proportion just wasn't of that size...? There were other questions I had planned to ask him, but all of this was erased from my consciousness.
A quick: "We'll see you again in three weeks, you can go and make an appointment at the counter. ...Here is your report from pathology, you can keep that. ...You're doing great. ...Good bye."
And before I could regroup my braincells, I was out of the room.

The confusion was still with me in the car. I took out the pathology report. After scrambling through the formality of this written piece of paper, there I saw, printed black on white:
2. Received fresh labeled "left tube and left ovary" is a multilobulated cystic ovary with a glistening tan gray outer surface, 7.5 x 5.3 x 3.8 cm. The content is... ... and so on.

Wow, there was my proof. 7.5 cm, that was less than 3 inches.

Couldn't he at least have said: I am sorry, I really don't remember so clearly any longer.. instead of just dumping a completely wrong image on me. Football size! Christ!

Maybe he also had forgotten I had wanted to keep the ovaries in?

This is what I thought of after talking to Suzi about the ovary question. Her surgeon had really listened to her. More like Dr Timmins. They had really been able to plan this event. And she had made the most of it. Nothing happened she had not expected or been prepared for.

Janusz of course has been spared at least these kinds of decisions or doubts. But on the other hand his was a more threatening emergency situation than mine... let alone Suzi's. He was actually lucky he made it through, his kidneys almost failed on him at the same time his appendix burst. You can die from that. Interesting how long it took him to make the decision to finally go to the emergency room. No food going down, projectile vomiting, pain, and more pain going on for days... and within all of that it was right for him to wait. Not only because of his daughters two big celebratory events it seems... then he would have gone after that was done on Sunday... but he stayed with this pain another day and didn't go until Monday afternoon.

Some decisions we make and some are being made for us. At least it looks like that's what happens. But these days I am less sure there is such a distinct separation.

Had Suzi been luckier than me? Or Janusz more unfortunate? No. I don't think of our experiences in that way any longer. What happens is perfect. I really believe that, no, even more so: I know that.

Updates

2009-06-10T10:07:00.001-07:00

Sophia finished her two days of acting workshop and found out it wasn't so hard, it wasn't so scary, it was ok after all. But she also found out that she doesn't enjoy exercises all that much without the purpose of a performance as a reward poised at the end of it. Almost as if it doesn't have enough meaning all by itself. Yes, she learned something, but it wasn't all that new, after all she had worked with the Michael Chekhov method with David and Fern, in fact that's pretty much all she does know about acting. But also she could see how this approach was something of a revelation for the other participants... and it sounded like that confirmed for her that this is valuable stuff she knows and now she was taking more of this good stuff in on a deeper level...

Not so bad a result.

Constantin reported this morning her mood is really up and down. Interesting that for the first time in 15 years he now has his finger on the daily pulse and sees her every day at work in his store. She apparently signed up for another longer workshop at the end of August. Two weeks long. She even met the person who runs this program at the event this weekend and walked up to him and introduced herself and found him to be super nice. That must have helped.

Over in Hamburg, earlier today Papi has gone to his second Cintigraphie (however you spell that)... which seems to be the word they use for MRI. This will reveal the functioning of his still draining kidney, and determine whether or not it can stay in the body. The best case scenario seems to be for her to just go to sleep permanently. The she could stay as a silent kidney in his body. If on the other hand she keeps on trying to work, even just as little has she has been spluttering along, passing no more than 20 ml of liquid per day, the ureter, which seems to be the cause of the problem, could clog up again. This would then create a backlog and could turn into more inflammations. In order to prevent that from happening she would have to go.

I think he is still a bit afraid of that. Soon we'll know more.

Sophia

2009-06-09T15:07:00.000-07:00

My Sophia. My oldest one.

She had already e-mailed me for my birthday with a little s.o.s. cry.

"hey mom happy birthday!!! i wanted to call u but i didnt know where to call and i dont have any number to call!
hope your having fun!
i went to the country this weekend! and im feeling kinda homesick and stuff!
so call me when you can!
love you!"

Asking to be called means something. As our schedule and time difference had arranged the next couple of days, there was no time to have a longer conversation. We didn't end up speaking until Friday night after Jimmy and I had arrived back home.

"Every morning I wake up and I wish I hadn't" Woa, that's serious.
"You can't imagine how hard it is to do something, Mom. It's like I just can't. I am so afraid. ...so afraid not to be good enough." That means her acting.
"And now I have done the first day of this acting workshop I feel so accomplished, and once I am there I always discover it is fine, but that doesn't make the fear go away. The fear always comes back."
"And my job is just so... so boring. There is just nothing really interesting about it... and I hate living alone... I am so much alone... and now when I see my friends I am even alone when I am with them... and that is so depressing... and what if the acting doesn't work out, then I have nothing to fall back on..."

She is in despair. She cries. Throughout the call. That despair still sits deep in her guts even on this day of feeling accomplished again for the first time in a long time... probably since she finished her senior project over a year ago. That was an acting accomplishment she had performed brilliantly. A one woman show. I had cried each time I saw her play. Each of the four times.

I listen to her and I understand her pain. But I don't feel desperate with her. Somehow I am very calm, as if I already know she'll come out of this with all her passion, strength, and humanity in full force. As if this is a boiling point she needed to reach that will transform her and move her forward in a way nothing else would. Not so long ago I might have jumped right into this crisis with her, made it my responsibility to bring her out of it, taken on the burden to be the healer, or to get her to do what I would have deemed most powerful... and most likely that would have been the Journey. Not a successful strategy. In the past I have suffered when she wouldn't let me help her. Not so much now. There is a new humility here and with that a new freedom. A breath. She is walking her path, and as I stay present and slow and just listen, I can recognize that I don't really have a clue about what's best for her. She'll have to make that choice.

Sure I can make some suggestions... and I did. Write brags, gratitudes and desires. And express your feelings. Don't swallow them down. When we poked around in that subject, it turned out that she doesn't talk about her fears with her friends. None of them. When she tries, she doesn't experience a sincere interest... somehow her own story is always used as a springboard that jumps the conversation back to their stuff, their story, their problems. No wonder she feels alone in their company.

Being locked into being the listener... Ah... does that sound familiar? Man, I have done that all my life. I know how hard it is to expand relationships that have run so smoothly in the safely assigned separate tracks of who is the listener and who is the talker. Very, very, very scary to have to speak up and say: stop, hold it for a moment, I can't be there for you right now, I can't listen right now, I am overwhelmed right now, I can't take this in right now, I'm feeling xxx right now... I'm so sorry, I really want to, but right now I can't.

It seems frighteningly impossible to do. And yet it is.

Not only possible but also necessary. Because it creates balance. Because not only does the listener need to learn how to talk - just as much so the talker needs to learn to listen.

I'll have to talk more about this with her.

When she was smaller we used to have epic battles about some things she wanted that I felt I needed to say NO to. Epic. Battles down to the core of the soul. She would scream, and cry and talk and argue and not give up, as if giving up was a question of life and death. It started when she was three and continued for years and years and years. I thought this would never end. But I also though this child will never have any problems asking for what she wants. And now? Where did she lay this part of herself to rest? And when?

She says she doesn't have any memories from her childhood, she doesn't remember what it was like. Constantin used to say the same thing. And he is her dad. Hmmm. Memories always carry the building blocks to our identity. Even the negative ones. Because the part in ourself that can recognize something as negative is the part that knows "this is not right", the part that knows the truth. So... was there so little that held her truth, only so few building blocks worth carrying along? Curious - to say the least. What had happened on the receiving end of my intention to raise her with as much freedom, as much space and trust in her innate abilities, instincts and self expression as I saw possible? And as much unconditional availability of my body and my attention as I could give? Let alone love?

This is a big time for her now. And I so much want to be there for her and at the same time I know the limit... not of what's possible but really of what is good for her. Right now less of me is better. I believe that is true. It's important to remember that.

Berlin

2009-06-07T08:14:00.000-07:00

(Written between Sunday May 30th and Friday June 5th)

These few days in Berlin went by in a flash.

When we arrived at Berlin Hauptbahnhof on Wednesday - a daylight flooded Glass structure that criss crosses train tracks of various kinds on about 4 different levels - and the train came to a halt... there were Anina and Alicia, accompanied by a third girl, exactly in front of our door outside the window.

A time for many emotions.

Tears rolled down Nini's cheeks on that platform. And again five days later at the moment of saying good bye. I had not expected this. I had lost touch with the sensitive, warmhearted girl she was before puberty pulled her into a fog of an expressionless distance and one syllable answers.

Tears also flowed when Iris thought of her dad on Saturday. It was the 30th of May - his death day, and she still misses him a lot 14 years later. She is my cousin, and Jimmy and I sat in her kitchen eating scrambled eggs with tomatoes when she told us the story of how he had died after his battle with throat cancer. I had never heard the details of her experience. She was surprised she didn't have to cry then. But later, after we had left her to go to the museum, she did.

My own tears almost flowed Friday night after we had gone to bed. I had asked Jimmy how the day had been for him and he voiced his discontent, his irritation over how I keep him out of the loop, don't include him in the decisions on how we were spending our time, how he felt separate and unimportant. I couldn't even see myself in his description of me, as if he was talking about another person, and instantly got irritated in return. But more than that I felt the suffocating pain to be the cause of such emotions. Justified or not. Those are the hardest to bear. For me.

The fear to disappoint.

The first morning in Berlin Jimmy and I took off with Anina to go to the museum. When we left, both of Ally's friends, who had stayed overnight, also departed, and all of a sudden Ally was the only one to be left behind. When I realized this, and asked if she wanted to come with us, she brushed the possibility aside: no... she wasn't even dressed... but then... yes she would like to meet us later... we could call her from the road.

By the time we sat in the subway, Nini and I deducted that in the morning mix of assumptions and foggy communication nobody had properly asked her if she had wanted to join us. And I started to feel BAD. As time elapsed and we advanced through the subway system, I began to try to call her from Papi's ancient cell phone to set things straight and clear up a possible misunderstanding that we didn't want her to come along. Ah, and as the infinite universe wanted it that day, I just wasn't able to get through. The number was not known. The number was not connecting. The directory information service didn't provide a solution either. In whatever infinite ways I tried to reach her, her mother, or her brother... nothing succeeded. Fascinating to watch yourself in a progression such as this one, fascinating how in the end one emotion wins out. In my case it was the one of needing to make sure I had not disappointed Ally. The overbearing need to make sure she felt included.

Nothing else mattered any more, not that we would have to wait to do what we supposedly rushed out of the house for: the museum visit... not that we had to take three subways back to her house and travel through Berlin for an extra 1.5 hours... nor that we had to separate and leave Jimmy behind, because he was hungry and needed to eat something...

So that's what we did. Nini and I made our way back and found a flabergasted Ally still in her pajamas at home. ...And we ended up having a good second part of the day with Ally along.

Yes... I will do pretty much anything not to disappoint, hurt or exclude someone I love or care for. This awareness is not new... but it was another clear experience how much this fear sits in my bones... still. How hard it is to tell myself in such a moment that everything is perfect as it is. If life doesn't make mistakes, is it possible that it wants me to just let Ally sit all alone at home when she possibly really wanted to come with us? In that moment life feels excruciatingly unperfect. And the best I can do is bring into my awareness that this experience has come up for liberation, that I am playing out some old emotional script.

When such fear of disappointing is met by an actual accusation from Jimmy as it landed in my gut on Friday night... no wonder it rattles me to the core, each time.

After a longish discussion that didn't immediately resolve anything, it helped me to remember that this not about who is right or wrong, but to notice how much we each are caught in our old games, and how Jimmy's fear of not being included fits so smugly with my fear of not doing enough for others. Perfect match.

And finally: waiting.
Another juicy subject.

On Sunday we concluded our time in Berlin with a visit to the Botanical garden. My re-germanized stomach had been happy with a slice of dark grain bread and honey for breakfast, but that didn't satisfy Jimmy's American wired digestive system and he longed for proteins - as in eggs, preferably with vegetables. Having failed to find something of that nature on our walk over there, we thought he could get a bite to eat inside the gardens, but once we found the cafe, we noticed that the line was both long and slow moving and that the menu didn't really offer anything that exciting worth waiting for. Right outside the entrance we had passed a bakery, and so the decision was made for Jimmy to go back out to grab a bite and come back to meet me in front of the tropical greenhouse.

So, when I heard Jimmy say:" I'll go and get something to eat there, I should be back here in 15 to 20 min." I thought, oh, he just doesn't remember how close this bakery is, he'll be back in much less time, in fact it might only be 5 to 7 minutes. I didn't say anything though, because I didn't want to openly correct him on his erroneous perception of time or distance.

In order not to miss him or make him wait, I therefor took a short stroll past the water lily pools and weaved my way back to the glass green houses pretty soon. No Jimmy.

I started reading the Latin names of the South African cactus plants assembled along the outside of the glass structure... then the Mexican ones... then the South American... I wondered if someone from one of these areas would have a feeling of home standing in front of their native plants, and not the others, while to me they looked like randomly similar indistinctive assortments of prickly shapes sticking out of the ground... No Jimmy.

I wandered down the straight alley toward the entrance. That would be a safe departure form our meeting spot: I would run right into him... No Jimmy in sight.

I veered off to the right to kill some time looking at the circular beds of native moss gardens. All strangely covered in green mesh. More randomness. So many same little splotches of fuzzy green bedded in dry soil. Were they under construction? No, they seemed healthy enough. The name tags were in place too. Then I spotted a sign: during the time of nest building the moss gardens are protected against the birds - robbing botanical property for their own home improvements. ...Oh... How long had I not watched the alley just beyond the bushes? Back on the wide path, looking up and down... still no Jimmy.

Maybe he had passed me and was looking for me back at the greenhouses? Close enough to walk back to check. No, no Jimmy in sight up there either.

Now I was starting to wonder where the heck he was. I had no watch on me, but this must have been at least 15 minutes by now! What could he be doing for so long? Could he get lost on this small straight stretch of the garden? Could there be such a long line in the bakery now? It had been totally empty when we walked by earlier.

Back to the cactuses, but now they didn't inspire my imagination any longer. All right, why didn't I make the best of this and just did what I came here to do and looked at more plants? There were the water plants further down toward the entrance, past the moss patches. I just had to be careful not to loose sight of the big path.

The old water garden was totally overgrown. A sign there indicated that this had happened on purpose to provide habitat for certain wild animals. The new water garden wasn't so new any more. Not much blooming here. The main attraction was an arrangement of three squarish granite boulders, shoulder high, that were spouting a fine mist of water into the air. Hmmm, nice effect. There was a wooden foot bridge over the swamp plant section featuring thin grasses with white fluff at the ends, which took me back to the entrance alley... Still no Jimmy.

This was really starting to be an odd experience. I thought the purpose of leaving the park had been to save time, and now this seemed to have taken longer that he would have ever waited in the cafe. There wasn't much more to look at on this now elongated meeting stretch. This here was just a beach tree forest. From a large sign I learned that a certain beetle had befallen the old beach trees, fungus would follow and before long they would die. Therefore steps had been taken to introduce new, younger trees into the mix while cutting down some old ones before their time, to ensure a more gradual transition into a new healthy forest. Were the young trees immune against the beetles?

Oh my God, were was Jimmy??? Had he not liked the bakery after all and gone on a trek for a better food source? What was he wearing again, his light yellow shirt, right? Oh, no! Now I remembered it was the black one. And all this time I had been scanning the crowds for the wrong colored shirt, black is so much harder to notice, maybe I HAD missed him? Back to the cafe, fast!

No. No black-wearing Jimmy either.

Should I just take off into the parts of the park that really interested me and ignore that he would have to wait for me here? Once he got here? No, I wouldn't be able to enjoy that. Why didn't I just surrender and sat down on the bench in front of the African cactuses and... waited and... felt what was here to be felt and... looked if there was something for me to discover in this odd experience. So I sat.

It was then that it hit me how much I hate to wait. How much I do to avoid waiting. How excruciating it has always been to be at the waiting end. So much so I assume it is the same for other people. So much so I will do something I really loathe in order not to make someone else wait. Hmmm. Interesting. Should I do a Journey on this? Right here?

But alas, now my wait was coming to an end... there was Jimmy strolling happily back up the alley.

When I asked WHAT happened? He said he ate. Ate?? Yes, ate right there at the bakery, like he had told me, had a nice egg something after all... no, he hadn't told me he'd come back with the food, he had meant to eat it there... what? You had waited? Oh, so sorry honey!

So many emotions. Strings of love and fear pulling us alternately.

Four days later it would be my father shedding a few tears on the day of his first return appointment at the UKE for fear of what would happen with his kidney, now that it had been hurting again for the past 10 days. And his voice cracking just a bit saying his sweet words of good bye into our hug, when the taxi pulled up in front of the house to take us to the airport.

... to a City reunited

2009-05-27T23:54:00.000-07:00

Jimmy and I are on our way to Berlin. We have picked seats in one of the little private six seat compartments German trains offer. This one is an "ICE" which has nothing to do with frozen water - as Jimmy pronounces it, but stands for "Intercity Express", and simply means it's faster. A single older woman has joined us, otherwise we have the place to ourselves. Jimmy has nodded off. So has the woman. Earlier we were served a container of mineral water and a "Laugenstange", a longish roll dipped into a salt solution, the "Lauge", and covered with sesame seeds, before being baked. It seems that was an extra service to appease us passengers over possible delays caused by current construction on our route to Berlin. These trains are so much more quiet than the rattly Amtrak, cleaner too.

Outside the window wheat fields are interrupted by corn, rye, and canola fields, now past it's bright yellow bloom. Rows of poplars, or low vegetation mixes of willow, elderberries, hawthorne, and birch, planted against the wind separate the large green planes. Small dense clumps of Forest too. As we travel further east those tall patches seem to expand. In the distance I see groups of wind turbines poking into the horizon now and then. We must now be in the part of what used to be the DDR - east Germany. There are still those buildings that ooze with a certain depressive greyness, architecture that holds in stone the attempt to enforce an equal averageness.

It is more than 19 years ago that the wall came down. I remember sitting in the living room among the large clan of my in laws. It was around Christmas. We were watching the news after an opulent dinner... and there they were: scenes from Berlin. The massive demonstrations, the uprising in east Germany. The wall had not come down yet, but it was already in the air, we could smell it was going to happen. I remember looking down at my belly, covered by a dark blue Romeo Gigly blouse I loved so much, round and bulging with a new life that was to become my first child, and all of a sudden I was moved by the magnitude of these concurring events. I had grown up with this wall separating our country. Grown up with half of the Germans locked up. It seemed this would never change... and now my child would be born into a world that had moved beyond the impossible. A world of people creating their own freedom. What beauty, what power that lay ahead of us!

Today am am on this train to visit my second child in this very city. A city reunited.

News from the Baumkamp

2009-05-24T23:32:00.000-07:00

To update you on Papi's wellbeing: The procedure did not take the route of approaching the ureter to the kidney via the bladder. When the surgeon saw him that morning he explained that only 2 out of 10 trials are successful when a patient has a neo-bladder like Papi does. They simply don't find the entrance. Instead they decided to poke into the kidney through the side. When they did they found it was well inflamed and nothing else could be done. To drain her, they installed a so called "Fistel", a small little tube that drains the kidney out to the side and into a bag that hangs strapped to the upper thigh.

So far so good.

The draining of the puss and the administration of heavy antibiotics has cleared the inflammation, and the disturbing backaches of the past months that have worried him as much as the announcement of his kidney's reduced life force disappeared almost instantly.

The new focus of worries became the amount of liquid the kidney now produces. This amount was small to begin with and has gone down steadily every day. It may point to the fact the this little organ is not recovering after all.

This is not really a cause for concern other than the attachment to how she is doing. A silent kidney can stay in the body without causing any harm. But Papi has put much of his hope into her picking up fuller functioning again... Both Mami and I remind him that it is all right... to me it almost feels like an extended tutorial to let go. To let go. And to let go. It's being put in front of him again and again.

I am so glad to be here during this time. To have so little work. To have all this space to be present with them. What a blessing!

A Different Emergency Room Visit

2009-05-22T12:24:00.000-07:00

Monday night my mother and I accompanied my father to the emergency room of the "UKE", Hamburgs biggest hospital.

What immensely intricate weaving, what curious circumstances that brought about me sitting there next to him. In an Emergency Room, yet again, and this time so totally different.

It was his kidney that brought us there. The problem had been revealed by a routine test his doctor had performed in April, which required another test that showed no life in the kidney at all. Which prompted another test, a CT scan, finally taken Monday morning. This still didn't provide any explanation as to why the failure had happened, and why it had happened with such incredible speed in a matter of months, when apparently such a process normally takes years.

His doctor, dissatisfied with the findings of the CT scan sent him straight to the hospital, to put Papi into the hands of more experts. The hospital in turn, booked out as they are weeks in advance, suggested over the phone to use the route via the emergency room, to get in more quickly, and thus we arrived there the three of us on the same evening, not in a very emergency kind of way, properly fed by a German dinner of whole grain breads and various cheeses, smoked ham and liverwurst, a small overnight bag in tow neatly packed just in case, and a book, and chocolate covered rice cakes for more nourishment in my purse.

>From the waiting room I watched the ambulances through the glass partition and the large glass doors pull up in front of the hospital, delivering their patients, all older looking citizens in various states of coma or sedation, eyes mostly closed, white hairs ruffled, and I thought back to the moments when I had been wheeled through the entrances to the three emergency rooms I had been delivered to... not so very long ago.

The TV suspended from the ceiling in the corner of the room was silently showing a large patch of fertile soil, hands putting seeds into the ground, a program on gardening maybe. The check in desk flaunted a startling deep blue glass front, the wall behind the staff was of the same dark blue, surrounded everywhere by white and metal and glass... this building was brand new. The sun fell in at a low angle through the pale yellow vertical blinds behind us, bathing the space in the quiet golden light of northern summer evenings.

So quiet here. So little drama. The waiting room harbored five more people, none of them visibly injured or troubled. My father patiently next to me. Worried. Quiet.

Odd to be there on the opposite side of experience, as the support team. So much more clarity about the whole process, so much more overview, more detachment.

That day had started with an vigorous upbeat: after weeks of pushing away the worries over what might be wrong with his kidney, weeks of fending off fears of reentering the hospital system that 4 years ago had held him in an embrace so long and tight, he almost hadn't returned home, he came back from the CT scan beaming with the surprise announcement that his kidney was not completely dead. This sigh of relief turned into a silent dread after his regular urologist sounded the alarm bell and insisted he go to the hospital... instantly. Even my mother, who can be counted on to remind everyone that whatever it was, THIS was just what was meant to be happening, and who had kept a calm and cheerful attitude on this subject throughout these past weeks, all of a sudden grew unusually somber and small voiced, and I could hear the fear creeping into her imagination.

This anxiety was still with them in the waiting room, was still with them in the private treatment room we were led to were I ate more of the rice cakes and read to them from the book, a chapter on hunting with birds of pray. It was hard for my father to let himself relax, he wanted to see the doctor NOW and after we had waited in there for another 30 min, he went outside into the hall to inquire in his polite way how much longer it would be.

Another hour further into the evening the mood had shifted yet again, and we were merrily driving back home, playing out our little family jokes, and laughing our little family laughs.

The doctor had simply shown us the likelihood of new possibilities and a fairly easy way through this mystery. A tiny camera into the bladder, a tiny stick into the tube to the kidney, a little patience to let it drain out and the reasonable probability that the organ would recover. None of it sounded so bad any longer.

It's so interesting how easily we get pulled lockstep into the automatic alignment with anxiety, I had to consciously word out for myself a different perspective, because when I investigated closely enough I actually could find no harm in these events, and since Papi came back with the "bad" news I had looked for ways to pass through the barrier of gloom. To shake up my parents' instant evaluation of what this experience must mean... could mean. Of what was to follow. Interesting. All this up and down, all this fear and hope riding upon nothing but different interpretations. Spinning different stories into the future. His actual state of wellbeing had not changed, not a bit. The present moment had remained completely neutral.

When I woke up the next morning, it occurred to me what an enormous burden is hoisted into a crisis when we allow an evaluation to take place before something has happened. When we get sucked into wanting a certain development and rejecting another one. Because we THINK the first thing will be better for us than the second. What arrogance really! But more so: what ignorance! HOW in the world can we know??? We don't!!

When my journey began, I thought the worst thing that could happen was for the cysts not to respond. If they responded only a little - that would not be so great, if they shrank clearly enough - that would be good, and if they disappeared - well, that would be fantastic. I thought I knew what this whole thing was going to be about, as if it was a task that was testing my performance. Consequently I could excel or I could fail. What a huge misunderstanding! This may really be the biggest revelation for me, and it was yet again pointed out to me even more clearly over the past days watching my father stumble through his experience like I had stumbled through mine. Life never makes a mistake. I dare to think it may really be true that life offers us nothing but opportunities of expansion and greater wholeness, that we are held in this dance by a love so vast it is difficult to comprehend. That our power lies not so much in our ability to create what we want, from our limited, oh so limited perspective, but in understanding that what we encounter IS what we have created as the limitless oneness that we really are and that we only need to say YES.

I believe that's what I learned from my life when the worst thing I had feared happened to me. And I learned that it was good. No, actually more than that: Exquisite.

So, Papi's worst fear was to go back into the hospital where the nightmare of four years ago had begun. On top of that right now a hospital that, according to various reports, had not yet ironed out it's renovation chaos, after moving into the new facility... oh, fertile ground for a multitude of things to go wrong, for mistakes, poor coordination, miscommunication, malfunctioning this and thats...

As life had prepared this miraculously unfolding series of events for him, he had nothing but smooth alignment. Fast response in the Emergency room, swift transfer into the urology clinic the next day, instant admission into the beautiful outpatient facility the following day, and a successful procedure with the friendliest staff he had ever encountered. A surgeon who personally called back to see how he was doing two days later!

His journey isn't over, but now it is clear it WILL be different from last time.

Applying a new way of thinking

2009-05-11T07:50:00.000-07:00

I am in Waabs, Schleswig Holstein, about one and a half hours north of Hamburg, in my brothers new house.

The new house is really a very old house, thatched roof and all, sitting right smack next to a rolling wheat field, ancient oak trees residing on the little bank that nestles the end of the property, bright yellow canola flower fields glowing through more rows of majestic oaks a bit further in the distance. The Baltic Sea is but five minutes away on the other side. Quite the place to live.

My sister in law is a beekeeper among other things. She has 8 hives and intends to expand to 20 or more in the next years, now that she has the land to welcome them.

On Saturday we were invited to a fellow beekeepers home for "Maibowle", a traditional beverage of champagne and white wine enriched with the luscious aroma of sweet woodruff, which must have been picked just before flowering, wilted for a day, and then steeped in the wine for 12 hours.

The father, who is not only the beekeeper, but also the stay at home dad, and takes care of their three children who attend the local Waldorf School while his wife does the working, is also the main cook in the family. Native to the Black Forest area in southern Germany, he has brought with him a love for French cooking, and thus we were served warm buttery, crispy, cheese and chives cookies, alongside the cocktails, and a pizza-dough-like thin bread with onion and smoked ham sprinkled on top, completed by more exquisite German breads of different s grains. This accompanied platters of fragrant cheeses, and culminated in a homemade creme brulee their daughter had prepared for all of us.

They had invited another four of their friends and as the evening unfolded the conversations became more interesting.

After we had wandered through the topic of teenage drinking, which unbeknownst to me has apparently grown rampant in Germany, and reached the 13 to 14 year olds who now engage in something called "coma drinking", we landed on the related subject of disillusionment, loss of hope and future, and the expected environmental collapse of our planet.

The picture of course is very grim, the evidence and prognosis do seem pretty inevitable, and at our table all of this naturally funneled into an accusation of the people in power who hadn't done anything to turn it around. Why are they so blind, so short sighted, so egotistical?... which is most often accompanied, even if not outspoken, by a deep sense of helplessness. There is simply nothing that can turn this around, now that capitalism is reigning the planet, there is not even an alternative left, and the human greed in the end will have eradicated all human life.

At some point I noticed that something inside of me spoke up against this line of argumentation, against this way of thinking. Quietly at first and without a coherent counter-argument. Not knowing what my counter argument was, I just kept my mouth shut for a while. But I thought of what I just had been through. Thought of my conviction that anything "negative" only looks that way, but doesn't hold up if you start looking for something that is there for you, hidden at first, most of the time, but surprising and so immensely enriching when you find it. If this was true, wasn't it true always, for everybody and on any scale? I thought so. Personal as this belief was, it felt too fragile and insubstantial to voice in this circle of total strangers. But there was something I should be able to say, no?

Our planet "Gaia" herself jumped into my awareness, and I offered the view of her as a living organism, one that is perfectly capable to maintain her life force, as one that has an overwhelming amount of wellbeing in her capacity and as one who goes through periods of rebalancing and cleansing, much like the human body is capable of as well.

This window I had opened, was quickly shut again by the response that: Oh yes, or planet would certainly survive, but the human species would certainly not. The proponent was a teacher at the local public school, he had also been the one who had reported to us the alarming news of teenage drinking.

In this way we meandered through more territory, tossing a couple more balls back and forth. Dinosaurs had certainly gone extinct, hadn't they? They had been much too specialized. Yes, but look at the overall evolution of life. It's always become more complex. Hasn't life always expanded, and shouldn't we expect that this expansion will continue in some form? How can we think that the consciousness that has expanded in this way will cut itself off, rather than expand further?

Form there I hopped onto the evolutionary jumps, the theory that evolution does not always run along gradual developments but makes sudden and creative jumps. From water to the land... from the land to the air. Another participant offered the term of the creative gene that had been discovered in evolution... yes that was exactly what I meant. And who knows maybe we'll evolve very suddenly into a species that can breathe CO2?

It is hard not to get pulled into the realm of evidence, proofs, arguments and counterarguments... it was only at the very end that I was able to put into words more closely what I really wanted to say:

Yes, we can look at all the depressing data and conclude we'll go down the drain, but mustn't we look for something else? Even if we ourselves don't know of a different economical way to live as a society, even if we don't see a new model emerging somewhere, what we must hold up is the hope, and even the conviction that it... that we will go on. Because only out of this conviction and this consciousness will the very ideas and discoveries be born that we quite desperately need. Only in dreaming it up will we participate in this process, only in not giving into a fatalism, only by not fighting against what is, only by looking for the better ways, the new solutions, the possibilities, by holding love and life in our hearts will we be able to contribute something to it. That's personally what I want to do. Contribute something.

And at that point the hosts came back in from the kitchen with their daughter and served us the creme brulee.

The Known and the Unknown

2009-05-07T06:58:00.000-07:00

(Written on the airplane - Wednesday 5/6/09)

Another car experience, this time on my way to pick up Jimmy at the airport. Last Sunday.

Out of Nassau I turned on the radio. The program was "selected shorts", some oratorally talented person reading someone else's verbally talented writing that had culminated in a short story in front of an audience somewhere in New York City. They broadcast this every Sunday.

I only heard the the first couple of sentences the reader began the story with.

As I was listening I noticed I didn't really want to hear more. I wondered why. I had enjoyed this program in the past, not often, but often enough. Was it his voice? Too agitated? No. Not really. Hmm... I guessed I was simply not in the mood for this today. Now, wait a minute, what did this really mean? Not in the mood for what? Because truly, I didn't even know what the story would be about. Not a clue, right? Not in the mood... for what then? ... Ahh! To be taken somewhere without knowing where the ride would go. Yes! That was it. I wasn't in the mood for the unknown, not in the mood to surrender in some way.

All right, fair enough. And I switched the channel.

I typically only use two radio channels in my car: WAMC or WMHT. The latter one is the local classical music station, and it was in the middle of broadcasting a piano piece. A few chords, and within seconds I knew, that I knew this piece. A sonata. Mozart. I knew the cords that would follow, the melody, the tempo, indeed the whole thing. I owned the recording of course. It wasn't the first time I recognized a music piece on the radio, it happens all the time, but that morning I was startled by how fast my brain had processed the data. Three chords or so and my brain had located the entire memory file. How few combination of notes and sounds had it been that had entered my ears? And after those first seconds, there was no surprise left where this piece was going. How many times might I have heard it in the past? How many repetitions had it been that created this imprint, this knowing of every single note in this piece? I had no idea. Not THAT many though.

Wow! What an amazing capability really. To recognize something familiar that instantly. Hearing this music now I felt the difference between knowing something and how safe it makes us feel, and not knowing what to expect. I could feel it in my bones. It didn't matter that it was Mozart, that the mood was untroubled and sunny. It could have been Beethoven or Mahler. It could have been dramatic or dark. It would still feel safe. Peaceful in the gut. Recognition. Knowing what comes next. Must have served us during the eons of evolving into the species we are today. Staying on track, knowing your tribe, your home, your kin, your friends and your enemies. No wonder it feels safe, it must have been what helped us survive then.

Maybe that's why it is so hard to leave habits behind, even when they are unhealthy ones, even when they cause us some suffering. Rather keep what's familiar than surrender to something we don't know... even when this something is just a little short story.

Latest Brags...

2009-05-07T06:53:00.000-07:00

(Written at the Airport - Wednesday, 5/6/09)

I brag I don't feel the scar, or the belly, or my inside any more at all, other than in a normal way.

I brag I hiked up the ridge at the Audubon Society in Lenox with Jimmy, about 700 ft elevation and though still a little slower than my pace would have been in the past, I made it to the top and felt great!!!

I brag Dr Beth at the Center told me that I am doing FANTASTIC after not even two months of surgery.

I brag I created two events at the Center for Integrative Health and Healing, right when I return, mapped out time line, content, dates and space and designed two beautiful fliers.

I brag I plowed through all the departure obstacles that still hung over me, mercury retrograde style, three days ago: no tenant in my studio rental, no place nor a house sitter for Jacky, a ton of bills to pay, a garden in dire straights, and a million of those little insignificant things that I held in my awareness as something I wanted to get done before I left. - Now I have a wonderful tenet moving in on 5/15, a great place for Jacky to stay at a discount, our wonderful Yoga teacher staying at our house when Jimmy too leaves for Germany and a willing and multi talented young guy who will take care if the garden and the mowing during our absence.

I brag I stayed up until 1:15 last night to get everything done and caught up on sleep in the train down to the city.

I brag I even manifested a place to park my car and a ride to Amtrak in Hudson after dropping Jimmy off at Albany airport first thing in the morning.

I brag I will be on the road by car, Amtrak, NJTransit, Airtrain and Plane for 16 and a half hours before my father picks me up at Hamburg airport and I will be totally fine.

I brag I held a space open to have one on one time with our Suzi, who discovered there were cysts in her belly just one month and one day after my surgery, and who will have surgery herself on the day of Patrice's and my birthday on June 1st... and I brag I still hold that space to talk with her before then.

I am grateful for my body doing all this miraculous repair work all by itself.

I am grateful for having spent so much time on skype with my sister in Chile, and feeling so close to her.

I am grateful to be able to visit my brother and his wife in their now house in the country.

I am grateful for having a lot more free time during my stay in Hamburg than usual, the bulk of which will flow into being with my parents. I am grateful to know how precious that is.

I am grateful for Jimmy for interrupting his time in Florida and flying up home for 3 and a half days, just so we can spend some time together before I leave.

I desire to manifest just a couple more clients in Hamburg, just so the trip feels financially yummy and comfortable.

I desire to stay open to the unknown, the mystery and the joy of life.

I desire to create a very fulfilling time for Jimmy and me during our visit to Berlin.

I desire to have fun and a good connection with Anina when we are there.

I desire to have a beautiful birthday celebration in Hamburg.

I desire to have a glorious summer, with many projects that milk the possibilities of being without any children.

I desire to have a very successful double event at the the center in Delmar upon my return. I envision at least 20 people for the introductory event and at least 15 participants for the full day workshop.

New Awareness

2009-04-30T05:51:00.000-07:00

Monday, 5/27/09

I had a realization today.
In the car on my way to the city.
I don't recall what triggered this succession of thoughts. But they are important and I will try to recreate them here.

There are several experiences that came together like a mosaic, to allow me to arrive at this new realization.

The first one was the news that one of my German clients had died. Rose had still been young, in her thirties, mother of a small child and she was suffering from a recurring form of colon cancer. When she came to me a year and a half ago, the medical world had told her that she should put her things into order, because there was nothing much they could do for her. Yet she had felt this surge of conviction that she could make it through this third bout of cancer. I had only been able to work with her twice, in between I had been wondering whether I should have given her firmer assignments, whether I should have been more demanding in her using the Journeywork more often during the months while I could not be in Germany. Would it have made a difference? Who knows.

I was convinced, because I knew by example, that it was possible for one Journey to turn around any health situation - IF it hit the target. And over the years I had been waiting for an opportunity to "show off" with such a case of my own. Humbly and a little embarrassed I have to admit this now: I was looking to show off - with the best intention of course, because I believed that if I had only one spectacular case under my belt of somebody who got healed when there had been no hope, or of some condition that got turned around when nothing else had helped, that that would finally start to spread the word faster and farther than I had been able to on my own.

So, somewhat unconsciously, what I had been looking for was a situation with some public attention to show the power of the effect of the Journey, I was really still trying to demonstrate the power of healing, by delivering an undeniable proof of the result of doing this work. And the result to me was health returned, an illness conquered, a condition relieved. And while I did have lots of "smaller" successes in that way, I was never led to a situation where I had been able deliver the Journey as the cause for a major impressive victory. Victory. That was what success looked like to me. So in a way I had failed with Rose, even though the Journey brought her something she valued, though it may have even extended her life. I had failed too with William Ward, even though I only saw him once and rather briefly because he was already pretty weak. I had failed even with Alex Ballinger, because I hadn't been persistent enough to get in touch with her, and so I hadn't succeeded in at least creating a chance for myself to help her. Not all of that was there as a conscious thought in my head, but the taste of that feeling was present when I thought about Rose as I was driving down the Taconic Parkway.

And yesterday...yesterday I had gotten a letter from another client in Germany who I have worked with three times over the past years. She wrote that she had been diagnosed with tumors in her lymph tissue. That she wanted to work with me on this issue and was looking forward to seeing me again. She had decided against a medical path and, yes, she was scared. Translucent light green clouds of budding trees were streaming by outside my car window, as I remembered what I responded to her. It is a response I would not have given in the past. I wrote back saying that my first suggestion would be to examine if it really has to be an either or decision, if it might not be possible to include mainstream medicine in her healing process. That more than anything I believed this was about listening to her body, to ask her body who and where she could feel safe with, and if there were difficult decisions to be made she could imagine an image of each of the possible decisions and then merge each one of them into her body and check what that felt like.

Listening to our body. I had in fact just reminded Jimmy of that two days ago. He is down in Florida again for the big air show "Sun and Fun" - working really hard, running around on the airstrip during the day, sun beating down on the crowds, making connections and lining up photo shoots and then getting up at 6 every day to be in the air with the soft morning light, and often again in the evening. After a couple of days he is worn out, his voice so tired at night... but he wants to take every opportunity to schedule more work, and be able to deliver the written stories right away to the magazine too. So I had to remind him to stop. To say NO. To listen to his body. To not wear himself out... for what? To take a nap when his body is calling out like this. Wasn't that what we both had learned during the past months? Sure enough, yesterday he gave in and slept 4 hours straight in the middle of the day. Thank God!

Listening to our body. Maybe that was a major ability I needed to teach my clients from now on? Just as important as doing the Journey itself? It was, wasn't it? That's how I had learned what I needed to learn on my healing path. That's how I had made many of the major decisions.

Listening to our body and being open to discovering something new. Yes. That was the other big thing hat had happened. In the beginning I thought I knew where this path was going to lead me. I had expected to heal my body with the Journey and maybe other natural healing tools and to deliver my own proof of the power of this work. And then I had to experience that that's not what it was about. Had the Journey healed my body? No. But had it been the tool to help me understand what this passage was really about? Yes! And... had my body healed in the end? Yes, absolutely.

Discovering something new. Yes, that was the second piece. And this too should be an essential part of everybody's healing process. It makes sense doesn't it? After all if what we know and do and believe and understand so far contained the ingredients to help our body heal, it would have done that already. Just as Brandon discovered something totally new when she found the Journey, we too need to expect that there is something different out there for us to integrate into our lives, something we had not known before, not in it's fullness.

Our body is nothing but the messenger. Our illness is nothing but the doorbell ringing to let this messenger talk to us.

The is somewhat how the new awareness arrived in my thinking consciousness. And by the time I was crossing the bridge over the Croton Reservoir, the rosy sunset sky reflecting like liquid gold in the still water, filling the air like a soft haze that made you want to stop and touch it... this realization was there with utter clarity:

"As a healer I am not here to help your body heal. That can not be our primary goal. It is not our job to conquer your illness either.

Rather I am here to help you welcome this messenger and find out what your body and your life is trying to tell you. Your illness or your physical condition is not here trying to defeat you, it is not an error or a failure that it has arrived in your life; on the contrary it is here to help you discover something you have not be able to notice on your own, a different way of seeing, of understanding and living life. The success of any interaction between us therefore is not that the illness will disappear, but that you will reach an expanded, liberated and truer way of living your life. And most likely your body repairs itself or lets itself be repaired in the process."

Friday, 4/24/09

Oh, it is a glorious spring day outside. The kitchen door is open, the warm air is entering the house. The crocuses are long gone, the daffodils are past their peak and the tulips are starting to show the first hints of color in their green budding blossoms. The grass soon will need cutting. Bird voices float through the air again, everywhere. The trees are still bare and so the house is bright with sunlight, like at no other time of year.

I have slowly, bit by bit, raked and picked more leaves off the flowerbeds. I have done this almost leisurely, without any deadline pressure, stopped before finishing all of it and might not ever do more this year, liking that.

Amongst all this reawakening of life it feels odd to talk about death.

Last weekend I went to a funeral on Shelter Island. "Dad", as I would still call him in my mind, had passed away, 4 days after my surgery. I only was his daughter for 11 months, 32 years ago, when I stayed as an exchange student with him, his wife and four children. I hadn't know he was so ill. I hadn't even seen him in probably 10 or 12 years. I wasn't so close to him, and yet there was a sadness, yet I shed some heavy tears when I saw my brother and sisters speak about him from the pulpit in that little presbyterian Church. Life gone. Irreversibly. That day too, had been beautiful and sunny.

Three days ago my mother told me she believes she would not live that much longer. How she arrived at this conviction is a bigger story, and may be told another time. She is very certain about this. It didn't shock me to hear her say that, because I didn't believe her, it really just didn't feel right, as if this was clearly an error. Maybe I am too attached to her being around, even as far away as she is in Hamburg, that I could feel this out with enough neutrality to get a more accurate sense of the truth? Possible. But then she has given false alarm before. Why not again now? I sat with it for a while.

Yesterday I returned after a long break to my Buddhist study and meditation group. Lilia is standing by the stove stirring up some tea to make her delicious chai from scratch. She puts a book in my hand and says: I've been studying this with Susan, will you read to me while I finish making the chai? She opens up the chapter they are in: "Preparing for death, the Bardo stages of dying". (!...) Some synchronicity.
After reading I mention this coincidence. Lilia thinks I need to go to Bardor Tulku Rinpoche, after all he wrote this book that landed in my hands today, and ask him to pray, once it happens. To ensure her soul gets the ultimate highest opening and guidance for this transition onto the highest possible rebirth. Actually to have him pray for a long and healthy life first, but to be ready, just in case. It so happens there is an anniversary celebration tomorrow in Red Hook for the new monastery he is building. Wow. Everything she says kind of makes sense. Is that really what I want to do though? I don't get a clear answer from within one way or the other. Not for a whole day. Mami too doesn't really care whether I put this bid in for her or not, as long as it works for me.

Finally today I called the number on the pamphlet. A Tibetan monk answers and happily agrees to everything I ask for, until I realize he doesn't really understand at all what I am talking about. He gives me another number, but no one is there. I could just go and see what happens.

This morning Mami sounded so well on the phone, her voice so clear and strong. Her cough is almost gone, her strength has returned so much faster than she would have thought possible, she too has been in her garden, working alongside the rising juices of spring, surprised at how much she got done. Her conviction though remains unchanged. She thinks she might not make it through the summer. Not into the winter anyway. My siblings have no idea about any of it. Not yet.

I am surprised how calm I am. I think about it and talk to her without any inner drama. It feels curiously non-uncomfortable. Maybe because I can't really imagine it will happen so soon? But then I have considered she may be right...

The Buddhists really think of death as nothing but a passage into the next life. One we have made soo often since the beginning of time. They say if all the bodies we have ever lived in were all piled up, it would make a mountain taller than the highest one on earth. I do find that hard to imagine. And also: If we only remembered all that, death would seem like nothing more than going to sleep at night, when you know you'll wake up the next day. That of course makes total sense.

Saturday 4/25/09

I decided I would go to Redhook even without an interview lined up. I wrote a short letter making my request, printed out a picture of my parents, and wrote out a 60 dollar donation check. I surely would be able to give this to someone there.

When I arrive, nicely early by 30 minutes, in order to get one of the good seats right in front near the Rinpoche, I am greeted by two monks in the driveway. The house is small, and overlooks the empty building shell, shining through a stand of elm trees, that will become the monastery. Behind it rise the blue outlines of the Catskill mountains. Curiously there are no seats to reserve in the living room, people just wander about somewhat aimlessly, so I sit down outside on the entrance steps to call Jimmy. People are coming in in bigger droves now. A couple is taking off their shoes next to me. The young monk who had greeted me in the driveway starts chatting with them, and suddenly I hear him say: "There was a woman who wanted to have an interview, I hope she can get here early enough." What did he just...?... oh my God, that must be me!! I turn around, smile at him with utter surprise and jump up. Wow. He smiles too, happy. I am literally flabbergasted."Oh, that was you I talked to yesterday?! I though you hadn't understood me! I can see the Rinpoche?" He nods more smiles: "Yes, yes, please. Please follow."

And that's how life took care of me, not letting me miss my appointment. Well done.

On my way to his private chamber, I incidentally saw that the meditation room was upstairs, and did have cushions set up, so I was able to reserve a seat after all.

The Rinpoche shook my hand with kind eyes, nodded with a little smile upon hearing Lilia's name, listened to my little story, nodded knowingly, took Mami's picture, yes, of course he will pray, slipped it into a shelf right next to him, then my letter and the donation envelope too... and then I was done.

Afterward, on my way back over to our schools senior project presentations, with ample amounts of blessed and lovingly cooked food in my belly, and memories of several friendly and interested conversations with new people I met, I wondered whether this Buddhist community might be one of the "other", "bigger" groups I would get connected to. Maybe that was the real purpose leading me there today? Who knows.

Hormone Creams, Anger and Apple Cider Vinegar

2009-04-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

This is the more technical update.

Hot flashes.

I never expected those to show up in my life. No really. I never had any PMS, cramps, mood swings, or any of that "female" stuff, and I assumed that would mean I'd get to skip all the troubles with menopause too. Not so. Not that they are bad. I understand that I am suffering from pretty mild forms of them, and yet they are hitting me with a harsh suddenness and are uncomfortable enough to get my full attention.

I know some of you have been through them, right? I remember Carol tearing off her sweater with that distinct urgency I now understand, more than once.

But, really, what the heck are these????

Why do our bodies need to produce all this heat? What exactly is happening inside of us when that goes on? I want a diagram of the chemical reactions, please! Oh, I am sure I could look this up on the internet, but I have been too lazy. No, that is actually not the right word any longer. I have chosen to honor other priorities that were part of my physical healing.

At this point I have been on estrogen and progesterone creams for 25 days. The flashes started about 5 days prior to that. Not much of a difference, as far as I remember the beginning.

I am hearing from some people it can take up to six months until the bioidentical hormone mix has been adjusted to fit the exact needs of the body... then they do go away.

I am also hearing, from Beth at the center in Delmar, that it is not always a question of the hormones, that it is also a question of the emotions. Wow! Hadn't heard that before. Yes, especially emotions in the realm of anger. Ohhhhh - ANGER!

Well, that means something to me. It means something to me as the 9 personality type in the enneagram. We 9s are the ones who want to avoid feelings of anger at any cost. We can't help it, we have been wired that way, we'd rather swallow our pride, deny our truth, stay silent, or go comatose than cause anger in the people around us, let alone feel it ourselves. I have come a long way, I mean, a looooooong way in liberating myself from this fixation... but who knows what is still in there??? That was my immediate thought when Beth mentioned it.

She felt I might even be able to access the emotion that is hiding in a flash when it comes, just by welcoming it... and that sounded great, much like journeywork, yeah I would try that!!!... but, no, I couldn't find anything. Maybe I am not doing it quite right, but the flash is so strong and so immediate and so physical, if there is an emotion, it slips through my investigative fingers like a fish in the water, whoops, gone, ooops, gone again, impossible to hold on to anything.

Meditation Mantra. That sounded great too. Om na ma shivaya. I had been chanting that in Uwe's Yoga class for years. She feels it is the practicing of deliberate focusedness for the mind. If done regularly in the morning, it sets the tone for the entire day. And then reciting it when the flash comes, it could immediately link me back into that free expansiveness in which a hot flash no longer thrives. So, admittedly I have not been able to do THAT. I have been repeating the mantra whenever a flash comes, and at night that does seem to help to go back to sleep again a little faster. I recite it during the day too, whenever it comes to my mind and that is several times... I even repeat the mantra on most days when I first wake up in the morning, but do I sit and practice for at least 10 minutes? EVERY day? No. So maybe this doesn't count as not working... it gets a maybe.

Last week when I had three flashes in a row, still in bed, right in the morning, Jimmy said:"I am going to look this up now, on earthclinic!" and whipped out his i-phone. This has become one of his favorite morning activities; still in bed, the i-phone is launched within seconds from it's resting spot on the bedside table. Important e-mail messages, weather reports, hang gliding blogs, or medical research.. you name it... a constant source of joy when he can find all this information right there at his fingertips... literally.

And earthclinic is one of his favorite sites... and because it really IS a great site, I'll give you the link right here. http://earthclinic.com/ When you go to the "ailments" tab, you can look up anything you are suffering from, and you'll get a list of the most successful home remedies people have reported on. Complete with testimonials. Check it out. Now, what you'll find is that at the top of most conditions that can be bothersome in a human body, it will give you apple cider vinegar as the top ranking remedy. So Jimmy was joking when he said, now they will recommend apple cider vinegar to you too. And lo and behold that is exactly what he found. 16 "Yea" Reports, way more than anything else, some of them stunning. No "Nay"s at all.

So, I started on ACV too. Twice a day. And while we do know that it is great for almost every single function and system in the body, it didn't really make a difference in the hot flashes either. ( I guess I should send in a "Nay"...)

This last weekend at the Journey in NJ, I thought I'll use the the physical journey exchange to find the root of the flashes. It took me to my marriage with Constantin. All the arguments we ever had. All the feelings of not being understood in the core of my soul, of being seen as something I was not... all the pain of separateness as it was becoming more and more evident, and all the ways I myself had contributed to that. Cleared that up. Cried a lot of old tears. Forgave and have been forgiven. Ahhh, yes, it does feel good. Will it help with the flashes? We'll see.

Circles, ever expanding.

2009-04-21T13:35:00.001-07:00

This is my first catching up piece.

It is important and it dates back over two weeks now, to April 8th: our last mooncircle, the day before Jimmy's birthday.

Remembering right now how much weaker I felt then, how much slow deliberate effort it took to get the house ready to welcome everyone here, it already seems like eons ago.

We had several highlights waiting for us. There was the exuberant joy of reunion for the Antiguan travelers, complete with the countless bubbles of memories that, depending on the content, ignited sighs of gratitude and awe, waves of giggles or roaring laughter... pictures and little computer-slide-shows documenting the places and special events... giving Annabel and me the feeling of alomost having been there... there was the rich random collection of utterly beautiful dishes for our potluck meal together... there even were rounds of gift giving: tokens of gratitude from Jimmy and me to all of them, tokens of success from her life as a publisher from Annabel to all of us, and tokens of memories from Antigua from Maria and Sarah to everyone... and... there was the "sandpainting", a ritual/creative manifestation piece that Patrice was going to teach us.

Patrice had learned this in her shaman training and found it to be a powerful and fun tool for transformation, so she wanted to pass it on to us.

You basically take a flat tray and fill it with rice or sand or grain and put on it whatever you have in your house and garden that represents in your eyes what it is you want to shift in your life. In that way you create a threedimensional manifestation with stones or shells, ribbons, leaves, twigs, beads or pictures, of how you wish for some thing, person or event to unfold or evolve in your life. She also gave us a bunch of stunning example stories, things that had happened to her after using this, more things that had happened to her teacher, so we were juiced up. Pretty exciting!

A sweet little meditation to allow us to tune into what it was we wanted to play with today made the beginning. As I had no intention or plan of what I was going to use it for, I went into this meditation with a kind of innocent openness. And as she started to speak, I was drawn to look at what the larger outcome of my "cystal" experience might be, drawn to not decide or make something up in my mind, but to let myself be guided to the potential outcome that was offering itself.

And all of a sudden there was a burst of new awareness, a recognition of so much all at once, it will be hard to put it into separate sentences, because there was no sequence to this experience, it hit me all at once like a tidal wave. Within seconds tears of gratitude were running down my face, keeping silent as much as I could, so not to interrupt the meditation for anyone else.

This is what I saw:
There was me, the two cysts outside my body, and I was surrounded by all the women in the mooncircle, and the wave of support, love and connection I had begun to feel during this time was radiating out beyond them. The oneness I had been able to feel, this feeling of nonseparateness, that for me was now most noticeable as the unfamiliar and complete absence of needing to prove myself, needing to earn recognition, needing to find evidence of being valued or loved... needing to do all this stuff, making all this... yes, effort really, in sharing something really moving, or valuable, or insightful, or funny... all these doubts whether I had the right to take up as much time as some of the other women did in circle, whether what I was contributing to the circle was after all not as interesting or meaningful as other women's stuff... all this little nasty debris... all this mental clutter... was now... gone.

All that was there was immense gratitude, love and an unshakable connection. And all this was now ready to expand beyond this circle. It felt like a promise was given to me: I would be able to have this experience with other, more groups of people. Larger and larger ones. Potentially I could feel this connected to the entire world. Oh, my, God! Had I not been wishing for this? Ohhhhhh, how unspeakably beautiful! Living life like that.

When I began to lay down the pieces on my platter (which incidentally was round) I found a couple of little tiny folded paper stars, and for some reason those had to be the first small circle surrounding me (as a fat little seashell, which had been a gift from my sister). I didn't know what they represented, just followed the guidance. Then came the circle of small seashells, 12 of them, one for every moonwoman, then some green stones connecting to the outside rim of black beans and red beans, lots of them, topped by several old tribal beads from Africa and South America. Later a few red Cardinal feathers were added that arched back from the outside rim to myself in the center. Something would return to me, this too a circle closing.

It wasn't until it was my turn to share my discoveries, that I realized the small inner circle of stars stood for my other group, my WOT sisters. Yes, that too was true, wasn't it? This was indeed the first group I had felt safe in, the first group in which I felt seen and unconditionally accepted in, even though I had met these women much later in life than some of my friends in the mooncircle. It was in this group that I had gained the courage in to speak up with more uncomfortable feelings of lack and neediness. It was the springboard from which this amazing experience in my mooncircle had happened. Yes.

Thorough as I am, I counted the puffy little stars: 6 of them. Hmmmm, yet there were 9 of us in our WOT group... oh, but there was me of course in the middle, oh and Mary, of course already represented in the outside circle! that made 8, so: just one star short. How interesting! Well, I guessed maybe the guidance couldn't be expected to be that accurate... and I let it go. Until the next day.

After breakfast I walked by the antiques console in the living room, when my eyes caught a small glimmer of blue, and there: of all things hiding between this and that was: another paper star!! Circle complete.

And speeding up

2009-04-16T11:24:00.001-07:00

I am writing this less for you all to read, I am writing this more for completion sake... and for my more distant blog readers...

I am thinking more and more often that my whole experience might be material for a book, and so I want to keep collecting these little pearls as they happen and keep writing them down... in my mind all of it is starting to take the shape of a long necklace, which right now hangs open and still incomplete somewhere in space, but at some point I expect everything that is still unanswered will have received a response and I will know this story has come full circle and the necklace is ready to be closed. Who knows how long that may take?

As my activities speed up now, I need to be diligent not to loose the continuity between what had happened and what is unfolding day by day.

The last week was so full, I hardly had a moment to catch my breath.

Thursday, as you may remember, was Jimmy's birthday, and we took off in the afternoon to pick up his daughter Jamie at the airport in Boston. We had it all lined up with a super bargain room through priceline at the Hyatt right downtown, a nice birthday dinner with Jamie, a good night sleep and a whole day ahead of us to see the town.

I had been feeling pretty good and much stronger, so I figured I could really do this. And I could, but wow, did I feel like an old woman again. Jimmy and Jamie, genetically matched in their desire and ability to see and do and pack into one day as much as most people would in two, half of the time forgot they had a hobbling old lady in tow, and there where a multitude of little moments when they, happily chatting away, within a couple of steps had left me yards behind them in the dust. Unique experience. More than once my presence forced them to take a taxi, when they would have probably chosen to stay on foot... but, ohhh, was I grateful for those car seats to sink into.

Packed as that day was, we didn't arrive back home until 1:00 am in the morning. By that time I was so worn out that any harsh word or unexpected challenge could have reduced me to tears.... gratefully I was able to sail straight into bed.

Not a whole lot of resting the next day, because I had promised myself I'd go to see the closing gallery talk for Karen's show in the morning (...and was I glad I did!)... and then there was Anina, with less than two days at home, who needed to pack and plan and organize and get herself ready to leave to Berlin on Sunday. Oh my God, these were my last few hours with her?

Sunday itself presented another sizable hurdle, as I had committed to host 10 people for an Easter/Good-Bye-Anina lunch with an obligatory leg of lamb and some vegetarian substitutes for Anina herself. And yes, everyone was very willing to help, but the orchestration and all the last second little this and thats were all in my hand... A bit of an emotional roller coaster of celebrating, immediately and jarringly followed by a flood of departure tears, the private pain of leaving her boyfriend behind, now visible to everyone. It was hard not to start crying right along with her, and heartbreaking to see her so sad... So, let me just say: that day too was A LOT.

Finale to Jamie's visit followed on Monday, and since I had not really been able to spend any more time with her, I had to catch up with that on Monday and participate in a mad dash to see the Sol Lewitt show at MassMoca before rushing back over to Albany to get Jamie on the 2:55pm train to NYC. As details sprinkeled in you can picture us trying to add a breakfast at the Hancock Shaker Village to the schedule, which had to be adjusted, because contrary to their website they do not serve a breakfast there any longer... which tossed us into a diner type operation with an antiseptic ambience north of Pittsfield that served my eggs Florentine with a dash of some nauseating chemical somehwere in the english muffin, ...the plan to leave me at the Clarke, in order to see the Toulouse Lautrec exhibit, because I had already seen Sol Lewitt twice also needed a substitute, since the Clarke is closed on Mondays... and because in spite of yelling as loud as I could, neither one of them heard me in the car driving off... I ended up hobbling all the way to main street to find a cafe to sit down in... and there at least a marzipan roibos tea with a delightful almond biscotti made up for the ill-fated breakfast...

Tuesday was our first day of an empty nest, but that didn't quiet sink in yet, plus I had my very first Journey session scheduled and on that account felt quite back on track with life.

Which brings me to yesterday when I started writing this piece, a day that finally... let... out... a... big... long... sigh... of... a... breath. .......Ahhhh.

Still need to take life a little bit slower.

Slowing down...

2009-04-06T10:19:00.001-07:00

A brief observation I wanted to get written down before this part of my experience might begin to fade.

Slowing down.

I had to do that a lot, an immense lot.

And you know how much I like speed. Don't like to drive slow, don't like to walk slow, don't like to do things slowly... everything was always best when done with speed, focus and efficiency. This had become so much my second nature that I had somewhat forgotten it was merely a habit and nothing but the product of my belief that there is never enough time in each day to get everything done... and those experiences of dawdling time away at my desk, of daydreaming about this and that, I had come to burden with a certain amount of guilt rather than allow myself to see it as a natural balancing out that my deeper nature was providing for me.

Last weekend, when I was down by Ooms pond, taking those baby steps through the grass, very carefully at first on the uneven ground, and measuring my expanding capacity by how many benches I could reach to sit down on... all of a sudden on my way back up, as I was passing by one of the old apple trees, I felt the beauty of this slowness. A starling was singing up in the bare branches, and continued to sing as I was passing underneath the tree. My feet were touching the ground slowly, slowly the trunk was approaching with all it's bark and tiny moss pieces clinging to it so gracefully, slowly the filigree of branches floated by above my head, the wind moving through my hair, past my head further up passing through them, slowly the dry grasses to my left were revealing the little holes the mice had run through during the winter, and all the while the little starling kept singing cheerfully right over my head. Nature speaking to me its beautiful preciousness.

In that moment I remembered how I used to walk by this tree, how fast I used to pass it, and how little I had ever given a chance to reveal itself, and in that moment I was so glad and so grateful for having been stopped in my tracks, and within one fell swoop all apprehension of aging, all arrogance and judgement and pity that had been attached in my mind to slowing down fell away. Poofhhhh, gone. In that moment I began looking forward to becoming an old woman, walking slowly, the rush of life forever in the past.

Progress... and Hormones.

2009-04-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

Wow, this was a full week!

You wouldn't believe how much better I feel!
On Friday, just three weeks after the surgery, I embarked on my first solo outing and drove to school to help with the make up for Anina's cast's first school performance and maybe see the play... IF I felt up for that. Not only did I feel up for that, but I also went back for the first evening performance to help the second cast with make up and see the show. And I wasn't wiped out at the end of the day, just tired.

Yesterday I did give myself a bit of a break and chose not to go to Karen's special gallery viewing, even though I had really wanted to... because at night it was the final performance and Constantin, Sophia and Jimmy were going to come and see this one too.

Nini did really, really well, even though she confessed she didn't like her part. Truthfully it didn't present any fun acting challenges, big emotions, or comical juiciness... just the sweet cheerful young girl, who ends up falling in love and getting married without hardly ever leaving the shallow waters of happy composure.

A week from tomorrow she is boarding the plane to Germany!

During the week I also finished my taxes, hammered out the financial backbone of a separation agreement with Constantin, finished clearing out my office and even plucked the blanket of dead leaves from the most visible one of my flowerbeds so that the crocuses, daffodil, and tulip shoots can soak up the sunshine.

Last Saturday, when Jimmy and I went to our favorite walking place Ooms pond, I hobbled ever so slowly in small baby steps from the parking lot down to the water. Today I walked almost half way around the entire lake!

Half of the tape strips over the scar have come off and this scar looks amazing!

The hormone exploration though will take a little longer. I have now been on estrogen for about one week and the hot flashes have not gone away. They really are NOT comfortable! Maybe progesterone will make a difference? We will see. There are more questions still hidden in this experience. Maybe this is some of the NEW things I will need to discover my cysts spoke about... who knows?

Now, we are taking off to go out to dinner with everybody.
Enjoy this lovely Sunday evening!!
Tomma

Brags, Gratitudes and Desires

2009-03-30T15:25:00.000-07:00

I really love this three part thing that Suzi and Lydia and Annabel are using, so here it goes:

I brag that I have continued to clean out my files, and drawers, and boxes, and piles of paper, and stacks of envelopes from my office for the past four days!
I brag I have thrown out two large bags and four boxes worth of old papers, that are now standing in the hallway ready for the recycling bin.
I brag that I have filed bank statements and office bills dating back as far as the beginning of 2007.
I brag that I have sorted through and organized my entire tax statements for the past 10 years too.
I brag that I have started to pull together and collected about half of my expense numbers for the 2008 tax year.
I brag that I am beginning to love to come into my office now.
I brag that I have the intention and the strength to continue to do this until it is DONE, before I embark on any new projects.
I brag that I booked my trip to Hamburg for the beautiful month of May.

I am grateful beyond belief for my fellow moon-goddesses and WOT-sisters (Walking Our Talk) for all the support and love and food coming my way!!
I am grateful, so grateful to Jimmy for taking such loving good care of me, even when at times he was feeling rotten and sick and tired to the bones himself!
I am grateful Jimmy is starting to feel so much better now.
I am grateful we have all this new luxury in our TV-room/Office: a new HD TV screen, a new lovely sofa, and a new seven speaker surround-sound system. (Jimmy is even happier than me, he is like a kid in a candy store)
I am grateful to know Eve and Trice are coming tonight, and Susan is coming tomorrow!
I am grateful my body is speaking so clearly to me.
I am grateful for this amazing time of clearing, opening, learning and becoming a more fully realized human being.
I am grateful to be able to share my experiences and thoughts that seem to provide inspiration to others.
I am grateful for Spring starting to arrive and the first green shoots of crocuses and tulips showing up through the old leaves on the ground.
I am grateful to have Anina here for just two more weeks before she goes to Germany.
I am grateful that I will be able to visit to see Anina in Berlin with Jimmy and that I will be celebrating my birthday with my parents and Jimmy in Germany this year.
I am grateful to feel a flow, a guidance, and a presence beyond my limited self that does indeed carry me through each of these days.

I desire to stay open and to listen to what mysteries and new things are here for me to discover in the continuation of my larger Journey.
and... I desire to be at a white beach and a warm body of water, or in the breathtaking landscape of the southwest sometime this year.

Much much love!!
Tomma

Two Weeks and counting...

2009-03-27T17:19:00.001-07:00

Today the surgery is already two weeks in the past. Wow.

I can feel that now. More strength, definitely.
Today I didn't need to take a nap for the first time since I have come home. I'll still go to bed early though, I am sure.
I was up and sorting through papers and bills and receipts and bookkeeping stuff the entire morning, made calls to my health insurance and cleared up coverage questions... I just feel so amazingly productive! I made it through piles of papers today hadn't been able to touch in months and months. Yesterday I had already opened all my mail and that was a stack at least 10 inches high! Interesting, right? All of a sudden it was easy. It is not unpleasant, I am not rushing through this. I do it very slowly, methodically and without any inner pressure whatsoever.

It feels a bit as if all the guilt of having accumulated these piles to begin with, has just quietly melted away. I am thinking it may have been that very guilt, more than anything else, that used to make it so hard to touch these piles. It used to be something I SHOULD have done days ago, a week ago, months ago. Every single envelope used to shout at me: you are unorganized, a slob, a mess, a failure!... my whole desk used to make me sick. Now that I think about it, it seems ever quite so stupid, but I really behaved as if by ignoring those piles of mail and paper I could somehow erase the fact that I had lacked in disciplined action, diligence, and organizational skill again and again and again... and thus by ignoring them I perpetuated their very presence, and heard those loud voices of judgment wherever I looked every moment I sat at my desk. Poooohhh! What a set up!

Well, those days will soon be over.

Now, I'll actually stop and go to the kitchen to start warming up some of the deliciousnesses that still wait in my fridge from this weeks Goddesss-supplies.
Thank you my fridge-fairies Carol, and Melissa and Karen and Sarah, oh you don't know how grateful we have been for you all!!!

Much love!!!
Tomma

Honoring my Limitations

2009-03-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

Dearest friends,

Resting today. Lot of resting. Feels like I maybe overdid it a bit Monday and Tuesday. Went to see Dr Morrissey for my first post-op-check-up. Sounded pretty easy: Hop in the car, with my trusty chauffeur Jimmy, walk into the building, sit down for my appointment, be driven over the the Center for Integrative Health and Healing and pick up my hormone prescription, drive to the compounding pharmacy and pick my creams up there... and then maybe a short stop at Crossgates where I can stay in the car while Jimmy buys himself some new walking shoes.

Man! Is my body still in a different state! Not so eager to absorb every crack and pothole in the road.

After we were done at the center and our stomachs demanded a bite to eat at the really nice Java Jazz Cafe, I was sooo tired I almost fell asleep at the table.

We skipped the remaining two stops on our itinerary and went straight back home.

Yesterday I took Nini to Chatham to get some paint for the 10th grade play poster she has been working on for the entire last week. HAD to do that because Jimmy was up in Albany again getting my hormones and his shoes. Thought I do a little driving lesson with her, after all, she has her driving test this FRIDAY (yikes!!!) and I haven't been able to do anything with her all this time....

Two days on the road and my body says: STOP!!!
So I stop.
And I rest.

Just posted the full transcript of the Journey on the blog... in case any of you are interested. What source had to say to the other layers is quite interesting too.

Karen brought some bright messengers of spring that are smiling sunshine at me out of their little vase home... lovely food is waiting in the fridge, Jimmy is coming over to make lunch, afterwards I'll take a nap... I am happy.

Love!! - Tomma

Full Journey Transcript

2009-03-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

Tomma’s notes from her Journey session about the cysts:
Which I’ll call “Conversations With Cysts”

First, the emotional layers are important.

The first one was a deep and painful failure.

2nd was profound sadness.

The third was an emptiness as in a void and in a disconnection. An absence of connection.

Next I entered a neutral spaciousness. It was empty but spacious. Not uncomfortable or painful any more...just neutral. And in that spaciousness I felt a sort of sense of freedom, a welcoming freedom. It was a like all of a sudden there was a veil of green color there, green...little strands or wisps of green, that’s what this freedom looked like.

Next layer was light, just light, nothing very dramatic, but within that, and a sense of guidance, a very strong, powerful guidance. An awareness that nothing can ever go wrong.

Finally it opened up into this vast space or awareness of connectedness, these veins of light were not only connecting everything and pulsing through everything but also they were the guidance as to how everything was connected in every moment evolving into the future.

This connectedness then spoke, first to the guidance and to the light and said that this connectedness behaves much like blood flowing through a body, there are places in a body where you hit a big vein and were it’s obvious that blood is flowing through there, and there’s a strong sense of purpose or direction, and there are other parts of the body where you are maybe in the tissue, where it’s not that obvious that blood is flowing, but it still IS. There are many parts of life just like the tissue in the body, that are still connected even though it’s much more subtle. You ARE always connected wherever you are. There is no experience or part of life in which you are not connected. The very fact that you are alive means you are connected, just like tissue is connected to blood.

To the welcoming freedom: Freedom is what you feel when you remember that you are connected. It means there is no mistake. Remembering that makes you feel this free.

To the emptiness, the neutral spaciousness: This is the state when you forget that you are connected. But it’s in the state of spaciousness that you can remember that you are connected.

The emptiness or the void is nothing but an illusion. In truth, there is no such place, thing or experience that is disconnected, it just feels that way. And: notice that the experience of emptiness or void always goes along with a certain amount of effort. And force. Because it takes effort or force to keep the connectedness out of your experience. When you can notice where you’ve placed your effort and let go of it, connectedness will automatically return.

To the sadness, they said: Poor thing, no wonder you were suffering.

To the failure, they said: There is no such thing. You are always guided.

When I went to the campfire, there was no younger me showing up. What really needed to show up were both of my cysts, because that's who my present self needed to talk to. And they showed up with a kind of phantom self holding each of these cysts in each arm, like babies. There was also my enlightment mentor and my global awareness mentor , a very big, somewhat transparent figure - who shows up for issues that go beyond my single person.

My present self started to speak.
It just came pouring out: all this enormous sadness and frustration over WHY had they not responded? Why had they led me to believe I could heal this when they weren’t responding? Why did it look like I was meant to make this experience part of a message to other people, and now this message was being withheld from me? Wasn’t I supposed to be able to serve the purpose of the journey by allowing other people to see the healing we can do with it?
"Why, why did you let me do all this work, why did you give me all this time if you were not going to respond to it?
It’s not fair. I feel like a fool! How can I ever tell my clients that the Journey is working when it’s not working for myself? You have made me feel like such a miserable fraud, can't you see that?"

The answer from the cysts came in a very clear and sober voice:
"We are bringing nothing but liberation.
This experience is here to serve you. There were other things you needed to discover. You didn’t need to experience that the Journey was working, you already knew that. But there were other things beyond the Journey that were and are waiting for you. There is more mystery and unknown ahead of you after the surgery that you need to follow. If we had responded just a little bit, we know you would have stopped. And wouldn’t have been able to find what is waiting for you...
This experience was not at all about what you are bringing to the world, what the Journey can bring to the world, it’s solely and entirely about you. It is only about what you are discovering in the process."

Wow. I heard that and I got it.

My enlightenment mentor was so cheerful he did a little dance and said: “There is a whole new universe waiting for you. You just wait and see.”

Then my global awareness mentor added: “This experience is also about becoming part of the energy that dissolves the separation between the two healing approaches. On both sides there is too much holding on to an either/or mentality and a proving the other wrong. You as someone who is very firmly rooted in the spiritual and alternative side of healing, now have a chance to enter into experiencing the medical side. Only in experiencing the healing that is offered on this side of the equation will you be able to become a bridge between the two worlds and a force that leaves the duality, polarity and separation behind. It is very important that this happens in the world right now."

More wow.
There wasn't really anything else to say after this.

I ended with thanking the cysts for the clarity with which they had spoken, for the gifts they have already brought me. You can't imagine the relief I felt from understanding what this was all about. I told the cysts I love them very much and I really, really meant it. And then I let them go in profound peace and humility.

At the end I just allowed myself to be flooded with forgiveness for myself. Thanked my mentors, and saw the cysts go into the fire.
And that’s it.

The Key Journey

2009-03-22T19:49:00.000-07:00

All right, it is time to fill in what might be the biggest key piece in my Journey so far.

I have been putting it off. I have been really lazy these past couple of days, vegging in front the of TV - man, that is so unlike me, and it being ok to be this nonproductive. Quite an unfamiliar daily bottom line to hold out on for this long.

Sophia's Birthday came and went, Friday came and went with a special treat of having not only Patrice come with a gourmet white bean soup, but also Lise and Janusz with a humongous salad, AND Sarah and Roger!! Janusz and Roger even helped carry in our new sofa. We saw more beautiful pictures form Antigua and I felt oh so connected to you all.

Saturday came and went with much time on that new sofa watching the better part of four(!) completely randomly nonconnected movies that I hadn't even picked myself for the most part. (Hmmm, nonconnected?)

Today I felt like accomplishing something again, and these days that translates mostly into writing.

One day before the surgery I hit rock bottom. I had done this beautiful integrative piece with my friend Lori, where you envision three high energy end results of the surgery. I was really uplifted by this when Marilyn came and made me aware that she had put the results of that famous CatScan blank side up on my bedside wagon. I hadn't even seen it!

When I finally looked at those measurement numbers for the cysts, none of them had changed A BIT. NOT AT ALL. Not even the solid one that I had see on the sonogram as so much smaller. It was like nothing, nothing, nothing had happened in these past weeks. And it simply floored me. I was so devastated, I just couldn't stop sobbing.

Right on target one hour before my last Journey was scheduled.

I will post the complete scrip on the blog, but it is a bit longer, so here I will give you the highlights from my conversation at the campfire.

I entered this conversation from a source experience of connectedness, from a remembering that whatever happens in my life, WHATEVER that may be, it can only come into existence through that connectedness and unfailing guidance. Much like any little piece of flesh in my body is connected to my heart, and to life itself through the myriad of blood vessels, so runs a web of light and guidance through every part of my life experience. If something happens, it IS connected. There is no such thing as a mistake.

At the campfire there was no younger me that needed to show up, instead my present self needed to talk to the cysts.

It just came pouring out: all this sadness and frustration over WHY had they not responded? Why had they led me to believe I could heal this when they weren’t responding? Why did it look like I was meant to make this experience part of a message to other people, and now this message was being withheld from me? Wasn’t I supposed to be able to serve the purpose of the journey by allowing other people to see the healing we can do with it?
Why, why did you let me do all this work, why did you give me all this time if you were not going to respond to it?
It’s not fair. I feel like a fool! How can I ever tell my clients that the Journey is working when it’s not working for myself? I feel like such a miserable fraud, can't you see that?

The answer from the cysts came in a very clear and sober voice:
"We are bringing nothing but liberation.
This experience is here to serve you. There were other things you needed to discover. You didn’t need to experience that the Journey was working, you already knew that. But there were other things beyond the Journey that were and are waiting for you. There is more mystery and unknown ahead of you after the surgery that you need to follow. If we had responded just a little bit, we know you would have stopped. And wouldn’t have been able to find what is waiting for you...
This experience was not at all about what you are bringing to the world, what the Journey can bring to the world, it’s solely and entirely about you. It is only about what you are discovering in the process."

Wow.

My global awareness mentor said, “This experience is also about becoming part of the energy that dissolves the separation between the two healing approaches. On both sides there is too much holding on to an either/or mentality and a proving the other wrong. You as someone who is very firmly rooted in the spiritual and alternative side of healing, now have a chance to enter into the medical side. Only in experiencing the healing that is offered on his side of the equation will you be able to become a bridge between the two worlds and a force that leaves the duality, polarity and separation behind. It is very important that this happens in the world right now."

More wow.
There wasn't really anything else to say after this.

I ended with thanking the cysts for the clarity with which they had spoken, for the gifts they have already brought me. You can't imagine the relief I felt from understanding what this was all about. I told the cysts I love them very much and I really, really meant it. And then I let them go in profound peace and humility.

The Basics of Life

2009-03-18T19:30:00.001-07:00

Man, these days go by in a flash!

It feels like I am living the bare basics of life: sleep, eat, walk, use my hands, rest, sleep, and talk. In between I read and write a little too.

Sleeping as much as I do right now, I don't get to do anything substantial like looking at my e-mails until noon time... Today I had barely gotten though half of my messages, and talked to my brother via skype when Peggy came and brought the meal for the day which turned out to be a delicious vegetable curry complete with dahl, raisins and yoghurt. She also gifted me with a CD with the most soothing Hawaiian lap guitar music that transported me instantly to tropical climates.

Before I know it is lunch time and once we have eaten one of our wonderful left overs and midday nourishment is accomplished I have to honor my body's need for rest and go back upstairs to sleep my afternoon nap. Today that got delayed because Anina needed help with something on the computer, but then I didn't get up and back out of bed until 6:45.

Interesting how much this time after returning from the hospital has such a very different focus than last time. It is so purely physical, so purely shaped by physical recovery and rest. My brain gets to rest a lot. All these big emotional layers that were pulled up to the surface during the past weeks, all those discoveries feel like they are composting into more nutrients that enrich the soil my soul is rooting in. It now feel effortless... like something that is just happening on its own.

Yet I am aware that there is more to be discovered in the future. That is what I heard my cysts say to me during my deepest time of despair one day before the surgery. That Journey I took that day turned my whole understanding around about why I had experienced everything the way I had.

Sometime in the next few days, when I have a longer window of being awake, I will fill in the gap of what I learned that day for you.

Jimmy is heroically keeping up his part of taking care of me. He is still very much worn out himself, I can tell by how much of a struggle it is to even get out of bed in the morning... on Friday he will finally go and see Michael Schaefer himself. All your food support is therefore doubly appreciated. I hope you know how very, very grateful I am.

Today was a good day.
I even folded a little bit of laundry after dinner.
Now I am ready to go to bed... pretty soon.
Love, love, love to you all!!!
Tomma

Going to Sleep

2009-03-17T19:19:00.001-07:00

Thank you, thank you everybody!!!
Been offline all afternoon, had a shower and a lovely long nap until 6:00... then Mary came wIth David and brought a most wonderful dinner, and stayed to eat with us, which was sooo nice, then Jimmy read to me from our book and reclined for a bit of TV and now off to bed... and before I leave, I just wanted to let you know I saw all the e-mails that came in a moment ago... and I will send some responses out tomorrow.
Feeling so much better tonight.

LOVE you all!!!
Tomma

One Step at a Time

2009-03-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

Now that I am home and have talked to many of my women friends the communication shifts a bit to my brother and sister and other friends who are reading this blog.

Yesterday, my fist full day at home was not so easy. After the euphoria of leaving the hospital world behind has evaporated the severity of my state hits home. Everywhere I look things want to be taken care off, and the weakness I feel is truly overwhelming. I sent out and SOS e-mail to my friends, and sure enough they have rallied and created a dinner support plan that has me covered each night of this week... the school too has gotten wind of my situation and school parents too have offered food support.

Wow, what an amazing feeling to see people from all sides come through like that. I can't tell you how much gratitude there is in me. It's quite... I don't have the words really...

I was up for no more than 5 to 10 min, today that has increased to almost 30, but then I need to recline and sleep some more or at least put myself in a horizontal position.

Today I am more stable emotionally, yesterday was quite the day of tears, everything moved me and made me cry... Now i am up for my nap, that's why this is rather brief...

more to come...

love
Tomma

Back Home

2009-03-15T08:51:00.000-07:00

It is 7:11, Sunday Evening.

I am back home!!!!
Jimmy picked me up around 5:00 and took me back over the smoothests roads he could find, and actually the ride was just fine. I had taken a precautionary dose of pain meds at the hospital and didn't even feel a twinge.

God, what a beautiful day to return! The sun was so bright, the snow had all melted, the air was so warm, spring has arrived...

I had my black cape rolled up in my lap, to buffer the scar, my blue hospital folder with the release papers on my lap and a danish pastry in my hand that Sophia had brought me from the farm store yesterday.

Seeing the landscape flow by, knowing I was on my way back home had a very surreal quality. I had looked at that same view out my window, that same static picture of the world outside the hospital for the last 8 days, and now that world had opened up and was twirling with an almost breathtaking speed past my car window.

Of course now I am sitting back in the dining room by the fire that Jimmy restarted a little while ago. God, this house smells so good: of a mixture of fire and food and just happiness! And then it is so quiet here! No clicks of IV machines, no noise from the air conditioning, no loud voices in the hallway, no roommate yelling into her phone, no nurses talking about tubes and meds and urin bags getting emptied or bowl pouches being adjusted... let alone the smell that comes with such activities. No more overcooked carrots, tea water that smells of coffee, ice water that tastes of chlorine... ahhhhh, soooo good to be home.

Jimmy and Constantin are in the kitchen cooking dinner together. Anina is doing homework (we think) and Sophia has gone to Kaya's birthday party.

I will go to bed early and sleep really, really well tonight.

Tomorrow is a new day.

I feel so very lucky, so very grateful, so very tender, and so very happy. And I can't even tell you why exactly. These feelings have no full rational explanation.

More to be discovered!
Enough for today.

Tomma

Accelerated Progress

It is 9:30, Sunday Morning.

I have already walked over one round of hallway track, been to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and had my breakfast sitting up watching the morning light soak up the night fogs. Little flocks of seagulls heading north looking like sparkling bands of stars as the sun hits their wings moving up and down.

Oh, you should see the speed with which I am making it out of bed now, see how much longer my strides are this morning, AND: I am without pain pills and my belly is fine!!!

....

In between this and organizing my e-mail inbox Dr Timmins came through again. He greeted me by saying: "you are quite the rock star!" With that he meant to tell me that my blood count has shot up since they took me off the IV. Seems that is good news too, because my night nurse yesterday Judy, told me that my numbers were "really" low, told me that my numbers were not only low but had been going down and down and down since the surgery. So she had read DR Timmins notice to simply take me off the IV and start giving me Iron with incredulity. She was in fact so concerned that she polled the other nurses on the floor who all agreed with her that if one of their patients had such low numbers, they'd have them on blood infusion yesterday. And the wonderful person she is, she felt she needed to call Dr Timmins and make sure he HAD seen these numbers, even though she confessed she was taking a chance of getting yelled at, she admitted that I didn't look the way my numbers sounded, but she just couldn't let this go.

So with this full nurse staff backup, she actually did call Dr Timmins and was politely informed that he thought these numbers were ok for me.

He had an extra big smile on his face when he made my bloodcount announcement. And his next sentence was:"You can go home today!" Wow!! That's it? Don't need to see Dr. Morrissey? No, I'll go for a check up in about three weeks, if I have questions I can always call, but for now I am free to go!!

Now you may imagine I have to make some phone calls.

Love you all!!! And see you soon in person!!
Tomma

A Visit from Dr Timmins

2009-03-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

Good morning my extraordinary friends, my wonderful family, and my darling Jimmy,

Here are my brags of the second morning:

Yesterday I got up three times and walked in crawl speed longer and longer and longer distances. The last one covered almost he entire length of the hallway!

The hardest part is getting my belly without any sharp pain from a horizontal to a vertical position. Deliberate slowness is the key here.

My new night nurse Heather was a bit casual, the first time I called for assistance nobody arrived for over 15 min.

Just making it to the bathroom feels like a significant accomplishment. The last one this morning I did totally on my own! Ate my breakfast sitting up on the edge of my bed!

Man, am I proud of myself!

And guess who showed just a little while ago? Wow, how did you know? Yes, it was Dr Timmins. Funny how he almost feels like an old friend. He kind of just wanted to check in. How nice is that? Told me he heard the surgery went well, gave me some tips for the recovery period, and gave me a little boost by saying that I look much better than last time he saw me.

Interestingly stairs should not be a problem.

They will switch me back to oral pain meds, the intravenous will come out today. He thinks I will be ready to go home on Sunday.

Amazing.

Dr Morrissey will also come back. He was so great to take pictures of my cyst after they had been cut out. I really wanted to see them, I would have even loved to take them home with me, but in this situation, where cancer is a possibility however slight, they bring these lumps straight to the pathology department where they are both utterly dissected until nothing remains that resembled what they took out. So the pictures are the next best thing... man do these globs look ugly!

Constantin is coming up with Sophia today... so Jimmy gets a little relief. Poor honey, he is totally worn out.

Anyway, soon it's all over!

I am looking at a radiant blue sky and a soft white haze enveloping the Catskills in the distance.
Wishing you a gloriously happy Saturday!

Tomma

The Morning after

2009-03-13T07:35:00.001-07:00

Yes, yes, yes!!!

Oh, you can't imagine how relieved I am!! Not because I was so worried really, but more to have it over with.

I had the best surgery team you can imagine. OR is a surprisingly busy and bustelig place, I don't know why I was expeting it to be more somber, more quiet, more serious... but what I saw was a lot of people all dressed in green and light blue, all in motion and in between prepping patients for surgery they talk about American Idol and who they are rooting for, movies they saw, and how their mother was doing yesterday... regular life and regular people. Somehow that was oddly reassuring.

The Docs, who come to the patients floors in their white sterile coats, show up down here with more of their human individuality. I have never seen so many different head coverings. The standard pale blue, see through hair bonnet has been replaced by personality statements: a pouffy black velvet bonnet printed up with guitars in rainbow colors, on a stocky older female surgeon, Dr Maccalrath wore a black tight bandanna with yellow smiley faces on in, an older doc in his sixties sported a cap in a sparkling tiny green, silver and black pattern, a younger black sugeon in a louminous white headscarf and my anesthesiologist, a cheerful woman with the most beautiful light blue eyes, had pink and laverder bows printed on hers... the list goes on. Dr Morrissey was one of the very few whose head was bare. He came in smiling and ready to go, patted me on the knee, assured me they would leave every part in that was healthy and told me everything will be fine.

My surgery nurse assistant was a beautiful young woman from China, and my head nurse an older woman with a wide round face that shone with pure friendliness. They all came up one by one and introduced themselves, asked me all the same questions what we would be taking out and what we would be leaving in, all smiled at me big loving smiles and I felt lucky. In between I remembered the soft loving blanket you were all holding me in, I tell you I could feel that, and it instantly then and still now brings tears tremendous of gratitude to my eyes.

I remember arriving in the OR room, remember breathing in very cold air, remembering how good it felt to have the heated blanckets covering me up, remember heaving myself over onto the operation table, seeing the gigantic round light apparatuses above me on the ceiling, Dr Morrissey lifting my arms onto adjacent tables to both sides and covering them with more warm blankets, thinking how comfortable that felt... and then... I was gone.

A few seconds and an eternity later, I looked up at another nurse: Debbie, who asked me how I was feeling. How was I feeling? Why is she asking me this? Wasn't there something important I had been right in the middle of doing? Didn't I need to go somewhere? And what is that sensation in my belly? Oh, that hurts a little! Oh, my God! ... that must be the cut!... It's already all over???

Right now I am SITTING in a chair next to my bed!!! I have managed to sit up, and turn my body to get my legs over the edge, made it out of bed and walked to the bathroom and today indeed I have been washed by my Tech nurse, and today for the fisrt time that is not LIz, but Ashley, a very young and lovely woman.

Now my battery is about to run out, so I better send this off.

Thank you each and everyone of you for what you have brought to me, your love, your thoughts, your prayers and your words... all of it is so unspeakably beautiful to me!!!
Tomma

Happy News - Thursday 5:12pm

2009-03-13T04:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Tomma is fine! There is no cancer! She came through the surgery with flying colors! Yayyyyy!

I just spoke with the doctor: the one cyst had twisted and cut off the blood supply, and was dead...that's where all the pain was coming from. The other was the dermoid. They were both fused into the fallopian tubes so those had to be removed, but her uterus was fine so "per her wishes" as the doctor said he did not remove it. Yes! "She is menopausal" which we expected, so matched hormone therapy (whatever it's called, I'm so damned relieved I can't think of the name right now) here we come.

No more for now so you can get the news quick and we can all start breathing again. Thank you for all your prayers and good wishes.

I'll see her in about an hour back in her room, and will post more as I can. Lots of phone calls to immediate fam to make now.

love to all!

Herr Dr. Jimmy von Happyshortz!

Going under the Knife

2009-03-12T07:55:00.001-07:00

The perception of life really changes.

I looked out the window this morning and the sun was just coming up hitting the hospital wing that juts out like a billboard into the open landscape. The concrete squares, striped gray from years of rain, had a golden glow, the sky was in the soft early morning hues, some gentle clouds hung over the lower Catskill mountains that are embracing the horizon... and all of a sudden I had to weep with gratitude for the mere fact that I had been lucky to have had a bed by the window all these days. That I could have seen the sky, and the rain, and the fog, and the snow.

My fluctuating room neighbors had been so much less fortunate.

Many other little things bring tears to my eyes today too.

Liz, who has been my "Tech" every dayshift (Techs are the ones who regularly measure my blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen levels, she also makes my bed every day and even tidies up the room) a hefty black woman from Guayana, told me I needed to take a shower this morning. Remembering how Suzi helped me take my first shower on the day I left Albany Med back in January, how it made me feel like a little child again, how with such a simple gesture of being washed, life becomes safe and simple. Would Liz do the same for me? Would it feel as safe, not knowing her? And I felt a soft surrender. It didn't matter. A woman washing another woman. Just giving in. Yes, that made me weep too.

As it turned out Liz very carefully wrapped up my IV tube in a plastic sleeve and sent me into the shower as a capable human being able to wash myself. Weak as still am this was actually not a problem, because my IV needle is not inserted at the hight of my elbow, but lower down at my wrist. That allows me to bend my arm any way I need to.

A little later I though of my sweet sister so far away... in Chile. And all of a sudden I really wanted to hug her. How long has it been that I last saw her? More than a year, almost two? I could feel my arms closing around her, around her body that grew up right next to mine, that mysterious thread of life that connects us still even though we are scattered so far from each other over this big earth, even though I forget to call her sometimes for weeks on end. In that moment there was nothing but gratitude for how much I loved her.

The tears don't end here, but my letter does.

I am starting to understand a bit more what the cysts were talking about yesterday. So much of this goes beyond my comprehension, but more of it enters like tiny little drops of clear liquid into my awareness.

Jimmy has arrived and is sitting patiently in his green vinyl recliner chair, computer on his lap. I am hungry, but not a drop of liquid or food until after I am done. He is chuckling, he must be on the comedy channel web page. Or he got an e-mail from his flight instructor and new best friend John.

Thank you, thank you, for walking with me.

I had no idea how overwhelmingly big this gratitude could feel.
Tomma

Conversations with Cysts (Wednesday night)

2009-03-12T05:17:00.000-07:00

Greetings to all Tomma Boosters!!

Just a very brief summary of the day as our dear T is worn out, weak, and very tired. She's been downing fluids and antibiotics and generally beng prepped for surgery tomorrow afternoon.

Tomma had two very powerful Journey processes today, one in which she had a direct dialogue with her cysts, who had some surprising things to say to her.

I was inclined to ask if she threatened to open up a can of Whup Ass on them but, she being of the Teutonic persuasion and usually not having any idea what the hell I'm talking about when I say such things, I thought the better of it.

We dictated a 1000 word account of that cystal Journey earlier this evening, I imagine at some point she will share the gist of the cysts with you, s stay tuned, Tomma Troopers.

The day has been so full of little things that she hasn't had the time or energy to get back on the computer and respond to any of your emails, but she wants you to know she appreciates them all.

We haven't even had our reading session tonight, and it's time for nighty-night for her.

I'll keep you all posted and will let you know when she's out of surgery.

Love and peace

Herr Dr. Jimmy von Krankenshortz.

2009-03-12T05:15:00.002-07:00

2009-03-12T05:15:00.001-07:00

... and from Jimmy

2009-03-11T07:47:00.001-07:00

Dear friends of die Tomma:

Herr Doktor und Hande Holderer Jimmy von Krankenshortz here with my Wednesday report.

I'm filling in for Tomma to add to this account later as she sees fit once she finishes the Journey processes that she's doing this morning and early afternoon with dear friends Laurie and Margaret.

Yesterday was as she reported, a bit better pain/discomfort-wise for her. Still a bit yellowish, temp up to 101 a couple times, but less overall pain/discomfort, so that was good.

Mid afternoon, Roger (aka Roger The Jester), friend and husband of Sarah, and a professional entertainer who does magic and fun shows for people all over, including Antigua now, came by the hospital fresh (i.e. tired) from Antigua in fact to bring Tomma a lovingly transported container of Guava pulp that he'd mashed up himself, then proceeded to show her on his laptop a slide show of images from his 7 weeks down there with Sarah...including a picture of the very guavas he'd bought to process for Tomma, and the island natives he bought them from.

Then he whipped out an ancient Hohner Premiosa (?), a small hand accordian/organ/squeeze box thingy, small and very cute, and proceeded to play an old American folk song he'd taught himself. I commented when he was done that it was the tune Love Me Tender that Elvis Presley made into a huge hit in 1958 I think, I remember because I was a wee and pimply tyke at the time (13). Roger hadn't known that! He knew it as a pre-Elvis American folksong.

What a guy. He stayed and visited, jovial, present, cheerful and of course so completely delightful to Tomma, it was great to see her laugh and smile and see her beautiful soulful eyes light up the way we're all used to seeing.

She's in as good a spirits as you could hope for given the present challenges. Still a bit feverish off and on yesterday, but much better than the day before.

I was particularly gratified by the caring presence of the nurse Marilyn that Tomma wrote about earlier. She's a very bright, energetic, fast-talking, high-energy woman who either cultivated, or has by nature, that remarkable gift of listening intently and without interruption. Once Marilyn had heard Tomma fully express her misgivings and concerns about whether to go with Dr. Morrisey (something T and I had talked about a lot but I knew she needed to feel the medical "establishment" heard her as well), I made a point to thank Marilyn for being such a superb listener.

You can probably imagine what a relief that was for Tomma (me too) ...hospitals tend to feel like a huge cruise ship with something always going on. Sometimes like the Poseidon Adventure, mostly just big, complex and unstoppable. Thousands of passengers sailing through a turbulent ocean, and the staff has it's medical equivalent of social activities to organize, schedules to rush to keep, meals to prepare, storms to weather, and there can be a feeling of being rushed and lost in a sea of often incomprehensible, or sometimes insufficiently communicated, reasons for doing things.

So to be so fully heard was a huge relief, and praiseworthy in the extreme.

After that, we talked for awhile. Tomma thought for awhile. Then she said with a profound clarity and certainty I don't see that often, "Okay. It's time to do this. I'm going to have the surgery Thursday." And that was that. My brave sweetheart.

I expect you would all be proud of the way she's coming through this challenging time of uncertainty, fear, confusion, lack at times of response or information, and just the difficult reality of being away from hearth (literally, the fireplace wood stove she is devoted to keeping at a roaring high all day and half the night!) and home. She's not a freakout kind of chick, know what I mean? Of course you do. She's our wonderful level-headed, lovingTomma.

In fairness, even with the occasional confusions or slow responses, this is a good hospital. The staff is caring and responsive, and lots of good people look in on her and look after her. When I go home, I don't worry that she'll have an emergency and not be in good hands. So it's about as good I think as it could be that way.

Best guess is she'll come home Sunday. Perhaps with a pair of cysts riding shotgun in a cooler, perhaps not: she wants to bring them home and, as she's expressed to me, spend some time learning from them what it is they want to say about why they came into her life, or something like that. Whether the hospital will allow that is yet to be determined, but our Tomma has a unique approach to all life, an inclusive one that strives to accept all aspects of it, so while this may seem a bit strange to some of us, it's entirely consistent with who she is. And kind of cool in a slightly macabre way, at least to an old California skysurfer like me who can handle the sight of his own blood, but not anybody elses, and who remains,

your faithful servant,

Herr Dr. Jimmy von Krankenshortz

A Day before Surgery

2009-03-11T06:11:00.001-07:00

My Dearest friends and beloved family,

I would have written last night but it seems the end of the day is the hardest part to get through. I get so tired and the pain becomes worse somehow.

The most important decision I was facing yesterday was whether or not to go ahead in to surgery with Dr Morrissey or to wait for Dr Timmins. How to decide whose hands to surrender yourself to that are going to cut into your flesh?

I had been taken aback by a few little things in my conversation with Dr Morrissey, and really wasn't sure whether I would feel completely safe with him. This would have to be my very own decision, because there was no one else here to meet him when he came.

Just after Jimmy had arrived and we were talking through this whole question nurse Marilyn arrived and told me she had tried to give me the CatScan results last night, but found me asleep and Jimmy had gone home too, and promised she would come back later with them. That was such great news! I told her I actually had been disappointed that Dr Morrissey didn't seem to know the details of this Scan, and somehow I took the moment and explained to her that in fact I had some real doubts as to whether I wanted to go through the surgery with him... and these... were all the reasons why. And Marilyn simply listened. And when I was done she totally acknowledged me, confirming that yes: this is a very important decision, and one needs to feel really good about ones surgeon and one needs to listen to ones values and these are different for everybody.

Some people look for good communication and bedside manners, some look for the perfect surgeon hands, some look for other things. It is important to make this decision with ones values being met. Other than that she could assure me that all the doctors in this particular group: Timmis, Morrissey and McCalrath (or something like it) are all excellent surgeons. She would put any of her own family members without hesitation into their care, and she has worked at this hospital for (was it) 20 years? Ahhhhhh

That was soooo good to hear. All of it. I was so proud of myself to grasp the moment and speak up.

Then Jimmy took of for some errands and lunch.

Just a bit later, when my regular nurse came to have me sign the consent papers I was ready and prepared to say I really needed to think this through a little longer. She too listened and told me to do what I needed to do... they absolutely want to give me the space to make this decision and as long as I don't wait until Thursday morning when they are about to wheel me into the OP I am free to change my mind.

I can't tell you what a huge relief all of that was!

I had taken pain meds early after waking up, so I was feeling pretty good too.

So, I had already left a message for Dr Timmins asking him to call me, briefly describing my concerns.

By the time Jimmy got back a couple of hours later my pain meds had worn off, my body was tired, my temperature was at 101, and I had this kind of sobering realization that whatever was going on in my belly was still pretty serious, these strange crampy pains were just not getting better very quickly. Envisioning going home in this state with nothing but painkillers... and to wait in this starte for who knows 5, 6 or 7 days... I started to see how much of a burden on my body that might continue to be. And with that all of a sudden it was clear: I needed to go through with this surgery right now. Life had spoken and again life had spoken clearly.

More comfort was provided by Marilyn who came back appologizing for not having been able to get these results back, but who spoke to the resident who had accompanied Dr Morrissey on his rounds in the morning. She pointed out to her that when he makes a promise to honor my wish to save the rest of my female organs he would absolutely do that.

That was it. I set the whole machinery into motion and signed the papers.

Thursday it is.

Today I am put on liquid foods only, my bowls will be emptied.

Wow, gotta run now two possible processes are expected over the phone for me this morning!

More later on Rogers sweet visit with Photos from Antigua and Guava pulp...

Love
Tomma

Dr Morrissey

2009-03-10T07:42:00.001-07:00

Okay. I met Dr Morrissey.
Nice guy. Not as selfassured as Dr Timmins. Not very tall. Very short blond hair. Glasses. Speaks pretty fast. Was he in a hurry? Had an assistant with him.

The first thing that was a bit odd, was him giving me the general repetition of these large masses being there, them still being there on yesterdays CatScan, and them needing to come out. As if he thought he was sent here to convince me to have this surgery, as if I was possibly bailing out on them again.

I said that is not the question for me, I agree that surgery is what needs to happen now.

So, next the question of total historectomy. He already heard I objected to that. On that count he did assure me that he would be happy to leave uterus and ovaries in if they were healthy. It was not what he would advise, but he could leave them alone if that was possible. More explanation followed why that might not be the case, how it might be possible the growths may have originated from the uterus to begin with, and if so then you'd HAVE to cut into the uterus to check. (Totally new theory to me) Asked if one couldn't see that they grew out of the ovaries, he said that wasn't really so clear. Hmmm

Repeated a few times that the masses have not really changed, that's why they need to come out. When asked what about the actual dimension of the left cyst... it sounded like that one was now 5 cm, and that would be much smaller than in January... I understand that he and his colleagues don't believe cysts of this size can shrink on their own, but to me this information would have a lot of meaning... he said: well he couldn't actually give me the exact dimensions. And, well, they do sometimes change, sometime they can rupture. (A solid one, rupture?)

As to the fluid one, my question was: can one not see what happened to it on Sunday night? Is there an explanation to the sudden and different kind of pain, could it have ruptured? Oh, yes, that could have happened. And if it was cancerous that would not be such a good thing, but that could explain the irritation. It doesn't feel like he looked at these catscans so very closely.

So....
I don't know... He is OK I guess, but I am not really all that impressed with him, not as with Dr Timmins... Hmmm. Will talk this through with Jimmy. Any thoughts?

Love you!
Tomma

Short morning Report

2009-03-10T06:42:00.000-07:00

I had taken two painkillers at the end of the day yesterday... they finally relaxed my belly, and I fell asleep early and easily. During the night they wore off, of course... there is still this new constant tightness or soreness in the abdomen, and not just on the right side. Laying still is bearable, but any movement or air bubbles sends pain levels up into very uncomfortable regions.

In spite of that I am overall better than yesterday morning. Appetite a bit more robust, energy a little higher. My newly assigned Doctor is supposed to come any minute. His name is Morrissey (had the W upside down)

At least it wasn't him who messed up the surgery of my room mate Catherine, who came in for a removal of a cysts last August and never recovered. This was due initially to her colon getting "nicked" during that surgery. More mishaps followed. Hmmm. Well, NOT me. I will have a smooth and positive experience. But as you all may remember, I do have some personal experience witnessing surgeries going down the wrong direction... with my father, who almost didn't make it through.

Soon more!!
Love you!
Tomma

Update III: The Final Word

2009-03-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

Jimmy again:

I'm heading home. The evening got better for T. She didn't start up again on the IV painkiller, she seems to have crested the hill and is having a bit easier time of it. She managed to get a bit of food down, her temp isn't spiking as often as it was earlier, and she needs to sleep so I'm bailing out.

A rough day but she's a tough gal. That good German farmgirl stock. (Did I ever tell you she eats as much as I do and never gains a freakin' ounce?)

thanks for checking in. Love to all.

J

Update II the Sequel: Living Large in Welleville, This Time We Mean Business

2009-03-09T17:05:00.000-07:00

Just to correct a few wrong impressions you might have gotten.
No, they did not want to throw me out of the hospital today, they were hoping I would be ready to leave, because they need the bed, but obviously I am not leaving. Pain has been pretty uncomfortable today, all in all worse than yesterday.

Did have a CatScan, that was easy. No results have been reported yet.
Sounds like they are able to put me back on Delahted today.
AND: there will be another doctor who would be able to take me into surgery on Thursday. Dr "W"something... Was a bit alarmed that she described the procedure as a total historectomy. That is NOT what I want. If this Dr is not willing to give the remaining female organs in my belly a chance, I will rather wait for Dr Timmins.

Now I got to force some food down... no appetite really.

Very tired. Today was exhausting.

Love you
Tomma

Update from the Main Squeeze

2009-03-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

Greetings and salutations from room 6202-2 (not B as previously reported) from Jimmy

Tomma wants me to tell you all thank you for your msgs. Means very much to her.

Update in brief, as she's having a bit of a rougher time today, so I'm going to dash this off quickly so we can go back to reading from the comic novel Handling Sin.

She had what felt like increasing gas pains last evening and overnight. These segued into a change in the feel of the pain to a more general lower abdominal distress. Today they took her off the intravenous dalautad or whatever the hell it's called, which was so effective on Sat and all this morning, even though her distress, shortness of breath, fever now 99.8, feeling of weakness, and pain whenever she moves, are distinctly different than before.

Her doctor is apparently not in the hospital today but down in Poughkeepsie and his stand in, Dr. McWhatever, didn't stop in, just sent his resident in to tell her the surgical schedule is full for the week and to get her on oral meds so she could go home today.

I got in around noon and could tell immediately the landscape had changed in her color, temperature and mood. She's just not feeling well. I rustled up a couple nurses and had to gently but firmly insist that they get someone in to look at her, as they had on their charts that the good Dr. McWuh had been here when indeed he had not.

The same resident, apparently, who came in at 7 came back in, was just fine, checked her over, and ordered up a Cat Scan for 4:30 today, so we're prepping now with contrast medication to make the CT read better, and she's resting and not moving.

Her belly is abnormally bloated, she's concerned and uncomfortable, even with the oral meds.

They're very busy today, not as laid back as on the weekend, so everything takes longer to arrive, even a bottle of water. Although it did take 2 hours yesterday to get a single dinky 8 oz bottle of Poland Spring, so not that much worse I suppose, in some ways.

We're not in the hospital-griping mode just yet, although the food could be better, as in edible/nutritious, but she's hanging in here and hoping the CT shows something that will make her current distress less alarming and will lead to some remedy, perhaps an opening in the surgical schedule, so we don't have to face the prospect of her being 45 minutes from medical help at home, and have another crisis and yet another ambulance ride. I'm not cheered by the prospect of having to drive her over these lumpy bumpy roads around our house back to the hospital with her feeling the way she does.

anyway, that's all the news that's fit to print, I'll update once we hear something from the Cat Scan. Keep your claws sharp, kitties. Looks like we'll be here at least another night.

Love to all from die Tomma and me

Jimmy

Waiting fr the Doctor

2009-03-09T07:30:00.000-07:00

Sweet friends,

It is Monday 10:00 and I am waiting for the Dcotor. Turns out Dr Timmins is not in Albany today, but down in their facility in Poughkeepsie, so Dr McSomething is coming back to see me. I treated myself to a few more light doses of Delahted yesterday to bypass the gas pains which show up without fail when my body stops moving and has to digest unfamiliar food.

During the night something else started happening: a different sharp kind of pain that radiated into the Vagina, the lower pelvic bones and even down into the leg. Distinctly different from the cystic pain of Saturday and also from the gas moving through the colon. I also can't feel the shape of the fluid cyst any more. At least according to my personal theory: the "energy bubble", that I have been wondering abut, this peculiar round mass that has been moving around to different locations in my belly... when they took the last Ultrasound on Saturday I realized that the place she found the cyst was indentical with this bubble, and it was down low, not up high where it had been recorded last week at Albany Med. Hmmm. So I figured this WAS the cyst after all, and I have been keeping track of its location and feel not only throughout these last days... but of course I had already been watching it over the past couple of weeks. So, this one is all of a sudden not clearly palpable any more. Who knows what that means?? Did it deflate all of a sudden? Did it go into a dive deeper in the pelvis?

Maybe they will wheel me down for another sonogram?

Being in the presence of these last events, being with my body, trying to get still and listen... it feels to me that surgery is the better way to go at this point.

I shed some tears over that.
Deciding to be depended on more help for at least another month, not going back to doing Joureywork for another long while, being cut into, and even just the outlook on having to eat this low quality hospital food, all hold a certain amount of discomfort, sadness and even guilt.

Yet I don't know any longer how to live life with this hammer hanging over my head that could come down again so fast and so without warning.

I will leave you here. My nurse will come any moment with the order to get me to do some walking,
More news to come!

LOVE!!
Tomma

Report from Jimmy

2009-03-08T13:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Wild Women of New England and beloved elders of Hamburg, et al!

Jimmy reporting here on a beautiful sunny day in Albany. Our dear Tomma is resting peacefully, looking much refreshed although of course a bit weary from her ordeal yestersday, the warm, cloudsplit light of pre-spring (please God, let it be not much in the "pre" dept) sun makes her look even more beautiful than normal. And she looks much, much better than yesterday, I can tell you that. That was a hard day for her as I think you know by now.

First and most important news is that her pain has subsided to occasional twinges: no pain killers since yesterday at 4, much like her last visit 6 weeks ago. With the shift in pain as the dominant focus, she's able to consider the various factors leading to her next course of action.

to whit: this morning the surgeon who partners Dr. Timmins (it's not his turn in the barrel this weekend, he's with his family) examined our dear Tomster (male affectionate phrase) and said "We need to get pre-op tests done today, then make a plan to get them out. Let's not postpone surgery indefinitely this time, but get them out."

She will stay in the hospital overnight and Dr. Timmons will examine her tomorrow morning, then they will check their surgery schedule to see when she might be able to have it done.

This isn't to say she has decided completely to do that. She realizes that she can go home, continue to do her personal therapies and remedies and hope to have continued progress. But she also knows she is likely to have another attack of pain, and this was a very sobering experience for her yesterday, as she believed that was behind her. These nasty little puppies can flip over and torse (twist) at any time, apparently, and the experience of that pain is something she's not all that willing to go through again. Duh!

So I'm not mischaracterizing her mood or mine either for that matter to report that surgery seems like a more viable and attractive option (as much as it can be attractive, that is) than it did 6 weeks ago. And that's the way she's leaning at this time.

Once she's had more tests (chest X-ray and EKG) to assess her robustitude (my own word) for surgery, then it's just a matter of the "shedule" (for those of you of the Brit persuasion.)

The EKG nurse just walked in with her mobile EKG telecenter. Pretty neat. she did the entire procedure in about 4 minutes, about as long as it took me to type in the two paragraphs above (and I'm a fast typist). She was a 50-something, bleach-blond, tired seeming (smoker?) lady who had that breezy but detached demeanor you might expect at a turnpike diner, someone who has been there a lot of years, has seen it all, and gives you the best she's got at the moment.

She said "Looks good" after the EKG and rolled off down the hallway to her next stop.

I ask Tomma how she's feeling now. "Between 1 and 2" she says, describing her pain level, "stomach a little empty", chewing on her cod liver and primrose oil gel caps. She loves to chew on those capsules. Most of us swallow them down and that's quite sufficient, but I think she enjoys the bouncy rubbery workout the gel gives her jaw muscles.
Now the nurse, Bob, a stocky fellow in his late 30s-early 40s with a very short crew cut and the slightest sibilancy in his speech, comes in to tell T it's time to go down for her chest X-Ray. He demonstrates his caring professionalism when we ask if the timing (it's lunch time and the meals are arriving in their stacked carts in the hall) means she'll miss her meal.
"If it comes before you get back," he says, eyes rolling up as he runs through the options at his disposal, "we'll take care of it." I pipe up that I can always run down to the cafeteria and bring something up, if that's hospital-legal, and he answers, "Oh no, no problem, I can always order something up any time. Now you wanted vegetarian," he says, turning to Tomma, "if possible, right?" she nods and he moves out after promising to do his best to get her the meal she wants. Good guy.

Tomma stands up to go to the gurney in the hall for transport down to X-ray. There's a thin red line of blood backing up from the IV insertion point ,under the tape on her arm, to the connector...Bob had just unplugged the IV. It reminds me of the thin spidery veins I've seen in photos of fertilized chicken's eggs, or maybe it was human embryo in the earliest stages. How infinitely fragile and incomprehensibly complex our biology is and our human lives are. And how far we have to go when we still live in a world that sends our young to savage places to have that fragile biology smashed and ruined, in the name of...what, really? Why is that ever an option? We all begin as spider veins in yolks, such a miracle, to be thrown away with such a lack of resolve to say "No. No, never again."

Back to Tomma: She's standing up, takes a step or two, bends down. "Whatsa matter?" I ask, my characteristic leap-to-the-rescue response to anything out of the ordinary - she makes fun of me when I say that - and I reach out to support her, thinking she's maybe suddenly ill or in pain. "Just getting my slippers." She steps into them, I walk her to the gurney, gently admonishing her to ask for things instead of always doing everything herself. "That, m'love, is what I'm here for. Let yourself be pampered. I don't have anything else to do here anyway, I'm bored out of my skull."
She nods, her way of acknowledging me without necessarily agreeing with my point of view - our dear independent minded Tomma - and once prostrate again on the hall gurney, about to be ambulated by the thin, short Indonesian who asks, in broken English, "Is alry she walk to here?" (meaning the gurney, which she's already walked to of course), she starts to tug at the heel flaps of her slippers, then lets me finish the job of pulling them up over her heels.
That's my big contribution as she wheels off down to Xray, whilst I stay here to guard the grapes and food supplements that I brought in this morning. The grapes may be purloined though: she doesn't like them, whereas I find them absolutely yummy. And in the absence of mobility and activity, I never lose my interest in tasty food.

Speaking of which, Nini is fine at home. I laid in a stock of comestibles from Hammer...Haver? fords on my way home last night. Very nice supermarket with a lush produce section and lots of alternative foods, plus a killer frozen food section, the temporary bachelor's refuge from actual menu decisions and preparing activities.

Nini's recovering from a nasty bug that got into her ears, she's taking antibiotics. She helped out yesterday by feeding Jackie and keeping the fire going and seems to take to having the house to herself just fine. Nini's never seemed to feel abandoned or deprived much by being home on her own. I told her if she wanted to have her boyfriend over today, if he could get a ride, then I'll take them both to school in the morning, and all that would be fine as long as they were both feeling better. They don't need to pass their illness (he's been sick with a serious lung infection for weeks) back and forth as much as their hormones might urge them to do. So Nini seems just fine.

And that dear readers is your mid day Sunday report from room 6202-B, St. Peter's Hospital in Albany, NY. Skip over the boring parts, take heart in Tomma's good cheer and ruddy color and bright blue eyes, and smoke 'em if you got 'em. I mean, call if you like, here's her number again at least through tomorrow: 518 525 7499.

Have a great Sunday and thank you so much for your support. I think you know how much it means to her. It's like a life force giving her energy. If nothing else stays with you from this long missive, let it be that.

Love from us both, bon voyage to the Antigua-ettes, and to paraphrase Garrison Keillor, do good play and keep in touch.

your field reporter Jimmy von Krankenshortz

What a Day!!!

2009-03-07T19:05:00.000-08:00

Wow, this has been quite a day!
Instead of packing for Antigua, back to Albany per ambulance.

Jimmy just left around 9:00 to go back home where Anina has been holding the fort, still not quite well herself, but at least feeling better all around... the antibiotics we got her yesterday are starting to work.

I have been through two rounds of "Delauded" however you spell that... this miracle-drug that it is. Man, you start loving that stuff! And, very similar to last time, after two rounds of it, the pain is subsiding naturally and magically on it's own. Pain was almost worse than last time, because it took so long to get me these drugs, and the morphine I was administered already in the ambulance just barely took the edge off.

Now I am upstairs on the 6th floor just as in Albany Med, and almost eerily, my room number 6202 seems to be a succession from the last one which was 601, even though this is a different hospital. (I went here because Dr Timmins actually operates out of St.Peters Hospital.)

My Jimmy was here all day, waiting and communicating to the emergency staff who is not too responsive and dragging their feet. Up here now, on the higher floor the care people are wonderful. Once I was out of the fog, he read a couple of chapters from our latest book to me. A VERY funny novel called "Handling Sin"

I will hopefully get a good night sleep... pain seems to be very exhausting for the body. Carol has offered to come in the morning. Jimmy will be back too. I will call or e-mail after I speak to the doctor.

My in room phone number, which we activated is: 518 525 7499 - I don't have my cell with me.

Funny, I am not even sad over not being able to go to Antigua. At least not right now. There was no mistaking where I needed to go today. The body yet again spoke clearly.

Of course there are questions. What does it really mean? Why now? Am I supposed to let go of the vision and conviction my body is doing this healing on it's own? Why have I been taken down this path, when now it seems a surgery would feel like a 180 degree turn? Why did it seem I was being taught to learn to trust this path would take me there?

Again there must be a greater purpose for these recent events. Something is being offered to me. I just don't know what it is yet.

Goddesses, I will be soaking up the sun, long distance through your pores, will be drinking in the warm moist air through your lungs, and feeling the soft white sand through the soles of your feet... I truly am with you there in spirit.

Signing off for some sleep now...
Sending you all love spread as you are soon over such vast distances of this earth, Northeast US, Caribbean, Chile, and Germany.

Back to the Hospital!!!!

2009-03-07T18:51:00.000-08:00

Annabel 4:48 pm

Suzi and all Goddess Sisters--

It's 4:30 and I just got off the phone with Jimmy, extensively, and briefly with Tomma.

The surgeon will come in in the morning and then they'll have the big conversation: seems to be the choice between an exploratory mission inside her body to determine what's up or, alternatively, just do surgery and cut out the cysts.

Tomma's been in emergency since about 11 this morning and soon she'll go into a real room for some rest finally. Her pain has been intense. She had a codeine derivative at home, then morphine in the ambulance, then delaudid in the hospital which seems to last about 3 1/2 hours so she's about to have her second dose. The dermoid cyst has possibly shrunk by half. Tomma thinks they were about 11 cm at the beginning all those weeks ago. The way Tomma understands it now it measures about 5 cm, although there seems to be some disagreement about those numbers. The doctor there said the dermoids didn't shrink About half an hour from when she first felt the pain until it was intolerable.

They did a sonogram/ultrasound so far. A Cat scan is likely in he morning. No other tests are ordered at the moment.

What a powerful time we are in! What powerful manifesters we are! We are creating the realities that truly work best for us! Tomma in the safety of Jimmy's care and where the doctor is who is in touch with her progress! Denise taking the R&R she so very much needs with our sisters! Patrice manifesting the cash she required! Mary, Lydia, Suzi, Maria, Lise, Peggy all blessed with your loving partners and your miraculous trips to Antigua to see our powerful Caribbean goddess and her amazing mother and loving partner just celebrating their anniversary!

Patrice 2:16 pm

Dearests,
I am so grateful to the Universe in its Divine Perfection.

Though we were so wanting you Tomma to be with us In Antigua
the Divine Goddess of Perfection had a different Plan.

I am so grateful Jimmy is with our Tomma and that this is happening today
and not Tomorrow or MOnday.

I will see how my day goes...I have massage tonight at 9pm and maybe tomorrow am and
definitely tomorrow at 1pm...Dont think I can get there now...

So I am Sending much Love and Light and Faith that everything is happening in Divine Perfection.

I am with you Tomma,we are with you...all is well.

I so honour the incredible, strong, hard working, now receiving love and support from more and more Sources.
I am so privledged to call you friend.

Sending you PEace
Giant Hugs
Patrice

Suzi 1:58 pm

Update from Jimmy at 2pm :

Sonogram taken, showed no emergency situation (like a hemorrhage). They are waiting for the doctor to read the results.

Tomma is drowsing on her Delaudan drip, dawling.

Jimmy is handling calls and keeping watch.

All for now. Mary and Lydi and I leaving at 5:30. xoxoxo S

Lise 12:57 am

oh gosh,

in the midst of packing and smiling at the soon surf sand and sun, and this, ...

interesting, two days ago I had this flash of something going wrong with Tomma while we were there, and it was a very uncomfortable feeling! I am soooooooooo grateful for the physical connection to Tomma's body that is evident here

took Jimmy's number, will call a little late,

holding the light and the love

L

Suzi 11:48 am Saturdat 3/7/09

Dearest Receivers and Senders of Immaculate and Ceaseless Light,

The Divine obviously has us in her Pussy.

Tomma and Jimmy made a trip, via ambulance this morning to St. Peter’s hospital in Albany.

Tomma had a return of great pain in her abdomen.

She is currently on pain meds and waiting for the doctor on call to examine her and begin a round of tests to determine what is next.

Dr. Timmons, the gyn/oncologist who we dealt with last time is not on call today, so Tomma is being seen by a woman.

Jimmy is with her and ready to receive any and all call of love and support. His cell is 518 577 2269.

They do have Tomma’s computer, so she will have access to love notes.

So. This means that Tomma is not flying to Antigua with us tomorrow morning.

This does mean that she and Jimmy will spend the next days sorting out her care plan.

Annabel is the midst of performing and her move.

Karen is hanging her show on Tuesday in Pittsfield. She is in the Adirondacks right now, snowshoeing naked I think.

Patrice and Maria are leaving for Antigua on Monday.

Denise, Peggy, Sarah and soon Lise’ are on the island. Mahn.

Lydi, Mary and I will be leaving this evening for the city and flying out Sunday morning.

I am not able to drive to Albany right now. I don’t think that is necessary. I do think, based on what happens today, that a visit by someone tomorrow would be lovely.

I will stay in touch with Jimmy and communicate before I leave tonight.

I am here, in absolute awe at Tomma’s perfect timing. At her surrender to pleasure this week, by agreeing to take the leap and travel. And by her body’s incredibly astute wisdom to let her know that in fact, an island vacation was not quite the thing she needed. And for Jimmy’s gorgeous presence and love for Tomma, I am completely grateful.

So, sunny days to all. I am sending you each all my love. Call me on the home phone if you need me.

Yours, S
Suzi Banks Baum

Surprise Gift

2009-03-06T15:02:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I am flying to Antigua!!!!

My mooncircle goddesses already knows this, because we are all going. (Well, almost all) We have envisioned this trip for many years now and up until a few days ago, it looked like only three of us were going. Everybody had a different reason that very unfortunately prevented them from leaving home.

But then....

...David gifted Mary with a ticket on Tuesday, and when I told Jimmy about that on Wednesday, he said: "I can do that too, honey, you should really go!" And when I called Mary to recoordinate the reservation so we could fly together, I found this great direct flight at such a low rate, and when Lydia heard about that, Bob decided to give her a ticket too, and then all of a sudden Suzi really wanted to come too, and even though our rate was sold out, she found the same flight coming back... and finally Maria and Patrice just couldn't bear staying behind either... and thus... within a matter of about 12 hours... 6 more flights got booked to Antigua, where Sarah is now full of excitement getting her Mom's home ready to squeeze us all in... because now 9 of us will be arriving!!!

Only 4 days for Mary, Lydia, Suzi and me, but those 4 days will be just gorgeous!

This was us last Summer for Sarah's 50th birthday party, in special outfits anticipating our trip:

Patrice, Maria, Denise, Mary, Karen (who has to stay behind with Annabel) Lise (with hat) Lydia, Peggy and me, Tomma, only Suzi is missing in this picture, she probably took it.

A Last "Numbers" Update

2009-03-03T13:28:00.000-08:00

OK!
I feel I do have the evidence that the big one shrank.
Very little, but in my mind distinctly evident.

I was going to lay down all the corrected and complete numbers from the reports that were faxed to me this morning before your eyes, and then our Lise sent me a very well timed e-mail and reminded me that one might not need to spend so much time with the past manifestations of something that is after all ever changing. Ahhh, healing lives in the realm of the miraculous, it just allows physical form to return to a deeper truth.

So, it's done. My inquisitive mind is at peace. I had made four drawings of the four different images to see them in front of me... and I am satisfied. No more doubt.

In fact, I think this whole recent episode was divinely orchestrated to let me learn that I indeed do not need to pay any attention to outside "evidence" ...that my inner voice, and my inner guidance is perfectly tuned in, that I am watched and protected, that I can just relax and trust that this is all I need to follow. I want to do that. I am ready to continue to do that.

I love you all very much!!!
Tomma

Numbers

2009-03-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

Well, This is really interesting.

The numbers could mean they have already shrunk, or it could mean they have not yet.
As far as I understood Beth earlier today, this is what they are:

Sonogram GB 1/24......... 11.2 by 10.6 by 6.8
Catscan GB same day..... ( 10.5 by 9.9 )
MRI Albany Med 1/26....... 10.5 by 10.2 by 6.4

Sonogram Alb. M. 2/27.... 10.8 by 7.3

So, unless I got those numbers wrong of the Catsacn and the Songram in GB in January... boy, are those measurements accurate? Maybe not at all. Those images were taken within merely a couple of hours of each other, and that much of a difference? The Catscan probably being the unreliable one, because it was taken without contrast fluid. So, if the second measurement of the last Sonogram relates to the second measurements of both MRI and first Sonogram, then the cyst has lost 3 cm of it's width. That wouldn't be bad.

All in all I am feeling pretty good, I have very solidly arrived at the conviction that I have done "good work", and that the lack of obvious number change is not due to me having done something wrong, or missed something or having failed, but that these two just simply do take more time. I can make room for that.

I continue to take the Hydrogen Peroxide which takes me through bouts of detox during which I am a bit nauseous... Jimmy too is clearly seeing the effects in his fluctuating state of being too. Good stuff. At first I thought about jumping right in and doing another journey over the weekend, but then my gut feeling said: Take a rest! Just let it unfold for a while. You have done so much. You can trust this. Breathe a little. Just be.

My family in Germany jumped into gear and looked for other feedback. Most notably my sweet aunt talked to a healer she has worked with often and who seems to give reliable readings. He confirmed my mental work has created first a stagnation and now the beginning of a reversal. He too sees them going away. He feels I need to increase my intake of minerals to support the process. Well, that should be easy.

I may get the test reports faxed to me... would love to look at those number finally myself.

Love you!!
Tomma

New Thoughts

2009-02-28T08:38:00.001-08:00

Thank you everybody for your sweet words of encouragement, love and empathy!!! I have taken it all in.

This morning I woke up and thought: somehow this doctor yesterday had been really vague in his description. He had used words like "pretty much the same", and "not really any change" but he had not give me hard numbers to compare, he hadn't said: 'look, this cyst was x centimeters here at the longest extension and it is still exactly the same here. And this one was y cm across then and this is what it measures now...'' He didn't say anything like that. No hard data. He showed me the 10 cm length on a ruler, and then added it "might" be even longer than that. And then kept explaining how hard it is to compare a sonogram to an MRI. Doesn't an MRI give dimensions? Aren't the dimensions of the sonogram very accurate? Either that thing IS 10 cm long now, or it isn't.

So I began to think that he may have looked at these two imaging results with his frame of reference and experience that cysts like that just don't shrink, and possibly dismissed some of the more subtle differences, might not have even looked for them.

I got up and called Fairview Hospital to get from them the longest dimensions of the cyst as they had measured it over a month ago, also to have them send the results to Beth Netter at the Center in Delmar. Unfortunately the radiology department is not staffed over the weekend, so I have to wait until Monday, BUT they assured me they will be able to give me those numbers over the phone. I will do the same with Albany Med. So, on Monday it seems I should be able to put some clear numbers next to each other and see what has really happened. And if there is just a small difference that will actually be enough! It will tell me that something HAS happened. That the body has responded, and that the growth is reversed.

Somehow that is still what I believe is happening.

These cysts have been growing slowly. Not like Brandon's tumor that grew explosively bigger by the week. Fast growth, fast reversal. Slow growth, slower turnaround. Either, cells replicate quickly, or they don't. Healing then happens in the same time proportion. Of course! How could it be otherwise?

This may be more than anything else an opportunity for me to trust my own perception, even against medical authority, and seemingly conclusive results.

I will keep you posted.
Love
Tomma

New Sonogram Results

2009-02-27T10:53:00.000-08:00

Just got back from Albany Med.

Well, I am disappointed. There is not the significant change I had been hoping for, the change I had almost expected.

The radiologist who came in to go over the results with me, concluded there was really no change at all... my small hope is that could still come out different when Dr Timmins looks at the findings maybe with his own expertise. Maybe when he compares this sonogram to the one taken in Fairview Hospital. The longest dimension of the fluid one is still at 10 cm. The dermoid one is a bit disputed, because the woman doing the sonogram measured it as somewhat smaller, but the radiologist thinks there is a section beyond what she identified that is still part of it, and if so, then it also has not changed much at all.

I was so excited to go this morning. I am not sure what this means now.

Got to let this sink in.

.

Hydrogen Peroxide Treatment

2009-02-25T07:59:00.000-08:00

For anybody who wants to know more about Hydrogen Peroxide, here are a few articles to read:
The first contains a detailed recommendation for using it.

http://educate-yourself.org/cancer/benefitsofhydrogenperozide17jul03.shtml

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/hydrogenperoxidecancertherapybookexcerpt.shtml

http://www.cancertutor.com/Cancer/HydrogenPeroxide.html

http://www.garynull.com/Documents/Arthritis/Hydrogen_Peroxide_Therapy.htm

http://www.the-natural-path.com/hydrogen-peroxide-therapy.html
On this site they also recommend taking it with milk and certain juices.

I am now on my 12th day and would be up to 18 drops three times a day. I chose yesterday to slow down my intake as I was getting slightly nauseous. I can feel the peroxide in my body, mostly in my abdomen, where I can detect something like a low buzz. It feels like action. This is different from the pulling, and twinging sensation the cysts were doing through the earlier part of this month. Jimmy, who has been suffering from Candida for many years has started detoxing on a much lower dosage and is also taking it slow. Detox, or healing crisis is a good sign that things are happening. You don't ever want to make the mistake to stop the treatment during such a transition.

This is where I ordered my peroxide (Get a dropper bottle with it, unless you have one already) :
You get it in many other places too.
http://www.dfwx.com/h2o2.htm?gclid=CLzWncX4w5gCFQMnGgodWHDb1g

.

Cindy today

2009-02-24T19:38:00.000-08:00

Wow, this work really digs deep each time!

Coming home I was again, as last week totally whipped.
I filled her in on what had been happening, and she dug back into the pelvis and pulled up what was still sitting there.

The 5 year old me made the beginning. What she was afraid of, what she had needed, and what did she want now... not too much news here and neither any big new revelations, but she reached back and pulled up a handful of strings that all led back to other lifetimes, and as she pulled, they were released from they place of lodging and started floating up like a gaggle of kites, rising into the air. This seemed rather too effortless. Could it all be this easy now? Was it all freed up already? Somehow it wasn't complete yet.

And then we started on a journey into the distant pasts of other lifetimes. First in brief and alternating flashes. Morsels of the strands of life she was tied to: more pieces of being a victim, alternating with some where I was the perpetrator, not only in Egypt. As if layer by layer old stuff was being shed.

This sequence then turned into more elaborately told stories and of old themes:

First being a judge. Seeing myself in a black robe, residing over the law, over right and wrong, guilty and not guilty, deciding fate . Somehow I was invested in this role, but deep within the sharade of this game became visible. The impossibility of this attempt. Was it that I felt this myself at the time, or that now it became clear in the process of letting it go? That I don't know. All of this is such a fluid process, body, spirit and mind dancing a dance of liberation together, hand in hand. Sometimes not all feet are on the ground and one carries the other... Cindy pushes a spot, and the body speaks, pain, real physical pain lifts the lid into the past, pictures show up, the body releases, energy flows, the spirit guides the words being spoken, and through it all the mind receives a new understanding of something that is ready to be brought into consciousness.

Next as a soldier in battle with sword and shield. Defending nothing but more illusions with his life. Safety, protection, honor, power. All this bloodshed, for what?

Then some spots on the right side. Intense pain. About being a mother. God, what pain! A child I lost. In India. The illness, the hope the struggle, the grief. The disbelief, how could this happen? Why had I been so punished? It felt like a sentence from the Gods, a judgement. An event that shock up my then entire belief. That Indian self had thought she had done everything so well, her religious practice had been flawless, she had done everything she knew how, and she had felt rewarded, with a wealthy husband and beautiful daughter... and then everything crumbled. The husband distanced himself and then let go of me. I was degraded, replaced and later thrown out of the house... It don't know the laws of the ancient Indian society, but it seems I ended that life as an outcast in the streets.

As if the wails that escaped my lungs came right out of her throat. What was released here? It seems the wall that came down, the disconnection and insidious doubt, the distrust of the divine... and the powerlessness of being locked into the relentless laws of social ranking.

Over to the left. Here I found myself in Africa. Again a mother. Again a child was lost. This was a boy. He simply disappeared. Gone from one day to the next. Inexplicably. He had been my badge of honor. The firstborn son of the tribe chief, I his first wife. When he disappeared all of that went with it. My postion, my standing. All I could feel was absence of... all I heard was silent emptiness, not even pain, disorientation. Later it all turned into bitter inner battle. Groaning sounds gurgling out of my throat. The jealousy of the woman who took MY place, the pain of being a nobody when I should have been her, the rage, the anger, the attempts to curse her, spell her, and make her fall... and oh, the hatred I vomited into the earth, the withdrawl from her sacred all-giving presence, only wanting to cut myself from her earth-womb. And hating my own femaleness itself. - More painful disconnection.

Finally a return to center. Who am I a my core? What brings me back there? Stepping clear beyond the duality of being in power and being a victim, leaving both behind... The time of suffering is over. Am I ready? The me emerging carries so much less matter, is made up of so much more space.

At the very end I heard a piece of choral music, one I sung myself when I was young. I believe from the Brahms Requiem: "... von nun an..." from now on... I don't even remember what follows, but I heard the message: a new time is starting for me now. It starts now. Tears of gratitude... or love... or ...

What a month!!
Today is the 24th. Again.

Doris part two

2009-02-24T19:37:00.000-08:00

Now the second part. I asked her about the entire string of memories connected to the guilt toward the Jewish people. Specifically I was curious if she could see more about that last former self in Egypt. And she did, saw me indeed in that lifetime as a member of the royal family, where I had in this position possessed unrestricted power over other people. Those strong words my past self had spoken at the campfire to the ones who gathered, the "unspeakable" horror of what I felt I had done, she saw reflected here as pure cruel experimentation with human life and total disregard of the dignity and sanctity of the people I ordered to be used. She didn't use these exact words to describe it, but I got the picture. And that's why it was so "unspeakable", because it happened without any larger "purpose" or pressure, just out of curiosity and utter absence of consciousness.

Doris, very kindly and wisely pointed out that this information is not here to increase the guilt I am carrying, but for the clarity and understanding of the balance that life seeks... meaning those of us who are currently here doing service and working on the side of the "light", have very often been just as much on the side of the "dark" in the past. Not that I didn't believe this before, it was good to be reminded at this very time.

It was a good session. I have much of it recorded and can go back and pick up more details. When so much is exchanged, some aspects recede into a fog.

Now I need to get ready to go to Cindy's one more time.

Life is good.

LOVE!
Tomma

Doris Cohen

2009-02-23T16:28:00.001-08:00

My Session with Doris Cohen.

Well first the physical fact, which in my session came at the very end: She sees both cysts shrunk by at least a third. She sees no threat or any presence of cancer anywhere. She sees the fluid one just collapsing totally into itself. She sees the solid one getting smaller and smaller, but feels it may be a very healing experience to actually physically take it out of the body when it is small enough to do it with the tube thing. Physically removing the old manifestation of consciousness.

She works with guides and angles who show her images that relate to the various parts of the issue.

First thing she saw was a 5 year old me, very scared. This it turns out may not have been a past life experience, but from my actual childhood. A man touching me inappropriately and a woman covering it up and telling me not to speak about it. Not my mother. If this actually happened, it has been very well buried. No conscious memory is left anywhere. What fits though is the first piece of memory that came up in the Journey that later uncovered the rape, because at first I saw myself as also five years old, desperately kicking someone away in my defense. Hmmm. Only later at the campfire did my age change.

It may not be important to find out "the truth" of what happened, more importantly to understand the energy that's been locked in my pelvic region.

More past life scenarios became visible to her. Around shutting down sexuality. From being a monk, to being harrased by schoolboys in uniform, to a mother in the middle ages who abused me every which way possible. It was quite a line up.

Doris gave me a lot of short and potent exercises to clear this stuff out further. Interesting here that she works with numbers. 40 being a major one. 40 preceding any major change or transformation, whether that was the Jews in the desert before they reached the promised land, Jesus fasting before he went onto the cross, the days the seven plagues lasted... all major changes preceded by a repetition of 40 days. So: repetition of damaging experiences throughout various lifetimes needs to be responded to with repetition of healing in order to extract the energy completely. Hmmm. That was a new concept to me, but one that makes sense.

I have to take a break here to get dinner going with Anina's help... there is one more piece that is interesting to share and I will do that later...

Appointments

2009-02-23T07:53:00.001-08:00

Quick update:

Got a call from Gail at Dr Timmins office. Yes, he has apparently agreed to the sonogram idea, as I have been given an appointment at Albany Med for this Friday at 10:30 am. Surprisingly he doesn't seem to feel we need to make any urgent decisions about any possible surgery, because my follow up appointment with him at his office is not until March 16th! That's over two weeks later! Hmmm... I was expecting to see him right on the same, or the very next day. Hmmm...

I think I am going to take this as a very good sign.

When my appointment with Doris had to be postponed because they wouldn't let me leave at the Oral Surgeon's place, I had fist been worried about not getting her help in the beginning of my retreat. But then I came to the realization that it must for some reason be the better thing happening for me. And what that translated into was: I don't need her help as urgently as I thought, I can, my body can, the universe can do this perfectly without her.

So, here too. If this is what the universe has planned for me, it must be because I really wont have to make an urgent decision. I take it it will be clear.

This afternoon I may already learn more about the current state of my belly as I am speaking to Doris.

I will report promptly.

Much love, my wonderful friends!!!
Tomma

Through the Shadow of Doubt

2009-02-22T10:47:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday... it's snowing... Anina is coming back today...

I have been feeling so good, almost as if my body had completed something, almost as if these cysts had already disappeared. For two days I had not been able to feel them as I had in the past... Was it possible that within one cycle, from one period to the next they had undone themselves?

But then this morning, upon waking up, there was a slight twinge. And I was wondering if I had been mistaken. What if they are still there? What if they have not shrunk at all? All of a sudden I felt attached to an outcome, attached to "success", attached to be able to celebrate my body, attached to be free. All of a sudden there was the possibility of "failure", all of a sudden it became something I could have done "not good enough".

Jimmy, very sweetly, tried to talk me out of it. Eliciting from me patiently all the good things I had received out of this experience. But that was not the point. I did know that. I didn't regret this time. I still valued it. I was just worried about the result, or lack thereof.

Ahhhh... well, maybe that's one more Journey I need to do.

Although, as I sit here right now, and I have allowed these shadows of some old fears to be here... they dissolve. I am breathing... and all is well. I am feeling the peace, the deep relaxation of trusting this larger journey I am on. Can I REALLY trust that whatever happens is orchestrated for my highest good? ...that it all is formed out of nothing but love? Yes? Yes. The truth of this awareness is seeping into my heart, into my body, right this very moment... I don't know why this makes me cry right now.

The pain of forgetting maybe. The relief of knowing again. The sweet embrace of something wonderful that is hard to name.

Jimmy just got back from getting the groceries. Now he is bustling in the kitchen putting things away. Am I not so, so very lucky? How much gratitude can my heart carry?

Melissa called this morning to ask what day would be good to come and help me out. Jenny has also put in an offer. My parents have made a donation toward all my healing expenses. My cousin called from Germany with more insights into my condition. My journey family has stood by my side. Gabrielle has offered to help me organize my desk. Annabel to declutter other key areas of my home... how much gratitude can I bear?

Tomorrow I am speaking with Doris, who was recommended by Christiane Northroop. I will also hear back from Dr Timmins. Tuesday I am going back to see Cindy one more time. Then one more Massage with Patrice and my month will be over.

I am feeling better again.

I will remember this.

So much love!!
Tomma

One more Week

2009-02-20T05:46:00.000-08:00

Today (Thursday) I hardly felt anything in my belly. Usually, over the past three and a half weeks, there has been some kind of a sensation or another. Always something going on in there. I have been thinking it might indeed be a sign that something IS changing, and at a faster rate than what has happened over the past two years or so when these two cysts have been growing ever so slowly.

Sometime next week I should get scheduled for the second MRI. The office at the Women's Cancer Care doesn't seem very much on top of my case... they have not called me back for the second day in a row. I take it I am not a high priority item. I wanted to find out if it might not make sense to get a sonogram first, before rushing straight into a second MRI... anticipating that my two 'visitors' have shrunk considerably... at least that's what it feeeeeels like. My own logic being that if a sonogram shows that shrinking has occurred, I might not need another MRI. Let alone surgery. But I'd already be happy to skip the noise attack of the imaging tube.

Thinking back to last week when Susan was here, I remember seeing them as about apple size. Today, as I am tuning into my intuitive size assessment, they seem not much bigger than a walnut and pretty shriveled. But do I know this for sure? Of course not. Could something inside of me be making this up? I just don't know.

Annabel was here again today for more sitting by the fire drinking tea and cooking dinner for Jimmy and me. It's been so sweet having her here every week, a touchstone and support.

I did book Aninas flight to Berlin AND my next trip to Hamburg!! I didn't even think about if I would have enough time to recover from surgery while searching for a low fare. Only this morning I paused for a bit. Can I really just assume I am not going under the knife? Well, it just seems more real, I just really believe that wont happen. So I went ahead and did it: I am leaving on April 14th for three weeks.

Yesterday I had another Journey. Wow, I am getting loaded! It perfectly tied in to my work with Cindy... my former Egyptian self showed up at the campfire and really needed to be forgiven, for what I still don't really know, but she clearly did and had some serious words, some excruciatingly deep remorse to express to my present self and to the people she had hurt all those centuries back... a large group, hundreds of them stood there in their robes and listened. "For the sake of humanity, for peace among human beings, we forgive you." This is what one of their elders, with a long white beard and wrinkled face said at the end.

It is late, I need to go to bed.
Good night my dear, dear friends!!
Tomma

Into the Hormones and the Bones

2009-02-17T18:23:00.000-08:00

Wow, another BIG day today.
It has two parts.

First I saw Beth Netter up at the Center for Integrative Health and Healing, the very place I will be starting to work at very soon. So happy these are the people I am connecting with. Of course I have talked to them, and heard their intentions and seen their integrity and commitment in my interactions with them... but to experience the whole thing as a patient really brings it home.

And Beth is just totally wonderful.

Yes, I do have a little guilt and worry spending all this money on myself... $100 here, $180 there, another $125 at that place... and so on... it adds up. Am I being indulgent? Do I have the right to be indulgent? Is it frivolous maybe? Some old ghosts are still spooking around in that subject.

I breathe and let it happen. Now and then I have to cry a few tears over receiving so much from so many sides. I always used to get by with so little needs, with so little expenses... when something came up I would jump in and take care of it and do a journey for myself... not so now.

Back to my morning... Beth gave me lovely pill things to take... that my body had said 'yes' to, but more so, she so kindly and thoroughly takes in the whole person that is me... soon we will do some saliva and blood tests to evaluate my hormone levels, she was totally in alignment that this would be really important to look at and to rebalance. For now: Evening Primrose Oil, Liquid Vitamin B Complex, chewable Liquorice tablets, Liver Cleanse, ground flax seeds, and Flax seed oil... mmmm... nice.

My second event was rather intense: work with Cindy Dodge. She has the 'label' of a physical therapist, but brings much, much more than that... some of the different strands in my journeys tied together today.

That "bubble" that moves around in the middle of my belly, the one I wondered whether it might one of the cysts started moving again today... soon there was a spot revealed that Cindy zeroed in on: whooe, that hurt!... she hit the same kind of pain that I went through in the emergency room, and as she was tapping in on more and more spots... first inside the belly, then along the bones, the right pelvic, the pubic and the left side bones too, my body was going into some deep release... And as she was opening up these spots, intuitive questions were asked that tied... into the past life rape I had 'for some reason' just told her about... the girls, was it that they were a part of this experience?... in what way? ...and Jimmy, wasn't he there too? ? ? It came in little shattered pieces, and then bit by bit, it fell into place... for each of them ... with a burst of tears and pain and recognition of some yet deeper buried memory... how.. yes... they had been there... more pictures and flashes of that event... and my bones letting go... my body letting more of it go.

Astonishing.

And then we landed on the familiar question of: why do I always need to take care of other people... and where did that start? That questions that has already received so many answers. I related the discoveries from my last Journey, the one I actually never fully described to you... a Journey that grew with me through the entire week afterwards... and I gave her the picture of the hands holding me after I was born, and the pain of the disconnection I felt in my body... and she asked: what had it been like in the womb? That too I had remembered very clearly and could describe it to her... her suggestion to bring those very qualities into my own uterus seems almost logical, but was something that had never occurred to me. I could feel something beginning to shift, something beginning to come to center, and I thought: Oh, of course, this is what needs to happen! ... and when she said: and bring yourself in there... it stopped! All I heard was: do I have the right? do I deserve this? - Wow!

That too had to be traced back. Again the answers came in little broken pieces while Cindy kept working the spots on the bones. Egypt... long ago... I did something... something that hurt a lot of people.... misuse of power? yes... and unconscious actions. No clear images. Just a strong sense present in that moment. And then another wave of recognition. The Jewish people. It had something to do with the Jewish people when they were still in Egypt! Oh, God!

Somehow I realized later in that life what I had done. And I cursed myself? I turned my own power against myself? I punished myself... Yes. Tears always seem to come as a confirmation.

Not all of you know my recent discovery of the guilt I have been carrying, very unconsciously, with me from what I thought was my genetic German heritage and the atrocities against the Jews during the Nazi Regime... (it's a longer story...) but now, all of a sudden, it all dated far, far, farther back... an image of a small mountain in a dry treeless land, and very light colored rocks I am walking on in cross strapped leather sandals... I can hear the sound of those rocks under my feet... the dry air in my lungs... climbing up there is very significant... I have seen that image more than once in the past years and never knew where to place it. This is where it belongs.

And this is where it ended. For now.

Back home I was dazed. All of it starting to recede into the past and seeming a bit surreal.

My body though very tired.

Doing the necessities mechanically. Remembering to take my peroxide.
Making a very hot salt foot bath and a warm castor oil pack for myself.
Taking my new pills.
Resting.
Feeding the fire.

Love.
Tomma

Another Massage from Patrice

2009-02-16T20:41:00.001-08:00

Today another massage from Patrice.

That was all for today.

My Journey had not happened... a bit of miscommunication and change in weekend schedule... now it will be Wednesday... which I am sure will be the more perfect timing.

Hydrogen Peroxide is up to 5 drops.

Jimmy, who has been holding up his end of expanded responsibilities and increased care-taking is going through his own ups and downs with that and a bit of detox. He really needs a Journey process himself... I may be able to find a practitioner in training to do one for a case study with him.

I am feeling good. The massage today ... ahhh the body just feels soooo goood afterwards. So much love is pouring into me it seems. Patrice envelops me with such a deep, luxurious and loving comfort... Tonight Jimmy said: "You almost look like your old self again." Who knows. He's been holding a lot of buried worries.

Now I am starting to feel tired...

...love, love, love to you all!!!
Tomma

Into the Weekend, Sunday Feb 15th

2009-02-16T05:18:00.000-08:00

Just a simple update, as this weekend went by without any major healing events...

I had tried to schedule another journey for today, but it didn't fit into anybody's schedule. So that will happen on Monday, as well as another massage from Patrice.

Saturday went by with little Valentines preparations and getting Anina to the train to NYC, from where she and Sophia and Constantin have left today to LA over winter break.

Jimmy and I had a rather elaborate Valentines Day plan with a very early dinner in Lenox followed by tickets to a Shakespeare & Co play, appropriately titled "Bad Dates"... alas, the dinner was shockingly overpriced, something that didn't quite register with Jimmy, as he had happily ordered two refills of his white wine glass during the course of the meal. No longer used to what were once moderate amounts of alcohol, this put him initially into a rather elevated state, but as time passed and after we were seated in the warm theater, something in his stomach turned a different way, and he ended up sitting through the first half of the play battling nausea and menopause-like heat attacks. Unfortunately the play itself did not add a higher note to the evening, it was kind of relentlessly and artificially overacted, so much so that we almost left during the break. A memorable night for sure.

I did start on my hydrogen peroxide treatment. "Food grade" is the key here. 3 drops three times a day in a glass of water yesterday, increased to 4 today, and 5 tomorrow. This steady increase continues over 16 days. I am really excited about this and very curious how my body will do. So far I feel very good. This simple treatment seems to be quite a miraculous healing boost for the body for all kinds of diseases. I will keep you posted.

And today Jimmy and I finally completed our sofa purchase. Soon we will have an unspeakably comfortable sofa in front of our "plasma screen home theater" ... wow. You will be welcome to join us for movie nights.

I hope you had a higher return on your Valentines day investments and a sweet start into winter break!!
Much love!
Tomma

... and working with Susan

2009-02-13T13:51:00.001-08:00

In the afternoon my friend Susan came, she is a hypnotherapist, somatic healer and life coach, and just a very exuberant loving human being.

A couple of years back when she was diagnosed with a very aggressive ovarian cancer, I had done some soul retrieval work with her - it was just before I discovered the Journey. She came with all these little presents: organic apples, organic chocolate and the lovely lavender candle.

She did a somatic healing session with me. Now this is something I have studied myself, but have not used all that much in my own practice, something that I think may change... Oh, just such a wonderful experience to relax soooo deeply... Susan is so masterful at this... I saw both cysts: the fluid one, fairly deflated, greyish looking, somewhat lifeless, unevenly shaped with a surprisingly thickish, multi-layered membrane... it seemed no bigger than apple size now. The inside a thick yellowish, translucent and toxic smelling liquid.

An inner healer shows up and does all kinds of repair work, in my case she opened the cyst to let the liquid drain... interestingly the quality that had blocked the release of this substance was "feeling responsible"... hmmm

The second cyst also got worked on and became visible in that moment too: a dense fleshy thing, sort of unevenly pinkish, with blots of more whitish and spots of more reddish fleshiness, as if unevenly supplied with blood-flow. Not perfectly round either, a sort of wobbly roundness... here my inner healer started raking and brushing feverishly to sweep out the crumbling contents from within...

When suggested to see my healed and happy future self, I got a very clear sharp image of my body, very light feeling and I could see, x-ray like, through to the inside: the uterus, small and firm, the thin, elastic tubes and the small, almond size ovaries, totally vivid and clear and colorful... a sense of flying came with it, as if these light little ovaries could lift me up like wings, and a happy smile on my face.

More color and healing work sank into a deeper fog of relaxation... Ahhh.

Today: resting, integrating, breathing... only very little working and organizing a few things...

Annabel will come later and help me cook dinner, what a gift she has been!

I made an appointment with my Center up near Albany to do some hormone testing to see what needs a boost. They don't put you right on bioidenticals, but first see if they can support the body naturally to rebalance the production.

And 15 min ago the hydrogen peroxide finally arrived in the mail!!! Yipeee!

Tomorrow Jimmy and I are going out to celebrate.

The girls will be traveling with Constantin.

Love, love, love to you all!!
Tomma

Thursday, part one...

2009-02-13T08:28:00.000-08:00

Hmmmm, it seems a lot happened yesterday.

Right now I am sitting in my favorite spot by the fire, my feet are in a warm salt foot bath (Michael's recommendation) and a lavender candle (from Susan) exudes its soft scent next to me.

So, Michael Shaffer is back and practicing by appointment out of the Philmont office on select days of the week. Different than in the past, he doesn't work with several people at the same time but is totally present with you alone. That in and of itself was a treat: one full hour of undivided attention!

(Michel Shaffer is a chiropractor by profession, but really a healer beyond that professional identity, he was away in India for a couple of years and has only recently returned)

Some new aspects came up, some old ones were confirmed. A lot of silent work on the neck, feet and along the spine, and some interesting lessons of observation, how the belly responds to a person entering the space I am in, impulses of protection that are triggered, how I make a hand on my body either part of myself or separate from myself, how I look at the world through my third eye with my solarplexus covered, and how I see it with that place exposed... Subtle and unexpected, interesting directions of seeing myself. Not sure I have extracted an overall conclusion from it, more something that stirs softly within.

Then the people aspects of these lumps in my body, who is related to it and how? The girls came up and Jimmy as well. Anina above all appeared and was present, a memory I had seen in a journey back in December resurfaced and some probing into what my agreement - or contract with her has been. Somehow I had believed I was here to protect her. This has been carried on from the very beginning on her life when Sophia, clearly thrown of balance by the arrival of a baby sister, displayed some intense behavior, a drive to take charge of her baby sister with a certain amount of roughness, or aggression culminating in a period of biting her so hard we could see the teethmarks on her skin... I had not be aware how deeply the feeling of failure was imbedded into my relationship with her.

Yesterday my sense of that contract was corrected into: I am here to help her find her own strength. Ahhh, quite a relief. She appeared and laid her hands on my belly one over each cyst and said: "Mom, it's all right", so softly and lovingly it made me cry.

Now my water has gone cold, so I will write about the second part of yesterday later...

Love
Tomma

today...

2009-02-12T20:37:00.000-08:00

Today was quite a day... but I was just too tired to write anything... it will wait until tomorrow.

Daily Life...

2009-02-11T19:29:00.000-08:00

Today I felt so much energy as I haven't in a long time. Jimmy warned me not to jump right back in and do what I always do, which in his mind was: working all day at my desk. But somehow that almost happened. Life just asks certain things you can't ignore.

Right now that is planing Anina's trip to Berlin and helping her decide when to go... similar to trying to grab a fish under water, you think you have something in your hand and it's gone again... she can't make up her mind... still, flights had to be searched for, travel dates compared, and thinking put into motion about when I would go to Hamburg and when Jimmy could join me over there... thrown into the midst is the tantalizing possibility to go to a Journey Intensive in Berlin with Brandon on the last weekend in April... much mental acrobatics... not my favorite activity at any time, right now it really feels like a chore.

So, a good amount of time at my desk.
God, that place is like a black hole that sucks my brain empty. One task blends into the next and the next and the next. By now the piles of mail have reached frightening proportions... I have been spoiled mostly sitting by the fireplace and resting and writing and reading. Is there a way to make a living like that? I've got to do something about my desk, it needs to turn into a place of creative serenity, and happy orderliness. But how?

Now back by the fire I am happy again.

Having watched the flames a lot during these past days and days I have been learning a lot about fire, about this process of transformation that produces heat and light. I am struck by the attention the fire demanded from me to keep burning well. All this activity of drying and thawing off and getting the logs ready to go into the fire was amazing... and then the various kinds of wood and how they behave... I am struck by a certain similarity in the way I have thought about what I, and maybe many of us, are striving for: to be a force of transformation, a light worker, to release the density and evolve into a higher vibration...

This is what I am seeing: sometimes it is very hard to get the fire going. The logs are too dense, too wet, or too young or too big... and the heat that is available not big enough to really get it going. It's all about heat production. Logs that lay crosswise produce less heat than the same logs laying next to each other. Proximity and parallelness.

Sometimes there are big logs just smoldering and the fire doesn't quite expand, instead you can see it diminishes. And sometimes it is just a little piece of bark thrown in that burns with a short little flame, just enough that it increases the heat over the current threshhold and everything starts igniting everywhere.

Can I be a piece of bark? Could my writing be a piece of bark? Could what I am experiencing be the spark that sets into flame another process somewhere else?

Once heat is expanding, it feeds itself... in other words: more heat produces more flames that produce more heat.

And many of us close together can make a bonfire (or a campfire) that can light up a place that used to be dark or cold... that is my belief.

Tomorrow is another big healing day:
First my meditation group, then on to Michael Schaeffer and in the afternoon my dear friend Susan, who walked through the fire of ovarian cancer is coming to do some somatic healing work with me.

Off to bed with me!
Sparks of love to you!!!
Tomma

Beautiful Tuesday

2009-02-11T08:16:00.000-08:00

Quick updates:

After yesterday had been a LOW day, today I had a lot of energy and cleaned up all the various wood drying stations I had created in the house.

Sophia had slept well and without any painkillers, but battled with a headache all day today until Patrice did some energy work on her before dinner.

Our Patrice came a gave me a heavenly massage in front of the wood stove in the dining room... she even brought a large pot of the most delicious white bean soup and we all had a lovely meal afterwards.

Sophia's friend Nick was here and stacked up the new wood on our porch.

Anina is battling with the plan to go to Berlin in April... all of a sudden she can't bear the thought of leaving, and yet she will have to decide very soon, if to postpone it or not.

This massage today was significant in a very different way. You may remember the last Journey I went on last Sunday... and the impact of being handled by those hands I discovered. Incidentally I talked to my mother about this and she recalls that there had been a very nice young nurse she liked a lot, who had assisted her all during labor, but because labor went on for so long this nurse had finally gone home and been replaced by sister Emmi. Who was in her words a rather unfriendly and "old" nurse (almost 50), who she didn't feel any vibes with... hmmm. She also confirmed my image of the experience in which I was lifted to the right and away from her and of where the birthing bed was standing... and confirmed that nurse Emmi took me over to the right side to the sink to wash and swaddle me, before I was given back to her. I thought that was so cool I actually saw this the way it happened.

Anyway, it had been the experience of the disconnection that had been so painful, and it had kind of entered my skin and flesh through those hands... and when Patrice was massaging me today it was as if she was rubbing or peeling away the layer of tissue that had held that consciousness, very lovingly little by little, bit by bit. That now there was again another experience of hands reversing what had happened back then.

A totally, utterly beautiful experience of surrender and connectedness.

... and now off from my computer.

Much much love to all of you!!!
Tomma

Mad Monday

2009-02-09T13:31:00.000-08:00

Oh, well... today turned out totally different than planed.

Sophia had a 9 o'clock appointment to get her 4 wisdom teeth pulled... which I knew, but had kind of forgotten during the last few days, or somehow I figured between Jimmy and me we could get her to Pittsfield and back again... thought my own appointment with Doris was at 11:00, but when I checked to be sure, oh dear!... it was at 10:00! Plans were swiftly adjusted for me to bring her and come back in time, and for Jimmy to go and get her home, but when I arrived at the office with Sophia they would not allow me to leave! Another security thing, they need to have someone there while the patient is "under". Of course we had already gotten lost on the way up there because she didn't exactly remember where this place was.

Jimmy had to call to let Doris know...

I had to wait...

Now, back home I have a wobbly patient, who sits in my office and watches TV, to take care of with pureed soups, fruit juices and painkillers... My focus is just really thrown off. How curious. And the wood that we finally got on Saturday night turns out to be a little green and doesn't burn well either... hmmm... all these glitches... all these hurdles... all these distractions...

And what did I come out of the Journey with yesterday? This is the part I didn't write down yet: "By loving all of life, I mirror the truth." (I'll write some more about the resolution of that journey some other time) I thought about that this morning at the oral surgeon. OK, all this went somehow "wrong", and now I have a chance to love this. Is that how it goes?

Jimmy's conclusions went into a different direction, into "what am I supposed to learn form this?". And he jumped in willingly to give me that perspective over the phone... But... That didn't match was I had seen yesterday. It was not about learning something to do something differently in the future, so it wouldn't happen again the next time. It was about loving all that is, the exact way it is. To look closely enough beyond the veil, beyond the separateness to see the "truth" which is always beautiful, always full of love. Not a new concept exactly, Byron Katie talks about nothing else but that. But a bit different when you discover it for yourself with your own inner imagery.

Now that I am writing about this, I feel a healthy calm come back into my body.

By the way, forgive me for writing so much,
I don't mean for anybody to experience my e-mails as some kind of work load and to have to read it all... I do remember very well what life is like on the "taking care of all family-, home-, work- and relationship- things track"... we are all sooo busy. It just really helps me to write it all down. It creates more clarity and awareness. I have become my own best case study...

So I conclude, for some unknown reason it will be better for me to have my session with Doris two weeks from now, and for some more known reason it was better for me to stay and bring Sophia back home after her surgery, yes that was pretty obvious, she was so out of it, so unable to say a word, pretty vulnerable and yes, very wobbly. Good for me as a Mom to be there.

At least I will see some of you tonight, after missing the bigger gathering yesterday, that feels good. I had not followed all the the many backs and forths and lost track where the whole planing had landed, that too must have been better for me. It felt right, as much as I missed seeing you all.

I am feeling pretty good, but I am not doing all that much... I have stopped my rice cleanse, after my digestion got a bit too sluggish... I don't eat anything sweet and almost no meats or animal fats (the exception was Peggy's wonderful turkey soup yesterday) but otherwise nothing spectacular...

...sometimes there is a little twinge in the belly, sometimes a little ache, most of the time I do feel something going on down there, and also sometimes I feel absolutely nothing. There is this roundish thing n the middle of the belly that moves around, most of the time it is pretty low down, but I can move it upward very easily under the belly button. Might that be one of them? I'd love to know.

So. Am I missing anything? Am I overlooking something? What does your gut tell you about were I am heading with this? Today it is two weeks ago I had the MRI. Should I still go to another doctor, Michael Schaeffer maybe? Mostly I get clear about these questions on my own, sometimes it feels good to ask.

Ohhhh, what a trip!!
I love you!!
Tomma

Later:

Well, more unexpected stuff: Sophia, who had merely been nauseous for that past couple of hours, has now thrown up and that will be a problem if she wants to continue taking pain killers... not sure how that develops and when and if I can come after all... May be I get there late... would really love to sit in the hot tub with you tonight...
been a tiring day...

Love
Tomma

Sunday night, Feb. 8th

2009-02-08T20:03:00.000-08:00

As you are finishing your lushious hot tub experience in Kripalu, I will connect with you by e-mail and give you a few images of my journey today. I would have liked to join you, but I was really, really tired. Just don't have that much strength theses days. It doesn't worry me, I take it as a sign that my body is doing some inner repair work.

I wouldn't have gone out, but we just really needed new pots after we threw out our old aluminum based ones, and Sophia took hers to the city. We also want a new, more comfortable sofa in the TV room and there was a sale on today in Albany...

Well, how to give you the highlights?

The curve of my staircase was much gentler today, the steps themselves much wider and covered with a lush, thick carpet that my feet sank into with every step, there was this presence of something precious almost luxurious, even the thermometer had some golden ornate decorations framing it, and the door was entirely gold-plated. Inside my mentors, three of them, were all dressed up with velvet embroidered capes... hmmmm... all this rather unusual. The vehicle too was somehow regal: a flying sled with more golden ornate decoration and cushioned velvet seats, pulled by six swans... We flew to my crown chakra, at the same time I heard "north pole" and sure enough, that's what it looked like. Vast snowy landscape with a huge Ice bolder, an ice mountain jutting out of the ground not far away.

The memory we found there was what must have been minutes after I was born, I had literally just left the birth canal... the womb seemed already far behind me, that soft, warm chamber... and hands were holding and handling me, hands of people who didn't know me, didn't love me, and were not connected to me, skillfull maybe, but to them I was nothing but a number in their routine. I could feel these hands on my body and it felt like something had died, a connection, a safety, love and aliveness.

... and... I am falling asleep, soo tired all of a sudden I can hardly keep my eyes open.

I think I will write a bit more tomorrow... Now i really need to go to sleep... so tired...
love...
T.

On... to the body...

2009-02-07T16:32:00.001-08:00

Quick update:

Peggy came by first thing and brought homemade soup and tulips!!! Oh, how sweet is that? I had postponed getting up and ready literally until I heard her voice downstairs, so she had entered into a messy and cold dining room... interesting again how I play that game in my head, because I had not thought about it until she was here, but afterwards I felt that little nagging guilty feeling for not having had some tea ready and the fire lit to be able to sit down with her... or at least offered some kind of hospitality... hmmm... just noticing these things with more awareness now.

Today my first massage was booked with a wonderful massage therapist in Chatham, Brin, who has also done some journeywork with me. A massage is always such a luxurious experience, but this one was also really interesting, because she focused a lot on my abdominal area, and I could feel , I mean, physically feel the resistance that still sits in the tissue in there. It still carries this feeling of being invaded or being asked of too much, I had to really breathe and very consciously release. Not a whole lot of emotion that surfaced, feels a little bit like a lot has been released, and now the body has to catch up... not sure, but that was my sense.

We both also noticed a lot of movement in there. Brin described it as if at times there was a fist coming up inside my belly. We worked with some chi-gong too, flowing chi energy up through one leg and back down the other, wind energy came up and did its work... interesting because she told me that wind in Chinese medicine relates to the liver and to anger... no wonder! as the (enneagram) 9 type that I am... we tend to do everything we can not to trigger, or feel anger... ah yes...

The belly REALLY felt different afterwards, something got moved around in there, or opened up. That was really good!!

I feel very good!!

More tomorrow!

Jimmy is taking me out...

Love you, as always...
Tomma

My Journey today... Fri. Jan 6th

2009-02-06T13:38:00.001-08:00

Wow, I've had quite a morning,

I had scheduled myself for two more journeys, one today and one on Sunday.
But first thing we noticed when we woke up was how cold it was in the house, moments later the phone rang and it was my tenant reporting that the furnace had gone off and his thermometer read 45 degrees. Ouch! On the way to school the car showed me a mere 7 degrees.

I am concerned about the pipes. Some are not bringing up heat.

And in all this focusing on myself I had forgotten to be present with the oil delivery schedule and not ordered a new delivery in time. Jimmy, my angel promptly ran out to get diesel from the gas station and relight the furnace, one more run he made brought us up to about 30 gallons which will hold us over until tomorrow when the truck comes.

Then Bruce, my second angel of the day, called for the journey process. He suggested a new format I had never experienced, from the conscious leadership workshops he had participated in. A "simple" process that brings up all the negative labels, beliefs and judgements you live with. At first it didn't feel all that powerful, a lot of them I had been conscious of, but then a few were new discoveries, and some came up with a lot of emotion, and the part that made it really amazing was visualizing them in their totality... in the very end they become visible as a structure that surrounds you, that you have lived in.. woh, was that a wake up call to what I am constantly schlepping around with me.

Here is some the the hidden stuff that I saw. The stuff I don't want other people to see, that I don't even want to see myself. I am writing this in the awareness that not just you, my beloved moon-circle women can read this, but a lot of other people, and so this will be part of my clearing and healing to pull it out into the open.

My biggest fear and greatest pain right now seems to be failure.

Failure in many ways. Ways I have failed my daughter Sophia, knowing that even though we dance every relationship WITH the other person... I must have contributed to her current state of depression and lack of motivation, vision or joy for her life, and her inability to let other people in, or help her, or believe she can't be helped by anybody... and thinking I know what it was that I did, the considerable pain over having let it happen.

Ways I have failed my home by not taking care of it and neglecting certain repairs and upkeeps... always from lack of money or time...

Ways I fail Jimmy when he doesn't get from me what he needs.

Ways I have failed to be successful, not just doing "ok" but reallllly being successful, because the means I have failed to reach people, failed to bring this work where it is needed.

Most of all ways I have failed myself, in not living up to my own high standards. Not having been able to always be what I believe I can be, not being able to pull myself up and live the full version of my potential. Not even able to keep my desk in an organized state. When asked who am I in my darkest moments that I don't want anybody else to see, what tumbled out of my mouth was: "That I am nothing but an average, needy person who doesn't really contribute anything significant to the world and therefore has no right to even be here." Woha! That hurt! And what about this judgement on "average" people?!
This erupted, was there with a huge wave of emotion for a minute or so, and then faded.

At the end of course I walked out, this whole structure crumbled and my mentor removed all this garbage out of my cellular consciousness and replaced it with something... well... better of course.

Now I am fairly tired.

Sophia packed up the remainder of her belongings and left with a stuffed car to move in tomorrow, when all her big items from Ikea come in.
Tomorrow I am receiving a first massage. And more to follow.

I am awaiting the order of food grade hydrogen peroxide.

And a new load of higher quality, DRY firewood.

I love you all!
Tomma

Becoming Selfish

2009-02-05T08:36:00.000-08:00

.

It's amazing the ways in which those little things show up that I have never paid much attention to.

This morning I was ready to get up and bring Anina to school and stay at the farm store for 45 min so I could go to my meditation group, which I figured would be a good thing for me to be doing today.

Then Jimmy offered to drive Anina and come back in time, so I could stay in bed a little longer and rest. I accepted that. I did get up to get the fire going and help the two of them get out of the house in time... but went straight back to bed after they left.

As I laid there I heard Kathleen, my sweet housekeeper come in downstairs and I remembered that I had forgotten to get glass and bathroom cleaner for her. I also had not straightened out the kitchen enough so that she could just use her time cleaning without the need to tidy up first. So I went downstairs to apologize. Being the caring person she is, she shooed me right back into bed.

I still had to call Jimmy on his cell to ask him to bring glass cleaner though. Of course his phone wasn't working right and obviously didn't ring, because he just didn't pick up. I kept trying.

By 8:30 he called himself to check in with me and the urgent glass cleaner purchase could be delegated.

It got to be 8:45 and I would have to get up to get ready to go to the meditation group, and I felt this heaviness in my limbs, my body just did not want to move. It was not that was feeling bad and couldn't get up, it was more that I was sooo happy to be laying down. Then the thoughts started nagging: Lilia would really like to see me, they can't watch the buddhist teaching if I don't bring my laptop, I have already stayed at home last week, meditating is really good for me... ... After a while I just stopped myself. What was I doing? Was I listening to my body? Had I not promised to be listening to my body above anything else? Would I be going for them, or for myself if I went?

A little more pausing and breathing and then I picked up the phone and called and left a message I would not be coming.

It seems such a little thing, but this stuff gets big when you do it all the time.

Learning to be selfish. Healthily selfish. What a curious experience!

Much Love,
Tomma

Wednesday Morning, Feb. 4th

2009-02-04T10:15:00.000-08:00

Soooo,

This morning I did an imagery thing that Carol suggested, although it kind of took off into a bit of a different direction, but that was just fine.

In it I had intended to work with laser light on these two cysts as the exercise describes it, but somehow that didn't take off, instead I connected with the energy in each cyst and saw a visual representation of them. The first one looked like a greenish small little creature, a bit like the house elfs in Harry Potter, skinny little thing with big ears and very little hair, crouched together and pretty miserable, seems to have been complaining a lot. (Correspondingly that was the cyst that said: "I caaaaan't") I send this creature love and compassion , or rather I allowed myself to feel love and compassion for it, saying "I am sorry I love..." over and over until it started to change... That actually took a fairly long time, but finally it flipped into a healthy young man, who shouldered a bundle over his shoulder and sat out to go explore the world. With it came this old German song: "Das wandern ist des Muellers Lust..." an old song that describes the medieval apprenticeship tradition of walking from one master to the next across the country in learning your trade.

The second one looked like a worn out young woman, on her knees scrubbing the floor, in dirty grayish clothes... (Also consistent here, with the words: "I have to, I have to"...) When I started connecting with her, and said: "I am sorry, I love you." she changed into a younger girl with a colorful wide skirt about to go out to a country dance, twirling around in anticipation and a big smile on her face.

This felt really good to do, didn't take more than half an hour and feel like a great way to check in with those two each day.

Sarah sent me great material on Hydrogen peroxide, which I read and think I will do that. She has done this herself with good success.

I spoke with Doris Cohen, a medical intuitive that Christiane Northrup recommended to Carol for me. She pulled up some interesting things right during our little conversation.

One: don't let myself be dictated what the time frame of this healing is by locking myself into this one month limited schedule.

Second when asked for a number, I spouted out "7". Asked what had happened while I was 7, I told her, I started going to school, nothing much else. This prompted realization of the the significance which was that I very quickly was recognized as a VERY good student. Something neither of my parents had expected of me, as they themselves had been kind of on the average side... so it became a source of pride for them and standard for me to live up to. Doris zeroed in on this after I had elaborated a bit and said she has a sense this also has to do with filling other peoples expectations - man!!! is that a big subject for me!!!

The other thing that is interesting about my work with her is that she is from Israel, and you (in my mooncircle) remember the burden I had become aware of during the Abundance retreat, the weight I am carrying in working off the guilt of the German people toward the Jewish people. I think something beautiful will come out of this. My appointment is for next Monday.

I may do a rice cleanse... Any thoughts on cleanses, or other detox protocols?

Jimmy wants to give me a series of massages, so I will call Patrice today for that too...

That's it for now!
I am sitting by the fire...
I may come to Mary's circle tonight...

LOVE YOU!!!
Tomma

The Second Journey at the Intensive

2009-02-03T19:24:00.000-08:00

And here is the surprising discovery in the second journey.

On the second day you do what w call the physical journey, which many of you know, it's the one where you go down a set of stairs and travel into your body to find the cellular memory that has manifested in a particular way in your life. Normally you find the emotion in some place that stands out and then that links you back to the memory itself.

Now, my emotion was very hard to identify. Almost as if it didn't quite wanted to reveal itself. After some probing it was a feeling as if I was wanting to push someone away. Someone like a man. It was odd, because it just didn't bring up a memory. None, nothing even close to it. We were about to go into what old vows or beliefs were attached to this when my partner mentioned, "you know this could also be from another lifetime." and no sooner had she spoken the words that a flood of emotion came rushing in and with it new images of a group of men trying to hold me down, wanting to rape me. I felt young, maybe not older than 10 years, and it felt like they had come back from a war... of course nothing in my life even remotely resembled a situation like this, but the feeling was SO real and SO vivid, the pain of what was about to happen so overwhelmingly present, I had no other explanation in the moment that indeed this must be from another lifetime.

Again, how blessed are we to have tools that can release the impact of such trauma, that I must have carried with me, for God knows how long. We did have a campfire dialog, and I was able to step into their bodies to understand what drove them. The despair I found in there was heartbreaking. The level of inner mutilation and loss of aliveness stunning. It was as if they were on the brink of starvation from this lack of aliveness and when they saw something in me that resembled that, an innocence and a freshness, it was as if they had to take it from me simply in order to survive.

The conclusions and survival mechanism I had brought with me are all pretty obvious and familiar to me... from the kind of men I feel safe with and have been in relationship with, to the way I dress and the way my body almost hides my female features... I had of course never dreamt they came from an experience like this.

After I forgave them, the script of this particular journey version invites a group of wise women to the campfire, and suddenly there you were all with me along with the women in my family. You sang a mysterious healing chant that filled my whole body and washed me clean... very beautiful and moving. Nobody had told you to do this, it just happened all by itself.

So, you see, you all helped even more than you thought.

Thank you my wonderful friends!!

My aunt did some drumming for me over the weekend, Annabel was here and performed a little miracle in the kitchen that had been neglected, Sophia cooked a wonderful dinner, and Jimmy picked up Anina in Hudson... I am so lucky!!!

Now I am going to take a salt detox bath and put a castor oil pack on my belly to pull out some more of those toxins...

much much love
Tomma

Tuesday, Feb. 3rd - After the Journey Intensive Weekend

2009-02-03T12:56:00.000-08:00

Sweet friends,

We got back really late last night, and even though I had taken it slow, I was pretty tired. We had met Sophia in front of her new apartment on Thompson Street in Soho, and Jimmy and Constantin carried the contents of two cars up to the fifth floor. What a cute place!! Very small, but totally charming.

I only walked up once and stayed there to unpack some of the items from their wrapped state.

Afterwards we took her to Ikea to get some more of the necessary big items she needs, and even though I sat down a lot in between, that was a bit exhausting. We had it all delivered, so no more schlepping of heavy stuff up the stairs. It all just took so long, we didn't end up leaving the city until after 7:00.

The Journey Intensive itself was really quite amazing.
It was a small event, probably due to the bad economy, we were more trainers than participants... But, oh the amount of love and support and advice, and good wishes was huge! What wonderful people, what an extraordinary group of people have merged in this larger northeastern area to do this work! It feels like another soft cocoon of loving care I fell into this weekend.

Now, my two journeys were really powerful and interesting, and quite intense. They have provided more insight as to what I have been storing in these two cysts.

If you are interested here is a description:

In the first journey we went into each cyst separately to see what was present in them. The fluid one, which is also the one that has the slight chance of being cancerous, initially felt like something on hold and quiet, almost dormant, but beneath that I started to hear this tiny little scream: "I can't do this!!!" and with that came a flood of despair and sense of failure, a huge amount of emotional energy that emptied itself out through my whole body, no memory... and then a resting and a relief.

In the second cyst I felt something very different: a restlessness, a blind doing with a relentless summoning of effort. That one had words too: "I have to, I have to, I have to, I have to..." in constant repetition. And beneath that one a huge wave of anger that came out with some foul language: "Why the fuck can't you leave me alone?!" - Wow. No memory here either. ... and after this too had emptied itself out, again a resting and a sense of ease.

The memory itself came later, through a presence of doubt: "Can it really be this easy? Can you just live without effort and trying hard and failing a lot along the way?" It took me back to when I was two years old. We lived in Brussels at the time and my mother had a juicer in the kitchen which she liked to use for making fresh carrot, apple and beet juice. That day she had put me next to her on the counter and as I was sitting there, I heard the humm of the juicer, watched with fascination the juice come out of the spout and mesmerized by this magical machine, I stuck my little middle finger into the only opening I could see, which was the vent on the side where the blade was rotating. It cut off part of the tip of my finger. My mother had to rush me to the hospital where it was sewn up.

I had taken on a whole bunch of conclusions and beliefs from this experience. How lucky we are that we can remove such old baggage!

And finally source itself. I don't right now recall how exactly I arrived there, only the image and consciousness of it: an experience of everything penetrated by something that was hard to name... the closest description was a jubilant love. I was as if everything, even the smallest inanimate object was made up of it, visible in a sparkling glow that looked a bit like millions of tiny embers, or light filled crystals under the surface. Everything is filled with this, there is no difference, whether that is a cyst in my body, a piece of garbage on the street, a fruit in my hand, or an event taking place... the life force that fills it all has that same quality... more can be said how this jubilant love responded to all the previous layers in the journey...
... but it is getting late and I want to get it out.

Patrice is waiting for a return call... my stomach is waiting for a bit more food... and you may be waiting to hear from me.

I will write more later today.

with love and much gratitude...
Tomma

Friday, Jan 30th in Manhatten

2009-02-03T12:54:00.000-08:00

Friday night, 10:15 PM,
Constantin's apartment, Manhatten.

I can't send anything today as we don't have internet reception here in the city... nevertheless a few words to memorize the day. I may be able to send it off to you all tomorrow morning back at the hotel.

Interestingly Sophia got really sick last night, after she and Anina came back from Karen's Yoga class. There was my oldest daughter sitting on the floor, moaning mostly and cussing in between. Violently nauseous. Later she started throwing up... and continued to do so throughout the night. Lucky for me it didn't wake me up.

Annabel had cooked this beautiful dinner for us, what a treat! And Denise was there too, more help and special treatment. Very unfamiliar to be taking such gifts of labor and love in, just letting them in... the impulse is to want to do "my part" too, or to justify silently on the inside why I am not doing... and talk myself into the permission to simply receive.

One of my journey friends walked up to me after the trainers satsang and offered again her help, as she had already done by e-mail. I told her I was getting better at asking and receiving help and support, which prompted her to tell me the story of Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross' Mother , who had always been a very active woman all her life and ... then she had a stroke and had to live the last part of her life with constant help and assistance. Someone said, it was a blessing she was able to have this experience, it might have saved her a whole lifetime as an invalid, because now it made it possible for her soul to learn how to receive.

Off to bed... reallllly tired...
Love
Tomma

Thursday, Jan 29th - 3:32 PM

2009-01-29T13:20:00.000-08:00

Lovelies,

Ohhh, it is much later than I had intended to write a little update for all of you... but this day just floated along into new and unplanned spaces... mostly I had a long, to be precise: 1:45 min talk with my sister... to catch up not only of my current experience, but also all of what has been going on in her life since we last spoke, and that is months ago (she lives in Chile)

Patrice called, then Sarah called, Jimmy called, my house keeper needed to hear something about the Journey, the fire tended, wood kept on rotation to dry... and in between there are these moments of stillness, when I just look within and listen to be present to what is there, to maybe glimpse what mysterious process is going on down there.

Today was the first day I ventured outside again, and had my short morning walk with Jacky, I even drove Anina to school. I really wanted to feel what my body felt like in those familiar activities. - Yea, a little different all right. In the farm store I stood in the supplement section and tried to get a read on various substances holding them out in front of me and waiting for my body to give a signal of attraction or withdrawl. None too successsful, but I bought some stuff anyways...

Daily life is making itself known a bit... have to pay some bills, forward some tax stuff, copy my insurance card ... and so on

Jimmy will be back tonight and very tired.

Annabel will be back to make dinner for us.

Today I would have been in surgery. Now, that is simply unthinkable!
I am feeling very much less fragile and something that could be a mixture of excitement, joy and anticipation is starting to take over. In speaking to my sister Theda earlier, I tried to pinpoint what this whole experience feels like right now and I found myself describing it as a loving gesture. As if I have been receiving a miraculously well though out gift that has been in the making for a very long time. And now I am receiving it.

I feel lucky.

More later...
much love as always...
Tomma

Back Home - Wed. Jan 28th - 9:03 AM

2009-01-28T15:12:00.000-08:00

Dearest sisters, goddesses, most wonderful friends in the world,

Yes, I am back home.
Right now, after stoking the fire, back in bed.
I am drawn to sitting and pausing, just feeling my body, just being quiet, resting, and letting the presence digest what is here.

Yesterday unfolded without too many bumps, the discharge took way longer than expected and sweet Carol not only witnessed my last official exchange with Dr Angell, in which he voiced his concerns about my decision, but also waited patiently for all the paperwork and procedurs to be done.

Odd experience to return back home after such a life changing interlude in the emergency world. The familiar surroundings somewhat sluggishly unresponsive to what I had been through and the change that was floating in my soul.

House was fairly good condition, but no fire burning, and Sophia in her bathrobe, and still - or rather - back again in bed after bringing Anna to school.
Relighting the fire was a major adventure, because the cold air had created a powerful downdraft that was blowing into the room and it took the two of us considerable effort and the endurance of MUCH smoke that billowed into the house before enough heat had been produced to reverse the trend... interesting.

Annabels visit was so sweet and comforting and quietly reflective, she embodies this long perspective into the past and my life here in Upstate New York. As she sat there, my mind could help but pour in little glimpses of memories of all we have lived through together, after all she was my very first, and for a long time my one friend up here... so much that those 17 years of participating in each others life have contained...

Sophia and Anina made dinner for me, and Nini especially was just in her most caring, helpful and sweetest self, asking if I needed this or that and telling me not to do this or that, she could really do that for me... Wow. I wonder if Annabel had a special talk with her, because they were both gone for a long while somewhere in the course of the afternoon.

Slept like a baby.

At some point I will kick into gear to begin defining what exactly this month of retreating looks like... Creating my mastermind group may turn out to be the first step... today I may just take it slow.

I love you all so very much!!
Tomma

COMMENT

2009-01-28T15:08:00.000-08:00

From this point on I will limit the posts to my own mails that I sent out to the group.

ME: The new Morning - 9:02 AM

2009-01-28T14:55:00.000-08:00

Dearest, dearest, friends, Mami, Papi, Theada und Flemming,

So I have pondered and talked, and talked, and thought some more about this decision, and finally had a last key question for Dr Timmens when I came back this morning: If I go on a one month healing retreat, would it increase the chances of cancer being there, or the amount of spreading it can do? And his answer was a clear "no". That was the last confirmation I needed.

So, a healing retreat it is!!

I am leaving home today. Carol is wonderful enough to come and pick me up.
Annabel will come by to visit later today.
Jimmy will come back from Florida and cut the second part of his stay there and go with me to the Journey Intensive in NJ this weekend.
I will form a mastermind group who will accompany me on this healing journey.
My primary intention is not to prove that the Journey or natural healing can work, but to give myself the largest opening for the healing that my body needs right now and to discover what has brought these two masses into my body to begin with. Much has already been revealed to me in these last few days... most of all I want to give my body the chance to keep speaking to me. It has spoken son clearly now and I want to keep the cysts who have delivered this message there as my ongoing messengers. They will be the one who tell me if what has been out of balance and harmful or toxic in my life has been discovered.

And if after one month they have not responded I can still take them out.

The discharge order has not been signed by Dr Timmens which is why my departure is not happening right first thing. They need to get his confirmation.

Hope they get in touch with him soon

LOVE!!!
Tomma

Sarah - Tues Jan 27th, 7:02 AM

2009-01-28T14:54:00.000-08:00

Dear dear Goddesses and especially Tomma,
I have been sitting on that traveling couch with you all, calling in the warmth of the south and the healing of the tropics.
Tomma I have been doing my kidney/ovarian breathing techniques that I learned in Hawaii and sending that healing your way as well.
You are such a fabulous healer and I trust in your power to manifest all that is perfect for you.
I was going to call you a couple of times yesterday and chose to give you love via other channels as you are in the midst of so many conversations and decisions.
I will call you soon and until then know that you are in my prayers and healing circle.
I am also relishing the circle of love that we all create and am exercising my ability to connect from a distance! We are truly blessed.
With SO much love,
Sarah

Annabel - 10:52 PM

2009-01-28T14:53:00.000-08:00

Dear Tomma,
Thank you so very much for including all of us in your process this way! We are blessed with being part of what you are going through and with the depth of your sharing.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, I am headed north. I would like to come wherever you are in the afternoon unless that doesn't work for you. Sounds like I may be visiting you at home! What an amazing stroke! After this day of wondering and waiting and being so psychically present in a hospital situation to think of seeing you in your home. Can I bring food? Can I bring anything else? I can stay a short time or a long time or not at all and wait until Wednesday or Thursday.
It is so lovely thinking of you in your "hotel" room and luxuriously staying the extra night and breathing with these decisions.
If you need to talk tonight during this decisionmaking process you can call this number 845-528-6453 at any time: really.
The alone time for you sounds very important tonight, though.
Much love to you,
Annabel

Lydia - 10:29 PM

2009-01-28T14:52:00.000-08:00

Nighty night, my Tomma! I hope you sleep very well.
Love,
Lydia

Suzi - 10:13 PM

2009-01-28T14:51:00.000-08:00

And on the tail of the Year of the Ox…so steady and firmly planted this Ox.

What another spectacular day of healing for Tomma and us all.

The decisions she has to make require attention and quiet for dear Tomma, so her stay in the hospital one more night is perfect. She keeps referring to it as her hotel.

Let us send her waves of light.

Should she decide to return home tomorrow, Sofie will pick her up and drive her home. What company and care she requires, like some food support for tomorrow night, will be revealed.

Should she decide to do surgery Thursday, we can mobilize our fine selves around that.

Should she decide to wait, our mobilizing can run in other directions.

But our love will not cease.

So, let it stand this night that we did our best to encircle Tomma. Mission accomplished. We will await operating instructions from the Divine on our next steps.

Until then, good night sweet women, sleep tight, S

ME: Post MRI more results - 9:55 PM

2009-01-28T14:50:00.002-08:00

Sorry, this took so long...
so many conversations to have...

Dr Timmens finally came around 6:00...
So:
cancer chances are about 10%, cysts don't show any detectable sign of shrinking right now, the bleeding was more likely an early triggered menstrual cycle, the pain was caused by the type of growth spurt the chambered cyst tend to make and when blood inject into one of the chambers it created intense pain (don't ask me why) No twisting possible as this cyst is tightly lodged into her place.

Surgery would happen on Thursday and mean a large incision and the removal of the cysts, if possible leaving the ovaries intact, if too intergrown they would go also. IF cancer is there other parts may be removed also depending on any presence of cancerous up to total historectomy.

If I wait to give Journeywork a chance I have to wait about a month, these cysts are not known to change all that fast. During this time I run the risk of experiencing another growth spurt and the same emergency pain situation I went through Saturday... other than that the situation is not life threatening. It wont significantly change the size of them either way nor increase the risk of cancer, so surgery would still be a somewhat similar venture as it would be two days from now.

I could have chosen to go home tonight and think it through there and either come back for surgery on Thursday or go on my personal healing retreat, but I chose to stay in the hospital one more night to give myself time. I don't want to make this decision hastily, and the time alone away from the daily life tasks and responsibilities feels very valuable right now. But I have to decide one way or the other by tomorrow morning.

Helpful conversation with more of my friends point to really stepping out of the grind of daily life for that whole month, and can I really DO that? (On the other hand I WILL have t do that if I have surgery) Or will it suck me back in? many questions to ponder ad more inner work to be done... and that is good because I am ready to do it!

Most of all now I have to talk with Sophia and Anina and Jimmy too... on my own, right now, I am leaning toward healing from the inside...

Have to still talk to the girls now and Jimmy
LOVE YOU ALL
Tomma

Christine - 8:34 PM

2009-01-28T14:50:00.001-08:00

Dear Tomma,
I am following your progress through the blizzard of e-mails and I am blazing you my deepest support and energy for your journey. I was so glad to hear that you had (physical) visits from some of the circle; and the more (physically) distant are with you too.

May your sails be full and the journey swift and bountiful!'
Christine

Jenny - 7:57 PM

2009-01-28T14:49:00.001-08:00

Dear One,

I am so grateful to get all your news. This sounds reassuring to me as well. I will be away tmrw, but will look for your next email when I return home (from NYC).

Big love, XOXOXO

J

Gabrielle - 7:27 PM

2009-01-28T14:48:00.000-08:00

Dear Tomma,
You are in my thoughts.
Sending you white light and healing energy + loads of love and joy.
Hoping to get out to see you soon!!!
xoxoox
Gabrielle