This was sent to me by a woman I met at the Y. She has been free of cancer for 9 years. What a gift it has been to have her enter my life.
A Blessing for a Friend on the Arrival of Illness
Now is the time of dark invitation beyond a frontier you did not expect
Abruptly, your old life seems distant
You barely noticed how each day opened a path through fields never questioned
Yet expected deep down to hold treasure
Now your time on earth becomes full of thresh
Before your eyes your future shrinks
You lived absorbed in the day to day so continuous with everything around you that you could forget that you were separate
Now this dark companion has come between you
Distances have opened in your eyes
You feel it against your will
A stranger has married your heart
Nothing has made you feel so isolated and lost
When the reverberations of shock subside in you
May grace come to restore you to balance
May it shape a new space in your heart to embrace this illness as a teacher who has come to open your life to new worlds
May you find in yourself a courageous hospitality towards what is difficult, painful and unknown
May you learn to use this illness as a lantern to illuminate the new qualities that will emerge in you
May the fragile harvesting of this slow light help to release whatever has become false in you
May you trust this light to clear a path through all the fog of old unease and anxiety until you feel a rising within you, tranquility profound enough to call the storm to stillness
May you find the wisdom to listen to your illness
Ask it why it came
~ John O'Donahue
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2 comments:
I can only imagine what its like facing a life threatening disease. The words in this letter seem so profound for the occasion. I've always found that my fear dial gets slowly turned up until I let go. I hang on tighter and tighter as I will things to be different. But since I have little control, I realize my ego has again taken the drivers seat while Spirit occupies a distant back seat in my bus. That MF ego. Luckily, Spirit is always there whenever I choose to let go and Trust. Trust that their is something greater than me, that I can only control my choices, that I'm part of some plan often not so obvious to me, that everything is perfect...At times I just want to say Bullshit to that belief system which is quickly and immediately followed by me holding on even tighter to that which I have no control.
Lynn, I just happened upon your blog and was thrilled and saddened to find it. I am on session 12 of 33 of radiation for breast cancer, and it's great to now have your blog to read through to see how it was for you. Thanks for having this for all us anonymouses out here.
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