Cancer as Obstruction of the Soul's Flow

I have had cancer four times. Four times! This last time I was hit with a very aggressive cancer and I was faced with the full throttle of the medical community's demands. It was commanded that I have a mastectomy, and then after the surgery, though all the cancerous tissue had been removed, and my surgeon told me I was free of cancer, I was urged by my oncologist to have a toxic chemotherapy that was so dangerous to my life a special person had to inject it into me, and if drops of it leaked into my bloodstream, it could be fatal.

I looked into the eyes of my oncologist and asked, "Am I now free of cancer?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Then why take such a harsh regime of treatment? Treatment that could conceivably kill me."

"Because there might be cancer cells floating around in your body. One could lodge in your brain, for example."

"We all have cancer cells in our bodies, don't we? They only proliferate if the immune system doesn't take care of them, isn't that correct?" He had to agree. "Then taking this dangerous chemotherapy is like setting off a nuclear bomb in my body when there are no enemies."

He had to think about it. I knew more about cancer than he credited me for. I had worked with cancer patients, families, clergy, oncologists, doctors, at my practice here in Florida and nationwide doing spiritual workshops for 30 years, had spoken at hospitals and medical conferences, written books and newspaper columns, had seen into the heart of the illness and definitely was not going to take the brutal chemotherapy being pushed onto me. No way. I had a hole in my breast the size of a small crater from the surgery,(I had refused a mastectomy all four times) had not had reconstruction surgery, and it is there now still to remind me to further explore how to love and take care of myself, body, mind and soul, penetrate the internal mystery and answer the question "why?" I had looked with compassion at the patients in the waiting room, all listening to orders, trusting their doctors, some with wigs, some not, many frail and hopeless, on the cancer conveyer belt. My eyes filled with tears of empathy. No, it wasn't for me this time. No, not me. I was too aware. I knew too much.

This time there was a pandemic forcing the world to stay indoors, lockdowns worldwide. A leg injury had caused me to slow down, take my time. The world looks and feels different when you're still. In my book, The Heroic Path, I had written the words of Robert Gilley, who said that cancer is "an obstruction of the soul's flow." I knew he was right. I knew this illness had come to me like a traffic cop stopping to give me a ticket going the wrong way on a one way street. Go back! You're going the wrong way! But how? Which street, which path was I meant to be on? Alas, therein lay the mystery. I needed to change my life or die. But how? The lockdown was the perfect scenario for me to look within my body and soul. I was up to the challenge. I love life!! I want to live! We all have to die sometime, but I was determined it would not be cancer that conquered me. I began to pray. I began to close my eyes and go within.

My next blog will tell you more about cancer as an "obstruction of the soul's flow", how I reached within to find answers, and the treasure trove inside that was revealed to me.