An Unexpected River

I was sitting with Steve, staring out our living room window a few weeks ago, drinking what we jokingly call our morning "hot brown liquids." Hot and brown describes the range of morning brews, from coffee, tea, and hot chocolate, to coffee substitutes like Dandy Blend. I was staring out our picture window that faces the back of a hedge, and the following sentence popped out of my mouth, "I don't want to spend the rest of my life staring at the back of this damn bush!"  In that moment, I could feel that something unexpected was about to unfold.

Steve was profoundly unhappy in his new mainstream medical job. It just wasn't working out (no one's surprise). It was becoming evident that he was going to leave the job imminently, and we were dumbfounded by our seeming lack of options. I keep in touch with many old friends from all over the northeast, and one day while chatting with one of my oldest Osteopathic friends, he explained that he was doubly in mourning: for the death of our dear 89-year-old teacher Stan Schiowitz, and for the loss of the family physician with whom he shared his office, and that he was just going to wait for the perfect Osteopath to come along. We wondered why he was telling us this now. It just wasn't quite the right time to even consider such a big move. 

This next synchronous detail is one that I couldn't have made up if I tried. I got a random spam email from apartments.com announcing the availability of a 2BR, 2 bath loft apartment a half-mile from our friend Jonathan's office. The apartment is as big as the house we live in right now (1700 sq ft) and has 12-foot-tall windows that face the cascades, several small waterfalls on the Winooski river.

This is the view of the cascades on the river, outside the apartment building in question (the fisherman is seasonal).

There's a health club in the building, complete with pool and sauna, and a canoe launch right behind the building. We continued to wonder, "why now?" but we were starting to feel the inevitability of the momentum of what was about to unfold.

That night, after Steve returned home from work, we called my friend in Vermont to tell him about the cryptic coincidences. By the end of the conversation, he offered Steve the opportunity to share his office and develop his own private practice. Jonathan deeply appreciates Steve's unique blend of Osteopathy and primary care and offered the possibility of making it a reality.

In the past, we had toyed with the idea of moving to the east coast "someday," but we would never have rationally chosen to do so now. It seems as if we've been called by some  mysterious force and we've surrendered to an attraction that feels involuntary, like magnetism or gravity. In a matter of about 6 days from the time I blurted out that prophetic statement, a perfect storm landed us unexpectedly on the shores of the Winooski River, just 2 miles from downtown Burlington, Vermont. We're moving on September 1st. Here's what it looks like:

This is the Winooski Riverwalk, which begins behind our new apartment and connects the downtown area with miles of hiking trails.

Although "Winooski" sounds Polish, it is not; it means "wild onion" in the Native American Abenaki language. Here's a story about this unique town:
http://www.7dvt.com/2011winooski

If we were there this weekend, these are some events we'd be checking out:
http://artmapburlington.com/winooskipops/?p=89
http://monkeyhousemusic.com/
http://www.highergroundmusic.com/
http://www.7dvt.com/
http://www.cvfest.org/

If we want to see a film, we'll walk down to the local independent theater:
http://merrilltheatres.net/

There's even a performing arts center for music, plays, dance, etc: http://www.flynncenter.org/performances-events/2011-12-season.html

Vermont is quite politically progressive, including valuing universal health care (to be implemented by 2014 for all 600,000 people in the state) and respect for same-sex marriage. And we'll have Bernie Sanders as our Independent Senator, the first US Senator to openly identify as a "democratic socialist."

Bernie Sanders!

We'll have a fabulous food coop:  http://www.citymarket.coop/
And a farmer's market around the corner, in addition to many others within a 10 minute drive. The Burlington Farmer's Market runs year-round! Vermonters are serious about good food:
http://www.vermontfresh.net/index.php

There's a large population from Viet Nam, Somalia, Bosnia, and Iraq in our town and with that comes all sorts of great little restaurants, grocery stores, and some welcome diversity in the otherwise fairly Caucasian culture. We're staying at The Tibet Inn the first night we arrive, owned by a formerly Tibetan family, who call Burlington their "land of the snows," which in Tibetan implies that it is their spiritual and emotional home.

There is a huge movement and meditation community with many options:
http://www.uvm.edu/~CHWB/psych/?Page=mindfulness.html&SM=mindfulnessmenu.html
http://burlington.shambhala.org/
http://vermontzen.org/index.html

The Winooski River feeds into Lake Champlain, the 6th largest lake in the US, with the Adirondacks Mountains of New York (the largest national forest in the US)  towering in the distant view west. Burlington is called "The West Coast of New England." Winooski has been called "Burlington's Brooklyn." It's a lot like Santa Cruz or Woodstock, for those of you who live in one of those place and know what I mean.

If your east coast geography is sketchy and you're shocked to realize that the Canadian border is only 45 minutes away from our new home, and Montreal is 90 miles away,  here's where it is:

View Larger Map

In terms of my health care, I discovered an annual Breast Cancer Conference less than a mile from our new home: http://vtbreastcancerconference.org/  I found a fabulous oncologist, an MD with a PhD in nutrition. Her research has been about the relationship between breast cancer and inflammation, and the effects of exercise on survival in cancer patients - sounds like my kind of gal! My beloved Oncologists at Stanford have set me up with referrals to Dana Farber Cancer Institute (Harvard Medical School's cancer center) if I need a big university-style back-up in Boston, 3 hours away.

Steve and I decided that we want several months to be together and not working now, while I'm healthy and feeling relatively good. Why wait until we're forced to take time off? Life is too short and too precious to wait for what we want to come in some unknown future. No one says with regret on their deathbed that they took too much time off of work! We are going to go on this crazy adventure September 1st and we'll be there for my 55th birthday (9/26) and the fall colors. I desperately miss the seasons - all of them, including winter. My Norwegian friends say, "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing." I say, "Let's go shopping!"

I've loved living in California, but I've always felt like California is a somewhat like a foreign country where English is conveniently spoken. It has just never felt like home.

I want to go "home," and even though I believe that home is where the heart is, I want to be in the familiarity and sensuality of the seasons, and near the people I have been missing for the 14 years I've been in California.

I am filled with the whole spectrum of emotions; I'm sad about being far from the people and resources I love in California. I'll miss the tall redwoods, the Pacific ocean/Monterey Bay, the amazing food and wackiness of San Francisco, and in the same breath, I'm overjoyed about doing something crazy like moving 3089 miles at this stage in my life to a place that calls to me.

It's not a totally random choice for a new home. I have many friends nearby, some of whom I've known for 35+ years, and a huge support network within a fairly short distance. There are "sub-tribes" of all my communities here: Continuum, Commonweal, Mindfulness, and Osteopathy. Steve and I have visited Vermont many times in the past few years, and I have been going there since I first discovered the town with my dear friend and colleague Hugh, with whom I co-directed the 1993 Cranial Academy Annual Conference on the Burlington lakefront. (There's a picture of a bunch of us there on my facebook page, in the "Great Moments in Osteopathic History" section of my Photos, if you're interested.)

For those of you who want to stay in touch, please keep me in your address book and check out my blog periodically, or just drop me an old-fashioned letter or phone call. My email and cell phone number will stay the same.

I believe it's a sign of my thriving life force that I have this surge of energy to expand and explore. I've been resting for 2 years, and it feels like now is the time to have a great adventure along this unexpected river. 

Happy Anniversary Bone & CT Scans

I have a lot of big news and I'll begin by letting you all know that my recent work-up showed that my tumors continue to shrink and there is no new spread. I'm 1 month short of my 2-year anniversary and I'm obviously, officially, a statistical outlier. There was an 80% chance that I wouldn't make it this far, and now that I have, I'm in uncharted territory.

There are no statistics on women who live 2 years past their diagnosis with the type of cancer I have. At this point, anything could happen. I have had the honor to meet many, who like me, have outlived predictions. I have other Stage IV friends who are up to 25 years post-diagnosis. I know that I could be hit by the "proverbial bus" and die tomorrow, but barring something unforeseen and random, I now join the ranks of those who mystify their doctors.

I am devoted to the exploration of that which guides my self-care and attentiveness to the preciousness of life. . . and in my next entry, coming very soon, you'll hear about my next piece of big news.

Riding The Breath Inside My Bones

The companion piece to my last blog entry, "Secret Sculptures of Bone" was published today on the new North Atlantic Books Communities website. Please check it out by clicking here.

Secret Sculptures Of Bone

Dear friends, family, colleagues, and blog-followers,

Hello to all my tribe members who are gathering in Indianapolis this weekend. Today's entry is dedicated to you all. I wish I could be there, but this is the next best thing. 

I have a huge collection of half-written fragments, which I have decided to share with you. Many of them are parts of other, larger pieces that are in varying states of completion. Some of them are re-written excerpts from other things I have written, or passages that didn't fit into my book.

On Tuesday, June 28th, a piece I wrote will appear on the new website from my publisher, North Atlantic Books. I will be part of the "Wellness" Community on their site. The following is the introduction to that essay, with all the content I edited out of the original to have it fit their format. I hope you enjoy them both. Here's the link to the new site from North Atlantic: http://nabcommunities.com/

When I took the oath as a physician on graduation day from Osteopathic medical school in 1986, I promised to listen deeply, to feel the messages conveyed by my patients’ bodies, especially their bones, not knowing what that promise would eventually entail. After years of caring for people and devoting my studies and perceptual training to receiving the stories of other people’s bones, my own bones call out more loudly than anything I've ever heard...

(go to North Atlantic Books Communities on June 28th to read the rest. . .)

Here are some other things I love about bones:
Many bones include a trabecular mesh in their architecture that incorporates air spaces. Most bones are about 20% water. The air and water that are incorporated into the architecture of bones engenders them with great strength and resilience. Some bones are filled with blood-producing marrow. A bone is made of bendable, resilient collagen (which is composed from protein, vitamin C, and water) into/onto which minerals (calcium, potassium, manganese, magnesium, silica, iron, zinc, selenium, and more) have been embedded. The whole thing is surrounded by a membranous sac called the periosteum, which is chock-full of nerve endings and a hefty blood supply that continues on into and out of the bone. Sometimes the articulating ends of bones are covered with a layer of cartilage. Living bones are far from chalky or dry.

Some bones are flat, some are round, some are long, some are shaped like the crescent moon, and some are wild shapes that have no names.


Some have spiraling patterns etched on them from the way they developed and from the way things are attached to them.










The Eiffel Tower was designed based on the shape and arrangement of the stress-bearing fibers in the femur. Notice the similarity of the architecture to that of the femur.

Drawing of a femur showing stress fibers in the architecture of the bone.

Some have quite unexpected shapes, especially the bones in the cranium. Here's a picture of my second favorite bone in the body, the sphenoid bone (this is an anterior view with the ethmoid attached, for all you anatomy buffs) of the cranium, taken by my colleague Andrew Haltof, DO. This is the "secret bone behind your eyes" that Kim Rosen writes about in "The Anatomy of Wings." Kim, along with Cathie Malach put this poem to music and recorded it as a wedding present for Steve and I in 1997.

There’s a secret bone behind your eyes

carved in the shape of a butterfly
the outspread wings remember the skies
and the waves and the wind and the weather’s tides

you can only reach it from deep inside
though the wingspan might be galaxies wide
as it lifts the soul from the thickness of flesh
sweeping it out of pockets of death

some have seen it and some have not
but those with the sight
they never forgot and never returned to their childhood home,
but rode the breath inside the bone back to the sculptor’s hand. 

Have you reached deep inside and seen any of the "secret sculptures" that collectively form what you call "your body"? If you're an Osteopath or a Continuum practitioner, I know you have. How about the rest of you?

Do What Grandma Said Was Good For You And Earn $800

When I was in practice, I frequently heard the complaint from people that they felt fatigued. People often asked if there was some supplement they could take for what they thought was "adrenal burn out." I always replied that there is no vitamin or herb that replaces sleeping 8 hours a night, eating well, exercising, and resting - and until they do these basics of self care, that it would be an insult to their system to try to trick themselves into pushing harder. Many people were disappointed with my response, hoping that there was a magic potion (something stronger than coffee) that would allow them to override what their body was telling them they needed.

Now some researchers in the mainstream of medicine are starting to look at the effects of stress, especially poor sleep in relationship to surviving breast cancer. When I heard about this study I wanted to sign up because I hope that amassing this data will prove what I hope to be true - that all those common sense things we can do to care for ourselves will prove to be the statistically significant factor in surviving and thriving with breast cancer.

Last summer I volunteered for a study at Stanford in which they are exploring the connection between breast cancer survival and what our grandmothers told us to do: eat well, sleep 8 hours, exercise, get fresh air, rest, and relax. They are doing this by measuring all sorts of indicators in blood (cortisol, ACTH, melatonin, Interleukin-6, fasting insulin, Natural Killer cell activity, markers of inflammation, etc.), doing sleep studies (EKG, EEG, respiratory and leg movement monitors, etc.), tracking diet, and emotional stress. Then they will follow-up once a year and see if our test results predict how well we do.

I know that there are many variables that can't be measured, but why not measure the ones we can? This kind of study rarely gets done because there is no drug or product involved. If this study pans out as we hope, the result will be that more doctors will have to tell people to sleep more, eat more fruits and vegetables, meditate, rest, live a more relaxed pace, and take some time off to enjoy life more often.

They still need to have normal, healthy post-menopausal women without breast cancer or auto-immune disease, ages 45 - 75 to volunteer to be in the control group. The study is almost completed, they just need a few more subjects without breast cancer. Would you consider being a subject in this study? It's not a volunteer job; It pays $800.

The study involves an interview, which can be done over the phone, a medical and psychological screening interview, a 2 week period during which you go about your normal daily life while wearing an "Actiwatch" activity monitor that looks like a wrist watch. During that time, you fill out a questionnaire that takes less than 5 minutes per day. At the end of the 2 weeks, a sleep lab technician is sent to your home and wires you up for a home sleep study 2 nights in a row. Then you spend 28 hours in the Stanford Hospital research wing (about an hour from Santa Cruz) where you get an IV from which they draw blood samples, you give a saliva sample, you answer lots more questionnaires, and eat and drink a measured amount. The lights in the room are dim, but I was able to read and watch a movie. I loved the experience! It was a bit like a meditation retreat for me. No clock, no internet, no cell phone - just peace and quiet, for a very good cause.

Aside from the $800 they will pay you, you get some of the blood test results, and a summary of your sleep study.

If you're interested, you can contact the delightful people at Stanford directly: 

Casey Brodhead  at 650-723-2744 or email caseyb@stanford.edu  or

Bita Nouriani at 650-723-8479 or email bita@stanford.edu

Wherever You Go, However You Eat, There You Are

My friend and nutritional consultant, Mark Mead has a new website, click here to check it out.
I wrote the following story about working with him and about my relationship to my diet for the "Stories Of Healing" within the "Connections" section of his website. If you've been following my blog all along, you've read much of this story. If you haven't read my blog posts from way back in Fall of 2009, then this will be a great little summary for you. Mark works with a wide variety of people, not just people dealing with cancer. If you're looking for a fresh approach to your diet (or your life), consider doing a phone consultation with him.  

Jon Kabat-Zinn's book title reminds us, "wherever you go, there you are," and Geneen Roth writes, ". . . you can examine your life by either looking at the way you live or the way you eat. Both are paths to what is underneath and beyond the eating. . ." As you read my story, consider the way you eat to be a reflection of some attitude you have about your life, and then feel (don't think or decide) the way choices arises in you. Don't set out to change anything, just observe yourself. Let curiosity, not ideas or opinions guide you. I find this a fascinating way to discover things about my self that weren't apparent on superficial examination. The kindness and curiosity that I have for myself has allowed my diet (and my life) to profoundly shift without having to use will power or New Year's-style resolutions.


I was the last person anyone expected to get cancer when I was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer in October of 2009. I had a normal mammogram in July, just three months before my diagnosis, but the cancer I have is not the kind you can see on a mammogram or feel as a lump. I didn’t discover what was lurking inside of me until I developed severe pain when it spread to my bones. I am alive and thriving 2 years after my diagnosis, when 90% of women with my situation have died. The following is some of my thoughts about why I am I here to tell my story. 


After a lifetime of eating well, exercising, meditating, loving well, and having a very satisfying and successful professional life, I find myself trying to understand or at least make some meaning of this affliction. Perhaps I might have died 20 years earlier had I not been living so well prior to my diagnosis. Cancer is a sign of our times; I have learned to not take it personally. We all live in a polluted world full of toxins and carcinogens and some of us, for unknown reasons, are more vulnerable to the effects of the environment. The answer is, like so many things in life, unknown and unknowable. We have to follow our gut feelings and have trust or faith that we are doing the best that we can to care for ourselves. Gut feelings – that’s where Mark Mead enters the picture.


Working with Mark as my nutritional guide has been tremendously helpful in finding the diet and nutritional supplements that feel right and are individualized for me. But there’s much more to say about working with Mark than this simple testimonial. 


Having my initial cancer diagnosis be metastatic/Stage IV (there is no Stage V !), it was considered too late for conventional chemotherapy, surgery, or radiation to be effective. It’s not that the doctors wrote me off as a lost cause, but the mainstream medical evidence actually supports not doing these things in my type and stage of cancer. They acknowledge that “once the toothpaste is out of tube” these common treatments cause more damage than benefit. In Stage IV cancer that has only spread to bones (I have no spread to internal organs like my liver, lungs, or brain), the quality of life is better, and the body is much more prepared to deal with the cancer if the system isn’t overwhelmed by these harsh treatments. Traditional chemotherapy doesn’t target bone that well, so I chose not to do it. I am “lucky” enough to have a type of cancer that is highly sensitive to estrogen (Estrogen Receptor Positive or ER+) so the first line of treatment was to get rid of my estrogen. Bones respond very well to the presence or absence of estrogen. I chose to remove my not-yet-menopausal ovaries, and begin taking a daily pill of Arimidex, an inhibitor of the estrogen that might otherwise get produced in my fat cells and adrenal glands. Our plan was to do this simple approach and see if it would be effective before considering more extreme treatments.


Here’s the really interesting, nutritionally relevant and important part of my story:
It took about 3 weeks to decide on this approach and arrange for the surgery. During that time I began my search for other treatments and to make life style changes that felt complementary. I considered myself someone who had been eating well for decades: mostly organic, high fiber, tons of veggies, minimal sugar and processed foods, but I did eat some organic dairy, eggs, chicken, turkey, fish, with an occasional chocolate chip cookie fling. I woke up one day and felt from somewhere deep inside that I had to stop eating (mostly) all animal products. I became what I jokingly call a “coho-ovo-whey-vegan.” I eat my weekly dose of wild Pacific salmon, an occasional egg if I know it is of the highest quality, and I put whey protein in green drinks and smoothies. It was during this time I called Mark, the husband of a dear friend and fellow Continuum Movement Teacher, for some nutritional guidance. Mark didn’t need to convince me of the things that would be helpful to change in my diet, but he helped refine the details of how to do it and he guided me in the choice of supplements and vitamins to add to my regimen.


After 3 weeks of dietary changes and daily, prolonged periods of meditation, I began to see and feel a change in my bone tumors. The tumor that caused my sternum to bulge shrank by about 1/3. The pain I experienced began to decrease in intensity. During this time while I was waiting for surgery and had not yet begun the anti-estrogen treatment, I was still in the process of interviewing doctors and assembling my “team.” I told one of them about my tumor shrinkage, and she replied, “Well, that just doesn’t happen!” She refused to believe that what I was experiencing was in the realm of possibility. She was sure I was mistaken, but I wasn’t; I had it documented on CT scans where we could measure the change in size of the tumors before the “official treatment” had begun. In addition to my subjective experience, the difference could be objectively measured. I knew I couldn’t work with this doctor if she couldn’t believe in the out of the ordinary.


I have continued to consult with Mark and fine-tune my regimen of dietary changes and supplements. I love his combination of open-mindedness, curiosity, and common sense, along with a grounded respect for what can be addressed in the research literature.


I like to ponder the philosophical basis for how and why I have made changes in my life, especially in my diet and nutritional supplement program. It seems paradoxical, but I can’t wrap my head around doing anything as a way to fix or exterminate my cancer. I work with Mark to choose a program that targets my condition, and yet I don’t want to live my life as if I’m “damaged goods.” This is quite a philosophical conundrum.


Changing my diet, along with all other life style changes is a process of inquiry and exploration. Although a disease might have motivated me to change my diet, I think I benefit most when I do things in the spirit of simply caring for myself. The potential benefits of any lifestyle change get distorted when I do it in order to accomplish something specific. In my past, if I went on a diet to lose weight, I always gained it back, but now that I am eating according to what feels right for me, I’ve lost weight and kept it off as a “side effect” of just doing what’s best to care for myself. Even though some foods and dietary supplements are known to address cancer, I’m not comfortable with being confined by a fear-based treatment protocol. I eat these “anti-cancer” foods because they feel good in my body.


When I’m working with the mystery of what goes into my digestive system and what happens with it when it is absorbed and assimilated, I have to surrender to the unknown. In spite of how technologically advanced we have become, many aspects of the inner workings of the body are not fully understood. Working with the infinite number of variables in the living human body it is impossible to be entirely scientific. Mark finds a way to respect what is known scientifically and combines it with common sense and intuition in tailoring each person’s approach. 12 women with breast cancer will need 12 different diets and treatment regimens. Working with Mark has been a great way for me as a unique individual to explore what works best for me. The answer to the questions of what to eat, and what supplements to take expresses itself differently in each person.


Becoming mindful about what I eat has been an open-ended exploration that has led to nearly miraculous improvements in the quality of my life. By carefully choosing what I eat I have cultivated an attentiveness to myself that draws on the expression of the healing forces from within. Changes in diet do not rely on healing forces from outside the body. You might say that food comes from outside the body, but once I eat it, I am in relationship to how it becomes part of me. This is incredibly empowering. It’s as if any change in the progression of cancer is a “side-effect” of nourishing the internal terrain with my relationship to food.


We all need to cultivate caring for ourselves because we long to be cared for, and not because it alleviates the fear of disease, or the disease itself. If you eat a certain way because you're afraid of developing cancer or heart disease - your efforts are fear-based and they might eventually backfire. If you have a mammogram because you are afraid of breast cancer, don't think you can eliminate that possibility by checking it off your to-do list. If you do some daily practice because you are afraid of a disease and you think you are somehow cleansing yourself by doing it, it won't necessarily work. The fear is stronger and more paralyzing than the effort you make to avoid disease, especially if you are not conscious of your motivation. As long as you practice from a place of trying to change things, you might miss being informed by the necessity of how you are and what you need in the moment.


Ultimately, each of us has our own questions and answers unfold as we live our lives. Others can guide us, offer us a map, and point to a suggested path, but we are the territory. We have to choose the road and make the journey ourselves. Mark is a great guide, but he can’t make the journey for us, he can only suggest a path that has a record for helping others navigate the treacherous terrain of cancer and find their own way. This is what he does best. Mark is there to provide the container or the sacred space in which we get to live into the emerging answer.

The Needle and The Knife

In a previous blog entry, not that long ago, I said that I was going to spend more time writing. I had hoped to be offering you a lot more frequent blog entries. I didn't know at that time that my hands would flare up and give me another reason to delay writing. I attribute the flare-up to the aftereffects of the move out of the office. I may not have carried boxes or furniture, but I have spent the past 4-6 months sorting through 23 years of books, papers, and miscellaneous things I call "the ghosts of offices past." My hands got seriously overworked and now need even more profound rest. 


In early May my left hand got so bad that I couldn't use it at all. In particular, I couldn't use my thumb (officially, DeQuervain's tenosynovitis). I surrendered to having an injection, which helped considerably - another surprising foray into an emergency western medical treatment! It's so strange to find myself in this predicament. Ah, more opportunities to let go of identities that don't serve me. Sometimes I ride the fine line between positive thinking and denial, and have to pause and ask myself to question what I really need. I want Osteopathy or acupuncture or some herbal remedy to do the trick, but I don't always get to decide which approach will bring the most relief. It's helpful for me to suspend judgment over treatments that might help, especially when I've tried every possible alternative. 


It's now a whole year since my right hand surgery, and I'm thankful I had it done. My right hand is about 70% better. I have nerve damage (some numbness and diminished strength,) which seems like it might be permanent. I'm open to continuing to improve, which my hand surgeon admits is in the realm of possibility, but it's unlikely that I'll regain 100%. Time will tell.


I'm humbled to have such severe problems with my hands that nothing more subtle than a needle or a knife helps. 

Misconceptions About Meditation & MBSR

First of all, thanks to all who supported my team in the Marin Human Race. We raised over $10,000 for the Commonweal Cancer Help Program!

I have gotten a wide variety of feedback about my new foray into teaching Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). For the most part, people are supportive and excited about my new frontier of exploration, but some are questioning my orientation. I suspect that this doubt is a sign of misunderstanding. The most common misconception people seem to have about MBSR is that it is "simple" and hence boring. This is totally not so! MBSR is simple indeed, that's the beauty of it, but it is not simplistic. If you think this, consider what I said in my blog post on January 30th, "If You're Bored, You're Not Paying Attention."

At the root of MBSR is the profound practice of cultivating awareness. There is no other practice, as far as I'm concerned. I don't care if awareness gets re-packaged and called Continuum, Yoga, Tango, Chi Gung, Transcendental Meditation (TM), or basket weaving; it's all the same practice. I think it's great that there are at least 5,762 ways (this is a random number, please don't quote me like it's a fact) to access awareness of the present moment. I think of these different approaches as "doorways." Each of us is attracted to a different set of conditions, a different portal, and we find the one we fit through most easily. The depth to which we take a practice is dependent on our desire and ability, and not the approach we use.

The concepts taught in Continuum are not readily experienced by everyone. For those of you who have tried and feel like you don't understand Continuum, MBSR is a portal to develop the perceptual ability to appreciate much of what is taught in Continuum, as well as a way to cultivate embodiment in general.

Some people enjoy structure. They might love a Tai Chi class where they practice the same sequence of movements in every class, led by a teacher in the front of the room, who guides them every step of the way. There is power in this sacred form, as long as you move freely inside of it, and don't give up your own experience to move just like the teacher, or to perfectly execute the form.

I'm a bit of an anarchist, and I tend to not like having a leader tell me what to do, unless it's something I'm still learning and it's totally new to me. I prefer a very unstructured class with a lot of independent study and exploration. I'll take a 6-hour long Continuum dive with little or no instruction, or a day-long silent meditation session any day. For some people this would be ineffective; their attention would get easily diffuse and wander without structure. They might feel lost, stuck, or bored in a long Continuum dive or meditation retreat. There's nothing wrong with this. In fact, the awareness of feeling this way is really important for this person to guide their life. Water is somewhat useless without some sort of a container. We all get to choose whether we want our water in a glass, in a bottle, in the palm of our hand, in a bowl, in a river bed, or from a water fountain. No judgment; just different ways of accessing the same thing.

Some folks tell me that they think MBSR is too "dry." (Many don't think this, but it has come up often enough that I'd like to address those who have this conception.) I'd like to point out that this is probably a thought, not necessarily an experience of awareness. It is easy to get caught up in ideas about the body and miss the actual experience of being embodied. The container might be too stiff for some people's preferences, but the contents of MBSR is within each participant and not in the structure of the class, and is therefore fluid in nature.

All the various approaches to meditation, whether you are drawn to something secular like MBSR or something oriented to a spiritual or religious practice like Vipassana, Zen, or Tibetan Buddhism, Sufism, Jewish or Christian mysticism, TM, or simply staring at a flame, are maps. But remember, the map is not the territory. Any structured approach offers a balance of guidance and freedom. The territory is the awareness as it arises uniquely in each of us. Aldous Huxley reminds us, "Don't mistake the pointing finger for the moon." As long as you end up freely experiencing your own territory, I don't think it matters which map you used to get there.

I hope I've offered varying views in an understandable way. My aim is to appreciate all the varied and wondrous points of view, without being defensive, and present them in ways that allow us all to understand each other.

In an old issue of  Heron Dance , Rod Mac Iver quoted the liner notes from the 1966 John Coltrane album Meditations, in which Coltrane is interviewed by Nat Hentoff (music critic from the old New York paper, The Village Voice). Coltrane's description of his music resonates with how I am experiencing my life these days,

Once you become aware of this force for unity in life you can't ever forget it. It becomes part of everything you do .... my conception of that force keeps changing shape. My goal in meditating this through music, however, remains the same. That is to uplift people as much as I can. To inspire them to realize more and more of their capacities for living meaningful lives. Because there certainly is meaning to life.
   There is never any end. There are always new sounds to imagine, new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we've discovered in its pure state. So that we can see more and more clearly what we are. In that way, we can give those who listen to the essence, the best of what we are. But to do that at each stage, we have to keep cleaning the mirror.

Clean your mirror. See yourself clearly, knowing that what you see is not you, but a reflection of you. Don't take your reflection literally.  Allow your awareness to rest in the observer who sees what's reflected in the mirror, and express yourself from there. 

Help Me By Supporting The Commonweal Cancer Help Program

So many of you have offered kindly to help me with whatever I need. I am blessed to have such a loving and giving support team of friends, family, colleagues, and patients, that I haven't needed to ask many of you for help. Here's your chance!

This May 7th, my team, Team Hot Weals ("weal" as in Commonweal), will participate in the Marin Human Race to support the Commonweal Cancer Help program.

When I attended this program in April, 2010, I found that it was one of the most helpful and healing things I did for myself in that early stage of learning to live with cancer. I have learned much from them about what it truly means to embrace the moment and live well, regardless of a diagnosis. I stay involved with Commonweal as a volunteer because I get to connect with great people who value the preciousness of living, and I admire and respect the work this organization does to make the world a better place. I am seeking sponsors for our walk to help Commonweal reach out to more people who are living with cancer. All the money raised will go directly to this program.

Would you be willing to sponsor me for $20-30 or more?  Click here to go directly to my Donation page, or go to our Commonweal Team Page and click on my name to make a donation. You can also find out more about the race day events at Marin Human Race  if you're interested in attending to cheer us on in person.

Thanks for your love and support,
Bonnie

About Commonweal
The Commonweal Cancer Help Program (CCHP) is a week-long retreat for people with cancer. The intention of the program is to help participants live better and, where possible, longer lives. The Cancer Help Program addresses the unmet needs of people with cancer. These include finding balanced information on choices in healing, mainstream and complementary therapies; exploring emotional and spiritual dimensions of cancer; discovering that illness can sometimes lead to a richer and fuller life; and experiencing genuine community with others facing a cancer diagnosis.

Commonweal is a nonprofit health and environmental research institute in Bolinas, California. Founded in 1976, Commonweal conducts programs that investigate the environmental links to cancer and the possible solutions; support sustainable living; enhance juvenile justice; reconnect health professionals with the meaning of their work; and many other things. Please visit the Commonweal website for more information about the Cancer Help Program, along with the many other fabulous programs they offer.

No Philosophy, Just News

This is not a literary or philosophical blog entry; it's just a news bulletin. Many of you know I spent the day at Stanford yesterday, and I want to let you all know that I'm doing well. All I had done were some blood tests, which all look better than ever, and the conclusion is that there's no reason to repeat a bone scan or CT scan until summer or fall. I still need to be seen by them and have blood work done monthly, but no big testing unless something changes.

Most of what I suffer from is treatment side effect. I don't want to complain, because the cancer seems to be moving in the right direction, BUT my joint pain persists, temporarily stirred up by the antics of moving. My hands are somewhat worse. I had an emergency where I panicked and almost had to cut off my wedding rings. They are now at the jeweler being re-sized because my fingers have permanently swelled to a size and a half larger than the size of my rings. My hands turn into pin cushions when I grip anything too long. I have pain in my feet, knees, 1 shoulder, the opposite elbow, my whole neck and back. I can live with this, if I get to live. I just have to continue to test my limits and stay within them. I struggle with understanding how much I can do and every week or so end up totally laid out in bed for a day or two. This should be my worst problem!

As our house recovers from looking like a flea market that got hit by a tornado, I hope to start writing more again. I wander from room to room looking at the piles of things from the office. It's quite surreal. For those of you who knew our office and loved its Zen simplicity, the secret to that spacious order was hidden in our huge kitchen closet and a few other stashing spots. Steve and I spend a few hours each day sorting, shredding, loading bags of books for our local used book shop to get trade credit, and boxing things up that we just can't part with that are destined for the attic. We'll probably unload the attic someday and throw it all away. Some charitable organization is going to get some great bags and boxes of stuff. In June we'll have a monster garage sale, and hopefully by the summer we will have integrated the stuff we want to keep into our life and freed ourselves of the rest.

I have at least 4 half-written blog entries, 3 half-written books, and way too many emails in my draft folder. I need a stretch of days, weeks, months to rest, move, meditate, and air out the space inside my internal atmosphere in order to write that way I'd like to. I can feel it coming. . .