going down, and coming up again
Jun. 28th, 2006 01:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonShe goes into the land of death to gain the gift of life. She intentionally takes into her body the radiation which damages and kills, which is so damn dangerous she has to be quarantined in isolation for two days afterwards, even medical staff across the room or behind a lead shield, I can't hold her for a week afterwards, and to be sure, to be safe, she cannot even sleep on the other side of the wall that our son sleeps against at night. And she will let that stuff of death do its work of culling, of destroying what must die so that she can live on.
Cancer is not death. Cancer is life. Cancer cells grow, spread and multiply too fast, consume too much, choke out the healthy cells. Cancer is life taken too far, life that is too strong, too damn selfish. Cancer is life which lives beyond its own normal and necessary sustainable limits, life which lives at the expense of the health of the whole. Cancer is purely unintentional. The cancer cells, if allowed to thrive, become a victim of their own success, inevitably killing the organism of which they are a part. Death by success, by excess, by a lack of intention. Death caused by just letting things go on to their natural conclusion, destroying the environment which is needed for life. It is easy to see our human lives on this world at this moment in time as having certain inescapable similarities.
We get ready to go to the hospital. My love packs a sparse bag of things to take -- books, a new journal, a music player with 2 gigs of songs she and I have chosen for her, and on another storage card, a beautiful, powerful spell-working sent by dear friends of ours, in voice, drums, song, and music for her to play on her journey.
I give her some protective magick I was given when I lived in Hawai'i, during one of the most purely supernatural experiences in my life, knowledge that I've never told another soul. It seems a good time. I send her off with a couple of my most effective objet d'juju that I've used over the years -- two stones of light and shadow, one a thick opalescent tourmalinated quartz point, the other something I have never been able to identify, a long, spearpoint-shaped rock I retrieved from the bottom of a wooden carpenter's chest that had been owned by a globe-trotting dam engineer geologist which was being sold at estate auction in Pennsylvania. They are both light in dark, and dark in light, and have been charged and used more times than I can count. I give her a pendant I charged against each and every stone of Stonehenge at midnight on the full moon after solstice, years ago, and which I wore every day thereafter, and which no one else has ever worn -- a simple silver triskele, spirals of black against the silver, light and dark, dark and light. She hands me her Time bracelet, interlocked silver leminscates, to wear until she returns home again.
I wear a shirt for Brigit, gabhaim molta Bríghde, but my place here is not that of Brigit, or even Demuzi. No, now I am Nincubur, and I will wait at the gate as long as it takes, for my Inanna to return from the underworld. She goes down to the place of death to gain life.
It rains, and it keeps raining, a fine rainforest mist, reminding me of other days, evenings in Manoa valley on O'ahu, of late-night secrets solemnly shared and sweet, wild lovemaking, of standing on a hill together in a torrential monsoon at midnight on New Year's eve, drenched to the bone, the valley echoing and crackling and flashing as Chinese families in the valley are gamely lighting their million firecrackers in their drenched carports, and I get down on one soggy knee in several inches of rushing floodwater, and I pull out the ring. Rain is a Hawaiian blessing. You want it to rain on your wedding day, and it did on ours. My love is so much of water. We used to joke about the time she made the basement flood, or the water main break in front of our house, or any one of the many times she brought the torrential rain to a backpacking trip that was supposed to be *dry*, dammit. It is good that it rains now.
Her hospital room is beautiful. Located on the ground floor, it is triangular, with floor to ceiling windows along one entire wall, looking out over lush trees and gardens. A life-sized statue of a standing woman, wise, compassionate, looking away, is visible through the window -- a guardian, an ally. Through the windows, a robin, a sparrow, perch and observe, looking in at the new person inside the glass cage.
The floors are covered with disposable paper, the chair and hospital bed are something out of bad 1950s ethos, all covered in protective plastic. All the door handles are wrapped with plastic, and the sink, the toilet, even the phone, all wrapped in disposable plastic. The shower has tape stretched across it in criss-cross fashion -- forbidden, do not use. The instructions on the toilet say, "flush three times." A big grey plastic garbage can, itself wrapped in plastic, has a big yellow-and-black HAZMAT radiation warning sticker on it, for special disposal when she leaves.
We strip off her layers, just as did Inanna on her journey-- the hospital badge, the red dress, the sports-bra "breastplate," the jewelry, all the things of normal life that must be left behind. And it is purely practical, because anything that stays will need to be kept quarantined up in the barn until the radiation subsides. And it is magickal, and symbolic, and necessary. You don't get to take your adornments with you. You don't get to take anything with you that is not you. You go into the underworld as your essential self, and, if things go well, that is what you return with -- yourself, though that self which comes back may be a different self than that which began the journey.
Her circle of guardians, of allies, of magical support, of practical, logistical help, of friends both local and distant, is breathtaking, and inspirational. It helps so much, day to day, and over the long haul, to know that so many people hold her, hold us, in their hearts, thoughts, and prayers.
The doctor carrying the sealed lead box with the I-131 pill ("choose the red pill," I joke) comes in, talks to us for a few minutes, and it is time for me to go. What is in the box is not for me, and this is not a journey I can take, though I would, oh my gods, take it for her if only I could. I drive home, take care of my son, and my love and I talk on the phone. I can feel her there, as present as if she was standing next to me.
Yesterday, back at home I realize that we haven't talked yet that morning -- the night before, she'd said she'd hold off calling, thinking I might take the opportunity to sleep in a little, since sleep has been a rare commodity lately. I try to call, to connect the only direct way we have right now, and I fail, again and again, with the "all circuits are busy now" message. Weird, I don't think that's ever happened before out here. Then the power fails, the lights go out -- maybe the rain. And then she calls, and I answer on the one phone in the house that isn't wireless, and so still works when the power's out. She's fine, better than fine, going through an incredible, powerful magickal journey, in direct engagement with deity, with magick, with life. She's doing the work, and wherever she goes, I'll do whatever I can to help her get to where she needs to go.
I am the rock she needs, the anchor, and will hold this space, as lover, father, healer, and whatever else she needs, as long as it takes. At night, in the dark, sitting with my housemates, I confide that underneath the surface calm. there is a part of me inside which is running around and around in circles, gibbering in abject mindless terror. I know the odds, which are good, and I also know the facts of increased risk of secondary cancer, of metastasis, that the life-preserving radio-iodine treatment is itself carcinogenic. I can't not think of any piece of it -- all of it, every bit, is part of the story, part of the truth, and it is not my place to turn away from any of it. But it is also my place to be there, to be strong, and to hold this space, to not let fear take hold, fear of what could be. Nincubur tells me, "yeah, brother, it sucks. Welcome to the club." But it's sacred work, and most importantly, it's the work I need to do, right here and right now, one day at a time. What was, was. What is, is. And whatever will be, will come along, as always, one precious moment at a time. Each moment is a unique gift to me from the multiverse, whatever it holds. My joyful obligation for that precious gift is to be here now, to be fully present and open to the moment.
And I get the call from the hospital -- the person with the radiation monitor has come by, and the levels have dropped enough. It looks like everything went just as it was supposed to. Now I gather up Inanna's vestments, her badge, dress, shoes, undergarments, so she can walk out with them, and I bring a box in which to store the few things she has with her in the hospital room, up in the barn, away from everything else for a few weeks until it's safe to handle. I'll stop on the way to the hospital and pick up the Wendy's fries she's been craving. And I'll bring my dear love home. It will still be hard for a while -- the several days to a week before she can safely hug or hold her child, the week or two before we can sleep in the same bed or spend time closer than a foot or two away, while her tears, her saliva, still hold some of the radioactive particles, the death-that-brings-life. But my love is coming up from her journey to the underworld, and there is light and warmth in the world again.
Outside it's raining once more, a blessing.
Cancer is not death. Cancer is life. Cancer cells grow, spread and multiply too fast, consume too much, choke out the healthy cells. Cancer is life taken too far, life that is too strong, too damn selfish. Cancer is life which lives beyond its own normal and necessary sustainable limits, life which lives at the expense of the health of the whole. Cancer is purely unintentional. The cancer cells, if allowed to thrive, become a victim of their own success, inevitably killing the organism of which they are a part. Death by success, by excess, by a lack of intention. Death caused by just letting things go on to their natural conclusion, destroying the environment which is needed for life. It is easy to see our human lives on this world at this moment in time as having certain inescapable similarities.
We get ready to go to the hospital. My love packs a sparse bag of things to take -- books, a new journal, a music player with 2 gigs of songs she and I have chosen for her, and on another storage card, a beautiful, powerful spell-working sent by dear friends of ours, in voice, drums, song, and music for her to play on her journey.
I give her some protective magick I was given when I lived in Hawai'i, during one of the most purely supernatural experiences in my life, knowledge that I've never told another soul. It seems a good time. I send her off with a couple of my most effective objet d'juju that I've used over the years -- two stones of light and shadow, one a thick opalescent tourmalinated quartz point, the other something I have never been able to identify, a long, spearpoint-shaped rock I retrieved from the bottom of a wooden carpenter's chest that had been owned by a globe-trotting dam engineer geologist which was being sold at estate auction in Pennsylvania. They are both light in dark, and dark in light, and have been charged and used more times than I can count. I give her a pendant I charged against each and every stone of Stonehenge at midnight on the full moon after solstice, years ago, and which I wore every day thereafter, and which no one else has ever worn -- a simple silver triskele, spirals of black against the silver, light and dark, dark and light. She hands me her Time bracelet, interlocked silver leminscates, to wear until she returns home again.
I wear a shirt for Brigit, gabhaim molta Bríghde, but my place here is not that of Brigit, or even Demuzi. No, now I am Nincubur, and I will wait at the gate as long as it takes, for my Inanna to return from the underworld. She goes down to the place of death to gain life.
It rains, and it keeps raining, a fine rainforest mist, reminding me of other days, evenings in Manoa valley on O'ahu, of late-night secrets solemnly shared and sweet, wild lovemaking, of standing on a hill together in a torrential monsoon at midnight on New Year's eve, drenched to the bone, the valley echoing and crackling and flashing as Chinese families in the valley are gamely lighting their million firecrackers in their drenched carports, and I get down on one soggy knee in several inches of rushing floodwater, and I pull out the ring. Rain is a Hawaiian blessing. You want it to rain on your wedding day, and it did on ours. My love is so much of water. We used to joke about the time she made the basement flood, or the water main break in front of our house, or any one of the many times she brought the torrential rain to a backpacking trip that was supposed to be *dry*, dammit. It is good that it rains now.
Her hospital room is beautiful. Located on the ground floor, it is triangular, with floor to ceiling windows along one entire wall, looking out over lush trees and gardens. A life-sized statue of a standing woman, wise, compassionate, looking away, is visible through the window -- a guardian, an ally. Through the windows, a robin, a sparrow, perch and observe, looking in at the new person inside the glass cage.
The floors are covered with disposable paper, the chair and hospital bed are something out of bad 1950s ethos, all covered in protective plastic. All the door handles are wrapped with plastic, and the sink, the toilet, even the phone, all wrapped in disposable plastic. The shower has tape stretched across it in criss-cross fashion -- forbidden, do not use. The instructions on the toilet say, "flush three times." A big grey plastic garbage can, itself wrapped in plastic, has a big yellow-and-black HAZMAT radiation warning sticker on it, for special disposal when she leaves.
We strip off her layers, just as did Inanna on her journey-- the hospital badge, the red dress, the sports-bra "breastplate," the jewelry, all the things of normal life that must be left behind. And it is purely practical, because anything that stays will need to be kept quarantined up in the barn until the radiation subsides. And it is magickal, and symbolic, and necessary. You don't get to take your adornments with you. You don't get to take anything with you that is not you. You go into the underworld as your essential self, and, if things go well, that is what you return with -- yourself, though that self which comes back may be a different self than that which began the journey.
Her circle of guardians, of allies, of magical support, of practical, logistical help, of friends both local and distant, is breathtaking, and inspirational. It helps so much, day to day, and over the long haul, to know that so many people hold her, hold us, in their hearts, thoughts, and prayers.
The doctor carrying the sealed lead box with the I-131 pill ("choose the red pill," I joke) comes in, talks to us for a few minutes, and it is time for me to go. What is in the box is not for me, and this is not a journey I can take, though I would, oh my gods, take it for her if only I could. I drive home, take care of my son, and my love and I talk on the phone. I can feel her there, as present as if she was standing next to me.
Yesterday, back at home I realize that we haven't talked yet that morning -- the night before, she'd said she'd hold off calling, thinking I might take the opportunity to sleep in a little, since sleep has been a rare commodity lately. I try to call, to connect the only direct way we have right now, and I fail, again and again, with the "all circuits are busy now" message. Weird, I don't think that's ever happened before out here. Then the power fails, the lights go out -- maybe the rain. And then she calls, and I answer on the one phone in the house that isn't wireless, and so still works when the power's out. She's fine, better than fine, going through an incredible, powerful magickal journey, in direct engagement with deity, with magick, with life. She's doing the work, and wherever she goes, I'll do whatever I can to help her get to where she needs to go.
I am the rock she needs, the anchor, and will hold this space, as lover, father, healer, and whatever else she needs, as long as it takes. At night, in the dark, sitting with my housemates, I confide that underneath the surface calm. there is a part of me inside which is running around and around in circles, gibbering in abject mindless terror. I know the odds, which are good, and I also know the facts of increased risk of secondary cancer, of metastasis, that the life-preserving radio-iodine treatment is itself carcinogenic. I can't not think of any piece of it -- all of it, every bit, is part of the story, part of the truth, and it is not my place to turn away from any of it. But it is also my place to be there, to be strong, and to hold this space, to not let fear take hold, fear of what could be. Nincubur tells me, "yeah, brother, it sucks. Welcome to the club." But it's sacred work, and most importantly, it's the work I need to do, right here and right now, one day at a time. What was, was. What is, is. And whatever will be, will come along, as always, one precious moment at a time. Each moment is a unique gift to me from the multiverse, whatever it holds. My joyful obligation for that precious gift is to be here now, to be fully present and open to the moment.
And I get the call from the hospital -- the person with the radiation monitor has come by, and the levels have dropped enough. It looks like everything went just as it was supposed to. Now I gather up Inanna's vestments, her badge, dress, shoes, undergarments, so she can walk out with them, and I bring a box in which to store the few things she has with her in the hospital room, up in the barn, away from everything else for a few weeks until it's safe to handle. I'll stop on the way to the hospital and pick up the Wendy's fries she's been craving. And I'll bring my dear love home. It will still be hard for a while -- the several days to a week before she can safely hug or hold her child, the week or two before we can sleep in the same bed or spend time closer than a foot or two away, while her tears, her saliva, still hold some of the radioactive particles, the death-that-brings-life. But my love is coming up from her journey to the underworld, and there is light and warmth in the world again.
Outside it's raining once more, a blessing.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 05:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 06:02 pm (UTC)Sitting here in tears, wishing I could stand in for you this time. But knowing that this journey is truly yours and yours alone.
All my love, all my prayers ... and if the gods grant me any small favors or blessings, I here an now share them all with you.
K
no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 06:42 pm (UTC)Blessings to you, my friend. You are such a powerful Priest/ess and an inspiring human being.
Much love to all of you.
Holding in the palm of love
Date: 2006-06-28 06:57 pm (UTC)In each one the Goddess holds you
Dream of life and love and joy
I see Ninshubar holding, waiting, holding, as some of us have waited and held. I see Inanna doing the work, walking the path, risking all ... and bringing back riches.
I see the child of this union looking back from adulthood in such pride and gratitude for the lessons given, the path walked ahead, of how to do the tough stuff with style and grace and awareness and love.
Walk in safety, Dear Ones
NL
no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 07:19 pm (UTC)Such beautiful words to describe such a painful and scary time.
Bless you,
Swan
no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 07:51 pm (UTC)Blessings and prayers for swift and complete healing, and love.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-28 09:24 pm (UTC)Love,
Salima
(your down the ways neighbor formally known as Linda/Maria Rose)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-29 12:30 am (UTC)I wish like hell for the best for you guys.
Dark Mother
Date: 2006-06-29 12:42 am (UTC)Please contact me at cerr @ witchgrove.org - I have something for your love, your son and yourself - and as I read the above, I feel the need to get it to you three asap -
Blessings
no subject
Date: 2006-06-29 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-30 04:12 am (UTC)Raven