So. Let us consider the perilous years, 2011-12-13. (The “end of the world” years according to some “alarmist” readers of the Mayan calendar.) Recovering from the aftershocks of chemo. Recovering from being brutally busted. Beginning to focus more deeply upon the difficult digital aspects of the work with the assistance of Joseph.
Well. As I said earlier in these rambling, circuitous confessions…
HELLO SAINT AUGUSTINE!!
How are all the ex-popes, the Holy Roman Emperors, the mutilated martyrs, and the Mongol Khans… treating you up there in your City of God Against the Pagans?
Ye olde side effects of chemo, like crucifixion, can be long lasting, even permanent. For me, the first three years following chemo, 2011-12-13, were years of profoundly frustrating, personal struggle against newly acquired earthly limitations. Firstly, I struggled to remember things. We all know how, as we age naturally, it becomes more difficult to remember the simplest of things… like where we put the house and car keys, and what day and time that eye appointment was scheduled for
Chemo simply scientifically, “unnaturally”, accelerates the natural aging process. It feels like… One goes from fifty-something to a hundred in six grueling months. And then, six months… a year or two later… if one is yet so blessed to be on this side of the yawning grave… one is still being “chemically reborn” as a hopelessly confused, progressively deranged… one-hundred-and-one, -two, -three… year old.
It’s a known fact, bro. But. Not one your oncologist is likely to mention. In the “war against cancer”… You, me… We, our human… bodies, hearts and minds… are the collateral damage. Chemotherapy will reduce your life expectancy in many unforetold, quietly hidden, if not “secretly” published ways. Guaranteed! If… you survive its initial poisonous onslaught.
They don’t call it “the war on cancer”… like, “the war on drugs”… and, “the war on poverty”… for no reason. But. Let’s talk about those famous “rally cries” a minute, soldiers.
What is war anyway? Well, of course, there is the familiar quote from gut alt Herr General Carl von Clausewitz:
“Der Krieg (war) is nothing but the continuation of politics with the admixture of other means”.
To put it bluntly, war is the usual business of making money, with the added benefit of, killing people.
At least, that’s how I read it. Post chemotherapy. The “war on cancer” is a war on “we the people”. And, someone is getting wildly, unimaginably rich in the heavily endowed hospital “killing fields” of America, while someone else dies. Oh, ye saintly doctors… holy hospitalists… heavenly hospital administrators, hallowed drug company barons, and blessed insurance company moguls… not to mention sacred, conspiratorial senators and co-signing congressional kumquats
“There Will Be Hell To Pay….”
But. Where were we? Before I started “shooting my mouth off” again
Uhhh. Oh, right!
“Firstly, I struggled to remember…”
Which means, I had to go back into the house half a dozen times before I could find everything I needed to take with me, and, recall where I was going. Over and over again. Day after day.
Well. As one may imagine. Being continually lost… traveling in never-ending, uncertain spirals… in a maze of vivid mental confusion… could lead… some of us to frustration, anger, blame… depression, suicidal despair
Untimely Death?!
But no. Not I! Of course not. As you can tell by these generous, heart-pouring confessions. I am a stalwart soldier of serenity! And like all goodly soldiers… pulling on the bootstraps and… putting one foot in front of the other… left right left right left… I marched… hobbled onward
But. Again. Or.
Secondly, I struggled… just to climb to the lip of my foxhole and peer out in the general direction of the enemy. The age old enemy. Señor Cancer,
that is
that is
For I knew Señor Cancer was out there biding his time, or rather… in here somewhere… amassing his insidious army of metastatic malignant neoplasms.
How did I know? Did I have spies in my bowels?
No. Not exactly. Although I did have yearly cat scans with two hundred times the x-rays of your typical chest x-ray from my neck to mid thigh… (“Surveillance” scans that seemed to miraculously double and triple in dollar cost every year! “Make hay while the sun shines”!)
Because I had read the facts of life (and death) with regards chemotherapy and colon cancer on line. The facts that… your oncologist doesn’t want you to know? So that you “believe in him” and his “scientific materialist, chemotherapeutic miracles”!?
Perhaps. “Faith healing”… while no longer openly practiced in the modern medical profession. Well. A few surreptitious drops of sweet old fashioned “belief in”, and, head bowing “worship of”… Herr Gut Doktor, who is profiting directly from the sale of insanely expensive chemo drugs and proscribed procedures…. Surely it couldn’t hurt?
Surely, Herr Gut Doktor has bargaining power with… the demons at the gates of hell!?
Secondly, I struggled with… fear, then.
Fear of expensive, dubious, lethal drugs… fear of smiling, lying… poorly informed, or, intentionally misinforming… oftentimes malignant, malicious, belligerent… overworked, incompetent, deranged… medical “health care” professionals… fear of cancer-inducing radiation… fear of utterly terrifying, unnatural, nightmarish, nazi death camp-like hospitals… fear of growing uncertainty about everyone and everything… bordering on full-blown
paranoia!… fear of physical, mental and emotional pain… hard-core, drug-addled… sweating in your boots physical pain… fear of the primeval dark… fear of being alone with fear itself!
And so. Added to the general confusion of memory loss… and, widespread mental malfunctioning…
O, let us not forget! Brave Readers!
There in the dark, sickening… chemo fogged trenches of the war on cancer… in the midst of battling with severe memory loss, and, the feeling of being surrounded on all sides by immortal enemies, Señor Cancer, his servants, his soldiers and his spies
Add to all of this dreadful, inhumane turmoil of… this wrathful cup of… these crushed and moiled grapes of… confusion, delusion and fear… a major diminution of life force, a flagrant loss of chi, a blooming zero of energy, a noted absence of drive… a collapse of chutzpah
Not to mention, the grievous loss of my once prodigious love of pinot noir!
Yes. You heard me right, Dearest Cybereader.
For some sickening reason beyond earthly measure, which I could not fathom for the life of me, nor could I deny. Every time I opened an exquisite bottle of pinot noir, like Briceland, Navarro or Husch Vineyards
Every time I tried to take a sip of the “nectar of the gods”, good old pinot noir from northern California, which was my favorite
WHAMO!!
One sip, mind you, and BANG!!
It felt like I was being hit over the head with a two-by-four.
POW!!
There it goes again. BOOM!!
Right on the forehead. SLAM!!
Would you stop that?
Damn! That is rude. Was. Is.
Where were we?
Oh. Miracle of miracles! Man of La Mancha! We’ve made it to that most blessed, most productive year, 2013! Whilst recovering from the aftershocks of chemotherapy and the big bust.
And then, along came Joseph. My computer helpmate. My Sancho Panza extraordinaire!
On the heroic, romantic, deadly serious quest for ultimate liberation
. …… …. . . . . . . . ……… .. . . . . . . . .
“When the sequence of dissolutions is almost complete, the dying person is urged to remain fully awake and attentive: “O child of awakened family, do not let your thoughts wander.” Then he or she is reminded to arouse the attitude of bodhichitta, the awakened heart and mind, and to meditate in this way:
I have arrived at the time of death. Now, since I am dying, I will think of nothing but the awakened heart, love, and compassion, and attain perfect enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings as limitless as space. With this attitude, especially at this time, for the sake of all beings, I will recognize the luminosity of death as dharmakaya. Within that state, I will attain the supreme accomplishment of mahamudra and act for the good of all beings. If I do not succeed, then I will recognize the bardo when I enter it. I will manifest the mahamudra bardo body of inseparable appearance and emptiness, and act for the good of all beings as limitless as space, appearing in whatever way will benefit each of them.”
p. 240 Luminous Emptiness
(Luminosity of Death)
p. 240 Luminous Emptiness
(Luminosity of Death)
“Mahamudra works with form and manifestation: after going through the experience of emptiness, one arrives at the sense of clarity and fullness. Earlier practices focused upon emptiness as an antidote to the grasping ego, but mahamudra emphasizes the simultaneity of apparent phenomena and emptiness. It is the sense of positive that comes after realizing the negative, the fullness of emptiness. Those who have awakened into the formlessness of dharmakaya do not remain there, but manifest through compassion for the sake of others, and this is exactly what the dying person aspires to do. The mahamudra bardo body is a pure illusory body in which appearance and emptiness coexist simultaneously, known as two-in-one. This body can take any form that is appropriate in order to help living beings.”
p. 241 Luminous Emptiness
(Luminosity of Death)
…………… …. …. . . . . . .. .. . …. .. . . . . . …
And just so. With Joseph there, groaning at my side, acting as mystical, digital… cyber-midwife. With a brand new 2013 Apple iMac Pro (courtesy of my dear 88-year-old dad) and… a $9.99 monthly subscription to Adobe Photoshop
Then and there. Here and now.
Seeker was birthed.
Out of the Rainbow Body Sacrifice of the Benevolent Divine Mother
Who is
All-Encompassing All-Knowing All-Giving
Infinite Eternally Awake
Luminous Conscious Space
Who is
All-Encompassing All-Knowing All-Giving
Infinite Eternally Awake
Luminous Conscious Space
om mani padme hum
om mani padme hum
om mani padme hum
