April 9th, 2009

March 29, 2009

Beyond your flexibility.....go beyond your flexibility.  That is what the teacher in my Bikram Yoga class says when we finish the Pranayama breathing and begin the first pose.  Arms are stretched up over the head, elbows straight and close to the ears, hands clasped with index fingers released and no space between the palms.  Then a slow gradual stretch over to one side in a half moon shape.  Stretch beeeyoooond your flexibility, the teacher says, squeezing the most out of that image.  At first I wasn't sure how you could bend beyond your flexibility but now I know that you can always find the courage to go a little further than you ever have in the past.   We do the same exact sequence in each class, ninety minutes precisely in a climate controlled room of around 104 degrees with 40 percent humidity, led by a variety of teachers who all use the same phrases to guide us through the familiar sequence.  Some ask if I get bored with the same routine every time.   It isn't boring but I don't know why or how to explain.  One day the teacher said that the only thing designed to change from class to class is you.  All other factors remain reliably consistent.  Those of us who practice consistently supply the change.  

It is probably no coincidence that I began practicing Bikram yoga at the same time I began writing Silver Platter Girl in earnest.  I remember because it was late summer and despite the intense desert heat, it still felt cooler outside than it did in the room where "hot" yoga is practiced.  It took me a while to summon the courage to attend my first class after a massage therapist at the facility where I train told me she thought it would be perfect for me.  No doubt my dancer ego got in the way, wanting to "perform" brilliantly the first time and be flexible enough to accomplish the poses that I had viewed over and over again on the studio website.  I wanted to know everything about it in advance.  I was also fearful that I wouldn't be able to acclimate to the heat, that I would faint or turn to mush.  Instead the heat felt friendly to me, welcoming.  It reminded me of good times spent rehearsing for summer musicals on the campus of ASU in non-air conditioned rooms when I was a theatre student.  Or in the second floor dance studios of New York with the windows wide open and oppressive humidity, not a breath of fresh air in the room.   The 90 minutes spent in the peace, tranquility and safety of the hot room where yoga is practiced was like a salve for the wounds caused by wading through the journals and letters of the past as my story poured out of me, struggling to overcome the intense memories of the trauma that led to my terrifying cancer diagnosis.  The writing process shook me to the core but in that room I was encouraged to stay in the moment, stay in the room, leave everything else in my life outside, and concentrate on the care and healing of my body and soul.  

If we are going to take on the difficult work of delving into our own stories and dare to look straight into the eyes of the truth, we must bend beyond our flexibility.  In class, we do several deep back bends.  The first one can be scary and the teacher tells us that it will hurt like hell but we should not be afraid.  Look back, go back, way back, we are told.  But there is a reward for the effort.  When you come back to center, your spine feels released and you have overcome your fear.  Later, the class comes to a climax as we are asked to perform the deepest back bend of the series, ustrasana, camel pose, opening our hearts to the sky.  Whatever is buried inside of you, the teacher says, will emerge as you drop your head backwards and lean back, way back.   This is a pose I cannot yet sustain.  What is buried inside me is hurt, pain, disappointment and tons of chemotherapy.  When these things come to the surface, I am overcome with nausea and unbearable discomfort. But I am going to keep easing into ustrasana, and throw my heart to the sky each time, until I can sustain the pose, until what comes out of me is clean and pure and pain-free.  

After the first 45 minutes of class, the standing and balancing series, we earn the right to lay down on our mats in savasana, or corpse pose, for two minutes.   Don't mistake what looks like a simple break while lying on your back as just that.  No, the teachers tell us, this is the hardest pose in the practice.  Learning to be still, completely relaxed and connected only to the breath.  This is where the renewal takes place, the healing.  It is from this stillness that the best listening takes place, even though you are not to be consciously thinking of anything in particular.  But there is a connection formed with your deepest self, the true place that is not tainted by the demands and challenges of a complicated, modern life.  You can find your answers in that stillness. After a long practice of savasana, you are to roll out on your side, but when you roll out of savasana, don't let savasana roll out of you.  

Should you desire to be emotionally free and well above all else, and should you dare to establish that as a priority in your life, and should you be willing to take the risks associated with such a decision, and should you decide to be strong enough to absorb the blows that come with that work, you must learn to care for yourself in the process.  Not so easy for so many of us.  I was lucky.  Cancer gave me that opportunity, not only to learn to care for myself, but to have the luxury of the support of almost all others in the process.  After all, who is going to begrudge a cancer patient a little selfishness?  But now I know it is not selfish, it is smart.  And a gift to those who truly care about you.  It makes you better.  Whether you find that renewal in the yoga room, the running trail, the bathtub, the chapel, or outside on a moonlit night, be sure you do find it.  When asking a lot of yourself, you must give a lot in return.  

A few days later........

An e-mail popped up from the yoga studio announcing their move from the temporary location they had been using for several months back to their original, completely remodeled studio.   The move would take place on April 1st, with the usual ribbing about the announcement not being an April Fool's joke because the move had been delayed so many times.  I attended noon class on the day before the move at the only location I had ever known.  I couldn't wait to go because I had been immersed in the process of working with the publisher to set the book interior and cover for the galley print.  It was stressful for all the expected deadline driven reasons but more so because it represented one more step towards the presentation of my story to the public, the shedding of all privacy about my personal life . All my anxiety returned when the publisher said that in a few days, he would be sending 60 copies out to media outlets.  Yoga couldn't come soon enough. 

When it came time for ustrasana, camel pose, I was prepared for the usual discomfort, nausea and inability to finish the posture.  I began thinking of how much that room had come to mean to me.  How safe and protected and still and peaceful I had felt there during the turmoil of my work on the book.  How I probably couldn't have finished the work had I not been able to spend time there.  How the suffering and sweating and pushing and pulling had turned into wonderful empowerment and reconnection with my total body, inside and out.  Suddenly I realized that it was a near identical feeling to saying goodbye to the sterile room where my bone marrow transplant transformed my life.  I was terrified to enter that room for the first time and almost didn't, I suffered tremendously throughout the process, and when it was time to go, triumphant with accomplishment, I could barely leave the place where such profound things had occurred.   So in the second cocoon I have had the privilege to inhabit, I threw my head back, opened my heart to the sky, and moved into ustrasana.  This time I felt no nausea, no discomfort, no overwhelming urge to pull immediately out of the pose.  I let the breath flow through me and only good came out.  Later that day, the book went to the printer.  The galley copies would be finished on the first day at the new studio.  

And so, dear readers, dare to go beyond your flexibility.  Then relax in savasana.  Ahhhhhhh.  

SPG
Photograph by Peter Vander Stoep

March 28th, 2009

Do you believe the old philosophical saying, "there are no accidents"?   Sounds like a harmless notion but it really isn't.  The number one movie in America right now, Knowing, makes a case for the possibility that certain events can transform a non-believer in the "no accidents" theory to a believer.  Granted, the events depicted in the film are earth shattering but then the character, out of grief and despair, was rooted pretty deep in his non-belief so nothing short of cataclysmic could bring him around.  In the case of ordinary people, a few Twilight Zone moments can be overlooked but when the evidence starts to stack up in ways that simply cannot be ignored or explained in any other way, one can't help but consider the possibility that there are no accidents. 

I had always been a theoretical believer by nature but that belief remained untested for most of my life.  Until one day when something happened that set into motion a chain of events that could be considered a textbook for the "no accidents" philosophy.   This chain, the events leading up to its first link, and its ultimate consequences are the foundation of my story as told in Silver Platter Girl.  When it first happened, I made a conscious decision to believe it was not accidental and that I was in the midst of a fantastic journey filled with symbolism and profound healing orchestrated by a power that I simply accepted, requiring no further explanation at that time.  I called it faith and adhered to it with fierce determination.  In private moments, I wondered if my philosophy was a crutch for putting a hopeful face on a very dire situation, a possibly terminal cancer diagnosis.  Then a friend told me that she had once heard tell of a doctor who wrote a book that somehow she imagined was meant for me.  She wasn't familiar with his work but just "knew" I needed to have the book.  I "knew" she was right and found it right away.  It was Dr. Bernie Siegel's Love, Medicine and Miracles.  In the pages of that book I found validation for my theory that my disease was exactly what I thought it was, that I had participated in its creation, that I had the power to use it for healing, and it was no accident.  It was pure opportunity.  Bernie, as he insists on being called, brought credibility to my belief.  He, as a cancer doctor, had witnessed it first hand.  What a relief.  I didn't let that book out of my sight for the first two weeks of my life as a cancer patient. 

My personal set of Twilight Zone moments began to grow in number at an astonishing rate of speed.  When you accept that the "no accident" theory is in full effect, your awareness gives you the ability to identify how it all fits together, like puzzle pieces.  Theoretically, once the last piece is put into place, the transformation is complete. 

I couldn't wait to get to the Mayo Clinic once I was diagnosed.  My only prior connection was that I had assisted the Clinic when they purchased their beautiful piece of natural desert by facilitating a good neighbor deal with an adjacent community, a client of mine.  I was impressed at Mayo's efforts to take into consideration the impact they would have on the surrounding area and for my efforts, they sent me a tin of delicious cookies when the deal was done with a lovely note thanking me for my help.  I just felt we belonged there, me and my disease.  Sitting in the exam room at the Breast Clinic for my first appointment, my heart sank when a female doctor walked in and I knew instantly that although she was kind and appropriately concerned over my case, she was not the one.  Luckily, she knew it, too.  She excused herself and brought my Dr. John back with her.  Once he entered the small room, that was it.  I later learned that he was her husband and was none too happy when she plucked him out of the hall and dragged him into my exam room.  He complained that he had a full patient load already and they argued.  I don't know how she knew but I had already given up questioning the non-accidents and accepted my good fortune in finding my healing partner.

He just kept saying the right things at the right time.  He didn't wish to participate in my no-accident theory but gave me full support to explore it fully while he promised to take care of the cutting edge science part of my case.  A deal was struck.  We each had our own parts to play and while he was a scientist by training and career choice, it was clear to me that he was much more.  That allowed us to communicate on a level beyond science and medicine which was a requirement for me.  So we became a small ensemble.    

After ten years of joyful recovery, Dr. John referred me to an internist to take on my extended medical care.  It was exciting to see a doctor that wasn't an oncologist.  She mentioned on our first visit that Dr. John would "graduate" me from oncology care now that I was so far out.  But Dr. John decided we were not the graduating kind.  We would meet every year for our regular check-up during my transplant anniversary month of February as close to Valentine's Day as possible, he said.  We would use it as a way to celebrate what we accomplished together.

This year when Dr. John asked me how everything was going, I told him about Silver Platter Girl and my anxiety over the possible consequences of telling my story.  He asked me if I knew the parable of the seeds.  While he quietly performed my annual cancer exam, he spoke of the farmer who threw the seeds into the air.  Some would fall on hard ground and just wash away in the rain.  Some would root in shallow soil and begin to grow, but only temporarily.  And finally some seeds would take root in deep, rich soil and produce a good crop, a hundred times more than was sown.  "He who has ears to hear, let him hear", Jesus said. 

Dr. John said that movements that push important ideas into the consciousness of people always require sacrifice for the greater good.   He said that when the Mayo Clinic was built in the desert, many coyote habitats were sacrificed.  But my life was saved. 

He promised to read my book, which he did right away.  He wrote a beautiful endorsement that appears on the back cover.  My Dr. John..... a specialist in the "there are no accidents" theory.  And, oh yes, my check-up was perfect.  A miracle, he said. 

SPG

March 27th, 2009