Five Years Cancer-Free!

Leave a Comment

 

I am celebrating five years cancer-free today!!!

I had five surgeries on my face to cut out the melanoma skin cancer and finally, the right side of my face was reconstructed. Throughout the years I’ve continued to have reconstruction procedures. I’ve become a master at hiding my scars on all levels. My face has changed. I’ve changed. Irrevocably. Permanently. My soul is richer and my heart is fuller in my brokenness than it ever was without. I’ve learned my way through despair and it’s made me learn to appreciate true joy.

My wicked 64 stitch scars are disappearing. The ones left are the constellations on the flesh I wear, and they tell stories of all the battles I have fought. These scars are the only stars I know that shine brighter when only I can see them.

I’m acutely aware of how lucky I am. One person dies from melanoma every hour in the U.S.- it’s not just skin cancer when it is the largest organ of your body. It can come back and go to your liver or kidney or lungs or brain. So when you hear of someone dying of melanoma cancer that’s why.

I will forever be grateful for my reconstruction plastic surgeon Dr. David Hecht, in Scottsdale. He not only saved my life by doing a biopsy on my “freckle” when THREE doctors said it was nothing, but he also used his talent and artistic genius to put my face back together. And each time I went to his office his remarkable staff gave me so much needed hope. As my scars continue to fade my admiration, respect, and gratitude for Dr. Hecht and his angel staff never will.

When I went through cancer hell, my amazing friends and family rode shotgun, and as I continued to heal they came whenever I called. That’s love.

Healing is freaking messy and it’s detachment. It’s batshit crazy. It’s jet-black inky darkness. It makes you ache for the void. It makes you want to quit everything but you can’t. You won’t. Not now. Not ever. Because even though it makes your sides ache, you’ve changed.

Underneath all the bullshit there you are. Brand new. Going again. And you’re not going back. And there’s more like me out there. And if this is you, don’t give up. I’m waking up right next to you in the dark wild one. And believe me, and know you got this. I now know that there is no point in a life untouched by sorrow. So here’s to our scars. Here’s to surviving. Here’s to living life to the fullest and here’s to being a goddess warrior.

Some memories never leave your bones like the salt in the sea; they become a part of you. And you carry them. Always. Thank God. I am so eternally grateful to be here.

Muy agradecida!

 

Discovering the Joy in Healing- My Four-Year Cancer-Free Anniversary

Leave a Comment

Discovering the Joy in Healing“At first I was afraid, I was petrified,” sings Gloria Gaynor in her huge hit “I Will Survive.” This is the song I was listening to when I received the phone call from my doctor. I don’t remember much of what he said, all I remember were those three devastating words, “You have cancer.” The opening line summed up my exact feeling. Petrified.

After I hung up the phone I made a choice. I knew the opposite of fear is courage and I realized to get through this adventure I would need to surround myself with family and friends who would not only support and encourage me but would help me stay in my joy.

The deep sorrow of any illness carves a hole into our being, but the hole leaves space for joy. Sorrow and joy are a package deal. When one in your kitchen the other is asleep on the couch.

I learned that joy is everyday magic. It grounds me. It lifts me. It expands my mind and spirit. And I learned that a daily affirmation helped me to stay in my joy. I would look in the mirror at the scars on my face that six surgeries and 64 stitches left and I would say out loud:
“My scars are only skin deep. Cancer cannot break my heart, it cannot rob my spirit, and it cannot touch my soul. Today I choose to stay in my joy.”

Today I joyfully celebrate my four-year cancer-free anniversary. I was told I most likely wouldn’t be here on this day. And here I am! I know how impossible it can be to beat the odds, but healing is always tethered to the mystery of the impossible, which, in every instance, requires the animation of the spirit, the capacity to let go and allow the impossible to take flight — giving form and vision to endless possibilities.

My Four Year Cancer Free AnniversaryI will forever be grateful for my reconstruction plastic surgeon Dr. David Hecht, in Scottsdale. He not only saved my life by doing a biopsy on my “freckle” when THREE doctors said it was nothing, he used his talent and artistic genius to put my face back together after I had five procedures to cut out the cancer. As my scars continue to fade my admiration, respect, and gratitude for Dr. Hecht never will.

Surviving cancer didn’t give me a fresh start on life; it gave me a chance to understand what it means to live. It isn’t a challenge to be dealt with, conquered, or overcome. I realized a complex view of myself was required to work through my fears and having cancer has provided me a level of maturity I have never before experienced. I am now weathered, solid, shaped by my sorrow and pain as well as by my success and joys. Cancer is a process that allowed me to open doorways and turn the lights on to the inner rooms of my soul. The gratitude I feel will be burned into my consciousness forever. I will never forget because I will never be the same.

And now the darkness is over. And in its place is the illumination of a bright new path that lights the way for the rest of my life and for the joy that surrounds me. Always.

Autumn Equinox a Time for Beginnings

Leave a Comment

 

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

I love the fall – chilly weather, cashmere sweaters, pumpkin spice lattes, my birthday, bugs have returned to hell where they belong and we have the fall equinox! The fall equinox September 22, 2018, has been celebrated since the time of the Egyptians who built the great Sphinx to point towards the sun on this special day. While many of us have moved away from celebrating this time like our ancestors, it is an important time of balance. During this time of equal parts of sun and moon, we are being asked to find the balance happening in our exterior world, and also what is occurring within ourselves. Knowing that the duality of light and dark exists in us, the equinox calls us to discover a balance between the two. After the great light of summer, we must learn to welcome the depth and the mystery of fall.

The autumnal equinox is the time when the sun makes its golden path across the equator from North to South, and it is this occurrence that causes our day and our night to be equal. The word equinox comes from the Latin, aequi, meaning “equal,” and nox meaning “night.”

At the spring equinox, we were asked to plant seeds, both literally and figuratively, for what we want to reap in the autumn. Now is the time to contemplate and see if we have tended those seeds. Are we able to reap what we have sown with bounty and fruitfulness? Or have we neglected those seeds and are we now looking at how we can make amends?

Although it can be disappointing if we realize the latter is true, equinox makes it easy for us to once again plant the seeds of desire so that they may flourish in the coming months. Because the equinox isn’t only about balance, but also about endings that have to occur to make way for new beginnings. This is actually a wonderful time to start something new, whether it’s a job, educational pursuit, creative endeavor, project or even a relationship. During the coming months we will have long nights and quiet moments with which to nurture these new beginnings so that, come spring, they can bloom radiantly.

While many often see spring as a time of new beginnings, there is something even more extraordinary about starting something new in the fall. It is during this season and the coming winter that we have more time to concentrate and give our hearts to whatever we want to see grow and strengthen over the coming months. I find that there is beauty in new beginnings that start quietly under the darkness of colder months.

So while we are all searching for that balance in our own lives, know that it is never too late to plant new seeds. Because life is a circle, and nothing can truly grow unless it first dies. This doesn’t mean complete and utter endings, but embracing the evolution of change within our hearts, our lives and us. It’s letting go of old ways of thinking and living. It’s reassessing the way in which we look at life so that we can feel free to take on new approaches that would better serve our highest self and the life that we want.
Nothing stays the same forever, what comes next is often times better than we can possibly imagine.

Celebrate the equinox by heading out to the desert or out into the woods for a warming bonfire. I am traveling to Mount Shasta, California with my friends Laurel and Tim. We are using this equinox as the opening of a portal to the next stage of our lives. Join us as we raise a glass, build a fire, write a list of all that we have been blessed with, burn words we would like to let go of, and finally, cleanse with hot Epsom salt baths, a grounding earth element which has a strong quality of cohesion. At this sacred celestial time connect the dark and light; the yin and the yang; the masculine and feminine, because if we allow it, life can truly begin all over again in the fall.

Discovering the Hero Within

Leave a Comment

Free-Photos / Pixabay

“Every time you are willing to say, “yes” to everything on your path, you express the hero inside of you.” Joseph Campbell

Most of my childhood was spent listening to my Irish uncles telling powerful myths of ancient gods and ageless heroes; of men of magic and women of bravery. I was terrified of some gods, in love with courageous warriors, fearful of monstrous Cyclops, and I always dreamed of being a heroine of great beauty and mystery.

Myths and Stories are the oldest schools for humankind. Genuine stories offer a living school where the only entry requirements are an active imagination, some capacity to feel one’s own feelings and the willingness to approach the world as a place of mystery and revelation.

Myths are not a part of the past, but a way to see universal truths playing out in the present. Myths are the inside story that makes meaning of the outside world. People feel more whole when listening to a story and feel most lost when out of touch with their own story.

When I think back to the myths told to me of the hero’s journey, I realize now that the accomplishments of the heroes took place in the outer world. But as the story of our world becomes less clear, as we all find ourselves living in a cosmic turn, it is the unfolding of the inner life of the soul that provides the best way to proceed. In order to move forward in a deep and meaningful way, we must find the hero within each of us. Somewhere deep inside each of us lives the soul of a hero. It’s not something we bring to the world, rather something that brings us to the world. We must discover the hero within because we are all heroes of our own myths.

We discover the hero within by doing the inner work of determining what meaning and purpose this world holds for us, and for the future that awaits us. We can learn to see with more clarity how we each have a unique role to play; how we each have our own way to make a difference in the lives of others. It is up to us to give our own life the meaning and vitality we need to make it through and to be of service to others.

We need a path that allows us to bear the trials of living, the ordeals of our present time and circumstance, and the suffering inherent to life’s harsh realities. Discovering the hero within means waking up to the realization that the necessary conditions are being created for us to recognize our unique place in the universe, the particular gifts that we have to bring forth, and to serve a purpose greater than ourselves. Now is the time to help sustain and revitalize the world around us.

We need to learn how to tolerate dynamic tension if we are to embark on a worthwhile inner adventure. As we develop and grow, we cross points of no return. Once we cross over to new experiences of conscious awakening, and once we’ve committed ourselves to a path of awareness, we will no longer be the same. Our old identity begins to shed its skin. We come across threshold guardians – daemons that block the way, attempting to ward us off. They are like the gargoyles entrenched above archways and entrances to shrines and cathedrals. These guardians are manifestations of our deepest fears. They also guard the way to our deepest longings. We cannot go on a genuine, soulful adventure without bringing along your authentic doubts and fears, as well as our strongest desires and longings – for, without them, it would not be a hero’s journey.

But the one simple truth of discovering the hero within is just to be ourselves – that’s the real job of a hero.

Developing a Relationship with the Impossible

Leave a Comment

It seems to be our mutual fate to be living during a time of great upheaval and sweeping crisis. The glue that once held our society together is dissolving. Many of us are stranded, trying to fathom what our lives mean after all the difficulties we have gone through. We are left standing in the rubble after a hurricane or trying to pick up the pieces after a divorce. We are not able to control the forces or people that cause suffering, but we can determine what the pain and suffering do to us and what we become because of it. The answers are within us, not outside of us, and those answers will give us insight into what’s next for us and give us the hope to go on.

All shamans, mystics, Buddha, yogis and saints have said the same thing: answers to our questions come from looking within and in our stillness we find hope.

But hope is just a starting point. It’s where we dialog with the Muses and wonder about what could be and what if. Hope is a magical ingredient that stirs up and animates the impossible in our lives.

Developing a relationship with the impossible requires effort and energy. Once connected to the impossible, an emotional and psychic bond is formed with that reality. It’s like any meaningful personal relationship; it’s intimate and alive, and nourishing to your inner senses. A dialogue between you and the impossible is the merging of a unique vision and it is the same thing as having a download of grace rush through your system. In an instant, it penetrates into your intellect, your emotions, your mind and your vocabulary. This new symbolic content shifts your understanding of the cosmos. You can feel the power of the impossible take hold of you as it runs through your blood like a new drug, making it’s way to your neurology. The download is complete and it’s yours and you are on a high that is unexplainable to anyone who has never been swept away by the thrill of contact with the realm of the impossible. This is a love affair unlike anything on earth because it isn’t of the earth. But soon it will be – that becomes the task, as you are the vessel for the impossible. But as this container, you need to be someone who can handle being misunderstood or be able to keep your own company because others cannot see or comprehend the impossible. You need to be strong enough to believe something only you can see or understand – for a long, long time. Most people cannot stand alone in the demanding realm of the impossible. So, they live in the lesser world of fantasies and musings and unfulfilled hopeful wishes. And that is the hard truth of life.

Understand that you form a working relationship to the impossible, and just wishing and hoping is not enough. You have to act. You have to bring forth the impossible and give it life. The impossible requires vigilance and dedicated attention and constant courageous choices as well as a willingness to allow your life to change in impossible directions. People continually approach life with habitual attitudes while expecting outcomes to be different. Changing your relationship to the impossible means awakening to some other way of being. Not simply doing things differently, but becoming a different person, both more aware and more alert in life. Such an individual awakening doesn’t just happen; an immersion of sorts is required as well as a genuine reflection that allows the possibility of the impossible to rise to the surface. The baptism takes place under the water and no one actually sees the change that occurs.

There are the subtleties and surprises on any path and only after traveling far can we hear and understand. At the far end of our waking and walking, of our worrying and working, when we realize that there are no shortcuts, it is in the willingness to surrender that allows the pilgrimage to the self to being and the willingness to be vulnerable that allows the impossible to be reached. The impossible happens on the level of the gesture. It’s one person doing one thing differently than he or she did before. It’s the man who opts not to invite his abusive mother to his wedding; the woman who decides to spend her Saturday mornings in a drawing class instead of scrubbing toilets at home; the parent who takes a deep breath instead of throwing a plate. The impossible is there. It’s our task. Doing the impossible will give us clarity and strength. It will bring us closer to whom we hope to be.

Developing a relationship to the impossible kicked my butt five ways from Sunday. But when the troubles get deep enough, when the problems become greater than us, when the weight of the world is on our shoulders, the impossible can offer more ways to proceed that the more narrow paths of logic and reason. For there is thought in the heart and it is connected to the deeper power of humanity, the power of the impossible.

Michelle Cromer