Oh for the courage to look within
"This is harder than I thought it would be Not having hair I think it makes me feel vulnerable somehow I'll lean into that today and see where it takes me"
This is from an intimate moment with my beloved Dotty (Dorothy) Beatty on choosing to shave her head before the cancer had it falling out in clumps. And it exemplifies the courage and clarity she is bringing to the process of navigating the breast cancer chemo treatments. Reflecting on this and my admiration and respect for this woman, the following prayer emerged:
Oh Great Spirit
Grant me courage
I pray
that I may be willing
to be naked
to my own eyes
my own heart and spirit and soul
willing to see
both my deep light and beauty
and into the uncomfortable
places within where I hide from myself
out of fear of looking
into the darkness
Oh Great Spirit
I pray
that I may have the courage
to both see and touch
the willingness to be moved
vulnerable and even transformed
by the unspeakable beauties
of this mortal world
and into the darkness and sufferings too
for I am learning
there are gifts awaiting discovery
here also
Times are hard and challenging here as we navigate week five of Dotty’s Chemo treatments for breast cancer. And yet the cancer offers us opportunities each day to be yet more aware of and grateful for the many blessings in our lives; each other, a home we love, incredible friends and family offering love, support and food daily. I am truly humbled and challenged to allow in the depths of care and love we are each being held in. Thank you, dear friends and family!
I am also completely unable to keep up with responding to all of the messages of care coming in. Yet each one has meaning here as a gift of love and prayer. Please know they are each and all appreciated.
I continue also to navigate all the letting go that must happen for me to be fully here in support with Dotty. Letting go of my active engagement and support of the Magarini Children Centre and Organic Demonstration Farm in Kenya is one of the most difficult. More on this in a later post. Meanwhile, I pray you too may be willing to look into the unknown and uncomfortable and tender places in your life and being.
“Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness.
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.
The later procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.“
— Carl Jung