Beltane Cancer Moon
Spent yesterday and Saturday reorganizing the loft, continuing work in the Intensive Journal. Oh, and made a meatloaf. Better than my mom’s. I printed a copy of Jennie’s Dead as it is so far, about 50,000 words, found my third draft of Superior Wolf, and pulled out the Phantom Queen which I haven’t seen in years. Today and tomorrow I’m going to file the remaining documents from CBE religious school, mussar, First Sundays. Then, I’m going to take each book that is piled up near my chairs, give the top ten priority for reading, and shelve the rest.
In order to create the revised Superior Wolf I’m going to read books featuring werewolves, about wolves and the middle ages, about wolves. I want this draft to be more like The Historian or Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel in its scope, perhaps with a bit of Moby Dick. I had this ambition for Superior Wolf to begin with, but let the task of finishing get in the way. This time, more patience, please.
Today is Kate’s appointment with Dr. Gupta. The lung diagnosis and the fitness for surgery assessment. A big deal, in other words. Later in the day is her coronation, four permanent crowns. Queen Kate.
Tomorrow the whole rising PSA matter gets lit up and scanned by the hospital’s p.e.t. machinery. Takes about 30 minutes, slowly moving from pelvis to head. This moves me from an indicator based concern, PSA, to the reality of where the cancer is now, in my body. I’m hopeful there are no metastases, of course, that whatever has returned is confined to the prostate fossa. I’m not ready for my expiration date, but, then, I suppose nobody ever really is. The best result in this case is a localized reemergence treatable with the Cyberknife.
Today I have to eat a high protein, low carb diet. No exercise 24 hours before. No caffeine 12 hours before. No food six hours before. Only water. Kate’s been going through these high stakes test for almost 8 months now. There’s a rule here. If you look, you’ll find something. Whether that something is important or not, well… It will be up to the radiation oncologists to define the significance of the pet scan. That comes on Friday at 2 pm. I feel fine, no symptoms.
Go now, the workshop has ended. Paraphrasing the end of the Catholic mass. Appropriate in this case having just come Mother Cabrini’s shrine. The experience of being at Mother Cabrini was familiar in its physical surroundings. In college I would always retreat to Catholic sanctuaries to be still, to reflect. I always found them/find them, soothing.
Here are two examples of next steps that have me excited. The first is to do a dialogue with reading. In the dialogue section of the journal, orange tabs, there is a method for developing one to one conversations with people important to you, living or dead, fictional or actual. That seems to makes sense. But the other four tabs in the orange section: Works, Events, Society, and the Body perhaps not so much. It works though. The journal method posits that a dialogue can be had with work you’re doing. I wrote a dialogue with Superior Wolf and in it realized I needed to pull the novel apart and focus one story only on Lycaon. In the Body section I’m in the midst of a dialogue with cancer.
It’s a bit strange to be at May 10 and have the temperature at 24, snow covering the driveway, the roofs, the walkways. In Minnesota the safe time for planting was typically May 15. Don’t think it would work here, at least not every year. We warm back up next week. For now, though. Winter wonderland. Like, I wonder why it’s still winter?
Read yesterday in the group. Iam asked me afterwards if I was a professional writer. Well, I write novels. But, I’ve not sold any so I don’t know if I’m a professional. Drina, who works for a website connected with the founders of 
We wrote spiritual steppingstones, what experiences in our life have led us to our current spirituality. Those of you who know me know that it’s been a long journey. An ongoing one, too. I would characterize my current spirituality as a tablespoon Taoist, two tablespoons existentialist, a teaspoon Christian, a teaspoon and a half Reconstructionist Jew, and a half cup of paganism (of the earth, the sun, the starting of the universe, aware of it and finding it enough). Mix together and bake until dead. Then, we’ll see.
Michelle is a mussar friend. Her husband has prostate cancer, too. Already metastasized. Leslie, also a mussar friend, has had her breast cancer reemerge twice. I mention these because it underlines that cancer is probably in your circles as well. Yes, treatments have improved life expectancy and some prevention efforts have helped, but cancer itself, in its multiple manifestations, continues to be an agent of Azrael, the angel of death.
Second, he’s not giving up his central purpose, to push climbing as far as he can, because it might kill him. Neither should we put any part of our life on hold because we’re going to die. Yes, cancer puts that right up in your face, like climbing free solo, but it does not control your response. If you’re brave enough to say with Alex, “No, I’m not going to optimize the length of my life,” then you’ve found a platform firm enough to withstand whatever existential threat comes along.
So much here. The grit of my life over the past three and a half years. How has all this changed me? What direction does it suggest? How might I live into it with greater joy, greater passion, greater serenity? I also need a break from the every day. Not just because it’s been stressful as I said below, but because it’s been a long time between breaks. Tom and Mark’s visit was a nice respite, but too short.
Yes, a sabbath meal, I replied. I’m still fascinated with the idea of the sabbath, especially as I’ve learned more about it at CBE. In Jewish thought the sabbath is far from a day of rest, though it is that, too. It is a foretaste of life when tikkun olam, healing of the fractured world (or, more interestingly, of a fractured God), has succeeded and every day is a sabbath. The sabbath pulls the observer away from the technological world which has come to so dominate us, setting aside a time for family, for study, for nourishment of the self.
Got an appointment with Dr. Eigner’s physician’s assistant, Anna Willis. If my PSA rise needs further attention, I know she’ll get me in to see Eigner. I’ve calmed down about it, the tincture of time as Kate says. Who knows, perhaps it’s nothing at all. Though I don’t think so. Glad it’s this Monday. Although. That could mean the confluence of death and taxes. Would be ironic.
The central point of the passover is the reenactment of the Exodus and the creation of a Jewish people. I learned last year that the telling (the haggadah) of the story focuses on children. You might be familiar with the four questions, proceeded by the often satirized question, Why is this night different from all other nights?
This particular Grateful Dead shabbat, they occur occasionally, honored Leah, who recently left her position as synagogue administrator. She’s a Dead-head who sells tie dyed shirts and other craft items at Grateful Dead tribute concerts. She had a small shrine to the Dead over her desk. What was remarkable about this evening was that Leah’s leaving the job was not completely voluntary.