It seems there are two activities, and perhaps only two, which reliably contribute to a feeling of well-being during this incredibly troubling period of my life: writing, and meditation.
When I’m writing, I feel safe. When I’m writing, I breathe. When I’m writing, I relax but I also feel as if I gain energy, composure and focus. Last night, when I was writing about my seizures, the task itself sustained me. When I was done, I felt relieved, light and playful. I felt like I could shine.
That was “the lion in me” making an appearance, I suppose: the proud, somewhat vain spirit that is my creative fire. I felt clever.
Yet more and more often, recently, I feel that such cleverness gives me only one leg to stand on. It lacks “heart.” It does not lack heart by design as much as it lacks heart in practice. When I’m writing with my heart, I feel as if I want to cry, and often do shed tears. They are not tears of sorrow. They are more like tears of joy but most like tears of awe. They come with a feeling that I am witnessing, through my heart, a divine and sacred calling, an invitation to a spirit that is so much larger than myself, an immensity that even in its faintest echoes rings with an overwhelming truth.
This feeling has shaken and inspired me on occasion for as long as I can remember. For many years I interpreted it as a calling to greatness, a calling which I was bound to answer as I grew into adulthood. Cancer reframed that sensation of being called, by lending it some urgency. I have often imagined, more recently, that these painful and terrifying seizures have redoubled its volume with a deep isolation.
My doctors have forbidden me to drive, but I’m afraid of simply going outside. The oppressively cold and snowbound winter nips at my seams. The furnace coughs throughout the night in the basement below and groans with a dry, withering heat. Ten days ago, I made a game of writing my will. Yesterday, as my father and sister signed it, I felt distressingly close to it being put to use.
But when I meditate, and encounter life with my heart instead of my mind, I can connect, however lightly and briefly, to that uplifting, radiant energy which sings like a chorus of angels. It doesn’t sing to me, nor of me, but when I am open to it, I feel my heart singing the same clear and ringing tone. It won’t tell me I’m not dying. But it says I’m not alone, will never be alone, will never be lost from this voice which is the voice of all souls.
When I come out of that reverie, I recognize that my mission is to love. I started five months ago by learning to love myself. It was critically important but not complete. Now I need to learn to love others with the same depth of purpose, because in the realm of the heart, where healing occurs, I speak with their voices and they speak with mine.