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My Halloween Horror

Many of you know that I like to start a talk with a joke. So here is one that I remember from 6th grade. Our teacher was sick and we had a substitute who was a man. This was very unusual. As far as I knew, all substitute teachers were woman. My own Mother was a substitute teacher. In telling us about himself he mentioned that he had six children. He said, “Saying that you have six children is like saying you have a truck load of apples. It doesn’t sound like much, but when you see a truckload of apples, you realize that is a Lot of apples!

 

In September 2018 I - a talk - “Meeting Adversity in Spiritual Ways.”

 

The talk came from my personal experience of having a cancerous tumor in my bladder. I decided to call it “The Cancer” This is common in indigenous cultures. To me, “The Cancer” is a specific one, in a specific place, in my body, and there for some specific reason or reasons. By the way, people who have bladder cancer are usually smokers or ex-smokers. I have never smoked or lived with smokers. I believe that it is important to recognize that cancer journeys can be unique and what is true for one, may not be true for another. However in sharing our stories we may find ways that will help us on our journey. In the talk I shared ten things I started using and I continued to use almost daily. Here are three that I now feel are the most important:

 

1. To combat Fear I go into mediation and see myself surrounded and infused with the Violet Flame of Saint Germaine. Fear has a lot of power and it is important not to let it take over. The Violet Flame can dissolve my Fear.

 

2. I use intuition to make decisions & to seek answers. I use numbers to measure the relative value of an answer. I use the number 10 as neutral. Then I ask for a number for the answer I seek. For example, if a good Urologist for me is a 10, mine is a 30. So he is really a good choice for me. My intuition said that I really needed to change my diet. So I developed primarily a vegetarian diet with some eggs, chicken, and fish. Once a week, usually Friday, Kay and I have a hamburger. We go out on a date to the Grub Hut in Kingston and bring a hamburger home. By eating half of the hamburger for Lunch we have the other half for dinner.

 

3. Emotional Healing. I have found a table in the book, “Feelings Buried Alive Never Die.” This lists Probable Feelings Causing Disease. I refer to it from time to time. I also do a meditation that replaces the emotional body with the Light Body. This means that the Light Body can become the pattern for the Physical Body. I also had a reading over the phone by an intuitive friend I was holding in anger and not eliminating it.

 

While I have only mentioned these three, I want to be sure that you know I do more. I follow a “Shotgun approach.” That is I do everything that will help. I do this by paying attention to what might help and then use my intuition to decide.

 

When the tumor was detected in 2018, I had surgery to remove the tumor and follow-on treatments with a bacteria called BCG. To monitor how I was doing, my Urologist would have a periodic “look” in my bladder and send a sample of urine to a laboratory to see if micro-cancers were detected. The BCG treatments were tough for me and my intuition said marginally effective. When my intuition said that they were no longer effective, I told my Urologist that I would no longer be doing the treatments. He did not agree with this decision. After a discussion, we agreed on continuing the periodic check every three months to be sure that The Cancer had not returned. For over a year the checks showed no return of The Cancer. That is, none visible and no micro-cancers. After each look in my bladder, my Urologist would sit down with me, review my chart, make comments and ask if I had any questions. A year passed with everything fine. After a routine check, he sat down with me and said, “Do you know how many of my patents, that are eligible for BCG treatments, have stopped the treatments?” I said, “I have no idea.” Smiling, he said “Only One.” I was struck by this and was very grateful for my intuition.

 

In July I went in for another check and once again, my bladder looked good – no visible sign of cancer. The lab results don’t come back for a few days after the appointment. One of the medical assistant calls me with the results, always no micro-cancers. When I received the July phone call from my Urologist’s office, this time there were detectible micro-cancers.

 

As I mentioned in the description of this talk, Halloween is an unusual holiday. In most ways it is fun and a great time for children and adults. Many of us like to be scared and to pretend that we, or the situation around us, is scary. We dabble in our fears and in the unknown. And play with the unknown of death. We roll out the old horror movies and scary TV episodes. Knowing that it is all make-believe, costumes, and illusions. However, what do we do when it is not make-believe? What do we do when an old horror returns?

When The Cancer was first discovered, my Urologist was scheduling me for treatment. I sort of complained that the schedule was interfering with my social calendar. He looked me in the eye and said, “This cancer can kill you. It is an aggressive cancer and we need to treat it aggressively.”

 

So this is my old horror that returned three years later.

 

The medical answer was for him to take biopsies of my urethra, bladder, and kidneys. These could all be done in the hospital in one visit. First I was to have a CT scan with dye.

 

To add to my horror story, my doctors had noticed that I had a high PSA – something I had been ignoring. They recommended a prostrate biopsy. This would need to be done separately from the others.

 

To further add to my horror story, I began to have back trouble: pain in my lower back. I have had this problem off and on for a number of years. I know that it can be caused by stress. Certainly this was a stressful situation.

 

It had seemed to me that what I was doing had been working. Now suddenly I knew that it was not. So my non-medical approach was to try and figure out where I was either not doing something as well as I needed to, or where I needed to add something. Once I could get past the Fear, and this took days, I started asking questions of my intuition to figure things out.

 

Then I began to notice that some of my intuitive answers were not clear and one important one concerning the prostrate biopsy changed. As a result, I began to question my intuition.

 

In our Course In Miracles group on Mondays with Brian Jones, we were reading Your Immortal Reality by Gary Renard. I really like his books and they speak about the Course in Miracles in ways that are meaningful for me. Currently we are not meeting due to the Pandemic, but once we start up again, I would urge you to consider attending a meeting. It and the guidance by Brian, as well as others, has been very helpful. The section that we were reading in Your Immortal Reality addressed the uncertainty of using kinesiology, or muscle testing. The importance of this is that it also caused me to question my intuition. The details are not as important as the fact that I began to seriously question my use of intuition.

 

This was the real Halloween Horror story for me. I use my intuition for many decisions – big and little. One would think that the possible return of The Cancer would be horrible. But more horrible for me was the possibility of not being able to trust my intuition.

 

If some of this sounds familiar, that is because it was in my last talk, “What is Mine to Do? I used the experience to show how my intuition guided me through this difficult time. In spite of all that was happening, in spite of my desire to not give the talk, my intuition convinced me that giving the talk was mine to do.

 

What I did not share was during this time I was questioning if I could trust my intuition. “To everything there is a time” and now is the time to share my questioning. I do keep an eye peeled for ego. Ego never sleeps. I have seen what I believe is ego slip into intuitive answers. Getting an answer that I don’t like pretty much eliminates that it came from ego. Getting an answer that I like, causes me to question it. I also reread and thought about the section of the book Your Immortal Reality that had bothered me. I realized that it was about a book that I read before and that I had decided that the use of kinesiology in that book was flawed. Still, it was a good reminder that using intuition is not without possible error. It is my intention that my intuitive answers come from my Higher Self, Holy Spirit, or somehow be in my Highest Good. Lately I have stated this in meditation and held to that intention.

 

I decided that having intuitive answers change is not necessarily a sign that intuition is not working. It can be an indication that I am not ready for a particular answer. Looking back, I can see how the first answer helped me get through a difficult time. In my view, it greatly simplified my decisions. Then when the answer changed, it again simplified my decisions. Now the answer that I would have preferred is that I not have a biopsy. That would have been really simple. But caused me to question if it was really from ego.

 

Before I go any further, I want to be sure to share that all the biopsies showed No Cancer. I am thrilled at this outcome, and very grateful. However, I feel that there is a message or messages still remaining for me. Lessons still to learn.

 

So what was I missing in the things that I was doing to prevent the return of The Cancer?

 

One day I was meditating and I heard “Lessons from Biopsies - Micro-Cancer.” I saw six rectangles that were longer vertically than horizontally. They were marked: Let go. Walk. Accept. Compassion. Love. & Joy in the Moment. Now I realize that these rectangles look like the ends of books on a bookshelf. And like books they need to be read and explored. I have homework to do.

 

Of course I cannot be certain, but there are also indications are that I was not getting rid of anger. This has not been the first time that I have gotten this message after a significant health issue. I also remember that I did not reach this conclusion on my own. Each time someone had to tell me. So I was not totally surprised when I got an email from Diane Green, a member of our congregation. Here is part of her message to me:

 

“We are thrilled that the cancer is gone; it really is a blow to the lower chakras when we get bad health news and are in pain. If I may, I see there is a ball of red energy at your lower back that has to do with “holding back” and suppressing anger. Sometimes I find physical release helps. I put the energy into things like screaming in the car, ripping papers, putting the energy in an egg and watching it explode when you throw it into the sink or somewhere. It looks like you have spiritual tools as well to release this energy, so just pointing it out.”

 

I am very grateful to Diane for this “unsolicited information.” I know how thoughtful and careful we need to be when sharing with others. I know that Diane is too. So it means even more to me that she decided that this was “Hers to do.” I consider this one of the real gifts of our congregation. To be part of a group of people that is open to unconventional communication. One of my favorite sayings is that there is a time to Stand up, a time to Speak up, a time to Sit Down, and a time to Shut up. Kindness, compassion, wisdom, intuition and other gifts can help us decide what we are called to do.

I have been using a number of tools to get rid of the stored anger.

Here are two that I want to share. The first is playing the didgeridoo.

Somehow I feel that the sound of the didgeridoo helps unpack the anger and dissipate it. The second is, I have been listening to the Anger track on my Soul Healing CD. The energy of anger can be pealed away by repeatedly listening to the track.

 

I mentioned that the book Feelings Buried Alive Never Die has a valuable table that lists the probable feelings causing a disease. Rather than calling them feelings, I prefer the word “emotions.” So I looked up the possible “emotions” and found the following:

Lower Back - Running away from a situation

Bladder – Unable to release things or ideas no longer needed

Prostate Cancer – Repressed anger at being restricted

 

This seems to reinforce that following what I have now learned may help heal and prevent these diseases.

 

Perhaps the joke about the truck full of apples applies to getting rid of retained emotions. Once we have a truck full, we need to use or other wise get rid of them or they will go bad. I remember this from the days when we had apple trees on our farm. The fall crop was bountiful and really smelled good. But when there was too much and it did not get used, they would turn rotten and be quite a mess.

 

I want to acknowledge that I really don’t know what is going on. I can only go on, what I call, my “Best Guess” and while I like things to be simple, often they are not. I suspect that some of you are dealing with similar issues and am hopeful that something I have shared is helpful.

I post the text of my talks on my website, SerendipitySeminars.com So you can read today’s talk as well as the past talks that I mentioned. I think that this can be especially useful if you are looking for something that you heard, like a book title, or a list.

 

Meditation: Releasing Emotional Energy

 

It is said that our emotional body can store the energy of the emotions that we experience. The purpose of this meditation is to use the sound of the didgeridoo to unpack and dissipate excessive emotional energy. The didgeridoo will help dissolve energy blocks and encourage energy flow.

 

Meditation:

1. Find a comfortable position, take a deep breath and feel yourself relaxing, take a second deep breath … Relax.

 

2. Just follow the sound and be.

 

3. Gratitude

 

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