Category: Reflection

Radiation Therapy Soundtrack

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain. — Bob Marley

For 28 days I went in for radiation treatment, and each day I was allowed to choose the music that played while I was on the table. It was a small choice in a process where most things had already been decided for me. I didn’t choose these pieces because they were comforting or inspirational, although some were. I chose music I wanted to be with for those few minutes—music that carried memories, demanded attention, brought me joy, or simply sounded right in that strange room with that machine moving around me. This is the music I brought with me.

But I wasn’t alone with the music. Every day there were the wonderful radiation technicians who greeted me, got me positioned, ran the machinery, and somehow made a very strange thing begin to feel almost ordinary. I came to think of them as friends and actually looked forward to seeing them. There was humor, smiles, conversation, and there was a warmth that had nothing to do with the technology surrounding us. I can’t remember another time when I felt so well cared for by people I had only just met. Of all the things they said to me, the one I may remember longest is, “Would you like a warm blanket?” Such a small kindness, but it came to stand for the whole experience: someone was paying attention to whether I was comfortable.

So I am posting these pieces as an example of what we bring with us when we have to go through something we would never have chosen. I brought music, but I also brought my life contained in songs I had listened to for decades, all those ordinary days that had somehow accumulated into a life. And then something unexpected happened: the people caring for me became part of what I brought into that room. Their kindness and good humor became part of the soundtrack.

Cancer was now part of my life, but it wasn’t the whole story. And I don’t know if I’ll ever again have the experience of such wonderful women cheerfully telling me to pull down my pants.

Perception and The Magician

Perception is Creation.
                     -Andrew Holecek

The magician, he sparkles in satin and velvet
You gaze at his splendor with eyes you’ve not used yet
I tell you his name is love, love, love
“My, my, ” they sigh
“My, my, ” they sigh
                -Donovan Leitch
“Sunny Goodge Street”

Perception is Creation.
Through our six senses, driven by our genetics, ancestral legacy, culture, experience, and memory our mind assembles and creates a world –
a vision of reality.
Our brain and mind look for order, pattern and explanation,
and our ego – this sense of a solid self –
shapes and sets that world into a reified image,
in the service of  our need to construct a sense of security.

The mind is averse to chaos, the patternless, to discontinuity.
It is resistant to the dreamlike nature of things,
and cannot abide by
impermanence, randomness, and interdependence.
So we become stuck in believing who
we think we are in the narrow, rigid, fearful world
that we have created in our mind.

At times I will draw a Tarot card that may shed light on a line of thinking that lost its way
or a project that has hit a dead end.
This happened with the above strand of thought, and I drew The Magician,
and immediately thought of the Donovan stanza above
which has always held a haunting fascination for me.

The Magician:
represents the ability to manifest an idea or vision;
makes the invisible visible;
brings consciousness and illumination,
acting like a bridge between the sea of the unconscious and material reality;
serves as a reminder of how skilled we are and also how powerful the universe is.
The Magician has confidence in himself, his talents, capabilities and resources –
and knows the potential that is just waiting to be realized.

Who is the Magician Donovan sings about?
The Magician is an archetype, and is each and every one of us
when we become the spectator of our actions,
and bring  insight and wisdom into our minds.

This gazing at the splendor of eyes we’ve not used yet
is the knowledge that we create our world,
and recognize the difference between pattern recognition – which often leads to insight and creativity –
and pattern imposition – where we force our bias and predetermined opinions on a situation and convince ourselves of it’s truth.

As Magicians we are able to penetrate the chaos, the patternless incomprehensibility, the sadness and cruelty, the threats to our sense of security, the painful changes to the world that we were so accustomed to, and a future that is unsettling.

As Magicians we are able to direct our energies into creating an antidote to the darkness,
and in doing so we transcend the reified sense of self
and enter an open, boundless world of possibilities,
and relax into a timeless and limitless space of awareness.