Gringa Treatment Diary

Tumor needs attention-winter '09

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:22:00 +0000

Tumor needs attention-winter’09

Early Ray Charles playing, having watched Ray last nite, I consider his junkiedom with compassion. Sometimes the ability to remain sober, whatever your comfort medicine is a discipline better disregarded. Marijuana’s role in this for me personally is a constant embracing relationship, one the masculine aspect of myself says to stand on my own two feet, wanting to use it primarily when doing cancer treatment. Then I remind myself that though I am not going to a hospital, IV needle protruding, poison flowing thru my veins, I am in consistent and sometimes more extreme, cancer treatment. The winter of 2009 has been one of those times.

I’ve been dragging those two feet about writing this BLOG edition. Bored with sounding like a broken record though knowing what I’m doing in response to the tumor requiring attention is not charted. At least not where I have been able to find in the past three and a half years. The Breast Wishes Fund that was created by my friends and I this year is committed to making alternative and complimentary breast cancer treatment information easily accessible. We received our first small grant from the McCune Foundation and are in the process of forming a non-profit to approach like organizations for funding. I have Working Title outreach residency application to thank for creating the awareness in me that perhaps more important than focusing on the ME film, is to take advantage of all the other options for consciousness. This BLOG is a large part of that, thus, today’s informative entry of the daily life of a woman with a breast cancer reoccurrence who chooses to work with it inexpensively, biologically and persistently.

Each January for the past two, I’ve chosen to reenter the Cancer Institute where I was diagnosed to meet with the surgeon to keep me on Medicaid. Why bother if I don’t plan to do surgery, chemo or radiation? I don’t know, maybe it’s because I can’t afford health insurance in case I break a bone, my optimism of true complimentary care being covered by insurance or that I’m not 100% sure of what I’ll do in the next year to not die now. Dr. Anna Voltura has just completed a yearlong fellowship at John Hopkins University specializing in breast surgery. There was a part of me that wanted to see if she had any cutting edge information to share. Also to thank her for her diligence in following the tumor in 2005 after two negative test results. My approach is to have a massage and perhaps a trip to the women’s tub at the waves spa after the appointment. The shock and memory of the environment is enough to bring on a recurrence for me even with my inquisitive documentary director hat on. We talked for over an hour and while in it I thought I was doing really well, asking if she had any new theories that resonated with her about why I should at this time still consider breast cancer surgery. She said that there may be a stem cell at the original tumor site and that by removing it, my life expectancy may be prolonged.

This idea has been turning itself around in my mind and challenging my resolve about surgery. The other part of my brain says how would I know if I’m experiencing a cancer episode if I didn’t have my breast and tumor. By feeling and seeing the changes in my breast, I can tell now when the tumor needs attention. I try to uncover the clues of what is out of balance with every aspect of my self, physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally. This in itself is full time work. Is that why I haven’t had a job since December, regardless of resumes sent, so I may have the luxury of time though not money to concentrate on my health? From the time I get up to the time I go to sleep there are different parts of the regime that require my full attention because I am making many of the healing components from scratch to save money and/or empower myself.

In compliance with the Dr., I needed to have some testing done and agreed to an ultrasound. This feels to me the least invasive, non-radioactive form of seeing what is happening inside my skin. Once I arrived at the screening venue, I was told I was also having a mammogram. “No I will not be having a mammogram today, thank you”, I told the receptionist. My experience with this testing is that the radioactive load can bring on the stimulation of cancer cells and while even with an obvious raging cancer inside me, the cancer has gone undetected. Premenopausal women have dense breast tissue and this test frequently is ineffective for them. Not to say I’m premenopausal anymore, chemo shocking my eggs though at this moment I have had the blessed bloody event, starting on new moon no less. What feminine joy! I experience these periods, as I would have liked to embrace them as an adolescent with all the promise and great fortune of youth and womanhood. Back in the ultrasound, I strain to look at the images, trying to control my nervousness when she takes stills of a certain area, trying to remember if that’s one of the spots I had one of many biopsies three and a half years ago. After what feels like a very long time, I’m off the table, waiting for the diagnostic doctor to tell me my results. She’s taking forever and I just can’t be there anymore and tell them to please call me. I am completely freaked out at this point of which a massage helps tremendously to calm me. The phoned results are, all appears stable at this time. And it was for a couple more weeks when I started to feel the tumor growing.

In addition to changes under my skin, I notice the size of my breast growing, nipple denting, and overall appearance altering somewhat dramatically, quickly. There is a lot of pain where the tumor has been, a deep ache and tenderness. I remember this sensation from the very beginning of this tumor’s rapid growth and receding. I start to inject myself with Iscador or European Mistletoe. I change the dosages in an effort to save money though I realize this is not enough. I start to look at my diet and eliminate all sugar, eat only fresh veggies, sprouted legumes, fresh turmeric and ginger. I’ve been fortunate to be milking my neighbor’s goats and have been living on panir and yoghurt. Sadly, I must admit to myself that regardless of the integrity of this raw dairy, it is feeding the cancer. I begin to do regular infrared saunas and medicated enemas followed up by colonics, thankful to the purveyor that she will do some trade and cash with me. The tumor is still growing and I am becoming sad, depressed of all that is not as I wish in my life, the man I love does not reciprocate, I am still broke, in debt with no work coming thru, I live in this part of the house that has forced me from day one to reconcile the difficult parts of myself.

Working the system as I have learned to do, there is a local weatherization program I qualify for and they are doing some work on the house. Stupidly, as if in slow motion, I breathe in plaster dust, which two weeks later, I’m still trying to get out of my lungs. This brings on a whole myriad of flu like symptoms that I can’t be sure if it is the side effects of the Iscador and/or the plaster dust. Here it is, the end of March and the tumor is slowed though changes direction and shape daily. This is the longest episode of working with it and I question, what is next? If I had money, I would go get IV treatments to ozonate and ultravioletize my blood in the tradition of the Paracelsus Clinic.
Would I do chemo again? Will I do surgery? For now I will step up the regimes, add some maitake mushrooms and more antioxidants perhaps. In list form I’m going to show a typical day:

@8AM-wake up-take any combination of tinctures from a women’s blend to a detox formula, tulsi for my spirit, chickweed, nettle and oatstraw for my female system, ephedra for my lungs. I do a regime of Essiac tonic, a blood purifier, either as a tea or tincture. If there are Chinese herbs to take, I ingest those and will again later in the day. Also if this is an enema day, take Colosan to oxygenate my colon, perhaps some Triphala, an ayurvedic stool softener. Spray vitamins, Isocort adrenal support.
8:30AM-Arti, Hindu morning prayers and offerings followed by Zen Buddhist style meditation
9:30AM- Make a fire in the woodstove and my drink of homemade kombucha with a mix of powdered seaweeds including bladderwrack, dulse, kelp and perhaps licorice powder for an ulcer that had been acting up. In the summer I will make this in the blender with fresh greens, add a fresh fruit.
10AM-Qi Gong-lately I’ve been doing Incense Qi Gong to strengthen my lungs. At the end I use tuning forks on the tumor to break up the cancer. I visualize warm golden, white light filling my whole body, particularly my breasts. When it is warm outside, I go down to the stream and do this routine and if warmer still, I do arti, meditation and bathe briskly in the Rio en Medio. This earth connection keeps me balanced as little else does and I have accepted the Rio as my own private Ganges.
11AM-If this is an enema day I prep the bag with either yoghurt and triphala or coffee. Coffee if it is a colonic day for sure. This all takes @ an hour and a half once all is done and said.
Noonish-check email, return phone calls. Make lunch on the woodstove, usually a medicine bowl of sprouted legumes, fresh veggies and a handful of grain choosing if it’s an Asian, Indian or an Italian bowl.
Afternoon-Eat lunch. Take flax oil, Banyan Botanicals women’s support, calcium, and digestive enzymes. Depending on my energy, I’ll either rest or gather and cut wood, go for a walk, visit my adopted Grandparents in the village or work on grant proposals, film and cancer related research. Many times the projects of tinctures or kombucha or food preservation require attention.
Evening-turn on the infrared sauna, drink a lot of water and give myself a lymph-stimulating shower after. Sometimes I’ll do a bath in Epsom salt to detox or just a nice nurturing bath in goat milk and essential oils. Have a snack of oatmeal and fruit though popcorn cooked in ghee is my constant craving, especially if sad.
Perhaps after this I will write, read, watch a movie, tend fire, talk to a friend and try to be in bed by midnite. At base, I still love the nite and that is a constant struggle to make myself go to bed as early as possible. I take 5 mg of melatonin sublingually, I like Source Naturals peppermint, that has a Pavlovian response with me and I take another as I am going to bed. I used to have a lot of difficulty sleeping for more than a few hours and for the past year or two, thank you Goddess; I have been overall sleeping very well, deep and long. If I’m upset emotionally I will take Banyan Botanicals I Sleep Soundly and/or Tranquil Mind formulas. Make my self a cup of hops and chamomile tea or some other soothing combo.

On the days I go into town, which is less and less, I will sometimes have appointments. I go to traditional acupuncture @ once a month and take the herbs Dr. Yang gives me. I would like to get more massage, energy work though all of this now is for trade and sometimes I’m flush on that and sometimes not. I rely less and less on practitioners because of finances and there are not a whole lot of people I want to work with any more. I hope this is helpful to someone, at base, my work is to reinvent the rhythms I was born with, be thankful for what I do have trying not to dwell on problems, especially finances and to give more than I receive. I am working on this house and land to be a place of healing for others though first I must transform it for my self. Healing the healers has been a frequent transmission. Many have been chosen to do hard work on themselves now so they may be of service to others soon.

Fungahuasca 2-09

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 19:53:00 +0000

Feel surprisingly normal considering. Sock monster from Zoë definitely has a different connotation, a voodoo doll with trickster magic. The cats and I are closer, me understanding their species as chosen by witches. Jenny dog felt very close by for my journey partner and me. Many rants from me about Obama being chosen by God, a personal compassion for the great dead and alive saints. Amma, Ghandi, MLK, JFK, RFK, and excitedly, many friends. Cady’s amazing opp to create change at a place with a beautiful infrastructure, her being chosen to mobilize a heart change and eliminate classism. Caroline and Jim in the international forum not just putting on an event though creating an international community which seems more and more palpable of the direction towards peace. Well, let’s start at the beginning, shall we…

The woman formerly known as Chris and I prepped in different ways. L came over @ 11 AM, my goat friend visiting at the kitchen table after delivering milk. I had tried to clean the house so we could just be floppy anywhere without excessive filth covering us. This paid off as there was quite a bit of the floppy. More like flailing on my part. Great sympathy for a friend with mittens for hands, as mine became clubs. Flailing clubs. Most obvious as I was wrapped in Tracy via Jeff to me sadhu wrap that I sported post a towel. Had to be naked. Had to be in water constantly or dousing the woodstove for steam or ordering L to do it, when too comatose to do it myself. Oh and that was frequently. The narcotic aspect was better than any heroin or opium. Maybe because it was more visual. More personally visual also. L’s trip was quite different, more introspective, tactile, feeling while mine was phenomenal visuals on the first wave coming down the hill from the dunes where we drank the well simmered decoction of Banisteriopsis caapi.

1-Daniel Pinchbeck Breaking open the Head-pg 140-“Ayahuasca is highly sophisticated jungle chemistry. The Amazonian potion usually consists of two ingredients, the bark of the ayahuasca vine (Banisteriopsis caapi, which grows in thick double-helix-shaped coils around rain forest trees) and the leaves of Psychotria viridis or some other plant.”

In our case, we did Fungahuasca. We boiled down the leaves and bark of the ayahuasca on the wood stove and added mushrooms grown locally. The combo creates a DMT trip (dimethyltryptamine, naturally occurring in human base of spine and brain) with waves of deep narcotic bliss. Better than any heroin or opium I’ve ever had, yep said that already. No post crunchiness. I’m tired though I went to bed by midnite and slept well ( minus Leon kittie wanting a chat outside my door @ 5 AM). I find it shocking right now that the house is not completely trashed. There were such delusions of Hunter S. Thompson: I became gecko like, much like Johnny Depp’s rendition in FEAR & LOATHING. Like a chicken after decapitation, little body control, out of body, which felt amazing. Sweetly sensual at times.

There was the water cycle, which followed the massive crying, and releasing, writhing, taking in the community’s pain, letting it move thru me. At one point saying it wasn’t time for me to leave this body yet though an incredible death practice. Great compassion, self-sacrifice and acknowledgment of the hard work of God’s emissaries. Bob Marley became important especially for L. The version of Hare Krishna from Beloved Krishna exalted and Wilco’s A Ghost is Born provided perfect poetic catharsis as the waves got less intense, more quiet and blissfiss. There was massive purging of family pain, the breast cancer lineage. Releasing for my Aunt and Grandmother, protection for my Goddaughter. So many blessings and pujas I performed last nite for so many, my body a conduit for other’s healing. The expulsion of cancer from my breast and body. Bathed not just once but twice, not so different from Benicio in Fear and Loathing. L def concerned at times for my wellbeing. Needed constant water, to be in it, drinking it, on the woodstove in steam, making tea. Uaahh, the tea ceremony, L great about doing my bidding, bringing the blue corn cake baked on the woodstove pre transmission with ghee, warmed and royal jelly. Manna as L called it. Muhhh. Me so sloppy when eating and drinking, consistently pulling up my sadhu robe, feeling my body changing after the water purging and oiling. Like a baby’s skin, true shedding of the old and rebirth. Nay and I went up to Ojo the day before and that was a great prep for this.

I felt great affection for my body and appearance. Seemed as if my hair grew an inch in 1 day. I kept pulling on it. The rebirth and return to my body had me thankful for it, releasing the loathing I have felt over my appearance, since cancer, probably before too. So many colors, heat sensitive, infrared, as I had the first wave of no movement, L heading back to house. Me slumped against the wall of the ruin in the most foreboding of landscapes on the property, in the cholla and tumbleweed field. Intense yellows, orange, red and such spikiness from the plants. A stop at the stream on the way back revealed the mosaic like vision I had read about. Much of what I have read was accurate and am thankful for the prep I had done over the past year particularly.

Feb 7
The Wolf has been a constant theme before, during and since this journey. I remember feeling awestruck when I heard that Obama in his first day in office had placed the Gray Wolf back on the endangered species list for the western and northern states. As Americans in the past decade, we have been trained to feel this earthwork is unimportant and I’m having difficulty waking up after the long nitemare of indifference to the creatures and elements that matter most to me.

From Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson, pg97
“Wolf is the pathfinder, the forerunner of new ideas who returns to the clan to teach and share medicine. Wolf takes one mate for life and is loyal like Dog. If you were to keep company with Wolves, you would find an enormous sense of family within the pack, as well as a strong individualistic urge. Baying at the Moon may be an indication of Wolf’s desire to connect with new ideas which are just below the surface of consciousness.”

One dog spirit of a man came to me frequently during the trip, he is one who helped me burn my dog Jenny and offer puja to her. It’s hard to know if the yearning for union is an unevolved clinging or the feeling of our destinies being intertwined and now the time to be revisited, a question that stays with me. This time of year is MahaShivaratri, an all nite celebration of the story of Lord Shiva. Last year at the Neem Karoli Baba Hanuman Temple in Taos, I felt for the first time a true understanding of God and sensuality, Tantra. The connection I feel personally necessary for sexual union with another as an extension of God, thus being celibate now for 4 1/2 years.

A day in town yesterday was both familiar, confusing and annoying. I have read that it is difficult to move thru the world in the same way after this experience; insight to everything quite keen and perhaps the work is to not adopt a sense of superiority. A book club for Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina had me perplexed at first then finding my sea legs amongst so many beautiful female friends became fun and recognizable. I have decided to go up to the Temple in Taos for a few days, staying over and being a karma yogi, one who practices selfless service. I have a sense of peace about my house I have not felt before, less urgent to get away
from it, knowing I can create small miracles by sitting still and concentrating on the work right here in front of me.

Today's rhythm-4-29-08

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:16:00 +0000

One of the most difficult disciplines in Buddhist thought is to do nothing. Buddha spent something like 18 years on that one concept, with many going crazy after just a few days. It sounds so easy, such a respite from the modern world though in practice, not answering email, refinancing the mortgage, or talking about the next job with the outside world feels next to impossible. To turn off the mental chatter, the wounds of rejection from a past lover who no longer desires one in the same way, as well as figuring out how will I pay off my credit cards and yes, is this cancer growing in my other breast. Ultimately, it is that acceptance and surrender to a body death sooner than a 41-year old woman who appears vital that allows true healing for me.

Today I woke up late after a twisty turny nite of unsleep and decided to abandon my normal schedule of Aarti (Hindu ritual done each dawn and dusk with the light of a candle, incense and offerings as well as prayers that many temples work with differently to the deities). I wanted to update this BLOG, which I have been lax about with more practical dealing with cancer as I have been doing on a very limited budget for over a year now. I’ve let go of the expensive alt-doctor administered protocols because, well, I had no choice. I’m amazed really that my credit card debt is not more in the six figure range and my credit rating completely shot. Not yet at least.

I have begun working jobs again more regularly. Recently as the volunteer coordinator for a haphazard, inaugural film festival. I didn’t like the person who emerged in this chaos, an experienced woman who could have directed the festival though quite nasty and haughty about it. I was aware of this at the time and tried to work with it, though realized in order to make at least $10 an hour at this job with the lump sum I was being paid, I needed to back off my normal work ethic of giving 100%. When paid significantly less to cook for many more hours of physical work, it is somehow much more gratifying than talking on cell phones and being chained to my computer. The balance.

I am trying to create community where I live, many building projects with recycled materials, me out of the main house into the apartment that I am now renting out. Since this film festival I feel I am constantly caring for others and had to realize, I am drained, I am mean and I think I have more cancer possibly growing in the opposite breast from the former tumor. Given the recurrences I have self-diagnosed and come through, I’m now aware of my process. I’m in denial for about a month, sometimes medicating with marijuana more than usual though since I have cut my consumption by @ 80% since becoming a New Mexico Medical Marijuana patient, that is less of an option and I just walk around angst filled, angry and sad. Before I handed in the Doctor’s recommendation to apply for the program I thought it important to be cognizant of my honest history with drugs, anaesthetizing to numb out from the trauma of a life lived, the unreconciled hurts. Flower essences have been tremendously helpful with those immediate as well as long standing wounds. They are subtle and fascinating, with lasting effects in making the changes in personality or temperament that seemed a long-standing trait.

The biggest healer when I admit to a possible reoccurrence or new cancer is to just stop. I recommit myself to morning practice of meditation, aarti and Qi Gong. I try to pattern most of my day around excursions in my beautiful backyard, allowing creativity to come, as it wants. That can be by bringing bones up to one of Jenny’s altars and doing ceremony or working on the land where I visualize new spaces of refuge. I allow chants and song to come forth from me as the Indian land behind my house channels spirit. Yesterday as calling Coyote to come with me where she will be safe on my land (I heard one shot and killed as I was singing with her a couple months ago), I was rewarded with the sight of two powerful, full grown deer. I’ve never seen deer here, though since Jenny passed I have been given passage to the local animal kingdom. A bear and I followed each other around right after her passing; a coyote came right up to me and now the deer couple. Each animal that seasonally makes itself known to me, I look up in my Medicine Cards to understand what advice the Earth is offering, what Native America has interpreted their power to mean. These cards tell a story of Fawn who was beckoned to Great Spirit on the top of Sacred Mountain. Blocking the way was a demon bully, archetype of all the ugly monsters that have ever been and those that live within each of us. The demon did not understand why Fawn was not petrified by all the evil posturing and continued to respond only with love and compassion. Demon shrunk to the size of a walnut, clearing the path to Sacred Mountain and the Great Spirit for all of those to come. Deer medicine teaches us to stop pushing so hard to get others to change and accept them unconditionally, lovingly, which also applies to ourselves.

I have been in love with a man who I have had to let go. As much as I have tried to love him unconditionally, I am not in a place any longer where I can receive nothing from him. He is splendid and worth a struggle, though that will not be mine any longer. Giving up these visions we create and see so clearly is a step towards nothingness, the ultimate surrender of this body and an attachment to this life. Meanwhile, I’m back on European Mistletoe injections, something I use when I feel cancer is growing. I get the max dosage series II and split that up into 2-3 syringes and take them over the week. I do this because the medicine is expensive and my body seems to react favorably to it with out the prescribed protocol.

I watch my sugar intake, trying not to deprive myself of sweet food though what I ingest has to be medicine in it’s own right. Yesterday I made a seaweed, quinoa, and coconut, cacao nib concoction sweetened with agave nectar that was strange and satisfying. Cooking for oneself is essential, eliminating all processed, frozen, inorganic and unlovingly prepared foods. Food is my main medicine as Ayurveda has taught me. Given my financial quandary, I had to think about what couldn’t I live without and still heal myself? Food is the answer so by sprouting all beans, grains, eating mostly fruit and veggies and hopefully those that I grow or meet the person who grows them, these are obvious healing methods that work within no budget. Seaweed (Mountain Rose Herbs wild harvests wakame and kombu for a reasonable price per pound) has been a thyroid healer, which after the chemo blasts, I find my self two and a half years later, just coming around from. Many menopausal symptoms appeared to be more thyroid issues. I have just gotten my moon cycle on the new moon for the first time since chemo. There have been some attempts at a period though this was the first one that felt real. I reveled in it as I wish I had been instructed to as a young woman, carrying with me this delicate and delicious secret of being a fertile woman. My breasts have changed in good ways though at times painful and unknown. I question if the lump I’m concerned could be cancer is my breasts regenerating to be more young and supple, wanting to make milk.

Friends have said they would go to the Dr. with me so I could find out for sure. My plan for these times of concerns remains similar. I take a month to be in nature, stop answering the phone, being on the computer and be in the woods or desert for many hours. I know what the Dr. will offer me, biopsies and radioactive testing as well as destructive pharmaceuticals and surgery. I continue to learn Tibetan death practice for my self and others. It offers me comfort, as difficult as the issues that come up around it are for me. Tara Mandala in Pagosa Springs, Colorado is a good source for these teachings of Bardo and Phowa. Once again Jenny, my recently departed dog, is my greatest teacher. She reassures me from afar when I need her most, giving me faith that leaving this body is not a bad thing. I was so empty and sad dealing with people and culture when giving myself a quiet moment I realized, I miss Jenny so much and have not given myself time to be with her, to honor her. There are tins that say Joy, Peace and Hope at the front steps with a Chinese kitty on top my friend gave me that hold her bones and ash and with flowers, incense and offerings, I took those bones to one of her more powerful altars at the sand dunes and just prayed and chanted, as if she was standing there right behind me as she did for years. I have given myself at least a three-day period of honoring her, spending time with her bones and memory in our favorite natural locations. Today I will walk up to the waterfall along the Rio en Medio, a trail I seem to have deprived my self of, one we enjoyed countless times. I will go to the Bodhi Manda Zen Center in Jemez Springs to meet the Roshi who is over 100 years old! I will be spending at least half the summer there, cooking for retreats. It will be long, hard work for less than minimum wage though I love that kitchen and the opportunity to nourish people as well as try out recipes that I may use for community and seasonal restaurant ideas I have been tossing around, perhaps for next spring.

Meanwhile I work towards my visions without becoming attached to their manifestation. I allow my self to rediscover my natural rhythms, which might mean going to bed at midnite and sleeping until 10 AM! I say what I need as kindly and concisely as possible and stop the chatter and fear of rejection, sometimes by literally banging my head with my fingers. I’m doing a heavy metal detox with cilantro tincture I culled supported with chlorella and vitamin C. I’m taking advantage of my infrared sauna with a series. I continue to make green smoothies in the morning that contain seasonal greens, fruit Prasad from Aarti, homemade kombucha and fruit juice with local bee pollen, Garden of Life’s Primal Defense probiotics, fresh ground flax seed, as well as a micro algae combo. I’m growing wheatgrass. Mostly, it’s time down at the snow melted Rio en Medio where I will start bathing everyday again in soon and this beautiful land of New Mexico that speaks to me and nurtures the most on my healing path.

zen 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 00:13:00 +0000

I have always wanted to disappear from before Thanksgiving ‘til after New Year’s. The closest I have come to that was this year going into retreat at the Bodhi Manda Zen Center for just over 2 weeks, before the new year. I arrived at a quiet time at the center, just me, T., a remarkable old yenta who became in my mind, a Zenta. She seemed happy for the break in routine and a granddaughter type to talk to. She likes to talk. There was K. who had driven from the Midwest after his marriage collapsed, a “student” who pushed my buttons in a way that only family can, perhaps my greatest teacher though painfully repulsive and annoying to me at the time. Then there was I. a young, grad and zen student, who did his best to hold down the fort. A real “Lord of the Flies” situation which after one day of cleaning toilets, making 30 beds and being looked to as psychological leader, I requested to be in silent meditation for a week.

My goal in coming was to empty my mind, give it space, digest Jenny not being in my life palpably anymore and process my Aunt’s passing, essentially from breast cancer. The center has tremendous hot springs right on the Jemez River and I took the time to detox my body as well as my head and heart. Listening only to I. who would tell me the schedule and my work, I wandered in the volcanic tuff, writing, cooking, cleaning and meditating. The schedule was rigorous and this was a down time. When the Osho (priest also the Vice Abbot) returned a typical day went something like this:
4 AM-wake up

4:15-In the Sutra Hall for chanting (a very methodical, phonetic chant, one is the Heart Sutra)

5:00-Zendo-for meditation-complete silence and stillness is the goal. Beginners count to ten and concentrate on breath. Students are given a koan (riddle) by the Roshi (great teacher) later. There are sesshins which are intense monastic training periods where the Roshi is present and gives teisho (dharma talks), meets with students and more chanting and meditation

6:30-breakfast-formal with silence and your bowl set. You receive 3 bowls which are wrapped up in cloth and have a washrag. At the end of the meal you get water in one of the bowls and clean all of then including your utensils (spoon and chopstix). Tremendously efficient.

After breakfast there is clean up and a short work period of general maintenance such as cleaning toilets, sweeping, emptying garbage,etc… Usually go for a dip in the hot pools post.

9AM- 12-Samu-work period. I had the honor and hard work of being the tenzo (cook). We were feeding from 5-80 people on New Year’s with up to 6 other people working in the kitchen. For a person who has never worked commercially as a cook it was an incredible experience, exhausting. I learned later that frequently the tenzo has many years of training before being given this opportunity.

12:30-lunch (informal, can talk) and clean up

2:30-4:30-Samu-more work. I frequently made dinner and prepped for the day to come. In the warm months there is much tending to their beautiful gardens, which I was still pulling exotic greens out of.

5:30-dinner, formal, in robes sometimes, clean up

6:30-8PM Zazen (seated meditation). This involved “rounds” of 25 minutes with a resting period in between, also still and silent, or walking meditation in the 0 degree weather, in robes. I put on my coat, many didn’t. You walk like a centipede, in each other’s steps, in darkness, stars above. There are wooden clappers and bowls that are rung as well as other rituals to let you know what to do next.

8:30-end of day

Quite a schedule to adapt to or live everyday! There were free days, some half days and to be honest, it takes an hour or two to remember how to not live on the schedule. I found myself in the kitchen, reading cookbooks and preparing snacks for the herds of folks that were coming in for the New Year’s Eve and Day programs on my time off.

New Year’s Eve was the most unusual I’ve participated in. It was a 4 hour meditation which included separate men’s and women’s hot pools, nude and in silence. There was a bonfire where Osho Hosen led a sharing of what one would like to leave behind in the fire. Her eclectic, feminine interpretation of Zen was refreshing. New Year’s Day was a large ceremony with a lot of chanting, many visitors.

Zen challenged my desire to praise God or Gods as I’ve adopted in Hinduism. The essence of this religion is esoteric, though very accepting. Monks and nuns are not celibate, there’s no constraints on alcohol or lifestyle as long as you adhere to the schedule. Even those who are challenging to the average person in the group are tolerated for a period of time. Stories go that some of the most obnoxious people end up giving the greatest service to the organization and very well may end up being the most devoted to the practice ultimately. I met some really lovely people whom I connected with immediately and had rich conversations. It reaffirmed my commitment to community, a dedicated work ethic and giving more of my self to those in need. It’s amazing what 5-10 people can accomplish when they are focused and hardworking. I’m going to be digesting this for a while though have a feeling it is a practice that will become deeper and more foundational to my being, seems to already be part of me and now it has more of a name.

Right now I am very tired. I seem to be reexperiencing chemo, 2 years later. Amazing how the body remembers the exact dates. I am going thru similar emotions and fatigue as when in chemo in the same cycles including unexplainable fear as if going to the hospital for the treatments. Willingly submitting to this poison felt much like going for a lobotomy with consent.

I don’t have plans for the new year, just letting it fill up day by day. It feels good, dreamlike at times. Sweet dreams to you gentle reader, lots of love and generosity for the new year. Thank you.

Thanksgiving '07

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 17:20:00 +0000

On this day of thanks, I feel a bit more at peace than I have in a while. Perhaps it’s the lengthy, unbroken sleep I enjoyed last nite, the fine sunny day outside, or the feeling of resolve that all that matters is right here, right now. Humorously, it has taken Dr. Doolittle, a contrary though humble name for a man who was my first Zen, vegetarian master. Not Eddie Murphy silly, but Rex Harrison as a man who could talk to the animals, wouldn’t eat them and defended their feelings and rights. He thinks only of the future in terms of expeditions he will do such as searching for the Great Pink Sea Snail or the Giant Lunar Moth, a month of planning the only time frame the audience hears about as he humanely exhibits the Push Me-Pull You at the circus to raise money. Emma Fairfax pines for his approval and affection and only in that moment of being asked does he consider his own feelings for her. It seems much of my time in relationship is thinking about it versus being in it. The Vedic scripture says yes, take action, buy that nice car, but don’t be attached to the outcome of anything. To love someone but not plan for a future with them. To make love and not want more or feel depressed after. To expect nothing from those I love, giving without an expectation of receiving. Words that roll off yet are so elusive in practice. This has been my work since I have last written, as well as grieving the passing of my best friend.

Jenny was the best friend I have ever had in my entire life. I don’t care that she was a dog because to me she was a spirit, greater than most humans I have come in contact with. She was my greatest teacher and sent to me for 14 years. She enhanced and affected many lives. In our time, this time, I learned how to be alone, to work thru my karma that was passed on to me thru generations of unrefined, painful emotions. For the first time I feel I can be a good friend, in a loving relationship, a valuable community member. This has taken the severing, reevaluation and rebuilding of many ties in family and friendship, on my terms, unpopular though necessary for my survival.

The 49 day mourning period of Bardo was the most helpful practice I can imagine for doing what I could to feel involved with aiding Jenny’s spirit to find a beautiful rebirth and for me to truly digest and integrate her physical presence being removed from my life. The gaps of the nasty daily chores were initially missed, just the opportunity to serve her. On each Friday at 2:21 PM I meditated and prayed for her spirit, those prayers changing each week as I felt her more and more distant from this world, my world. I made walks, pilgrimages several times a week, with her bones and ash, creating altars all over Rio en Medio, to some of our favorite natural spaces. In nature is where I felt her most. In the first week I became sure that birds are the vehicles for the recently departed. They followed me in droves as well as a very large bear, or perhaps I followed her. Native America sees the bear as introspection. I seem to cross paths more and more with Indian healers and Shamans, their medicine becoming mine. This weekend I will do a peyote ceremony that will go from sunset to sunrise. Known for it’s powerful healing individually and for the collective, I have waited many years to be ready to be part of this ritual.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer just over 2 years ago, I stopped my life. Jenny’s passing allowed me that same opportunity. In the 7 weeks of Bardo, I did not socialize very often outside of my home, mourning feeling palpable. I also grieved for bombing my being with poisonous drugs that my body is forever different as a result of. Almost 2 years since the last chemo and my hair is just starting to return. I am in menopause, brought on by the drugs, symptoms of which were exacerbated with the intense emotions of Jenny’s last days, hot flashing, bipolar and sleep deprived for the past few months. My teeth are brittle, shifting which naturally occurs when a person gets old, generally older than me who will be turning 41 on Wednesday. In a nervous moment I question if the drugs are still in me, after all the intense detoxing I have done over the past 2 years, and if they are just starting to leave, does that mean the chemo is what has kept the cancer at bay all this time? Given the route I have chosen post chemo, it’s very hard to know where I stand as a breast cancer recipient. Financial stress can’t help though the lessons from buying only necessities, learning to create whatever I need from clothes to food is empowering and part of my rebirth away from the initial energetic I came into this life thinking were the most important essences.

Money is an issue for everyone. In my family, I feel it was the motivation for what one translated as love and success. It wasn’t a priority for me personally, except when I unconsciously was trying to win approval by taking jobs that did not suit me. When I look in the mirror, I admit to having had an innate sense of entitlement. This manifested in staying in roles and unhealthy family relationships so I essentially would get paid. I also mutated money as reassurance of being loved since emotionally I had frequently felt unconditional love not present. Accepting my current profound poverty and debt has been arduous though liberating in being autonomous emotionally. Would I have preferred to have my letters to my family of need responded to with kindness and assistance? Sure. But obviously, that is not my path from here on in.

It still hurts to be misunderstood. I feel grossly misrepresented by having money donated in my honor to organizations that I feel are reprehensible in the medieval practices around breast cancer. Double mastectomies (a big word for cutting off your breasts) as “prophylactic” and radiation (cancer causing energy) as well as massive chemo (poison) are even more extreme, archaic methods of “fighting” cancer than my grandmother endured. The fear-based business of cancer has me beside myself with anger at times and that I am considered fringe for taunting these methods, willing to be a guinea pig on film to document some options. As I write this, I’ve just been told my aunt who has been diagnosed with breast cancer 3 times and had a hysterectomy for pelvic cancers, is on life support. She was supposedly unable to take the next chemo and stopped breathing. I pray for her to be free of pain and sadness. I feel she inherited generations of unresolved angst, like me, in what I refer to as the “genetic energetic”. God rest her soul and let love permeate her being now and at the time her body dies. Is she better off for taking the Western medicine that may have prolonged her life? We spoke on camera about this as part of “the ME film”.

I want to live a long life in this body though am daily becoming friendlier with death. After all, it is part of life and I will not pretend it doesn’t exist, for me or anyone else. I do pray that my lineage hereafter will benefit from my work in looking for the root of our breast cancer. If you want to help make a difference, please consider contributing to “the ME film” or the Lexie Health Fund so this anecdote may be televised.

Namaste’- I bow to the beloved in you who bows to the beloved in me.
lex

Ding Dong the Queen is Dead! 9/21/07 at 2:21 PM

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 02:11:00 +0000

My blackboard reads:
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 21 AT 2:21 PM
Jenny’s spirit left her body----
Remarkable Beloved Friend and Teacher
Namaste’ Jennyfleur

I found myself without Jenny on the morning of September 10th, 2007 down at our spot by the Rio en Medio where I do my morning meditation and Qi Gong each day. I felt her pain and my life so impinged upon, I prayed for her to be taken in the nite, gone by September 11th. This day has such obvious remembrances and power in American history; it felt fitting my most beloved creature should be remembered too. The next day, I woke up to her shaky from another stroke, one of several smaller ones after a huge one, June 27th. I truly thought she was dying then, her eyes rolling around in her head, unable to walk or eat for days. I tried, but was not ready to let her go yet. She kindly stepped back from death, with the help of a coffee enema administered with a turkey baster out in the field. The next three months offered me several opportunities to have more adventures with her and ultimately, by September 12th, to completely devote to her.

I’m so grateful for the opportunity to have served her completely, if just for 12 days. She has been my greatest teacher in the works of Hanuman, Hindu God of Selfless Devotion. Our drives up to the Neem Karoli Baba Temple and Ashram took on more meaning, me praying to be worthy of her love and bhakti or devotion. I feel I gave one day for each year she gave me completely, 12 days, even though she was 14 for in the beginning she was a wily pup, unruly at times and more devoted to her Dad, Dru who called just as we torched the pyre. 12 days where my life completely revolved around her, I was thankful for the opportunity to clean up the pile that lay next to her and on her. Thankful.

So on Tuesday, September 11th when I called the vet to put her down, wrote the email to Jenny lovers everywhere that if this is compassionate killing, I was doing it Friday. I talked with her; telling her I was going to help her so she didn’t have to go through the really painful part, just go now, easily. In reaction, she seemed to eat more heartily, her eyes bright and brown, looking almost puppyish. I woke up the next day and couldn’t control my wailing sobs, not ‘til I called the vet again at 1:10 PM and told her that I was calling it off, that Jenny wasn’t ready. I had to be honest that I was selfishly imposing my will on her. I was ready to live without her. At that moment of realization, I was so thankful for perhaps the greatest lesson of my life. I had stopped my life almost 2 years earlier with a breast cancer diagnosis, I could do it again. She was happy as long as I was home and she could sleep most of the day and nite with occasional walks to the stream and sometimes even farther.

We did tremendous walks in the last months of her life, making it up to the waterfall of the Rio en Medio, me behind her, frequently acting as her back legs. At her funeral pyre, I asked Tino, my adopted Abuela, what he remembered of Jenny. He said, “ Wherever you were…she was right behind you.” Zoe, who knew us later in Jenny’s life, said she always has a picture of me right behind Jenny, picking her up when she fell, helping her up hills and rocky paths. The circle comes full. At Jenny’s Birthday Party August 19th, Holy Dog Spirit Meyraj was noticed by friends who asked who was following me, much like Jenny. The two met on his 33rd Birthday at the temple on July 22nd. At one time he had 21 dogs, all wolf hybrids, now just one aloof lady, Shanti. The four of us took Jenny’s last walk together in the river at Ojo Caliente, a regular jaunt for Jenny and I. It was one of those perfect end of summer days, the water temperature warm, the height just right for Jenny to be able to wade, walk and enjoy without much assistance. One of the times she fell in a shallow pool I took the opportunity to give her a full bath, rinsing her nubs of teeth, belly, filthy ears. I knew this was her last bath, the Rio en Medio getting too cold for our daily routine of washing, soaking, lounging. This day the light was perfect streaming the water, we all felt just right.

The next day she was tired, slept all day but had eaten her breakfast of raw hamburger and softened chic chic dogfood. I had this fantasy we were going to go to Valley View Hot Springs on retreat for a few days though, even as I was packing I knew this was not going to happen. I tried to give Jen her nite food which I mix melatonin and marijuana butter in to help her sleep and to quiet the now consistent rasping cough. The thyroid tumor she had been diagnosed with less than a year after my own cancer seemed to block air passage, making breathing difficult, regardless, she forged on. Seeing her discomfort I blew pot smoke in her face, which seemed to calm her, though not enough. Time for the big guns, as she looked really frightened around midnite. During the first big stroke I had given her one, max, of the doggie morphine known as Tramodol. Concerned for her organs and knowing it constipated her, I was very discerning about quantity and tried homeopathics, flower essences, aromatherapy, and herbs before the heavy pharmaceuticals. Over the course of the next 14 hours I administered 2 Tramodol by crushing them up in her mortar and pestle, adding a touch of warm water and serving them up in a dropper every 2-3 hours. As I tried to get the last bit of drug out of the mortar in the darkest hours of nite, the pestle snapped in two. Confirmation. This is the last hours of using this tool for Jenny’s pills, a long relationship of doing so. Between icky tastes I rubbed her mouth with marigold honey, the holy flower I hoped would help her spirit ascend.

I slept about an hour that nite, simulating her tortured breathing as I lay there, trying to understand her. I became a channel for her wishes, Shiva and all the shamanic practice that is now just part of me. I massaged her organs gently, hoping to help them release what was holding her back. Every 45 minutes or so I’d pick up her dead weight to drain the fluid from one choking lung to the other. At one time she’d been this beefy butter colored polar bear of 110 pounds and now had become a shrinking 70-pound elder. I had called vets around 9 AM, knowing we couldn’t go through another nite of this agony. She had taken a bowel movement around this time, normal except for the unusual liquid that followed the poop. At 11AM, as a vet was on the line, Jenny expelled @ 2 cups from her mouth of what looked like blood, mucus and tissue. I had pads to catch fluids all around her and tried to move her head so she wasn’t swimming in it, cleaned her without disturbing her too much. I called the vets off figuring this was it, yes? About an hour later, another huge release similar to the first was leaping from her mouth, as were liquids from her bottom. I continued to give her homeopathic phosphorous, emergency rescue and walnut flower essences as well as sprinkling lavender and tulsi essential oils on her. More dope smoke. For me more than her at this point. I pulled on her feet and ears, made motions with the sage smoke to help her spirit leave her body up through her crown chakra. I told her I’d be fine. I gave her what I knew to be my last kisses to her beautiful snout, holding her heart, begging her to let go.

It was now 2 PM and I worried, how much longer could she go on? I called the vet and she said it’s possible for days. This was what euthanasia is really for in my mind so I made an appointment for the vet to come by as her last call at 6 PM. Jen’s head wasn’t moving, her tongue lifeless, I squirted a few more drops of water and said out loud, “That’s it, I need to stop putting things in your mouth, don’t I?” Caroline called and as I put the phone up to Jenny’s ears, her lifeless eyes danced one more time as Cor told her of her beauty, love and greatness. I made myself go in the kitchen, starting dal and rice to sprout that I knew would be served at her funeral, talking to Dyanna about how long this could take. As we were saying goodbye, I saw Jenny’s legs go rigid and urine trickle out. It was over.

My feelings were so mixed, hysterically sobbing and though trying to envision her beautiful spirit ascending, wanting to aid her passage any way possible. I stumbled, wandered, cleaned and decided we would be going up to the Neem Karoli Baba Ashram for Bhandara, the festival in honor of Maharaji’s own passing, that started with 108 Hanuman Chalisas at 4 AM the next morning. Jono came over and kindly acquiesced to helping me put her on her bed and into the car. I strew silks on her, put Ganesha, Hanuman, flowers, candles, incense in with her and fell asleep for a solid 5 hours until the alarm woke me to start driving with my best friend in the darkness to Taos.

I arrived early enough to score a perfect spot under a tree where she wouldn’t bake in the sun. Strange as it may sound, nothing felt more normal than taking one last drive north with my baby in the car. We had covered so many miles and adventures together in there. I left the windows open; she looked so beautiful, still present as I filed into the temple for hours of praying, crying, mourning. My black skirt and deep purple top were the colors of my aura, my prayer shawl allowing me to cry privately, in public. By the time I came out, Meyraj had already found the car and set to praying for Jenny. We met out there stealth-like, lighting incense, admiring her beauty, and making offerings. At 2:21-PM I wanted to meet and have ceremony, meditate on her spirit flying high, effortless, without pain, on her way to her next exalted rebirth. The Indian family next to me didn’t appreciate my decaying love next to them and with regret the temple caretaker, asked me to move my dog to the overflow parking, three blocks away, in the sun.

I felt calm and crazy, knowing this was for a reason, not accepting that as the solution. I asked for some time and went to the drive next to the parking lot and waited for David to get out of the shower for what felt like an eternity. A human Jen listened to my woe and told me he’d be out soon. I was so nervous; grief stricken though inside I know this move was ultimately a good thing. Originally, I had envisioned the car across from the pool where the acequias meet, Jenny’s swimming hole, and where we had first met Meyraj on his birthday. David said of course, please park here and just in time for 2:21 remembrance of her, we could be more open here, incense aflame constantly, candles and flowers every time I walked meditatively around the temple and brought back as offerings. Many people walked by, lighting incense, offering prayers, telling stories of their loved beasts, listening about my heart throb, Jenny. Meyraj brought her a puri from a delicious lunch feast, the first real food I had eaten in a day or two. Later that nite as I went outside to the car to say goodnite to her, I saw the puri as a cartoon balloon from her mouth that said comically “I’m Dead!”

I went back into the temple where Sita led a euphoric round of the waning Chalisas. I couldn’t focus on the words, still learning the 5-minute prayer repeated over and over and over again. Instead I sat near the Durga or Mother altar and reveled in the spirit of the congregation, taking their energy to keep moving Jenny’s spirit higher and happier, pain free at last after such a long decline. I smiled each time Meyraj clapped enthusiastically for the Jai Jai Jai Hanuman verse, looking remarkably akin to the likeness of the monkey God right next to him. Bhindi in place, my third eye was open wide and I felt ecstatic, manic, exactly where I was supposed to be. Beth came by to see us, brought a Euphorbia or as she called it a “Euphoria” plant for Jenny and I reveled in her friendship and love.

At the end of the day, I sat with many devotee boys who were sweet and funny, relaxing, exhausted, knowing it was time to drive home with Jenny who was now starting to attract flies. I needed to stop in Espanola and get candles, which I did at Walgreen’s, reading each Saint’s description, deciding which were appropriate. Next day at the pyre as Meyraj beautifully arranged the 21 candles into the hill behind the pre-fire, we read each summary, invoking the spirit of each. Last stop in Pojoaque for 12 pounds of butter to make ghee as the sattvic lighter fluid. I caught a glimpse of myself in a window and realized why people were staring at me. I was so open and well, proud that I had gone through with honoring Jenny the way I felt fit. Perhaps she would have preferred a Jewish Temple for I realized that Jenny is a Jew. Always my greatest teacher, she chose to show me the significance of the 10 days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah (New Year’s) and Yom Kippur where Jews believe one should repent and ask to be inscribed in the Book of Life for the New Year. She knew to go before that time. In her death I realize I have been sitting my own brand of Jewish Shiva, not surprisingly, I’ve been repeating the mantra Om Namah Shivaya. The auspiciousness and symbiosis of her and Neem Karoli Baba’s Masasamadhi seems like a bone for me. When looking at the calendar the past few months, I saw that weekend as her last, the selfless devotee she was.

Sunday began with me finishing the ghee, starting the dal and talking to Lili on the phone. She said it was raining hard in town and was I sure I wanted to go ahead with this? I asked, “what’s the option?” to which she replied, “You could take her to Braemar to be cremated”. Yes, yes, thank you for the reality check but that doesn’t feel like an option. Dutifully and sweetly, she came over and helped dig the pit that would hold my baby’s pyre. Stacey moved giant sheets of tin and Deborah wrangled hose so I wouldn’t torch the village. Everyone needed to be elsewhere as Meyraj drove in with Shanti and a handsome Ganesh, a gift to me, a marigold under his arm. We were the only ones here for several hours of intimate ceremony, ritual and chanting. So much for my funeral procession that was to start at the church with everyone holding candles, following the Toyota hearse. I read from Hafiz and the meaning of Bardo, the 49 days after physical death in Tibetan Buddhism. I have observed her spirit everywhere since the pyre. In birds, the rain, a grove of trees. I drop her bones and ash, meditating for an exalted rebirth, pain free and able to detach from me, me from her.

It started to rain hard as we took Jenny out of the car and onto the pyre. I was worried she wouldn’t go up but this pinon/recycled wood; ghee paper, and cardboard was 15 feet high for ten minutes. So hot we had to keep stepping back, thankful for the drops of moisture. I filmed, Meyraj chanted, lit incense, candles, brought out marigolds from the Temple he had stopped for that morning, made offerings of blue and pink rice into the fire, onto Jenny. My first image is her leg sticking straight up and being black. As the wood fell over the next couple hours, her shape returned to that of when I first met her at 5 months old, sweetly sleeping curled up, moving towards the edge of the pit as if she wanted to be near us. She was charred but beautiful, framed in flames, flecks of colored rice melting into the ghee we continued to ladle over her form.

To see her decompose and go back to the earth as such has been incredibly cathartic for me this past week. My last image of her before we put her on the pyre was a fly on her eyeball. Knowing she would never permit such an indignity in life, it felt appropriate. My coup de grace was to shave my head again and throw my hair onto the fire, an act of cleansing and solidarity. Zoe arrived just then and I said, “Perfect, you can film me doing this.” The moment I turned the razor on, a piece went flying out. Zoe wrestled with it but I felt it to be God’s way of telling me that I had purged enough and that another winter bald, cold, was not necessary penance. Stacey returned and Bill, Jono, Tino, Henry, Bruce, dogs Sally and Yogi all came to pay their respects and tell stories of Jenny. Meyraj continued tending fire, her form reaching a charcoal stage. Jenny’s last wish was to take my cancer as well as any long time physical or emotional suffering that those who loved her would like to lose. She asked to release it into her body, for her spirit was now free and this flesh could help us all.

Meyraj made his way home, some 2 hours away in the north country and I asked Stacey, April and Zoe to stay with me a bit longer. Remembering to pop a bottle of champleasure that Tracey had given me at Jenny’s Birthday Party. Champleasure because there’s no pagne in champleasure! Tracey’s aged beast Miracle drove this day too close to home for her while Zoe had just put Milo to rest, a few weeks earlier. Let the Wake begin for all these gorgeous beasts!!! We toasted to Jenny and everything else, me dropping into bed, exhausted though satisfied for the moment.

The next day my girls met me at the women’s tub at 10,000 Waves Spa and I told the amazing story of Jenny. I have spent the past 3 days in walking meditation mostly, writing prolifically, crying intensely, taking her bones to our special places, and creating altars. The Dunes, thrown in The Waterfall, and today out to the sacred Indian spot where all 4 directions seemed to answer me in thunder. Meyraj just called and said he had dreamed that nite of a giant river with pyres all along it. The ghats of India. How appropriate.

Profile story in local weekly link...

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 16:59:00 +0000

Here's the link

http://sfreporter.com/articles/publish/cover-090507-hot-hot-hot.php

8-8-07

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 22:43:00 +0000

I have brought my computer down to the stream to write. I have tried to be honest in this blog but question what is the difference between it and a diary entry. Alot is going on emotionally, physically for me. What is crossing the line or defamation of someone, in the interest of honesty? What is making a stand that might help others and what is bordering gossip and just too revealing. Most of what is going on for me now brings up these questions and I don’t have the answer, thus, I have been negligent in this blog. What do you think?

7-20-07

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:27:00 +0000

Up at 4:30 this morning I am bogged down in thought. I feel a growing inertia as how to proceed with my own care, nervous to ignore but stunted by finances and indecision. I continue with my daily routine of meditation and Qi Gong down by the stream, conscious eating and various remedies. Watching Jenny coughcoughcough, this tumor in her throat making it difficult for her to get breath sometimes makes death by cancer palpable. I start to worry about all the credit card debt, the house projects I want to accomplish if only I had a bit of capital. Why don’t I get a real job and give up on this confidence that my films will pay some bills? Will he love me back? Will Jenny die before winter? Will I file for bankruptcy before next year? Yes, these thoughts circlecirclecircle and then…it stops.

I know the answers to these questions by admitting I have no answers, no matter how much I work, fret or try to control. I vacillate between this place of Zen and stupidity. I am thankful for the friendships I have in my life and the changing of patterns I have carried with me since birth and childhood. Somatic Experiencing as an emotional therapy has been excruciatingly intense though satisfying. The years of talk therapy, EMDR and other work is the ladder to the precipice I have dived off as of late. This new landscape is frequently terrifying, changing the destructive patterns instilled in me for so long but thrilling to know I am truly realizing my actual self. The Genetic Energetic as I am calling it of what was passed down to me as the fourth generation woman to have breast cancer feels like it has the opportunity to stop mutating and develop a healthy matrix. Will that be realized in my own family or in the next incarnation of what remains of me? The hard work I have done, am doing, is a life’s work. I secretly hope that the next birth will be easier, more accomplished, not held back by ancestral sadness.

As a 2nd generation Jewish American, there has been so much pain, suffering and grief before me. Many moons ago I feel I was living in India but perhaps just before I was gassed in a chamber in Auschwitz. That being would have been so thankful for my life and a little breast cancer, Ha! Big deal! We can’t live our lives evaluating in comparison to others. Or can we? At least in this life I have Wilco, my favorite band, Jeff Tweedy’s words catharticing my anguish, soothing my beasts. Check out Yankee Foxtrot Hotel as an album. It is my soundtrack the past few days and often over the past few years. And so gentle reader I will leave you with his words…

BE NOT SO FEARFUL-Jeff Tweedy

Be not so nervous
Be not so frail
Someone watches you
You won't fail

Be not so nervous
Be not so frail
Be not so nervous
Be not so frail

Be not so sorry
For what you have done
You must forget them now
It's done

And when you wake up
You will find that you can run
Be not so sorry
For what you have done

Be not so fearful
Be not so pale
Someone watches you
You won't leave the rails

Be not so fearful
Be not so pale
Be not so fearful
Be not so pale

You must forget them now
It's done

And when you wake up
You will find that you can run
Be not so sorry
For what you have done

Be not so sorry
For what you have done

Y’all are BEAUTIFUL AND PERFECT!
Love,
Lex

7-9-07-Jenny revives!

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:55:00 +0000

Just a quick note to say that jenny has stabilized. She’s amazing. The outpouring from people who have known and loved her seemed to help her make a decision to step back from death for now. She’s tired but eating on her own, walking, actually followed me on a walk I was taking behind the house. She was exhausted ! One thing this beast has is HEART! That organ is strong, poor girl, the rest of her is certainly getting weaker. I’ve committed to making sure she is not alone for more than I few hours at a time which means a lot of home time for me and help from my neighbor/tenants.
Lots of love to y’all.
Lex

7-9-07-Jenny revives!

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:55:00 +0000

Jenny has a stroke

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 03:06:00 +0000

I guess these postings have become more of a personal log than just about treatment. My sweetest love, Jenny, has suffered a stroke. The grief and overall emotions remind me of the first time I was diagnosed with cancer. That feeling of powerlessness, knowing what is to come and just getting thru it. In this situation, I have the control over another’s life though. No pet owner wants to be faced with this and every pet is the most special. With that in mind, Jenny is truly unique and the most exalted being I have ever had the honor of calling my best friend.

No person except for perhaps Mrs. Hessenthaler (the wonderful woman who took care of my brother and I when my folks went away, and well, she was paid. That doesn’t demean the kindness she bequeathed upon my family and me though). The past 7 years have been the ones of the most solitude of my life. God gave me Jenny (Dru actually gave her to me full time 7 years ago), I feel so I could go boldly into the world and wilderness to explore, always protected. Jenny and I have been across country to the east coast several times staying with my parents in Jersey and Caroline and her mostly departed greyhounds in Massachusetts. We lived in LA while completing my first film House of Rock at my producer’s plush estate. He had many coy in a beautiful pond where Jenny would spend hours, occasionally dive-bombing unsuccessfully like a polar bear after a colorful fish. On the morning we were to leave, I woke up very early to see Miss Fur tucked behind the pool heater with an effervescent tailfin between her two paws and a satisfied look on her face. I was appalled but could not stop laughing. Mostly at her impeccable timing, giving me the opportunity to slink out of there and not tell that my beast had finally caught a thousand dollar fish. A few years later while meeting with my producer I asked about his fish. He said he had been filling up the pool, forgotten about it and all the fish had spilled out and died. Off the hook…

July 1-
Jenny miraculously came back @ 50%, two days after I wrote before. Started walking in a stroke-like shamble, we’ve even made it to the stream for our morning dip and Qi Gong today with the kitties, Cherry and Leon. Friends have come by each day and I believe their love of her and energy helped her decide to step back from her immediate death. It really allowed me some tremendous grief healing. I listened to the vets tell me about what she’ll feel in the euthanasia process. I’llwill know if it comes to that but for now, I believe a gradual ebb of her spirit leaving her body is what’s occurring. She cannot feed herself or drink; tumors in her throat have the passageway very narrow. I’ve been making a liver concoction in the cuisinart and she just enjoyed a few teaspoons of peanut butter. I believe she is just eating enough to not feel hungry but to remain light, allowing the organs to start shutting down. She is getting smaller each day though doesn’t feel or look emaciated, not yet at least. The process feels organic and beautiful.

Next day
I don’t believe I would be able to go through this experience without having been thru cancer. I have felt intense hysteria, sadness and grief previous to this and reconciled as much as possible my own death/ The shock alone of a diagnosis might be what creates “spontaneous healing”. It’s cliché but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Unless you are completely traumatized and don’t find an effective outlet or resolution. Ayurveda discusses it as the ahamkara or ego body, needs to truly digest, like food, into the cells, trauma. I had a break up with a man just 3 years ago that shook me to the core. Like the effects of heavy metal music on water, humans being primarily water, I was altered. I never incorporated that event into my neurological memory or grieved it fully, consciously. I believe this mutated into cancer.

Dr. Robert Svoboda explains this quite eloquently. My friend recently dropped in on her visiting Santa Fe ex who had dumped her while he was overseas. She hit him and grabbed his nuts, behavior she couldn’t understand my reaction to and was ashamed of. I hugged her very hard and cheered her actions. I wish I had done something like that versus carrying it around with me, allowing it to settle deeper into my tissues. Obviously if this was something she was doing to every Tom, Dick and well, it’s funny to write Dick again instead of Harry, I’d be a little concerned but it’s not typical of her personality. I feel it possible that the shock of such a dramatic expression of her hurt and pain, can shake it out of her body.

I have been praying for the spirit essence of Jenny to return to this world in my man. Speaking of which, MAN, this sunset is electric with fiery brilliance! Yeah, so, I’ve often felt that the universal plan for me has usually come in 7-year cycles. Jenny’s going to be 14; I’ve had her full time for 7 years. Some of the most reclusive of my life. She was given to me, my greatest teacher in the teachings of Hanuman, the monkey God of Selfless Devotion. True giving with no expectation or desire for return. I needed to be alone these past 7 years to change the energetic hereditary mutation of cancer from my Great Grandmother, my Grandmother, my Aunt. Jenny has given me the support to do the very hard work to lose the patterns that I was born with or taught that don’t serve me or anyone else. Her death will allow me to be in a relationship with a spiritual, together man that can be lasting. I am a worthy partner, finally.

Or maybe not…

6-22-07

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 22:03:00 +0000

Good Morning Boys and Girls,

Have had a busy week since last writing. Had a beautiful weekend in a canyon not far from where I once lived with Dru and Jenny at a women’s Council. There was lots of ritual, prayer, food, hugging, crying, discussion, sharing, dancing, crafts, nature and @ 35 gorgeous women from NM, Rhode Island, Maine and Quebec. We did a sweat lodge,

Sweat lodge of Inipi
http://www.crystalinks.com/sweatlodge.html

purifying ourselves and giving prayers to everyone and the earth. I participated in a Rites of Passage ceremony where a beautiful hoop was constructed, adorned with flowers and those who had just entered their menses or would like to reclaim that period of time, were asked to walk thru the hoop and be adorned with a colorful corn necklace. I chose to do this as coming into my womanhood is a time I am working with a lot in the past couple years. My first menstruation was not celebrated but mourned. I felt shame and sadness at what my body was doing and never really got comfortable with the responsibility and joy of being a woman. My sisters last weekend have helped me so much in reclaiming that time, work that therapy seemed to need a ritual as such to feel completion with.

There was a croning ceremony for women who were 56 years or older. This was a beautiful way to invite in that change of life for women and all the power and wisdom that comes with reaching this age. 56 is the 2nd Saturn Return for people and that’s why the # was chosen for this Croning Ceremony. One of the sweetest things we did was called an Angel Walk. This commenced by all the women forming 2 receiving lines across from one another and the MC at the top. She “unspun” each woman individually, whispering affirmations and sweet words to the participant whose eyes were closed. The women in lines touched her through the line, also speaking positive words to the woman about herself or extending prayers to that individual. It was amazing what stuck with me about what women said and I felt as if 1000 smiles were giggling inside me. I wrote my cousin about this and he concurred, it would be a beautiful way to start each day.

Croning ceremony
http://www.tryskelion.com/crone3.htm
Saturn Return
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_return

We each made prayer flag squares and I am the honored caretaker of these women’s prayers for the next year when I am to return them to the next council and we will burn them. Meanwhile, they will be sewn together and hung much like Tibetan prayer flags. I will tell you that my square prayed for No More Women to have Breast Cancer Surgery with FEAR in their Hearts. I also received a henna tattoo over the place where my tumor was/is. It is exactly opposite my real heart and I am considering getting something more permanent there to memorialize this time in my life, that part of my body.

Given all this love and support I felt good about approaching a fairly intense week of treatment. It started with an appointment at Women’s Health Services here in Santa Fe. I want to get a handle on the hormonal aspect of my constantly changing body and they take Medicaid. Met with a nice Doc there who unfortunately didn’t have much new on the hormone knowledge for me nor did she think Medicaid would pay for the testing I would like to do. She did understand my desire for a medical marijuana script though and told me she would get in touch with me about if she can write one and also the name of an advocate who used to work there. Next I went to Qi Gong class, had tea with my friend Deborah after. Next back to the place where I had the blood bath a few weeks earlier for a DMPS or heavy metal detox via IV. This was much more mellow, the nurse got a decent vein on the first try and I slowed down the intake to 3 hours but my vein seems much happier right now for not jamming the substance in too fast. I’m doing all the support around that now, cilantro tincture (of which I am making a gallon jug of), chlorella, kidney homeopathic support, vitamin C, multi and electrolytes. I’ll continue with til next Wednesday to assist in getting out any residual heavy metals. This time was much less dramatic symptomatically and I feel good right now.

The next day I had a pretty amazing and intense Somatic Experiencing session. It was on a table and she wanted to have my kidneys “drop”. She feels that the kidneys stay tucked in when there is fear. There were many sensations, colors and feelings throughout the session, we talked some and charted where my body started to feel things and she would move her hands accordingly. At the end of the session she said that I was the one who was expected to be the strongest in my family and forced to accept a heavy burden. Earlier in the session she asked if I had feelings about imposing on people, which I have very deep feelings about. I went immediately to Café Paris (overpriced substandard food but with the best outdoor eating near the plaza and where I was coming from) and wrote down all my thoughts on those two ideas. Deep, old and revelatory.

After shaking some of the floating feeling I had I went to my 1st session of

Manual Lymphatic Drainage
http://www.positivehealth.com/permit/Articles/Bodywork/eidelson71_p.htm

It was very relaxing and though the practitioner kept asking me annoying questions about who was my doctor and lab results, I understand she was nervous about working on me. She works with women who have had breast surgery and had lymph nodes removed. I thank G-d everyday I didn’t have mine taken out (and that I have 2 breasts!YEEHAW!!!)
I believe I would have serious lymphadema if I had as there is already so much lymph congestion and swelling in all my upper body. I believe my lymph are damaged but slowly repairing and I’d rather have a lymph gland operating at 50% vs. scar tissue. I feel if I stay on this path they will repair themselves in the next couple years to close to 100%. A few days later now I am feeling less congested and puffy in my whole body than I did before these treatments.

Next I drove east of town to meet with Ivy Amar who I have heard about for a while. She has kindly offered to adjust my Panchakarma program so it is more affordable and I will do much of it on my own. We discussed diet, a schedule as well as many other Ayurvedic and Hindu concepts. She invited me to a ceremony for the solstice that the Kiva Brothers(men who built this breathtaking kiva, complete with vigas, a sweet plaster job and parking lot). I went to this ceremony of burning purified cow dung, ghee and rice but was smoked out and honestly, very annoyed and agitated with. I appreciate this as a healing ceremony for those involved but it was not for me. Different Strokes.

Ivy Amar
www.ivyamar.com

I STRONGLY recommend seeing AIR GUITAR NATION.

http://www.airguitarnation.com/new/

Though scantily attended here in Santa Fe, I found it to be one of the funniest, smartest rockumentaries I’ve seen all year. It was well shot and edited. Most importantly and something I have found lacking in the genre in films I have seen this year, it told a great story with engaging and likable characters as well as rocked. I’ve been so moved by the bad Rockumentaries I’ve sent his year that I am working on a Lost Weekend of the Rockumentary Workshop that I plant to take “on tour” if you will. It’s disrespectful to the musicians to make a glorified home movie and then distribute it around the world. That’s my 2 cents and I’m stickin’ to it.

Thanks for playing. All my love
Lex

6-15-07-music and PanchaKarma

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 18:21:00 +0000

It’s been a while since my last blog entry. Met with a new surgeon down in Albuquerque named Susan Seedman. Word on the street is she is open to alternative care. I’m pretty combative and difficult in most of these environments. She seemed very nice but not much different than what I’ve encountered in the past and would not write a medical marijuana prescription for me. I was exhausted and angry after the appointment and fled the city for home. Before the Dr., I had the pleasure of finally meeting face to face Diane Di Camera who is the head of the Breast and Cervical Screening program for New Mexico. She has been an angel as far as Medicaid, support and dealing with the western medical world. Her family has been quite stricken with breast cancer. We talked about many things, among which is a fundraiser for “the ME film”. I want to thank my friends who have been trying to organize such an event. I’d like to take the opportunity to promote an alternative awareness that is also fun. I’m thinking about a pasties ski run down our fine Santa Fe mountain, men, women and hopefully some who have had surgery, skiing down, similar to the Komen walk. Only different. More on this as it develops.

After the appointment, I took most of the week off from treatment of a medical kind and indulged my deepest pleasure…live music. I also have returned to Ayurveda as a modality I want to pursue. This includes PanchaKarma which is a deep tissue detox involving oil, medicated enemas, nasal cleansing as well as gentle vomiting that releases some of the mucus that one just can’t release. Yeah, gentle vomit, doesn’t sound possible but it’s goal feels online with symptoms I’d like to alleviate. I have found a woman near Santa Fe named Ivy Amar who will work with my budget, me doing a lot of the treatment on my own for the 8 day period we have decided to do the detox for. I will do this beginning of July and meet with her for a consultation next week.

http://www.ayurveda.com/panchakarma/index.html

I will do another DMPS or heavy metal detox next week and all the support that goes along with that. Chlorella, cilantro tincture (of which I am making my own gallon jug of. Just using everclear and @ 10 bunches of fresh organic cilantro, letting it sit for a month). Kidney support, vitamin C, a multi and electrolyte replenishment for a week. Then I will start the PanchKarma. I’ll get a hormone panel from the women’s health center and meet with a gyno there. Continuing with the Somatic Experiencing therapy with Pam, Qi Gong classes and on my own daily. I am trying a manual lymphatic massage this week. My lymph, breasts and tissues are still very swollen and tender. I feel this detox regime is what I need to get out what I am thinking of as dead cancer cells as well as other toxins. It will be a very intense week and am glad that I had the opportunity to enjoy my self and great friends last week. This includes Jenny H. who will be moving here, just graduating from med school. She will do the first year of Acupuncture school here, her residency in Albuquerque and then supposedly finish up school in Santa Fe. That’s if the work of the Turquoise Mountain group doesn’t lead her back to Afghanistan, a place that holds her heart and ultimate designs on her contribution to this world.

I saw some great bands, Derek Trucks with his wife Susan Tedeschi. He’s very Duane Allman/Clapton like and she sounds like early Bonnie Raitt, back when she was drinking and didn’t have that crap production on all her albums. Also had the pleasure of going to a great show at the Santa Fe Brewing Company for the Frogville band Goshen’s CD release party of “Lioness”. Hundred Year Flood opened the festivities with Joe West as Xoe Fitzgerald, Time Traveling Transvestite MC’ing the show and playing some of his fab rock opera, complete with costume changes, electric guitar and managing his own fog machine. Boris and the Saltlicks also played exquisitely, his stand-up bass player Susan Holmes singing a beautifully eerie duet on one song that sounded like one of the Odyssey’s Sirens. Goshen is the brothers Palmer from Hundred Year Flood and guest vocals at times from the MY-T Felecia Ford, Bill Palmer’s wife and the multitalented Grant Hayunga. That’s what I love about Frogville, it’s all about family. And amazing music. Everyone is connected in one way or another. I made a glorified home movie called “VFWbya” about the beginnings of Frogville Records that started at our local Veterans of Foreign Wars club. Check out their website, you can listen to music free online or buy it and get tour schedules at:

www.frogvilleplanet.com

Went out to dinner with Stacy Pearl as part of a restaurant review of Kasasoba for her radio program called “Mouth of Wonder”. She’s the hilarious, talented head chef of Walter Burke catering and has owned her own restaurant in Williamsburg Brooklyn called… Stacy’s. I am this week’s guest cohost. The show is focused on food, recipes and her characters such as Rula from Williamsburg, NY and Shiela Vista who visited the holistic expo. It’s playing on KSFR 90.7 on Saturday, June 16th at 11:30 AM and can be accessed after at www.prx.org. She also has a website with all her recipes and reviews at www.mouthofwonder.com

Speaking of radio, went to hear Chuck D and Brian Hardgroove of Public Enemy speak at the Plaza about the commercialization of our mass media. There was a very informative and passionate panel at the Santa Fe Brewing Company before the Frogville event too. Looks like we’re headed to zombieville with no balls if we don’t support independent, community radio, press and television. It’s up to us folks. Check out this website for ideas on support:

www.keepindiealive.com

Saw at least half of everyone I’ve ever know at the Santa Fe Reporter Block Party, our free weekly paper. Hundred Year Flood rocked the block as well as the Santa Fe Allstars, Xoe Fitzgerald’s alter ego, Joe West with the mega talented Ben Wright on guitar, Sharon Gilchrist on fiddle and Susan Holmes on bass. Ran into my dog Jenny’s dad, Dru and his lovely betrothed Rachel who are breaking all the hippie rules and getting married! Congratulations guys, y’all were meant for one another, only took Andrew 9 years to work up the courage to ask!

I’m headed off to a women’s gathering in the woods for the weekend. Ritual, ceremony and celebration of the earth, our giving mother. I’ve got the drums, tarot deck as well as pictures of Kali and Shiva packed up. I’m thankful to my neighbor/tenants Joshua and D. for being here, giving me the peace of mind to go away and know the creatums are well taken care of. I’m thankful for so much. The rain, sleeping 8 hours straight last nite, this beautiful sunny day. Thank you for caring about me enough to read this, y’all are with me this Father’s Day weekend of celebration, love and creation. A big shout out to you Norm!
Gobs of gooey love,
lex

june forecast from school of shamanism-www.thepowerpath.com

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:37:00 +0000

June Forecast 2007
The main theme for June is RE-EVALUATION.

It is also the month to re-organize, re-configure, re-structure and put the pieces of your life back into a new order. This can either be a creative process full of inspiration, humor, love and joy, or it can be a chaotic process where you lose yourself to martyrdom, self-deception and drama.

Many of you may be feeling disjointed and somewhat out of sync from the bursts of creativity and destruction last month. And most of you probably have many issues that feel chaotic and unresolved with no rational resolution in sight. Remember that the edge of chaos holds the most creative energy, the highest potential and the greatest possibilities.

The theme of Re-evaluation plays out this month in helping you get your priorities straight with regard to how you are re-organizing, re-configuring, re-structuring, and putting the pieces back into a new order. What you will be re-evaluating is what serves you and what does not, what supports you and what does not, where your motivation comes from, where your attachments are, whether your heart is open, whether you are on the right track or not and whether your direction in life has emotional integrity.

One of the aspects of a time of re-evaluation is that the patterns of stimulus/response and expected reaction to circumstances and events causing your experience of life to be non-linear and somewhat confusing. The right brain wants center stage for awhile forcing a more creative, non-linear approach to problem solving, decision making and the navigating of daily life. It is best this month not to have too much rigidity in your schedule giving you the opportunity to explore these different non-linear ways of putting the pieces back together
Here are a couple of suppositions to contemplate:

Suppose that you lost everything in a natural disaster. Where would you start rebuilding your life? What would you definitely not repeat? What would you do now that you were never confident enough or were afraid to do before? What would you really miss, what was most important to you? What do you now give a lot of time and energy to that would immediately become not important?
This will begin to help you re-evaluate your priorities so that you can use the things that you are connected to with your heart as the corner stones to your new configuration and structure.

It is important not to get caught up in the minutia and details but rather keep your focus on the big picture. Re-evaluate, make choices and re-organize where it makes the biggest impact in your life. The details will follow. You may not know how the details will all fit yet, so if you focus too narrowly on the details you are likely to miss the opportunity.This is a month when many of themes for the year surface in one way or another.

At times you may stretch beyond your comfort zone in what you believe is possible, this will require Flexibility.

Expression, Creativity and the Emotional Center continue to be the guiding forces, molding the re-evaluation and how you put the pieces back together.
Dissolving, Letting Go, Chaos, Mood Swings and Drama all play a part in moving you along this month.

Dreams and Dreaming will be important contributors to your heart-oriented creative process of re-organization. In fact some of you may find yourselves sleeping either way more or way less. The astral plane is very active and very accessible this month. You can take advantage by setting intentions before you go to sleep to get some help with non-linear problem solving on any issue that you feel stuck or out of control with.

There is also a community aspect to the times. Because of the shifting of energies on the planet, more and more people who have agreements to reconnect with their spiritual families will be trying to do just that. You may suddenly get a strong feeling about going somewhere to visit and end up meeting someone important to you. Or you may experience a kind of familiarity or déjà vu in your dreams. Or people whom you physically knew in the past but have lost touch with will come back into your life to check in. You also may feel the urge to check in and reconnect with people from the past.

One of the results of this need to connect is that some will literally take the opportunity to move location especially if where you live is devoid of people that feel familiar to you or feel like they are a part of your “tribe”. These relocations will be driven by emotional and heart choices rather than career moves therefore requiring a lot of trust. In the months of July and August we will see the greatest movement resulting from the activities of this month.

The greatest opportunity this month is to end up in a different place physically, emotionally and spiritually with your community, your work, your relationships, your health, your intentions and your ability to create. Keep you eye on the big picture and trust your emotional intuition.

The greatest challenges will be to trust, to be flexible, to let go when necessary, to stay out of martyrdom, not wallow in chaos and not get caught in too narrow of a focus.

Relationships:
If people are coming into your life or moving out of your life suddenly it is for a good reason. Make time in your schedule for unexpected visits, phone calls, emails etc. If you are moved to connect or reconnect with someone, do it. The community pull is an emotional one and will be the strongest agent of change. If you are looking to change your living or work situation, do it for relationship rather than anything else. Community is the most sustainable support system when all else fails.

Personal Growth and Well-Being
Be prepared to surprise yourself in how you react, where you stretch, and your ability to expand your comfort zone. You will be able to reach for new heights in your sense of well-being. This will depend on your constant vigilance in keeping your frequency high. The sun is an important element this month being summer. Be sure to spend some time in the sun with the intention of keeping your frequency as high as possible. Another suggestion is that you regularly clean your environment out energetically using sage, light or whatever other method you prefer.

Business, Finance, Projects, Partnerships
This area continues to go through re-structuring, re-configuring, dissolving and coming back together in a new way. It will be a bit tricky to both pay attention to the details and to keep your eye on the big picture when it comes to finances and financial obligations. Be careful to discipline your mind so that it does not go into limited thinking when you consider what is possible. This is an area where you can engage the theme of dreams and dreaming to stretch beyond the box of limited thinking. Be sure your dreams are in harmony with your heart and your emotional integrity.

Physical Health and Well–Being
The Re-evaluation of the month may cause you to feel disjointed, in a stupor, unfocused and dealing with a variety of unexplainable physical symptoms. Be patient with the body as it is trying to catch up to where your energy wants to go. Don’t be alarmed by mystery symptoms especially nerve pain, joint discomfort and skin rashes.

Climate, Weather and the Environment
Look for continued instability, weather surprises and unexpected patterns. Creative expression in weather is still active and may be more dramatic than usual. It is a good idea to let go of expectations and to be flexible in plans. As old structures dissolve so may travel schedules and the efficiency of public transportation of all kinds. Have numerous back up plans and contingencies if you plan to travel. On another note, any climactic or environmental events that fall under the category of disaster will serve to bring community together in a new way.

Government, Politics and Global Issues
Re-evaluation of motives, the study of self-deception, power re-structuring and the dissolving of old structures continues. Look for twists and turns, surprises and some chaos. It will be even more difficult to get a straight story. Do not believe everything you hear or read. Keep your eye on your own big picture. In this way you can better influence what happens in the future.

Specific Dates:

May 31: Full moon at 6:04PM Mountain Standard Time: Honor what has shown up in your life as a teacher, agent of change, opportunity or inspiration. Agree with yourself that you will use this opportunity as a way to be inspired rather than to feel diminished, inconvenienced or victimized. Your attitude is everything. Remember that keeping your frequency high through spiritual practice, humor and love, is the antidote to depression, lethargy and despair.

June 1-8: A time defined by chaos and feeling out of sorts. This is not a bad thing. Pay attention to what is in front of you and flex with the changes. Try and be less rigid with your schedule and less attached to the outcome of things.

June 9-15: This time frame supports community, exchange, support, and opening the heart. It is not the time to be or feel alone. Pay attention to who is in your life either in a new way or old friends cycling back in. Make time for relationship. Put people first.

June 14: New Moon at 8:13PM Mountain Standard Time. Set intentions regarding new foundations, practices, attitudes, especially involving any new people in your life.

June 16-22: Re-evaluation time based on what you observe is moving or not moving in your life. Stay out of martyrdom and take responsibility for your actions. This is a time to not only re-evaluate but also to make choices that are a bit of a stretch for you, moving you outside your comfort zone.

June 21: Summer Solstice at 12:06PM Mountain Standard time. Use the high level energy of this transition time to take a risk and move yourself out of the box of your comfort zone. Focus on what you need to let go of that feels like a limitation. Stay in your heart.

June 23-30: A warm creative time where all the pieces have an opportunity to fall neatly into a new place provided that you are in emotional integrity with where you are and who you are with. If your life feels opposite to this, re-evaluate what needs to change.

June 30: Full Moon at 6:39 AM Mountain Standard Time. This is a higher centered time to experience love, joy and satisfaction. Spend it with community and be inspired.

Have a great month!
Jose and Lena

MRI

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:48:00 +0000

After the last blog, y’all could use a little good news right? The first pass on my MRI came out as favorable. The radiologist did not see cancer. Dr. L, the radiologist I brought my old films to is not the one to sign off on it and I have asked for a written report comparing the new with the old. Still, a big sigh of relief for the moment. I had gotten my self psyched up to not care either way, that it would not change my path but I’ll admit to you my devoted readers, I sat in my car and cried juicy, joyous tears of anxiety release for a good ten minutes. Then I went to Qi Gong. So what does this all mean? Did I sound the alarm, duping my friends and family and sending my self back into crisis mode for no good reason? I believe otherwise and here is why.

The only other time I have physically and emotionally what I would call a crisis period like this one is when I had cancer the first time. The development of the tumor grew symbiotically with my anxious, paranoid and angry demeanor. I’m experiencing the same healing action in my, breast and body only without all the side effects of chemo to confuse me. I do believe I had a cancer episode and by responding as quickly as I did, a healing action occurred. My immune system is bolstered and is working to overpower the cancer cells at the tumor site. My hope is that my body can shed them and not have them attach to any of my other organs or be transported live in my blood to my bone marrow. I believe the European Mistletoe, the elimination of any sugar and intense physical and emotional detox are to thank. Other symptoms that alert me to the cancer crisis I experienced are as follows: a lot of mucus though not being sick or having allergies(though I did have allergies earlier for the first time). I had dramatic nipple change, moles that changes color, texture and size, grossly enlarged lymph nodes all though my arms and breast tissue areas, cuts or sores that take a long time to heal and obviously, a quickly growing lump and constant changes at the former tumor site.

I have thought about my path that lead me back to the cancer crisis and it started when I fell and bruised my whole right side, including my breast where cancer had been. I was falling back into former social habits, having fun, but feeling more like an unconscious drunk girl in my 20’s than the woman who is now much older though much wiser. I have been under a lot of financial stress, heightened by the balance transfer season, spending days on the phone with credit card companies trying to figure out how to hold on for a while longer. I had taken some work for a very consuming month. This proved to be emotionally taxing as well as physically demanding. I was under scrutiny from a friend and silently arguing with her. I did a spring cleanse of all my organs which perhaps brought some dormant cancer cells to life. In therapy we were working with very painful and deep memories that I feel surfaced physically. In an attempt to simplify my life, I took on a remodel project of my home with a lovely young couple who have moved in. The chemicals from that as well as the fear of not living alone (it’s been ten years!) had me feeling very sick and upset. These are all factors that reminded me of the angst, lack of sleep and physical distress I had experienced before I was diagnosed in ’05.

I will continue hardcore on the ever-changing path of cancer maintenance I choose through the fall. For now this includes going to see a doctor tomorrow so I have one that conforms with the Medicaid system. Her name is Susan Seedman and she is in Albuquerque. I would still like to be part of New Mexico’s medical marijuana program because if I should at some time decide to do chemo, I wouldn’t consider it without. Instead of valium, percadans and atavans that were prescribed to me in the first hysterical diagnosis, weed has allowed me to move forward calmly and thoughtfully in this crisis period. My digestion is working also which the prescription stuff wreaks havoc on. I believe the heavy metal detox is essential to my overall health and will continue to do those once a month, hopefully at a different clinic in town I have recently discovered. I think I can physically and emotionally handle a stick a month. The outcome of the first heavy metal detox was intense and difficult but I feel worth the long-term results and money. Detoxifying overall is my self-prescription by maintaining a cancer aware diet and letting go of physical as well as emotional burdens. Somatic Experiencing therapy has been intense and deep. Who would have thought that having my breasts talk to one another would give me such insight to my darkest pain? I will continue to do Qi Gong, meditation and breath work as well as schedule retreats that include prayer and being in nature. Hours of hot soaking and sauna followed by cold plunges feel right as does hot mineral water. I would like to do the Ayurvedic detox Panchakarma this summer. If I could only pick one thing I think it would be spending as much time as possible in the woods, canyons and mesas, by streams of rushing water. I have prepared and accepted the possibility of not living to my 45th birthday and that’s ok. In the next breath I can also visualize the memory of a dream my mom once had about me. I was an old woman with long grey hair flying out my truck window, dogs in the back. I’ve read so many anecdotes about people who have had intense, degenerative diseases and are here today, decades later, doing beautiful, important work, walking their talk and giving to their communities. I can see that too. I’m determined to not live my life for fear of dying though, I’ve already lived such amazing richness, I feel very blessed. Keeping sense of humor and lots of laughing with friends, family and animals of all walks are certainly in the prescription also. Thank you all for hangin’ in there with me and I will continue this blog as well as the recipe blog.
Happy Trails,
Lex

“The Horror….The Horror….” Marlon Brando-Apocolypse Now

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Wed, 30 May 2007 19:21:00 +0000

I am sitting by the Rio en Medio, calm for the first time since yesterday. I have done Qi Gong warm-ups and medical Qi Gong. I have meditated and prayed to Ganesha to remove the obstacles in my world, guide me in my cancer treatment, show me how to serve God better. Yesterday was a nitemare and has me quite shaken as to how to approach the complementary aspect of medicine.

I went to get my high dose Vitamin C treatment, I’m up to 60 mgs now. All seemed fine. Liza was with me filming. We have been using the car ride to appointments as interview time. There were other patients there, an old rancher fella from southern NM who has prostate cancer and is doing the vitamin c treatments, his grandson with him, getting chili dogs. There was a woman in her 60’s who had breast cancer ten to twenty years ago, had a double mastectomy and did chemo. She described herself as “cancer free” all these years but now it had matastacized to her bones and she was doing ozone treatment of the blood, IPT(Insulin Potentiated Therapy, the low dose chemo) and perhaps vitamin c.

I did the vitamin c fine. I was convinced by the nurse to use my right arm vein. When I had chemo once in that arm, my vein collapsed, being a place of soreness for about a year. This arm is the side the know tumor is on and tends to go numb and be congested in the lymph frequently. I acquiesced because my left arm is looking pretty junkied up from last week. My veins do not like having anything it appears go though them except blood. Whether it be good medicine or poison, I have never been an IV junkie for a reason. Perhaps this is linked to my unexplainable fear of surgery. I’ve never had it but inherently know, I will not be better from it.

Another woman, well under 100 pounds has arrived to receive her IPT. She spoke to us later on camera about her illness, lung cancer exacerbated by falling and breaking her hip a month ago which she felt required surgery. She is the one who reminds me of doing chemo. She is very weak, she cries, the doctor pays attention to her. I have gotten a wave in passing. I understand the doc is busy and in a non-insurance environment seems to need to protect herself from consulting with patients who are not paying for that time with her. It is very frustrating. I have received two sets of blood work back with little notes saying that it looks good and please let her see the MRI. The inefficiency of this office is such that they already had the results, of which I have not seen, and neglected to let her or I know that. I found out later with a discombobulated phone message at the end of the day, explaining this, sending the fear straight through me. I would have preferred a call of apology, almost expected it from the completely unprofessional and traumatizing events that happened to me after the vitamin c treatment.

It was time for the ultra violet blood cleansing (UVB) and ozonation. The room was busy and the office manager was asked to pitch in when things started getting hairy. There was only one qualified nurse and the doctor is nowhere to be seen. The nurse starts with me, sucking my blood in what looks very medieval, through a tube that is kinked to a giant syringe. The tube goes thru the UVB machine, into the syringe and pushed back into me. It’s not happening. The nurse knows the tube is faulty, I am trying to help by pressing out the kinks, we blaze forward though and some blood is coming out. The woman next to me is having problems, her port o cath line is too thin and the office manager can’t get her ozonated blood pushed back in to her. The nurse goes to her and I get the office manager. The office manager is pulling more of my blood into the syringe, I’d say there’s about half a cup at this point which when it’s your blood feels more like half a gallon. It’s scary and very Kevorkian. The office manager is having much resistance pushing it back through the tube into my body. Liza is filming all this by the way. She says she needs help, I ask for the Doctor, she wants to change out the tube, start new. I am not comfortable with losing my blood as if it is waste and say no. She continues and I notice some leakage and say something. Next there is blood exploded everywhere, my blood. The office manager says “thanks” to me, as if I am to blame for this mishap and should feel shamed. All through this the doctor is never called and the nurse finally gets around to working with me again. There are feeble attempts to clean up the blood, tubing is switched and we start what is now, no blood coming out of my mutilated vein. If you read my last blog, I may have mentioned, I am already freaked out about having IVs and needles in me each week. My arm is hurting. The nurse tweaks, pinches and tries flushing the line with saline not once but twice. All this mishap is taking about 45 minutes, with blood everywhere, the IV being messed with the with entire time, my arm and my trauma levels increasing. I am crying. By then the doc makes an appearance and says, “yeah, frequently one vein can’t do all these treatments”. This is not the case here in my opinion. If this work had been done professionally and efficiently with one qualified nurse working with me, I could have had the treatments I came in for in a more timely fashion and not have been petrified to do any of this type of “healing “ again. They ask if I want to try another vein, I say “absolutely not” and get up. Perhaps because we are filming, I am able to stay in my documentary director mode for a while and we briefly interview the IPT patient. I mention the benefits of medical marijuana for her symptoms, to get a vaporizer to help with the lung cancer aspect. I think I am overcharged but need to leave because I need to drop Liza off and get to my EMDR therapy appointment. Thank you for that.

This appointment helped in taking out some of my amazing anger, frustration and powerlessness of the situation right away. We concentrated on what I would like to believe. I want to believe that I can stop a treatment if I’m uncomfortable with how it’s going and demand to see the doctor. I can also stop doing these treatments. I feel the heavy metal detox is beneficial and has the least room for screw up, one IV, I support myself over the week. I also feel strongly about the European Mistletoe injections. Unfortunately, it’s very expensive and this clinic is behind on ordering it. I would like to be able to order it directly in the doses I need without the double mark up price. I am investigating that. There is a trial being done in Bethesda, MD for 9 months for cancer patients who don’t respond to chemo and will do a regime of mistletoe.

I met up with friends after my therapy appointment, laughed a bunch but realized as soon as I left I was in a state of shock. I tried to calm my self at home, went out to the tent and tried to sleep with the sound of the stream and the earth under me. It helped a little but my dreams have been primarily nitemares for the past month and that is it’s own scary thing. So here I am by the stream, feeling calm, feeling there is so much to take care of in just daily life but knowing what can help me now, through cancer. Nature, woods, water. God, spirit, laughing with friends. This blog. Ayurveda has been coming into my consciousness as a modality to pursue again. There is a very intense 3day to 1 month detox treatment called PanchaKarma. I will investigate that this week. Meanwhile, it is too much for me today to call about the MRI, fearing only the worst at this moment, feeling fear more than I would like.

Tomorrow is the full moon in Sagitarrius. A few girlfriends and I will do some ritual around that. I’m pasting a summary of what are some elements to this full moon. I’m also attaching links to a 2-part history of breast cancer surgery article I finally came across again. It is lengthy but was the catalyst for my confidence in not doing surgery. This week I will reassess my strategy, focus in on the things I do that make me feel good without all the residual fear and frustration. Keep you posted.

Meanwhile, I wish you all lots of love and good health. Thank you for your support and please respond in this format if you wish. I’d love for this to be more of a dialogue.

BREAST CANCER SURGERTY HISTORY LINKS
http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?Id=2465
http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?Id=2466

resonates
Full Moon in Sagittarius
Thursday, May 31, 2007
6:04pm PDT
10º 12'

Sagittarius represents idealism, faith, enthusiasm, the quest for meaning, and a generosity of spirit. The Full Moon in Sagittarius is an invitation to bask in the light of some good old-fashioned Jupiterian optimism and joy! This Full Moon represents the union of the physical and the spiritual in the search for knowledge. Sagittarius wants to understand the totality of existence through "journeying" in all its forms. This sign loves to travel abroad to foreign lands or armchair travel with books and on the Internet. It also loves to move through the spirit realms, and use the mind to uncover deeper levels of the psyche or theorize about philosophical and moral issues. The bright fire of knowledge is at its apex on a Full Moon in Sagittarius.

This is a great Full Moon to make a bonfire, gather friends and loved ones to tell stories of worlds seen and unseen. Share experiences of other cultures and far away places, or share your spiritual insights and speak about the paths and belief systems that worked and those that didn't. Be honest! This Full Moon is conjunct Jupiter, ruler of Sagittarius, the desire to understand one's place in the universe, to know the deeper meaning of life, and do both through investigation and conversation. A grand square with Nodes of the Moon (and Uranus) squaring the Jupiter/Moon opposition to the Sun in Gemini (information) makes this a night for working as hard as possible to open the mind to knowledge from worlds unseen.

A "holy trinity" of Jupiter, Moon, and Pluto in Sagittarius offer up a gateway to very real experiences of the Divine, as it is from the dark depths to the highest aspirations. This is a great night to deepen wisdom by using powerful mind-altering techniques like meditation, chanting, prayer, and plant helpers. Have your group gaze at the Moon, the stars, the vast ocean of sky above us, and seek connection with the universe. Use visualization to send them on this personal journey and then have them return to the gathering and share their insights with the group. Mars in Aries (adventurousness) sextile Chiron (the healer) in Aquarius (the visionary) forms a rainbow bridge to connect personal insight with global awakening.

Since Sagittarius is naturally optimistic and enthusiastic, we can mine these qualities to help us find a calm center in these turbulent times. Going to new places expands your sense of who you are and how your life stacks up. After all, perspective is a great vehicle for growth and gratefulness, two Sagittarian ideals. Sagittarius is convinced that everything happens for a reason; no matter how painful or how hard the lesson.

With Sun in Gemini (communication and information) we should all be very interested in speaking out at our Full Moon gatherings. The Sagittarian Moon represents the ideal form of communicating wisdom with compassion and joy. When you communicate do you do it with compassion? Do you look to help not hurt? Do you constantly talk or just talk to hear your own voice or do you speak with forethought and care? Words do have meaning and effect, so use them wisely and never as a weapon. But it is not enough to talk the talk; we must walk the walk as well. Mercury (mind) and Venus (heart) in Cancer (love and compassion), Uranus (the awakener) in Pisces (unconditional love), and Jupiter in Sagittarius (bliss) give us easy access to deepen our spiritual and emotional connections.

This Full Moon that "holy trinity" in Sagittarius will force the issue of clearly, honestly, seeing the dangerous and dark side of organized religion. Causing death and abuse in the name of Allah, Yahweh, Jesus or any other god is a reflection of how disconnected our major religions are from true spiritual principles. Dogma and codification are the by-products of fossilized spirituality. Don't give in to their trickery, but insist on continuing your own search for truth and wisdom. The Sun in Gemini, brings openness to old spiritual beliefs, and will boost Pluto's energy of freeing us from old patterns and beliefs that don't work anymore. Chiron/Neptune in Aquarius and Uranus in Pisces are crying out for new solutions to global hatred and disconnection that stems from fundamentalism. It is time to turn away from old, destructive notions of religion that keep us beholden to some intermediary for experience of the Divine. We have ready and direct access right now since our common source is an underlying blissful reality from which all existence arises. This is the truth of our interconnectivity and our sameness. Diversity is the key element to transforming our isolationist spiritual beliefs. True spirituality is all inclusive and all-loving.

This means that it is time to turn off your TV and tuning into the broadcast channel of existence. This particular part of the Sagittarian spectrum is all about questioning, postulating, and reaching for universal truths that exist outside the boundaries of spiritual/academic dogma and rhetoric. Isn't it interesting that over on the other end of the Sagittarian spectrum are the religious, political, economic, and educational institutions telling us what to believe, what to think, what to do and how to act. This is the paradox of Sagittarius: it seeks meaning, finds what it thinks is the truth, institutionalizes that truth for the masses, and then uses all its energy to stop adherents from searching for deeper truth and meaning.

Truth and meaning don't live somewhere far away. It is not in heaven, it is not in the words of some channeler, it is not in your guru, it is not in your church, it is not in your school, it is not in your therapist, it is not in your psychic, tarot card reader or astrologer, it is not in your government, it is not in your guides, angels, or other disembodied entities you have chosen to give away your power.

The Earth is speaking to you, every minute of every day! The answers you seek are in the wind, the movement of the waves, in the activity in a bee hive or an ant hill, in the intelligence that moves the stars and planets, in the storms and earthquakes, in the songs of birds, in the howl of a wolf, in the grace of a deer, in the smile of your child/spouse/parent/friend, in the sensual embrace of your lover, in the flowing water of a river, in the shape of a cloud, in the cosmic music of the shimmering particles and waves that make up our universe! Go outside, be in nature and tune in to the teachings of Mother Earth. Get your Ego out of spirit's way and open yourself to listening deeply to the existent wisdom of our world. Accepting the animal part of humanity as a source of knowledge will help bring harmony, peace and generosity back to our deadened species. This is why Sagittarius is a Centaur: half animal, half human. Think about it, it will make sense to you!

Above all else, make sure to spend this Full Moon celebrating your life with enthusiasm and optimism and sharing this joy with everyone you meet!

Poke, poke and poke again...

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Sat, 26 May 2007 02:42:00 +0000

A week of needles, IV’s and hidden veins. Seems my chemo arm was not interested in this type of business again. Started the day at TriCore Labs getting a variety of blood work. These are tests I have decided make sense as markers of my cancer and overall health. I have chosen them because Medicaid will pay for them. Getting stuck is a drag but one of the least detrimental ways to monitor my health. I choose to do the poking on the left arm. My right arm is “congested” as Caryn from the White Cloud Institute put it. My lymph nodes are still enlarged but feel like they are working hard to move the toxins or as I visualize, the dead cancer cells, out of my body. After the blood tests, I got a breast massage
http://www.whitecloudinstitute.com/classes/WellBreastMassage.html and some Chi Nei Tsang
http://www.whitecloudinstitute.com/news-articles/index.html
Caryn is doing a 15-year study on the effects of breast massage and lifestyle on breast health. There’s a DVD that Gringa Productions produced that comes with the study, check it out. Stayed for the 12 noon Qi Gong class and made it in time for my MRI at X-Ray Associates at the Cancer Institute here in Santa Fe.

Popping an Atavan left over from round 1 of cancer diagnosis, I prepare for the tunnel of claustrophobia and another poke for an IV of a metal called Gallium or something like that. My veins are hiding out, my skin ”tough”. After several pokes, they call in the specialist whom I joke with saying “this is a perfect job for an ex-junkie.” He smiles knowingly as I notice what looks like a gang tattoo under his sleeve. Good, no great, I’ll take the guy who really understands the purpose of how to find a vein any day over the squeamish tech. My breasts are dropped into the slots and the half hour of tapping and banging commences. I like that they have headphones and my choice of local radio stations. Everything’s ok in my haze until they shoot in the liquid though the IV. I’m squeezing the ball in my hand frantically to notify the tech that I’m concerned I’m going to puke. She assures me it’s typical. I want to cry, probably am, hating what I’m asking my body to tolerate. This compromise of my principals, a means to an end, makes me angry and sad. My friend Deborah is waiting for me in the lobby and I hazily make my way over to a local restaurant where she kindly buys me lunch, giving myself some time to sober up. By the time I get home I am pissed off, feeling mean and depressed. That’s prescription drugs effect on me. Many thanks to Governor Bill Richardson and the state of New Mexico for finally passing medical marijuana.
http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/
I believe my Mom, not a user, would have gone out and scored it on the street for me during chemo. For some, no medicine can create the positive shift of physical and emotional consciousness that the blessed weed can.

The next day commences with needles of a different sort, Chinese acupuncture. I’m going with straight up Chingedy, no white woman interpretations. I believe the needles and the pungent tasting herbal regime have their place. The doctor seemed to forget about me and though it’s lovely to have a nap in the noon hour, I was done, tired of some ten needles protruding out my head, another fourteen all over my body. Got out and hustled over to Julie and Michael’s for homemade sushi, yum! The next appointment was at the Integrative Health Center for my first DMPS or heavy metal detox. The nurse tried to coax a new vein spot in my hand to the surface with a warm compress. It worked but really hurt and just agitates the hell out of me. We pumped the serum in pretty fast, my arm throbbing. I started wondering if my vein could explode. It didn’t and she added the trace minerals to the bag 2 hours later. Man I felt weird, annoyed and stopped for a wheatgrass and juice at Wild Oats. I met a man there who was doing the total antioxidant combo of wheatgrass, carrot juice and green tea. I felt completely connected to this man. This became my question for the girls up at the women’s tub at Ten Thousand Waves. Do these connections stop when we commit to someone particularly? Why didn’t he or I pursue it? Am I insane? Yeah, probably. Anyhoo, did the massive hot and cold treatment and wasted myself. I almost passed out and forced some food in aided by the watchful, caring eyes of Tracy and Elizabeth. I convinced them I could drive home which I did successfully, sleeping deliciously though intensely dream filled. The next day I commenced the back up herbs to help eliminate more heavy metals. These include chlorella, kidney support liquid, multivitamins, vitamin C, electrolytes and cilantro tincture (I also make a pesto with roasted sunflower seed or walnuts, olive oil, sometimes some other fresh herb such as basil or oregano and a few pinches of salt). This regime is twice a day with lots of water for a week. Already my vision is improved, a floater that’s been with me for a while in my right eye disappearing. The tumor site aches, as do some of my lymph glands.

Today is Friday the 25th. Started the day at 9AM with Liza coming over to film my daily practices, supplement regime, writing of this blog. Liza has been a very generous supporter of my path by lending her camerawoman talents to the ME film http://www.gringaproductions.com/me.htm
since I was first diagnosed. She and Michael Mierendorf
http://www.mierendorf.com/
came back to my hometown for the first week of horror. I don’t know if I could have made those first steps without their support in giving me some higher purpose for this initially frightening experience. Much love and gratitude to them and Dyanna Taylor who also continues to document this experience, each with their own seasoned and insightful slants. I go to milk the goats and do a short walk in the woods with my dog friends, Jenny, Jake and Basil.

I have just returned from a meeting with Monika Wikman
http://www.monikawikman.com/index.html
Monika is a Ph.D. Psychologist, Jungian analyst and part-time astrologer. She’s written a book that she gave me called Pregnant Darkness-Alchemy and the Rebirth of Consciousness. Monika has had her own story with ovarian cancer in her early 20’s, classified as stage IV and having spread to her organs. I find this combination of experience fascinating. She used my astrological chart and our discussion to make sense of this life of mine, offering affirmation that my own path makes sense and very well may shift significantly for an easier time in 2008. The planet Mars has been squaring Pluto. Mars representing surgery, psychically, spiritually and physically, replaying the themes of death and rebirth.

There is a T-square of many planets in opposition at 90-degree angles. This is very hard on the body but great for creativity. Other planets have pointed to a deep isolation since around 2004. She felt the body and emotional detoxing program I’m doing is right on and by next year, it will be a time of warming, joy and and easing of the isolation I have felt for several years. My birth chart is all about creativity and love. I have the ability to be a cultural changer and to speak to a larger audience.

What does this all mean? For now I appreciate the validation from the universe that there is destiny at play here and that I am pursuing physical, psychic, spiritual and emotional methods that make sense to me and the Gods and Goddesses. That’s my interpretation. That’s it for now. I’ll be heading up to the Neem Karoli Baba temple in Taos for prayers in honor of the Hanuman, the monkey god of selfless devotion. Thank you so much for that generous spirit of giving without the expectation of receiving my very kind family and friends.
All my love
lex

ultrasound

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Sat, 19 May 2007 00:51:00 +0000

Global warming is alive and well here in New Mexico. It’s been raining, thundering and lightening hard every day for what feels like weeks. This is more of a late summer pattern. Are we on our way out of the desert and into Seattle weather? Anyhoo, Had an ultrasound yesterday that Liza filmed. Went back to the scene of the original diagnosis, The Cancer Institute here in Santa Fe. I really like the radiologist there, Dr. Alexander Lorusso. His mom worked with breast cancer as I recall and his wife is an oncologist. Gives me a hug, checked out my website. The technician is very thorough and with each image taken I think of how much cancer may be in my breasts. I am remarkably calm or numb, not sure which. After a half hour or so of that, Dr. L comes in and checks some spots himself, some of which his feeling is are fibroadenomas. I think several of these places are where I had biopsies on the first run, 7 or 8 as I recall. No more of those for me. Not now at least. From this test, Dr. L did not feel there was a recurrence of cancer at the tumor site. Wow. He thought the lymphatic layer was dilated,which san mean that cancer is exiting the lymph and hopefully the body, not finding it’s way to other organs to develop. This makes sense to me as I have been doing so much to move the cancer from the site. Just in the past few days my nipple which was twice it’s normal size, concave, weird basically, is returning to a more normal state. Amazing.

After this appointment I went to meet with Pamela Burnham who practices Somatic Experiencing. This aspect of somatics was developed by Peter Levine, has a book called Waking the Tiger and his website is www.traumahealing.com. The small exercises we did in this introduction were powerful in creating a real sense of calm in me, felt like I was floating. It’s helpful with dealing with getting in touch with the unresolved emotional trauma of my life and resetting the neurological system to not react to it any more, set new patterns. I’m pretty excited to work with Pam in this manner.

Taking a couple days off from appointments, maintaining my home regime and showing the rock’n’roll flick in Albuquerque after seeing my friend in her roller derby bout. Yep, that’s back and big with chicks. My intern, the delightful and precocious Mia will be graduating from St. John’s College tomorrow which I will go to. She’s off to Columbia College in Chicago, full ride scholarship. I’m real proud of her, as corny as that sounds. Hope you all have a delightful weekend.
Lots of love
lex

5-16-just another tricky day...

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Sat, 19 May 2007 00:49:00 +0000

5-16-07
It’s 2:50 PM and I am finally hooked up to an IV. A high dose Vitamin C drip, starting at 25 grams, milligrams?(orally the most one can tolerateis 3 or 4 mg, mg). The dose will be increased over the next few weeks depending on my tolerance up to 100. I’m waiting now to see if I feel nauseous. So far so good. Dr. Henny Fitzpatrick has prescribed this twice a week in conjunction with ozone and ultra-violet blood treatment. We’ll film that, pretty archaic looking but invigorating, isn’t that what Keith Richard used to go to Switzerland for back in the 70’s? I’m going to be doing a heavy metal detox or chelation therapy. I tested for it a year or so ago and my mercury level was off the charts. I stopped the treatment because of the prohibitive costs. I’ll get tested again for it after 4 or 5 treatments(every 3 weeks or so, along with a bunch of herbs, other support to continue pulling the heavy metals out) and see where we are at. Henny has said that 98% of tumors are laden with mercury.

10 AM-Women’s Qi Gong at the White Cloud Insitiute
12-Appointment with Dr. Fitzpatrick which really didn’t happen until 12:45 PM. They tested my urine to check that there’s no proteing, that I’m not dehydrated and there’s no bacteria. All good. They need to mix the Vitamin C solutions so I left for a ½ hour and picked up more herbs from the Chinese Doc. Came back, waited a ½ hour to get hooked up and had words with the nurse about how many needles I needed to be poked with today. That part blows, the whole needle thing. This woman seems to know how to do it quite well though.

I discussed the IPT or insulin potentiated therapy with the Dr. This is the low dose chemo. Pricey stuff at $1800-$2400 a dose, 2ce a week for 4 or 5 weeks. Then maintenance for a while at 1ce a week. How much better is this than getting a shot or 2 of it in the western world, covered by insurance and supporting yourself with the nutritionals for you screaming organs? A woman who just had the treatment is driving herself home though, impossible for me to consider with the hospital cocktail. I guess this option allows someone more mobility during treatment. The alternative medicine or complementary world certainly has it’s drawbacks. The organization frequently feels haphazard, random. As much as in Western, I feel a need to be coherent to check and recheck what the nurse is going to shoot me up with, frequently finding what I discussed with the Dr. is news to the nurse.

There is an icky taste in my mouth, vitaminy, stinky, my face and ears are hot, flushed, red. Otherwise I feel ok, good even. My lymph nodes, breast and underarms hurt and are enlarged. The tumor site itself is tender and changes daily. I will step up the mistletoe program to every other day and was told it’s ok to inject @ the tumor site. There is a stronger form called Abnova that makes you sick with flulike symptoms for a day and major irritation at the site of injection. Gonna’ give that a go.

The nurse has just upped the amount as I am not nauseous. No matter how you approach this”killing”, it’s very time consuming and expensive. I’ll perhaps get out of here @ 5 PM. It’s depressing even in this less of a hospital type environment. I am thrilled to know I am getting something strong in me that will work with my immune system to overpower the cancer. I am working with the cancer leaving my body through my skin and excretions in visualization.

I feel somewhere between strong, impenetrable, shallow breathed and pathetic and frail, on my way out of this body, this world. Everyone seems to agree that cancer is systemic though the chances of recurrence are seriously assisted if you have surgery on a tumor site. The doc here also feels that way but it’s possible for the tumor site to be reduced to fibrocystic tissue. That’s what I’m shooting for.

May 14-typical day and some thoughts on the week...

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Mon, 14 May 2007 19:47:00 +0000

Blog 5/14-07
Wednesday is the big day to start with what is formerly known as the Whole Life Clinic, working with Dr. Henny Fitzpatrick. It’s Biological Medicine which has it’s roots with Dr. Thomas Rau of the Paracelcus Clinic in Switzerland.

http://www.pbmn.org/inner/rau_interview.html
http://www.whale.to/a/paracelsus.html http://www.cancure.org/choiceoftherapy.htm

These sites explain what Biological Medicine is, the Paracelsus clinic theories and some explanations of some different types of therapies.

I will also get an ultrasound Thursday and an MRI next week. I am petrified of going into the Cancer Institute, that environment, but feel it is important if not for scientific purposes to have safe, non radiating markers of where the tumor is at now and in 2 months. I will also try to do some blood tests, a CA 15.3 and CA125 II. All to be covered by Medicaid. I would like to find a way to get as much work that I am comfortable with paid for by this system. Also to help myself and others to find ways that are less frightening to work within the Western Medicine world.

On Thursday I will meet with a highly recommended therapist to do somatic therapy.
http://www.alexander-technique-london.co.uk/alexander_technique_articles.php?article=16

I’ll get a more user friendly link to explain this.

My friend’s Deborah and Liza will film the Western care and the Biological care this week.

Last week I started with Dr. Zhao. A traditional Chinese acupunturist and herbalist. I am taking some intense herbs since then and will see him weekly for acupunture, more herbs.

A typical day at home goes like this.

Sleep as much as I can. Twice a week I am injecting myself with European mistletoe, an herbal tumor reducer and immune booster.
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/eurmistletoe/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11347286&dopt=Abstract

I take a combo of herbs by a herbalist in Pagosa Springs, CO called a vitality formula as well as an Essiac tea I make that is good for cleansing the blood.

http://www.pagosaherbs.com/herbal_tinctures_pz.htm#vitality_tonic
http://www.pagosaherbs.com/herbal_teas_blends.htm - essiac_formula

I’m taking a product called isocort that helps with adrenals and different things for my digestion as necessary.

I meditate, make an offering, chant, light candles and incense and pray to Ganesha, the elephant headed diety who is the remover of obstacles. Lots of other wonderful deities in there.

http://www.compulink.co.uk/~ganesh/default.htm

I am trying to avoid the phone and computer in the AM, go down to the stream (and have started sleeping in a tent by the stream which is where I will build a sustainable, off the grid sleeping dome, greenhouse, meditation zone someday soon). I go and do
Qi Gong and visualizations about the cancer dissolving.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong

I am trying to write this blog dailyish as well as other writing, keeping up with film projects including the ME film and WE LIKE TO DRINK:We Like to Play Rock’n’Roll( which just won the RFC award at New Haven Underground Film Festival, the Really Fucking Cool award! I have been keeping dream journals and will be working with a Phd therapist with those and her own special blend of work which I have yet to learn about. My dreams have been INTENSE, scary at times but what I feel is a window into me, and cancer.

Today, Monday, I will go milk the goats down at the end of the road at my friends’ house. The goats are pregnant which is fun. I usually go for a walk in the woods after with my sweet Jenny girl and my friends’ dogs, Jake and Basil. It is good for me to be near streams, nature, big trees. I usually stop and write. I am working on getting the garden going, none too well yet. Usually more herbs and Pharmaceutical grade, molecularly distilled fish oil and digestive enzymes. I cook a healthy, hopefully delicious, vegetarian meal. More raw with the spring season and the Farmer’s Market happening. Drink some homemade Kombucha.

http://www.gtskombucha.com/faq.html

In the evening I take a hot bath in Epsom salts with lavender essential oils and perhaps something else depending on what I need and an infrared sauna, sweatingsweatingsweating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_sauna

Then up to 14 mg of melatonin which has helped sleep significantly for me and hopefully off to sleep after some reading and writing, perhaps by the stream.

http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/melatonin-000315.htm

And that’s the deal for now. I’ll keep you posted. Lots of love…lex

The Beginning...May 11, 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Sat, 12 May 2007 01:54:00 +0000

The Beginning… May 11, 2007

So here’s the deal. I was diagnosed with breast cancer October 6th of 2005. It’s @ a year and a half and I feel the cancer cells are active at the former tumor site. There is a scar where the tumor was, which at it’s largest was @3 1/2 inches. My mom and I measured it when it seemed quite angry, hot, big. I’m relieved at this point I didn’t have surgery because now I would have no point of reference. I know this area. I did 5 of the 6 prescribed rounds of chemo. I did not do surgery or radiation. I feel the chemo was a catalyst for reducing the tumor to scar tissue, though knowing what I do now, I would have only done 2 rounds and that would have been with IPT or Insulin Potential Therapy. I will have links and ultimately a page for all this new fangled language that is not allopathic.

Here’s my thesis. I believe I did many other types of therapy that strengthened my immune system, cleared some old emotional baggage and reduced the cancer cells activity in my breast. If I am not in a crisis period and can live with the fact of cancer being in me, take a bit longer to strengthen my blood, immune system, perhaps this is the way I and others can manage cancer, live with it, much like hep C, HIV, etc…

We are frightened of dying and will do anything to “kill” the cancer, “battling” away so we can be “survivors”. I feel the language around cancer is much like how America thinks of terrorism, fueled by fear, forgetting to utilize our minds and hearts. I will document all the treatments I am doing for “the ME film” which was started at the original diagnosis and write an extensive treatment diary over the next 2 months on this blog. That’s how much time I am giving myself to explore the alternatives that hopefully after an intense treatment period, I will feel very strong vs. spending a year getting the chemo poison out of me. I feel I will need to enter these intense, expensive treatments for @ 4 months of the year for the next few years, at least. I will utilize whatever the insurance system offers to monitor the growth or diminishment of cancer in my body, as well as try to find ways to work with sympathetic doctors within that system to take some of the emotional charge the hospital system injects into my spirit. If I do not feel these method have reduced the cancer activity or the tumor is larger, I will consider the western alternatives in August.

So come along for the ride, you can click on my website on BLOG to link to this.
www.gringaproductions.com
My lil’ angel friend Liza and I are working on updating that site. I welcome a dialogue in this venue.

Much love to y’all!
lexie

May 10, 2007 - Treatment Diary Day One

noreply@blogger.com (Lexie Shabel) — Thu, 10 May 2007 17:47:00 +0000

Day 1 of my Treatment Diary.

10:30 - Meet with Liza to work on website
12:00 - Breast Massage at White Cloud Institute