Tag: Practical Intuition

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Massage and Tennis

March 19, 1997 – Massage and Tennis

Today was another wonderful day! I had a massage at the Marin Oncology Center from Nora O’Toole, a Certified Massage Therapist who donates her time and energy to work with patients. This is also a part of the Marin General Hospital Humanities Program, along with the guided imagery sessions I’ve been having with Leslie Davenport.

After the massage, I couldn’t help but drive by Boyle Park to see whether I could play some tennis. I sat for a while, amazed at the empty courts, and rubbed sun block over the exposed parts of my body just in case the 5FU was still active. I was feeling so normal that when the opportunity to hit with someone came along, I took the opportunity! Man, was it fun! I found myself hitting the ball with the out breath, just as planned, but not consciously thought of. I played only for about forty-five minutes, but it felt great!

On the way home, I bought a new tennis racket to celebrate my recovery. After trying out several rackets, I settled on a Prince because it felt intuitively correct for me. This was a direct experience from my study of Practical Intuition.

Later on in the day, I received a call from Jeff Barber, a Reiki practitioner. He was given my name by a friend of ours who utilized his healing abilities for serious burns suffered by their daughter as a result of an automobile accident. They reported wonderful things about Reiki and I wanted to find out how it could help me. Since Jeff also has a home in Lake Tahoe, I wasn’t able to speak with him until today. I have a feeling that the Reiki method is not to different from many of the healing techniques I use with my children.

In addition to telling me about his Zen practice and his exposure to the teachings of some wonderful Tibetan Buddhists, he told me about a medical doctor who had people write about the reasons for their illness in pencil. Specifically, he suggested writing a letter to “Dear Cancer in My Body.” In the letter, you write emotionally about all the things that are bothering you about your illness, especially your anger, irritation, concerns, broken dreams and promises. You are to release all of these things thorough this writing. It should be done in pencil with your own hand writing and later burned with or without ceremony.

The theory behind this lies in the three carbon factors involved: the human body, the pencil (graphite), and the paper, which turns into carbon when burned. He has seen and heard about people walking away from all kinds of physical and emotional distress. Through the process of writing, the incident you’re writing about becomes complete, and you are not holding on to it anymore physically, emotionally, or spiritually. This transmutation of emotion that led to the illness seems to work wonders.

When writing, release all the anger, irritation, broken dreams, promises, and other negative emotions that you have ever felt, as the illness could have be caused by factors in your childhood, and taken decades to develop physically. Release all of this through the writing and burning. The process lets you come more into the present because you are not bringing any of the past into the present. Write about every hard moment in your life and release the emotional charge so that it no longer has a hold on physical body. When writing to the cancer in your body, state that you’re releasing the cancer from your body and there’s no place for it and there is no longer any benefit from it. State that you don’t need the cancer to bring you in to the present moment. Write about anything that bugs you. Write to the fact that you are taking chemotherapy and radiation and they’re not going to have effects that the body doesn’t want. Remind yourself that you don’t have to buy into the results of the allopathic medical doctors.

In the end, he recommended the book, Reclaiming Our Health – Breaking the Medical Myth by John Robbins, heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune, which he gave up because he didn’t believe that ice cream (as good as it is!) is good for your health!

I am definitely looking forward to meeting Jeff Barber!

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Reclaiming Our Health: Exploding the Medical Myth and Embracing the Source of True Healing

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Jewish Penicillin

March 11, 1997 – Jewish Penicillin

We arrived at the Marin Oncology center at 8:10. Here it is now 9:03 and we’ve just been sitting around. Naturally, they had us down for 9:00, not 8:00. So now I’m really getting restless. I’m not comfortable starting a mind story, not knowing how far I’ll get or if I’ll be able to even begin. I tried working on Practical Intuition, but the same considerations play. The man next to me is getting his i. v. already. I guess that he’s been here before.

Last night was fairly difficult. I seemed to sleep fairly well in stages, but due to all of the hydration, I was up many times. Finally, at 3:00, I went downstairs and did a little writing. Next came a tape, and by the time it was time to wake up, I was ready to sleep.

I haven’t been that preoccupied with today’s treatment plan, but I still felt unable to concentrate on my breath. No one can tell what kind of response I’m going to have to the chemo, and I’m a little worried. To top it off, I have two rounds of radiation also today.

I had expected to be able to listen to guided imagery tapes, but with all the commotion going around here, I preferred to listen to the classical CD’s I brought. The Beethoven Choral Fantasy brought on a lot of emotion. I also listened to Dvorak’s Piano Quintet and Shubert’s Trout Quintet. These pieces of music are so calming and beautiful. I use my computer as my portable CD player.

Once the 5FU and cisplatin where into my blood stream, I felt a few minor discomforts, but all in all, it wasn’t too bad – just like Shipley predicted. I can probably have a decent afternoon. As soon as the cisplatin was finished, I got an urge for matzoth ball soup from Max’s! When I was growing up, this was called, “Jewish penicillin!”

I started having pains in my stomach and needed to pee again! The pains didn’t last long and I continued to pee frequently. At around 1:15 P. M., an hour and a half after the cisplatin was totally in, I went down for my first radiation treatment. Although I was a little nervous, I came through it OK. Within the next half-hour, we were back upstairs, getting the i. v. out and on our way home. Although I felt very tired, there were no other side effects. I was advised to take a sedative tonight to get some sleep, but now that the unknown is known, will I need it?

The second radiation treatment went really well. I was able to be relaxed and visualize the radiation helping the cancer cells to mutate back to healthy cells normal cells, or, if they choose, to self-destruct. This seemed to be really effective. The radiologist placed tattoos for the spots for focusing the beam and then explained the computerized care that I was getting.

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Practical Intuition

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King of the Jungle of the Mind

March 10, 1997 – King of the Jungle of the Mind

This morning, I had to go back to Radiation Oncology department to have a dry run of my radiation treatments. This went rather smoothly, but I noticed that the waiting room was filled with older people! I thought, “I’m too young to have cancer!” This thought doesn’t seem to do me any good!

While I was waiting, I continued reading in Practical Intuition. One of the experiments was to open yourself to your sense impressions according to the instructions,

“To begin, simply start reporting what you’re sensing in the moment. If you hear a car beeping outside, say so. If your nose itches, say so (feel free to scratch it). If you’re hungry, say so. The trick is to report everything you notice-out loud. Don’t forget to report any thoughts, feelings, or memories that you become aware of.” – From Practical Intuition, by Laura Day, page 54.

 

I wrote down my impressions and then I was called in for the dry run. After that, I decided to take a walk along the beautiful stream that flows into the bay across from Marin General Hospital. I had chosen to walk at least two miles. As I walked, I noticed the birds, flowers and other plants, and especially Mount Tamalpais. Before I reached the mile mark to turn around, I noticed that I was behind 919 Sir Francis Drake, where I had my company in 1982. I decided to continue on to Willie’s Caffe and have breakfast, but I didn’t have any money. I only brought my car key, the stone from Anna Halprin, and the ammonite fossil that Barbara Rose Billings had given me. So I asked the manager if I could give her a credit card number. She said no, but would feed me anyway on an “IOU!” Well, I really enjoyed my pancakes, poached eggs, and bacon, with a large glass of fresh orange juice!

As I was leaving the restaurant, I spotted two angels across the street: J. D. and her friend, M. J. J. D. is the mother of my daughter’s best friend. I asked J. if she had some money, and her friend had $14.00 that she had discovered after she got out of the car. Normally, neither one of them would have money with them, but on this occasion, she had just the amount I needed! So I borrowed the money from M. and paid my bill. Not only that, but J. and M. were walking back to Marin General Hospital to get their car with their dogs, so I joined them and we enjoyed a marvelous hike back to the cars!

One of the plans for today was to prepare for the chemo and radiation therapy tomorrow. In accordance with this plan, Dr. Gullion had given me a list of suggestions. One of them corresponds to exactly what the Shipley protocol demands: patient hydration of 3 to 4 quarts of fluids. So that’s what I spent the afternoon doing!
Since it was Monday night, I went to Anna Halprin’s class. Again, it was absolutely healing. The themes for the night were deep breathing and choosing an animal to represent our condition or needs. The deep breathing was inspired by Andy Weil. For my animal, I chose a lion, an image I had had about a year ago. In fact, the wallpaper for my computer at work is a picture of a lion, and of all the animals at P. G.’s house, I was most attracted to the lions. We drew pictures of our animals and then danced the pictures. The picture I drew reminded me of a Sphinx. It looked like a self-portrait of a monkey-lion. The major theme was the courage I need to endure the next eight weeks, and the significance of the Sphinx was the guardian of the temple so that only those with a pure heart could enter. The spirit of the lion I chose was one of a contented cat who was rolled over on his back and relaxing.
The class ended with a healing circle. Anna placed me in the center so that I could receive the energy of the group for my treatments tomorrow. It was very powerful!

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Practical Intuition

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Another CT Scan

March 5, 1997 – Another CT Scan

Last night, I watched a series of programs on public television featuring Dr. Andrew Weil. I have transcribed my notes here as part of this web site. Please take a look if you are interested.

This morning, I had another CT scan for the purpose of setting up the radiation fields that I will be using next week. Alice, the radiation technologist made everything so easy. She was easy going, gentle, and caring. I felt fortunate that I was treated so nicely.

The rest of the day was spent working, having teacher conferences, doing guided imagery, and catching up on things. I have also started reading Practical Intuition and doing all of the exercises.

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Qi Gong

March 2, 1997 – Qi Gong

My friend, Itzzy, came over today to teach me qi gong once again. He had taught me several years ago, but I wanted a new lesson because of Michael Broffman’s recommendation. Itzzy has been practicing and teaching tai chi and qi gong for almost twenty years. His teach is Fong Ha.

We started with sitting meditation. It turned out to be very closely related to the Vipassana meditation that I was already doing, except for the emphasis on the out breath. The posture is upright with the buttocks on the edge of the chair and the spine erect. The hands are either placed on the knees with the thumb and forefingers making a “U” and facing each other, or interlocked in front of the point between the navel and the pubic bone (the da tien point in qi gong or hara in Zen). The process is to watch the breath fill up a balloon in the lower abdomen and return to the breath whenever the mind wanders away.

The second form is standing meditation. Here, the breath and attention work the same from a standing position. The feet are parallel and shoulder width apart, and the hands are either at the side, or somewhere in an arc from the da tien point to the throat, where ever the optimum comfort and/or awareness lies. We tried various configurations, all of which seemed to work quite well.

The next thing we tried was walking meditation, which is similar to walking meditation in Vipassana, except the feet are swung in a slight semi-circle from one placement to another. Finally, we did some rocking meditation, which is very comforting when you feel that you have to move a little more.

I loved being with Itzzy and being shown these various postures. We walked a while and then had pizza at my house.

After Itzzy left, I listened to another guided imagery tape and later started Practical Intuition by Laura Day. I was lucky to have met Laura at Eselan when I was invited there by Helen Palmer for an organizational meeting of the Center for Investigation and Training of the Intuition in 1988. Her book is a marvelous training guide and I plan to utilize it as much as possible in my healing.

Practical Intuition

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