Thank you for your cheerful support of my good news about the tumors shrinking. It helped to extend the good feelings, especially when the usual chemo side effects set in and my lowered white count enabled my cold to flare up again. Ugh.
Between my cold, the shortening daylight hours in the northeastern U.S. and the dreary weather we have been having, life felt grey and I felt tired. Though I consciously know that every day is precious and not to be wished away, I just wanted to sleep through winter.
It was more habit than passion that pulled me to Tong Ren on Sunday night. Once I am there, I typically receive energy when it is my turn and spend the rest of the hour sending energy to everyone else.
This time, I took a seat close to the back, closed my eyes, and promptly fell asleep. Tom Tam and his wonderfully generous crew of tappers stood in front, facing our rows of seats and asked, person by person and row by row, what their ailment was. I jerked awake often enough to revel in the good reports from others but kept falling asleep again. When he reached my row, I managed to stay awake until he and his crew of tappers were ready to work on me. I requested help in shrinking the tumors, and added that I would like to also be rid of my cold and my fatigue.
After they finished tapping for me, I closed my eyes again. This time, instead of sleeping, I thought about how everything felt blah. My morning routine came to mind: it can feel the same each day, but if I focus on the actual details, it really does vary in some small way and set that day apart from any other.
Maybe I could focus on some little details right now. Maybe those would help to set this moment apart and remind me that life does vary in some small exciting way. Maybe it would help me to know that there is a larger story to all this, that this is not all there is.
I opened my eyes and looked at the 8-10 volunteers standing in the front of the room, each tapping away on their doll. My eyes moved toward Janice, who has a special place in my heart. I focused on her outfit – she always wears something fun. But another object kept glittering at me, catching the light so that the reflection was almost blinding. Shifting my focus to see what was shining, I saw that Lynne, doing her healing tapping, wore a chunky gold necklace, a larger piece of jewelry than I’ve ever seen her wear. Well, that is interesting. But not exciting.
I strangely couldn’t pull my gaze from it so continued to examine it from afar. It had large gold links, and, wait, something was hanging from it, made from a different material and style than the chain, sort of artistic. A cross?
A cross. A blinding light in the grey. A detail that set this moment apart. The larger story that helps to carry me. Okay, even in my blah mood, this felt a bit exciting.
The session ended shortly afterwards, and leaving the room, I passed by a book titled, The Body Electric, instantly inserting the song from the movie Fame into my head. In the finale, the high school kids together perform what they have worked so hard to learn. They show their growth in singing, dancing and musical instruments as well as their personal growth.
The way all their artistic parts come together to create one amazing performance reminds me of how we all exist together. We each bring aspects of ourselves we’ve worked on, sometimes for a long time, and can now do well – maybe not perfectly, but pretty darn well – and we joyously bring them all together with everyone’s else’s hard work and magic and possibly mistakes and in that joining, create something larger and more complex than our own piece.
I’m just so happy to have one small part in all this, to be together with all your dancing and singing and joy and continued growth.
But wait –there is more! When I was Googling I Sing the Body Electric, I came across this poem of the same name, by Walt Whitman. The whole poem was confusing to me, but I really liked this part:
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
to pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her nech for a moment – what is this, then?
I do not ask any more delight – I swim in it as a sea.There is something in staying close to men and women, and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well;
All things please the soul – but these please the soul well.
I hope your soul feels pleased today, and pleased well.
With gratitude and love,
Marie
Adventures in Spiritual Living 
A friend once told me that she gets stressed out trying to balance her life so she looks at it like harmonizing instead. This reminds me of that. We don’t balance each other out because that puts us on the opposite side of the scale. We each share in making the music and add our unique parts. Just thinking of it like that makes me less resistant. Peace to you Marie!
This is a beautiful thought, Karen.
I teach religious ed to a group of six year olds. It has often been frustrating – I wanted them all to sit still, and ideally to do the activity but mostly not to e disruptive and hopefully listen and participate. Of course, it wasn’t going smoothly, and I thought that maybe I was setting the bar too high.
Yesterday, though, it all went smoothly, and while I loved it, I wanted to understand why. Not everyone sat still, or did the activity, or refrained from disruption or listened.
BUT, your comment illuminated something for me. What they did do was what they could. Each added their unique parts and in that way, shared in making the music of that beautiful hour.
Thank you for that and so much more, and peace to you.
What a cool realization! I’m going to think of that when I’m feeling impatient with my kids. 🙂
Oh, this is such a beautiful reminder – thank you! And thank you for another little dose of Whitman. I know I need to spend time getting to know him. I know I do – I just haven’t yet.