When I found the beautiful lady, still seductive and beautiful recumbent in her bed, a cantata of sweet moments that we shared in our youth played like a most harmonious acoustic song from long ago.
Her distinct perfume of a masterly crafted sweet wood and oil filled the space between us. My fingers itched to touch her and relive our sensuous operas of emotional expression — operas of great pleasure and pain.
This was a call to war. And the war ignited into full regalia when my guardian angels pulled the plug on my body on Halloween 2018 while I was in a second-opinion consult with a Mayo Clinic gynecologic oncologist. As pale as white paper, and barely able to breath, and worse — unable to control myself, I hurled and splattered volumes of gastrointestinal debris all over her office. Rushed to the ER, the final report read: severe anemia, hemorrhage gostrointestinal upper, malignant neoplasm of endocervix (HCC), and dyspnea — NOS (labored breathing).
I am much like you.
I’m a gadabout
dressed in threadbare wings
still fluttering from
flower to flower…
I challenge anyone to show me how this moment of snarky memes, negativity, and divisiveness benefits one’s self, others, the planet.
The human-made threats like habitat destruction, development, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and invasive non native plants, are outside of a butterfly’s adaptability. This is where you and I must step in if we wish to continue the soulful joy of butterflies in the sky.
All the scientific concerns about a changing global climate was as inconvenient as a rattlesnake in a living room — not to mention those pesky rules and regulations that disallowed bold and rampant pollution and the raping of the earth’s forests.
“Sometimes I give up hope until I come back to this casita and see five miracles living right here.”
The trend to express gratitude is the antithesis to domineering negative behavior. Once we begin to seek grace in the tiniest elements surrounding us, joy takes hold of the heart. I’d rather awaken with joy in my heart than awaken with contrariness because my world is not how I believe it should be. My world is how I choose to make it.
And life’s serendipitous imp flew with me from the California coast to our landing in the Sonoran Desert last October. The objective was to physically heal. I’ve spent the last four months among saguaros, palo verde trees, wild coreopsis blooming next to chaparral and creosote shrubs. The massive structure of the Mayo Clinic outlines the horizon to the east. Westerly is the opened desert where coyotes and rabbits play hide and seek, and concludes my days in neon orange and purple sunsets.
A drive through social media showcases this variable landscape accelerated by nitromethane. While some focus their use of language on beauty and bright opportunity, others take a verbal trek into the macabre world of finger-pointing and scapegoating.
What do you feel in your heart and mind when you read other’s words? Are you inspired to be a better person or do you want to go out there and kick some ass? Do you feel comfort in those words or do you feel your blood pressure rise to unhealthy levels? What happens within you when you read positive and kind words about others and the world around us, versus mocking and hateful language about others and the world around us?
