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Candle of Hope June 8th 2003 Has it only been ten days? Yesterday I bought Darryl home after a ten day spell recovering from abdominal surgery. The news was far from good. The surgeon has removed the nasty bits from the bowel but Darryl will be left with a stoma and a fragment of cancer remains on the wall of the bowel/bladder. As though reading my mind a fellow Lemurian gently helps me focus with a well chosen selection from The Tao of Inner Peace by Diane Dreher The Tao Tells us; At a time like this a lot of people turn to God but I am one of those earth people who look around good old earth to find an answer. So the words of Tao strike a deep chord and set me thinking, thinking about signs I can find in nature, signs that will help me trust the process. I would be lying to say that I am in the habit of looking for signs for that would imply that I had needed them. No! Not this superwoman! Well! That was before May 28th. Now I am prepared to look for signs in all sorts of places. Speaking of signs it did freak me out when another long standing cyber friend wrote to me telling me about a healing circle ceremony she had performed for us. " My farm has very strong energy, and a "Womens' Business" place where I go to pray and meditate. I made a healing circle there for you and Darryl. It is an aboriginal healing I learned from a Wudjimba Elder when I lived in the Kimberley. You make a small circle of sacred stones on bare earth. Then you light a fire within the circle to burn away the sickness. I did that, and I prayed for you both, the night after I saw the big moon. Today I went back there. A native Iris was growing in the middle of the circle. Nothing else, and nothing has ever grown on the scorched ground before when I have performed this ceremony. It takes a long time for that dusty fragile clay to bear life again. I asked my friend Sam, who is a herbalist, if the native Iris was used as a bush medicine plant by the aborigines in my area. Oh yes, she said. It is very strong medicine for the bowel." Nicole's sign was enough really! To think that Darryl's Irish had grown grew on hard clay, baked by sun and fire, dusty and crumbly and totally inhospitable seemed nothing short of miraculous. To think that this iris wasn't nibbled by wallabies or trampled by cows, that it is flourishing in adversity, and against all logic comforts me at a time when everything is out of my control. Yet, still I had to overcome my worst fears and look for a sign of my own. It came to me quite unexpectedly. In the weeks before he went into hospital Darryl pulled up some brick work in our back yard that had been damaged by the roots of our silver birches. He cut back what seemed a vast amount of the root system and re-laid the bricks. I have been anxiously watching the trees, giving them extra water but noticed that with autumn some branches really seemed to be dying back. Yesterday I decide these two silver birches were my Blue Iris. I hugged my trees and told them that if they survived and came back to glory in spring I would know that Darryl would be feisty enough to fight this cancer. I stood and gave them lots of water and went off to the hospital. Then a wild storm swept into Melbourne battering the city unbelievably. Our son Greg came to the hospital and said 'those trees survived the storm Dad. If they survive that they can survive anything'. (Greg knew nothing of my pact) I felt the universe told me something last night. I would like to have more control but for now I have to trust the universe and I will continue to read the signs. Yesterday morning I watered the birches, talked to them and kissed them before going to the hospital to bring Darryl home. He is happy to be here although his spirits are a bit low. You know how it is? I think he will get a little stronger as each day passes. Today gentle, misting rain is dripping from their branches and I feel a little more at peace.
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