Empty before filling
From when the tide of life was ebbing
The poem at the end of this post came in one of the most perilous weeks of my life.
I was diagnosed in February of 2004 with what turned out to be Stage 3 colon cancer. It emptied the life I had and, though it was excruciating, a new one grew in that emptiness.
In the whole journey, I never surrendered my sovereignty.
When the oncologist delivered the news, I joked, “When you go in, can you do some liposuction?”
I wore a long red sheath as I strode into the hospital for my surgery. With me were four women friends, I called my amazons, who took shifts so I always had a warrior between me and the hospital staff.
Convalescing at home from the surgery on a futon couch in the living room, I had a series of three powerful dreams, and these have shaped my life ever since. One told me to leave the home I shared with loving friends and go live alone somewhere that 20-foot tides swept in and out daily. I moved to a shack on a cliff on an island across from Mt. Rainier.
When the oncologist told me I had to do chemo or I had a 45% chance of being alive in five years. I asked him to show me the data. He brought me a copy of a page summarizing the double-blind placebo controlled studies. I held the paper next to my face and pointed to it, then to me. “This is a piece of paper. This is Vicki. Paper. Vicki”… and I went home to consider.
I didn’t want to die from pigheadedness,
So reluctantly I chose to give two rounds of a six round protocol a try.
The first one produced drastic side effects, ones they’d never seen. But I resolutely showed up for round two, which came a week before an annual summer gathering up on an island in BC. I thought I knew the drill, what I’d face day by day and how to survive. Then, deathly side effects hit. I’d hobble every hour to the bathroom, gripping my side to keep the pain at bay. Eventually, I was airlifted to a hospital in Seattle, x-rayed, intubated, and kept there sedated for 5 days as mysterious lesions along my whole alimentary canal healed.
I thanked the oncologist respectfully and told him I was done. He offered another protocol. No, I told him, I’m done. He turned away and when he turned back he said,
“You know, it’s people like you who survive.”
In BC, before being whisked back to the USA, I wrote this poem:
Empty Before Filling
August 3, 2004
empty your bowl
your stomach
your bowel
be hungry
empty your day
your week
your year
have time
empty your closet
your shelves
your drawers
be simple
empty your mind
your heart
your swarm of opinions and ways
be still
we do not know desire
we do not wake at 4 in the morning
with a strange feeling of something wanting to enter our emptiness.
who is this intruder come to penetrate us,
to plant the seeds of ‘next’ in our field of open now?
this is serious, for much is lost in letting such a stranger in
do we want a poem
a lover
a walk in the moonlight
do we want more food than we need
more respect
or power
or allure
heavy burdens that will never let us empty again?
beware
we do not know want
we do not allow lack to build
until we salivate
until our stomachs growl
until an honest need can come
dusty hat in hand
with an honest request
our fullness upon fullness
says,
“Here lives fear,
sell me what you will
for in my house
nothing is ever enough.”
It says,
“I have heard of a Universe that will never let me down,
but I have lost faith.
I do not trust.
If I do not pack my life with
people and things
I will starve
For nothing and no one is there for me.”
spin
in the vast emptiness
trailing the dust of your past like galaxies
sink
into the gossamer fullness of the space in between
feel
the touch of this velvet lover who has
waited, waited
for you to be
done
empty your bowl
your stomach
your bowel
be hungry
empty your day
your week
your year
have time
empty your closet
your shelves
your drawers
be simple
empty your mind
your heart
your swarm of opinions and ways
be still
be peace
This poem has so spoken to me… I am copying it by hand onto a long paper and taping it to my altar. I am freshly solo after 43 years of being an ‘us,’ and practicing being in the empty and open space of now.
Vicki, it was this poem, that brought back memories of my life in the early 80's, of a colon crisis that led to doing a 10 day juice and water fast. At the end I was exploding with energy and mental clarity. The experience of emptiness opened me up for infinite possibilities in my dreams. What a gift you are. Thank you so much.