Red Tuesday check in

Here are a few snapshots for you from Red Tuesday: washing red fruit and cooking beets for our Red Dragon dinner, the red candle that we lit at my monthly sister breakfast (that included my step mom and grand niece), the red scarf worn to honor the Red Dragon that became a healing focus in my friend’s therapy session, the not-quite-red henna streaks in mine and Andy’s hair, the red warmth that another friend felt every time she focused on Zpora that day, driving into the hospital parking garage behind the red Hummer with the tag “Pam 52”, Andy’s and my deep red blood running into the bags at the Red Cross, red calling out everywhere, flashing by or just beyond my peripheral vision… I hope the pictures are as vivid in your mind as they are in my mine!

Zpora’s final infusion of Vincristine (a drug made from the vinca plant) last week included a visit with her doctor, Barbara Grant, with whom we began this journey over two years ago. She stuck her head around the door of the tiny examining room where we were waiting and said “I’ve been waiting for this day for soooo long.” And so had we! She had in tow a young medical student Matt with a bow tie, on the first day of his first year. She focused on the post-chemo period saying how difficult it will be emotionally. She stressed how good Zpora will feel, that she “doesn’t even know how good she’ll feel,” and she spoke about the “symphony of the immune system.” She recruited Z to talk to a young woman and her partner there in the infusion room. They are in the beginning stages of treatment - also for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. I shared tears of compassion and love with that beautiful young woman’s partner, she just beginning a journey and I just completing it. The oncology nurses that had cared for her over the last 26 months gathered around Z for a sweet simple ritual “ringing the bell for hope.”

It was a hot day under a thick blue sky. Wearing the layers and layers of red cotton (an old and beloved “ritual dress”) all that 90-degree day, I felt myself in service to a vast and subtle force. I felt aware of so many of you who, I knew, also held this day apart, special. The force of life shows itself in the myriad and layered mundane details of a day, and on this day we colored it RED. On this day we held this life force consciously, with more attention perhaps than other days and so opened ourselves to being “Priestesses” to healing, to love, to compassion and caring – those traits that we invoke in the image of Red Dragon. It was a relief to take off that red gown, not only because it was so hot that day, but also for the relief of re-entering the mundane world as a simple participant.

Thank you for joining together in this circle.