The Messenger

What if we began thinking of cancer, not as the enemy, but as the messenger? In our current paradigm, we wage war on cancer, fight battles against it, attempt to "beat this thing." Those with cancer are said to "win" or "lose" their battles, putting them in the unenviable position of having to fight – sometimes viciously – themselves.

We do the same with pain in our culture – vilify it, see it as a gnarly monster to be eradicated, sometimes at incredible cost. We shoot the messenger.

I've experienced pain, and I've had cancer, so I have felt their sting – up close and personal. I've also felt the incredible sting of trying to wage war on a part of myself. I used some tools of eradication and rejected others. I found that my greatest success in attaining health came in finding ways to love, honor, and nurture body and soul – with simple good food, kind and loving relationships, tender, unconditional dog-love, clean water, an open and peaceful mind.

When my canine-buddy was diagnosed with cancer, I could not wage war on him. And so, we have wrapped Nicholai in treatments from the arms of Mother Nature. Sometimes, I feel incredibly lonely on this journey, as I did when I met cancer in my own body. Surrounded by loud voices telling me to stay afraid, to hate the cancer cells, to kill them by any means, it can be hard to put one foot in front of the other, seeking to find healing not only in the outcome, but in the process.

I watch Nicholai. His eyes are bright, his tail wags, and his gait is jaunty. He calls me to join him in the perfect joy of a rainy morning hike. His cancer is a part of him, and loving him, I will seek to listen to the messenger that has appeared as bumps and lumps in his lymph system, perhaps as a canary in the mine, to tell me things are out of balance.

With cancer, as with anything, the questions we ask influence the answers we find. What might happen in cancer prevention, research, and treatment if we asked, not how do we rid ourselves of this scourge, but how do we love ourselves into wholeness?