This post is long-winded and philosophical because I am at that point of my journey with this disease where the markers have been laid. I don't know which direction I will be heading in, but nature does. I dedicate the post to Cymraes because it is about a poem I wrote after I had returned from a nightclub "worse for wear" at 3am. Perhaps there is some beauty in the paradox of being "shallow" and "deep" at the same time, or in metamorphosing from one to the other in the time it takes to walk home?
The poem is relevant on a number of different levels. Firstly, it was written about the time of the harvest moon. The harvest moon is the full moon closest to the autumn equinox. This year the harvest moon and the autumn equinox coincide on Thursday of this week the 23rd of September.
The Harvest Moon is traditionally associated with helping farmers to bring in their crops because of the light it provides and there is a sense that after all the treatment I have had I am about to reap what has already been sown. Of course, my efforts to transcend my disease and a farmer's efforts to produce a decent crop are both at the mercy of many other factors. They both sit within a framework which nature has provided and it is she who ultimately decides upon success or failure. So although karma descends upon me, I will have no choice but to accept her ruling in the overall context of my life and nature and medicine's influence upon it.
I will not know what has been decided until December but I do know that the die is already cast.
Ultimately the poem is about the change of season from summer to autumn. The opening verses are the voice of summer and the reply is from autumn.
The voice of summer is unmistakably a lament. However, it is not a lament of self-pity but a lament of craving to understand. The power of the sun is waning and the hand of Autumn is purposeful, strong and ruthless. It cuts through the whimsical desires of summer to "deliver its true reward" i.e. what it has always been destined to receive.
There are strong mythological references here to the gods of the ancients, such as Nut the Egyptian Goddess of the skies, Isis the eternal mother, Nephthys and Anubis. More than anything else the poem is a lesson about the truth of the need to let go of the past in order to move to the future. That is what nature does as a matter of course. It is sometimes what people find difficult to do. In the beginning I was on a process of chemo - operation - chemo and it was easy to believe that I would get better. When that process failed to deliver it became harder. Now that the radiotherapy has finished and I have dealt with the day to day difficulties that the new treatment has challenged me with it is time to lift my head, focus on the future with a singular aim of getting better.
I remember shedding some tears with Kitten when we first realised that I might have cancer. This was pre-diagnosis and courtesy of an ill-judged post endoscopy form. However, I have not been able to shed a tear since. I have been moved many many times especially in interaction with my children but ultimately I don't engage with the process. Someone asked me recently if I cried and I said "No, but I wish I could". The poem contains some of the tears that should be released, but I am saving them for the all clear. I would rather shed tears of joy than sorrow. It would be a bit like sealing the Six Nations Grand Slam against England at Twickenham! I would be happy to blub like a baby in such circumstances.
As always I remain optimistic about my own outcome, but I am wise enough to understand that all I can do is my best then sit back and wait to see what happens. That fits neatly with the poem "Autumn Gold"
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