One Woman's Story
KISSING THE DRAGON
I was 35 newly married, uninsured, in debt, and about to be diagnosed with breast cancer. While visiting my mother out of state, I had a dream.
I was standing waist deep in murky water, and on my left was a beautiful woman emanating a golden serene glow. On the shore was another dark woman veiled in mist, and in the water between us was an alligator. I said to the woman on the shore, “Be careful, the alligator will bite you.” She began running around in fast motion, frightened and being chased by the beast. She yelled, “Look, you don’t have to let it get you. You can run from it.” The alligator slipped back into the swamp and began heading towards the woman and myself. I warned her, “Be careful, the alligator will bite you.” She smiled so calmly, and looked at me and then down at the alligator perched with his nose floating above the water. She gently cupped the chin of the beast, lifting his face to her mouth and kissed him softly. As she released him, he chomped down into her right thigh. Opening her arms wide she put her head back, and looked up as if towards heaven, all the while smiling peacefully through the pain and surrounded by golden light.
A few days later while in church with my mother hearing a moving sermon on pain and spiritual growth. “When confronting pain, your first response is to curl up into a ball and tense against it,” he stated “but this makes it so much more difficult. If at that time, you can remember to open your heart and let the pain wash over you, it makes it so much easier to bear. In other words, as an old Buddhist parable goes may you have the strength to kiss the dragon and let it bite you.” My mother and I looked at each other with shock -she was with me when I woke from the dream.
Within weeks, I found a large lump in my left breast. After a long awaited sonar appointment, the doctor diagnosed me with invasive breast cancer. At that very moment; when I was in the dressing room about to be overcome by panic; the face of that goddess came to me; and a calm encased my spirit. I stretched my arms and heart wide open and said a prayer, “I know that if my feet are on this path, they are there for a reason. I know you will send me the wisdom I need to get through this with grace." I believe that the goddess came to me to share with me this secret. I know now that it’s not what happens to you-- but how you respond to it that makes all the difference. “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional”.
Thinking back on that dream, I realize what the lesson was. The great leaders of history have acted just as that goddess did, those like Jesus, Buddha, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Dali Llama and countless others. “Everyone loves a man who smiles on a sunny day, but the true worth of a man is a man who can smile when nothing is going his way”. Facing the moment with calm and benevolence, even when facing ones own mortality and inevitable or existing pain is the true test of a human, man or woman. Breast cancer is a uniquely feminine experience of despair, therefore the symbol of the feminine divine was sent to guide me.
Although there are certainly times when the world feels sideways and blurry, cancer taught me acceptance and gratitude. To struggle against unfolding events is truly a worthless cause, being balanced in the face of adversity is its own reward. It’s a lesson that has truly freed me. Vipassana was the wisdom that I sought in order to make perfect sense of all this. You Can Thrive! came about after a few retreats in which the idea began and gained clarity.
After getting through the worst of it, and dealing with the ongoing effects, some personal truths have emerged. This disease guided me, ok it kicked me, to my true calling, and as a result I have founded this charity group and our free wellness center for those diagnosed with breast cancer and under hardship in New York City. In just two years we have grown to over 50 volunteers, are beginning operations in two separate sites, and have also begun a home based program to educate survivors on environmental toxins and create healing sanctuary in urban environments, as well as an Ecstatic Movement and Meditation program, all free for survivors.