Illness, a Look With New Eyes

"I will act as if what I do makes a difference." poet and writer, William Blake

 

Debilitating illness has plagued mankind as long as anyone may imagine. Yet the human spirit ever resourceful, ever hopeful, bounds back into the realms of life. Unable to quash the spirit and its boundless potential, Susan Nessim was inspired to write about her spiritual, physical and medical journey with cancer. She writes in her book, Cancervive, now revised as: Can Survive, that for her, the roads she traveled were difficult and long, but ultimately fruitful for her spirit. Writing to share her experience, Nessim encourages others along the path she's followed from illness to recovery; for some it is not recovery so much as living, surviving with illness. She writes to encourage one and all. You are more than your diagnosis! Even when the diagnosis changes, you are more than those few words.

"One of the most frustrating things," she writes is, "... allowing disease to dominate their thoughts to such an extent that it undermines their life." With diagnosis you may easily be transformed from a person to a 'patient.' One thing is certain, however, significant illness is change. As a patient your day may easily become structured around your symptoms and treatment. Perhaps you obsess about little changes, you go to websites where others with similar diagnosis carry on at length about their treatment, their moods, their medications, etc, etc.  

Possibly even, you may be attracted to groups who claim advocacy and support. They may be in fact, groups who exist for their own, other purposes, their political agendas; like a sort of union, they may need you for less obvious reasons, for money, for prestige, for access, or for a myriad of other considerations. So do just what truly matters to you. Uniquely you. Let your decisions be from a spiritual basis. The rest will follow.

Learning to cope is essential for those living with serious illness. Cure may just be a chase for perfection, something that may not be. Perhaps acceptance of the dilemma in which one now exists is preferable; acceptance of oneself is an important spiritual act; it may be slow in coming, but ultimately it is the most satisfying to discover one's unique talents and blessings, despite everything else. Looking with new eyes, remaining in the stillness of the beating heart is often enough. Learn to smile, because this is the day that has been made; let us all rejoice and be glad in it.

Beautiful but Empty

"Men have forgotten this truth... The eyes are blind. One must look with the heart." --The Little Prince by Antoine de St.Exupery

The Little Prince, a story by the Frenchman, explorer, adventurer and nobleman, Antoine de St. Exupery recounts in an extraordinary way some of the most beautiful and deepest truths in the passage of a life. Writing the story of the Little Prince, St.Exupery writes about a person who lives alone on a tiny planet.

He has a flower, unlike any other flower in the galaxy. She is greatly beautiful to him. But pride ruins the serenity of his world, prompting him to travel afar, seeking solace.

His travel brings him to Earth where he makes the acquaintance of many; a fox finally tells him "the present of a secret" which enables the Little Prince to view his planet and his beloved flower through new eyes. The secret he learns, is what is really important in life.

Chapter 20-21:
Good morning said the roses. They all looked like his flower.
"Who are you?" he demanded. 
"We are roses," said one... He [the little prince] was overcome with sadness. His rose told him she was the only one of her kind... here were 5,000 of them all alike...
"She would be very much annoyed. I should be obliged to nurse her... to humble myself also, she would really allow herself... I thought I was rich with a flower that was unique in all the world; I had a common rose. That doesn't make me a very great prince." 
And he lay down in the grass and cried.

It was then the fox appeared. "Who are you? asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at... "I cannot play with you. I am not tamed." "What does it mean--'tame'?"
 "It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. 'It means to establish ties.To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy, like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you... You have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me you will be unique in all the world..."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. 'There is a flower... I think she has tamed me..." "If you tame me," said the fox, "It shall be as if the sun came to shine in my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Yours will call to me, like music, drawing me out of my burrow.' The fox continues, 'Your hair is golden, like the color of the wheat fields... I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat... Please--tame me!" exclaimed the fox.

"I have much friends to discover, and many things to understand."
 "One only understands the things that one tames," replied the fox. "There is no shop where one can buy friendship, so men have no friends anymore."
"What must I do to tame you?" asked the little prince.
"You must be very patient," said the fox. ' Words are the source of misunderstandings. One must observe the proper rites," said the fox.
"What is a rite?" asked the little prince. "Those are actions too often neglected," said the fox. 'They are what makes one day different from another."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near-- "Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. 'I never wished you any sort of harm, but you wished me to tame you."
 "Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it has done no good," said the prince.
"It has done me good because of the color of the wheat fields." 'Go--again and look at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back and I will make you the present of a secret..."

"You are not at all like my rose," said the little prince. ..No one has tamed you and you have tamed no one... "You are beautiful, but you are empty. One could not die for you." My rose may look like any other, but she is more important to me than any other in the world because it is she that I have watered, she that I have sheltered, she that I have listened to, boasted to, grumbled to, or sometimes said nothing. Because she is my rose.
Returning to the fox, he said goodbye. The fox replied, "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye..." It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important." "Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "You must not forget it."
 The eyes are blind. One must look with the heart...