Tag: personal essay

YEW ALCHEMY

by Maasaisis

I’m convinced that open-mindedness is the ticket to an alternative experience. The only way through an obstacle is to realise that a problem is only a problem because of the meaning we have assigned to it. My decision to choose chemotherapy as my medicine meant believing in it fully, getting behind my choice 100%. The alchemy lives in the power of decision and choosing to trust the path regardless of where it may lead. How we respond to life is the only true power we possess. I keep coming back to the clarity of that yes I felt. That is all I have to go on. No external forces persuaded nor forced me into that yes. It is that effortless yielding that I trust.

I remember the exact moment my trauma of chemo shocked through me. My beloved friend whom I sat with as she chose to die to end her cancer, was terrified of chemotherapy. I remember her telling me that her system was sensitive and that she just knew she would be the one it would affect the worst. She faced her fears, did it anyway and she was right.

She called me from the hospital, convinced chemo would kill her. I held her sobbing, shaking body as her terror filled me up. All we could do was hold onto each other, and in that moment of helplessness, my conviction that chemo was evil solidified. I swore to myself that I would find another way to heal without injecting poison into my body. I would never enter the dreaded chemo room and hook myself up to something that intentionally made people sick.

My healing journey has given me the opportunity to truly examine how belief systems I’d created could pigeonhole me, how my determination and stubbornness could render me deaf to guidance that was gently showing me another way. Time and time again, I have experienced grace when I loosen my grip on what I think I know. When I collide with fear, it is the fear itself that needs to be questioned. What is its source and what have I given power to? I’ve come to trust that light will enter when I open my mind to let it in.

I am learning to become like the Fool in the tarot deck. He is zero, belonging to no sequence. A nothing with everything, standing at the edge of a cliff with gleeful conviction, about to step into what cannot be seen. He continues on his path carrying almost nothing, even as his next step appears foreboding to everyone but him. His heart remains open to the journey. He holds a white rose between his fingers — a symbol of the innocence, purity, and beauty with which he moves through the world, unconcerned. He is not alone. His loyal companion, the white dog, trusts him completely. Animal instinct senses no danger abound, only the joy of following a friend. To release what I think I know is to fall off the cliff and believe I will land in grace.

When I eventually reached the point of finding myself in the chemo lounge last year, hooked up to multiple clear bags, I was able to accept it because it wasn’t chemo. It was a manageable step, knowing that what was going into me was not poison, but a blocker meant to stop feeding my cancer cells. I used that time in the chair to write and to re-frame it as my creative space.

Through monthly visits over the year, surrounded by genuine, caring nurses I came to know by name, the act of returning again and again to that green vinyl chair transmuted what I had once perceived as a hell space into a place of unexpected communion. I bless my liquid medicine bags with my willingness to let it be just that. I learned how to receive love from the most unexpected of places and also how to share it — through quiet conversation, a warm smile, or shared understanding with others finding their own way back toward wholeness. It no longer represented an electric chair, but a throne I sat on willingly.

There were two yew trees we needed to uproot on our property. Their roots would eventually infiltrate the foundation of our home. I am not a green thumb by any means; my approach is to plant something, give it the bare basics, and let the rest be up to the plants and trees to survive if they are meant to live with us. It felt wrong to dig up those young yew trees and dump them in the forest. My husband drove up the mini excavator to dig a couple of holes on the side of the mountainous hill, to stick them back in the ground and give them a fighting chance.

They not only survived, but made an ally of the unforgiving, hardened incline of earth and even grew. They look a little haggard, yet seem rooted to stay. On the morning of my first chemo round, I went to visit the trees. I wrapped my hand around a still-spindly trunk and held on tight, praying that their resilient spirit would enter me and ignite harmony and order — guiding my rogue cells to remember their original design, to forget what they had become, and to rejoin the remarkable synergy of the healthy cells around them. I asked permission to take a small needle branch with me, prayed over it, and tied it to my chemo bag. I sank into the chair and accepted the yew medicine, straight from Mother Earth and into me with welcome gratitude.

The yew tree is among the oldest and most resilient trees on Earth, having stood the test of time. Indigenous peoples have used yew medicine for pain and healing long before modern science isolated and studied its medicinal compounds. This extraordinary tree is a manifestation of holding paradox as its innate intelligence: it is one of the most toxic trees on Earth, producing poisons that can kill in its needles, bark, and seed- yet it is that very poison, alchemised into medicine, that has allowed it to exist for thousands of years, even through radical environmental changes and threats. The poison is what keeps pests, fungi, and disease from infiltrating its growth and survival.

As the yew grows older, its centre becomes hollow. The heartwood rots away, yet the branches continue to be nourished and thrive. This is a powerful symbol of emptying out, of letting go in order to become stronger. Like my tumour, which needed to rot away as a process of survival.

In Druid and Celtic traditions, yews were often planted in graveyards not as symbols of death, but as guardians of transformation. Like the hollow within the tree, the parts of ourselves that decay create space for renewal. New growth emerges, making way for what continues on, where the death of one part of us becomes the beginning of the next.

The same toxins extracted from the needles of the European yew tree that ensure the long-standing survival of these ancient trees now enter through my vein. At the cellular level, their intelligence interrupts the rapid, relentless, chaotic division of egoic cancer cells. It halts the process of division, preventing them from replication and dominion over me.

Docetaxel is a medicine best known for its success with various types of breast cancer, with predictable, well-established results since the 1990s. At a cellular level, it carries the yew tree’s wisdom directly into the human body to bring order into chaos.

If it weren’t for my open-minded approach to accepting this as my medicine, I wouldn’t have given an iota of attention to researching what it was made of or what it did. I had invested years in this healing journey, researching countless alternative ways around conventional treatments. My determination was stubborn and strong, and it fuelled my spirit to walk the road less travelled. It empowered me and taught me a great deal, but looking back, I had bet everything on being right. 

My powerful drive to avoid chemo at all costs led me through the darkest phase, one that came with excruciating pain and required me to mask the quiet terror brewing beneath my outer confidence. Going through that equipped me with the strength to get through just about anything. But now I know I don’t have to work so hard to be strong, because that strength is already inherent within me and I don’t need to fight for it. It comes from being the fool who follows the Holy Spirit in the freedom of admitting that I really don’t know anything.

I had made a giant stride by giving the infusion lounge a new meaning. Now the time feels ripe for my trauma around chemo to be healed, not just for myself, but for my sister too. Maybe as I accept this as my medicine, the utter helplessness I felt watching her can finally be hollowed out and released. In that way, we can both alchemize our fears into peace, and perhaps it reaches further backwards and forwards in time and space to help others too.

As I sit here writing this, it has been 3 weeks since my initial dose, potentially the first of eight. I’m due for the next one this week. When the initial yes to proceed with treatment came, it arrived with another clear message: begin with a half dose. This was confirmed by an oracle card my friend pulled for me, my heart welled up with gratitude for that guidance. 

Often, these strong medicines are given at the highest standard dose and adjusted only if side effects become intolerable. I suppose even with my yes, there’s a bit of wiggle room, and that feels just right. I brought the idea to my oncologist, proposing three rounds at half dose followed by a PET scan to assess whether it was working. She agreed. When healthy cells are caught in the crossfire, it matters to know the treatment is actually effective, and even at half dose, we should see measurable change. Easing in gently felt like the right way to honour a yes I had resisted for so many years.

I don’t know whether it was the shift in my mind, beginner’s luck, or the yew alchemy working synergistically with my system, but I have managed to carry on with my life these past week. I’ve even gone as far as believing the yew medicine has gifted me its superpower, giving me extra energy not only to heal, but to continue with my workouts and massage practice. Thankfully, the roots of my hair follicles are still hanging on tight — although after all this, what I struggle with most is the impending possibility of losing my thick, wild, and curly hair after I finally got it back. I tend to my humanness while reminding myself that ultimately, I am not my body.

The most notable disruption has been digestive. When I mentioned having to run to the bathroom numerous times to a friend who had also been through chemo, she laughed and said, “Oh yeah, never trust a fart when you’re on chemo.” She saved me that day. I had felt the heebie-jeebies creeping in — dark thoughts about my mortality infiltrating, arriving alongside a more noticeable increase in pain around all the sites the PET scan had flagged for cancer activity.

I have been diligent about watching my mind, warding off frightening thoughts by meeting them with more powerful, eternal, and unchanging ones. Sometimes it takes a great deal of convincing and determination to make those thoughts stick. But that is the practice, and that is my life. It is one thing to hold a belief intellectually. The act of alchemising belief into something that can uphold us asks that we stay in the light even when darkness approaches. To keep looking for it, to tend to it even when it is barely a flicker, and even when it goes out entirely, to trust that somewhere beneath all the woes of the world, the light remains. And that is enough to get it lit again.

ANGELS AMONG US

by Maasaisis

Mama loves to shop. What used to annoy me now brings me joy, as I’ve learned to nurture our relationship by appreciating what lights her up. Our closeness was forged in the volatile years when my cancer dominated our lives — years that taught us both to drop our armour and revealed the gift of holding each other in our vulnerability.

I finally feel that the gap between us is nearly closed — the gap that perhaps began the day I was cut out of her belly and taken away. The gap that widened during the three long days it took to return to the familiar sound of her heartbeat.

I used to yearn for her to hold me in a way that made me feel loved — not through the gifts she showered on me, but through presence. For a long time, love felt disguised in things. But now I know better. I understand that her love was always there, potent in its truth no matter how it was given.

I was happy to be on an outing in the next town over, where we planned to have lunch and visit Canadian Tire — a store that would satiate most of her shopping needs. Knowing her particular taste for good food, I chose a Thai restaurant that I knew would meet her high standards, hoping to nourish her well before setting her free in the aisles of that giant store.

She hadn’t had an episode of her debilitating stomach issue in months — the kind of attack that would double her over in pain and cold sweat. They were frightening to witness. Every time Da and I tried to convince her to get it checked out, she recovered soon after and brushed it off. Deep down, I knew something serious was going on. But I also knew I couldn’t force her to look inside — not when I was well aware of the scanxiety that comes with medical screenings.

I convinced myself the homemade probiotic yogurt I’d been making for her had healed her. Every week, I’d buy organic half-and-half, carefully heat it to pasteurize, then combine Lactobacillus reuteri and Lactobacillus casei Shirota — probiotic strains known for supporting gut health and promoting restful sleep. I fermented the mixture for thirty-six hours in the SousVide I’d invested in to make our medicine. Because of the heavy use of antibiotics I’d taken over time to treat chronic infections from my ulcerating tumor, I’d become susceptible to colitis. I was determined to heal my gut — which I did — and I truly thought Mama’s had healed too… until she ate that spring roll.

She took two bites and gave me that unmistakable “uh-oh” look, instinctively clutching her gut. A wave of foreboding settled into my own stomach. Not here, not now, I thought. Our red curry was still on its way, but even as I tried to distract her with conversation, we both knew it wouldn’t be wise to fuel more heat into her already-agitated system. I took a few bites and asked to have it packed to go while Mama visited the washroom for the second time.

“Maybe we should just go home,” I suggested.
“No, I’m fine,” she said, slowly getting to her feet.

The best medicine was only a few blocks away, where she could tick off everything on her shopping list. Torn between my fear and my better judgment, I decided to let her lead, trusting she knew what was best for her.

She leaned heavily on the shopping cart, pausing and wincing between aisles. Breathing through her pain, she still managed to find the best deals for what she was after. I was impressed, but I still feared that if she escalated to the level I’d witnessed before, we’d be in serious trouble. I rubbed the small of her back, feeling the heat radiating through her shirt, beads of sweat collecting at her brow.

We still had to pick up my car from the detailers yet another town over, which meant we wouldn’t be home for at least a couple more hours — including the stop we had planned at our favourite discount grocery store. She was adamant we stick to the plan, even as it became clear the digestive meds from the drugstore had done absolutely nothing.

Our ride home was cloaked in her quiet endurance, punctuated by sharp breaths over the bumpy roads. Da was already deep into teaching a four-hour seminar online by the time I got her home. I still had the morphine I’d relied on to manage my acute pain for so long, and we’d used this strategy before — a small dose had taken the edge off, and she’d usually be fine by the next day. I practically had to carry her to bed. After setting her up with a heating pad, I gave her the opiate. Let’s wait and see was our family’s go-to plan, always reluctant to face the ordeal of going to emergency.

I’d just settled back at home when my phone rang — Mama on the other end, asking if she could take another pill. Without hesitation, I got back into my car and drove the short distance to her house. I could hear Da’s voice, still presenting in Japanese, coming from the basement. He couldn’t have known that his wife was upstairs, grimacing against the pain that was stealing her breath away. The moment I saw her — her hair plastered to her sweaty, pale, crumpled face — I made the decision. “I’m taking you to emergency, now,” I said, switching to Japanese so she would really hear me. She did not have the strength to argue.

I’m convinced that angels were watching over us, especially after what Mama shared with me a few days later, following her emergency open surgery. Had I not taken her in that moment, had she not been seen quickly in the ER, had I not pushed for a CT scan so adamantly, we may have lost her. She had ruptured her intestinal lining due to an infection that even a strong dose of IV antibiotics couldn’t tame. A severe case of diverticulitis had her ambulanced to a bigger hospital where a surgeon was waiting to assess her.

The connection between thought, feeling, and experience became painfully clear as I battled my fear, clinging to the lessons I’d learned throughout my own healing journey. What was supposed to be a two-hour surgery was now stretching into four. What had the surgeon found once he opened her up? How bad was it? Could she die? My belief in the worst-case scenario truly tested my faith in what cannot be taken away.

I finally got the call I’d been waiting for.
“She’s out. She’s okay,” Da said.
“I’ll be there tomorrow morning,” I replied with a huge exhale.

The surgeon had told Da she could have died without the emergency operation. He’d removed a large section of her badly perforated sigmoid colon and attached a temporary ostomy bag. A long line of bulky staples was etched down her belly where the incision had been made.

When I saw her the next day, I knew — both in what I felt and what I saw — that she had touched something otherworldly.

“There are angels everywhere, Maasa,” she said.
“What? You can see them?” I asked.
“Yes. I can’t see their faces, but they’re like flowing, transparent curtains — and there are so many of them. They’re rushing to help the nurses, helping the people here.”

Her eyes glassed over with emotion as she spoke. “One of them came to me and whispered in my ear.”

She couldn’t understand what was said, but she was completely assured that everything — no matter what — would be okay. And then, she told me, Jichan and Bachan — her parents who had long since passed — came to let her know that there is nothing to fear on the other side. That they are all there — the ones who passed.

I’ve rarely seen my mother cry, but these were tears I recognized — the same kind I’d shed when I felt closest to God during my own brush with death. Goosebumps rose on my arms; I knew she was telling the truth.
“I also saw you with the angels,” she said. “But you weren’t transparent. You walked right by my room, looking for me, and I kept calling out to you.”

I hadn’t been to that hospital until then, but she accurately described the hat I’d worn the day before. I believe prayer can override the laws of the physical world. Somehow, as I clung to faith that my prayers were being heard, I had found my way to be close to Mama.

“Then the strangest thing happened,” she continued. “I found myself hanging upside down… among smoked kippers. And I was completely at peace.”

“Kippers? Like herring?” I asked, puzzled.

I didn’t connect the dots — until Da did. His father had spent much of his life working in a kipper smokehouse in Scotland. Mama felt his presence watching over her in that very place, as if he had come to reassure her himself — confirming what she’d already been told: there is nothing to fear beyond this life.

After a week in the hospital, Mama came home. She’d lost her voice from the tube that had helped her breathe during the long hours of surgery. It feels like she still has one foot in the world where angels abide. Something has shifted in her — a quiet certainty born of what she experienced, which only deepens the ground where I’ve placed my own faith.

LESSON: “God’s angels hover near and all about. His Love surrounds you, and of this be sure; that I will never leave you comfortless.”- Complete and Annotated Edition (CE) of A Course in Miracles.