The Constellation Learning Newsletter
May 2009

First of all I’d like to thank all of you who took to the time read my Mexican musings from the last newsletter, and also those who took the time to write and comment. I was overwhelmed with the response, the bottom-line of which was, “keep on writing!” And I plan to do so once I arrive on Hill Island for the summer season.

But the highway of life often presents detours - construction or accidents - and even if they’re detours you find delightful, they can way-lay pre-made plans. The ability to "roll with the punches" is no longer a nice trait, it’s an essential one. Indeed, it’s a critical skill for survival in today’s new world climate.

I had a couple of detours this month. And one wasn’t so delightful. But it mirrored back to me personal progress with which I am pleased and that’s the bottom-line for maintaining one’s sanity in turbulent times.

Cynthia Barlow

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~ Monthly Message ~

“Happiness is an attitude: We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.”

-- Francesca Reigler --

Since returning to Toronto last month I’ve been busy with new clients and new opportunities to stretch my wings after a thoroughly cleansing sabbatical. The one-woman show I wrote last year made it into the Toronto Fringe Festival. There will be seven performances. And I’m back on the airwaves June 16th (see announcements below for details). I’ve been out and about and reconnecting with friends. I’ve felt strong and clear and focused since my return a month ago. I actually said to friend that I felt somewhat invincible, so rock sure was I of what I believe—things like everything happens for a reason—and that short of the death of my child, I felt unshakable.

And then I got a call from my son.

A short back story: Michael is my eldest son, now twenty-seven and currently unemployed in the States, a casualty of the economic implosion. Consequently, he is also uninsured. He had been blocked hard in a basketball game three weeks prior and thought he’d cracked a rib. But the pain had been intensifying, he had lost 12 pounds, but he couldn’t afford an emergency room visit. That morning he had coughed up some blood and he was finally frightened enough to call momma. Momma said get to a hospital now and I’ll foot the bill.

Momma also said thank god I live in Canada.

By all rights I should have been worried. I should have felt concerned. It would have been normal. But I could not muster that feeling. I could only feel—for lack of a better description—calm certainty that all was as it should be and worrying about it wasn’t going to help anything. I pushed re-wind on my life with him, wonderful moments we’ve shared and slept soundly that night.

The next morning found me driving to Baltimore, Maryland. I spoke with my brother, a surgeon, who met Mike at the hospital and oversaw his examination and chest x-rays. He said he’d call me before noon.  I had left Toronto at dawn. By noon he had not called. In the medical world, no news is usually not good news.

When he did call he was in doctor mode. Objective. Removed. He spoke highly precise medical-ese. I’ve watched enough medical shows to understand the implications. I pulled off the road immediately and listened—hard. I remember the exact spot on the mountain highway on which I was perched, the crystal clear sky filled with a brilliant sun, the extraordinary quiet.

And I remember my brother the doctor’s words: “Mike has a golf-ball sized mass in his left lung.”

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Yes, sit with that, you who have read my words in this newsletter over the years. Sit with that. And ask yourself, what would you feel? A sharp in-take? A fist to the gut? Would your heart drop to your feet? All normal reactions. If you were afraid. And who wouldn’t be, you say?

I almost tremble as I type these words: not me. I wasn’t afraid.  I should have been, I could have been, but I know that I wasn’t because my body didn’t betray me; there was no physical reaction. A confirmation that I have lived my way into a confidence that can withstand a 7.8 earthquake.

I ended the call and pulled back into traffic to continue another four hours of driving, giving thanks for the tender life of my son and smiling. This was all to be used for good, long-term, not because it was the truth but because I chose to believe it.

But as I drove, professional that I am, I did my own little examination—was I in shock? Or in denial? Or abnormal? No. No, even if the worst was true and this was some sort of death sentence, I knew (from personal experience) that is was also a life sentence. And that Michael had come to his own truth the day before, that he had “fessed up” to himself (and me) about his career choices, about what he really wanted from life in general and his life in particular. He had already decided that now was a good time to take stock, stop trying to please others and start pleasing himself.

Funny how hard it is to listen to ourselves, determine priorities, speak truth, surrender to the call of our soul. Until our body screams so loud we can’t not listen anymore.

Fear: the ultimate truth serum.

Turns out the basketball block had nothing to do with the mass. It was just an interesting coincidence that got Mike’s initial attention to something underneath the surface. The doctors did not know what the mass was. Might be infectious. He was tested for Tuberculosis—that wasn’t it. They put him on a high dosage anti-biotic. By the time I pulled into town, Michael was home taking a nap with his Husky canine, Koda, who wouldn’t leave his side. (Animals—they just know, you know?)

I spoke to Mike today, two weeks to the day after he first coughed up blood. He and Koda are coming to the island for the summer to get healthy, happy and clear and he has not experienced a moment of pain since he made the decision to do so the day of the hospital visit. He sounds great. He has follow-ups scheduled, more chest films and CAT scans but there’s nothing new to be told: the doctors still don’t know what this is. They may never know because if the anti-biotics reduce the mass, that’s good enough for them.

But Mike and I know something they don’t: We know the mass will disappear. It accumulated in his lung which is governed by the 4th or Heart Chakra. It oversees the heart and lungs and issues of self-love and acceptance, of self-honesty and conviction. What the doctors don’t know is that the mass is no longer needed to get Mike’s attention; he’s listening now and is back on course. He had strayed from what he knows is his place in the world, to work with his hands, to create things, to live free and outside.

Kind of like Koda.

Truth: the ultimate health serum.

“Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.”

-- Buddha --

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