The flower of life
I lost a dear friend to cancer last Thursday just before going on retreat to Sark. It was tough week, Eben starting school on Monday and all the emotions that brought with it, willing my friend to live long enough to marry on Tuesday, and witness her son’s 8th birthday on Wednesday, for her to pass away peacefully two hours after midnight.
We only became friends seven years ago now, through E’s family and because our eldest boys were of very similar age. We happened to end up in the same Sarnia sea lions swimming group on a Saturday morning, my friend and I sitting on the side line moaning and chatting together while our other halves and eldest boys swam. Our friendship grew from there, I loved catching up with her and putting the world to rights. We loved a good moan, all done in the best of spirits.
When she received her cancer diagnoses over two years ago now, she was living both our fears, of what life might be like faced with an early death and how one manages that while raising two young boys (by then we’d both added to our family). Our friendship deepened over that time, I tried to support her as best I could, we texted regularly, she said I had a knack of always knowing when she’d received bad news and needed some extra support. I gave Reiki where I could, she did her Reiki Level One training with me only last year, and came to yoga too.
We thought she’d gotten better, or at least, we hoped she’d gotten better, but I think we both knew deep down that it was going to come back again, that there was more yet for her to journey through. When it did come back, we were still hopeful that a treatment might work, but she faced one obstacle after another, and during Covid too. I honestly don’t know how she did it. She never moaned to me once about her treatment, just got on with it, enduring periods of separation from her boys due to Covid restrictions, and all the other implications that Covid and government response to Covid brought with it in terms of surgical and cancer care.
When it came back again and the prognosis was not so great, we tried to all stay positive. I’d put a Reiki hand on her at any available opportunity, to calm both of us, and feel as if I might be helping. She told me it did help, but as always I was faced with the reality that while Reiki is amazing and wonderful and healing, it doesn’t necessarily cure. But it does help give comfort, and this is sometimes all people need. It’s a journey of the soul and I was very aware that as her illness worsened, her soul connection deepened.
My friend taught me a lot about living as she was dying. Her strength was like nothing I have encountered previously, and her will! Well, as I kept saying in her last days, as she dug deep to keep going long enough to fulfil her dream of marrying, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. She found her will and she made her way. I will never forget seeing her in church, how she managed to pull that off, in her wedding dress, looking beautiful despite the weight loss and all the other nasty things that cancer does, 35 hours before she died, I will never know. It showed remarkable strength of spirit as much as will.
In the end my friend was probably one of my greatest spiritual teachers, this was her gift to those of us who fear death. It was never lost on me that she should end up on a Reiki courses with two ladies who were at that time struggling with fear of death. My friend never told them that she was probably closer to most in facing that reality. And she did face that reality. And she did what she needed to do. She married, celebrated her two boys’ September birthdays and then she let go, just like that.
The text messages stop two days before she married. She knew her time was very limited, that nothing more could be done, and she savoured every ounce of energy to see through those final days. I knew, but I still texted her anyway, she always made a point of wearing mascara and each day I’d send a different emoji with heart eyes. The last one, I told her how beautiful she looked, how brave she was and how much I cherished our friendship. I’ll never know if she read that message, but it doesn’t matter now. She would have known anyway, how much we loved and cared for her.
The night she died I couldn’t sleep, I sort of knew, and when the news came in, well I just felt empty. The boys and I go to the beach before school each morning and that morning the world looked different. Nature was brighter. The trees sparkled. The sea was glistened. The sky was bright, clouds gently spaced. I saw her then, her presence, it was the profound experience, of knowing that she was in peace and experiencing such bliss and freedom. Words do it no justice, but some of you will probably have had the same experience. There was a sense of the permanent beyond the impermanent, the real beyond the unreal. It was hugely comforting and I laughed out to her through the tears as I swam in the sea, the early morning sun warming me.
I’ve never lost a friend before, younger than me too. It’s changing things, re-prioritising things. In the end we need very little. And what we do need, we store in our hearts. It’s not lost on me that my friend chose to end her life in love. The wedding sermon spoke of love. She taught the grace of love. That’s all she cared about in the end. There’s a lot to take from that. She also taught the strength of letting go - she did that so well in the end too.
I’ve been swamped in emotion all weekend, no space or time to process, I didn’t realise the extent to which our stomach takes it all in. Of course it brings up other stuff, that was literally stuffed in the shadows, that has served its purpose and be let go of now.
This pisces full moon is notoriously emotional, the most emotional one of the year. We process our emotions in our stomach. It’s only appropriate then that I should be feeling all of that and more. Full moons are always one of letting go. I really feel that too. As if the whole year has been spent preparing for now. The equinox follows on Wednesday, and equinoxes are notorious for shifting things.
I can’t tell you what that means for you, only you’ll know that. But if you’ve been doing the inner work, I have a feeling this could be a perspective changing week for you. Another opportunity to step up and live more of your truth, be more of who you are, not sweat the small stuff, or care too much what others think. I came across this lovely quote the other day and it somehow seems appropriate…
“Sometimes just being yourself is the radical act. When you occupy space in systems that weren’t built for you, your authenticity is your activism”. Elaine Welteroth
Essentially, it’s always about oneness and unity though isn’t it, about connection, knowing that we’re all built from the same blueprint. It’s the Flower of Life, one of the basic sacred geometry shapes. It starts with the seed of life, seven overlapping circles that build outward, forming a flower-like pattern that has been used since ancient times. It’s understood to be the basic template for everything in existence. It connects us beyond realms and shows how we are always supported, always part of something.
I was studying this in a different way this afternoon, from the Bhagavad Gita, the notion of karma yoga, in that your only right is to the action, not the fruits - there can be no guarantee of outcome. The outcome is left to a higher source. This is reminiscent of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and reference to Isavara Pranidhanani, implying that there is a higher force which protects the universe, so we surrender our actions to that higher source, and acknowledge that we are not the doer or the enjoyer (which is asmita, ego - prakriti level), but something else instead, something eternal, Purusha then, the Self.
There will always be a connection with my friend. She is not gone, not really. She lives on in her boys and in the essence of this universe. I feel her presence, it tickles me, like the feathers that I keep seeing. She’s there all right. I’m so grateful to her, for her friendship, the love and her lessons on how to better live and love. Thank you beautiful friend - you were a true flower in my life.
Enjoy the full moon and equinox shift!
Love Emma x
