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Today we got the email that the doctors didn't expect Carmon to last the day as her breathing has changed, and that we would be updated as things went on. It's 12:30 a.m. and there's been no subsequent email.
I don't know much about Carmon's life before the beginning of her blog. I know she had some family issues.... bad ones, that even her siblings were dealing with. She was extremely smart and worked for Chevron during an economic downturn, in a position that allowed her inside information. The corporate mind-set nearly killed her spirit, and she left when the economy was tanking... for whatever would come.
She never got to tell us much about her interest and interaction with Native American peoples but they had a great influence on her..... especially after she found her horse, Star. Star was an amazing spirit, and I think he encouraged her to follow a path of healing others, and she had just put that into practice when cancer struck.
She has amazing stories about their time together and how she grew as a person because of it. And since Star, she has been graced with a herd of horses.... and she 'sees' each one as they are. She's had to part with some because they weren't meant to be with the others... but she has this amazing talent for creating quite the band of spirits.
I took this from her blog. She wrote it in June of this year and it is where she went while 'away', with the horses that are now standing somewhere on a mountain in New Mexico...... knowing full well, I am certain, why she is not there and where she is going. In fact, I imagine they are busy getting her back to her heart's horse... Star, who can carry her to what comes next.
June 18, 2011
This time last year I was in surgery getting my skull opened up and a large hematoma from a bleeding melanoma metastasis scooped out of my brain. The first thing that I clearly remember from that experience was waking up in the ICU and seeing Mike walk through the door. For me, it was still the 16th, the day I was airlifted down to UNM's Neurosurgical ICU after I called friends for help, experiencing the proverbial 'worst headache of my life'.As Mike came through the door, I wondered how it was that he had gotten from North Dakota to Albuquerque in the same day.
There is so much of the conscious world from those three days that is lost to me. There are flashes of memory, bits and pieces. Apparently I was present enough to have appeared conscious at times but I don't remember it for the most part. I know I had several brain and full body scans that I have no memory of. I must have been talking though because according to hospital records, I told them I was extremely allergic to IV contrast, which I'm not. Why would they believe someone whose brain was bleeding anyway?
I've thought about going back to those early blog posts and reading them now that a year has passed. I won't though because I think it might be too disturbing for me. I remember in those first days when I was trying to get some sense of control back, that it seemed very important to put all of the pieces together and figure out just what had happened to my physical self every minute of those three days. Now I understand that what was important was what happened in the space in between, when I was 'carried between shadows and light'.
I know that I intended to write about that three day yet timeless experience and I have a feeling that I never did. I know that I started numerous drafts but I could never get it quite right. Now I understand that was because I was trying too hard to explain something that really can't be explained in words. The last thing I clearly remember was being put on the helicopter, then waking up three days later in a private room with IV needles in every possible vein.
What happened in between was that I drifted away...somewhere in between life and death and yet I felt completely loved, held up, and safe. I knew I wasn't dying, but also that it could go either way and yet I was never afraid. I was content to be in that calm space. And then somewhere in the shadows I saw Griton's beautiful eyes shining, surrounded by white lashes in his loving face. Griton, the ground of our healing circle, whose spirit runs so deep into this mountain that his eyes pulled me back like a magnet and I was held in his gaze.
Corazon, our healer, was there in the circle and I felt that he would give me whatever it was that I needed to hold spirit to body. I was safe, held, loved and healed by our herd. Each time I began to drift away again, there was Brillo to carry me back. With Griton it was his eyes, and Corazon's immense healing presence, and with Brillo I would feel myself on his back, his mane like fine silk in my fingers as he would carry me back to the circle. The other boys, Llego, Valeroso and Mio were there as well, providing support with their presence.
And there, finally, is the story of what I experienced in those days when I was not truly present in my body. Other people that I've told this to have asked if the herd treated me any different after that and the answer is yes. All of last summer and through the winter they understood that one of their members was weak and injured and they were very careful with me. I feel closer to them than ever before.
t was a timeless place and experience and one that I can touch back into just by remembering. I have been forever changed by this last year, in every possible way. We are on fire watch right now, with a new fire in the forest just to the west of us. There are things I find I want to say about what is different in me and the next few days as I watch the news may be the time for it.
POSTED BY LIFE AT STAR'S REST AT 6:11 PM 6 COMMENTS
LABELS: BRAIN TUMOR, CANCER, HEALING
(All photos are from Carmon's blog and all credit is due there.)
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