Dream Bringer’s Studio

What Matters Most

Years ago, a very good friend of mine, Linda Dashwood, told me that on my birthday I should watch for a message from the Universe. It could come from anywhere, a song, a text, a page in a book. One year, my message showed up in something I misread. It was on a sign in a gift stop. I realized quickly that I had received my message, and went back to look again, but what I’d read wasn’t what it said at all. Still, the misread words were what I needed. My friend is no longer with us, but she remains very dear to my heart. I pass along her birthday instruction often. Watch for a birthday message from the Universe.

My birthday is in May. Each year I write my new birthday message into the front of my journal, so I can be reminded of it regularly. My current message is “What Matters Most”. I’m realizing today that my birthday message must be a very important one, because I got the message twice. First, in a birthday card: “Think of all the things that mean the most to you.” Then again, more succinctly, in the preface of a book, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer: “What matters most.”

In the past months, my health has been what matters most. I had major preventative surgery, taking off my breasts, because I have the BRCA2 breast cancer gene mutation. My future health matters much more than having breasts. I am glad I made the decision.

Now thanks to COVID-19, the requirements of social distancing are showing us what is really important, what matters most. Health, our own, and the health of our loved ones and community, matters more than school, or church, or hockey, or music festivals. When you are going stir crazy from cabin fever, remember what matters most. Call a friend, but don’t go out for coffee. Have a cup while chatting from a distance.

What matters most is love, and love, today, means staying home.

Go slow. Remember your neighbours

A couple of weeks ago, I went for a walk out our road. Our road is a country road. In late winter, the pavement is full of holes, bumps, and frost heaves. Traffic moved slowly. The day was mild, warmer than it had been, and sunny, without a puff of breeze or a single blackfly. It was a perfect day for a walk.

As I walked, I was praying. I was feeling out of sorts, unsure of where things were going, for myself, or for anyone, really. I walked and prayed for insight, a meditative stroll. I walked until I met up with my sister and her husband. I turned to travel back with them. After I left them at the end of their driveway, I knew I had my insight, the sign I needed.

I have lived on this road most of my life. A good number of my neighbours are my siblings and relatives. Others I have known for a very long time. I walk and think about each of them. I am fortunate. In hard times, I have a ready support group, just a short walk away. I too can support them in trouble, as need be. My sign, that day, was to go slow, and remember my neighbours.

This morning, I cancelled church services and meetings until further notice, because of COVID-19. I hate to do this, but for the safety of those we love, we decided we must. My congregations will miss what Sunday morning offers them, a sense of community, sharing with friends, solidarity, and a few moments of peace in a crazy world.

This pandemic is affecting all of us. It is reminding us that everyone around the whole world is a neighbour. Six degrees of separation is all there is between us, six or fewer. When one of us hurts, we all hurt. We just don’t think about it most of the time. And so, today, and for the foreseeable future, maybe, together, we will begin to go slow, and remember our neighbours. May our world right itself, but not as the same world. May our world right itself into a better version, a better version of each of us.

Yes, go slow. Remember your neighbours.

Loneliness will Kill you

I love Brene Brown. I’ve read several of her books, and always delight in any videos I find. One came to me as part of an ongoing conversation of why we love church. Over and over in our conversations, the word “community” comes up. Brene Brown puts more words onto the importance of church, in part that loneliness will kill you, but she also, from her social work and research perspective, points out that we need to be in places where we can recognize that we are all one humanity, where we can sing together, and greet one another in peace.

Brene Brown is always an engaging speaker. Lots of laughs, but with such depth of sincerity and compassion, and thought-provoking insights. Take a look:

Brene Brown at Washington National Cathedral

Has Fear Moved In?

A dream from years ago surfaced in my journal this morning. It was Sept 17, 2001, the last day of the ancient Egyptian calendar. I commented that the world had not ended yet. Despite the tragedies of 9/11, we were still here, and we are still here now.

In the dream, I was in an old house, with friends, including a little one who is now a mama herself, in waking life. We were all going out for a while, and I was the last to leave. I realized the wind had come up, and some of the toys the little one had been playing with were blowing away. I went out to get them, but found very little. Much was gone. An unfamiliar man followed me out of the house, and left the yard. I went back inside with what toys I had rescued. The door was blocked after that, and the man outside looked surprised. He pulled a gun. It seemed that, rather than being a thief, stealing things, he wanted to move things in! He seemed surprised that I was there. Time passed, and I was there with children still, and again. We were expecting trouble, but felt safe.

I wrote in the margin of the page, that Fear was trying to move in. But Fear could not, because I was there. My presence blocked the door. Even when so many had left, I remained. Even when familiar things had disappeared in the wind, I was still there.

Beyond that, I did not write more about what the dream meant to me at the time. Today, reading my thoughts from the days after 9/11, I think how Fear did move in, for many, how Fear has changed how we relate to each other in the larger world and in our neighbourhoods. Fear seems to have flavoured international and political interactions. People have left the old ways, and let Fear in. How I wish we had stayed put, respecting and loving each other like we used to.

Can we somehow get back to that? Can we get back to caring for each other, caring for the children, and feeling safe?

As old as Mom

Today is the day that I am as old as Mom was when she died. It’s been on my mind for a while, but especially this week. It is hard to imagine dying, right now, and hard to imagine my mother facing death at this age. I have so many plans for the future, so much I want to do. I wonder at what point Mom stopped planning. I wonder at what point she realized that planning was useless.

She had metastatic breast cancer for six years. Every time it came back, she fought it. But in December 1995, she didn’t want to fight anymore. My youngest brother begged her to try. It wasn’t what she wanted, but for him, she said she would. She would try. But she never got that far; the cancer was too much, too quickly filling her body, too everywhere.

So it is the day that I am as old as she was when she left us. I catch myself thinking, “This is the day Mom died.” It’s not, of course, but at times this week, the grief has been as fresh as it was in 1995. Why did Mom have to die, and I get to live? I’ve often wondered if her love for us was such that she would bargain with God; that she would take all the breast cancer so we would be free of it.

So sad to think of all this. If I wallow in it, I might drown. But I am alive! I AM ALIVE! I do have a genetic mutation in the BRCA2 gene that makes me more susceptible to breast cancer, at a risk of as much as 80%. I got this mutation from Mom. Mom never had the chance to get genetics testing. Now we have that opportunity, and I did get tested. Then came the hard choice to let go of my breasts. They are gone now, as of August 16, 2019. I chose prophylactic (preventive) mastectomies. I am cancer free, and now much less likely to get breast cancer than the general population.

This is good news! Maybe Mom would have lived a long life if she’d had the chance to get tested, and to have surgery in advance of cancer. Maybe this is the answer to my mother’s prayers. I spent the morning sad, but I am grateful now. I am grateful to be alive and cancer free. I am grateful for the chance to continue in health for a long long time. I am grateful for my mother’s prayers.