On Healing

As I recover from the MOHS surgery that cut out cancer cells spreading across my nose like pearly white moss beneath the skin’s surface, a cancer my dermatologist biopsied the day after I published my book, I find myself reflecting on wounds and healing. And synchronicity.

 

From Russell Lockhart’s book Words As Eggs; Psyche in Language and Clinic, I read of the synchronistic mysteries of psyche and soma and of cancer as an invitation to deepen consciousness. I am mindful of the fine line here between naming an opportunity for reflection that comes after the white space of injury’s descent and an insidious magical thinking that blames the victim. As George Orwell wrote, “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”

 

In the restful stretches of my day, transported by the sounds of the pianist Yiruma to a place of solace while the newly grafted skin roots into my face, thoughts on healing pass like the clouds outside my window. Surrender, grief, self-care that finds the maternal source of gentleness and my deep gratitude for the love of family and friends carry me forward.

 

The skin cancer rooted in my childhood sunburns that leaves a scar in the center of my face resonates with the story of my life that I have just released. Trauma and the suffering of recovery whatever its source takes us into a liminal space that defies description. It is the space that this watercolor came from a few days after my surgery. Lockhart writes, "Trusting the psyche is not an isolated or isolating act. It tends to bring us to the center and to that well at the bottom of the world. Bringing up water from there, each in his own way, with his own effort, is an eros act, not only for ourselves but also for others and for the world. It is this bringing up of psyche from the well and telling it to others that will bring us together.”