Here is the latest from Kate O’Rourke in Toronto on her personal war with cancer. Post-surgery, she meditates on the bardo, the world between worlds.
dg
In the Tibetan tradition, the place between lives is called “the bardo.” We do not live in a culture that supports a thoughtful meditative approach to recovery and/ or healing. Before the lights are off in the ER, you are literally packed up, and booted out of the hospital with a bag of alcohol swabs and not even a prayer. Your home care nurse is your only real touchpoint – hovering on the transom to the other side – from the entire sugical medical team who asked you your birth date and took your vitals 6 times, drew on your body with a sharpie, rent it asunder and then stapled it all back together.
2 Responses to “Auntie Cake’s Shop: The bardo”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
“I am in limbo; I am moving through, slowly, through my own life, unsure of this new body, and mind, and what happens next. I am stitching myself back together a wee bit everyday.”
Art: when the intimately personal becomes universal. Thanks for sharing this with us.
likewise, our culture does not have a thoughtful, meditative response to illness; it is usually in terms of “battles” to won or lost, not part of the process of living & dying.