His high endeavors are an inward light / That makes the path before him always bright.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
The high endeavors of many women who light pathways for others are featured by Melanie Young on her weekly “Fearless Fabulous You!” show. My story was included this past Monday.
Melanie Young wrote, “Diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer, Heidi Bright endured 24 months of treatments and a dire prognosis. Now in radical remission she’s written Thriver Soup with more than 250 practical tips for healing.”
May my high endeavors bring light to your path.
Thriver Soup Ingredient
Fearless Fabulous You! is broadcast live on Mondays at 4 p.m. EST on W4WN Radio – The Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (http://www.talk4radio.com/) on the Talk 4 Media Network (http://www.talk4media.com/). Listen and be inspired.
You have the glittering beauty of gold and silver, and the still higher lustre of jewels, like the ruby and diamond; but none of these rival the brilliancy and beauty of flame. What diamond can shine like flame?
What diamond can shine like flame? More than a million diamond nanoparticles that are created every second in a burning candle flame.
Chemistry professor Wuzong Zhou at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland discovered during 2011 that diamond nanoparticles exist at the centers of candle flames. The diamond particles are burned away in the fire.
This explains part of the natural human attraction to candle light for sacred rituals, including lighting candles for the deceased.
I recently lit a candle for my deceased son Brennan while visiting St. Paul’s Cathedral. At the time I didn’t know I was burning up millions of bits of diamonds. How like the life of my brilliant son, shining brightly for nineteen years, burning up in the heat and pressure of his life, and then adding illumination to my life.
Thriver Soup Ingredient:
Lighting a candle to commemorate the passing of a loved one can bring a momentary, tiny sense of peace. Many Catholic churches are open during the day and have candles that can be lit. You will be creating and burning diamonds that can ascend, as heat and carbon dioxide, with your emotions and thoughts toward the heavens.
Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
Buddha, The Dharmapada
By lighting a candle through Thriver Soup and sharing its message of options with others, the light of genuine hope among cancer patients is increasing.
On Saturday, Jessica Brown with the Fox19 Morning Show in Cincinnati shared the camera with me:
Chad Young, Program Director with WKCT-AM, Bowling Green, KY
John Maciel, KW Magazine on 98.5 FM CKWR, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
And a prerecorded show with Matt Nie, Community Focus, 89.1 WBSD FM, Burlington, WI, will air this summer.
By sharing the light, we can make it possible for more people to survive beyond a cancer diagnosis. Thank you for sharing the light with me.
Thriver Soup Ingredient:
Sharing these links with others can light even more candles of hope with options. I would love to hear how the tips in Thriver Soup are lighting your way.
Of all the things humans can acquire, the Buddha recognized nothing was more important than good health. This Sunday, June 5, is National Cancer Survivors’ Day, a day I celebrate my good health with nearly five years free of evidence of cancer and free of residual medical treatment.
There are nearly 14.5 million people in the United States living after a cancer diagnosis, according to the National Cancer Survivors’ Day Foundation. Some are still in treatment, others are post-treatment.
I am blessed to have learned about and applied so many solutions to these issues. More than 250 practical tips are shared in the book Thriver Soup. My top ten tip list is available free when you subscribe to my blog in the right frame of the page.
A few easy tips were shared on Waves of a New Age through a conversation with host Judy Peace this past Tuesday on WAIF 88.3 FM. Watch for a recording of our conversation to be posted.
Here are three of several shared on the air:
Start every breakfast with a cooked apple (Thriver Soup pg. 113);
Focus on body sensations when meditating (Thriver Soup pg. 338); and
Put on some lively music and move your body (Thriver Soup pg. 171).
Small yet incremental changes can make a big difference in our health and enhance our long-term survival. I’m sure the Buddha will be smiling.
Thriver Soup Ingredient:
Solutions to hundreds of healing issues are available at your fingertips through Thriver Soup.
Rivers of living water are to be poured out over the whole world, to ensure that people, like fishes caught in a net, can be restored to wholeness.
Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard of Bingen, German Benedictine abbess and founder of scientific natural history in Germany, believed that the Divine pours out living water upon the earth to bring healing to all. She believed people can be restored to wholeness.
It has happened for me. This year I celebrate that I have lived longer than my mother lived.
This is significant in my eyes, because she passed from breast cancer. I, also, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I now have flowed past her last birthday and have outlived her. I have exhaled a huge sigh of relief.
I’m not the only one snared by the family cancer net. My mother was diagnosed when I was a tween. One of my sons was the same age when I was diagnosed with a sarcoma. It definitely appeared to be a pattern. A pattern that needed to be eliminated.
The first step, of course, was being aware of this pattern. On its own, this acknowledgement reduces its strength. It frees us up somewhat from carrying out the repetition compulsion. Now at least part of the burden has been lifted from his shoulders. Of course, this brings me even more relief.
And a restoration of some wholeness.
Thriver Soup Ingredient:
Sometimes families have patterns of illness or of passing. Being aware of the patterns is the first step in healing them.
“There were times when Heidi Bright prepared to die after being diagnosed with a terminal cancer in July 2009.
“Today Bright delivers a message of hope and healing through her book ‘Thriver Soup’ and speaking to groups. This is the third traditionally published book by the Milford author.”
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin. Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Matthew 6:28-29, Christian Bible
The lilies in my neighbor Jennifer’s yard had grown so much that “on a whim” she was outside, digging up a large swathe of them. Just as my son and I were walking by—which we only do once every week or two.
Had we walked by an hour earlier or later, she would not have been working on the lilies and they would not have been available.
The timing of her whim proved perfect. She offered them to me. In time to plant for Mother’s Day.
Lilies are considered by some to symbolize motherhood. This arises from an ancient Greek myth that the goddess Hera’s milk overflowed, and the milk that fell to the earth splashed and formed white lilies.
White lilies often appear in paintings of the Madonna when being told she will bear the Christ Child, once again tying the flower to motherhood and new beginnings. This new beginning extends to restoration of innocence for the souls of the departed.
My own mother is among the departed–I lost her decades ago to breast cancer. And I lost my son Brennan less than a year ago.
These flowers aren’t the first lilies to show up near a holiday. A stylized lily, referred to as the fleur-de-lis, was on a red vase that appeared on my porch in time for Christmas—a surprise package I believe Brennan had a hand in getting delivered. Now bunches of the real deal are growing in my yard.
The connection is clear to me. I believe Brennan, and perhaps my mother as well, had something to do with my neighbor’s “whim” and the timing of my walk, so I would have lilies in his memorial garden in time for Mother’s Day. And there were enough to plant some in the front yard, adorning an area designated for my other son’s plants. I look forward to their summer glories.
Even if a mother lives for a hundred years, She will constantly worry about her eighty-year-old child. Do you wish to know when such kindness and love ends? It doesn’t even begin to dissipate until her life is over!
“The Kindness of Ultimate Compassion and Sympathy,” The Filial Piety Sutra
A mother’s kindness and love remains strong throughout her life. I absolutely loved being a mother. I cherished those little arms wrapped around me, that soft sweet breath in my ear, the giggles as we played together.
That is only part of why losing a child is considered the toughest tragedy a human being can face.
And it makes Mother’s Day particularly painful. There is an emptiness, a hole, that nothing can ever fill. There is an ache that will never disappear. It is like a broken hand that leaves one impaired throughout life.
My first Mother’s Day without my son Brennan is this weekend. I read of another mother who lost her only child to heroin, and another who lost two sons to heroin in one night.
So while my heart aches for Brennan, I feel deeply grateful for my second child. Out of my six pregnancies, he is the only one alive today.
I cherish our time together. I now have a little time to read books he suggests so we can talk about them. We have a weekly ritual of eating out. And we discovered Escape Room adventures during which we are locked in a room for an hour and have a series of puzzles to solve. We’ll be doing one on Mother’s Day.
Brennan would have loved participating with us. I will invite his spirit to join us on this fun adventure. I will make the most of my time with Jason. And I will embrace both the incredible joy and unbearable agony of motherhood.
Thriver Soup Ingredient
One possible way to celebrate Mother’s Day and enjoy connecting with family members is with a Room Escape adventure. There are many companies offering them in major cities across the country.
At present I absolutely want to paint a starry sky. It often seems to me that night is still more richly coloured than the day; having hues of the most intense violets, blues and greens. If only you pay attention to it you will see that certain stars are lemon-yellow, others pink or a green, blue and forget-me-not brilliance. And without my expatiating on this theme it is obvious that putting little white dots on the blue-black is not enough to paint a starry sky.
Vincent Van Gogh
forget me nots
This 19th century Dutch post-Impressionist painter was able to perceive the hues in the stars, even the brilliance of forget-me-not blue. I can’t see those colors in the night sky, yet I like greeting them hovering overhead when I come home at night and walk from my garage to my house.
I missed the stars Tuesday night when I arrived home in the rain after my first Compassionate Friends meeting. I finally had the energy and interest to try out this group of people who meet to work through the grief of losing a child. Display posters held beloved photographs of lost children, from infants to middle-aged adults.
How fortunate we are today to have the ability to look at color images of our children. Only a century ago I would not have had photos showing my son Brennan’s eye color–camouflage green–even if I would have been lucky enough to have a single picture of him.
There is a legend encapsulating the value of remembering someone’s gaze through eye color. In this story, the Christ Child is sitting on Mother Mary’s lap. He wants others to experience her heavenly gaze, so he touches her eyes, then waves his hand over the ground. Blue forget-me-nots appear.
Blue forget-me-nots have sprung up in my garden this spring, right next to Brennan’s developing garden. Through these flowers Mary gazes upon me and upon Brennan’s garden. And Brennan himself has witnessed her loving gaze on the other side. Now he is in her care. She is the best of mothers.
Thriver Soup Ingredient
A child is never forgotten. The grief might shift and there might eventually be acceptance, but we all will always remember our children. Perhaps some forget-me-nots would be a nice addition to a garden in memory of how cherished they are to us.
“I have no wrath. Should someone give Me briars and thorns in battle, Then I would step on them, I would burn them completely.”
Isaiah 27:4, New American Standard Bible®
Did you ever wish your weeds would just disappear?
Even the Hebrew Bible describes the Divine as one who would step on and completely burn up weeds.
I get even better revenge on my weeds. I eat the ones I recognize.
Some weeds provide wild, natural, bitterly nutritious greens that can be added to salads or smoothies. I prefer smoothies so I can gulp them down rather than taste the bitterness.
During this past weekend I went on an edible weed walk at Turner Farm in Indian Hill, Ohio. Nancy Ogg from Shady Grove Farm in Kentucky provided expert guidance for what common weeds could be eaten.
Please do not pick weeds without knowing exactly what they are and what parts are safe to consume.
I asked if dandelion flower stems were edible. Nancy said yes, though they are quite bitter, probably because they are the most nutritious part of the plant. Smoothie filler for me.
Apparently violet blossoms are safe, because they can be added to salads for color. At the end of the class each of us took home a small jar of violet jelly. Delicious!
We found three black mustard plants growing in the compost heap. I brought them home because I love stir-fried black mustard seeds with fresh radishes, a great anti-inflammatory meal for cancer thrivers. I planted the foot-tall weeds in my compost bed.
Because weeds resist cultivation, my friend Kathleen suggested I threaten the plants periodically by waving and whirring a weed wacker over them so they’ll think they are wild and free.
In the meantime, I forage on my property, adding a little variety beyond dandelions with hairy bittercress and garlic mustard. No recognized weed will be left behind.
Thriver Soup Ingredient:
Here is the recipe I use for my mustard seed stir-fry, using black mustard seeds:
The high endeavors of many women who light pathways for others are featured by Melanie Young on her weekly “Fearless Fabulous You!” show. My story was included this past Monday.
