What grows in your garden?

You are not alive because you are breathing, you are not alive just because your heart is beating.
You are alive only in the proportion that you are aware.
~~Osho~~

It has been a sweetly awareness expanding few days.
Two days ago I noticed that apropos of nothing, I was in deep presence with the most mundane things as I was doing them. I was a radiant state of happiness just ironing, and that the sun streaming through the windows was gorgeous; and then the observing that escalated my happiness up another few notches.
I wondered, briefly, if some deepening level of appreciation of life due this slight little air kiss with mortality, is seeping into my cells, replicating with each nanosecond...

Yesterday there were a number of interesting notices about how death, or the realization of, strips the fog from our inner atmosphere.
I read on a blog which I follow that a woman who had had a reoccurance of her breast cancer had died.
All of the comments were so life-affirming and wished her Godspeed.
I smiled at the sweet force of a life that brought out joy in knowing her, rather than a dread of the shared inevitable journey beyond.

I read the eulogy that Steve Jobs' sister delivered at his memorial.
If you haven't read it, I most heartfully encourage you to Google it and read.
What a wonderful perspective to hold of this amazing being and his entire life journey, and his last words brought tears of joy to my eyes.

Last night I watched a documentary that my brother called me out to see: "The Education of Dee Dee Ricks", which I also highly recommend.
A journey of a woman who began it as a self indulgent multi-millionaire, who was diagnosed with breast cancer, whose life intersects with an uninsured contract worker who was also diagnosed with breast cancer.
The transformation in both women is truly like watching a birth: messy, full of pain, and glorious.

And then, today.
Halloween.
Three years ago (in 10 hours and 48 minutes) my son, my only child, went on to do The Next Thing.
His passing was dramatic to observe as a story, but painless to receive, so, ultimately, I have no complaints.
I am not experiencing any trauma today, or even sadness, simply a sweet nostalgia at the amazing, complex and beautiful life he manifested.
I am more abundantly enriched than I could ever communicate by being able to share the walk with him.

All of these reminders. All of them blossoming in beauty.
We are here to live as fully as we can for as long as we travel here.
Just love, appreciate, and when we (as, of course, we will) forget all of that completely, and are wallowing, with or without cause, to let it go as soon as we can.
Like the woman disappearing from the magician's table; gone without a trace.

My visit with the plastic surgeon was uneventful this morning.
I finished 41 days and nights (longer than Jesus in the desert!) on antibiotics just last evening.
He was pleased with the appearance of my breast, scarrishly discolored, but not inflamed with infection.
He sent me home to watch it intently, at the ready to request more meds if infection began creeping back in, otherwise I see him in two weeks for the next fill in the expander.

Life continues its pace anon; I am working pain free, having lunch today with my beloved niece, who is moving tomorrow to beginning massage school in another (awesome) city, and dinner in two nights with some dear friends before they head off to nirvana (in the form of the International Quilt Festival in Houston) this weekend.
What a lovely bouquet of a week!!

A warrior knows that he is waiting and knows also what he is waiting for.
The ultimate accomplishment of a warrior is joy.
~~Carlos Castaneda~~