Living as a Creative Act

One of the things I love about Creativity, is all the glorious forms it takes. A friend of mine has been “creatively” living with cancer for much longer than she or any of us thought was possible by utilizing homeopathic, herbal, traditional, as well as way-outside-the-box options. Her blog is full of intimate details of the living/dying process that humble me as a reader. Most recently, she spoke of perspective—that thing we all have available to us, at any time, free of charge, if only we’ll allow it.

She writes, “For the past 3 weeks I've needed 1 unit of blood a week. It's lucky that I get eased into most of this stuff slowly. If I'd gone from once every few months to once a week, I would've been a wreck. But now, each week, I think, "Oh good, only one unit!" My, how our perspective can change.”

Like many people, I’ve lost friends and family to various forms of cancer. I’ve watched the battle, the hair loss, the nausea, the lethargy, the weight loss, the bloating. Out of habit, I’ve thought of it as watching a loved one die from this terrible illness.

Indigo Crone has shown me another perspective, that of living with a condition called cancer. At any moment, she’s likely to go into hemorrhage or be overcome with nausea or fatigue, but in between those and other debilitating symptoms, she is up playing board games with friends, watching a play at the local theater, shopping (albeit slowly) at her favorite Community Market, attending a gathering in her honor (above), keeping all of us Blog-friends updated, and most notably, observing and luxuriating in the beauty of nature around her—the birds and flowers that surround her home—grateful for every day, every hour, every minute as a gift of life.

I marvel at the possibility of global transformation if we all lived life more like that.

We gathered, a huge crowd of us whose lives she’s touched by her presence on earth, to celebrate and support her in one big love-fest of a fundraiser. It occurs to me, we don’t have to wait for pending death, or large gatherings to tell those who have inspired us that we care. Start today.