Choosing LIFE! - A Dramatic Twist in the Path

I choose life!

Facing my deepest fear

Photo taken at Kealia Graveyard surrounded by countless Portuguese relatives who immigrated from the Azores and Medeiros Islands to Kauai in the 1870’s. Here I’m hanging out with my great-grandmother Rosie, great-grandfather Joseph and great uncle Eddie! This is my favorite place in the world where I have always experienced deep peace.

Aloha readers!

It’s been a long time since I updated my blog. Life has been full and I’ve been tossed like a Greek salad in the last months! This intense reality has left me focused on the pure moment of NOW with no excess energy to spend online. My last blog post had Syris and I on our way to Mexico for more cancer treatment, time in California to tie up loose ends (we brought two horses to Kauai!) and seeing various doctors for treatment. When we arrived back home on sweet Kauai at the end of March I found the travel and all the effort it took to sell Wind Horse Sanctuary, make a move 3,000 miles across the ocean and liquidate a retreat center had dearly taken it’s toll upon my health. Unfortunately I found out that the cancer had spread in my lungs, liver, spine and was starting to effect my quality of life.

Isn’t it funny how when you stop running about like a chicken with it’s head cut off, life catches up with you? Well that is exactly what happened! We arrived back home and BOOM, I started walking with a cane upon the advice of my awesome Physical Therapist who looked me frankly in the eye and told me that if I didn’t use the cane I would blow out my hip and end up in a wheelchair. NOOOOOOO! So I made peace with my gimpy body and learned to embrace and love ‘Freida’ my cane. (She even partner dances with me sometime!) The next blow was my lungs protesting with crazy coughing fits which left Syris and I sleepless for weeks. For the last six weeks I have been sleeping propped up on pillows as my coughing fits were so severe when I laid down. Add to this picture a new addition of bone pain in my left hip and I was at my wit’s end!

I am incredibly blessed to be surrounded by intelligent, proactive, helpful, experienced nature based and allopathic doctors here on Kauai. (90% of them are wimmin, go figure!!) The past two months has been spent going from one doctors appointment to a scan, x-ray and being immersed in the medical system here. Luckily the hospital is a beautiful setting with tropical flowers, birds, lovely trees and the grace of Kauai infused through out it’s open air hallways. The openness and kindness I experience here is much easier to integrate compared to the Northern CA medical world I came from. Thank goddess!

In searching for ways to alleviate the incredible pain I was feeling, difficulty breathing and other symptoms one word of advice kept coming through from ALL my practitioners which was, “Tara, I know you don’t want to, but we suggest you do chemotherapy.” When even your naturopathic and acupuncturist doctor suggests you do chemotherapy to improve your quality of life it’s time to pay attention! So I allowed this thought form and possibility to enter into my limitless realm of possibilities.

I found extreme resistance when faced with this thought. I was the ‘all natural girl’, the one who was curing her Stage 3 Cancer Diagnosis 100% naturally. I had stood upon a mountaintop and proclaimed my truth far and wide to all who could hear it, “Chemotherapy kills people more than cancer does!.” I was featured on pod casts, interviewed by various famous people in the holistic cancer community, made videos and wrote articles with this simple truth. How could I do a 180 degree turn upon my basic principle for healing to embrace chemotherapy to save my life? Could it save my life? What if it killed me like I preached it would?

Fortunately I have a wide community of very aware people to assist me through my challenging moments. I want to give a special shout out to ‘The Work’ of Byron Katie and particularly two talented teachers trained in this modality for questioning one’s reality, Helena Montelius and Bethany Webb. Both of them have gone through similar health circumstances where they had to question their own belief system to regain their health and thankfully fate put them both on my path at the perfect time. With their help I was able to slowly make peace with the reality of allowing chemo, my new healing nectar into my body.

Finding peace in the belly of the beast: The biggest truth of what I’m learning is it’s all about a STATE of MIND! I can make this reality whatever the heck I want. Chemotherapy was my WORST FEAR (dragons 🐉 and demons 👹 and all) for years ever since my dear friend Deb Hubsmith died. I vowed I would NEVER do it! What peculiar change of mind occurred to welcome in the medicine i abhorred?

It’s called LIFE folks! You see I have this amazing son whom is 26 and is accomplishing some brilliant deeds in the world. I want to see his life unfold more than anything! When push comes to shove my belief in life far exceeds any attachment to fear about chemo. I KNOW I can get through this hurdle although this past week in the first round, it was extremely challenging to dance with the mind worms of the toxic medicine. 🐛 🌟 Darkness be gone! I’m calling in all my angels to make it through this five month gauntlet. ✨🙌🏽✨

There is something highly alchemical about drinking in this heavy medicine to call in the light. If I take in this substance that could just as well kill me, but allow it to transform me to my highest self, how absolutely awesome is that?

I see it like one of those reoccurring nightmare where you’re chased by your worst fear but then have the courage one day to ask the putrid villain what it wants. Instead of running away you discover the monster just wanted to give you a hug. Could chemo be like this for me? It very well could be if I allow the magic and mystery of the great shadow into my soul.

Facing my fears. Bring the darkness into the light. Calling on my highest power for the most transformational healing possible! Watch me fly, like the Phoenix from the flames! 🔥

I shall not shrink from the fear that calls me to witness my greatest truth. We are all powerful magicians of the soul! 🙌🏽

At the beginning of my health journey two and a half years ago I' know I ruffled some feathers with my dogmatic viewpoint of the ‘right’ way to heal cancer. I deeply apologize to anyone I might have offended with the fervor of my message. I see now that I was affected by a very traumatic dose of fear after seeing my best friend of 19 years, Deb, undergo allopathic treatment for Acute Myeloid Leukemia. After spending countless months at the hospital with her, I was afraid to follow in her footsteps and undergo the suffering she experienced . I associated her death with allopathic treatment and ultimately chemotherapy. I now see that her path was hers alone and I can create whatever story I desire! I am now rewriting the script. I understand now that there are many paths to healing and this path is damn hard enough without placing judgement on another for their choice of treatment. Besides, cancer is such a complicated dis-ease that one thing might work for one person that might not work for another. My apologies to anyone who was brazed by my fiery mission to convince the world of something that I now see is absolutely not true. Chemotherapy can indeed heal and I intend for this to be my story now!

In conclusion, I find myself committed to a five month schedule of chemotherapy. I pray that it heals me, lessons the pain, improves my breathing and brings me to a stronger and wiser version of myself. In the next week or two my long blond/brown hair will fall out and I will look like a bald alien. I am digging into the deepest strength I possess to face these mental and physical hurdles. I have been given a challenge and I will not back down in the face of my greatest fears. Please help visualize me as healing and whole with a long life on my beloved ancestral island of Kauai. I so long to dance effortlessly as my magnificent body once carried me and I would love to embrace that reality once again!

For a vulnerable look and journal of my experiences with gorgeous Kauai, horses, Xaria and soon to be fun wig photos please follow me on Instargram. Due to Facebook being completely overwhelming I am not much on it, but I am loving the creative flow of Instagram.

Mahalo for all your love, care, prayers, support and all you have given me over the years. Your support means the world to me!

With deep gratitude and love,

Tara

My biggest lesson of this crazy cancer dance is this:

Embrace each day

Live each day as it’s your last

As Mary Oliver said, “Tell me, what is it you are going to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I will keep saying it again and again!