My personal journey with cancer has been a parallel process with the pandemic. A tumor was found in the airways of my lungs in March 2020, just as the pandemic was starting to unfold. The last two years we have all been confronted with this larger sickness of the lungs. In Chinese medicine the lungs are associated with grief, sadness and detachment. I believe we humans are really struggling with a larger detachment as a species in this moment. Detachment from ourselves, one another, but especially nature at large. Our bodies mimic patterns in nature, because we are nature. We are the same. Look at our bronchial tree, look at our veins, the tendrils of our heart and our nervous system. They echo the roots of trees, the intertwined curls of streams and river deltas, branches of lightening, and the network of veins of the Vela constellation. We are all woven into this larger complex, beautiful and intelligent system, not separate from it.
When I woke from lung surgery April 23, 2020, I found myself on the 10th floor at UCSF looking down over a grove of eucalyptus. I heard the steady beep of my heart monitor and realized I was alive. I watched the wind moving the trees and fog for hours. I saw the interconnectedness of all things for the first time, an energy or life source that flowed through and connected all things. Every time I follow the wind — flowing through trees, the grass, someones’ hair, I am comforted by the energy that connects us all.