60% CHANCE CANCEROUS

About three or four months ago a mole formed on my back, atop my lower spine. It wasn't a bother, and moles and warts always have come and gone on my body, so I didn't pay much attention. About a month ago the mole became tender and sometimes hurt. With my camera held behind my back I photographed it. It displayed a black center, which wasn't a good sign. I'd have it looked at after returning from my upcoming visa trip. Last week it began bleeding, another danger sign.

So, last week in Valladolid, within an hour after walking into the clinic without an appointment, I was lying belly-down on the operating table. The surgery took 40 minutes to cut out what the surgeon called a tumor, not a mole. When the thing was brought before my face there on the operating table, I saw that 1cm (7/10ths inch) of tissue around and below the tumor had been removed. When I asked my surgeon what her guess might be, just by looking at it, of the possibility that it was cancerous, she replied "60 percent."

That doesn't mean that now I might have a 60% chance of having an active cancer, for the removal of 1cm of flesh from around the tumor was an attempt to remove potential cancerous "roots."

On the Internet I'd already compared my black-headed, bleeding tumor with images depicting various forms of cancer, and 60% sounded like a proper guess to me. Also, already I'd told the surgeon that if further steps needed to be taken -- radical surgery, chemotherapy or whatever -- I wouldn't take them. From what I've seen, when you're 70 or older and take such measures, your quality of life deteriorates drastically in both the physical and mental realms. Some people want to prolong their lives to the very last possible second, no matter what condition they end up in, but I'm the opposite of that, and I insist on keeping in control of this new situation from the very beginning.

I saw no point of a biopsy being made; My black-topped tumor resides in a plastic bottle next to me as I write this at the hut. If a biopsy were to indicate that more cancerous cells remain in my body, it wouldn't change at all the fact that each day -- as has been the case for decades -- I make every effort to live as if each day is my last. If a biopsy showed no sign of cancerous cells remaining, it might weaken my will to continue my daily discipline of trying to stay conscious of the uncounted malfunctions and deterioration our bodies are vulnerable to. And that might diminish the intensity of my awareness that what I have right now is exquisite.

In fact, after digesting the "60% chance" news, I found myself unusually lighthearted and encouraged.

That's because, often during these last decades, sometimes I've been haunted by the thought that maybe all my talk about Nature study leading me into a higher level of spirituality was just talk. For a long time I've felt like a soldier approaching the front, who all through training felt confident that he'd always hold the line in real battle, but also wondering if with the first close bullet the knees might buckle, or that even he'd find himself running away. Now with the front that all us living things face looming closer than ever before, I've taken a modest yet potentially lethal flesh wound, and I find myself not faltering at all. In fact, now I find myself even more than before focused on and dedicated to the path I've chosen.

And, what is that "path"? It's one meant to honor the artistry and benevolence with which the Universal Creative Impulse has genetically programmed me, and inspirited me with a tiny sacred part of its own Self. I honor this Creative Impulse by -- as consciously as I can -- being myself, and following my path with gusto to its very end, wherever, whenever and however that inevitably comes.