Angel Numbers

Turning to the next page I found a phone number, written upside down and at an awkward angle across the page. The phone number ended with an extension… 127… which was underlined… three times.

I turned the page again and found a silly poem.

The poem was surrounded with samples of a person’s signature… Emily something… written several times, the way someone practices a signature with the last name of a schoolgirl’s crush. One of the signatures at the top of the page had a halo drawn over the E.

The rest of the journal’s pages were blank… just waiting to be filled. Upon returning home, I went into our study, where one entire wall is bookshelves, floor to ceiling. An overflow of books laid in scattered piles across the floor in front of the shelves. From another shelf on the opposite side of the room I pulled out a reference book titled Angel Numbers 101, because I wanted to look up the meaning of underlined number – 127. The number 127 means “You’re on the right path… stay positive and keep doing what you are doing.”

I studied the signatures more and determined that Emily’s last name was Martin. Emily Martin. On a whim, I googled Emily Martin, which took me to emilymartin.com and a page about a book exhibit that had just opened in San Francisco (2012). The exhibit, mysteriously titled “Exploding the Codex,” was about books and storytelling. I read:

“These books go beyond the traditional format to unveil new ways of presenting and telling stories. Often theatrical or stage-like in their presentation, they pull the viewer into their individual dramas and diverse varieties of form and presentation. The exhibition explores the ways in which a book’s size and dimensions determine our relationship to it and what it is trying to tell us. One can choose between the intimacy of a tiny journal, private and curious, easily hidden as if keeping a secret between reader and teller…”

In that moment of reading, I imagined myself an actress, standing on a stage, surrounded by bookshelves, and holding a mysterious journal in my hand – a secret codex – and I was being pulled into storytelling of the most unconventional nature. Of course, it was all symbolic, and it was a powerful message.

And so, I share this message now, because I believe it is meant for all of us. We each author our own life narratives through our responses to our personal situations… our thoughts… our words… and our choices of action. Life is filled with mystery, and uncertainty, which often requires us to be patient as things continue to play out, and it requires us to respond creatively and positively. “We won’t be askew.” Smile and stay positive.

For tools to help you author your own life narrative go to this page.

Food for the Writer’s Soul

Writers are fed with their own life experiences and with the well-written books of other writers. Books are like appetizers, while experiences are the main course. This past month, friends and family recommended books of real substance, all of which I read ravenously. At night time, I’m rather like a doll, whose eyes close when placed in a reclining position. Once lying in bed, I’m seldom able to read beyond one page. Not so with these recent reads:

Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber by KenWilbur – compelling story about a couple’s struggle with cancer and their journey to spiritual healing,five-years through illness, treatment, and death.

Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard by Elizabeth Murray – stunning memoir of a young woman, growing upwith parents who were drug addicts. She finds herself living on the streets of New York at the age of 15 after her mother died of AIDS. This is a wonderful book for teens about resilience.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane: a Novel by Lisa See – powerful story about the destinies of a mother and daughter separated at birth. The baby is left near an orphanage, wrapped in a blanket with a tea cake in its folds. When Li-yan comes of age, she leaves her remote mountain tea-farming village for an education, a business and city life, while her daughter, Haley, is raised in California by loving adoptive parents.

Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II by Vicki Croken – remarkable true story of James Howard “Billy” Williams, a British adventurer, who entered into the teak trade, navigated the jungles of Burma in the company of elephants, became deeply attached to these highly intelligent animals and led them to help evacuees.

Bioregulatory Medicine: An Innovative Holistic Approach to Self-Healing by Thom, DDS, ND, Maffitt Odell, OMD, ND, L.Ac., Drobot, NMD, and Pleus, MD, DDS, OMFS and Higgins Kelley, MNT – comprehensive and evidence-based book about a holistic medical model that has been refined for over five thousand years by some of the brightest minds in medicine, science and philosophy.

What strikes me about all these books is the common themes of human experience, illness, resilience and spirituality – food for the soul. I picked up Bioregulatory Medicine this past Friday to prepare for a magazine interview and tour at Providence’s new BIOMED Center. The book was published two months ago, and I wish it had been available two years ago, when our son’s neurological symptoms were surfacing. I’m eager to learn more about the center’s leading-edge non-invasive diagnostics and their natural and personalized approach to treating diseases like cancer. I may add a biomed chapter to my book and suggest this gentler approach for treating pediatric cancers.

Practiced in Europe, bioregulatory medicine is beginning to challenge the conventional allopathic approach to medicine currently prevailing in the U.S. Here’s a quote describing the difference between the two approaches:

“Western allopathic medicine relies on drugs that result in an opposite effect of the symptoms. From Greek roots, allopathic literally means ‘opposite of the disease.’ The model is based on using drugs that work against out biology to suppress disease symptoms. Here lies the distinction: Allopathic medicine treatments suppress biology while bioregulatory medicine supports it… the body’s natural ability to heal is profound and should be facilitated, not suppressed.”

In bioregulatory medicine, organic and whole foods support the body’s natural ability to heal, and the writer’s world, inspirational books support the mind’s ability to write.

One Voice in a Sea of Voices

Neil’s young voice was one of many to speak out about DIPG Awareness and Childhood Cancer in general. This week a few more voices are striving to be heard in Washington, D.C. Three days ago, the DIPG advocacy group issued a press release. The header expresses a sense of urgency – A Moonshot for Kids: DIPG Awareness Resolution H.Res.69 Runs out of Time as Childhood Cancer Advocates Return to Capitol Hill. It continues:

“Since the DIPG Awareness Resolution was first introduced in January of 2016, roughly 1200 more children have died of the deadly brain cancer while the bill has had no attention from House Leadership despite growing support nationwide. The DIPG Advocacy Group returns to fight for this bill which boldly confronts the lack of human values in the medical research industry.”

It concludes with the strong voice of a mother, Janet Demeter, who lost her child, Jack, age 4, to DIPG:

“…it [DIPG] exemplifies in a powerful way the marginalization of childhood cancers and lack of funding for research. Every child’s life deserves hope, but there is none for these children with DIPG. The first iteration of this bill we used to call, ‘Moonshot for Kids.’ Most experts familiar with the disease agree that, if they could find the cure to this one, they might just find the cure to brain cancer. I know they can if science put a man on the moon 50 years ago.”

To put this into perspective, according to the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), while about 3,560 children will be diagnosed with a brain or central nervous system (CNS) tumor this year, it is estimated that 16,830 adults (9,490 men and 7,340 women) will die from primary cancerous brain and CNS tumors. DIPG, one of the deadliest pediatric diseases with a dismal less-than-1% survival rate, has an average age of incidence between 5 and 9 years old. Diagnosed at age 19, Neil was even more of an outlier. He sat on the cusp of childhood and adulthood, just old enough to make his own bold decisions regarding treatment and to clearly articulate the experience of the disease. When DIPG robbed him of his ability to speak and to write about the experience, he spoke to us with his eyes, and this we documented with a few telling photographs.

Stories show far more than statistics, and the sea of voices telling the stories intend to create a big wave. I can imagine Neil’s spirit, riding the crest with a whole bunch of younger souls, all destined to create a sea of change. That is the objective of my writing and sharing his story.

Word’s Worth

Etymology – the study of words. Pen – from Middle English, denoting a feather with a sharpened quill that can be dipped in ink for writing; derived from Latin penna, meaning ‘feather.’ When I was around 7 years old, our family traveled to Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. I remember my souvenirs, a white quill pen and ceramic ink well. Later I married a writer, who for the past 25 years has been my best friend and my teacher, sharing this crazy life and helping me hone my tools and my craft.

He is sitting at his desk, next to mine, and just asked me, out of the blue, where his Exacto penknife disappeared to. I have absolutely no idea!

He has a website, netscribe.com, and here’s a pointed piece he published there a few years ago, about bumper stickers and writing.

The feather, whence the pen

Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men,

Dropped from an angel’s wing.

~ William Wordsworth

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