JenLynnArt

As I wrote about earlier, books have always been a great teacher for me. Although I used to enjoy an occassional fiction novel, for most of my life, I find that I gravitate toward non-fiction. Must be that Scorpio Moon and 3rd house Mercury conjunct Saturn (my chart ruler) — trying to solve for x; the need to understand how and why everything works and my never-ending insatiable quest for knowledge that keeps me searching.

As part of this healing journey, I started collecting and reading books dealing with all different aspects of life, death and spirituality. A few I had mentioned in previous posts: Becoming Supernatural, The Power of Now and You Can Heal Your Life. Along with these outstanding books, I acquired others on Chakras, Crystals, Numerology, Esther and Jerry Hicks’ book on Manifesting, Barbara Brennan’s seminal work on Healing through the Human Energy Field, Cyndi Dale’s Encyclopedia of the Subtle Body, Don Miguel Ruiz’ book, The Four Agreements and Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

One of the books I purchased during this time was the memoir, When Breath Becomes Air. It was written by the brave, brilliant, poetic neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi, who was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at age 36. During the course of his truncated life, Paul examined what makes a life meaningful in the face of death. Flipping through the book again, stopping, and rereading sections, I wept as I reread his closing paragraph, written for his baby girl Cady, who was just 8 months old.

“There is perhaps only one thing to say to this infant, who is all future, overlapping briefly with me, whose life, barring the improbable, is all but past.

That message is simple:

When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.”