Knowing thyself

Today I did a little exercise in letting my intuitive self take over and give me a clue as to what I should write about. I was sitting at Huz’s desk (since he is away) My gaze flickered over his books (around twenty current and ongoing reads) and my hand (of its own accord) reached out to pull out a collection of poems by Langston Hughes. When I opened the book to a ‘random’ page, the poem that emerged was short and sweet, the message clear.

Final Curve

When you turn the corner

And you run into yourself

Then you know that you have turned

All the corners that are left.

How funny and strange to receive such a confirmation out of the blue. For the last week or so, I have been immersed in exploring the Gene Keys, a book that delves into unlocking the mysterious higher purpose hidden in our DNA, giving looking within a whole new meaning. How and why did I arrive here?

It all started some time last year with Amu urging me to find out exactly what time I was born (her being a big astrology enthusiast) so we could figure out my natal chart. All I needed was the location, date and time of my birth. Hitherto, I had no idea what time I was born, I thought that information had gone on into the next world with my mother, a thought that made me feel so sad and defeated. Why did I never bother checking my birth certificate? There it was, in plain sight. It only took me fifty years to find out.

Star signs, or Sun signs and the various characteristics associated with each have always piqued my curiosity even when I hadn’t even heard of the word archetypes.

In the spirit of fun, I dug around my personal planetary placements and found out so many new things about myself that I wasn’t aware of before.

There are many aspects of having my Sun in Sagittarius that I can relate to, but there are quite a few that I cannot. So it was so interesting to find out there’s so much more going on, how much of an influence the moon has, and Venus, and Jupiter, and all the rest. I never knew I had so much Scorpio influence, or that my Ascendant was in Leo….and life began to make so much more sense after reading a book by Debbie Frank (well-known astrologer of awakening) called What’s your Soul Sign?

While exploring the things I incarnated here to be, Amu asked me if I knew about the concept of Human design, which combines elements of astrology, the Chinese I Ching, the Hindu chakra system, Kabbalah and quantum physics to create a highly personalized framework for aligned living……so of course I had to find out my Human Design profile. What was interesting was how everything overlapped and coalesced.

Doing all this self-discovery in cahoots with Amu meant we had each other to bounce these new ideas off of, reading things that sparked introspective conversations for weeks on end, feeling seen, in ways we never had before. What more does a soul ever want?

I have always thought of myself as a hermit, even when I had no awareness that the hermit archetype makes up the entirety of my conscious line, which is the 2nd line in my HD personal chart. I didn’t understand why I gravitated towards solitude so much when I unconsciously loved and sought more connection, something indicated by the 4th line (the opportunist) Such a dichotomous life. We all have our conscious and unconscious aspects playing out in us and we don’t always know what’s going on, what makes us tick. You can try and make sense of it all here, if you so wish. It could turn out to be as delightfully  validating and self-revelatory for you as it was for me . How nice is it to relax in the knowledge that you have the liberty to be completely and unapologetically you.

Which brings me back to the Gene Keys. (Did I mention I found out my hologenetic profile too? You can get yours here.)

It talks about who you are and why you are here, what makes you feel alive, why you don’t have to look outside yourself for truth. This book needs to be read slowly and organically, perhaps like an oracle, like the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching, which it draws upon for inspiration. The premise is that every single person has something beautiful hidden inside of them, which needs to be brought forth. These are your Gifts, coiled inside your DNA, waiting for the light of awareness to be shone on them. Your journey begins when you come to understand that your destiny is shaped by your attitude to life that tells your DNA what kind of person you want to become, not the other way around. So it is that every thought, feeling, word or action is imprinted in every single cell of your body, causing your DNA to contract or relax depending on the quality of your thoughts and emotions, a process that goes on all the time, from the moment you come into the world to the moment you leave.

So here I am, discovering my shadows and my gifts according to this revelatory book. I am taking what resonates and composting the rest. It’s been a bit difficult to try and elaborate on something that is too big for this little blog post, but I thought it’s a good idea to touch upon some of the things I’ve been dwelling on/in lately.

To have the time and space to do this kind of reading and reflection is a real privilege, to turn down and tune out the distractions of the world, to make time to contemplate, an imperative. It feels a lot like freedom. Like turning a corner and running into yourself, and knowing you have turned all the corners that are left.

Being of this world

I didn’t just turn 50 on the 4th of December, it has been more of a becoming. To become means ‘to grow to be’, and indeed it has been a journey to grow from 40 a decade ago to the place I am at now. Nope, it doesn’t seem like yesterday at all.

I love my birth month so much. It makes me want to hunker down and reflect on the year that has passed, to spend time in solitude, to welcome and enjoy the winter with cozy, warm mugs of coffee, and freshly squeezed orange juice, and carrots that are redder than any other time of year, and to buy salted pistachios and cashews and almonds from the dry fruit store/treasure house.

I want to spend my time being at the beach, going on walks there, watching the seagulls and the waves, the fishermen in boats and the ones casting nets at the shore. To feel the sun on my skin, to let the breeze play with my silvery hair, to dig my feet into the soft sand, to lie back and gaze at clouds, to look at pebbles and admire their shapes, colours and beauty.

It’s a challenge for someone like me to navigate wedding season, which coincides with December (it being seasonally the best time of year in Karachi) when there are invitations to events in settings I’m uncomfortable being in. Being social requires a lot of energy, and a lot of things which entail a lot of time spent in shopping places. And the thing is….I’m quite done with putting so much effort into activities that I don’t enjoy.

At 50, my soul feels wilder than ever, more fabulous and freer than ever, and to be honest, it wants to express its fabulousness now more than ever. But here’s the thing: it wants to express itself on its own time and space, it doesn’t want to spread itself thin. Sometimes I think it doesn’t want to spread itself AT ALL.

I thought a few times over the course of this last year of how I would like to celebrate this milestone birthday, and it made me a little anxious and a little pressured to think of how others would expect me to. The funny thing is, I don’t enjoy celebrations and I don’t enjoy being celebrated either. I almost wished no one would remember, as I didn’t want any birthday wishes. I appreciate seamless transitions, don’t I? But my heart knew what it wanted, and it gave me a nudge…and a very nice visual.

The usual suspects (Amu, Huz and Fatu) made a cute little fuss after which we packed some things and set off for the beach. I think we were all in our own head spaces that day, and that was okay. There was comfort to be had in being together, yet doing our own thing. One of the things I feel compelled to do is to clean up as much trash as I possibly can in the area we set up our base camp, I cannot feel at ease unless I do so. We even had a large rake to make the job a little easier (thanks to Huz, who made it a point to buy one.)

The others helped a little but then eventually abandoned the job to go swim in the sea, or sit peacefully and take in the golden hour. I found a large, torn fishermen’s basket abandoned along the shoreline, and decided to use it as my trash bin, slowly filling it with objects like footwear, empty gin bottles, plastic bags, toothpaste tubes, chip packets, juice boxes, straws, rope, styrofoam and other flotsam. If you’re anything like me, you’d know how committed one can get to a lost cause. And yet, when the basket was full to the brim and I looked around me, I felt and saw such a big difference. Amu remarked amusedly that I must have been a professional trash collector in a past life.

People saw me do this work, and I didn’t give much thought to whether they thought I was a loony, or if I inspired them to do something similar. What mattered was that I left the place better than I found it. There were large craters higher up in the sand, where the Olive ridleys laid their eggs, and there were so many eggshells scattered about. I smiled to think of all the little babies that must have made their instinctive path to the waiting waves, and felt even better about cleaning up. Like I had a pact with the protective nature spirits and the elementals to serve them and the original inhabitants in whatever way I could. I know I felt their welcome as soon as I entered the land of the mangroves, it felt like happiness.

The moon rose, faint at first but grew stronger as the sun went down. I took my rake and drew large concentric circles in the sand, claiming the space. We ate, drank, made merry and I couldn’t imagine a better way to have spent the day. It was perfect, even though Huz had been hangry on the way, Amu had been in a troubled mental space, Fatu had insomnia and missed Hasan, and Lums thought we were all a bit nuts. The sunset was beautiful and the twilit beach still had mysteries to reveal. I pulled a chair right up to the water and watched the shapes of little crabs scuttling along the wet sand. There was movement skimming across the surface of the water which I realized was a little flock of small birds only when they touched down on land. As it got darker, we listened to music and danced in the shallow waves that washed up gently on the shore, the tide slowly being pulled higher by the moon. The waves glowed neon with luminescent organisms.

And this was how I crossed over into my 50’s, loving my gentle, unconventional life more than ever. Isn’t it a miracle to think how rare and beautiful it is that we exist? I’m here for it all, and I will slow it down as much as I can, continuing to create my own reality in my own unique ways, so help me Great Spirit. And it was nice to read the messages on my phone as the day went by, and to remember I am loved and appreciated by humans too.

The god of jellyfish

I have been stung by a sea creature twice in my life, both times on the beaches of Karachi’s coastline. Fishermen from the village (who doubled as local lifeguards) would warn us to watch out for bluebottles when it was the season, and as a young person I felt a mix of terror and fascination to see those glistening, gelatinous bodies washed up on the waterline.

I was around sixteen the first time, and the only one to be stung that day. All I remember is the intense ache in my stomach as the venom made its way through my blood, and I spent the rest of that miserable afternoon doubled over in a haze of bright sunshine and pain, despite the application of onion juice as an antidote.

The second time was last year, as I circled the Sun for the forty-ninth time. I was one of a group of five people in the water, all of us in the mood to stay there till sunset. As always, it felt so beautiful to be immersed, letting wave after wave lift me off my feet and set me down again on the soft sand. That sense of bliss wasn’t destined to last very long that day though. All of a sudden, I felt something wrap itself around my hand and a multitude of painful sensations ensued, making me scream and flail my arms to shake it off. Of course, I knew immediately it was a jellyfish of some kind, the nematocysts in its tentacles releasing relentless amounts of venom-covered barbs into every bit of my skin they touched. No one knew what was happening as I shrieked and flailed, and in the drama of the moment my precious moonstone ring flew off my finger and sank into the waves.

If the rapidness of the way my dismay shifted from the agonizing sting to the loss of my ring wasn’t funny enough, how my sister responded to the stricken look on my face was hilarious. She instantly directed her focus to locating the ring under the water with her feet and quite miraculously, she found it! I have never felt such gratitude and love for Fatu’s existence as I did that day. She had been with me when I bought that ring from a tiny shop in the bazaar of Kalaam on one of our trips together.

Evening effectively destroyed, we all made our way out of the water as no one wanted to be in it anymore. What followed was a series of potential antidotes to relieve the pain in my hand which had built to excruciating levels. If you’ve ever been stung by a jellyfish, you know.

Having a painful experience, whether it is physical or emotional, can be deeply isolating, and so it was with the jellyfish sting. None of the others had ever experienced it, so even though they were concerned and kind and helpful, I had to sit alone with my shock and suffering, reflecting on the why. Slowly, like a light in the darkness, it began to feel like the universe had just delivered some kind of message to me, though I had no idea what it was. There was a great sense of consciousness, not just of my own physical existence but that of unseen creatures all around, who had as much right to be where they were as I thought I did. And my hurt and distress gave way to acceptance, with this mystical glimpse into the Great Mystery.

I didn’t see the little beast, so I don’t know if it was a bluebottle or a Portuguese man o’ war or some other kind of jellyfish. My left hand swelled up for a week, and I was left with interesting dotted scars along the back of it to remind me of what had happened. The respect I feel for the sea realm, and those who dwell there, was now mixed up with enough fear to stop me from wanting to go to the beach again let alone enter the water. It made me sad, as the beach is the only expansive landscape I have access to.

It took two months for my hand to heal and the pain to fade. I wore my battle scars with pride, they told a story…like a tattoo.

And then a year passed, the scar slowly began to disappear, we moved homes again, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, had a thyroidectomy that left me with a new scar, and Amu went on a solo trip to Nepal where she met a backpacker from Brazil, the land of the Amazon, who spoke Portuguese, and sported long hair, an earring, and a tattoo on his chest, right over his heart, and after eleven months of traveling through many different countries, he decided to make his way to Pakistan from India next door, and Amu had to write a letter of invitation for the Pakistani embassy to give him a visa, and he got it, and he bought me sarees from Delhi an hour before his flight, and we picked him up from the airport when he arrived in Karachi, and he ended up staying in our house for a month, and he turned out to be the most emotionally intelligent young man I have ever met, who learned to love desi food, and rabri was his favorite Pakistani dessert after gulab jamun, and he loved wearing shalwar qameez and talking at length with Huz about politics and Latin America and electrical circuits, and he swore not to go back if Bolsonaro won the election, but Lula won! And we all hugged and danced at the promise of it all, and we cooked together, and he said grace when we ate together, and Amu took him to St Patrick’s cathedral where she attended Mass for the first time in her life.

Why did this strange boy from Sao Paulo feel like soul family and was that why he so quickly become a comfortable presence in our home? Why did he lose his mother to Covid the same year I did? Was it her spirit that guided him to another mother when he needed one, on the other side of the planet? And what made him feel so at peace near bodies of water?

We took him to the beach, and it was in his presence that I jumped back into the sea without any fear, after more than a year, and I didn’t get stung by a jellyfish, because a little baby turtle showed up on the towel he had laid out on the sand, and after it made its way down to the water, all of us cheering him on, he told me that turtles are the natural predators of jellyfish, and I took it to be yet another sign, and the water was beautiful, and I declared him to be the Jellyfish God, not just because he broke the curse, but because the tattoo on his heart is of two dancing jellyfish, tentacles trailing over his shoulder.

Off with its head

It is day 12 post-surgery, and my vocal cords have gone into protest mode.

In the weeks before surgery , when I began to glean information about potential risks and complications of thyroidectomies, I half-joked with Amu that I might be forced into lifelong vipassana. The idea felt oddly delightful to me, though I obviously didn’t want my recurrent laryngeal nerve to suffer unnecessary damage at the hands of an unsuitable surgeon.

A friend who underwent a total thyroidectomy last year due to Hashimoto’s reported changes in her voice for some time, but it’s perfectly normal now, so I am not too worried. My ex-next door neighbour was advised to get rid of her entire thyroid upon discovery of multiple nodules in it many years ago after the birth of her first child. Her biggest worry back then was the separation anxiety her little daughter would experience with her surgery and hospitalization.

I consulted a senior and well-respected endocrinologist very soon after my dismal biopsy report, and she referred me to the same surgeon who operated on my friend last year. I took my own sweet time before making an appointment to go meet him though, but followed instructions to get a few baseline blood tests as well as another, more detailed ultrasound very efficiently the next day.

We marveled at the accelerated speed and ease at which things started to unfold once the uncertainty started to give way to action. There must be a reason why I felt such equanimity, and surely, I received my confirmation of angelic help when I happened to glance at the time on my phone while walking towards the ultrasound room from the waiting lounge. It was exactly 11:11 am, and I didn’t care if anyone saw my delighted grin, wishing I could high-five Huz and Amu. All repeating numbers stop me in my tracks and make me quickly come out of my mind and into the now. And in the now, I am well, I am safe and everything will be okay, no matter what.

This spirit connection is such a beautiful source of peace for me, as even when I am all alone, I never feel as if I’m alone. And the gratitude for having this understanding made me feel deeply emotional as I lay with my head tilted in a way to facilitate the movement of the ultrasound transducer over my neck and throat, tears trickling automatically out the sides of my eyes, hidden behind my mask. I was sure my lymph nodes would be perfectly okay, and the ultrasound doctor said it seemed they were!

There is a lot to be said about keeping an open heart while navigating your way through the medical world, finding joy in the positives while releasing anything negative as quickly as possible.

I know I may sound a bit too zen to be credible, but honestly, the peace I am able to access definitely does not preclude the feelings of confusion and anxiety that often assail me at night. I’m just getting a lot better at sitting with discomfort since I know all feelings are temporary…. as of course, is the very nature of Being.

What can I say, I’m in touch with my inner mystic.

Now that I was beginning to make peace with the loss of my thyroid, a new concern reared its head….what about the parathyroids? I definitely couldn’t bear the thought of losing them too. The endocrinologist made light of having to take copious amounts of calcium and vitamin D to make up for my body being unable to regulate them, but this was a huge red flag and even my inner mystic freaked out. I mean, I really didn’t want the system of calcium-release from my bones into my bloodstream to go out of whack. And why would I want the process of calcium-absorption from the food in my intestines to go awry? I love that my kidneys perform the vital function of conserving all my calcium without me even knowing. I took all this awesomeness so much for granted all my life….until now.

After a tentative online exploration of potential candidates for thyroid surgery, I felt more uncertain than ever. How was it possible to decide who would protect my parathyroids and who wouldn’t? It turns out the best indicator of the experience of a good surgeon is, quite simply, volume. I needed someone who did at least 25 thyroid surgeries a year.

The first endocrinologist put me at a little ease by saying he would put his blind trust in anyone recommended by the second endocrinologist. And since my friend had already given me glowing reviews about her experience with the recommended surgeon, it seemed wisest to go see him first.

If meeting the surgeon and discovering that he not only specializes in thyroid surgery but that he performed over three hundred surgeries last year wasn’t enough, the beautiful forest outside his consulting clinic had me sold. It was literally a no-brainer. His manner and presence exuded a patient confidence and after explaining lots of things about thyroid anatomy and physiology, he told us to go home, think about what to do next and get back to him if we chose.

And after three days of thinking, get back to him we surely did. A week was the time-frame I had in mind to prepare myself for surgery, but there were a few things I had to consider…..the monsoons, my menstrual cycle, and Muharram. The irony of having my neck dissected in this holy month wasn’t lost on me.

There were a few other idiotic things on my mind too, like buying new sheets for my bed. I didn’t know what my life would look like post-surgery, it seemed like some kind of looming debilitation that would stop me from living despite all assurances to the contrary.

When we met the surgeon three days later, he proposed to do the operation in two days and after a paralyzing few minutes of staring alternately at Huz and the surgeon, brain going from overdrive to numb, I found myself saying ….okay. Why not? And even though Huz was in favour of sooner rather than later I heard him pipe up with a ‘But what about the bedsheet….?’ I gave him a look and he trailed off.

And so it came to be that we drove the 30 seconds it takes to reach the hospital from my home, early on the 1st of August (armed with our Covid test results and an x-ray) and got me admitted into a nice little private room for a total thyroidectomy at 2 that afternoon.