Then in July of 2003, just as I was proclaimed cancer free by my oncologist, a very large tumor unrelated to the breast cancer was discovered in my right kidney. My level of pain and anxiety jumped to a new level. My kidney had grown to the size of a grapefruit and needed to be surgically removed. However, working part-time I had no health insurance and was not able to get onto my husband’s policy due to the cancer being considered a pre-existing condition. I worked with Vocational Rehabilitation of Florida to get funding from the state, but they decided I did not have a good enough chance of surviving and denied me treatment funding. I needed much more healing than I realized. I prayed for guidance and healing. I sent a letter out to my family and close friends to let them know what I was going through and to thank them for their encouragement, loving support, and prayers.

I remembered as a child how I ran so freely without any pain. Then I started to have cramping pain in my right side, making it hard to breathe. I recalled when I accidentally fell on my back onto a metal pole, and the breath was knocked out of me. Perhaps this is when the pain and a fear response began with the butterflies flight of nervousness in my abdomen. As a child I did not know how to control this. Then as I got older I started to have extreme stabbing pain in my right side. Years passed and still no one could figure out what was causing it. I was told it was my gal bladder, a spasm in my psoas muscle, and now a tumor in my kidney.

The butterflies of anxiety were in the same location as the tumor and so I envisioned it was like a butterfly filled with light. I needed to release the butterflies and set them free. On October 11th, I did a meditation with the intention to ask my kidney what it was saying and here were the image and words I received:

Message from my Kidney watercolor with crayon resist

“I have been here a long time; since you were a very small one. You are precious to me. I am sorry I had to bring you physical pain. I was trying to connect you with your purpose.

The day will come that you no longer need me, but my spirit will always be with you. Let me go free like the butterflies who live in an ugly chrysalis before they are released. I have laid dormant. I am ready to spread my wings and fly up to my maker. We will be waiting for you there, but first you have much to do and bring to the world: your art, yourself, your spirit. The world still needs you. Show it light and beauty. Fill it with peace and understanding.

It is time to move forward, strongly, persistantly. You will be asked to do things that will seem impossible, yet you will do them because you know that I am with you, loving and guiding you to safety, peace and happiness. Follow me to your heart.”

About two weeks later, my parents found a skilled, compassionate surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio who wanted to use newly developed laparoscopic surgery despite my having no health insurance. The surgery was successfully done to remove my kidney. My parents lovingly cared for me post-surgery.

Over the next year after my kidney surgery, I dealt with conquering pain, anxiety and fear as my family and I faced challenge after challenge: selling our home and finding a smaller one, supporting our daughter and son to make a successful transition to college, job losses and searches, unrelenting pain that made it difficult to function, and one of the worst hurricane seasons to hit Southwest Florida. We also faced a huge medical bill. I reached out to the Cleveland Clinic to help me apply to their foundation for funding. It took about a year, but the funding finally came through to cover the surgery. People where Tony worked set up a fundraiser to sell my art, and family and friends gifted us money to use for my recovery.

Many other blessing occurred as well. It was all quite a miracle! I learned through it all that I was in need of a deeper healing, one that would uncover the root causes of dis-eases and assist me to heal as a whole person.

Healing of the Butterflies - watercolor

During this year I also painted a series of butterfly and lily paintings. The lily family is symbolic of nurturing the soul with peace, calm, and purity. The butterfly transforms the flower by moving its nectar and allowing it to grow and multiply. These paintings were a metaphor for the butterfly’s spirit of transformation, changing and helping me to grow from the experience of kidney cancer and encouraging me to learn to deal better with negative energy and events. This one entitled Healing of the Butterflies was sold to my friend Shelly Lucas for the Gummi Cat Shelter fundraiser.

The idea of my work being Transformation Art was born out of all these life experiences. Transformation Art not only takes one thing and transforms it into another, but it is also a metaphor for healing, change, and growth in the world. It embraces diversity through the belief that no two people or no two things are so different that they cannot be united by some common bond. Thus it reminds us to find a way to live in harmony with our differences and to appreciate the beauty that is ultimately in all living beings and things when we see the whole. It requires us to believe beauty is able to emerge out of the darkest of times and transformation is occurring even when it seems like nothing has changed.

Found at Sea - watercolor

Over the next year, I was learning to see the shadows in nature as a metaphor for the shadow experiences of life. In nature shadows are slowly moving and often beautiful. In my life I experienced times of shadow in death, illness, loss, challenges, destruction, dispair and darkness. These dark shadowy times also seemed to move slowly, but until I lived through them and understood how they fit into my lifetime, I was not able to fully appreciate their beauty. These paintings were inspired from the shadows outside our home and the beaches of the Florida coast. Mother nature was teaching me that experiences of darkness can actually help me to appreciate the full expansiveness of the light and transformation. Perhaps my understanding of darkness was unfolding and preparing me for SOUL MAIL.

Nature of the Beach - Sand Sifter watercolor

Nature of the Beach - Recliner watercolor

Nature of the Earth - Curbside Leaves watercolor

Nature of the Beach: At the Water’s Edge watercolor

Continue to Chapter 8: SOUL MAIL: Connection with the Divine, Self and Others