A LIFE CHANGING EVENT

This article will change my life in ways that I cannot begin to imagine. Writing about something that most people fear is never easy. After this information was read to a group of workshop participants, one of the students asked if I was fearful. The truth is, I am not. If there is any fear for me, it is that you will judge me after reading my story. I cannot allow judgment to interfere with my being a teacher or a healer. Both Nancy and I happily share all our insights if they can help others to find hope. We are both cancer survivors and do not consider ourselves a victim. Sometimes it just takes time on the path to realize what has been created. I am a Creator - this is just my story.

“A medicine man shouldn’t be a saint. He should experience and feel all the ups and downs, the despair and joy, the magic and the reality, the courage and the fear, of his people. He should be able to sink as low as a bug, or soar as high as an eagle. Unless he can experience both, he is no good as a medicine man.” ---- John Fire Lame Deer

THE STORY BEGINS

It feels like I have been traveling for most of my life. By now I have millions of airtime miles. As I get older, sitting on a plane for 12 or 14 hours starts to get harder. I find the flight to Australia the most physically challenging of all as it is a long journey. Arriving, you find yourself in the opposite season of the year; having to be awake when normally you would be asleep. It has been my practice to begin seeing clients for Heart & Soul Healing sessions immediately upon arrival.

So my trip to Australia in May of 1999 was physically stressful, as I established contact with an energy I had been tracking for more than four years. I had made a promise on behalf of a friend who had died as a result of this energetic consciousness, that I would bring the energy back into balance. It was old, very stuck and had pockets of the collective consciousness of pure evil. In some ways, it was as if this energy had found it could hide in this large and open continent. This energy was more intense than other energies I have encountered in other parts of the world; it was enormous in size and very negative. Working with any large powerful collective consciousness can be very challenging and push the limits of the physical body. It is only now that I have come to recognize the source of this destructive energy and will write more in another newsletter.

During that visit to Australia, my life changed forever; I would never look at my life in the same way again. I had noticed a lump on the back of my neck that felt like a cyst. I went to a doctor to have it removed. The doctor suggested I go to the hospital. While there, with the doctor performing his exam, it became clear that it was not just a little lump. The doctor wanted to do various tests. As I was returning home to the U.S. the following day, I decided to wait and see my own physician. When my doctor saw the lump, he recommended a biopsy. A couple of days later, the second doctor scheduled yet another biopsy. I was informed that while something could be seen, a closer exam of the tissue sample was necessary. I was sent home to be informed once the test results were completed.

Over a year before, the family had planned a trip to Ireland which was to begin the next day. I decided not to go in order to wait for the phone call with the biopsy results. That call is one I shall not forget. The doctor was very careful to spell it out clearly to me: “You have a small B cell cleaved Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, non-aggressive. You have cancer.” He said I would need to see an oncologist and while he would not tell which one to choose, he did suggest an oncologist that he would use if he were I. He was composed, business-like, yet detached. I remember thinking ‘I would not want his job’. As I hung up the phone, I became a person with cancer. My partner’s family had left on vacation, and it was just ‘me and the dog’, home alone for one month. It felt like something had just ran over my life; and the future as I had imagined it was gone, leaving only a hole inside of me.

I was shot into the place of the unknown, and asked myself “What is going to happen?” I had never been afraid of death for I had looked at this energy and the fear around it for many years with my clients. Then sadness closed in. “What will happen to my family? Could they finally take care of themselves without my help? And then of course, there was the issue of my healing work. By getting cancer, would my life’s work now be invalid? Would anyone want to come for healing or learn healing techniques from someone with cancer? Would students think that Heart and Soul Healing could give them cancer? So many things came into my mind at once and my emotions began to close in upon me. I needed to understand why this had happened to me.

In my heart of hearts, I knew what this energy of cancer was all about. Initially, I thought maybe it was because I had said over and over again through the past years, “I don’t want to be here.” I had not actually wanted to die, I just did not any longer want to remain a part of the way in which people were hurting each other on earth. But, would anyone believe me? Would they think I was only making excuses for my condition? I spiraled into depression, trapped by my ideas of the stigma of having cancer and being a healer. The feeling of helplessness caused my world to crash in, collapsing all my previous ideas.

My journey with cancer was beginning, a journey that was to offer me my deepest understanding of energy. Over the years, I have demonstrated the energy of ‘Oneness’ to workshop participants by calling all of the energy on the planet into myself; all hatred, all the energy of war, greed, love and more. By doing this in front of many groups, I was showing that if we are truly ‘One’ with all consciousness, ‘One’ with all energy, ‘One’ with everything, there is no fear and no need to fear, for everything is then just pure energy.
Several other spiritual teachers and some of my students were very uncomfortable with my calling in all the energy of the planet. This diagnosis of cancer might now provide them with the ammunition needed to disagree with being ‘One’ with all energy. They could now fall back into the old easy role of Victim or Savior. How old was the consciousness of separation? How many other ideas would become invalid if we were ‘One’ with everything and ‘Separate’ from nothing? I knew this was the true vibration of Source.

My teachings have always been that fear only creates more fear. Would people now think that the process of my calling in all the energies of the planet had actually created my cancer? This had, after all, been my most controversial teaching. One would think it would be the easiest – ‘Oneness vs. Separation’. ‘Oneness’ is being one with everything and ‘Separation’ was separating oneself from any other energy or consciousness, thereby causing separation from Source. After each demonstration of calling in all the energy of the planet, I ask that the group take 3 breaths and each person recognize the sweetness of pure, pranic and creative breath. Without ideas, negativity no longer exists; therefore, all consciousness can become pure creative energy. I had to wake my mind. Thing was merely causing confusion. Mind chatter can certainly be a mind-killer.

The next day, I called the American Cancer Society and spoke to a screening nurse. She patiently helped answer my questions, using her own knowledge and their computer database. How long would I live? What was going to happen to my body? She was very kind and unemotional as she went through my questions. She sent me a range of different books on lymphoma, chemotherapy and radiation. She reported on research and medical testing trials that were being run in various laboratories.

The decision on how or what to do with this cancer that had manifested in my body was mine. Was it going to be a war or a peace? How could I rage a war with a part of myself that I had somehow created? What was within me that had allowed this vibration, or was this a vibration that had been around me for my entire life?

My teachings have also included the idea that whatever is going on around us is also going on inside us. The vibration of cancer is all around the earth. Its thoughts, emotions (conflict, stress, depression) and feelings consume others to perpetuate the disease itself. Heart and Soul Healing assists in balancing all types of consciousness, bringing each to a higher vibration. So, did I pick up this energy? It felt more like this energy was a part of all of us. It was the frequency/vibration of a very old consciousness that I had either accidentally tapped into, or it exists around each of us.

So, here we were, the cancer and I, neither one of us knowing what to do next. If I decided to kill it, we would go to war, fighting for space, energy and life. My body would be the battleground for this war to play itself out. We could use chemotherapy or radiation. We could fight to the death. Unfortunately, I knew it would result in the death of the body.

I have worked in hospices for many years and I have seen the reaction of people’s bodies to chemotherapy and radiation. There are various stages of cancer, or the confinement of cancer. I was diagnosed with 4th stage, meaning there was cancer throughout my lymph nodes. I was also informed that I was not eligible for any type of treatment, as the cancer was quiet and still. Nothing was going on in my body that required treatment. My immune system was working well at that moment. I had no choice but to surrender. No treatment or radiation could be used to fight the cancer throughout my system, and drugs and radiation could adversely affect my whole body. I wondered: “How long had the vibration of cancer been within me or around me, and what kind of energy made up this vibration?”

The good news was that this type of cancer could be slow growing and I could have years without any problem. When I met my oncologist, I felt very reassured. The doctor told me there was a nurse working on the second floor who had received the same diagnosis 20 years ago and she was still fine. Yet the American Cancer Society had informed me about the opposite prognosis and how deadly this type of cancer could be. Later, I changed my regular doctor and I was given the name of another physician who was highly recommended. This doctor would handle everything that my oncologist could not. When we met, she told me that she had the same type of cancer, and that she had found out while she was in her residency program from medical school. It had been more than 7 years, and everything had remained quiet for her. Both my doctors have great compassion and understanding. This has helped me more than they could ever imagine.

Buddhists believe that we should give the energy of love to disease and it then has to take another energetic form. I decided to ask the cancer to be quiet and still, allow it to stay and find a balance within me. I thought about the vibration of cancer and knew in my heart there was a possibility to heal or change all cancer. This might sound like a grandiose statement, unless I truly believe we can balance a collective consciousness. Compassion balances polarity. For years, this has been my teaching. Was this a test that I had created for myself in order to fully understand the depth of this reality? I was not going to lose the opportunity to possibly transform this consciousness into a different vibration. Unfortunately this old vibration of cancer is made up of many different vibrations. It represents all the energy of disease and distortion that has ever been experienced. I found actually, that having a diagnosis of cancer was to be the easy part of this healing journey. Dealing with the reaction from the outside world, other people, other spiritual teachers, my friends and my family has been much harder and in some ways, more devastating.

Since discovering this cancer, I have felt driven to prove that being ‘One with all energy’ is very positive. I have also done my best to help change the consciousness of cancer. By pushing myself ahead, it became easier. I believe the more you push your abilities, the easier it becomes to use your unknown senses.

I then moved into an ultimate agreement with Spirit: to balance the religious ideas on the planet and free every individual stuck in past religious dogma. I was more driven than ever: workshop after workshop, thousands of healing sessions, and traveling on the road over 240 days. I continued working night and day to prove to myself that anything is possible when you believe you could make a difference. I had to further test myself and prove that being a healer could not hurt me, and that one had to heal themselves before they could help others.

I decided to repair some of the little things that were not working right in my body. It was good to know that my doctors felt confident enough in my physical strength to encourage this investment of time and money into my wellbeing. After struggling over the years with four operations, it was time for a knee replacement. This by far was the most serious operation for me. After that it was shoulder surgery and then a hernia operation, all to repair my physical body for the future. It takes a lot of time and energy to physically repair oneself.

When one person in a partnership or family gets sick, it could be challenging for the other to realize exactly what is happening on the emotional side. So this can feel as if you are alone with your 'stuff'. Others can only attempt to understand your experiences. I knew my surgeries would become a test. I wanted to know if my then partner would be able to handle my not being well. The answer was that she could not. It was not her nature. She did not like helping me or caring for me. This allowed me to imagine the type of situation that might evolve if I became really ill. I was more aware than ever of my need to change homes to avoid any future feelings of helplessness. Recovering from my surgeries gave me yet another reason to complete this relationship.

Many other things in our relationship had not been working since long before my diagnosis of cancer. Our relationship had been hard on my health and well being for most years. Each time I prepared to travel, we would argue and break up. Since everything between us was based upon polarities, the relationship in many ways was quite unhealthy. Even divorcing in the 1990s after a little more than two years of marriage, we had continued to engage in a love-hate relationship. My partner was jealous and maintained an energy around her that could be vindictive. I had continued to explore the depths of love and hate, experiencing a greater level of compassion.

The other clarity was that nothing was the way it had appeared to be. I began to wonder if anyone really hears what we say or understands how we feel? In some ways it is as if we are all speaking different languages to each other, made up of our past experiences and old emotions, filtering our ability to receive the communications from another person. I wonder how this affects our connection to Source or our communications with Higher Self? There are three different ways in which we perceive and communicate: either hearing, seeing or feeling. In my opinion, it is important in any relationship to understand the modality of your partner.

When I was diagnosed in 1999, I found it surprising that I needed to share what was going on inside of me. I had heard many clients express such sadness when they were unable to share with someone they knew who had died too soon. I also wanted to give my family ample opportunity of doing or saying what they felt before I died or left.

Many people were very uncomfortable when I shared the fact that I had cancer. My diagnosis reminded them of their own mortality and they did not want to be around me. Looking back now, I should not have told anyone. I was only sharing to allow them an opportunity for a completion. This put unbearable pressure on me. The judgments from my students and the ways in which other individuals saw opportunities for personal gain from my being “gone” shocked me. I went through the hardest of times and felt abandoned by most. Fortunately, my closest family was there for my support and I only lost a couple of my children. A few of my friends did not judge me. I was grateful for the depth of their love and they are now my dearest friends.

Feelings about my future also changed. I no longer cared about next month or next year in the same way. I quickly found out that saying ‘I have no future’ made those around me crazy. What I was actually saying was: ‘I could not count on the future to define me any longer’. This kind of thinking changes the way you are. It becomes only the moment, living each day to the fullest, staying focused within the ‘Now’.

There are so many people in our lives who just take our energy or subconsciously continue to engage in old patterns. They do not mean to – it’s just that what they trust may not be what they like, but it is what they have survived, and so they continue on in the same old way.

Another element that I found overwhelming was how others began to want what I had. My best friend made a play for my then partner; people I trusted and who had taken my training saw my diagnosis as an opportunity to take over my work to their advantage. Everywhere I looked, I seemed to find greed, manipulation, control, fear and anger. I felt as if I had to fight for freedom or space from the people I thought I could trust. It appeared they could only love me if everything continued in the way it had been. My home had never been safe and now that feeling was intensified. I knew I had to find a place that felt safe and where I could trust the things around me or I would surely lose myself to this disease. This might be defined as my dark night of the soul – for I felt totally out of control.

I remembered clients who had shared events when their partner was diagnosed with cancer. They told me how a neighbor had asked if they wanted to sell the house; another person made it known that they wanted to start a relationship with them when their partner had died. Often friends who are not fearful of being around you just want to help fix you. People in the metaphysical world also have lots of ideas on how to heal you or fight cancer and don’t always ask you what you want before they try to save you.

Not having to work would have been easier. It would have been good to have free time to adjust to this new way of looking at myself. I was a little jealous that others had time. I also decided I could not have anything around me that was not supportive of my health. What had started to happen was that I would physically react to people who were negative. My lymph nodes would pulsate when I got upset or stressed. It became clear that I had to move away from pressure, tension, stress and people who were not nice, argumentative, selfish or mean. It felt like the conflict would kill me. Even with those people who were very close to me, I found that they had to let go of the way in which they were holding onto me or I would have to leave them. What I felt I needed to do was to quiet the overwhelming chatter in my mind. I wanted to be still and not give cancer any energy. My outside world was so noisy and didn’t appear to care what I wanted, only appearing to care about what it needed from me.

I do suggest to others with disease that you find people whom you can trust and who will be there for you in whatever way you choose. That is most important. This may not always be your family. A support group or someone who has gone through similar conditions is often the best for they have a level of compassion and non-judgment of your feelings. In my opinion, the sooner we can learn to talk about death and our feelings surrounding it, the sooner we can ensure everyone is safe and cared for. We can then put our energy into healing ourselves.

For some of the people you are close to in your life, you feel like you have to give them all your energy to help them through your own sickness. So the family also needs a support group or person they can talk to as well. I now feel that this should be put into place before telling them of your condition.

There is a feeling of failure when you get a disease. It is like you are not a good person or that you are being punished for doing something wrong - being punished for being bad by God or something unknown. You will probably ask yourself: ‘Why me?’ It is an easy place to go. Why didn’t that other person you know who is mean or angry or hurtful get sick? Why me? For myself I had spent more than twenty years helping others. In some ways makes sacrifices to follow my path to be a healer. Now cancer. I thought it was unfair and yet I knew that I had helped thousands of people over the years.

THOUGHTS FROM A SECRET PLACE

I also considered that if the sickness with the cancer got really bad I might want to take my own life. I couldn’t see how going through lots of pain and hardship was worth a few months of life. The quality of life is very important. To live and be in horrible pain could never be easy for me, or for the people around me. I have thought deeply about death and it is just a part of life. This is a cycle that allows the soul to move on. At that time, I did not want to tell anyone that I was having these thoughts. But I also wouldn’t want the people around me to go through the difficulties of dealing with my illness either, nor to have them cope with the idea that I might want to release myself by my own hand. I felt that people would judge me, feeling that if I killed myself I wouldn’t go to heaven. It would be like I had given up the battle or I had lost. So I guessed I would have to make it look like an accident so everyone would feel better that it was the way it should be. Where is free will? Where is the quality of life one chooses for oneself? I knew that I had to hide my feelings in order for others to feel better about themselves.

I wish I could share all of my client’s stories of afterlife. It is just an ongoing story of our soul’s evolution. There is no death. Yes, of the body - but the soul lives forever. The way our family holds on to our body – that is what creates the problem.

Had I not told any of my family about my condition many things would have been different. But here I was, a father with cancer. How long I would be around for them was unknown. This created such a hardship on them for they could not do anything to help or change the situation with cancer. There was a lot of pressure put on my children in the intensity for survival. Their anger and their process began immediately. The process of grief as written by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, in her book On Death and Dying, comes in four stages after death or during a terminal disease: Stage One: Denial and Isolation, Stage Two: Anger; Stage Three: Bargaining; State Four: Depression; Stage Five: Acceptance. The anger from others was the hardest to deal with for it was the destructive nature of people. The only one I could blame was myself. They are all only children – angry that their father might not be there for them.

The greatest test came just a few weeks after I had been diagnosed. I told my children’s mother and asked her to keep it a secret from the kids until I found out further information from my doctor. My concern for my former wife was to let her know right away so she could make plans for the future. I told her it appeared it could be a minimum of a few years and not to worry unnecessarily. Right after we got off the phone, she told our children that I had cancer. This brought up all kinds of fear and panic that none of us were able to handle. Their mother did not do what she had promised, caught up in her own fears. One of my young daughters, tried to hurt herself two times in the coming week. I felt so responsible. We were lucky that she didn’t injure herself. It was her cry for help. With six months of therapy, she adjusted to the information. From that experience, I learned it is extremely important for children to get counseling if one of their parents is sick or dying – and best that this is put into place before they are told of any condition of their parents. This will help them to adjust to such information. Teenagers are already “maxed-out” emotionally and this kind of trauma can easily put them into a critical place.

It is also important to realize that others in your life may react differently than how you might imagine, once they know you have cancer, or any other terminal disease. Any old emotions and feelings, or anything that remains unresolved may all come out at once, often resembling anger or rage. During this time, I lost my two older children, as our relationship changed and I was no longer a part of their lives. For the person who is sick, it is hard not to take it to heart or internalize these types of negative emotions.

Within six months of finding out I had cancer I became fearless in my work and in my life. I was no longer afraid of anything. It was as if the energy around my clients “knew” that I was not afraid, that I would choose to go all the way and take the collective consciousness with me, if it was unwilling to shift or change. The vibration of my being fearless seemed to extend out all over. I was willing to risk everything, even my own life to transform old collective consciousness patterns back into pure creative energy. It was when I became fearless that I moved to what I now call my “ultimate agreement” and into an accelerated learning curve. The October 2002 newsletter shares this at: http://www.kenpage.com/mchnewsletter/agreements10-02.html

I could now do whatever Spirit asked from me without fear. On some level I volunteered for jobs that not many others would accept. When you are willing to risk yourself to assist everything to reach its full potential, a space is created where anything can occur. This is the space where miracles are created. This is the vibration that changes and transforms energy and I believe it can change disease.

I am not afraid of death. For me, it became harder to live with the way people wanted to hold onto me. There is so much I no longer choose to do or participate in any longer, like the games people play or the way in which culture or religion dictates our life. There are so many untruths and illusions that this world runs on. I know that I can make a difference. The energy on this planet can change, become a higher vibration and free the people who remain stuck in old energetic patterns and consciousness. I feel I must keep pushing past the ideas that hold us in the past. Freedom is so very close I can feel it. It is new, alive and freeing. Many of you are or will be asked to step into who you really are, to walk your talk and be truthful to your inner-selves.

I now feel blessed by my cancer experience. It took both of us – the consciousness of cancer and me - into a new reality of inner peace, and I pray that others around me will feel this as outer peace as well. I know this peace can bring hope and a higher level of compassion into the world.

After searching, I found my safe haven and a loving, restful home. My wife is also my spiritual partner and together, we have built a strong foundation of work and sharing with the world. The cancer vibration in my body has also gone to sleep. CT scans of the entire body including numerous tests and blood work have all definitely revealed that while I still have swollen lymph nodes - it appears that this cancer will not be a threat to my life. It is now years from that initial diagnosis in 1999 - and I still do not meet the criteria for treatment of the Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Currently, the lymphoma team at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia look at me with a smile, as I represent a living breathing human with cancer - yet they don't have to do anything to treat me. On all outward appearances, I am no longer a man with cancer. Healing through Oneness, through Miracles and through Peace has now occurred.

Two years into my diagnosis, it came to my attention that many of us have been exposed to many different types of viruses and that various vaccines could have had an effect on literally millions on the planet. My research indicated that I might have been subjected to the cancer virus through SV-40, a virus found in some species of monkeys. In 1960, SV-40 was found to have contaminated the polio vaccine. I was a polio vaccine volunteer in 1956. I believe I was exposed to this contaminated polio vaccine which has since been linked to lymphoma.

Here are a few excerpts from my own research files:
"SV40 is a virus found in some species of monkey. Soon after its discovery in 1960, SV40 was found in polio vaccine. Over 98 million Americans received one or more doses of IPV (injected polio vaccine) during the period (1955-1963) when some of the vaccine was contaminated with SV40. However, not all doses of IPV were contaminated. It has been estimated that 10-30 million of the 98 million people who received a polio shot actually received a vaccine that contained SV40 (Shah and Nathanson, 1976). In addition, about 10,000 volunteers who received an experimental oral polio vaccine (OPV) between 1959-1961 may have been exposed to SV40 (the vaccine was later licensed in 1963, subsequent to SV40 removal from the seed stock). All of the evidence to date indicates that after 1963, all vaccines on the US market were free of SV40. SV40 has been found in certain types of human cancers, but it has not been determined that SV40 causes these cancers. The majority of evidence suggests there is no causal relationship between receipt of SV40-contaminated vaccine and cancer; however, some research results are conflicting and more studies are needed." Simian Virus 40 (SV40), Polio Vaccine, and Cancer. CDC National Immunization Program. http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/cancer

"Two studies also found an association between SV40 and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (Shivapurkar, et al., 2002; Vilchez et al., 2002). These studies identified the virus in 42-43 percent of non-Hodgkin’s tumors, while finding no SV40 in tissue from healthy study volunteers. Lymphoma is a general word for cancers that develop in the lymphatic system – the tissues and organs that produce, store and carry white blood cells that fight infection and other diseases. Hodgkin’s disease is one type of lymphoma; all others are called non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Lymphomas account for about five percent of all cases of cancer in this country." http://www.cdc.gov/nip/vacsafe/concerns/cancer/default.html http://www.nci.nih.gov

As both Nancy and I are cancer survivors, we willingly help others, acting as a coach for those persons or families who have found out that one of their family members is sick. We will be sharing our findings experiences in keeping the immune system healthy and strong. We have also formed a non-profit organization, which will continue to help and share our work.

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