by Tanya Corona

Created on: September 05, 2008   Last Updated: September 27, 2011

A little more than ten years ago I was home for a year recuperating from a life threatening situation. That period of my life forced me to look at the reality of my mortality and experience the vulnerability of my existence here on earth. As the seasons changed, so did I. The transformation was slow and gradual, but long in coming.

I spent the first half of that year in the business of healing my body. It was the first thing I had to do. I provided it with the right nourishment so I could regain my strength, gradually changing my palate as it was introduced to new foods that would better sustain me. I learned, for the first time, the meaning and importance of stillness because to have lived otherwise was not an option at that particular time. I urged, pushed and coaxed muscles that had become atrophied in becoming strong once again so they could hold me up and carry my body. I delicately tended to the scar - the only physical reminder of my loss.

The latter half of the year was spent in the healing of my soul. Having now regained some of my strength, it was time to look within myself. Immersed in the stillness of what had become my life, I would take my morning coffee outdoors and with a new-found keen and appreciative eye, witness nature - verdant and blooming and then resplendent in the colors of Fall. I would read much within the gentle caresses of breezes coming to comfort me or sometimes late at night in the sanctuary of my shadowed bedroom. I would go through my daily rituals with a different sense of appreciation: the making of beds and truly noticing for the first time the different textures - some soft and cushiony, others cool and smooth, but all inviting; I found delight and pleasure in the making of a meal. I would go on long walks and pick up soft rocks and hold them in my hands feeling the warmness of them against my skin, the softness and physicality and how connected I felt to the world. I listened to the sounds of nature, people and life enter my conscious and tried to discern all that needed to be heard or acknowledged. For the first time, I felt truly alive and awake to this thing called life.

During this time I had little interaction with the world. I placed myself in a cocoon and sheltered myself from the voices, the looks of concern, the advice and opinions that wanted to be given with sincere words but of which I was not yet ready to hear nor accept; I could not look in the mirrored eyes of family members reminding me of another loss.

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