Dear Phil,

I'm bypassing the follow on posts, and responding to your first.

Thank you for being open enough to share your story of the process, fears 
and hopes of what is happening for you, and the support from Linda. While 
not as critical as what you’re facing. I had a scare last year with a heart 
condition, and while that seems to be under ‘control’ the issue of mortality 
emerged for for me. The endless tests, diagnoses and medical options and 
medications were somewhat sobering. Like you, I started to pay more 
attention to my leafy environment, and also thought more about what legacy I 
might leave to my family, as well as to Gestalt, on my terms. I have also 
lost my Mother, ex- partner’s mother and father in law-of my eldest son in 
the last few months – some of us are of an age.

Phil, I am very glad to hear your PSA levels are reduced, and gut-felt 
wishes for your recovery. My beliefs are different from yours, and that’s OK 
. To quote a relativity well known Irish provocative satirist and comedian 
Dave Allen's sign off – "May your god go with you”.

Cyber hugs,

Alan



-----Original Message----- 
From: Philip Brownell
Sent: Saturday, January 30, 2021 7:19 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: In 2019-20

Hello.  I want to share something with you.  You may not like it; it might 
wear you out so that you have to quit, or you may not even look at it at 
all.  But I want to share it with you.

One day, my PSA level shot up a bit, and the doctor suggested that I get a 
biopsy of my prostate.  That showed that cancer was in it and through it, in 
every part of it.  I suddenly felt like that ultimate day had come.  We all 
know we are going to die, but it remains a kind of academic consideration if 
a consideration at all.  The flow of life just keeps moving, flowing. We are 
in the flow of it, preoccupied by our interests and preoccupations. But for 
me the flow stopped. It’s as if everything went silent, and in the stillness 
I realized that my own death was at hand. That is what it felt like. 
Everything got re-arranged in my thinking.  I went a bit cold, finding 
myself still but suddenly smelling the fragrance of our land, the sound of 
the birds overhead and the wind in the trees, all the things I missed when I 
was caught up in the currents of my life.  My dogs seemed to look at me as 
if they knew.  I knew.  I was dying.

The doctor told me I could do radiation and keep the prostrate in or I could 
have surgery and get it out. I said, “Get that damn thing out of me!”  The 
pathologist’s report following surgery indicated it was likely that some of 
the cancer had escaped the prostate and was still in my body; so, I took a 
Lupron shot, and we scheduled radiation.  The lupron prevents the production 
of testosterone, which actually feeds the cancer, and the shot was powerful, 
supposedly lasting six months, at the height of which I would start three 
months or so of daily radiation (the stuff actually lasts longer than that).

So, somewhere in the midst of all that, having come to terms with the idea 
that I might actually be dying and that I was not much longer in this world, 
I decided I wanted to take Linda and go see a live concert of the group 
called Hillsong United.  We booked it for the Pepsi center in Denver. We 
drove out there and along the way we stopped to see a friend from the 
gestalt world who lived in Cheyenne.  Sylvia was a character, someone I used 
to argue with a lot online about gestalt therapy, theory, practice, 
Christianity, and of all things George Bush. She was a Christian herself, 
but with a much more liberal take on theology.  She took us into her home, 
showed us her collection of art work and told us about her life in Cheyenne. 
Then, a few months later she died.

My last two PSA levels could not detect any PSA.  Not dying quite yet.

The link below is of the concert that Linda and I experienced in Denver, 
only this is a video of their performance at Madison Square Garden in NYC in 
the same tour–as well as what it was like for them to have that kind of work 
to do.  I have to tell you that that concert, and these songs, and being 
with people in Denver (such as the contingent of Asian people right in front 
of us who were ecstatic and worshipping together) was like a soothing, 
reassuring friend who reminds you to just settle down and be at peace when 
everything around you seems to be suddenly disintegrating.

Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a9xmHq1cxg&list=PL3deMd8-p5lcpmLmUBr0zziBPeZpQFy0g
______________
Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt 
therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be 
found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and 
subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is 
found at the archives. 

______________
Gstalt-L is an independent eCommunity of people interested in gestalt therapy theory and its various applications. Its public archives can be found at http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A0=GSTALT-L, and subscriptions can be managed by clicking on "Subscriber's Corner," which is found at the archives.