It’s true. I lay in the sun almost every day for about 10 minutes. And it’s also true that at the age of 31, I was diagnosed with having a melanoma on my shoulder. It’s an absolute commitment to expose my skin here in Wyoming especially during the winters. Parking myself outside in the winter means I am bundled up – not just with a warm coat, but sometimes blankets on me, hat and gloves etc. It feels sooooo deliciously good. Even if the only skin I have uncovered is my face. It feels amazing.
I remember one time when I was maybe 25 and laying out in the sun on Maui. I was reading a book called Kahuna Healing and dosing in and out of sleep. I recall lying there on my back at one point and having this sense that something was happening between me and the sun. Something was transpiring on a very deep level. I didn’t really know what it was, I had very little body sense at that time, but I likened it to feeling like I was a battery and the sun was charging me. I felt electric and plugged in. And then when I felt like I had had enough, I remember getting up and feeling AMAZING.
A handful of years later, just after having my second baby, there was a very weird looking mole on my left shoulder. It was dark and slightly blueish. I went to my doctor who reassured me that nothing would be wrong with it. Literally, she said, “I am positive that it will be fine.”
So of course, as the title of this article alludes, it was not fine. It was seen to be a melanoma. My doctor felt badly that she had misled me. For me, her betrayal of my trust was just another in the line of irresponsible doctoring that I had witnessed.
I had the melanoma removed by a plastic surgeon who discussed his gun collection with me at a time when I could not possibly imagine owning a gun. (Suffice it to say, I live in Wyoming now. That ought to tell you everything about my relationship with guns). It was about 4 hours of sitting there listening to him scrape my tissue back with a knife while sitting up in a chair numbed in the shoulder region. Since it was on my shoulder, I could hear every swath with his utensils. It was making me nauseous. Chock up another great interaction with a doctor. Seriously, what the F@#!? I am sure he wanted to distract me, but talking about your gun collection?
And the scar, as it was healing had a huge festering pustule. It was alike a never ending zit that kept coming to a head. It additionally had this hard piece of material that was poking out of it. I KNEW inside me that this hard thing was a leftover stitch that didn’t dissolve. I went to have it looked at by my doctors, my “primary care” doctor and the plastic surgeon and they both said it was just a keloid scar. They said it was actually part of the scar growth. Well, about 3 months later, the stitch worked its way out and popped with a huge amount of pus. Yet another AWESOME interaction with doctors who really knew (sarcasm). Here’s the thing, I don’t care if you don’t know what it is – but DO NOT pretend that you do. Don’t pretend like you know everything. That is called LYING! And here’s the other thing – I KNEW…I knew what it was, yet I felt like I had to go to someone else to tell me. I did not trust ME!
So carrying on, as a new Mom with a 20 month old and a new born, my family was pretty adamant that I HAD to be very careful, and I was absolutely NOT allowed to be in the sun. I had to have hats and coverups and massive amounts of sunscreen. It was absurd. I was worried! I was very concerned. My grandfather had had a melanoma on his scalp and had a huge scar from it. I was left with what my eventual third child, a daughter, would call my salami scar. Yes, the plastic surgeon who took care of the melanoma and was so sure I would look elegant in a strapless dress, left a giant scar that was so messed up that my daughter called it my salami scar!
I was quite knowledgeable at this point in my life of the need to keep watch on product ingredients. And I was also kind of skeptical that the ingredients of many sunscreens might actual work to cause cancers. So I had sunscreens that I used that were pretty fancy and expensive from Australia. I slathered them on ALWAYS. I looked like I had a cake of white on me whenever I could not adequately cover with clothing. I was consistently creating a barrier between myself and that horrible thing “the sun”. At this point, I clearly did not consider myself nature. I was definitely defining myself as separate.
After several years of this covering up, I began to start to test the waters with the sun. It probably wasn’t for like a full 10 years after that, but I slowly started getting this feeling that I was sun starved. I would leave my arms uncovered…then I started taking my hat off. Pretty soon, I was laying down anywhere I could if it was a beautiful sunny day, tilting my head back and soaking in the rays. God it felt so fabulous. I wouldpack a beach towel with me and then just pull it out and lay down and knock out for 10 minutes at parks, on my deck, on a hike – anywhere I could.
Then it became a thing when I was back working in an office. I had to have a chair in the back of the office where I would go outside every afternoon and nap in that chair for 10 -15 minutes. I would jump up feeling refreshed and ready to get back to it.
In recent years, I have come to learn that I am receiving spiritual energetic codes from the sun and that by lying there and basking, I am not only receiving these codes, these transmissions, but I am taking some time to integrate them on a very deep level.
I have learned to take very good care of my skin. I take a lot of fish oil caps…A LOT! So there is some internal preparation I do to be ready to meet the sun. I also apply some body oils that have essential oils in them that are very protective. If I am out on our farm for a longer extended period, I do wear sunscreen as I do not want to burn. That is no fun. There is too much of a good thing! Side note – If I do burn, Yin-care®’s Herbal Wash ROCKS to apply to any burns…very cooling and soothing, especially when mixed with aloe.
I may have a few more crinkles than most around my eyes, and lots of good freckles…probably will get some awesome age spots, but I have a beautiful relationship with our sun. I am so grateful for the sun. So grateful that I get to feel the bliss of our sun’s kiss on my skin daily. So grateful that I arise from my sacred time in his rays feeling so recharged and ready to go.
