The full moon straddling two days, June 12 and Friday the 13, offered enough mystery to spook me as I headed to surgery, well procedure. But oh it was beautiful last night rising over the tree, the clouds buffering it, in pastel grays and purples. I wanted a picture, to look but knew the camera would only show a dot.

When I walked the dogs it burned so bright, I looked behind the barn to see if I’d left the outside barn light on. I had not. Trees threw shadows. It burned like a smelters’ door.

At 4:30, the world was already awake, with enough light, the farm shone like it had its own light, the moon, dilated, though far from the horizon.

Friday the 13th. Pam Houston, a writer I’ve admired for years because she knows how to use her life in fiction, wrote her nervousness over her own biopsy on this day. She unabashedly asked for support. People addressed the superstition saying Friday the 13 was a holy day for the Mayans. I saw a picture of at least one black cat.

Black cats, for me, well, Onyx, are powerful healers, soulful. They know how to lie down on your belly, warming the seat of your own power. They come by when creativity starts to sing, and they celebrate joyous bodies. This is just my opinion, but I think they got a bad rap because they have this power for good, only dressed in Night, darker than night, at night. And we all know, night can be a great healer. It calls us to rest and mystery, and a new kind of light. I have walked the mile long road from my childhood farm, praying, deep, rending prayers. Barbara Taylor Brown’s Learning to Walk in the Dark, gave me a clue. It’s an extended meditation about the goodness of darkness. She explores blindness, night time, caves among other things. It’s a lyrical, good read. But I’m off subject.

Today I too went for a procedure that would cut open my breast and take out tiny cells, getting ready to be cancer. Dread hung over me. And I believe Lissa Rankin is onto something when she talks about the nocebo effect, how our beliefs can kill us, how a doctor telling us you only have so much time, can become a prophecy. My docs have done no such thing. But they did to my mom, who lived nine months after her doctor said she had that long. Her death year, 60, hangs over me. I’m a year and a half away. My friend tells me to be careful of those thoughts. I know. I had them for this, that something would go wrong.

Then I remembered the days I rode Tessie, just sure she’d smash me into the ground, because she did once, the fear bitter, and she did not. She did not even flinch when geese flew up, the wind rattled. I remembered an Psalm put to music, “I will bless the Lord at all times”, the line, “And he delivered me from all my fears.” All kinds of fears. So I leaned into this, into a God who delivers me from Besides there’s a saying that I think begins in Byron Katie’s work, “Just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s true.”

Bruce sat with me, said he’d prayed hard that everything would be all right. We forgot our Divine Hours book so I read the psalm that tells us to praise God from creation. Tears set up in Bruce’s face. He gave me his presence and kindness. We watched some show on fixing curb appeal.

I have been afraid of the wire they stick in your breast to guide the surgeon, ever since I’ve heard of this. I see barbed wire. But it was only a tiny filament. For a bit of time, it felt like a raspberry pricker stuck way inside. I could hold still for as long as it took. They placed a Dixie cup over top to shield it.

The operating room, well, that was way more scary than you see on Gray’s Anatomy. Spotlights as big as the lights that come on with a bang in football stadiums. A bunch of women who introduced themselves as though I’d walked into a party of old friends. My surgeon’s eyes merry, almost joyous, and kind. (For me this surgery would mean wannabe cancer taken out.)

I said the oxygen mask made me claustrophobic. They took it away. They wrapped me in warm blankets (luxury) and wrapped me in these cuffs that squeezed my legs and arms that were deeply comforting in themselves.

The surgeon asked what I would dream because we’d talked about how I’d dreamed while I was under. I told her I’d think about driving my horse at the top of a beautiful valley that glows like blown glass, her sashaying tail.

Would you hold my hand? I asked. Two women took both. I felt their warmth. Then the drug hit and I said good night.