A Reflection

Nine years ago when I was confronted with Breast Cancer, I sailed through the diagnosis and treatment process with the minimum of fuss. My mind and emotions were focused on the fairly recent loss of my mother and the discomforts of an early menopause. Cutting into my breast and then frying it with radiation felt like a minor discomfort compared to the pain of loss. I missed my mother and I was inconsolable. In an effort to understand and come to terms with my grief, I sought answers in the realm of metaphysics, a childhood interest. To my surprise today, it took me on a journey that was to change much of my life.

I have always found a tremendous comfort in the captivating geometry of life expressed in the art and science of astrology. I was never dismayed by sceptics, naysayers, or religious dictates. I had an inborn respect for the value of astrological interpretation as a tool of transformation. It was a challenging skill to learn and a joy to practice as an art.

Self study led me to one of very few people who practiced medical astrology, a science requiring enormous depth and skill. Dr. Ingrid Naiman was a well recognized professional astrologer who was providing lessons for interested people. I was!

Ingrid's work has over the years enlightened and challenged me to seek answers in all realms of humanity for the good of the client. It was a path that I took willingly, for as a nurse it had also been a dream of mine to heal and offer strength and comfort. This was not always easy in a medical model establishment.

People generally gave up their power to others, in sickness. And, looking back on my own treatment, I recognized that people had been kind. I was offered help. But, I never felt that I had any control or input in my healing process. Nor, was it even recognized that I had deep emotional and physical issues that remained unresolved years after treatment.

There are probably dozens of stories I can share about my experiences in the past nine years. Few of them can compare with a single feeling of release I experienced when I knew that, if my cancer returned, I would not have to undergo any of the crushing and debilitating discomforts of surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.

In Ingrid's own journey, she came across information that would lead her first to research and then to devote a significant portion of the past ten years of her life to writing a book. Cancersalves, A Botanical Approach, would help many people living with cancer to choose an alternative and perhaps less toxic method of treatment. I have been privileged to share some of that time with her, learning, so that we can help to make this alternative available when traditional methods in medicine don't meet all of a client's needs

Significantly, in the past two years, I have been touched by so many new faces, some desperate, some resigned, some with hope, but all making choices that they feel good about including myself. As recently as two months ago, I felt a new lump in the old breast following my umpteenth bout of post radiation mastitis. I tried the violet salve, a formula originating with Hildegard von Bingen in the 12th century. Within a few days, the lump had softened. A small redness appeared on the surface of the breast with a little drainage. Thereafter the breast settled and the lump has virtually disappeared. My ultrasound/mammogram were normal.

• Go to www.cancersalves.com to learn about cancer and complimentary and alternative treatments.

• Go to www.kitchendoctor.com to learn how to turn healthy eating in to health.

• Go to www.astroheal.com to understand things that make out bodies tick.