The Journey Begins

I look behind and after

and find that all is right;

in my deepest sorrows

there is a soul of light.

Vivekananda

I was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer on January 12, 2009. I had known about the tumor for a while, but it had been misdiagnosed via two thermograms as benign. As a health conscious, alternative-minded person, I didn't want to expose myself to the radiation of mammograms, so when I found out about thermograms, I put my trust in them. Bad idea. My surgeon later told me that the location of my tumor, which is over my heart, is a weak spot for thermograms because the heat generated by the heart can confuse the test's interpretation. When the lump adhered to my muscle and started to hurt (a lot), I went in for a check-up. The physician's assistant examined my breast, and as I watched her face tighten with concern, I knew I was in trouble. She squeezed me in for an emergency core biopsy two days later, and as the surgeon and the radiologist worked on me, they spoke in somber, hushed tones that oozed with compassion. Anyone who has watched a doctor show on TV would know that what they were really saying was, "Sorry, but you are totally screwed."

Allow me to back up a bit. Several months before, an odd thing had happened. After swallowing a mouthful of scrambled eggs at breakfast, the blood drained from my head, my heart seemed to stop, and I almost fainted; from that moment on, I felt sort of slippery, as if my soul had begun to separate from my body. I remember saying to a friend, "I don't really understand why, but I feel like I'm dying."

As a professional astrologer, I knew that I was in a challenging period called a Saturn return that wasn't about to end any time soon. I also knew that my Saturn return was a very difficult one because of certain planetary configurations, and I suddenly found myself wondering if I would survive it. I decided to talk to another astrologer in order to get a second, hopefully more optimistic, opinion. I don't usually consult other astrologers, so I googled around until I came upon the website of an astrologer named Walden Welch, and I intuitively knew he was the man I wanted to talk to. He had been clairvoyant since birth, and his charming features made him look like he had just emerged from Lorien Forest, the realm of the Elves in Lord of the Rings.

Walden Welch

We had a pleasant conversation on the phone and he told me to email him my birth info the next day. After doing that, I didn't hear from him. Then I waited a week and emailed him again. When I still didn't hear from him, I knew that his lack of response wasn't due to some glitch in my gmail. I said to myself, "Well, either he's dying or I'm dying." To test out my theory, I had a friend send him an email. When he responded to her the next day, I knew that I was the one who was dying and he probably didn't want to be the one to break the news. I felt a mixture of curiosity and dread about trying to contact him again.

During this period of time, I went to a service for a friend who had just died of breast cancer. Susan Edwards was a well loved member of the Boulder community, a witty, brilliant writer and metaphysician who had been a disciple of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and a close associate of Allen Ginsberg. Her memoir of Ginsberg is entitled The Wild West Wind.

Susan Edwards

Many Boulderites are spiritually eclectic people who participate in a melange of ceremonies ranging from Tibetan Buddhist rituals to Sunday services at Unity Church to Hindu chanting to Passover Seders. Susan's service was held at the shrine room of Karma Dzong, the building that houses the Boulder Shambhala Meditation Center. After removing my shoes, I padded into the stunning, richly colored shrine room adorned with ornate carvings, bronze statues of Tibetan Buddhist deities and powerful sacred paintings. The large space was filling quickly with people who had come to say goodbye to Susan, and my partner, Ken, and I happened to land in two seats that were directly in front of her body. In the Buddhist tradition, corpses are not embalmed before cremation, and I occasionally discerned a sour, musky scent as the odor of Susan's decomposing body mingled with the sandalwood incense that was burning on the altar above her. While contemplating her lifeless form, I thought about this unique, remarkable woman who'd had a way of peering into our souls and deftly pruning our tangled inner gardens with a few well chosen words. As I thanked Susan for her trickster wisdom, her compassion, and her wry, Mona Lisa smile, I silently concurred with her decision to eschew Western medicine in her journey through breast cancer. Even though we had lost her, I understood Susan's decision not to suffer the slash and burn methods of chemotherapy, mastectomy and radiation, and I knew I would have chosen the same path.

A short while later, the day of my doctor's appointment arrived. Even though signs and portents of death seemed to be hovering all around me, I had felt sure that my tumor was benign and I was absolutely shocked when I found out that I had cancer. My first thoughts were that I was going to make the same choices that Susan had, and that I would probably die. After many years of coping with chronic health problems, I didn't feel that I had it in me to endure the torturous rituals of Western medicine's cancer treatments. I went through the MRI, PET and CT scans in a daze. The results showed that my cancer was in several lymph glands, in my skin, and that it had adhered to my muscle, but the good news was that no other tumors were present in my body. The fact that it had not metastasized put me in stage three. If I had been in stage four, with tumors elsewhere in my body, my condition would not have been considered curable. But with intensive chemotherapy, a mastectomy and radiation, I had a good chance for a cure. Of course, my partner, my sister and my best friends wanted me to fight, but they had all seen me suffer with health problems for years and they understood my reluctance to enter a gory battle for my life. A good friend of mine who is an excellent therapist offered to work with me, and for two weeks I explored an inner dialogue between the part of me that refused to take a warrior's stance against my disease and the part of me that wanted to live. Ironically, the part that was refusing to fight was winning.

That was when I decided to email Walden one more time. I told him that I now knew that I was dying of cancer, and my guess was that he had intuited my dire straits but hadn't wanted to break the news. Then I said that I was working to gain clarity in my mind and my heart, and that I would appreciate receiving his counsel; but I also said I would completely understand if he chose not to work with me, and that if I didn't receive a response to this email, I would not bother him again. He emailed me the following morning, and we set up an appointment that lasted eighteen minutes and changed the course of my life.

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