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Sex, money and power. These are the issues of the second chakra, according to Christine Northrup, MD, and author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom. It’s a book I had on my shelf 30 years ago and which I just now re-purchased because I am having health issues. The health issue, specifically, is cervical cancer, Stage 1. Yes, the “C” word. When I heard the news in December, I kept saying, “I can’t believe I have cancer.” At night, unable to sleep no matter how much voodoo I did, I said aloud, into the darkness, again and again, “I can’t believe I have cancer.” But I do and I watch myself move through the stages of grief: anger, denial, other emotions, and then finally, waves of acceptance. When I consulted healers, all said, “It’s grief.” My brother’s unexpected death last year triggered that grief, a brother I moved half way across the country to be near. It pried open the lid of other losses, all held in my body as I took care of everyone but myself. “Each of us who survives [major ordeals] must create meaning from the experience,” notes Hector Aristizabal, a torture survivor, in “The Blessing is Next to the Wound,” (The Sun, Issue 358). In traditional societies, rituals marked those major transitions. That’s how I chose to reframe this journey. As I worked with my story’s changing narrative, I saw the before/after arc, from the “Sacred Prostitute” of my younger days (my life before the cancer) to one entering the “Sacred Marriage” now (my life after the cancer). By the time you read this, I will be undergoing treatment (chemo and radiation). I’m told this will get rid of the cancer; that it is treatable. Please send love and light my way for the next few months, dear friends and colleagues. Carolyn
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