Love & The Goddess (15 page)

I’d never been hung up on wanting big breasts, believing they interfered with dressing well. Since my weight loss, my breasts had shrunk to a B cup, what my sister Liz called “two
poached eggs, sunny side up”. I could style myself like a modern day flapper girl, but with longer hair, curls tumbling over my chest like the Goddess types Alphonse Mucha painted. An
androgynous bob would not work, but a kick-ass attitude would. After all, I’d need attitude if I found myself a lover, someone who really desired me. As I’d undress seductively,
I’d whisper: “Keats said ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.’ I say: beauty is art and life. What life took away I have replaced with a work of art. Prepare to be amazed.”
I grinned to myself. Yes, attitude was everything – and it would certainly separate the men from the boys.

I decided the news was too personal to share with anyone but my closest friends. I couldn’t tell my mother or sister, as they’d probably whip up unnecessary drama
and contact Trevor. That, I knew I couldn’t bear. After getting into my car, I phoned Ella. Unable to get through, I rang James instead and told him what had just happened.

“Where are you now?”

“Leaving the hospital.”

“How about we meet in Café Medina?”

Fifteen minutes later, I was sitting opposite him in the café nursing a large soya latte. “Why are you grinning?”

He fought laughter. “Sorry, Kate. I just can’t get the idea of you reclining topless in the tattoo artist’s studio out of my head...”

“It
is
funny, isn’t it? I’ve always been condescending about tattoos but I think I must deep-down have envied women brave enough to get one.” I took a sip of my
coffee. There was something I needed to ask him. “Tell me about your cousin who recovered from ...” I had a problem getting the C-word out. Fear was gripping me, throwing everything
else that had happened to me into the shade. “… cancer. What did she do?”

James became serious. “She’s a great believer in alternative medicine. Does everything from acupuncture to meditation. First she went on a trip to a healer in Brazil who performs
psychic surgery. There was a documentary about him and other spiritual healers on the television last month. Did you see it?”

I shuddered. “The one who cuts tumours out of people without sterilising equipment or anaesthetic?” My voice said it all.

“That’s him. Maria found him great. Now she attends an Irish shaman who lives just west of Galway city. I went to a sweat lodge he organised. He’s passionate about his work.
Would you give him a go?”

“James, I’ll try anything, but not black magic.”

“Kate, he’s not a witch doctor. He’s an ordinary country man who spent time as a Buddhist monk in France in his twenties. Later he worked as an addiction counsellor before
studying shamanism. He survived cancer himself and makes regular trips to that healer in Brazil.”

“He definitely sounds out of the ordinary – if you trust him, I’ll give him a try. Can you get me his phone number?” I tried to keep the tremor from my voice.

“Of course. He’s very busy, but tell him I sent you and he might squeeze you in fairly quickly.”

I was apprehensive about my visit to the shaman. Despite myself, I’d absorbed old superstitious beliefs from my mother and even more so from her crazy sister who kept in
regular contact with me by phone. Aunt Marge believed any kind of alternative practice was the work of Satan. To her, even yoga was a dark art. She regularly sent me emails about the evils of
“inhaling Prana”, which, as I’d tried to explain to her, was no more than concentrating on the breath during meditation or yoga. If anything, her warning emails seemed to lend
more credence to the fact that perhaps these practices really worked on some level. And if they were forbidden fruits, then I found the idea of them all the sweeter.

Sean the Shaman had a long grey beard and a ponytail. The rest of his head was bald, apart from a few wisps around his pointy ears. He was wearing a purple robe and had nothing on his feet.
He’d told me when I arrived that he’d gone to Peru to study shamanism and that he loved being able to really help people. “It’s a form of energy healing that works on the
body, mind an’ spirit. It’s very powerful. Take a seat.” He ushered me to a chair in a small room painted a tranquil green. A sickly scent of burning sage wafted through the
air.

Later, lying on the floor as Sean the Shaman danced around me making a succession of animal sounds – hooting, whistling, chirping, howling, elephant-trumpeting – while beating a drum
and shaking a rattle, I have to confess that I did think of Aunt Marge. I could just imagine her face. Sneaking a peek, I found the shaman waving a huge eagle’s feather over me before
starting up something akin to a rain dance as he drummed and hooted. Even I wondered if he’d completely lost his marbles. Yet unexpectedly, I slipped into a trance-like state, where
tranquillity and perfect bliss seemed to last for hours. A gong struck – once, twice, three times. I opened my eyes. He said, “That was to bring you back to the room. Your spirit was
journeying.”

As I came more into consciousness, I pulled myself into a sitting position, took in my surroundings. The ring of the drum still echoed through my head. I’d been lying there for only forty
minutes.

“How do you feel now, Kate?”

I considered. I wasn’t sure. “Relaxed.”

“The message I’ve received for you is that you’re fighting with reality, saying ‘this is not the way my life should be’. Right?” Sean looked at me intently,
his right eye larger than his left, recessed in folds of saggy skin.

“Of course I’m saying that. My dreams have been shattered.”

“You’ve suffered a great loss.”

“Yes. I wanted marriage to be until death do us part. It is a loss.”

“I’m talking about the greater loss you had many years back.”

What?
My stomach dropped like a lift with a broken cable. How did he know? “I don’t want to go there. I can’t discuss that right now.” I stared at my ring. I said,
my voice low, “All my dreams have been shattered.”

Handing me a tissue, Sean bent his head to look directly into my downcast face. “Kate.” He waited for me to look up. “Not many people live the dream …
’tis just
an outer show.
It’s all poppycock, my dear girl.”

I sniffed back tears. “What do you mean, poppycock? Of course people have happy families.”

“Yes. And happiness comes from living in the now. Accepting what is and handing over control to a higher power. When you do that you’ll relax into the flow of life, girl. The way you
are now, you’re fighting everything.”

“I was coping until this damn breast thing happened! And I was beginning to accept things, but this is just the last straw. Why me?”

“Why not you? Terrible things happen to people every single day. Many people are born incapacitated. Do you think you should be immune?” He peered at me like I was a strange
laboratory specimen.

“I know terrible things happen to people, but I’ve always worked hard and dotted all my ‘I’s and crossed my ‘T’s.”

He sat down, pulling his robe around him. “You have and you still think you can control everything. None of us can, girl. You need to surrender and begin believing in an all-loving God. If
you don’t like the word ‘God’ then a higher power or universal intelligence. The source of infinite love is available to you when you begin accepting what is. Now the other thing
I’m picking up about you is that you’re rejecting your body.”

“What do you mean?”

“You referred to your breast as ‘this damn breast’.”

“Did I?” I was shocked.

“Indeed you did. Your breasts are connected to your femininity. You’re fighting with your body. Now I want you to sit up straight in that chair with your two feet on the ground and
get into a comfortable position.”

I hauled myself up off the floor and did what he asked, pulling my spine up straight and settling myself into the support of the chair.

“Now place your two hands gently over your breasts and tell them how much you love them.”

At this, I burst out laughing. “Love my breasts? That sounds so egotistical.” I wondered was it also a little perverse.

“No I’m talking ’bout a love that’s got nothin’ to do with the ego. It’s a love that’s nurturing and full of compassion. And you need to start
connecting with that infinite source. First I need you to visualise yourself bringing in a divine light as you breathe in to your belly. Close your eyes and see a loving white light coming from the
top of your head … and as you breath in, feel the light travellin’ round your body, bringing love everywhere … right into your breasts.” He paused for me to follow his
instructions, encouraging me to breathe in deeply through my nose, hold the breath for the count of five and then exhale slowly. “Now I want you to silently say ‘I love you, my
wonderful breast’. First to your left breast, while holdin’ the emotion of tenderness and love.”

I fought the idea, wondering was he trying to make a fool of me. Perhaps he’d burst out laughing like a crazy circus clown if I went along with him. I flicked my eyes open for a brief
second but he was sitting there with his own eyes closed and a serene expression on his face like he was concentrating. He seemed serious. I did what he suggested. And it felt strangely good. I
continued to follow his instructions for visualisation and meditation, until he finally counted backwards from ten to one and told me to open my eyes.

“Do you think you could do that morning and night for the next while, Kate?”

I thought about it, realised I could. “I’ll do my best.” It all sounded daft but I was determined to try anything that had even the vaguest chance of working.

T
wice daily, I followed what he told me. I meditated as best I could, though in truth I found it hard to still my mind. Emotions I was
uncomfortable with started to surface and it took great effort to accept the feelings rather than resist and suppress my fears, anxiety and sadness. The shaman had told me: “Whatever you
resist will persist, remaining locked in your body until you accept it.” I didn’t really understand this language in relation to accepting emotions but I was determined to stop denying
what I was feeling. And after a few days the meditation helped calm me and allowed me to see my feelings as transitory. For the first time in my life I began to feel I was no longer at the mercy of
every thought that entered my mind. I was becoming the observer of my mind rather than a slave to it. This realisation helped me to ease into meditation rather than fight it.

The shaman had also given me essential oil of geranium mixed with a base of almond oil to massage into my breast twice daily, along with a homeopathic remedy called Byronia. The mix of
aromatherapy and homeopathy was purported to work on bringing down the lumpiness. A leaflet he handed me on holistic breast care warned that deodorants and underwire bras could be contributory
factors in breast cancer. Ironically, after my disgust at Ray’s aversion to anti-perspirants, I was now considering abandoning them. I read that they contained aluminium which blocked the
sweat ducts close to the breasts and could possibly encourage the growth of lumps. The advice was to use only an eco-friendly deodorant and to forego tight under wire bras in favour of the softer
sports version.