Today I am one of millions of women coping with breast cancer, a statistic in an epidemic. The breast is that which nurtures the children. Our milk glands are our live giving attribute.

 I believe that we are, reflections of the harm that is being done to the Mother. Perhaps through learning to heal ourselves, we can learn more about healing the whole.

Right now, my life centers on chemotherapy treatments and inner journeys. The balance points of suffering and transcendence. Not knowing what tomorrow brings, I learn about the gratitude and the mystery of the present.

Here, in the mountains, as winter closes in, I am in virtual house arrest, so I journey through spirit and consciousness, held by the web of life and by the love of my friends.

These months are teaching me the wisdom of the Prayer of St Francis. Life is a gift and an open heart is the way we receive it.

O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;                                                                
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life

Reverend Betsy Stang, M.A., is the Founder and Executive Director of The Wittenberg Center for Alternative Resources, an interfaith center in Bearsville, NY which is accredited as an international Non Governmental organization with consultative status at the United Nations. She is an interfaith minister, Earth Activist, counselor, writer, mother and teacher. Her private practice utilizes clairvoyant counseling for personal and planetary transformation.

She is also the Presiding minister and Founder of the Center for The Living Earth, and directs the Center's Interfaith Seminary program.

Rev. Stang founded The Earth Reunion Project in 1990 which works with traditional wisdom keepers of Earth traditions from around the world to create opportunities for dialogue and understanding. In 1992, she co sponsored The Cry of the Earth: The Legacy of the First Nations at the United Nations. Today she is active in interfaith work and was a member of the Founding Global Council for The United Religions Initiative.