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The malignant lump, sinister and invasive, had finally been removed.
Along with it went my small and vulnerable left breast, which had harboured the insidious intruder.
I looked appraisingly at myself in the mirror and acknowledged that I would need a swag of good coping skills to help me through the next few months of radiation and recovery.
Most of the material I had read on visualisation sounded helpful, but I felt it had been written with someone else in mind - not me.! I needed some magic which was strong, powerful and uniquely mine. Where would I look?
On my walk each day, I gladly embraced my surroundings, revelling in the beauty of the area I was staying in for the period of my treatment.
One morning I found a feather. It was black and shiny, rounded at the tip, and I felt it was a gift from a crow.
As a keen bird watcher for many years, I had developed quite a passion for feathers, and their shape, colour and endless variety gave me great pleasure. In fact, I enjoyed them so much, I displayed my collection in a beautiful basket at the entrance to my lounge, where it created a talking point and was much admired by my friends.
At the clinic I fell into the habit of using the black feather as a bookmark in whatever I was reading. It became my talisman.
Then, as I lay under the large, computerised machinery which delivered the carefully calculated zaps of radiation to my wounded left side, it came to me clearly – I would use feathers in my healing visualisation. I was excited at all the wonderful possibilities my imagination suddenly conjured up.
Feathers took on a new perspective. I pictured my breast covered in soft down, where the radiation burnt my skin. They soothed and protected me.
When I felt stressed, I could fly with them to another state of mind, to a high, safe place. I could preen them, when I felt relaxed and happy, just like any beautiful bird, and they soon represented the power and strength I had been searching for.
I secretly assumed a persona which elevated and encompassed me – Phoenix Breast Feather, Warrior Woman.
I chose the phoenix because this mythical beauty was the only one of its kind, fabled to live 500 or 600 years. It would sing its death song to the sun, burn itself on a funeral pile and rise to be reborn from its own ashes, restored to live through another cycle.
I liked that word picture. I could relate to that. Hadn’t I been burnt, risen again, restored and given a new smack at life? Yes! Phoenix Breast Feather and I became one.
With such a powerful name and image to live up to, I needed it to be officially bestowed on me. I felt all I had experienced deserved acclaim. I wanted to clang cymbals, ring bells, bang drums and blow horns. Medals could be struck, ribbons, perhaps a knighthood? '... Arise Phoenix Breast Feather, you have fought well and WON, and because of this we want to give you a very high honour ... a new name.' It all sounded pretty good to me.
My friends decided to take matters into their own hands and they planned a naming ritual.
They asked two things of me - to look up the meaning of my given name, and any other names I’d been known by during my life, and to write down on cardboard arrows, which they had prepared beforehand, any thoughts or feelings I wanted to be rid of.
We dressed ceremoniously, lit candles, burned incense and carefully selected drumming music. We honoured the four directions, called in any power animals, and prayed and meditated. We danced and sang, and I burnt the arrows over the charcoal pot in the centre of the circle.
I was, in truth, burning my old self, and being reborn from the ashes, just as the Phoenix of Arabia did in ancient mythology. We had a wonderful celebration. I accepted my new name with the solemnity the occasion deserved.
I still use my given name, but for sheer magic, power and strength, I can call on Phoenix Breast Feather at any time and remember well her birth, at a very traumatic period in my life.
Judy, Age 64, Qld
aka Phoenix Breast Feather
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The birth of Phoenix Breast Feather 
