20. A Perfect Description.

Darn it, I didn't get the eight weeks' holiday (yet). But then mine didn't cost anything like as much either.

A perfect description of a gift that can change your life so incredibly for the better.

It's just three minutes' long so yes, you have the time to click through and watch.

Stacy Kramer, talking at TED.

19. The Prescription is Love ... not Juices.

Even before diagnosis, I was wondering about the raw food route. There are all sorts of diets recommended for critical or chronic illnesses and most of them involve being vegan, gluten-free, sugar-free and mostly - if not completely - raw.

My friend John - who has helped me considerably with EFT - said 'If I had cancer, I'd go 100% raw immediately.'

Well I tried as much raw food as I could. I know it suits some people. I know it's what you're 'supposed' to do. But I lost the will to live. So that was not going to work. What I did get was guilt that I wasn't eating well enough and I the more I tried, the less I ate so that I wasn't eating enough at all. I am not good at raw food recipes; they take a lot of time and I was frightened and worried and having to get used to far too much already.

I began to cry on the phone to my dear friend Adam - who lives a good 150 miles away - and he said the following:

"This is ridiculous. You can't live like this. I'm going to the shops now and I'll be down in Devon with you tomorrow morning. I'll stay five days and I'm going to cook you good, clean food."

 The prescription is love at the top and juice diets at the bottom, if at all. 

That's a quotation from the weird website I wrote about in my previous blog and that sums it up completely. I could starve the cancer with raw food. But that wouldn't cure the problem; it would simply hold it at bay temporarily. No different from chemotherapy really. And if it made me miserable (and my inner child too) how could that assist the problem of the death wish (see previous post) in any way at all?

Adam did come down and taught me some lovely, simple recipes. More importantly, he loved Lion and me through the days with kindness and firmness and since then I've fed myself pretty well. I've been mostly vegetarian, eaten a third of my food raw, juiced every day, eaten sheep and goat cheese and allowed myself weekly treats.

The immunologist I saw in London with a VEGA machine backed Adam up, thank God. Nothing from the cow nor from the pig; a little lamb, some poultry, fish okay, no gluten. As much raw as you can but enjoy your food. Prosper the life-wish.

Here's the full quotation from the website:

"What this is not to be is a drive to force the body back to health, devoid of love, such as we see.  We see this on juice diets. “This will make you healthy, body; I don’t care if you don’t like it, body (i.e. it doesn’t taste good), you‘re having it”. That is not love. Nurture and nourish your body, with love. This is more powerful than any antioxidant you can put into your system. Understand this. Ideally, do both. Do what you have to do to bring it back into balance, with love.Do not allow the mind to do more than the body is able to handle. All you need is rest. This is why many of you manifest a mechanism to exit."

I love my body. I love her bravery and her strength. I love how she is living, palpably not dying, with this dis-ease and how this diet is making her even more beautiful. I ask her what she wants to eat to make her strong. We are working on this in mutual love and respect. This is good.

18. The Death Wish.

 I came across a really interesting website totally by accident – or by Grace – which says the following:

“Anyone diagnosed with cancer feels at the deeper subconscious level of the mind, that life is too hard, painful and overwhelming, and that death is the preferable option to life. At the conscious level of the mind, the person diagnosed with cancer is still wanting to live, but at the deeper subconscious level of the mind, the person is feeling life is simply too hard and unbearable. This creates a chain reaction process where the subconscious mind literally instructs the immune system to slow down and stop working altogether. This causes healthy somatids (tiny living organisms necessary for life that live in our blood) to pleomorphise or change into yeast-like fungus that creates cancer in the body over an 18-24 month period.”

Now this is a website of channeled teachings so that will put most people off (and 99% of them put me off too) and although I’ve learnt a lot about the role of candida in cancer I’ve certainly never heard of somatids. But even so, the website didn’t feel like WBX. In fact this resonated. You see, years ago I had an astrological reading with my former spiritual teacher and he said that my chart had a death wish.

And even though I’ve certainly had a life of miracles, some of it has been bloody hard work and some of it has hurt immensely ... you don’t get widowed, emigrate twice in one year, live in 11 homes within a five year period and then get divorced without a certain amount of ‘dear God, what next?’

So somewhere, in all that stress, there has been a part of me (my inner child) who just thought it was all too hard. All too much effort. I had one of those childhoods where no one got angry and everyone simmered instead so she didn't come out in 'I hate everything and I want to die' but hid away (as I did as a child) in her cave until something sparked her off. 

Luckily, the website has a clear answer for his death-wish - once you've changed your mind, get mad about it! Shout and yell your new opinion - your verve for life. And to be sure, a difficult diagnosis does get you pretty clear on whether you want to live or not.

There's a caveat however - you need to want to live for you. Not for the family; not to keep helping others but for the sheer joy of living. I want to be a comedian. Not a therapist, nor a healer, nor a teacher, nor a good daughter, nor even a good wife. I want to be a comedian. 

So there are parts of the Moor on windy days nowadays which have an anoraked, hatted, gloved and fearsome Maggy stomping her way across them in wind and rain yelling "I shall not fucking die! I won't! I shall fucking live to fucking praise the fucking Lord my God! So fucking there!"

After a while I start laughing and that's the best part about it. Then I am standing in wind and rain on the bones of the land laughing with the Goddess at the sheer glory of life.

17. When are you going to believe?

So there I am, in the archetypical witch's cottage in the heart of Dartmoor, laid down in front of the fire while Suzi the Shaman begins her drumming to take her into the underworld to find the lost shards of my soul that I sent away or lost as a child.

This was 24 hours after I'd been on a weekend religious retreat with some lovely but very orthodox nuns who most certainly would have thrown up their hands in horror at the very idea.

But you go where you are guided to go on a healing journey - that is, if you'll listen to the guidance. I'm pretty good at it in some ways but like most of us I have my blind spots.

There had been a miracle just before Suzi began. I'd been answering her questions as we sat by the window in that incredible house when we both heard a fluttering. It was a peacock butterfly on the inside of the windowsill.

On 2nd December.

Yes, butterflies do hatch inside houses. But it was a bit of a coincidence that this one appeared at that moment ... and that it was a peacock which is my own personal sign butterfly. That's a long story but peacocks have shown up to give me 'yes' answers to a lot of questions over the years. I once said off the top of my head to a lady who was staying with us and who had a particular question about her own healing: 'Yes, that is so and to help you believe it, there will be five peacock butterflies in the front garden tomorrow.' It was June. We'd never seen any peacocks in the year that we had lived at that house. But all five of them were there the following morning for her to see.

So that was a nice sign. I'd had a lot of positive signs, all of which appeared to say 'it's okay, Maggy. This is not about your physical death, this is about your spiritual resurrection. You did ask us to clear you out - remember?' But of course they were signs that my ego wanted to believe so I was scared to put too much faith in them.

And I know that if are looking for something, you'll spot it. I used to call it 'Red Citroen Syndrome' because when my ex was courting me, I was driving a red Citroen and, suddenly, he saw red Citroens everywhere. That's because his psyche was looking for me. Previously, red Citroens had had no importance at all and he'd never noticed them.

So, once my ears had been drummed into numbness and Suzi had done her amazing work and two glowing embers of my soul had returned to me, it was pretty amazing to hear her say:

'The spirits don't get impatient, but if they did, they would be impatient with you. They have given you such wonderful signs and still you won't believe.'

And then she named some of the signs. I hadn't told her about any of them.

Yes, I did cry. Because God and my guardians had got my back and were yelling their heads off to tell me so. I listen a lot better now.

16. The Power of Names or No More Nigel.

I named the dis-ease 'Nigel' about six months ago ... because that disempowered it for me. The full diagnosis name with its prognosis was scary, not to mention long and complicated to explain.

To me, 'Nigel' recalled a couple of perfectly pleasant guys from my past who hit on me and, when I turned them down, pottered off politely and I never heard of them again. They weren't threatening and they didn't hang around long.

So calling it Nigel was a very good idea.

Then.

But now, as I move on through this journey, I think it's time to let Nigel go as well. That's because any name has power and a name with a capital letter can be very powerful indeed. I don't even want a Nigel around any longer so I'm saying goodbye to that name too now. Saying goodbye with thanks because it was very, very helpful when I needed it.

As an example of how names have power I used to tell a story in a workshop. I'd say:

'I saw a brown creature at the bottom of the garden.'

A very small amount of vague interest would flicker in some eyes but that was it. Then I'd add:

'It was a deer.'

More interest was shown then as people could immediately identify what I was talking about. Then I'd say:

'A fallow deer - a lovely golden brown colour with white spots.'

That filled in the picture more, especially for those who've seen Bambi. Then I said:

'Bella the fallow deer comes into the garden most mornings now.'

People began to coo. Well, the girls did.

Then I said:

'Bella the fallow deer was hit by a car and died.'

'Noooo!' came the cry and people were genuinely upset - even though this was just a story I'd made up. The naming of the deer had made it a personal thing; a real thing. And the fact that the name of the type of deer had evoked Bambi brought up the whole horror of the shooting of Bambi's mother.

We name things all the time - with capital letters. There's a disease called aids. I don't capitalise that because I don't want it to get bigger. There was the 'credit crunch' in the UK - part of the recession (which is another name). The credit crunch was capitalised in all the newspapers and it became 'real.'

Of course, some people say things should be named in order to 'out' them. And they'll come up with the old 'for evil to succeed it just needs good people to do nothing' statement.

I don't think believing in the good, focusing on the good, praying for healing, sending healing, blessing the situation or cutting off constant focus on what is bad is doing nothing. I think it's very important that we look for solutions rather than focusing on the problem. Pushing against the problem just makes it bigger.

So perhaps a new name for what I've been experiencing would be my Wellness or my Healing. Or maybe it just doesn't need a name at all.

15. Miracles

I know quite a lot about miracles. I've certainly experienced quite a few in my time. And I will experience more. Some of those were big, whopping 'bloody hell!' kind of miracles and others are quieter 'hang on a minute, wasn't that...?' ones. But this blog is called A Life of Miracles and my life has definitely been just that ... and, thank God, continues to be so.

Here are just a few examples from my blogs:

There's why I married Henry Barley.

There's Henry's and my wedding.

There's the barracuda.

There's How To Manifest a Beagle.

There's Getting Didi Home.

I had a wonderful healing miracle too. About eight years ago I developed a rather nasty mole on my right breast. It grew quickly from nothing, was a bad colour and started to divide.

I panicked and ignored it (I know ... I know but I never said I wasn't a coward). Then, the night before my ordination as an independent sacramental priest, I accidentally scratched it in the bath and it started to bleed.

Very interesting timing. 'Well,' I thought, suppressing the panic. 'I can't do anything about it tomorrow but I guess I'm off to the doctor pronto as soon this is over.'

But as I lay in the bath again, on the evening after the ordination ceremony, after everyone else had gone home and I had time to contemplate such a wonderful and life-changing day, I noticed something odd.

The mole had gone. Absolutely and completely gone. There was a pale pink patch where it had been and that was all.

It never came back. I don't know if that kind of thing happens often but to me it was a complete miracle with wonderful timing. And I am still very grateful.

So... I was kind of expecting a miracle this time too. But it hasn't been that kind of miracle and that was certainly hard at first. Getting used to a big life-change takes time and it's natural to want things to return to the way they were - but that's not the message that a dis-ease brings.

A friend who's been reading this blog said 'of course, I can see you're putting a brave face on it.' But that felt very weird. You know, I don't think I am. I actually am appreciating the journey. I'm being renewed, regenerated, resurrected. I wouldn't have missed this for the world.

Yes, as I've said before, there are some utterly horrid times - including a time when I sat with my head in said friend's lap howling with fear and distress - but I have also experienced such love, such kindness, and I have grown such strength. I have been in communion with God in a completely different way; I have experienced therapies and healing rituals that I would never have known of before; I have had gifts of spirit and psyche as well as gifts in the physical world. I'm not the me I used to be and that's truly amazing.

This is the making of me not the destroying of me. Thank you God.

14. A Simple Guide To What You Might Do to Avoid Cancer

This is exactly that – simple. It’s not definitive and every human being is different. I have no medical training; this is a researched, journalistic article only. It’s not short either but it’s as succinct as I can make it.  I do have to put a disclaimer at the end, of course. So you are hereby forbidden to read this until you’ve read that. Okay?

There’s so much stuff on the Internet about what causes/prevents/cures cancer that you could trawl through it for days. I can still hit overwhelm on some days and that’s the last thing anyone wants when they’re already worried.  Stress is really, really good for cancer and, as you know, really not good for you.

Everything here is also in Mum's Not Having Chemo by Laura Bond and/or Everything You Need To Know To Help You Beat Cancer by Chris Woollams.

All human beings produce cancer cells but our immune system deals with them quite easily before they get to be a problem. Even if they do grow into a tumour it is very common that the immune system will still see it and seal it off so that it stops growing and does no harm. A pathologist friend of mine said he had never cut open a body over the age of 50 without finding a small, encapsulated tumour somewhere.

Something activates these tumours – or starts another, which the system can’t cope with. Or a gene mutates. We all have genetic profiles which show, which genes are likely to mutate ... but they don’t have to mutate. Cancer generally kick-starts due to stress of some kind, whether physical or emotional.

1. Sugar.

Cancer eats glucose. A cancer cell has ninety two receptors for sugar (receptors are aspects of the cell that identify foods). A normal cell has four receptors.

If there’s an active cancer it will feed on every sugary thing that you eat. You are not eating that muffin, your cancer is. So stop with the sugar. That is vital. Yes, it’s hard but this is your life we are talking about. You can starve a cancer through diet. That won’t cure the disease but it will halt it while you look at what else needs to be done.

If there is no cancer, excess sugar can lead to there being one. Here’s how.

In every human gut there is a yeast called Candida.  UK doctors don’t bother about it and, when it’s just sitting there and minding its own business that’s fine. But feed it with too much sugar and it will grow and grow and grow, destroy your natural stomach bacteria, leave the gut and get into the bloodstream as a fungus.

Many respected US medical universities are now saying that Candida is the main precursor to cancer. Certainly more than 70% of all tumours which have been tested for Candida have contained it in the fungal form.  In any case, a spread of Candida depresses the immune system.

First moves towards a solution: Drink Pau d’Arco tea. Take five grams of vitamin C a day and a very, very good multi-strain pro-biotic – something like Bio-Kult. You’ll probably need four of those a day for about six months to get your stomach working properly. They certainly won’t harm you (but please check your dose with a nutritionist).

Don’t just take Yakult or something similar. The "friendly bacteria" in Yakult are lactobacilli casei shirota. In Actimel, they are lactobacilli casei imunitass. Each sweetened drink contains only half the amount to be found out in a quality probiotic supplement.

There are all sorts of anti-Candida formulas available. I have no idea which are the best but Pau D’Arco works very well for me.

N.B. Cow milk (which isn’t good for us at all) forms mucus in the stomach which will make this worse. Goat milk doesn’t. Ditto cow yoghurt. Sheep yoghurt is also fine. This is according to my irridologist and my immunologist and has worked just fine for me for decades. In fact, I was told I was close to diabetes 2 about 15 years ago. I came off cow's dairy and within 12 months I was all clear.

Gluten also messes up our bacterial gut so if you’re serious about this, cut right back on bread and pasta or go for the gluten-free varieties.

3. Oxygen

Cancer hates oxygen. Most of us don’t realize how little oxidized our bodies are. In my case, I walk on Dartmoor most days and do deep breathing with the climbing so my body is fairly well oxidized — that’s one of the reasons why my immunologist couldn’t work out how Nigel turned up. But I did have Candida; I did have deep emotional stress and other aspects. Without my daily walking I would almost certainly have ended up a lot sicker than I did.

We breathe very shallowly when we are stressed and most of us live in big cities where there is little clean air. Pollution does lower the immune system. I’ve been reading on how inhaling 3% hydrogen peroxide or putting it in your bath can be really helpful but I don’t know any more than that at the moment. If you’re worried about not getting good, clean oxygen, do give that a Google.

4. Exercise

The best way to get oxygen of course is to walk in the country. But exercise is important for two other reasons too.

Firstly, it gets the lymphatic system going. This has no other way of being stimulated apart from movement. So if you get up, get in the car and sit in the office all morning, your lymphatic system is hardly awake. As this is your primary immune defence system against any disease whatsoever, let alone the rogue cells of cancer, morning exercise is vital to waking it up. For that, ten minutes of rebounding (mini-trampoline) or dancing to MTV is sufficient.

For making sure that carbohydrates you have eaten don’t get into a cancer cell (carbs are turned into sugars by your body) you need to exercise for 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes after supper. The magic 30 is the amount of exercise your body needs to turn what you have eaten into fats rather than sugars. Then it can use them instead of feeding the cancer.

If you can do 30 minutes of something fairly brisk — it doesn’t have to be walking —  within 17 hours of eating, this will work. Unless of course you’ve eaten an awful lot too much food... Morning and after supper are the key times.

5. Alkalise Your Body.

This is the favourite of the ‘eat vegan/raw food’ brigade but it is moot as to whether or not it will affect existing tumours.

The pH of normal body tissue is 7.4, which is slightly alkaline, and in almost every experiment done with cancer cells, they are grown in an environment at that pH.

But when a tumor develops, it creates its own acidic environment (I believe partly because it doesn’t use oxygen), and so the pH of your blood no longer determines the pH of the cancer.

However, if your body is highly acidic — sugar (again, sigh), meat and no veg and all the lovely foods that you’ve been warned against for yonks — it’s not good for the immune system. So it’s still worth checking and sorting out your basic pH. Your doctor can test it (though it varies every day) or you can get pH strips from the Internet.

There is some very interesting evidence that if you inject bicarbonate of soda — which is very alkaline — into a tumour, it collapses (don’t try this at home). The primary medical person researching this is 
Dr. Tullio Simoncini. Also try Dr. Sircus.

6. Vitamin D.

Most of us have a vitamin D deficiency unless we live in a sunny country and spend a lot of time with bare skin outside. In lymphoma patients at least there is strong evidence that low levels are detrimental to life-expectancy and high levels reduce tumours. In breast cancer, there is evidence that if all women took a vitamin D supplement, the rate of breast cancer would fall by 25%. Even higher possible statistics here. There is now serious research going on into this wonder-supplement.

“Vitamin D deficiency is now recognized as an epidemic in the United States...There is mounting scientific evidence that implicates vitamin D deficiency with an increased risk of type I diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, cardiovascular heart disease, and many common deadly cancers.”...Boston University School of Medicine, Vitamin D Laboratory.

It is not possible to receive vitamin D from the sun for those living north of latitude 45 (which cuts through the south of France) during the six months of winter from approximately October to April. The sun is too low on the horizon for the required ultraviolet B (UV-B) rays to penetrate the atmosphere.

There’s a load of research on vitamin D and cancer here. 

A vitamin D supplement must be fat or oil based to work properly.

It also needs a diet with sufficient vitamin K2, calcium and magnesium. Vitamins are a minefield in this area but if you have any fears, supplement with D, K2 and magnesium. Calcium is moot as a lot of the calcium sold is not helpful stuff. Probably better to get it from your goat milk or yoghurt. If you are Japanese, hit the natto!

 

7. Stress and Happiness.

Now we move past the body to what I think are the two most important aspects.

Here’s a definition of ‘the cancer personality’ from Puna Wai Ora Mind-Body Cancer Clinic. 

1. Being highly conscientious, caring, dutiful, responsible, hard-working, and usually of above average intelligence.

2. Exhibits a strong tendency toward carrying other people's burdens and toward taking on extra obligations, and often "worrying for others."

3. Having a deep-seated need to make others happy. Being a "people pleaser" with a great need for approval.

4. Often lacking closeness with one or both parents, which sometimes, later in life, results in lack of closeness with spouse or others who would normally be close.

5. Harbours long-suppressed toxic emotions, such as anger, resentment and / or hostility. The cancer-susceptible individual typically internalizes such emotions and has great difficulty expressing them.

6. Reacts adversely to stress, and often becomes unable to cope adequately with such stress. Usually experiences an especially damaging event about 2 years before the onset of detectable cancer. The patient is not able to cope with this traumatic event or series of events, which comes as a "last straw" on top of years of suppressed reactions to stress.

7. Has an inability to resolve deep-seated emotional problems/conflicts, usually beginning in childhood, often even being unaware of their presence.

This  subject is a whole book ...  But in a nutshell, if you want to survive cancer you’ve got to start being selfish and having fun. This is not optional.

Suggestions:

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, to find your true creativity.

Lucia Capaccionne’s Recovering The Inner Child, to recover your inner playfulness. And yes, you may have to wear a plastic tiara or crown round the house for a while.

Having fun means taking time out to do things you want to do. Quite often we don't even know what those might be and that's half the problem. Laughter particularly is vital —it oxygenises our bodies for a start. When I got my diagnosis I started watching an hour of comedy a day on YouTube. That was my most important medicine and it still is a very powerful part of my healing.

8. Life Purpose.

All the aspects in no. 7 imply a life lived for others. The greatest task for anyone who is seeking recovery from or to prevent cancer, is to find their own life’s destiny.

In a nutshell, you have to rediscover your reason for living. It is not your children or our family. They are a vital part of life but they are not your destiny.

If you follow your destiny, your life and your work inspire others so you are still incredibly helpful and you will be filled with such love and happiness that you have huge energy to help others. But you have to stop making the others your reason for your existence. So often we help others in order to feel good about ourselves – to make ourselves valuable. It gives us a wonderful excuse not to follow our own path — the very path that God put us on Earth to follow. “I can’t learn piano/travel to Australia/be a dolphin trainer/flamenco dancer etc. because I have to take care of ....”  Yes you can. And you must.

God put you here for a purpose. It may be that your dis-ease is your soul’s call to re-discover your life’s purpose. Here’s a clue — it’s something that fills your heart with joy. It has nothing at all to do with what others want you to do. It may well seem selfish but it’s your divine task and no one but you can do it. Once you have the purpose, faith is there because it feels so right. God is there. And where there is faith there is no fear. Fear is so addictive when dis-sease is concerned and it holds us away from faith.

Here are some words from Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art which may stop you in your tracks. Please think about them.

 Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.

Do it or don't do it.

It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don't do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself, you hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.

You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.

Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.

If you don't know your purpose, and can't even imagine it, then pray to be told when you go to bed at night. Pray and then listen for the next 48 hours. The Holy Spirit will get a message through to you but you do have to listen.

Disclaimer:

None of this is medically proven to do anything whatsoever. It is simply a journalistic report on what’s out there on the Internet and it is stuff that has helped me. If you use any of it, it is entirely at your own risk. Definitely do your own research. If you have the slightest doubt you don’t do any of it. In fact, don't even read it. It's rubbish. Thank you.

13. But what if I fail?

But what if I fail?

The answer to the what if question is, you will.

A better question might be, "after I fail, what then?"

Well, if you've chosen well, after you fail you will be one step closer to succeeding, you will be wiser and stronger and you almost certainly be more respected by all of those that are afraid to try.

(Seth Godin).

Another good one comes from Mike Dooley's Notes from the Universe:

Would a loving parent ever give a child a story to read that didn't have a wonderfully happy ending?

No, never.

But they might add, "Whatever you do, don't stop reading at the scary bits."

12. Please let me know if I can do anything to help.

Since I began this blog, obviously a lot more people know about Nigel and me and quite a few of them  have messaged or written to me with such love and kindness ... and that wonderfully well-meaning phrase "let me know if I/we can do anything to help."

Help in what way exactly? Are you offering to fund me for a course in intravenous vitamin C? Or to research some stuff on the internet for me? To put Lion and me up for a weekend to give us a break? To look after the beagles if we went abroad? To find out where in the world you can get some vitamin combinations that the EU has banned? Or do some shopping for me? Or spend a little time with my mother? Honestly, I seriously don't know. So how can I ask?

I'm not trying to be mean here but actually it's a pretty unhelpful offer without any indication of the level of help you would like to give.

When Henry died, people said the same thing and because I didn't realise this, I did ask for things.

I asked one friend who lived in Hong Kong if I could come out and stay with her for a couple of weeks. It would have been so lovely to have had some time away in the warmth. You've never heard anyone backpedal so swiftly! And of course it was really hard for either of us to keep in touch for quite a while after that because she probably felt guilty and I realised I'd seriously overstepped her "how can I help?" mark.

Mostly though it was simple things that I asked for like "please would you mow the lawn for me?" it was a big lawn and I didn't have the energy.

The (lovely) friend who said "yes, of course" came round six weeks later. I'd mown the lawn four times  in that period of time and it really didn't need mowing when it was at his convenience. But he mowed it and I thanked him and gave him tea all the same.

I also called people at times when I was very lonely or needed some company. When it was close friends they were wonderful — but on the days when all my family and friends were unavailable and for some reason I had just lost it (which you might reasonably expect to do when you are widowed after a year of marriage) I would call some of those who had offered to help and as often as not they were busy, or just on their way out. Fair enough - they had a life - but I remember so clearly one of them saying "Oh hello Maggy, can it wait? I'm cooking dinner. I'll call you back tomorrow." And of course I said "yes of course it can wait," and went and sat in the bath and bawled.

So if you want to help someone who's dealing with any stuff whatsoever, may I suggest that you make a couple of suggestions to them rather than just offering to help? That would at least give some idea of what level of assistance you would like to offer so they don't ask for something right out of your range or that you really don't want to give.

Trust me, they will be truly grateful that you did.

11. Some Stuff About the Physical including Vitamin D and candida.

You can do a lot about dis-ease in the physical. My friend John down the road encouraged me to go into raw food. Yes, I could eat nothing but raw food for the next five years and (apart from completely losing the will to live which really isn't a good idea right now...) I probably could control Nigel like that.

I could also try the Gerson diet and all sorts of others and I am eating a half to two thirds of raw foods a day, juicing, eating organic and the like. 

The biggest problem for all of us is that Nigels and their ilk eat sugar whether it's as sugar or as carbohydrates. One slice of cake or a load of pizza and no exercise for the day and if there's a Nigel around, it will get pretty much all of it. Cells in any malignant dis-ease have 90 receptors for sugar where normal cells have just the three.

Most people expect me to be taking the chemical weapons offered by the hospital to shoot down my immune system until either Nigel goes dormant (temporarily) or I die from side effects. That is what happens far too often with chemical medicine BTW — there's a term known as 'cured and dead' which means you aren't an unhelpful statistic when you die from a heart attack, liver failure, kidney failure or pneumonia rather than the dis-ease that was being treated.

But eating raw food or having chemicals would not and could not address the other worlds or the polluion that has, somehow, affected my soul. For me, it's the pollution of having been 'the good girl' for far too long. For accepting blame when I should have walked away. For feeling for too long that I was unprotected. And the pollution of a deeply-ingrained, learnt resentment that I didn't even know that I had.

Oh - and vitamin D deficiency. And candida. Both of those are are now being understood to be primary causes of malignancy — and of other serious diseases. So over-eating the sugar (for comfort) and not being out in the sun enough (which we aren't nowadays as we pour over our computers) are nice cultures for developing dis-ease. Those are good physical things to see to. And good things to deal with now.

The UK medical profession barely recognises candida as existing. It's a yeast infection — a fungus in the intestines which is actually designed to eat our bodies when we die. It's fed by sugars and becomes harmful when it gets out of the gut and starts living in the body. There is research to indicate that every cancer cell which has been tested for it contains candida.

A couple of months before I met Nigel I'd been doing a lot of baking and eating a lot more sugary stuff than usual — in fact we had a real sugar fest. So Nigel said "Thanks, Maggy. More please!"

If you want to know if you've got candida overgrowth, try this:

First thing in the morning, before you put anything in your mouth, get a clear glass of water. Better still; leave it by your bed the night before. Work up a bit of saliva, and then spit it into the glass of water.

Check the water every 15 minutes or so for up to one hour. If you have a candida yeast infection, strings (like legs) will travel down into the water from the saliva floating on top, or "cloudy" saliva will sink to the bottom of the glass, or cloudy specks will seem to be suspended in the water. If nothing develops in 30 to 45 minutes, you are probably candida free.

10. In the absence of fear, healing must take place.

That's a quotation from the Teachings of Abraham

We are vibrational beings, we are children of a Creator and we are meant to experience joy and be creative. Every religion at its root believes the same - when it's not throwing rocks at other people for believing the same thing differently.

God experiences reality through us. God is not manifest in the world except through us. Mainly, we insist on putting an infinite God in boxes. God doesn’t fit in boxes so whatever God we may have in a box is really nothing like the whole picture. And might be feeling just a tad uncomfortable.

So it’s all really about how we feel and it’s so easy to let what the Australians call ‘orneryness’ to prevail. In my case, it was exacerbated by a lot of fear and some bad relationship stuff but everyone has their own reason for tolerating a certain amount of low-level discontent without even realising it.

Trouble is, that low-level discontent pervades the vibration of the body and, as you are your body’s God, and because you are the manifestation of the Great Creator, you can't blame both for thinking that you are actually sending out instructions.

Which means that Nigels (or Clarissas, or Clauds) will turn up eventually in order to get our attention. In my case, Nigel is in my family’s genes – my Dad had it though he never told me and it's also likely that my great grandmother had it too. It’s a ‘possible’ gene mutation which gets switched on or not.

All this stuff about the human genome project that’s got loads of wealthy ladies cutting both their boobs off because they ‘carry the faulty gene’ for breast cancer is both helpful and unhelpful. Yes, they may have stopped that particular dis-ease in their breasts but it’s their vibration that will trigger something physical changing not the mere fact that the gene exists. You can live quite happily with a possibly faulty gene for 100 years. Just don't trigger it.

If what they’ve done gives them confidence and happiness then that's great. But for those who can’t afford a double mastectomy and who are now fretting even more, it's a massive additional stress. The good thing is that you can turn the whole negative vibration thing around now. You don’t need the chop. You need the change of thought and feeling.

In fact, a health crisis is simply asking you ‘How much do you really want to live? And how committed are you to getting happy now so that you can find a new purpose? How happy are you willing to be?'

For you, it could be diabetes, fibromyalgia, getting in a car accident ... the options for your body to go 'attention please!' are endless. Huge amounts of people are going down the cancer route. Cancer is when things that should die don’t die and start attacking you instead. If thoughts of resentment and anger don’t die ... well guess what? Their vibration starts to work in the physical.

‘The cancer personality’ is the one who takes care of others, who is very nice, who works hard, who puts others first and who, somewhere, deep inside has a child yelling “what about me?” Eventually that child is going to do anything it can to try and get your attention.

So please, if you’re reading this blog and you’re healthy but there’s an undercurrent of resentment or something like that within you, start doing something about it now. 

Getting happy is a lot easier before you have to deal with fear.

9. The Great Lie

These last few months I've been editing a spiritual book for a client and a sentence in the last chapter really sums it all up for me.

I'm not much of a one for Satan or 'the Tester' but I completely agree with this phrase: "This is the Tester's great lie, that reality is nothing more than Physicality."

A hundred years ago, in the Western World, one person in 200 got their own personal Nigel (or Clarissa or Mavis or Claud). Now it's one in three.

ONE IN THREE!

Some US estimates are moving towards one in two.

Most of us 'get' cancer about six times a year but our immune systems just wipe it out cheefully or, as my pathologist friend described, wrap it up safely so there's no harm done. So why are our immune systems not managing it as often as they did?

I believe that this epidemic is a spiritual one. The physical world is the last to react to what's going on in higher worlds. A hundred years ago people were much more tied into religion and religion is, of course, the cause of most (if not all) of the nastiest wars on the planet. But it also requires us to examine our souls and to understand that we will be called to account (good and bad) for what we are in this world.

Nowadays we are so much more disbelieving because we know more about the world's religions and we know that good people come from all faiths and none ... and we see the power games and corruption in institutions. So we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Now, I'm a minister so I should certainly have taken better care of my soul. The consultant says Nigel is a dis-ease caused by external pollution but I know that the pollution was as much in my thoughts as it was in the external world. And it's also hereditary in my family so it's a convenient vessel for God/my soul to say 'wake up Maggy! Could do better!'

I will be writing a lot in other posts about what you/we/everyone can do in the physical world to prevent, heal and deal with dis-ease because that's just as important as all the other worlds. But we don't just live in one world, we have psyches, spirits and divinity residing within us.

As Rumer Godden wrote: "There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person."

What I am doing is not hit Nigel flact out on the physical. Nigel is actually crying for my love, for my healing and for my faith. It doing its best to protect me by storing up some long-term 15-year-old poison. Yes, I so talk to Nigel. And I listen too.

What I can do is work on my heart, my soul, my emotions, my deeply-hidden beliefs and stand up to be counted in those beliefs.

And if I can heal my soul and my spirit, then Nigel will find no place in my body.

It's what I believe and I now have a chance to live my belief.

8. Some Days Suck.

Some days of this damn Nigel really do suck. Mostly those are the days when stuff hurts or gets worse. Oh yes, the physical world is quite capable of going in exactly the opposite way of the spiritual and psychological worlds ... at least for a time.

There have been some really major shifts for me in this healing journey and every time I released some deep inner trauma through energy work, inner child work, journey work, the homeopathy or other therapies, Nigel threw a wobbly.

To start with, that was unbelievably scary. Terrifiying . I was a soggy mess on the floor, weeping. But as God, my homeopath, my immunologist, my healers  and my helpers have continued to love, support and guide me, those Nigel-wobblies have sooner or later died down or gone away.

Of course, I can’t tell the hematologist that. I did try and keep her in the loop because you kind of have to come as clean as you can as to what you’re doing, especially if you are steadfastly refusing the majority of the help she is offering.  She’s locked into the physical world entirely and can only recommend (read ‘nag’) chemical medicine. She’s regulated to the skies so she can’t even talk about diet let alone soul or spirit.

Funny thing, that. The world seems to believe that the physical is the only reality. Well, yes, there’s how you feel about the physical world too. But the physical is the manifestation of the spiritual and soul worlds.  And Nigel is a spiritual journey. Nigel is a dis-ease of the soul. Something that has come up and out to be healed at a very deep level.

Saying that to the hematologist is similar to speaking in Klingon to a non-Star Trek fan. She says she doesn’t find me annoying, but then she has to say that. I did find her extremely irritating, not to mention upsetting, to start with with her constant insistence of hitting the physical with mallets, even though she knows that cannot provide a cure, but now I understand that she simply can’t  help me. On the physical level alone, she can’t provide intravenous Vitamin C for example. I do rather pine for some aspects of the American integrative health system.  

There have been days when I simply haven’t known if I would survive this healing in this lifetime. And I guess no one will know for sure until Nigel is finally gone. But I believe. I do truly believe that this is an initiation; I know that I asked for it - to be fully cleansed of all my negativity - and that I still have work to do in this world. For all of us who want to step up into being God-centred, then there must be crucifixion and resurrection. As my dearest friend, Adam — who’s Jewish — says ‘It’s Christhood or bust.’

7. This thing about God

God really gets a bad rap. It’s blamed for most of the world’s ills and most of its religions.

Things got written down that are allegedly what God said. Then they were put in boxes. Some of the writings are terrific and some of them are terrifying. All of them, if they were said were relevant for that time. What people often don't realise is that God is quite capable of updating with the times. You would be really, if you were a God.

Most people nowadays will say (if they say anything) ‘I’m not religious – more spiritual.’ They quite understandably don’t want to be tied up with any of the dreadful things that happen in the name of religion.

Lots of people say to me ‘if there’s a God, why is the world such shit?’ (there’s an answer to that on my YouTube comedy video). But basically, the world isn’t shit because of God, if the world is shit it’s because of human beings.

Sure, natural catastrophes happen. That’s because we live on a living, breathing planet that sneezes sometimes. And, frankly, if you were covered in a species like us wouldn’t you find they got up your nose a bit? But when catastrophes happen, that’s when human beings show up as their best – as well as at their worst.

People often say that religion was invented in order to control people. I think religion was invented to try and make sense of death and dying. The control bit came later.

But here’s the thing – if God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and all that, He/She/It is simply not going to fit in a box. And any religion is a box.

‘Hang on a minute,’ you may say. ‘You’re an independent Catholic priest. Isn’t that a box?’

Not really  ... or if it is, it’s a box that embraces all the other boxes. It’s a faith that just happens to use a certain liturgy because we like it and it works. But I’m just as happy at Ashrams, Buddhist temples and synagogues as I am in a church. I'm just your common or garden heretic.

So we’ve hung these labels on God and put He/She/It in boxes. And He/She/It doesn’t fit in any of them.

Even more, God hasn’t read the terms and conditions.

Throughout this blog I’m going to refer to God ... and to God and me ... and I’m going to call God ‘It.’ Apart from anything else, the He/She/It part takes a lot of typing and feminists don't like it. And if I type She/He/It, we're back to the original question... 

I know that lots of people have problems with the name God and prefer all sorts of other soubrettes  but it’s what we believe that counts. Most of us actually believe in a mean bastard of a God who's totally unfair.

God is going to be what to you exactly what you believe it to be.

Ouch.

People said to me when my first husband Henry died, 'Aren't you angry with God? How could God do that to you?' God didn't do that to me. And just supposing God did do that to Henry and/or me, then where was the good in it? Trust me, there was a lot of good in it. Trouble is, you can't see any good if you really think that physical death is the end of everything. I get that. But I don't think physical death is the end of everything. I'm an immortal soul. I'd quite like death to be a bit of a rest as this life of miracles has been pretty busy on and off, but I'm sure I'll get bored pretty soon and want to come back for another go on the roundabouts.

By the way, not being angry at God doesn't mean I'm not angry at other things. The life-enhancing disease has a lot to do with not learning how to experience and release anger safely. But I'm doing a lot of chopping logs lately along with all the therapy and I'm getting the knack.

I believe in a truly all-embracing loving God that allows human beings to be responsible and pick up our own messes. It’ll step in and offer to help if we ask and it will often provide miracles. But we’ve got to notice them.

The thing about miracles is that they are God thinking out of the box that you may have put It in. So you’ve pretty well usually got to get out of your own box to recognize them.