Raining Deer
“I want you laying hands, praying over, performing Reki, shaking rattles, dancing and whatever is necessary to heal friends and family who have been stricken with this disease!" -Raining Deer
Typically, anyone who has been affected by breast cancer initially thinks one of 3 things:
· “Oh, my God”
· “Oh sh-t!”
· “Am I going to die?”
“Oh God” is right and no – you’re not necessarily going to die. We’ll leave out #2.
BCV – RITE OF PASSAGE FOR BREAST CANCER VICTORS is a roadmap for the breast cancer victim to celebrate life through a self-affirming ritual, thus becoming more than a survivor but a victor over the breast cancer!
Helping you navigate the breast cancer journey, BCV takes you through these steps:
· Finding out you have breast cancer
· Addressing the problem
· Exploring medical and alternative treatments
· Having the treatment of your choosing
· Regaining your sense of purpose
"Raining Deer's rituals provide rites of passage into divinity." --Wallis Tinnie, Ph.D.
Raining Deer is a Native/African American Iyeska (Spiritual Interpreter) who became a member of the Seminole Tribe of Florida (Cox-Osceola Seminole Reservation) when she married the tribe’s medicine man in 1990. This free-lance writer also wrote and published T-Time: A Rites of Passage Manual for the Adolescent Female in 2005. A former arts administrator in Miami, she was a coordinator of the inaugural Miami Book Fair International and spearheaded the Pan African Bookfest & Cultural Conference for many years – an event she co-founded. Raining Deer was the creative force behind Southern Dawn Magazine and served as its editor-in-chief in the late 1980s. She has penned articles for numerous South Florida newspapers and has been a featured writer in various anthologies and non-fiction works such as Drumbeat Voices Revue – Poetic Voices of Contemporary Urban Cultures (Foreword by Maya Angelou). She co-produced Today’s Children, Tomorrow’s World, a fashion gala supporting pediatric AIDS featuring celebrity chairpersons Lauren Hutton, Dionne Warwick, Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass and others. Raining Deer served as publicist to many performing/recording artists, including Philip Michael Thomas (star of Miami Vice). Raining Deer is a member of the National Congress of Black Women and serves as Editor of the LoweDown Quarterly Newsletter. She facilitates rites of passage in the South Jersey/Greater Philadelphia area and has made television appearances, given radio interviews, and has been a guest at numerous book fairs, festivals and conferences. In early 2006 she joined artist Papaloko at the acclaimed Art Expo in New York and appeared at the 2005 and 2006 Harlem Book Fairs in Harlem and Long Island, NY. She was also a panelist at the 2005 Pan African Bookfest in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Raining Deer is an advisor to Community Builders Holistic Development Corp. in Miami and ELTJC Ministries in Blackwood, New Jersey. Soon-to-be published is a much anticipated chronicle of her spiritual journey, Pulasu: Bearing Witness to the Other World.
Restoring Your Character
The great Oglala Lakota medicine man, Black Elk once said of the bison, an animal that provided sustenance to the plains people in the form of food, clothing and shelter, "The bison is the chief of all animals, and represents the earth, the totality of all that is. It is the feminine, creating earth principle which gives rise to all living forms…" It may be hard for us [women] to think of ourselves as sacred beings after we have had a mastectomy or a lumpectomy, but we have to. We are that "divine feminine, creating earth principle that is central to the lives of our families and loved ones." We should remember that while we are trying to rebuild our character.
"Character" is synonymous with nature, quality, temperament, personality, disposition, spirit, moral fiber, and make-up. When a person has been wounded by a disease such as breast cancer, and as a result has had radical corrective surgery performed, their emotional health suffers greatly.
Initially, self-esteem may be lowered, women may feel insecure about their appearance, they may feel like their husbands or mates will no longer find them attractive or, will no longer love them.
If your mate decides to check out on you while you're in crisis, remember that you are as much a woman with one or no breasts as you were with both breasts. Disease is one of many things that can arise and put a strain on a relationship. But, since coming down with a disease, such as breast cancer, is not something a person can control or foresee, it is also not something that should lessen a mate's love and concern for their partner. And now is certainly not the time for mates to become weak and succumb to their own insecurities or selfish druthers.
If ever there was a time in your relationship for your mate to be strong for you, now is it. An argument could ensue from a previous problem or a new situation. The mate may decide some time apart may be the best thing. But, the person trying to survive breast cancer may automatically assume -- whether correct or incorrect, that the problem must be that she is now disfigured and thus, no longer attractive to her man. But ladies, guess what? If your mate can't handle it, you are probably better off without him, and you have now been spared from dealing with this specific character flaw during some other crisis, which may occur down the road. But, if at all possible, continue to send the graces of love to him.
