From Cancer to Mindfulness
An Interview with Esther Kennedy, LCSW
By Mike Bundrant

For 45 years Esther Kennedy of Spirit Mountain Retreat in Idyllwild showed up for her annual mammogram. There is a history of cancer in her family and she wasn’t about to take any chances. For 44 of those years, she was quickly informed that everything looked fine. On the 45th time, in August 2008, the story changed. They found something, which turned out to be the early stages of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) – a form of breast cancer.

I took opportunity to speak with Esther about the experience and the change in perspective that came through it.

HT:  After 44 years of positive results, I’ll bet you were shocked to hear that something was wrong.

Esther:  There was a shock to it. I knew that something was up when the doctor said, “I need to see you.”    He sent me over to a surgeon that very morning.  In a sense, when all this was happening, I was in a bit of a fog. The surgeon was Dr. Carl Shultz over at Eisenhower.  He did a biopsy and the lumpectomy, which took place in September, 2008.

HT:  That was fast.

Esther: I guess if you are going to have a diagnosis of cancer, mine’s the kind to have, as it was in sight and contained.  It was a very early detection.  Years ago, they may not have even picked this up, but due to the new digital mammograms, they pick up the very early stages of cancer.  So, in that sense I felt very fortunate and was so glad that I had been faithful in getting regular mammograms.

When they do the lumpectomy, they want to make sure there are clear margins around where the cancer was found.  So, I did have to go back and have a second lumpectomy.  Then it was suggested I get some radiation.  Initially it was thought that I wouldn’t need anything.  Then my doctor said, “I think it would be good to do some radiation.” 

I had the choice of doing a new type of radiation called mammo-site.  That means they deliver radiation seeds just to the site of the cancer, not to the whole breast.  My choice was either that or doing thirty days radiation to the whole breast.  The doctor said he felt the mammo-site would be sufficient and so that is what I did. I had it done at Twenty-first Century Radiation in Palm Desert.

HT:  How did it make you feel?  Did it make you sick?   

Esther: Actually, I had no serious side effects, just a bit of fatigue.  What they do is insert a balloon into the site where they did the lumpectomy.  The radiation only goes into that place where they know they discovered the cancer. 

HT:  So, if they insert a balloon, it’s invasive? 

Esther:  It’s invasive in the sense…well the whole thing is pretty invasive (laughter).  The incision was already there from the lumpectomy, however they insert it in a very tiny little hole.  It’s really quite an amazing procedure.  After the radiation they just pulled the balloon out.  There is some discomfort, of course, but overall it’s really no big deal. For the mammo-site treatment, you get it twice a day for five days, ten treatments. 

HT:  So, that whole episode was over and you had a clean bill of health - when?

Esther:  October 27th, 2008.

HT:  Since then, life has returned to normal?

Esther:  It has.  Well, I actually had people here on retreat in the midst of all this!
They were already here, so you can tell there was a suddenness to it.  The presence of good friends and good family is so important.  My whole community of sisters were here for a meeting the day I went to see the surgeon.  We hadn’t planned it that way.  They were all here and three or four of them went down with me.  That sense of having a support system, having people who really care and are just present was very, very significant for me. 

Anyway, I’ve been back to the doctor and had a six month mammogram and I will have another one in six months.  Right now, I’m okay.  Nothing seems to be showing up that raises any concern and that feels good.

HT: Has there been any sort of heightening or deepening on the spiritual side of your life?

Esther:  Well, I was sitting out here in our new garden before you called, thinking that, in a sense, any serious diagnosis or a death in a family alters ‘what is.’  Anything that shifts the ongoing routine in a fundamental way allows us to see out of new eyes.  It becomes like a new lens that you look through. 

One thing that happened to me was that I became far more sensitive to people’s kindness.  I was in awe at the radiation center at the kindness of people.  They weren’t going out of their way like, “oh that poor thing.” It was just normal kindness, genuine kindness.  It was probably always there, but I noticed it.  I noticed how it made me feel connected and that people really did care.  Nobody was saying, “Oh I am so sorry this happened to you.” It was more like, “Esther, we are ready for you.  How are you doing today?” I think my eyes opened to kindness, gentleness, and personal connection.  I knew what it meant to have them call me by name. 

HT:  As if the profundity of the ordinary opened up.

Esther:  Yes, absolutely.  When I was getting the actual radiation, it took about a half-hour before they got me settled on the table; and, of course, then they all leave and they had Celine Dion playing and that was great.  That was nice.  I began doing some mindful breathing because for the past twenty years I have been touched by the teachings of mindfulness.  I did mindful breathing during the whole session of radiation.  I would breathe in and calm my body and breathe out and smile.  Breathe in slow, breathe out deep, breathe in present moment, and breathe out only moment. 

That was a spiritual practice I would do from the time they were getting me ready and after I was left there by myself.  I was so struck by how it made me feel present and not be anxious, wondering if everything would turn out okay and so on.

HT:  Not getting caught up in your mind chatter.

Esther:  That’s right.  That was a significant piece for me and that has continued.  I have always done that, but it has been much more focused.  I also noticed that it moved me and carried me through the day in a kind of acceptance.  I said to somebody that I felt so blessed.  Then I said, “No, we are all blessed, I am just fortunate.”  That was a nice little shift.  I am just fortunate.  This is just my story.  My story right now is to have cancer but not a very severe kind. 

The lens with which I now view my daily life is to be more attentive to the moment.  I realized the preciousness of each moment.  As I talk to you now, there is a squirrel balanced on the fountain we have here in our garden.  Something has opened in me that has made me more, uh, sensitive is the word that comes to me, more appreciative to all the different ways of life.  There is something so sweet about this squirrel.  I have seen it before, but it has a different quality to it right now.  Whether I am more vulnerable to the fragility of life and the preciousness of life may be part of this. Something opened me more to the mystery of life.

HT:  I have had a long-term question about this. I have a friend in Santa Fe, Jake, that I have known for many years, whose brother recently passed away from a brain tumor.  He was 56. He went from feeling fine, jogging five miles a day  - and six weeks later he was gone!  It so happened that Jake’s father and his sister-in-law also died within the same three-year period. 

Jake has been doing his work for decades and he’s an emotionally healthy man.  Working through the grief and anger and shock of it all, he ended up in a place that seems very similar to what you describe, realizing how precious life is.  He has this question about why it takes such an extreme event in order to get into that sacred space where we simply appreciate life more and take it for granted less. Why do you think this is the case?

Esther:  One of the first things that comes to me is David White, a poet. He is in one of the series we show up here. He made the comment that homosapiens were supposed to be wise humans.  But, in a sense we are really “homo-forgettings,” in that there has been a slow dulling of our sensibility.  This has happened as we have moved away from a really profound relationship with the natural world. 

This has been a slow process, probably over the last hundred years, as the industrial revolution took over the mechanization of our lives. I believe our sensibility to the mystery of life got dulled and we forgot it.  Many in the spiritual traditions are always calling to us to pay attention, wake up!  That wonderful poem of Rumi: Don’t go back to sleep. Don’t go back to sleep. Stay awake! 

I don’t know, sometimes I think that we’ve learned to control so many things that we have a particular attitude in the western world that we can fix anything.  We certainly have learned since the fifties to live a much more comfortable life. For us it takes kind of a dramatic thing for us to wake up. Why has it taken us so long to see that the planet is in peril?

Within my own soul I want to take nothing for granted.  I want to repeat the generosity of the sun that just keeps pouring out.  I want to delight in that radiance of moon.  Even if it’s just for a moment to say thank you.  I also want to recognize all beings, to begin looking at human beings as being quite precious, even though we do awful things to one another; I want to generate more kindness.  I think I’ve awakened a kind of sensibility in me.  I recognize impermanence.  Change is the way.  Don’t take anything for granted.  Live in the present moment. 

HT:  That’s as good an answer as I’ve ever heard to that question. I appreciate that, Esther. 

Esther:  I feel touched that you are asking me. These are precious things to talk about. Having the opportunity to speak to these things awakens a kind of sensibility of life and how precious it is for all beings. 

This is going to sound silly, but I was eating breakfast the other day and a little ant landed in my cereal. I scooped it out and put it on the ground.  There was a time when I would have said, “Oh, yuck! Get out of my cereal!”  When I dropped that ant on the ground I thought, “Oh, I can’t even begin to imagine all the little organs in you.”  I watched to see if it could move, but I think it had drowned.  It was okay, but there was mindfulness to all of life and a connection to it.  This ant is not separate from me.  He, or she, and I share a life impulse.

HT:  What a great way to be.

Esther:  Ever since my surgery I think, “Let me awaken with gratitude.”  Let me just be able to say, “Thank you. I have a day.”  When I find myself getting pissy about stuff, I say, “Esther, put it in perspective.  Tomorrow, who the hell cares?  Even in this moment, who cares?”

Esther Kennedy is the Director of Spirit Mountain Retreat in Idyllwild. In the mid-90's, eager to re-claim a sense of the sacred and experience the spiritual traditions of the East, she traveled to India and lived for a year in Central Java and Bali, Indonesia. This rich experience opened her to the sacred scriptures and the teachings of the East and drew her more deeply into the contemplative core of her Christian tradition~Love. She has come to know that we are all Sourced from the One Source.

Esther's work is to facilitate and guide others on their own path of awakening and of living from their deepest selves. In addition to her work at Spirit Mountain Retreat, Esther conducts retreats and workshops in other areas of the country.

She has offered numerous women's retreats and workshops, which unfold through presentations, meditation, creative process and sacred dance. She trusts that when a group gathers there is an abundance of love and light available to transform personal stories and embrace the new story unfolding in our culture and world. She is grateful to all of her teachers for their wisdom and consistent invitation to awaken to the times in which we live. Esther is a member of the Dominican Sisters of Adrian Michigan. She can be reached at 951-659-2523.