This Body, My Life

Deena Metzger's life is a lesson in healing for all women who have suffered from serious illness. On This Body, My Life, Deena shares the story of her recovery from a radical mastectomy, and her profound discovery that creativity and the imagination can heal. Her own healing began, she tells us, with the simplest of acts: she brought her typewriter into the hospital with her. Looking inward, writing constantly through the pain, she saw past society's obsession with death. She saw her illness centered, not in her body, but in the world we live in. How can our bodies be healthy when our planet is not? Through the language of metaphor, we come to understand the links between life-threatening illness and the toxic environment we inhabit. This story of tremendous courage and self-reliance is a blessing for every person faced with illness. Deena shows that each small gesture we make, each healing relationship we form, helps heal us all. While This Body, My Life concerns the challenge of cancer, it is not about slipping quietly into death. It is about awakening into life-through creativity, love, and courage. Includes a live lecture, “The Practice of Creativity and Healing,” and a detailed question-and-answer session about Deena's life, art, and work.