LISA TURNER’S STORY: MY NAME IS RIVER

Lisa Turner stood in a sacred circle of women. As they introduced themselves, she surprised herself by saying, “I want to be known as River.” The name felt sacred and somehow appropriate for this phase of her life.

Soon after, Lisa learned she had breast cancer, and water became her talisman. It reminded her the flow of life is sometimes fast and chaotic, sometimes slow and gentle. Immersing herself in water also helped wash away her deep grief for the loss of her imagined future and for the physical and mental challenges she was experiencing.

The afternoon she was told that she might lose her breast, Lisa attended a woman’s retreat and shared her breast “bucket list.” Whatever was to come, she wanted to have lived wildly and freely.

And she wanted to honor this part of her that had nurtured her two children and had given her such extraordinary pleasure.

It was a cold winter day. In the presence of her circle sisters, she walked across the ice and snow and knelt by a small stream. She placed her breasts and face into the water. The water felt like a thousand needles on her skin. Then it felt like fire. The women around her sang, as the river sang—and she allowed the voices of the women and river to flow and weave through her until she experienced “complete surrender.” She wasn’t giving up, she told me. This was a deep prayer that she would live.

When Lisa talks about this experience, her eyes shine like the river. Now, three years after lumpectomy surgery and chemotherapy, swimming keeps her connected to her wild and precious body. She often swims with other women and loves the pure, raucous, gut- spilling joy of splashing in icy rivers. “Just being in the water,” she says, “keeps me sane, keeps me present, keeps me happy. Water keeps me alive.”

From A Wild Soul Woman: 5 Earth Archetypes to Unleash Your Full Feminine Power