WHEN IT'S TIME TO LEAVE for the sweatlodge, Lenore doesn't want to go. She feels sick and thinks she'd be better off in bed. I point out that the sweatlodge is a great way for her to heal herself and Phoebe at the same time. Then she admits that she's scared by the whole idea of the darkness and the heat.

"That's a natural reaction. You don't have to go in if you don't want to, but come and be part of the group intention of healing Phoebe. You can stay outside by the fire and meditate while we're in the lodge."

She agrees to come. As we drive north, the city begins to thin. The bleak majesty of high desert stretches out around us. The vastness seems to open up my head and free it from the confines of narrow florescent-lit hospital hallways. I breathe in the soft twilight as we turn off at Bernalillo. Joseph's place turns out to be a permanently-parked antique mobile home in a suburban neighborhood of pre-fab houses. Neighbors' yards hold swing sets and blue plastic wading pools, but Joseph's narrow strip of land is crammed with a sweatlodge, a fire pit and a round adobe structure that he calls a "kiva." Railroad tracks run three feet outside the back fence of his property. It's hardly the serene natural setting I'd pictured.

We gather in the kiva, which Joseph built the same way that ancient Americans built their sacred structures. It's a cylinder of adobe with a sunken altar in the middle of a packed-dirt floor. The round candle-lit room is warm, comfortable and filled with the rich fragrance of earth. Besides me and Lenore, several teachers show up including Rosa. Phoebe's breathwork therapist is also there.

Joseph introduces a woman, Carolyn Powell, who heard about Phoebe's situation from Joseph and wants to participate even though she doesn't know Phoebe personally. I thank her for her support. Aside from Joseph, the group is entirely women. He gives his usual introductory explanation of the sweatlodge ceremony and invites us to follow him into the lodge. Lenore announces that she'll stay outside the lodge. Joseph asks why. She says she's too scared to go in.

Joseph says, "Think about how scared your sister is. She has no choice. If she can stand that, can't you stand to be scared for a couple of hours? Can't you make a sacrifice to help her?"

Lenore says she can. She goes into the lodge. The ceremony is powerful. Joseph says very little. The temperature is scorching, and emotions run even hotter. I beseech Great Spirit to let my friend live. I cry buckets... for Phoebe and for myself. This is the one place where I don't have to be strong. The heat and the fatigue break down all my defenses. Lenore cries too. When it's her turn to pray, all she says is "I love my sister so much. I love my sister so much," over and over.

After the lodge, I take Joseph aside and ask him about Lenore's health.

"She says she feels like she has the flu. I think she just can't take the stress. I feel like I have to take care of her as well as Phoebe."

"She's afraid to feel her own emotions. She's going to be sick for about ten days."

"She's only going to be here ten days."

"I know."

"So I'm going to have to take care of both of them as long as she's here."

"You got it."

That night I dream that I'm in my own living room. I turn onthe lights, and my cats scatter. Some other creature that I can't identify runs and hides inside a golf bag resting against my dining room table. I walk over to look at the animal and notice that my cats have vomited on the rug. Then they begin vomiting in front of me and licking it up. As I get close, the animal runs out of the golf bag. It's a cottontail rabbit. I decide to let it live in my house. During this dream, my hands are tingling with energy. I have a sense that the dream is about "handing" healing energy to others.

When I wake up, I tell the dream to Lenore. She says that when she came home from the hospital nauseated, Phoebe's cat vomited a huge quantity in front of her. She finds it unsettling because she had 24-hour stomach flu six times in the past four months.

I tell Joseph about the dream. He says the cats are our familiars. By vomiting they are taking the poison of the cancer out of us and expelling it. The rabbit represents fear and the opening heart. Allowing the rabbit to live in my house means that I'm allowing fear and love to exist simultaneously in my life. He feels the golf clubs come from a Native American myth about a hunter of wisdom. The hunter travels to the upper world and does battle with a sun god who has taken his father's head. The hunter finds the sun god playing shinny (a game like golf) with his father's head. The hunter's ally advises him to carve his own shinny sticks (which are like golf clubs) and use them to break the sun god's shinny sticks. He takes the advice, defeats the sun god and is able to bring his father's head down to earth. He brings his father back to life by reattaching his father's head... which represents integrating heart and mind. The golf clubs are the tool used to accomplish this wholeness of self. According to Joseph, the energy I felt in my hands when I was dreaming was caused by heart energy rushing into my extremities as my mind and heart integrated. He tells me that 80 percent of the healing Phoebe will experience is because I'm there for her.

Phoebe heals quickly. At least, she heals from the surgery. The cancer will require chemotherapy. Her surgeon and her oncologist agree to allow her to go home and schedule her for chemo as an outpatient. She's happy about being able to leave the hospital, but she's unhappy about the prospect of being sick from chemotherapy. She'd been looking forward to planting a garden in the backyard of the house she bought a couple of months before. When she finds out that chemo means two or three months of nausea and low energy, she hangs her head like a martyr and says, "I guess I won't be able to plant my garden this year." Her victimized resignation hooks the compulsive problem-solver in me.

"You've got lots of friends who want to know what they can do to help. Tell me what you want planted where. I'll see to it that your garden gets planted."

After seven days, Phoebe is released from the hospital. It's Saint Patrick's Day. We stop at Marilyn's house on the way home. It's her birthday, and she invites us to celebrate with her. We eat birthday cake, but what we're really celebrating is the fact that Phoebe is still alive. Phoebe faced death. Marilyn, Tillie, Lenore and I stood beside her. So far, we've faced death down, and we feel pretty powerful. Phoebe is more vivacious than I've ever seen her. She looks at the women who've been there for her with real love in her eyes. We take a group photo with smiles blazing. For about three hours, Phoebe doesn't say a bitter word.

When the party is over, we go to Phoebe's house. All four of us are staying there. Lenore and I each have a twin bed in the guest room. Tillie moves out of Phoebe's bedroom onto the sofa. Phoebe's tired and starts getting ready for bed. I ask her if she'd like to create an altar dedicated to her healing in her bedroom. She replies that it couldn't hurt. I'm pleased that she's taking responsibility for her physical healing, but I feel she also needs to address the psychological, emotional and spiritual causes of her disease. I'm glad she's open to the idea of an altar. While she sleeps, I scour the house for objects to put on the altar. I can't find anything with any spiritual context. I remember that I have a laminated card of the Virgin of Guadalupe and a little plastic figure of Kwan Yin, the feminine Bodhisattva of compassion. I use those as the focus of the altar and surround them with a small vase of fresh flowers, an amethyst crystal, a glass of water and a votive candle. I rest peacefully that night.

While I'm making breakfast in the morning, Tillie takes me aside.

"Phoebe woke up in the night and saw that candle burning in her room. She was very upset that you lit a candle and didn't tell her about it. That's a fire hazard. She asked me to tell you not to do that again."

I feel like I just got my wrists slapped for a minor misunderstanding.

When Phoebe comes to breakfast, I say to her directly, "Sorry about the candle. Next time, I'll wake you up and ask you."

She doesn't reply. I feel like she must see me as powerful and is looking for a way to let me know I'm not.

In the afternoon, Tillie flies back to Tucson. I take her to the airport. At the gate, I tell her that she was a great help, "I'm so glad you showed up."

She says, "I learned a lot from you. You are truly love in action." I'm surprised that she's changed her opinion of me so radically. I'm a little embarrassed by the compliment, but I finally manage to say, "I'm deeply flattered because I know you don't hesitate to say what you really feel."

We hug and promise to keep in touch.

Phoebe's chemo starts the next day. We plan one last highcaloric blow-out before the months of nausea. Phoebe's former neighbors, Carlos and Joaquin, propose the plan and offer to prepare the feast. They're a gay couple who put Martha Stewart to shame. When Phoebe, Lenore and I arrive at their beautifully decorated home, they immediately offer us drinks and great greasy cheesy nachos. A centerpiece of fresh flowers graces the table which is graciously set with fine china. They fuss over all of us, give Phoebe special attention, cook up a storm and make amusing conversation... all at the same time. They're warm and friendly and obviously care about Phoebe. Again, I find myself wondering why Phoebe never mentioned them to me. The food is a fiesta of cholesterol. Nachos followed by a chicken casserole with green chili, jack cheese and cream sauce. The finale is a huge tart with a crust of cookie dough spread with cream cheese topped with sliced fresh fruit glazed with apricot jam. Later, Lenore confesses that the desert was so sweet, she went in the bathroom and rinsed out her mouth after she ate it. Of course, Phoebe and I have never had any difficulty consuming sweets. In the afterglow of that gastronomic orgy, I bring up the subject of Phoebe's garden. Carlos and Joaquin immediately offer to come over with their Rototiller and work the soil. Phoebe accepts the offer. We schedule it for Sunday.

The next day, I take Phoebe to the hospital for her first chemotherapy session. Lenore doesn't go with us because she still isn't feeling well. Phoebe and I go to an outpatient office. A nurse invites her to sit in a big recliner-type of chair. The nurse has trouble finding a vein for the IV needles. She urges Phoebe to consider having a catheter inserted through her chest so they can hook her up more easily. She finally connects Phoebe to a bunch of plastic tubes. Phoebe gets pretty mellow because one of the bags of liquid they're dripping into her has a tranquilizer in it. I read the literature they gave her explaining what all the chemicals are. It's scary reading because everything is highly toxic. The idea behind chemo is to pump enough poison into your body to kill the fast-growing cancer cells. The trick is to stop before too much damage is done to everything else. The problem is that the poison that kills cancer cells also kills every other kind of fast-growing cell... like hair, fingernails and mucus membranes. Dead mucus membranes in your digestive tract cause nausea. Dead hair falls out. Fingernails often turn black. Sometimes teeth crumble and fall out.

After about five bags of toxic chemicals are dripped into Phoebe's veins, I drive her home. They've given her state-of-the-art anti-nausea medicine, so she takes some before she goes to bed to sleep off the tranquilizer. I wash the breakfast dishes while she sleeps. I break a glass in the process. I sweep up the shards and throw them in the trash.

A weathered grape-stake fence encloses Phoebe's back garden. Carlos and Joaquin advise us that it needs to be painted with motor oil to keep it from deteriorating in the harsh desert weather. They don't volunteer for that job, but they tell me I can go to any auto parts store and get the cheapest grade of oil. I do, and then I go to the hardware store and get big paint brushes. I stop at a market and get beer, so we'll have some to offer Carlos and Joaquin after their Rototilling efforts.

When I get back, Phoebe and Lenore attack me the moment I walk in the door. In the process of taking out the kitchen trash, Phoebe pushed the contents of the trash can to compress them and narrowly missed cutting her hand on the broken glass I'd tossed in there. Nothing happened. Phoebe was not hurt at all, but Lenore scolds me furiously, then lectures me on the proper procedure. I must put broken glass in a separate bag, seal it with tape, take a marker and label it "Sharp" before discarding it. I tell her I've never heard that in my life, but it sounds like a good idea. She says that's what they always do in the dentist's office where she works. Phoebe is being a drama queen, "What if I'd cut my wrist? I could have gotten an infection. How could you be so careless?" I realize these women need to make me feel stupid. I guess opportunities to criticize me are so rare that they need to get as much mileage out of this one as they can. Intellectually, I understand that putting me down makes them feel powerful, but it still hurts my feelings. Their pettiness makes me angry, but I feel guilty about getting mad at a couple of sick people.

I take my motor oil and go out to paint the fence. I paint with a vengeance. It's the perfect activity for expressing my rage. I slap black ooze on dry splitting wood and watch it disappear into the cracks. Oil splatters my face. My hands get stained. Dirt sticks to my oily fingers. The sun bakes me and the thirsty fence. Sweat pours off me and mixes with the oil and grime. It's good, honest work that leaves me exhausted and dirty.

While I take on the fence, Phoebe naps and Lenore lounges. Lenore comes out to check my work once, then retreats back inside the house. When I finish, the fence doesn't look much different. It's a darker brown and has a slight sheen. It smells like an auto repair shop, and so do I. I take a long hot shower, drink one of the beers and go to sleep.

The next day, the guys show up with the Rototiller. They work like champs. The awkward, insect-looking machine chews through cement-hard desert soil like a hungry monster. I dump bags of fertilizer into the tiller's path. A job that would have been a brutal day's work for me is done in a couple of hours. Phoebe watches in awe. I don't think she realized what a tough job "planting a garden" really is. She would have needed help if she was in perfect health. When they finish, I offer them the beers. We drink and laugh for another hour.

Now Phoebe's garden is ready to be planted. She just needs to come up with a design and figure out what plants to buy. We put plastic chairs on the cultivated earth and sit in the vacant space to contemplate the possibilities. I see the garden as a metaphor for Phoebe's healing. Supportive friends helped her with the dirty work. Now she has to design her life so it can flower. It's time for her to put her attention on what she wants instead of just complaining about what she lacks. That night, Lenore starts to feel better. She flies back to Hawaii the next day.

Phoebe and I take her to the airport. Lenore thanks me for taking care of her sister. She's fragile and weepy. She promises to be better about keeping in touch with Phoebe. I feel like that's a promise she's too vulnerable to keep. Each sister says she loves the other.

On the way home, we stop at K-Mart. Phoebe buys lace curtains for her bedroom. We both pick up a few things to replenish supplies. The effects of the chemo are diminishing, and Phoebe's feeling pretty good. We go to lunch at Garcia's and stuff ourselves with down-home Mexican food. Since Phoebe's doctor has encouraged her to eat whatever she feels like eating during chemo, we stop at the market and lay in a supply of Haagen Dazs.

In the evening, Phoebe wants to take a bath in Epsom salts because it's supposed to relieve the chemo side-effects. She bought Epsom salts at K-Mart, but now she can't find them. She storms around the house slamming cupboard doors and spouting obscenities. She blames the cashier for not putting them in the bag. She curses the "stupid Epsom salts". She pouts about not being able to do what she wants to do. I try to help. I look in all the logical places. I open a drawer under her linen cupboard and find a box of Epsom salts. I take it to her.

She rips the box from my hand and screams in my face. "Damn you! You never let me have my emotions! You're always trying to make me feel some other way than what I'm feeling!"

I snap. "Well, excuse me! I thought you wanted to take a bath."

"I do! Dammit!"

"So fuck me for helping you? Shut up and go take a fucking bath!"

I know it's no way to talk to a sick person. I know she's really under a lot of psychological strain... after all, her life is threatened, and she feels bad physically. It's the only time I've ever lost my temper with her, and oddly enough, it seems to work. She takes a bath... then complains afterward that the water wasn't hot enough.

The next day I take Phoebe to the doctor to have the tube removed. That big plastic hose has been sticking out of the side of her ribcage all this time. We go to a doctor's office in a big medical building. Her surgeon, who's a smart, charming man from India, basically grabs the tube and yanks it out. It happens fast. Phoebe looks shocked. The sensation of the tube sliding through her innards makes her queasy. She's left with a hole in the side of her torso that has to be carefully cleaned until it heals.

Besides dealing with these emotional upheavals, I'm trying to stay in touch with my business contacts in Los Angeles. I need to land some paying work soon, and I don't want Marsha Mason to forget about reading my screenplay. At Phoebe's request, I keep track of all my phone calls, so I can reimburse her for them. Part of me feels that this is tightfisted of her. After all, I walked away from my life solely to help her in a time of great need. It seems like she might help me out with phone calls home, but I understand that she's worried about the expenses of this catastrophic illness.

I need to go back to my life, earn some money and take care of myself. Phoebe's handling the chemo well enough that she wants to try going back to work part-time. Joaquin has offered to drive her to her weekly chemo treatments. I feel like she'll be able to get along without me. She agrees. I promise to come back during Easter week and help her plant the garden.

I call Joseph to let him know I'm going back to L.A. I tell him Phoebe's garden is ready to be planted and how I see that as a metaphor for her healing. He says, "That's good. To be alive in this reality, we must keep moving, materializing ideas and breathing. If we stop any one of those things, we will die physically."

Phoebe takes me to the airport. As we wait at the gate, she thanks me.

"Marsha, this is going to sound weird."

"That's OK. Say it anyway."

"I had the time of my life."

"That is weird. How so?"

"I don't know. I feel so alive now."

"It was a roller coaster ride."

"Yeah... but there's more to it than that."

"You created a miracle."

"I guess I did."

Phoebe is far from healed, but she's alive. We're high on the thrill of that triumph. On the plane, I write in my journal: "What an adventure! I tried my wings as a healer with Joseph coaching me. I was offered the opportunity to create a miracle, and the miracle was created through cooperation. A community coalesced around Phoebe. She transformed from angry, resentful and closed to joyful, alive and open. I experienced my own healing on many levels. I realize now that this cancer killed my mother because she never found the courage to change. I know now that as long as I keep changing, I will be alive. Phoebe gave me the opportunity to know my own courage, love, vitality and strength. Now I see how alive I am."

When I get home, there's a message from Marsha Mason on my answering machine. I call her back.

"I read your screenplay. I loved it. It's the most original thing I've read."

"Wow, thanks."

"I want to option it."

"Great!"

"My lawyer will call you."

I hang up and whisper a prayer of gratitude to my hummingbird.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Los Angeles native Marsha Scarbrough attended University of Southern California on scholarships from the state of California and the USC School of Journalism. While studying at USC, Marsha worked as a page editor for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and was named Guest Feature Editor of Mademoiselle Magazine, an honor that included travel to New York City and Peru. She graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Journalism.

After college Marsha worked as a fashion journalist and advertising copywriter. Writing, producing and directing commercials for large retailers sparked her interest in film production. She applied to Directors Guild of America's prestigious Assistant Directors Training Program and was selected to be an Assistant Director Trainee. After serving her on-set apprenticeship, Marsha became a member of DGA and spent 17 years scheduling, planning and running the sets of major feature films, prime time television series, movies of the week and network sitcoms. She has handled logistics, organization and administration for various directors including Clint Eastwood, Leonard Nimoy, Blake Edwards and Carl Reiner.

Marsha wrote, produced and directed the award-winning children's video, The Magic of Martial Arts, which has been honored with the Gold Award from the National Association of Parenting Publications, the Award of Excellence from Film Advisory Board and the KIDS FIRST! endorsement from the Coalition for Quality Children's Media. She's also the writer/producer/director of two documentaries: Healing the Heart of Los Angeles and Louise Frankel - Woman Pioneer, a documentary for City of Los Angeles.

As a freelance journalist Marsha has had over 75 articles published in national magazines such as TV Guide, Body & Soul, Natural Home & Garden, and Millimeter: The Motion Picture and Television Production Magazine as well as online magazines for AOL.com, Excite.com and CNBC.com. As a contributing editor for Written By: The Magazine of the Writers Guild of America, west, Marsha interviews Hollywood's most prominent screen and television writers. Marsha is a member of The Authors Guild, Inc.

Her first book, Medicine Dance: One woman's healing journey into the world of Native American sweatlodges, drumming meditations and dance fasts, was published in August 2007 by O Books, John Hunt Publishing.

In 2006, Marsha moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. She's a licensed New Mexico REALTOR® with EXIT Santa Fe Real Estate.

Along the way, Marsha traveled with Buddhist teacher Joan Halifax, danced with movement guru Gabrielle Roth, earned a brown belt in karate from martial arts legend Tak Kubota, participated in healing ceremonies with Native American medicine teacher Beautiful Painted Arrow/Joseph Rael and produced workshops and events for Nigerian master drummer/Yoruba ceremonial leader Ayo Adeyemi.