WELLNESS
FROM TRAUMA
To Fierce Joy
T
his month, Parvati Magazine spoke with Marsha Therese Danzig, a yoga teacher and
intuitive healer who recently published a memoir entitled “Fierce Joy” about her journey
through bone cancer, amputation and kidney failure, to reclaiming joy.
Parvati Magazine: How has your experience with cancer informed your current approach
to wellness?
Marsha Therese Danzig: I was diagnosed with bone cancer when I was five years old. I remember very clearly deciding that the hospital was a dangerous place, full of grown-ups
who tried to tell me what to do, how to feel and to be. Somehow I knew that their fears
would cause me harm. I ran away often, generally fighting with every ounce of my little being to get those adults off of me because they were about to “hurt me”. The fierceness had
begun. I would choose what I let in to my being.
I was always a deeply spiritual child. I saw God everywhere. When I was given last rites, introduced to me as a very special first communion, I knew I was eating Jesus, so I would be
fine. In other words, I knew that the divine was infusing me and filling my cells with love and
healing. Now, as all the research is emerging on the profound connection between beliefs
and healing, I realize I was one very wise little girl. Not listening to the fears and opinions of
others has been one of my personal strengths.
I believe the body is the walking breath of God/Love, so everything that is not breathing
fully in one’s being needs waking up and re-aligning. I also believe that not all illness is misalignment with the divine. This has given me infinite space in the heart for the clients with