Queen Afua - Sacred Woman: A Guide to Healing the Feminine Body, Mind, and Spirit

More praise for Sacred Woman

Queen Afua is an extraordinary healer, teacher, mother, and keeper of our legacy.
Through Sacred Woman, she has given us the sacred tools we need to live our lives in this new century.
H AZELLE G OODMAN
Actress

Just when I thought I was all alone, I found myself walking with a group of conscious women who were taking sacred steps and speaking sacred words. We were on our way to Queen Afuas Global Sacred Woman Village. Come with us, theres Maatbalance and orderthere.
E RYKAH B ADU

Sacred Woman offers profound wisdom to all who seek healing and transformation. Queen Afua is a national treasure.
B OB L AW
Author, radio personality,
and vice president of WWRL

The contents of this book are merely for the purposes of education and information. This book is not intended to serve as a substitute for medical supervision. If you are seeing your doctor, by all means continue to do so.

A One World Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group

Copyright 2000 by Queen Afua/Helen O. Robinson

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

One World and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.oneworld.net

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., and Harold Ober Associates Incorporated for permission to reprint an excerpt from Harlem from Collected Poems by Langston Hughes. Copyright 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2001012345

eISBN: 978-0-307-55951-7

Historical Adviser and Research Consultant: Sen-Ur Hru Ankh Ra Semahj se Ptah

v3.1_r1

Ring ring221-HEAL. This is Queen Afua. May I help you?

The sister on the other end of the phone began to weep. Im so frightened. My doctor told me that my ovaries are dead. Im only twenty-nine years old, and I feel like Im going through menopause. What am I to do? she pleaded.

Ring ring221-HEAL. This is Queen Afua. May I help you?

A sad, quiet voice said, The gynecologist I just saw tells me that I have to have a hysterectomy. Im only thirty years old, with one daughter. I was hoping to get married again and have more children. In 1982 I was diagnosed with pelvic inflammatory disease and regenerating fibroid tumors. The tumors didnt cause me any major problems for six or seven years, but now theyve grown. What can I do? Do you think you might be able to help mein a natural way? I dont want to lose my womb.

Ring ring221-HEAL. This is Queen Afua. May I help you?

There was a deep sigh from the caller. Hello, Queen. I guess Im finally ready to try the natural waynothing else has worked. Im getting heavy bleeding, with only about ten days between my periods. In between Im in constant PMS, and a screaming lunatic with my family and coworkers. I just cant go on this way.

As the Founder and Director of the Heal Thyself Center, and a Holistic Health Consultant, Colon Therapist, Polarity Practitioner, and Lay Midwife, I have experienced a Natural Living lifestyle for more than twenty-five years, and I have guided thousands along the Path of Purification for more than twenty years. But nothing in my experience as a Minister of Purification and a Nubian Khamitic Priestess of the Temple Nebt-Het, initiated through the Shrine of Ptah, could have prepared me for the epidemic of womb disasters that began to appear at the Heal Thyself Center.

The issue of African American womens health has always been one of my primary concerns. I know how chilling the statistics are. There are more than 550,000 hysterectomies performed each year in the United States. Yet, as Dr. Michael E. Toaff, creator of the Alternative to Hysterectomy Web site, comments, In the vast majority of these cases, the indications for surgery are benign, non life threatening conditions. Only 10% of hysterectomies are performed for cancer.

Due to this widespread practice, the National Black Womans Health Projects Public Education and Policy Program has highlighted the following issues among its top priorities for African American womens health: Reproductive health and rights issues such as high rates of breast and cervical cancer and STDs; and excessive hysterectomies.

Their efforts are critical when we consider the fact that by the age of 60 more than one-third of the women in the United States have had a hysterectomy. An article on indications for hysterectomy found that African American women and women with male gynecologists are more likely to undergo hysterectomies.

Research has also shown that African American women are more likely than white women to have a hysterectomy, are hospitalized longer, and are at a higher risk for complications and death. Based on 1986 to 1991 hospital data from the State of Maryland, researchers found that African American women are 25 percent

Many of the health books on the market today convey a sense that we need only to treat health as an accessory, one that we can buy at a department store, just as wed buy a pair of earrings. Well, its simply not true. We get confused by our consumerist way of thinking, which says that if only we have this car, or that brand-name clothing, or this stereo system, or that houseall things outside of the selfthen everything will be fine.

But you cant buy good health, no matter how much money you have, what kind of possessions you have, how many degrees youve earned, what job title you hold, or what neighborhood you live in. You have to plan and cultivate good health. You have to commit to good health. You have to live good health because it comes from the inside out. It comes from what you bring to your life: positive, empowering thoughts, prayers and affirmations, uplifting company, and high-quality, life-giving foods.

To have excellent health you must invest time and energy into the transformation of your Sacred Body Temple. And once youve acquired excellent health, you must maintain it vigilantly. Thats the true divine challengeone that you can and must meet.

The womb is the gateway of all human life. When the womb is honored and respected, she becomes a channel of power, creativity, and beautyand joy reigns on earth. When her voice goes unheard, unanswered, denied, the womb becomes a vessel of disease.

The collective state of womens wombs reflects the condition of the world. When so many womens wombs suffer from tumors, cysts, frigidity, and heavy menstrual bleeding, when so many women experience sexually aggressive acts and unnecessary hysterectomies, then disharmony covers the earth.