The Brushstroke of the Artist

I love going to art museums and being really close up to a painting… so that I can see the brush strokes of the artist. There is something so vibrant in a brushstroke. When I am that close, I feel no distance between myself and the artist who laid a mark of their soul through their paintbrush. The journey that preceded that actual brushstroke is a lifetime. And there it lays for me to connect with the universal soul of the artist and their desire to express themselves. Today when I was painting, I thought of the artists I love and how they stood this close to the canvas, with colour, a brush and a lifetime behind them. Here. Now.

17 year Anniversary of Radiation

I never ever imagined I would be writing about my 17 year anniversary of radiation.

Last night, a couple who were meeting me for the first time, asked, “What is life like now, after such a horrific experience?”

I replied that, even today, doctors are amazed to see me alive. My tumor was very complex, their expectation was that the cancer would kill me at the age of 39. Since I recovered from the treatment (which was a seven year process), each day feels like a bonus day. I gave them the example of a pinball machine, when you get a bonus ball, and it gives you another game. I told them that I feel I am playing the most amazing pinball machine, and am getting a bonus experience of life every day.

I recently had a break from temple life in South India. With my back having so much more mobility, this meant I could travel for the first time in 5 months. There was great food and company. Daily swims. Lots of rest time. Five days away from daily demands. I now realize, this break was a celebration of my 17 years anniversary.

Unknowingly, I returned home, just in time for the anniversary of my radiation treatment. The following night, I could not sleep. Usually, when this happens, I get out of bed and draw onto the paper whatever emotion is inside me. This creates a shift and I am usually able to sleep after that. But this night I chose to stay in the unease of not being able to sleep. What inspired me to do this is the book I have been reading, (The Presence Process, by South African author, Michael Brown) with a small group of friends online. It focuses on a simple, daily meditation of being here, now.

Instead of getting up to paint or draw, this night I remained in my bed, with the discomfort and sunk deeper into it. And as I felt further into the experience, I discovered the sweetest moment for myself - which you can read below.

The drawings here were made on the anniversary I completed brachytherapy treatment, seventeen years later. April 1st on a full moon of 2026.

Text from image above:

Seventeen year anniversary of radiation.

The body never forgets.

I can feel the horror within.

It has its own life, diluted by my integration into life.

Thank goodness, otherwise it would be unbearable.

Now I have learnt to sit with these strands of horror with the deepest compassion for the terrified being that shakes in there in horror.

A few nights ago, I could not sleep. I tried all my chanting, breathing (which usually knocks me out).

I wanted to get up out of bed and draw.

But I stayed with myself, in my body.

I sank deeper into the discomfort until I found the pockets (tiny) of horror and knew this feeling so well.

I looked at the date on my phone and saw that it was the anniversary of radiation beginning.

The body truly does keep the score.

Text:

In earlier anniversaries, it was different.

I can see my relationship to the experience has changed.

A friend spoke of integration into the body vs healing.

This resonated with me.

We are constantly healing - so many layers.

What about integration of the experience into the body?

This is what has happened in the radiation experience.

It has ‘gone’.

The body has integrated it.

The joys of life have supported this integration.

That is why the trees have been so important.

My connection with nature.

My connection with children (they have a great desire for fun) and connection with those I love and trust.

And the laughter and being a part of life.

All this has helped the integration of the experience into my body.

And the areas that still bubble or vibrate - the horror of the experience:

I have learnt to be still, to listen to it.

To be a witness of this incredible pain.

It is the deepest compassion I have felt for myself.

It is the most profound listening.

The learning of what it means to be human

Text: Healing the Trauma. Why do I need to suffer this much? Why this much pain? Remember that this is a path of wisdom. To know the suffering of millions before you and those you may meet and those after you.

Be careful what you ask for.

My drive as a documentary photographer was to understand what it means to be a human being in this world today. I was given this lesson, not from running around the world with a camera but by being stuck in bed with excruciating physical and emotional pain. This journey was my school of learning.

I never chose to suffer. (Who would?)

Physical and emotional suffering were the consequence of intensive brachytherapy radiation treatment, surgically induced menopause and multiple surgeries. At times, the suffering was so intense, that I wanted to end my life. I got really stuck in the emotional pain (stuck… in the thickest mud). The physical pain took years to heal.

However, when I drew this image (above), there was a light of understanding. The suffering was not futile. I had begun to see that there was a lesson in the painful journey. The learning centered around one of the sweetest words I discovered during my return to life: karuna or compassion.

Compassion for myself was a deep learning of love.

Before treatment, I had been really focused on my work as a documentary photographer: traveling extensively, capturing the world through my lens. I was good at what I did. I connected well with people. But I was not good at connecting with my own needs. So, I focused on what I was good at, while I intentionally set aside my own needs.

Then there was the wake up call.

Once I was in treatment and during post treatment, I could not go anywhere. I was stuck in bed having to face my own physical and emotional pain. The pandora’s box of my inner world which had not been tended to for years had been cracked open. I was shocked to see the internal chaos that I had not addressed.

On the journey of integrating this pain and deepening my understanding, I discovered karuna as an act of connecting with myself. The deeper the compassion went, the more present I could be with my own needs and suffering. I was no longer running away from it. I was here. Now. Connected. And for the first time, experiencing unconditional love for myself.

The consequence of this experience is that it showed me the subtle, quiet space where I can be present to another person’s suffering. My profound desire to understand what it means to be human, was answered through my own journey.

Mantra, Surrender and Creativity

Mantra and surrender. Mantra was easy enough for me to understand: man (soul) and tra (tool or through). Mantra is a tool for the soul or it goes through the soul. But surrender? The act of surrender (not as an act of giving up) had always eluded me until I had no choice. This is when I learnt what surrender really means and how I had to give in to, to become a part of the huge flow of the life force. Life had a completely different plan for me. I drew constantly during the bewildering process. Creativity was a vital act.

Alexis Halkovic’s podcast, Catching North Stars has just landed. It was a joy to be a part of. One of those moments, when there is space for the conversation to flow. Alexis followed my story with laser vision, curiosity and an open heart.

Catching North Stars Podcast. Episode 25

Om Namo Narayani - mantra for Mother Earth, Mother Nature.

From chapter 2 of my visual memoir, I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma with Art published by Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam.

The word mantra comes from the Sanskrit man (soul) and tra (tool or through). Mantra is a tool for the soul; mantra goes through the soul. Vedic chanting is the repetition of mantra – sacred syllables and words that carry profound spiritual significance. What makes mantra extraordinary is that it is not merely sound but vibration – a potent energy that transforms both the one chanting and the space around them. Vedic thought suggests that mantras were not created; they have always existed. Thousands of years ago, in deep states of meditation and oneness with nature, ancient rishis (sages) received these sacred sounds. The rishis attuned themselves to the vibrations emanating from nature, the cosmos, and all of creation.

Unlike ordinary words, which serve to communicate or express emotions, mantra goes deeper. When we speak, sound is just sound. But when we chant a mantra, sound becomes a vessel for sakthi1, Divine power. Each mantra carries this sakthi, awakening our inner strength and drawing us closer to the sacred. By tapping into this ancient energy with growing devotion and faith, I began to experience its transformative power. I began to feel a connection to the countless seekers who, for millennia, have used mantra as a tool for inner peace and spiritual awakening. In its timeless resonance, I found both strength and stillness, as though I were walking alongside those who came before me, on the same path to the Divine.

It was during my first visit to South India in 2005 that I received the mantra from my spiritual teacher, OM NAMO NARAYANI, which means ‘I surrender to the Divine Mother’ (or Mother Earth, or Mother Nature). However, the meaning of this mantra baffles me: I surrender to the Divine, to Mother Nature. Surrender is such a foreign concept. How does surrender happen? What does surrender look like? Little do I know that these three words are going to be the core support during the most challenging period of my life, which is just around the corner.

1 Sakthi is the Tamil spelling for the word Shakti and is either pronounced Sakthi or Shakti.

The Biology of Not Bouncing Back to “Normal” by Dr Ksenia Malarkey

There are those moments when we felt heard as a person. Today, when I read this article by Dr. Ksenia Malarkey, working in integrative oncology introduced her essay here:

A new post about that first quiet, destabilizing phase after treatment ends. Not “back to normal,” but not actively being treated either. Just after and forever. Artwork by Nathalie Latham from her book, I AM ALIVE. Nathalie was diagnosed with stage 3 cervical cancer at 39. Her work is like watching a nervous system find language.

If you have been through a big health crisis, this will speak to you. If you know someone who has been through a big health crisis or is going through… this will bring you deeper understanding to their experience.

Here it is:

https://substack.com/home/post/p-187131610

REHAB FOR THE SOUL

Images from I AM ALIVE: When Grief Becomes Song, and Song Becomes Medicine

How grief began to lift during a New Orleans workshop, sparked by a haunting blues voice and nurtured by creative friends: trauma recovery, healing through music, and how the body remembers to live again.

Text: Let it rain. Let it pour love. Shine. Sunbeam. Rehab for the Soul. Pull the ropes baby. Shake it. Bake it. Dance. Zebra Love. Fish Jive. Goat Dance. New Orleans 2013.

I visited New Orleans with a friend to attend a workshop with Hillary & Bradford Keeney

.What a joyful discovery of the life force this was! I describe the experience in chapter 19::

Chapter 19 from I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma through Art.

Images from I AM ALIVE: Since my Diagnosis

Text: Since my diagnosis, I was in the constant motion of loss. Everything that I thought I was or I thought belonged to me, was a part of me, I had to lose or give up or let go until I was on my knees. I was no more. Then I became everything. I have all I need. I am so grateful I lost the debris.

Today is the first day of the second part of my book, I AM ALIVE. These are images from the time of about 4 years post treatment, onwards.

The outlook of these drawings is definitely more uplifting, the trauma is not far away… yet I start knowing how to regulate my nervous system. My body has settled in to itself after the instant menopause. There is a sense of acceptance and at times, liberation. In this part of the story, I am discovering who I truly am. There are moments when I still slip into deep sadness and overwhelm but life feels a lot more manageable.

In sharing these images, I really hope that others whom have gone through a huge crisis will gain strength or courage from this story. When we are brought to our knees, it is possible to stand up again and return to life. It takes time, a huge amount of self compassion and patience. And it can happen.

And for care takers, I know the book sheds light of the internal process of the person going through a crisis (health or otherwise) or deep difficulty.

Keep shining the light.

I AM ALIVE launched in NYC!

It was a truly heart felt night and to be surrounded by so many people I love and have known over the decades was a gift.

I AM ALIVE in conversation with Sonya Bekkerman with Beneville Studio

Above is the link to video of the conversation Sonya Bekkerman led at Beneville Studio earlier this month.

It was important for me to have Sonya lead the talk as this book carries so much weight, trauma, sadness, acceptance and joy.

Sonya was one of the first people I shared my drawings with on her first visit to India in 2012. She was navigating a completely different world to mine: I was in my 3rd year of recovery from cancer, planting trees, praying, wearing sarees and living at the guest house of Sri Narayani Peedam in South India while Sonya was running the Russian department in Sotherby’s in NYC. Sonya belonged to the world I knew before I was diagnosed but by 2012, but that world felt so far away from me as I struggled with depression and PTSD. I immediately enjoyed her company: she was visiting India with her sculptor uncle, who was larger than life. Big heart. Huge embrace to life. Sonya was intellectually sharp, deep in her observations and very funny. They both made me laugh a lot. When she looked at my drawings for the first time, she wept. I was moved that she was so emotional in seeing the drawings. She understood.

Sonya has quite the talent of creating a narrative. She linked up my earlier photography work (Russia, China, Australian creatives living around the world) as my era of travel and looking out into the the world.

I was searching to understand what it meant to be a human being.

Next, she swerved into the next chapter of my life: DIAGNOSIS & CRISIS where my next series is of me photographing myself in waiting rooms, in between scans, blood tests and doctor visits at Institut Marie Curie in Paris as I traversed the diagnosis of stage 3 cervical cancer. These images, she noted were of me turning my camera on myself for the first time. Until the talk, I hadn’t even noticed this shift. It was a natural response for me to keep photographing my world. And then the photography stopped: I was stuck in bed in radiation for 7 days and 7 nights, pinned down. And this is where the drawing began.

Now looking back at the talk, the narrative seems so obvious… however, I just couldn’t see it until that night. I had felt that my life as a photographer, as an artist had stopped with the diagnosis. But now I see is that I was doing was responding to my circumstance. The spirit of the artist had never left me.

I am so grateful for how Sonya navigated the talk with such attention and wisdom. It was an emotional talk to give and I wasn’t expecting to start choking up when I read out, Love Poem to Life. I heard myself apologising for my tears, “I am sorry.” Then I quickly corrected myself, “I am not sorry.” Then I explained how I never ever imagined to be able to return to life the way I had, for which I am extremely grateful. The grief is always there tucked away, appearing unexpectedly to remind me that this is a process to honour. And the joy is there to be shared and experienced.

Thing weren’t really as I thought they were…

Learning that things were not really as I thought they were.

Day 17 of 21 days sharing drawings from my book, I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma with Art published by Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam.

Text: Learning that things were not really as I thought they were.

When I drew this image, I had completed treatment a month earlier and was struggling with a very weakened body, PTSD, surgically induced menopause. It was at this time that I could not remember the names of friends: this showed me how overwhelmed my brain was. I found it difficult to fall asleep at night. I did not feel safe within my body.

As I went deeper into therapy, I discovered that I had told myself quite a different story to how things really were growing up. This time was an opportunity to turn up for myself in the most authentic way. I was so depleted that I could no longer be what others wanted me to be. I was over with people-pleasing. I began to be live my own truth. This was extremely challenging yet liberating at the same time.

Meditation: What is my truth?

Somatic Experiencing

Day 16 of 21 days sharing drawings from my book, I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma with Art published by Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam.

Text: Charred on top: no life

Underneath: burnt, raw, pulsating, alive

In the depths of my suffering at the time, returning to life was something I never had imagined could be possible.

This image was drawn after sessions of somatic experiencing (see Peter Levine’s Waking the Tiger).

I had been disassociated from my body for over a year, and part of the process of somatic experiencing therapy was to ever so gently, with tiny steps (so as to not overwhelm) enter into the sensations of my body which had been intensely radiated.

This is what I discovered: underneath the skin felt burnt, raw yet pulsating and alive. The top of my skin felt charred like a forest fire.

Although there was a sense of pulsating life in the body, my mind was in such a state of shell shock, that I did not really believe or know that I would get better. In retrospect, I find it fascinating that when I found the safe space to sit in curiosity about how my body felt, I associated my body to the forest fires I knew from my childhood in Australia: what looked like charred devastation always had a life force underneath… life would return in time. The innate wisdom of my body knew that it would return to life.

It was extraordinary to experience first hand, how this human body did return to life. It took years, and lots of attention, therapy, love, meditation, prayer, connecting with nature… but it did happen.

Suspended in Time

Day 15 of 21 days sharing drawings from my book, I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma with Art published by Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam.

Text: suspended. No idea where all this is going to take me.

I had been through treatment. I was cured of cancer but was not healed from the experience of treatment. My body was worn out and in shell shock. I was too weak to return to my old life/ my job… I had entered the game of waiting. This was far from comfortable as a process, particularly for someone like me who had been so dynamic in life and had the ability to create and make things happen.

This was my experience of completely surrendering myself to the process of healing and life.

The Deep Song of Rage

Day 13 of 21 days sharing drawings from my book, I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma with Art published by Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam.

During radiation treatment and the surgeries, I was in high vigilance, survival mode.

What I was not expecting was the anger and rage that arose after the intensive medical procedures. I could no longer recognise who I had become. It took years of therapy, writing, drawing, tears, frustration, meditation, prayer, planting trees and letting go… to untangle and dissolve the intense feelings around the experience, as well as any anger I had suppressed earlier in my life. I had to befriend it all.

I ended up buying a punching bag and gloves and hung them in my room. It was really helpful to punch the bag until I was exhausted (and as I was already depleted… this activity rarely lasted for longer than a minute).

I made it through. Nothing to prove to anyone.

Day 12 of 21 days sharing drawings from my book, I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma with Art published by Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam.

I made it through. That part is over. I can feel it in my body. I will never be the same and although the scars are there - life feels so much light and richer. Nothing to prove to anyone.

Breathe

Breathe

Day 11 of 21 days sharing drawings from my book, I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma with Art published by Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam.

Sometimes this is all we need. To focus on the breath. Come back to the breath. Ultimately, this breath of the Life Force is all we have.

During my recovery process I created many drawings around the act of the breathing/ the breath.

They say I am cured - why do I feel so unsafe?

They say I am cured. Why do I feel so unsafe?

Day 10 of 21 days sharing drawings from my book, I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma with Art published by Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam.

This was a strange place to be in. When I created this drawing, I had been given the “all clear” from the medical world. I was cancer free. And when my loved ones, friends and family heard this, everyone gave a huge sigh of relief and got on with their lives. Nathalie is no longer in danger.

It is true, I was no longer in danger but I was far from healed. Being cured and healed are two vastly different worlds.

I still struggled with everything and most of all, I did not feel safe within my body. At night I could not fall asleep because I was fearful that the radiation machine was going to click on (I could not separate the past experience of not feeling safe to my present day where I actually was safe). I also wondered, how long was I going to be “clear” for? Was the cancer going to return next year? The experience felt heavy and very lonely. It was really hard to talk to anyone about this. One friend who had been through cancer, understood. My therapist listened too and week by week, focused on bringing me back to my body through somatic experiencing. I prayed every day. I cried every day. Being alive felt overwhelming.

I am not alone: understanding trauma for the first time

The skin feels numb. The surface between the world and my inner broiling cannot express anything.

Day 9 or 21 - sharing drawings from my book, I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma.

I remember sitting in a taxi in traffic. As I looked through the window, and saw people walking on the footpath, I was so aware that there was a world out there that I was not able to be a part of. My emotions were boiling inside. My skin felt numb. I could not express myself. My body was stuck in very unfamiliar territory.

To feel completely separate from the world is not an unusual experience but since I was a child, one thing I did feel pretty consistently was the oneness with my world. But that was no longer the case.

In the following days after this moment in the taxi, a friend suggested I read Peter Levine’s Waking the Tiger. This is where I began to learn about the process of trauma. The words I read, spoke to me. This is the first time that I understoo

d the radiation is a traumatic event and I am still stuck (frozen) in that energy.

Here is the drawing after I have read the first few pages of WAKING THE TIGER:

Text from above image:

In trauma, the mind becomes profoundly altered.

For example in a car crash, a person is protected initially from emotional reaction and even from a clear memory or sense that it really happened.

THIS speaks to ME.

These remarkable mechanisms allow us to navigate through those critical periods hopefully waiting for a safe time and place for these ALTERED states TO “WEAR OFF”

YES YES

The altered state was my experience of radiation

I feel I am beginning to understand the trauma inside of me. I am not alone in the experience.

All I need is a cooked meal and my feet massaged

People keep asking me is there anything I need or want? All I need is a cooked meal and my feet massaged.

Day 8 of 21 days: sharing drawings from my book, I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma.

This drawing is from 2009 when I had completed treatment, was cured of cancer and was extremely weak, depressed and in shock.

I spent the day lying on my sofa resting, drawing, praying or watching movies.

Loved ones around me were at a loss. At this stage, there really wasn’t much anyone could do for me. I know this happens for many people recovering from a huge medical intervention or accident where the body needs rest. My answer needed to be a very practical one and both answers were acts of nurturing: a cooked meal and my feet massaged (to help me get back into my body).

Let me be

Let me be

Day 7 of 21 days sharing drawings from my book, I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma with Art published by Schilt Publishing, Amsterdam.

When I drew during the first seven years of recovering from radiation, it was to prove to me that I was alive. Each drawing was a witness that I was still in the land of the living. I never imagined that I would make a book, but over the years, seeing the amount of drawings I had made, it seemed obvious to a handful of friends that there was something there to share.

The obstacle in creating a book was that, for over a decade I could not look at most of the drawings. There was too much pain in them. I would feel overwhelmed. Many drawings of the book hold a very strong energy of a particular (very difficult) moment or emotion lived. So, the sketch pads were placed in boxes, the boxes were piled upon eachother, until I had enough distance to return back to those moments lived within my body.

There are a handful of drawings from the first 7 years, where I can feel an inner sigh of relief and this is one of them. There is no residue of trauma here.

In the process of recovery from intensive radiation treatment/ surgically induced menopause, depression, PTSD… there were many people who had the best of intentions: how I should be… what I should be… had I tried x, y z? These best-of-intentions felt overwhelming and that something was wrong with me. Why, after years, was I still unwell, still struggling with everything when I had been cured of cancer within the first months of my diagnosis?

It is a curious place to be. But how could anyone understand how brutal the treatment had been and how I had been stripped away of everything that made me, me? Stripped away of my vital force, my desire to live, my inner strength, my joy, my sexual being... My body had been internally burnt around the clock for 7 days and nights and it was taking time to recover.

What I longed for was space to just be.

The message of this drawing, Let me be reminds me, there is nothing to do, no one to be. It appears as a message to myself that it is OK to relax and just be me. I am enough.

Looking back at the time, I thought I had been stripped away of desire for life. However, I see in this drawing that I did have a desire: for those around me to let me be.

It took time, however, I did heal. I did return to life and I became whole again.

Meditation: How does it feel to sit and simply be, you? No expectation of any result. Simply be… you.

Reminder to Self : it takes time to heal

It’s been knocked out of me: my courage, the fearlessness, the joy, that strength I have so depended on.

Day 6 of 21 days of sharing images from my book I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma through Art.

When the experience of radiation treatment and multiple surgeries brought me to my knees, I could no longer recognise myself: the courage, the fearlessness, the joy, the strength I had so depended on to carry me in life, had simply been knocked out of my being. It took years for me to return to myself. In retrospect, I did have courage as I did stay with life (I did not throw myself under a bus which I had considered an option). And interestingly, at a time I felt far away from life, in this image, I drew the shape of the egg

The act of drawing as my witness: I am Alive

Text: The act of drawing, of creating is my witness to knowing I AM ALIVE. I am here. I exist. I did not die. I am here. I am here. Je suis là.

Day 4 of 21 Days sharing my drawings from my book, I AM ALIVE: Creating Resilience and Healing Trauma Through Art, published by Schilt Publishing.

A drawing of rejoice. I can still feel the sweetness of being in touch with the life force when I drew this.