I went to the Circle of Hope Boot Camp at Clyde Iron Works on Saturday Morning.

Circle of Hope is a local nonprofit devoted to cancer research and survival. It provides “Emergency Breast Cancer Financial Help for Those Going Through Treatment, Money for Local Metastatic Breast Cancer Research Locally @ University of Minnesota Duluth, Education on Breast Health and Breast Cancer [and] Survivorship Skills and Engagement Activities for Patients, Survivors and Supporters.”

The Boot Camp included some information about exercise — yoga, kickboxing — the most energetic, vital dimensions of life. It also included information from funeral homes. At first, this bothered me; it was, in a certain way, disorienting. Then I felt differently. I felt like these things were not, of course, opposed to each other, and we might be better off if we could bring these things together.

The same can be said about the oils and crystals, at one table, and the nutritionist and the representative from Essentia’s cancer advocacy office. Why can’t these be complementary? Of course they can be. We just don’t get these resources in a room talking to each other and to cancer survivors and their loved ones.

(Sponsors of the event include: Clyde Iron Works, Circle of Hope, Allyndale Motel, Energy Works-Myofascial Release, Anonymous Donor, Sunrise Funeral Home and Cemetery and announced at the event. A grateful thank you from the supporter of a soon-to-be survivor.)