Chapter 13

Fertility has always been associated with awe, curiosity, and magical thinking. Since the beginning of time, fertility has been deeply imbedded in the human experience and expressed throughout the ages by all cultures in symbolic art. In trying to decipher the atavistic meanings given to fertility, it is essential to consider the hostile world in which our progenitors struggled and eventually thrived. The population of the earth is an incredible success story. No species have ever so dominated the earth as have humans. Fertility has always been the central theme of our ancestors. In many ways, cancer, as a life-threatening disease, brings people back to their most basic and primitive selves.