To capture the essence of Janie Starr's story, readers need only look at the cover of her book, "Bone Marrow Boogie, the Dance of a Lifetime."

A photograph of Starr, atop a wall overlooking the ocean, reaching with abandon while standing on tiptoe, dispels the cliché: You can't judge a book by its cover.

This picture of outstretching energy is a winding thread through Starr's poignant, hopeful, but always real, story of her healing journey with cancer.

Starr, 54, a Vashon Island resident, had just turned 50 when doctors found a tumor hiding behind her chest wall and growing fast. She was diagnosed with lymphoma. The mother of two was spun into a world of doctors and chemotherapy, but complemented those treatments with energy healing, meditations and the love and support of family and friends. She took all the tools she had at hand to work with and put them into play.

"I knew immediately that I wanted to transform this tumor," Starr said.

Starr didn't want to use expressions such as "killing the tumor." At times she found it frightening to hear people talk about "keeping up the fight." Starr preferred to think of herself as turning darkness into light.

In the book she describes chiseling away at her tumor, the pieces transforming into energy that bursts from her chest. She started wearing her mother's diamond ring that had been passed on to her. That is where she felt the particles of energy came to rest.

"I had been writing for a long time but never thought of writing a book," Starr said.

"Bone Marrow Boogie" is set out in journal, e-mail and story format, presenting vignettes of Starr's life in an easy, readable form.

When people are diagnosed with cancer they are sometimes told to keep a journal. "That's what you're supposed to do," Starr said.

Starr began a journal but soon progressed to exchanging e-mails with a network of friends and family. "I did that for a long time before I realized I was writing a book," Starr said.

"Bone Marrow Boogie" is not just a cancer survivor's tale of illness and recover. It is a hopeful, honest look at a scary two-year journey as Starr took her fear and dread, and mixed them with a heavy dose of light and love.

Starr's story moves beyond fear. She brings to the pages of her book the experience of being a mental health therapist who had helped others through life crises. Now she was faced with her own.

The title of the book came about when Starr's energy healer remarked that bone marrow "is the juiciest part of us, where our energy is stored." Although Starr did not have a bone marrow transplant, her stem cells were collected and stored during her treatments. "Hopefully never to be used," Starr said.

Before she was diagnosed with lymphoma, Starr said she was a person who "paid attention" to her life. She had always taken care of herself and thought she would be the last one to get cancer, she said.

During her two-year bout with cancer and recovery, she focused on every moment, she said.

There came a point when Starr knew she was finished writing "Bone Marrow Boogie" and moved on.

"I'm not naive," she said. "I can't assume I've had cancer and I'm done."

But the fear stopped being so big, she said.

Now that Starr is cancer-free she pays even better attention, realizing and reminding herself that in our busy culture it is easy to go back to rushing around. She now performs a morning meditation. Starr says she believes we live in an incredible part of the world where we only have to step outside to benefit our health.

She has always cherished her family but does so even more now.

"It's easy to pay attention," Starr said.

During her time with cancer Starr found support through e-mail from people all over the world, England, South America and just down the street.

"I was really lucky," Starr said. "Even though it was my own journey it was never a lonely journey."

Beachcomber Arts Section
For January 22nd edition

By Juli Goetz Morser
Books by the Way Publicist

If good things come in small packages, then Janie Starr qualifies. With intelligent eyes and an engaging smile, Janie exudes energy and humor. Just back from Portland as the keynote speaker for the Lymphoma Society Regional Conference, Starr laughs that she couldn't see over the podium until her husband found a small cement block for her to stand on. Starr stops laughing and softens recalling her discomfort, even as a cancer survivor, to address a room full of people with the disease. "Though I've spoken to a lot of different groups in the past, I was nervous. I felt so tender, honored, and grateful. And guilty to be so healthy and have such a good life."

Four years ago life looked radically different for Starr. On December 23rd, she received a devastating blow from her cardiologist. "I had stopped breathing," she writes in Bone Marrow Boogie, "and was struggling to understand the alien words that wouldn't stop spewing from my mouth. Lymphoma. What the hell is lymphoma? I thought we were discussing my heart murmur and now it's maybe lymphoma? ... Next thing I knew I was in the bathroom, looking in the mirror at the person I thought I knew best in the world. Crying, crying hard, out loud. 'Am I going to die?' I heard someone whimper."

That day commenced a journey for Starr like no other. Determined to be fully present to her experience and pro-active in her healing, Starr sought both conventional and complementary cancer treatments. Within the traditional medical arena, Starr received chemotherapy and radiation to eradicate the tumor in her chest. The low-fat, sugar-free diet and nutrients prescribed by her naturopath along with energy work, massage, meditation, exercise, and journaling were key to her complimentary, holistic approach.

According to Starr, it was her journaling that led to the book. Begun as a private endeavor, the entries soon developed into a story of perseverance and survival. Colleagues, friends, and published authors encouraged Starr to write a memoir. Using email sent and received from friends around the world along with her journal entries, Starr created the short chapters or 'bite-size pieces' that constitute Bone Marrow Boogie.

Starr intends her message to reach beyond cancer patients to a larger audience: "women (and men) facing mid-life crisis; families who've endured tough times; book groups interested in the memoir genre, personal growth stories, and tales of survival; anyone looking for inspiration...or who wants to turn a personal crisis into a spiritual odyssey." She believes her "dance back into life offers both hope and possibility for the many who are on a path to recovery and for those who accompany them along the way."