Two decades of intentional research and healing, along with recovery from a year of chemotherapy, led Hannah Kate Warner to see recovery as a spiral. Through this spiral we engage nine processes here at the Chemo Recovery Circle, always with creative expression, contemplation, and community conversation. A note from her book, The Platinum in the Poison: Spiritual and Material Resources from a Year of Chemotherapy:

You will need a circle to engage the work of recovering from chemotherapy—this is vital. But the process is not circular or linear (neither is it a square, triangle, or hexagon).  I think the path to recovery is a more of a spiral than anything else—a golden spiral, in particular (it gets more and more open as it gets larger, at a very nice phi ratio).  In my experience it involves nine processes, but you might come back around to one or many over the course of your recovery. You may bounce around a bit or you may spend months digging into one. The goal is to move toward more and more days of feeling bright, alive and engaged with life. There will always be hard days, and recovery will likely never be complete. The experience is in us now, but we get to choose how to hold it as we move forward. Here are the nine processes toward physical, mental and spiritual recovery from chemotherapy (and other challenging experiences):