On July 27th, 28th and 29th, I will be co-facilitating three TaKeTiNa and Clarity Breathwork evenings with James Word, Mary Gaetjens, and Natalie Word. The four of us have been exploring the synergy of rhythm and breath to experience heightened states of consciousness. We are very, very excited to share these powerful modalities with you.
The Clarity Breath Circles we have done doing TaKeTiNa before we breathe have been incredibly profound for those who have participated. Being able to do three nights in a row will be especially powerful as each evening energetically builds on the one before and take us deeper each night.
This workshop will deeply connect you with your inner guidance and integrate that guidance so you can manifest you highest intentions in your daily life. If you are interested in transformation, and balancing that shift on every level – emotional, mental and physical – this workshop is for you.
You can do one evening or all three. The cost is $35.00 for each evening and $90.00 for all three. At aMFa Gallery 1318 10th Street (at Gilman). Call me at 510-601-9632 to reserve a space.
I have written several self care posts in this blog. If you click on the Self Care category to the left you will see 10 post including: Self Care: Vacations, Exercise and Rest, Scheduling, and the Healing Power of Community.
You will notice that I have not written about diet and food. That is because I am clueless when it comes to diet. Therefore I have had nothing to say and certainly no advice to give. I was constantly struggling with what to eat and when to eat and never felt like I was optimally supporting myself or my healing practice with my diet. It’s not like I haven’t been consciousness about food. In fact, I feel like I have been micromanaging my diet for years.
Then recently I decided to do something different. I started a raw food cleanse.
Several months before this cleanse all I really wanted when I was hungry were peanut butter sandwiches on non-gluten bread and coffee. Through extreme will power I managed to drink green smoothies with kale and parsley and eat other veggies. I knew I was not in the flow when it came to food.
I don’t think I ever met a carbohydrate I didn’t like. And I’ve known for a long time my last meal would be mashed potatoes. Just mashed potatoes, with vegan butter.
Yet, I know that what I eat directly, dramatically and immediately effects my healing sessions. I have always eaten small meals during the day because it helps me to stay energized and present during the healing sessions with my clients. During a working day I never eat pasta or even oatmeal. Pancakes put me right to sleep 45 minutes after intake.
Half my healing practice is still massage (which I love) so I need to eat a lot of protein and calories. I also eat to ground myself because eating is a grounding activity. It just is.
While I can’t give any advice on diet and nutrition, I can and have energetically supported clients through their personal process of finding what food nutritionally and energetically works for them. Helping a client clear her energy field strengthens her connection to her inner guidance and higher self so she can move in the direction that is the most healthy for her. With long term illnesses and imbalances intuitive guidance and insights are just a natural part of the healing process.
I have eaten raw food in the past and have responded well to the live food diet, so when I found an email for a raw food cleanse in my mailbox last month by Heather Haxo Phillips from Raw Bay Area I signed up immediately.
As this post publishes I am on day 14 of a 15-day raw food cleanse and have never felt hungry once although I have had many cravings for sugar, greasy food and burritos. I feel like I am finally eating what makes me and my body happy. I have had slight headaches from the detox and have needed more rest, yet I still feel more energized than ever. I am now committed to at least an 80% raw food diet. It just feel good.
I am on the cleanse with about 10 other people and we have a private Facebook group to share our process. This has been very helpful. I have learned so much more than I ever expected. We are using Ani Phyo’s book, 15 Day Fat Blast. Heather is guiding us with ways to slightly modify it so that it works for each of us.
It’s been a high learning curve and I have spent more time in the kitchen in the last two weeks than in the last two years. Going forward, I realize I am going to have to put more time and energy in preparing my meals to make sure I am eating well.
A surprising new aspect of this diet for me was how good fermented foods are for me. Kefir made with coconut milk, kombucaha, and sauerkraut are major sources of probiotics, which promote the growth of good bacteria in our bodies. My first kefir batch was a little unnerving for me, but now I actually like the taste.
One of the biggest improvements in my well-being, besides weight loss, is how mentally clear I feel. I was starting to have days where it was taking me until early afternoon to feel fully awake. So far I feel clearer much more of the time. I’m still detoxing, so I will see what happens next.
The raw food diet is not for everyone, but it’s right for me right now. If you are interested in learning about raw foods and want to take a class in the Bay Area check out Heather’s Raw Bay Area.
The only self care advice I have on diet is find the one that works for you. It’s worth the time, effort and energy.
I feel fabulous!
Chef Heather Haxo Phillips
Heather also teaches yoga and I had a private class with her that was incredible helpful. Check out her yoga classes here.
Healing for me is the act of rebalancing. The Tarot card Temperance is the archetypical image of healing for me.
When I recently started reexamining what images represent healing for me, I realized the 14th card in Tarot deck – Temperance – is my quintessential image of healing. Pamela Coleman-Smith designed this card for the Rider-Waite-Smith deck in 1909. When I look at this card I instantly feel a state where everything is in complete harmony.
Traditional meanings of Temperance includes moderation and self-control, yet I see this card as perfect flow, which means there is no need to control anything. No need to fast or binge, hold on or let go, speed up or slow down. Inner and outer worlds are in perfect balance. Instinct, emotions and physical needs are in sync. For me, Temperance is an image for transcending the extremes, imbalances, striving and crisis of daily life. It is an image of equilibrium that is attainable in our world, if only at first for a moment or so at a time.
Images can be very powerful allies when going through any kind of transformation – whether you are healing from an injury, building a business, going through a divorce or making positive lifestyle changes.
What images relax you? What pictures help you to feel strong? What symbols resonate with your most authentic self?
Temperance Card from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck used with permission of U.S. Games Systems, Inc. c. 1971 by U.S. Games Systems, Inc. Further reproduction prohibited.
My mother-in-law, Catherine Annie Lena Gibbons, passed away on April 15th, 2012 after a long illness. My husband and I spent a week in England and Wales to attend her funeral.
I didn’t think about my blog when I was traveling, so I do not have anything to post. I thought about life, death and how beautiful Wales is. I thought about Catherine, her life and how lucky I was to have known her.
I had a sudden surge in my aura perceiving abilities.
It happened early one morning at my favorite neighborhood cafe. I was waiting for my chilaquiles to arrive. It was raining outside and the soft light was obviously perfect for seeing energy fields.
I could see clear but thick wavy spaces around the bodies of the three other costumers in the restaurant, as well as the cook and the two waitresses. When someone passed between me and a blank wall I could easily see, or sense, a color. Sometimes I saw two colors. I didn’t have to squint or relax my eyes, it was right there, plain as day. It was beautiful, and the whole room had a misty, dreamy glow.
When I first started writing this blog about a year ago, seeing auras was a major goal of mine and I was always consciously trying to perceiving them. I thought that if I could see my client’s energy fields I would be a better healer. On this morning I really understood that seeing auras is a byproduct of something else, and it is this “something else” that has made me a better healer. The problem is I’m not quite sure what that something is. This insight was the most profound part of my pre-breakfast experience.
That morning, before the auras distracted me, I was thinking about a massage client who had made her transition the week before. I had met her in the hospital a few days after she had a major stroke. After that first massage I saw her on the first Monday of every month and worked with her for many years. She was a very special human being and I really looked forward to our sessions.
Her family had taken wonderful care of her, she had lived a long life and it was all good. I was feeling sad that I was not going to see her again, but I was also feeling intensely grateful, too. Grateful that I had the opportunity to get to know someone so remarkable on such a deep level. Grateful that I could help her feel better when she was bedridden. Grateful that my life handed me this rich and meaningful experience on a silver platter.
The feeling of being grateful kept growing until it spiraled out of control and that’s when I noticed all the auras. It was a kind of opening, I think. Since that morning I feel like I can visually see more activity in my clients energy fields. It still depends on the day, my energy and the person’s field I am looking at.
I don’t think there was just one thing that triggered that morning’s experience. It must have been everything: my emotional state, the weather, my client’s transition, and even the anticipation of a great breakfast. I think everything just happened to sync up at the right moment.
It is hard to describe moments like this one. It’s important for me to take the time to give these experiences more space in my life and become more conscious of them. Maybe the more space I create, the more moments I will experience opening up for me.
Sounds True is an independent multimedia company located in Boulder, Colorado. They publish books, music, audio learning courses and instructional DVDs that embrace the spiritual traditions, visionaries and artists of our time. This is a great company and a real treasure chest of ideas and inspiration.
Tami Simon started the company in 1985 with one tape recorder and the desire to disseminate spiritual wisdom. Twenty-six years and over 80 employees later, Sounds True has maintained its focus as expressed in its vision statement:
“Sounds True exists to inspire, support, and serve personal transformation and spiritual awakening.”
If you have not heard of Sounds True, I highly recommend that you browse the website. You will also find a remarkable archive of brilliant interviews conducted by Tami Simon, called Insights at the Edge. Tami Simon is one of the most perceptive, intuitive and intelligent interviewers I have ever heard. She also has an incredibly beautiful voice. She is definitely on my genius list.
Simon says of her interviews:
“What I am interested in is the personal process of discovery, and sharing notes and experiences with other spiritual journeyers.”
Insight at the Edge has podcasts from yoga teachers, musicians, spiritual writers, meditators and spiritual seekers. You can hear amazing interviews from Caroline Myss, Adyashanti, Bruce Lipton, Caroline Casey, Sally Kempton, Gregg Braden, Thomas Moore and Deva Premal – just to name a few. A free resource of conversations with the most interesting people around today and it is only a few computer clicks away.
Clients facing a life threatening disease often mention that they are ready to try meditating, or would like some relaxing music to help them sleep. I am always prepared with suggests from my collection of Sounds True books and CDs. I have given away more titles by Pema Chodron, Eckhart Tolle and Neil Douglas-Klotz than I can remember.
Sounds True has greatly enriched my life and my healing practice.
“Over the past 35 years I have successfully treated many types of cancer – bone, pancreatic, breast, brain, rectal, lymphatic, stomach, leukemia – as well as other diseases, all using a hands-on healing technique that is painless, noninvasive, and has no side effects. To my knowledge, no person I have healed ever experienced a recurrence. “
This is the first paragraph in the author’s introduction. This book is fascinating, easy to read, hard to put down and is an excellent account of a healer discovering his own healing abilities and techniques.
I found out about “The Energy Cure” because a client told me before her first healing session that she decided to try hands-on healing after reading this book. That was enough of an endorsement for me to buy it.
William Bengston has some very interesting ideas. I believe everything he writes works in his healing practice, yet there are one or two points where I have come to a different conclusion in my healing sessions. I won’t go into those points now because I want to focus on how brilliant this book is and how encouraging it has been for me as a healer to read his story.
For Bengston, aggressive cancers like blastoma remit faster than slower developing cancers like prostrate cancer. The longer a condition takes to develop in the client the harder it is for him to cure.
He feels that all injuries are best treated when fresh, before the patient’s mind hardens around the idea of being injured or disabled.
Bengston states that a skeptical, opened-minded person is more likely to have a successful out-come than a person who places too much belief in him as “the healer.” Bengston also writes that he has no success with warts.
Bengston is committed to defining and promoting the acceptance of hand-on healing through rigorous scientific inquiry. He describes his experiments with laboratory mice and the challenges of working with the scientific community. He also clearly and insightfully tells the story of meeting and learning from his mentor Bennett Mayrick, a gifted psychic and healer.
William Bengston writes:
“Do not put your faith in me. I don’t want to be believed. Remember, I’m a faithless person who relies on experience and data. You are a part of this experiment. Take what you need from this book, and then go and do it your own way, so if I get lost under a bus or somewhere it’s not going to affect your abilities.”
This book has inspired me to reexamine my healing practice on many levels. I have been working with people diagnosed with cancer for over 10 years and Bengston has given me a whole new realm of possibilities, intentions and ideas to consider for me and my clients. Stay tune for more posts inspired by this remarkable book.
Here is an excellent interview of William Bengston by Tami Simon from Sounds True. It’s available after you sign up for the free membership.
Writing and blogging about healing is so much more difficult than the actual healing.
Healing is easy. I am guided by the energy. I completely trust that whatever happens in the session is what needs to happen for my client.
Writing takes discipline, patience and revisions.
The words I use to describe healing many times just don’t match the experience. There is so much going on, on so many levels and even though I feel completely present – super conscious, really, in my sessions – I guess it happens beyond my mind. It’s amazing and yet it is so simple.
Blogging and writing about my healing practice has helped me realize that I need to trust the energy that guides my life and my writing as much as I trust the energy that guides my healing sessions. The more I trust, the easier it is to manifest in my life.
One of my personal goals as a healer is to be able to manifest as effortlessly outside the healing room as in the healing room.
I first saw the universal energy field when I was visiting my mom in Missouri around 1991. We were sitting on the grass in front of a large pond. It was a clear sunny day, and as we were talking I saw bright white spots of light floating over the water. I remember pointing them out to my mom and she could see them too. I have never seen such large white globs of light as I did on that first day.
A few years later I read about the Universal Energy Field in Barbara Brennan’s Hands of Light. In Chapter Six Brennan describes them as “tiny globules of orgone making squiggly patterns against the blue sky. They seem to be tiny white balls, sometimes with a black spot, that appear for a second or two and leave a slight trail mark and then disappear.”
Now I sometimes see a red and black center in the white globs. I also see them at night in the dark before I go to sleep.
My healing room has two windows. The south wall of the space has three large windows and there is one small window on the east side of the room. The room is full of bright indirect light on sunny days, even with the thick double white curtains pulled closed. In the various healing states that I navigate through during a healing, the most common visible phenomenon I see are the white lights of the Universal Energy Field. During my healings the lights are like little spiraling fireflies flashing bright for a second then fading out. Sometimes the sparkles fill the whole room. It’s nice to see when I’m in a deeper state of consciousness, kind of comforting. Sometimes, too, I just see the squiggle and not the light, like the room is full of dancing gnats.
Everyone can learn to see the universal energy field if they are open to it. A great way is to lie down or sit comfortably outside and look up at the sky. Make sure the sunlight is not shining directly in your face, so your eye and facial muscles can relax. Then just relax, wait and enjoy the moment. As Richard Bartlett says “Notice what you notice.” Suddenly, you will just see it.
I’ve shown my clients and Reiki students the Universal Energy Field. It’s usually very easy to see right after you’ve had a healing. I still find it thrilling that here is this phenomenon of energy right in front of us and all we have to do is open up to it.
After your next Healing, see if you can see the Universal Energy Field.
