Heal/ers

August 27, 2008

Heal:
-to make sound or whole
-to restore to health
-to cause (an undesirable condition) to be overcome
-to patch up (a breach or division)
-to restore to orignal purity or integrity
Definition courtesy of Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary

Over the last 10 years since the beginning of my fast track, intensified, now versus later healing journey, I've seen and worked with many healers. Some are true healers, and others are self-proclaimed healers. Some have directed me toward my healer within, and many have coerced me into giving them my power. True healers inspire people to become their own healers.

With a particular attraction to spiritual healers, I've received healings from Ammachi, Mother Meera, Rubens Feria of Brazil, Samarpan, shamans, and others. Words cannot describe these experiences. In sum, these healers have helped open a doorway for me with the divine. Often, I've found myself in a blissful state through spiritual healings dancing in white light. By white light, I am referring to divine energy coming from source, which is the place I believe we all come from, go back to, and have access to here on Earth.

Today, I had the pleasure of seeing Mother Meera in Berkeley, California. Mother Meera is from India, and currently resides in Germany. I saw Mother Meera in Germany in January 2006. She is pure light and considered the embodiment or avatar of the Divine Mother Shakti. After kneeling in line, I approached Mother Meera resting my hands on her feet with my head downward. She then placed her hands on the sides of my head. About ten seconds later, she released her hands from my head, and we peered into one another's eyes. This is her protocol. The experience of seeing her and being seen allowed me to see myself and also feel my connection with the divine.

I also saw several familiar faces from my January 2006 visit to Mother Meera, including a wonderful soul named Tony. We had a lovely chat. I frolicked feeling connected to Germany through him, as well as the beauty pulsing through his eyes. I asked Tony about a friend I lost touch with named Uwe that I met in Cologne, Germany at an Indian restaurant. Uwe volunteers on many weekends doing carpentry at Mother Meera's residence.

Here is some text from Mother Meera's San Francisco website. She will be visiting other cities in the United States and Canada through October.

Darshan (Seeing/Receiving Blessings from the Divine)

“Darshan” is a Sanskrit word for meeting or experiencing an avatar, saint, guide, teacher or a sacred place for the purpose of absorbing the divine energy being offered.

Darshan is deeply intimate and at the same time expansive and universal. One connects with the Divine Mother and with one's own divinity. It is seeing and being seen. It is indescribable and must be experienced. The impact of Darshan is life-changing. The entire Darshan is completed in silence and usually takes a couple of hours.

Why does Mother Meera teach in silence?

All spiritual traditions hold that the most powerful transmission of divine energy and divine experience comes when the mind is quiet. To quote Mother Meera, “For the mind to flower it must move beyond what it knows…People are too active and rarely sit quietly. In silence one can receive more because all one’s activities become concentrated at one point…God is silent. Everything comes out of silence. In silence more work can be done. The true experience of bliss is without words.”

And if that does not appeal to you, what brings you a connection with the divine? Where and when do you feel connected to spirit? What do you experience and feel in silence? Do you create silence for yourself?

29-Day Giving Challenge

August 25, 2008

How do you feel about giving? What is your relationship with receiving? Beyond material items, what do you give to other people? Do you think that giving to others has positive benefits for you, the giver? Do you think that giving could improve your health? How do you define your relationship between giving and receiving? Can you recieve a gift and feel it in your heart? What do you give to yourself? Do you feel worthy of receiving?

Instead of exploring these issues in therapy, or pondering them in your mind and guessing the answers, I challenge you to the 29-Day Giving Challenge! I've been doing it for 7 days now, the giving is a ton of fun, and what I've learned is amazing. I'll share my discovery process at the end of the 29 days. In the meantime, go to the website and sign up!

The 29-Day Giving Challenge was started by the luminous Cami Walker, a bright soul and healer on this planet. This is her incredible story.

I decided to do the 29-Day Giving Challenge as an experiment. I was in a very dark period in my life dealing with a chronic illness (Multiple Sclerosis) as well as a major move from San Francisco to Los Angeles. One of my spiritual teachers, Mbali Creazzo, suggested that I give away 29 things in 29 days in an effort to get outside my own struggle for a few seconds each day.

I wrote down Mbali’s suggestion in my journal and then promptly forgot about it. I couldn’t fathom giving to others at that point. I was very attached to my struggle and really believed that I had nothing to give anyone. I believed I needed all of my energy for my own healing. I was forgetting that healing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens through our interactions with other people.

The first day of my personal 29-Day Giving Challenge was preceded by a sleepless night. I was awake all night feeling angry and sorry for myself. When insomnia hits, I often go through old journals and read them. I found a note that I'd made during that phone session with Mbali two months before. The note said, "Give something away each day for 29 days." It was 3 a.m. and I decided in that moment to take the suggestion.

And so the challenge began. I woke up the next day and the next day after that feeling excited about what I might give away. And I began to notice that the more I gave away, the more abundance I was experiencing for myself.

I wanted to see what would happen in my life if I really committed and focused my energy on giving for 29 days. What space would it create in my life for new and unexpected things to occur? What shifts would I see in my thinking and behavior as a result? What impact would my gifts have on others? These were just a few of the questions I was curious about in the beginning, but there’s no way I could have anticipated what unfolded for me.

By Day 29, I was astounded by the magical and miraculous shifts in my energy for life:
I was feeling happier, healthier, and more in awe with life.
I found myself smiling and laughing more.
My body got stronger and I was able to stop walking with my cane by week two.
My business exploded with new, unexpected opportunities amounting to more than $8,000 in unanticipated income for that one month.
I began connecting with a community of new friends in Los Angeles after feeling isolated in my new home for several months.
My creativity opened up and I began writing stories regularly again for the first time in over two years since my Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis.
I began experiencing a deeper intimacy in my relationship with my husband.
The list of changes goes on and on. This is only the beginning.

When I started out, nothing was planned. I simply began the day and when I felt moved to give something, I did. Part of me initially wanted to plot out the 29 days and line up the things I was giving in my hallway so I had the illusion of knowing what to expect. But collapsing into that old, manipulative way of being would defeat the purpose of the experiment.

I documented what I gave away and any observations I made each day. I began to post the stories online. Who knows, I thought, maybe others will decide to take the 29-Day Giving Challenge and experience a similar positive impact on their lives. So I decided to invite some friends to join me and within seven days of sending the first invitation over 120 people signed up and committed to the Challenge.

My goal with the 29-Day Giving Challenge is to start a Giving Movement in the world. I want to collect and publish stories and art from people who commit to the challenge as a way to promote more generosity on the planet.

I hope you'll decide to join in the fun and start giving.

Peace, light and good giving to you today. May you be the recipient of many gifts.

-Cami Walker

The Scalpel and the Soul

August 24, 2008

Last weekend at the Writing for Change conference in San Francisco, I had the distinct honor of meeting Allan J. Hamilton, MD, author of The Scalpel and the Soul: Encounters with Surgery, the Supernatural, and the Healing Power of Hope. Dr. Hamilton is a man of compassion, spirit, and a physician that acknowledges the whole person. His stories told at the Hotel Kabuki on a foggy San Francisco August afternoon were poignant and reflected his understanding for the invisible, irrational, intangible, mystical, and magical forces in every person's life, especially those dealing with illness. Dr. Hamilton is a brave, competent trailblazer for his profession.

While I have not read his book yet (I've ordered it), here are some reviews. Check it out!

From Publishers Weekly
Hamilton has led a remarkable life as a neurosurgeon. There are moments in this spiritual memoir when readers will wish he were their personal guide for the scariest of surgeries. In many ways, this is a story about real doctors as Hamilton understands them—people with exemplary bedside manners who not only make life-and-death decisions for the most vulnerable of the sick, but who have the vision (sometimes literally) to sit and listen as long as it takes, to take patients' hands, dealing with their questions and fears with the utmost gentleness and an eye toward the transcendent and supernatural. Readers will be moved by stories of former patients like Thomas, a child burn victim with such a gift of spirit that he could manage joy despite his tragic condition, and Donald, a brave man determined to live life to the fullest despite a vicious brain tumor.

"A tragic error in medical education is that doctors are taught to think and not feel. The Scalpel & the Soul is a moving account of what can happen when a doctor opens his heart and his eyes to life's spiritual lessons and the mystery that thrives amidst the terror and trauma of life- threatening illness. This book will be appreciated by everyone who reads it because we are the same at both ends of the scalpel."
--Bernie Siegel, MD, author of Help Me To Heal and Prescriptions For Living

"Allan Hamilton has the whole-person perspective that I emphasize in integrative medicine. Like me he regards patients as not just physical bodies but also as metal/emotional beings and spiritual entities. In order to understand health and illness, doctors must examine and attend to those dimensions of human life as well as the physical, even when the physical body is obviously damaged or sick."
--Andrew Weil, MD, author of 8 Weeks to Optimum Health, Spontaneous Healing,Natural Health, Natural Medicine and many more.

Pleasure

August 20, 2008

The breeze dancing against my cheeks sitting at my desk with the front door and window open; the sun's warm, compassionate, embracing rays; light; fog rolling over the Western hillside and across Highway 101; the waters of Richardson Bay and discovering all of it's eternally unique hues; life in downtown Sausalito thriving amongst the tourists and natives; water in between Sausalito and San Francisco; downtown San Francisco, the city rising out of the Pacific Ocean; recognizing that Richardson Bay and the Pacific Ocean are connected to 80 percent of the Earth's waters; Golden Gate bridge.

Beautiful colors in my garden and neighborhood; roses; mint, lavender, rosemary, and sage; majestic hummingbirds gliding through the sky; the green backed hummingbird fluttering in front of my desk window staring at me; dragonflies; butterflies; fruit trees; plants swaying in the wind; sky; clouds; smell of rain; church bells; wind chimes.

Beach; sand; ocean; sea shells; vistas; horizons; shorelines and endless possibility.

Baths; warm water; the San Rafael Farmer's market; The Good Earth in Fairfax; farms.

Light and love transmitted through another person's eyes; communion with the pulse of life; moving my body; nature; being held in the belly of Mother Earth; Mt. Tamalpias; hiking trails; getting lost inside myself; writing from my heart and soul; trust; truth; the divine.

Books; movies; museums; art; live music; Cafe Gratitude; other cool restaurants; Bohemian expression; New York sophistication; San Francisco style; anything goes.

Talking with James and Anna on the phone. Tickling them. Being tickled by them. Witnessing their play and engagement with the world without inhibitions.

Fence chats with Gail; meals and other fun times with all my friends; seeing Daniela; Biodanza with Virginie and every other beautiful soul; conversations with Michael in between painting sessions; hugs; hand holding; touch; listening; emails, phone calls, and Skype notes from my friends and family far and wide; expressions of encouragement; smiles from friends and strangers; new connections; giving and receiving kindness; grace and glory.

Discovering who I really am.

What brings you pleasure??

Power of Story

August 18, 2008

Your story. My story. The power of story. Our stories reflect our worlds. Our stories convey are life experiences. In the American society of disconnect, and in a world with too much disconnect, our stories bring us together. Our stories demonstrate that we are not so different. Yes, you may not know what it is to have a brain tumor, and yet you have your own adversity. Our adversity creates the strength. Our challenges weave the tapestry of who we are. Adversity and challenges allow us to know our own resilience. Most of us are so much more than what we recognize and manifest. Life gives us exactly what we need to grow and evolve as human beings and souls. Life gives us nothing we cannot handle. Yes, my struggles have felt insurmontable in moments. Moving beyond the struggle into the grace shows me who I really am. My mental angst allows me to choose my direction and who I want to become. I choose. You choose. Within the tears, there is compassion. There is light. There is essence. There is the breath of life and being. It is where we come from, where we go back to, and always present with us. That is the truth of every story.

Spirituality & Health

August 5, 2008

Here is a portion of a larger piece I'm working on about the relationship between my spirituality and health. Please note the first paragraph describes my experience from March 1998. I continue to perch myself into stillness for clarity, and where I'm being guided now looks much different than 10 years ago.

Evaluating brain tumor treatment recommendations, I kneeled down on the carpeting of my apartment, closed my eyes, and perched myself into stillness. In silence, the towers of complex medical details aligned as the confusion in me subsided. I suddenly dropped my emphasis on what I did not know and focused on what I did know. Clarity emerged. I accessed a deep inner knowing asserting that I needed to have awake brain surgery at a nearby medical institution. 

Diagnosed with a brain tumor at age 24 in 1998 with symptoms of ongoing dizziness, I felt compelled to make quick decisions about treatments. Catapulted into a universe that I knew nothing about, I was incapable of acquiring my cancer doctorate in a few weeks. Moreover, intellectually and emotionally, I was not practiced in making life and death decisions. I was still somewhat of a child becoming an adult in the world.

In crisis, my spirituality emerged as my body moved into communion with the divine for guidance. I asked for clarity and it arrived.

At the time of my brain tumor diagnosis, I did not ascribe to a religious doctrine. I did not even perceive myself as spiritual. I was raised Roman Catholic, but never felt a true kinship with that domination. Beyond the political differences I had with the Catholic church, I desired another type of religion or spiritual practice that taught me to love and experience the God within. I stopped going to church when I entered college and lived away from my parents.

Although without a religion, I was not without a spiritual connection. I’ve felt the presence of a higher power, regardless of how I’ve referred to it over the years. Through recognizing voices, visitations, and moments of deep inner knowing, I can see that my communion with spirit has been present throughout my entire life.