Good Vibes from Handcrafted Health
Where health is a creative journey handcrafted by you.                                        June/July 2008
In This Issue
Office Hours
Workshops
Article: What is Energy Medicine?
Did you know?
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Greetings!
I have some news I'm eager to share with you. 

I have launched a new website.  Click here to visit it.  You will find resources/information to help you handcraft your health.   In time, I'll be adding more pages and info.

This is the first of my new Good Vibes newsletters.  My goal is to provide holistic health tips of value, updates about my work, work
shop schedule and more.  Looking in the In this Issue and Quicklinks sections will give you a snapshot of the newsletter's content.

I'd love to hear from you, too. I welcome feedback on the site and the newsletter. Naturally, let me know if I can answer any questions regarding your energetic health and well-being.

Happy Summer Solstice,
Lucrezia Mangione
Office hours
Regular hours are Tuesday through Thursday from 10am to 5pm.
Monday, Friday and Saturday mornings as needed.
UPCOMING WORKSHOP: Mind-Body Intervention: Introduction to Shiatsu Bodywork
July 16, 2008  Wednesday
8:00 am to 4:30 pm  Facilitated by Lucrezia Mangione, CHTP/I, CMT

Location: Burlington, VT at The University of Vermont.Register with UVM:  University of Vermont

This day is the Mind-Body Interventions part of the Survey of Complementary and Alternative Therapy course. (3 credit hours for full course)

This course is a survey which includes research and clinical applications of therapies and philosophies that are complementary and/or alternative to traditional western health care. Complementary and alternative therapies or medicine (CAM) are a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine. The list of what is considered to be CAM changes continually, as those therapies that are proven to be safe and effective become adopted into conventional health care and as new approaches to health care emerge. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) classifies CAM therapies into five categories, or domains which provide the framework for this course. They are: 1. Alternative Medical Systems 2. Mind-Body Interventions 3. Biologically Based Therapies 4. Manipulative and Body-Based Methods 5. Energy Therapies

HLTH 096 Survey of Comp & Alter Therapy. Section Z1 60202. Meeting Time(s): MTWRF 8:00am

 
UPCOMING WORKSHOP: Healing Touch Level One

July 18 & 19, 2008 Sat. & Sun.  Location: Vergennes, VT

Time: 9-6:30P (Sign in Sat. 8:30a-9A)
$300 regular tuition, $275 HTI/AHNA Mbr, $225 Student/Repeater/Elders/Teens, Materials:$40

*This is the last time this tuition structure will be offered. Tuition increases in August.

Healing Touch (HT) is a powerful self-care method whose tools are your hands and heart.  It is for health.  It is for self care, your family and friend's well being, and if you choose, your road to another professional path as a certified practitioner. 

This course is an approved course of study of the HTI Healing Touch Certificate Program.  The HTI Healing Touch Certificate Program is an endorsed program of the American Holistic Nurses Association. CEU's provided from HTI, AHNA, and/or NCBTMB.

What is Energy Medicine?  By Lucrezia Mangione and Christiana Brinton

     How many times have you bumped your elbow, your "funny bone" and felt it tingle in the tips of your toes? In the field of bioelectronics, this phenomenon is an example of the ECM, the extracellular matrix continuum of the human body, at work. The ECM is composed of connective tissues and cytoskeletons of all cells throughout the body that generate bioelectronic signals between every part of the body in one, big semiconductor network. Scientists such as Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Robert O. Becker, Herbert Frohlich and Donald Ingber, employed the theories of quantum physics and mechanics and found that this living matrix sets up vibrations that move through the body and are radiated into the environment. According to James Oshman in his book, Energy Medicine, The Scientific Basis, "These vibrations occur at many different frequencies and are not subtle phenomena: they are large or even gigantic in scale and their effects are not trivial."  1 Energy medicine is the manipulation and balancing of these vibratory circuits thereby influencing the body's systemic defense and repair mechanisms in ways that promote healing, health and wellness.
    But why does your whole body tingle when you jar your funny bone? Donald Ingber coined the term, 'tensegrity' to explain the theory of interconnectedness that causes this to happen - a theory that is the foundation of energy medicine.  'Tensegrity' is defined as simultaneously a structural, mechanical and vibratory system, "allowing for specific transfer of information through the cell (and throughout the organism) by direct transmission of vibrational chemomechanical energy through harmonic wave motion."2   Picture a body-wide three-layer grid of fascia tissue, muscle tissues and cells, all set to chime sequentially the minute the brain sends a signal. The signal gets sent and one chime vibrationally strikes the second, which strikes the third - all in a nanosecond. Hence, the funky feeling all the way down your body as you vigorously rub your elbow.
    A fundamental law of physics is that energy cannot be created or destroyed only converted from one form to another. Vibrational energy can be emotionally, physically or mentally induced.  Depending on the quality, it can be converted to damage and stored in the various connective tissue systems resulting in imbalance and disease (chronic or acute) or it can be converted to supportive energy or medicine. Energy medicine is used to help the body deliver new supportive vibratory energy, new information, to this connective matrix which, in turn, energetically releases stored toxins and revitalizes areas of the body that have ceased to function optimally.
    For centuries, eastern medical systems have understood this relationship and interconnectedness and have employed various healing modalities such as hands-on-healing, shiatsu, acupuncture, ayurveda, homeopathy and qi gong to promote wellness. The Indian ayurvedic system uses the terms "chakras" or energy centers within the body and the "auric system" emanating outside of the physical body.  The auric system is comprised of multiple layers of energy, the densest being closet to the physical body and extending outward in finer and subtler layers.   Similarly, in Chinese medicine, meridians inside the body indicate heightened electrical pathways which are accessed through acupuncture points on the surface of the skin.  When energy therapists use their hands, voices, acupuncture needles, musical tones and other methods, waves of healing energy medicine are sent through the layers of the auric system and chakras, into the ECM where its converted to information.  This washes through the tensegrous network, affecting and balancing the various systems of the body in need of repair and rejuvenation.
    In sports medicine, machines that send a pulsating electromagnetic field to injured tissues are used routinely to hasten the healing process. Going to an energy therapist, Shiatsu practitioner, Healing Touch practitioner, Reiki practitioner, RoHun therapist or acupuncturist to help the healing process is exactly the same principle. All use different methods of encouraging delivery of supportive vibratory energy to that living matrix, that is the human body, which is absorbed as information and converted to signals through the "tensegrous semiconducting living matrix continuum." 3  Energy medicine is medicinal because it actively promotes healing and alleviates disease. An intrinsic value of energy medicine is that imbalances in the ECM are apparent vibrationally before they manifest as physical illness or dis-ease. Therefore, energy medicine is preventative rather than "problem-oriented" although, of course,  energy medicine is beneficial for illness and disease, too. It is also non-invasive and less costly than western allopathic treatments or procedures.

1 Oschman, Energy Medicine, The Scientific Basis, 2000, p. 62
2 Ibid, p. 67
3 Ibid, p. 236

 
Did you know?

One of the most reliable effects of energy therapy is the relaxation repsonse.  "Consistent studies by Herbert Benson and others have shown that the relaxation reponse faciliates the immune system's defense of the body against foreign agents such as bacteria and viruses. The relaxation response also stimulates the production of brain opiates called endorphins ... There is a decrease in tension and a reduction in anxiety.  Therefore, it is very helpful to do ... on persons before procedures about which they feel apprehension..."  Examples include before and after surgery, during the preinduction of anesthesia, before spinal taps or the administration of intravenous fluids or other infusions, during life transitions, embracing grief, moving through addictions, PTSD and so much more.  1

1 Krieger, Dolores, Accepting your Power to Heal, The Personal Practice of Therapeutic Touch, 1993, p. 83
If you haven't done so already, check out Dr. Jill Taylor's short video.  An amazing and inspiring personal story of a scientist personally experiencing and witnessing the living matrix of energy we live in and the miraculous mystery of life.
 
Have a lovely June and July,
Lucrezia Mangione