Our Health and Healing Light

"Every person awakens to the inner divine in a slightly different way. It can only be experienced-it is different from your mind." -- Jose Luis Delgado

"The experience of merging with a star will bring us back to a center of strength and light that cannot be damaged or depleted and that has the power to light up the world." -- Sandra Ingerman

"It is a time to go within and find that place of stillness where we are all one; to heal ourselves and our culture; and to reevaluate and reexamine all belief structures, to cull what needs to be shifted and to allow ourselves to be renewed and reborn with this approaching new day [of 2012]." -- Alberto Villoldo

We are moving now towards the equinoctial time of balance between light and dark. Days and nights are equal in length, and the late afternoon sun turns everything golden, giving a kind of filtered softness of hue to leaves, air, and drifting dust motes. In this light I feel myself open and radiant, reflecting the light that surrounds me. (Try it!)

Working with light, the light that balances the dark, as in "healing light energy," is an essential complement to eating the grief of the world (last month's ezine). Since light is energy, in a purely physical sense, we can think of "healing light" as enabling an energetic shift, an energetic solution to a problem. Working with healing light means working with the whole of the cosmos as our ancestors did: drawing on the beauty of rainbows, the golden light of the sun, the brilliance of the stars, the silvery light of the moon, the amazing energy of galaxies and universes beyond what we see.

The sensory perception of light plays a central role in many spiritual traditions (for example, darshan, Tabor Light, enlightenment). Religious symbols around the world -- golden Buddhas, light rays emanating from Jesus' crown, temples, holy books and altars decorated with precious gems and minerals -- use light to re-mind us of the possibilities for spiritual radiance. As we shift away from looking to others for answers -- those father figures, gurus, and priests who claim "higher" authority - and seek rather "noetic" direct knowing, we can use our sensory perceptions of light to feed our radiance, self empowerment, and compassion.

Stories

I have long reflected on a story I heard as a teenager from a well-known inspirational speaker. His doctor advised that it would take eight weeks of total rest to heal his painful tennis elbow. Being a believer in divine healing, the speaker told of visualizing light and oxygen going to his elbow many times a day. After two weeks, his pain was gone.

Another story I just heard has spurred a lot of reflection on the possibilities for physical healing with light. A member of The Living Matrix film audience offered his experience:

"I was in great pain, unable to walk. The doctors said I needed reconstructive knee surgery, as an MRI revealed no soft tissue between my leg and thigh bones, just bone-on- bone rubbing together. I decided not to have surgery. Instead, I followed my own protocol: Every day I talked to my knee, saying "I love you" while rubbing it gently, like you would a small child who has been hurt. I also asked my knee to heal itself. I told it 'You know how to heal yourself, and I don't know how.' I asked my knee to let me know when I was doing something to damage it, such as putting my weight wrong, and I paid careful attention to my movements and my pain, making adjustments carefully. Now I walk six miles a day, with no pain. And no, I didn't go back to the doctor to get another MRI--what was the point, when my knee was pain free and functional?"

These physical self-healing experiences draw on powerful tools that we can all use: strong, focused intention; visualization; the use of energy (light, love, oxygen); reliance on the body's own intelligence to heal; and co-creation, working cooperatively with the body to create a healing environment.

The stories also make me think of Masaro Emoto's photographs of water crystals. The power of words and the power of sounds to change crystalline structure, into or out of coherent shapes, is demonstrated over and over. The same principles apply to our bodies.

Our Resistance and Our Beliefs

Knowing this, why are our self-healing efforts on behalf of our own bodies so limited?

Extreme health problems in the US - obesity, physical inactivity, and diabetes, for example - indicate a sense of overwhelm that there are so many things wrong at once. I suspect that we are afraid of taking responsibility for our health. "What, I have to think about what I eat? I have to make responsible choices? I have to spend time getting informed? I have to do physical therapy after my surgery?"

The outpouring of rage against health insurance reform in the US makes me wonder what is feeding resistance to changing a system that serves us so poorly, with such great cost? What is the fear masked by this anger? I do not know the answers. I wonder if we believe we cannot be responsible for our own health, or if we do not want to be responsible?

If we do not believe we can - change, be healthy and fit, heal trauma - we are not likely to try. We will probably hold onto our stories of illness, repeating them over and over. This in turn encourages our bodies to hold onto the status quo.

Change begins in the heart. The heart informs the body. Once an experience - pain-free hip/knee/elbow, or a joyful, loving relationship - gets into the body, it can become conscious. Then the brain can go to work, feeding a different set of beliefs and leading us on a path to health and healing.

One simple way of addressing beliefs that hold us back is to try a different way and see what happens.

Trying Something Different

After hearing the knee-healing story, I thought to myself, "I can do this with my chronic hip pain! I can do this with my colon!

Coming from an energy healer, this may sound odd. Though I have experienced energetic and spiritual shifts frequently, my efforts towards physical self-healing had been half- hearted in the past. Now I felt determined. I followed the man's example: I thought about and recorded my intentions. I spoke to my body parts, explaining my intentions and saying "You remember how to be in balance, please help me!" I rubbed my hip and my colon, bringing chi in, visualizing light and love circulating. I listened carefully, and did exercises to strengthen them every day.

This was a challenge for me: my tendency has been to expect my body to be healthy, and to focus my healing energies on the collective, the earth, the "larger" issues that confront us. But my body had given me message after message that I needed to refocus.

After some months of working on physical healing, I can report that I am not better but not pain free. I no longer feel a sense of powerlessness. I no longer feel despair that "This will never change, I will always hurt." I am excited to try to repair what allopathic medicine addresses only with pills, surgery, and shrugged shoulders. And I see, now, that my beliefs were the impediment: I didn't believe it was possible to heal my physical body this way.

This was a striking realization! It has led to a lot of reflection on what I do believe about healing. I offer these thoughts as a way of helping you clarify your own beliefs and any impediments or barriers you might unconsciously be placing on your own path to health and healing.

Self Empowerment and Cocreation

My main principles are two. First, we can empower ourselves to contribute to our own health and healing - we do not have to rely exclusively on "authorities" who have "answers." Second, we are cocreators of our health: we can work in concert with our bodies; with the cosmos; with allies in the physical and spirit realms; and within the larger, cosmic patterns of evolutionary change and prophesy.

On the physical level, we can learn what food, movement, rest, and stimulation are healthiest for our own bodies; and we can remember that our needs change over time, so it is a constant process. We can also draw on our energetic and spiritual changes to affect our physical selves.

On the energetic level, we can change energy habits and patterns; reorganize the flow of chi and prana; draw in healing light and sound; remove energy imprints that do not belong.

On the spiritual level, we can discover and retrieve what we have lost (soul, essence, joy); heal trauma; remove what does not belong; teach ourselves to focus our attention differently (for example, meditating rather than complaining).

Obviously I am only scratching the surface of this huge topic! I'll write more next month about ways of using light to heal consciously, so stay tuned!

A request: I would love your assistance with anchoring and grounding as I take our sacred earth work to the Himalayas (Bhutan and Nepal) from 9/26-10/20 and to Mt. Diablo in the Bay Area from 10/23-27. If you want to help, email me. I will draw on and weave the filaments of our connections as I walk those ancient mountains!

With light and love,

"The Living Matrix" is a carefully documented, open minded look at the cutting edge between science and the healing world. This film can transform your understanding of how to get well and stay well. It explores the relationship between what we call mind, what we call energy, and what we call the physical body with interviews and discussions with leaders in the fields of therapy and healing.

Join world-wide drumming circles on 9/19/09 to give thanks to the Earth in a ribbon of gratitude and awareness that encircles the planet and connects us to the primal heart beat of Mother Earth. We'll have a circle in Sonoma (get info); see the other link for more information.

Join me in hiking up Sonoma Mountain to deepen your relationship to this sacred land. I will be following the same steep trail up to the beautiful ridge each week: listening, observing, and making offerings to the mountain. If you have wanted to experience making a despacho, the traditional Andean offering ceremony, this would be an excellent time to explore these ancient mountain medicine traditions! Join me on one or all of these days: August 28, September 4, and September 11, 9:30-4. Requested donation of $50 to Sonoma Land Trust. Directions sent when you register.

"10 Awesome Things That Would Happen If Health Reform Passes," by Joshua Holland on Alternet, tells how our lives will actually be better.

You can find our last ezine, "Eating the Grief of the World," and read other, previous versions of Shifting Consciousness News here.

Shamanic Counseling, Energy Healing, Ceremony, and Soul Retrieval:

Empower yourself -- find what works for you, and use it -- and step into your radiance, wisdom, and wholeness with an Earth Caretakers session. Contact us for shamanic consultations, energy healing, private instruction, Munay-Ki transmissions, workshops, and information about the Sacred Earth Shamanic Apprenticeship. Send an email or call our office at 1-707-939-7961 to make your appointment. A client writes, "I really, really, appreciate your gentle, thoughtful, loving, knowledgeable kindness and guidance during this entire process. It has been life-changing for me."

About Earth Caretakers

Earth Caretakers is an organization dedicated to renewing and reweaving our interconnections with stars, trees, and stones; with cross-cultural wisdom and prophesy; and with our own bodies, souls, and spirits. Founded by Meg Beeler, MAT, Earth Caretakers sponsors participatory, experiential, earth-honoring and rites-of-passage ceremonies. We draw on ancestral wisdom to empower visioning and dreaming a future of balance, reciprocity, and harmony.

Visit our website for information on upcoming events, workshops, and shamanic healing. Find inspiration, articles, and previous issues of the Shifting Consciousness News.