The Unseen Hand: 
                   Medicine from Antiquity                  
A Gathering of Physicians Artists and Scribes.
Hands in Trust. Custodians of Light.
 
Curriculum 2013

 

   Hidden White    
Montpelier, VT 2013 
Advanced Study Group in
       5 Element Taoist Medicine
 
with Laura Barnard Stelmok  BA, M.Ac, NCCA Dipl. Ac
 *
circle moon  
**
shorebirds   ***
   fireworks
****
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O Marvel! a garden amidst the flames.

My heart has become capable of every form:
it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,
and a temple for idols and the pilgrim's Kaa'ba,
and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love's camels take,
that is my religion and my faith.

Ibn 'Arabi 

priscilla friend

Painting by Priscilla Cross, Appleton Maine
 
 Dates and Times: 

3 Weekends in 2013 (Wed-Sun)!!!

            _____________________________________________________________ 

CEU'S available for the entire workshop

NCCA approved PDA's for the Friday workshop (including ethics requirements)

 

 *Spring:  April 17-21, 2013

2 Clinical Consult Days (Wed-Thurs)

1 Day Workshop: The Symphony of the Yellow Emperor-Part I (Fri)

2 Clinical Treatment and Training Days:

 "The Virtue of Heaven/Earth"--Long Alchemical Treatments (Sat-Sun)

 

 

 

*Summer:  June 12-16, 2013

2 Clinical Consult Days (Wed-Thurs)

1 Day Workshop: The Symphony of the Yellow Emperor-Part II (Fri)

2 Clinical Treatment and Training Days: 

"The Virtue of Heaven/Earth"--Long Alchemical Treatments (Sat-Sun)

 

 

 

*Autumn:  October 9-13, 2013

2 Clinical Consult Days (Wed-Thurs)

1 Day Workshop:  The Symphony of the Yellow Emperor-Part III (Fri)

2 Clinical Treatment and Training Days: 

"The Virtue of Heaven/Earth"--Long Alchemical Treatments(Sat-Sun)

 

 

 

Additional Programs 2013

   Offered by The Unseen Hand in Maine and NYC   

 

See below for new programs,  

following all of the 2013 study group information.

 

 

Details

 

Registration and Inquiries * Contact Taylore Grymonnt

Click here to email: tay2tay99@yahoo.com 

phone: 802.223.0303-work

802.917.4224-cell

 

 

Please contact Taylore if you are planning to attend.

If you have local housing available for traveling practitioners 

please let us know.

This is greatly appreciated!

 

 

Location (for the entire workshop) Wednesday-Sunday

3 Spring St. #2 Montpelier VT 05602

802.223.0303

 

 

 

***

 

Wednesday and Thursday

 Clinical Consultation Days

  

Diagnosis of CF, CSOE training, intimacy!, treatment, point location, recommendations for future treatments

and support for the practitioner/patient relationship.

  

9AM-9PM***CEU'S Available

 

Tuition and Treatment Fees

Shadowing fee: $125.00/$75-100 for students in school

Consultation/Treatment (1 1/2 hour): $200.00

Checking for major blocks (1/2 hour): $100.00

 

Checks for Teaching/Tuition made to:  The Unseen Hand
Checks for Treatment made to:  Laura Stelmok

*

We encourage practitioners to schedule consults for their clients 

and/or for themselves. If scheduling a consultation for yourself, 

please provide some form of preface sheet/introduction from your practitioner.

 

*

To avoid confusion, practitioners bringing patients will participate 

as shadowers for a minimum of 1/2 day. 

It is particularly valuable to observe other practitioners as well. 

The Learning Community is established by participating practitioners. 

The Building of this Clinic is to service all patients who need Our Services over time.

Practitioners bringing patients also pay Shadowing Fees.  

We will do our very best to accomodate scheduling of your patients.

 

Patients for the Weekend Workshop Treatments will be invited from those who have come for Consults/Checks during the week.

 

*

Practitioners are responsible for gathering all fees 

(as well as missed appointments) 

for their patients and giving them to Taylore at the end of each clinical day.

 

***

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 ***

Friday Workshop

 

The Symphony of the Yellow Emperor

in 3 Movements: Spring, Summer and Autumn

Footprints from the Ancients, a Conversation.

To be tuned, shaped into the instrument you are. 

 

A Workshop in 3 Parts

 

A man once asked me, "Is there a way into the other place, here on Earth?"

I said, "Yes. There is a door between this room and the other. 

 For every person its size is subtly different, for it has the shape 

each being makes when on their knees.  

No one enters the rose garden unless lost in adoration and wonder.  

No one walks through that door except on their knees."

old Sufi Saying

 

fall rainbow  

 Jingshen * Sheepscot Hollow * Opening of the 13 Ghost Points 9/2012

 

Time and Place

Friday 9:00am-5:00pm

3 Spring St. #2 Montpelier VT

802.223.0303

 

Tuition

$150/day

$75-100/day for students enrolled in a formal training program 

Checks for Teaching/Tuition made to:  The Unseen Hand
 

CEU's

NCCA approved PDA's for the Friday workshop. 

Including Ethics requirements!!!!

 

Please bring a bag lunch if possible.  There will be a short break for lunch.

 
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Friday night, Saturday and Sunday

Didactic and Clinical Workshop

Songs of Creation: Long alchemical treatments 

 

The Virtue of Heaven/Earth: 

A Training and Treatment Paradigm

*the cultivation of the human heart to restore true qi*

 

 '2 1/2-day' Workshops

Theory and Clinical Application

 

For those among us who are called to develop our capacity, as practitioners and human beings, to become finer and deeper instruments of the The Divine/The Tao.

We work by virtue of the ancient alchemical classics of Taoist Medicine.  

 From the Very Beginning.  

These ancient protocols, Songs left for us now, 

have particular relevance to the deep transformational work of Our Time. 

 

 These longer and deeper treatments utilize ancient Taoist protocols and arise from the clinical work on Tues-Thurs. More rigorous clincial application and exploration of the spirit of this Tradition.  Treatments on these days generally work with much longer segments of time and practitioner training is rigorous.  The Art of Needling and Moxabustion, Treatment Planning and Execution, the Disciplines of 'to See', 'to Hear', 'to Ask' and 'to Feel'.  The capacity to ethically and maturely follow the movement of the Wild Magic of this Ancient Tradition.  To work with True Qi.  

 

Water is the manifestation of Heaven. 

This power also falls within us, "in an equally silent thunder." We call it "Virtue." This Virtue brings to life, develops and maintains the movement of each being. Its gift and receipt can be an observable, visible phenomenon. In its invisible aspect, it is the mystery to be contemplated, as if we were standing before a latticed doorway. (In order to see through it, we must know how to position ourselves, and how to receive the image that comes to our eyes.) The expanding power that stops right here, to make me into a being, can be compared to the cascading of the waters from Heaven. Here and there this gushing can be seen. The continuity of the impetus (of the yang movement) can be perceived in the changes, appearing as transformations. Throughout all these transformations, water remains the Virtue that gives life. 

The proud Virtue of Heaven consents to become the humble virtue of a man. 

There are thirteen stages, thirteen initiatory journeys, to indicate the changes & transformations. 

Where they meet-the theatre of exchange, 

the rendez-vous of the Spirits that hasten forth from Heaven-is the place where my life is rooted. 

This place is "I" wo, "my heart" wo xin.
 Rooted in Spirit: The Heart of Chinese Medicine Claude Larre & Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallee pp. xiv-xvi

 

sunlight pond  

 

The Virtue of Heaven/Earth is a very LIVING and precise training program, a Gift from The Ancients, to develop our senses and our capacity for conscious awareness. 13 distinct passages to cultivate and heal the human heart. Rooting in the Spirits (Ben Shen) allows us to participate more consciously in the miracle of Heaven/Earth. 

The Ancients have left footprints and directions.

The Rivers can be safely and carefully navigated back to The Source.

This we know. With utmost care.

Deep Listening and the Intimacy of the Heart our most treasured Gifts.

 

The Virtue of Heaven/Earth, as a training paradigm, and practice, stems most recently from the living tradition of Classical Five Element Acupuncture as taught by Prof. JR Worsley. By Request of the Living Tradition of the Masters, the Golden Thread from the Beginning, Laura Barnard Stelmok begins now to pass these treasures on.

 

The Virtue of Heaven/Earth is not a particular treatment protocol,

rather an invitation into the rigorous cultivation of yourself as practitioner of and for Life. A school that is not a school. It is an internal journey of practitioner development, often beyond conventional belief systems, to become a conscious instrument. It is not an external technique, rather an internal destination. The footprints are found in many ancient esoteric paths to Truth and the Immortals who travel with The Ancient Songs bestow us with Teaching Immeasurable.

 

Current Practitioners in Training, some of whom have been working with us for over 5 years, come from different complementary/allopathic medical fields: acupuncture (5 element, TCM and Japanese), body work, cranio-sacral therapy, herbalism, massage, rolfing, hands-on spiritual healing, allopathic medicine for humans and animals. In addition to healers we also have among us working artists, sustainable gardeners, beekeepers and those who have washed up on this beach as patients and have stayed.

  

 *

It is strongly encouraged that practitioners come for the whole of the weekend workshop rather than piece-meal.  Didactic Teaching and Tutorials will be throughout the weekend. 
This is for the safety and continuity of the work.  
 *

 

CEU'S Available for the entire workshop.

 

 *

 Time

6:00 pm -end of treatment

9am-midnight Saturday and Sunday

Precise times will be announced in keeping with the needs of specific treatments.

 

 

Tuition and Treatment * The Weekend

Shadowing/Tuition Fee $250 for 2 1/2 days/$175 for students in school
$125/day if participating in only one day.
$50/Friday night if only here for that treatment.
 
Checks for Teaching/Tuition made to:  The Unseen Hand
Checks for Treatment made to:  Laura Stelmok

 

Treatment cost $500.00

Checks for treatment made out to Laura Stelmok

 

Special Discount Rates for entire workshop!!!

Discounted Rates to be paid ahead by April 3rd, June 1st and September 25th.

Refunds in full up to one week prior to the event minus a $25.00 processing fee. 

Please send checks to Taylore Grymonnt * 3 Spring St. #2 * Montpelier VT * 05602

made out to:  The Unseen Hand

  

Fee $500 (5 days) for Practitioners of all Healing Modalities

$350(5 days) for students in any formal Practitioner Training Programs  

  

***

(Please contact Taylore if special financial arrangements are necessary.

We remain present to the economic challenges of our lives.)

 

 

 

 

 

Additional Programs 2013

Offered by The Unseen Hand 

 

 

New York City

 
1. StreetLamp: 
A Gathering through Time 
 .  
The Ancient and Hidden Light Within: As Above, So Below
Meeting with Laura Barnard Stelmok
New York City, 2013-2017
 
Her/His light may be compared to a niche  
wherein is a lamp  
the lamp in a glass 
the glass as it were a glittering star 
kindled from a Blessed tree 
an olive that is neither of the East nor of the West 
whose oil would almost shine forth  
though no fire touches it 
light upon light

- LIGHT SURA (QUR'AN 24:35) 
 
Beginning in Fall 2013 we will begin an on-going monthly group in NYC 
for anyone seeking the guidance and company of this ancient Light of Oneness. 
This Group will gather through Time and
People will arrive from all Directions.
This group will root its practice and presence in the ancient alchemical traditions. 
streetlamp        khidr       lampost narnia
"Our way is that of group discussion. In solitude there is renown and in renown there is peril. Welfare is to be found in a group. Those who follow this way find great benefit and blessings in group meetings."

Baha ad-Din Naqshband, Bead of Dew 

 

 For millennia, the Immortal Sages of all Essential Traditions have observed and watched over Life. 

It is the presence of the Light of the Spirit that constitutes Life.

It is Our capacity to live in Service to this Light of the Spirit that guards and governs Authenticity. 

We gather to learn and to discipline rigorous and time-tested practices of service and observation: 

awakening the senses, cleansing the Heart, 

the capacity to preserve and interract directly with the seeds of Life . 

 

We gather to tend a diminishing light in our People, our Planet, our Time and our Selves.  

We gather to mend errors that have injured our own lives and the life of our planet.

  We gather to preserve and watch over the Light. 

 

These are Disciplines given to craft the human, 

disciplines that fire the ethic and purpose of each individual. 

Perennially passed, hand to hand, heart to heart.

 

These are Disciplines to purify and strengthen 

the Physician, the Artist, the Human Being

 that, together we become able to reach to the Source of Life.

 

We come together in the ancient way of servants of truth:

sharing food, time, conversation, 

a living tradition of teaching and fellowship,

companionship For the Opening to Love. 

  

Love is the single greatest Power in Creation.

 

The group has no religious orientation; it is open to all. 

What is needed is the desire for truth and the 

willingness to work on oneself in the deep company of others, in service to the Whole. 

We will come together for one full day every month. 

 
Please contact us, by clicking here if you are interested and would like to be contacted when we secure times and dates and location.  
We will be having an introductory evening in early Autumn 2013.  

 

***

"I hoped to get instruction in Yoga, expected wonderful teachings, but what the teacher did was mainly to force me to face the darkness within myself and it almost killed me....until I had to come to terms with that in me which I kept rejecting all my life." - 

from the Foreword by Irina Tweedie

Daughter of Fire: A Diary of a Spiritual Training with a Sufi Master. 

The Golden Sufi Center, 1995.

 

  

 

  

 

  

 

 

And 

 

 

 

Maine

 

2. Meditation Group * All Practices of Meditation, Prayer and Silence are Welcome *

Weekly: Monday evenings 7-9:30pm

(When the UHand is not on the road travelling.)

Location:  Stillpoint * 22 Pleasant St. * Rockland * Maine

207.594.9211

Beginning 2/4/13

 

One hour of Silent Devotion, Tea and Cookies, and  one hour of Conversation

 

3. Clinical Immersion Week March 30-April 6, 2013

(especially for beginning practitioners!!!)

This is a week designed for the beginning practitioner and the practitioner still in training.  This week will provide an opportunity for those interested in the work of the Alchemical Songs and working with the Spirits to become immersed in the work.  Each practitioner in training will be able to observe Laura and several other more trained practitioners work.  This week is more informal that the Seasonal Retreats.  All participants will participate in the cooking and the work of the gathering.  Fees will be reduced.  Patients are traveling to receive treatment.  It will be an active and professional clinical setting for diagnostic training and participation in more rigorous clinical models.

 

All Participants are responsible for carefully reading the information below about participation in long treatments. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY.  Despite the fact that fees will be reduced and the majority of the teaching will be through observation, these weeks in long treatments are very demanding.

 

Please email Noah if you are interested and if you are coming please also regarding your arrival and departure places and times.

noah@theunseenhand.org 

 

Tuition and Fees

 

Tuition

$50-$100/day

$275-500/week

Fees

Room and Board: $25-50/day

Long Treatment Fees for students: $275

Regular Treatments for students: $75 time and space willing.

 

Important!!!Written permission from your practitioner is required for Laura to treat you.

For local students and practitioners who are going to come for only evening treatments, 

an evening rate can be figured person to person. 

 

(Please contact Noah if special financial arrangements are necessary.

We remain present to the economic challenges of our lives.

 

 

 

wooden needle  

 

Information about Long Treatments

 

The Treatments during these Intensives can require many hours.  It would not be surprising for a treatment to run 10 hours.  The average length of a truly alchemical treatment would be 5-6 hours. The aim of these treatments is to remove/transform any obstruction or vibrational pattern responsible for major struggles in the life of the patient, obscuring the mandate of heaven, and, most importantly, to re-establish their true qi.

 

"The Neijing tells us that the healing process is not just mechanical-it is not simply the placing of a needle. The most important thing for healing is the relationship between the practitioner, the spirits and the patient. It is the practitioner's spirits which enable him/her to make the diagnosis, choose the points and give a feeling of rightness to the patient at a high level-without interfering with the patient's freedom. The treatment always takes place inside of this practitioner-patient relationship."

  

Taken from a seminar given in 1990 by Father Claude Larre and Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallee, 

from the Ricci Institute in Paris and the European School of Acupuncture.

 

            * The treatments can take anywhere from 3-10 hours.

            * Each treatment is highly individualized, therefore it is impossible to say exactly how each will come to life for each person.

            * The treatments will utilize the protocol that is being taught.  Occasionally there will be other points included, e.g. seasonal horary points, window of the sky points and/or relevant points from the patients CF. Sometimes, as part of this process, the treatment will move beyond the realms of needles and moxa into Daoist Practices. It is quite likely that there will be some external expression of the treatment during its progression e.g. rearranging position of treatment table and or chairs according to 4 directions, lighting candles, use of sounds/colors, etc.

 

"The spirits move because all the surroundings of the treatment room encourage them to be moved in order to rectify the pattern of the vital animation of the patient. The spirits move also because the right signal is given by the point (which is chosen), by a needle technique or movement (which is also chosen) and because there is present in the practitioner a well-rooted and upright direction of her own life. All these operate together to try to give a pattern for the equilibrium and calming of the essences and spirits in the patient. The only way anyone can be cured is by the movement of the spirits.

 

Remember, though, that one cannot make the spirits move-one can only LET the spirits of the patient rectify themselves. If one creates the correct conditions, the spirits will come. One cannot force them to move-one can only make it an attractive alternative. (In other words, offer the spirits what they like!

The birds choose the trees, not the other way around."

Father Claude Larre and Elisabeth Rochat de la Vallee

 

 

 

Self Care

 

            It is our experience that these seminars stretch all participants physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Please know that we follow the Tao and this living Tradition of Medicine which is given and given, so freely. We are in the practice of the most ancient service given to humans. Our attention is on becoming responsive and teachable to this gift. Personal habits of comfort are less important during these intensive teachings. This is an opportunity to follow the current of the Whole, rather than the habits of personal hygiene (body-mind-spirit!).

 

            PLEASE tend yourselves carefully in preparation of this work. This means enough sleep, HYDRATION, psychological care and when possible a gentle focus in traveling here. Enough time to travel with minimal emotional disturbance, please. Maintain all current medicine regimes. Please do not make any sudden changes in pharmaceuticals/herbal remedies around the immediate timing of this weekend.

 

            If there are any concerns about your personal health, please make certain to let Laura and Noah know before the workshop begins. Every effort will be made to accomodate you. Please plan on a day (or two) of rest and integration following the weekend.  The vibrational demands of the Intensive require a conscious process for each student in the rooting back into daily life.  The importance of this transition cannot be overstated.

 

 

 

The Unseen Hand: Medicine from Antiquity
Advanced Treatment and Training Groups
     in 5 Element Taoist Medicine      
   New York, NY * Montpelier, VT * Whitefield, ME    

Bowl of water

-Entrusted to The Source of our Medicine. Heaven.

-Rooted in the discipline of Generosity. Earth.

-Practiced with respect for Our failings and Our truest potential. Human & the 10,000.

-An offering of Love: to keep an open door, no matter what.

 

 

 


Laura Barnard Stelmok

 

***

Received her Bachelor's Degree from Bowdoin College '83 in Religion and German. She studied Acupuncture with JR and JB Worsley at the Worsley Institute of Classical Acupuncture in Florida and the College of Traditional Acupuncture in the UK, receiving a Licensure, Advanced Licenciate and Masters Degree in Acupuncture in 1992.  Laura continued her post-graduate clinical training with the Worsleys until 2001. From there she spent 5 intensive years studying Five Element Acupuncture and Rooting Shen with Niki Bilton, Master Practitioner and Teacher. More recently she has participated in several teachings on the 13 Ghost Points with Jeffery Yuen, a Taoist priest, herbalist and acupuncturist. 

*

Laura has been in private clinical practice since 1991. Her practice, Stillpoint, has been in Rockland, Maine since 1996.  She teaches post-graduate 5 Element Theory and Clinical Supervision groups in Maine, Vermont and New York.  These advanced study groups began in 2006 as an informal extension of her passion for the deep transformational nature of the clinical work. These diverse, highly interactive, and rigorous Clinics reach far and wide now. How to become a truer and more potent instrument of the Light of this Tradition. Students now fill these groups from most every tradition of healing, as the disciplines from the Taoists and the Light of the Ancient Alchemical Songs are applicable to all. The teaching reaches toward practitioners who are in school or thinking about entering acupuncture school as well as senior practitioners who have been in practice for decades.

*

In addition to the practice of 5 Element Taoist Medicine, Laura collaborates with working artists, the ones called to carry the seeds of what longs to be born, bringing the disciplines of ancient medicine together with the urgent call to the Muses of our Time. 

*

In addition to her studies and practice in 5 Element Acupuncture, Laura, beginning at the age of 24, apprenticed and worked alongside of teachers Alexandra Merrill and Joyce Weir. The work spanned 20 years in small, highly interactive training groups of women, where the inner individuation work of Self was woven inextricably with the daunting political challenges of our time. Leadership Training that rooted itself in the forgotten body of the Feminine, routing out the habits of oppression and alienation between women.

*

Laura is the first President and Program Director of The Unseen Hand: Medicine from Antiquity/ A Gathering of Physicians, Artists and Scribes which is currently in the 501(c)(3) application process to become a nonprofit for the Preservation and Teaching of this Tradition. 

She currently lives in Rockland, Maine with her husband and son. 

They devote their life, labor and breath to the golden thread of Teachers that return this Medicine to Our Time.

 

Dearest One and All.  

Our deep gratitude to you who sit with us at this Portal of Learning.  

Those who were here before, those who are here now and those yet to come. Blessed Be.

We gather as physician's, as patients, as artists, as teachers and students, as wayfarers.

Our sense returned.  Our Heart utilized.  Our minds disciplined.

To remember the Ancient Songs of this Tradition. 

(They are so very needed here and now.)

To become Teachable to this Living Tradition of Medicine, that we may become Servants to and for It.

 

As our disciplines strengthen we are able to extend our Hand to individuals in need with far greater depth and precision.  As individuals and as a group of devoted humans.

 The clinical training remains at the center of our attention for both practitioners and patients.

 

For this collaboration there is no end to the happiness bestowed.

 

We encourage you to pass this invitation on to any colleagues, friends, fellow students/travelers in this Classical Tradition that you believe might wish to join us. Please contact either Laura (laura@theunseenhand.org), Noah (noah@theunseenhand) or Meg (megdellenbaugh@gmail.com) with any questions or requests. The study groups are alive with and for each practitioner who is present.

 

With deep regard to each of you.   

The Board of Directors @ The Unseen Hand.

To read our Mission Statement please click here

 


kat and tilly