(Photo: Fall Equinox, 2000 at Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico)

By June, 1997 I was at a major life crossroads. I had managed to attract a string of emotionally difficult, sometimes violent circumstances. "Victim" was a banner in my parade of life. I viewed myself as a "survivor" of two stressful, emotionally brutal marriages. If anyone could be adrift on a lonely sea, it was me. But what came next was a sea change. I soon learned my father had cancer.

While settling in to begin the process of caring for him at my childhood home, I was introduced into the world of Reiki energy therapy. Reiki is a Japanese word essentially meaning "Universal Life Force Energy". It is based on the ancient knowledge of "chakras" - energy centers spiraling out from the physical body and connecting with the subtle or etheric body. The Book of Hopi, Mayan Codices, and other ancient texts from around the world speak of this fundamental connection with Life Force. These chakras are vitally connected to the physical endocrine system.

The endocrine system (i.e. thyroid, pituitary, pineal, adrenal glands) is responsible for most of our hormonal output. Hormonal imbalance can lead to emotionally fragile states of being. By the same token, emotionally traumatic events create hormonal imbalance. It is this symbiotic relationship between the emotional/spiritual body and the physical one that sends messages to the subconscious about how the physical body projects it's response into the environment. A "disconnect" occurs when the electro (+/yang) and magnetic (-/Yin) energies become unbalanced and shut down (in medical terms we are not in a state of homeostasis). When the fourth chakra (heart) shuts down, we eventually experience physical manifestations such as heart and/or blood pressure dysfunction. First chakra (survival) shutdown will eventually produce sexual dysfunction or reproductive system dis-ease. The psychic shock of 9/11/01 in America has had a tremendous impact on this chakra - a massive human impotency problem. Why? I believe the intuitive nature of Life Force understands that the earth environment is currently constructing an environment not survivable for new life. It translates in the human mind as a "dysfunction", but ultimately it is nature's "negative feedback" mechanism (an attempt to level out the field, so to speak). This immense sexual energy has redirected itself to it's lower vibration, which is intensified conflict and war. But while we are collectively disconnecting the "material" chakra, we are simultaneously opening up the higher vibrational chakras of the 3rd eye and "Crown". This is what will likely assist us in perceiving the concepts of multidimensionality in the near future. Veils are lifting in more places than Afganistan.

Reiki training seemed to me a positive skill for assisting my father to be more comfortable as he progressed with his cancer. But as I moved through the training and began Reiki sessions with him, we became aware of some extraordinary changes. Reiki eased his pain and settled him into a calm state when breathing became labored. His fear of death fell away as he began experiencing beautiful connections with his Spiritual side. I, too, began to bring up old and outworn reflexive reactions and discovered their invalidity.

During the Reiki sessions performed in the final weeks of his life, I noticed my father's energy points were undergoing a very methodical shutdown. The first chakra was the first to close shop. This signaled his detachment from our material world. While the lower chakras (associated with grounding and life) were closing, the upper chakras, associated with our connection to Higher Consciousness, became quite active.

During a particularly intense session, we found ourselves traveling through a tunnel toward an incredible blue/white light. I was told I could go no further, but that he would be welcomed "home" soon. The next morning he asked me where we had gone. I could only say "Dad, I don't know, but it's safe to say it was 'heavenly'." The opening up the upper energy centers provided us the ability to pull back the curtain of illusion to see Truth. This understanding started us on the road to recognizing long-held illusions we held about life - shedding them, like dead skin cells, into oblivion. Reiki assisted us in building sturdier, simpler foundations of Being and Purpose.

Working with Reiki energy body work, it became clear to me that we are what we think and believe - far more than what we eat. Thought is the progenitor to all that follows. This is my fundamental truth, and the rest proceeds from that point. I approach life now with a more open mind, a more expanded sense of humor (a healing quality in itself!), and the knowledge that much of what we experience is a creation by none other than ourselves.

At the end of his days, Marty asked for Reiki therapy far more often than Morphine. He was actually able to continue on his job up to three weeks before his death. He was never hooked up to a machine or IV solution, nor did he at any time need the resources of Hospice. Although Hospice was tremendously supportive of our situation through phone contact, my father passed over in a peaceful, painless state of mind. Just hours before he did, he drew me close and asked me to continue my work in Reiki. This is a request I am living and loving every day.

Shortly after his passing, I experienced the usual sense of loss. For a short time I drifted, wondering where to go next. But then an interesting thing happened. A series of dreams began urging me to move to the Southwest. I was hesitant at first. My "rational" mind could not justify such a move. Then, a visit to the physician revealed a small growth on my thyroid gland, and they wanted to biopsy it. Immediately, I knew it was there to remind me I had further "growing" to do. I also knew that once I made the decision to follow my heart, this physical manifestation would vanish.

Over the next few months, I prepared for my move to the Southwest. I did not know why I should be there - only that I must be. I trusted my intuition and sold or gave away furniture, collections - anything not essential for the trip. I also had a son who was, sadly, addicted to drugs. I encouraged him to come with me. In late July of 1999, we left behind our "old" lives and wandered the deserts for ten days, while visiting awesome natural sites and deciding upon our futures. I treated him daily with Reiki and prepared juices from fresh vegetables and fruit which he reluctantly drank. We may never know how big a part this played in his recovery. The blessing is that he has been drug-free for nearly four years. He wants his life now, and has made great strides towards filling it with purpose.

Upon settling in New Mexico, I set up an appointment with a new physician. He checked the thyroid. The growth was gone. My thyroid had returned to a completely normal state.

Since 1997, I have worked in a public and private capacity as a Reiki practitioner and teacher. Nurses and other health care professionals I have had the honor to train have reported wonderful results working with patients in hospital environments; accelerated healing, pain relief, and overall well-being. However, I am not in the "business" of Reiki - I am in the heart of it. It is simply a gift that somehow just keeps coming back every time I see the relieved smile of a client who has benefited from a treatment and a chance to voice some feelings. I have seen profound changes occur, and this is worth more than a stash of cash could ever be.

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I have applied the known properties of light to my own philosophies as a means to understand the cycle of birth, growth and death. When light undergoes the process of moving from one medium to another (such as from air into water), it is called "refraction". The light does not cease to exist; rather, it simply bends itself to accommodate the transformation. Our inner Light, I believe, undergoes similar states of Being. It is an eternal light that simply "bends" when it meets transition - into birth, into life, into death. Both the light we see and the Light we live transmit patterns of conscious organic energy. Quantum physics has just recently recognized this awesome property. I have also come to understand that our external environment is simply a final manifestion of dis-ease; it is within our power of Thought/Belief to set the stage for spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical health (SEMPH). If you set yourself up to believe all that you hear and see, you set yourself up for an overload of dis-information. The vitality of the body is ultimately dependant upon the healthy connection with the Life Force sustaining us.

In early colonial America, when the friars and missionaries all came to "save" the Caddo Indians by blessing them with their "holy" water, the Indians also began noticing that illness was devastating their populations. They began associating these water blessings with death, especially since their nomad brothers and sisters, who were too elusive to be approached by the white man, seemed not to be dying. Little did either side know at that time that it was an invisible smallpox virus carried by the colonists that was doing this; as far as they were concerned, the water was to be more feared than the white man himself. (Keyword here: FEAR--contracts energy, lowers the immune system.) Well, it looked like a duck and it quacked like a duck, but behold, it was not a duck at all. How many do you suppose died after the water was placed on their foreheads by the friars, by SUGGESTIVE association alone? There is more to a duck than we suppose, no?

I am learning to observe with an objective eye and to paint the environment I have created with a much broader stroke. I pay attention to my dreamscape as well. Explorations such as these have shown me that health truly does begin with belief. The media , pharmaecutical industry, perhaps a physician, incessantly conveys messages to convince us we will be ill at some point, if we aren't already. TV ads run day and night, telling us it is "flu season", or "allergy season", or that we will surely begin to have disease by a certain age - that we need certain tests yearly to catch some illusive, terrible disease. We are instilled with fear of germs, viruses, smoke - even nature and our own bodies! This is potentially crippling and even the suggestion can cause a downward flux in the immune system. I leave it up to each visitor to this page to seek your own truth on this matter, but I suggest there is only one reason for illness - a depleted immune system overtaxed by stress, subliminal suggestion, mental exhaustion, low self-worth, and/or simply a loss of THE WILL TO BE WELL for a number of reasons. When we have overburdened our SEMPH, forces within us can deliberately create illness in order that we will slow down, rest, rethink, and restore health. The person in the very best position to understand what is going on within you - is YOU! It is a simple question: Who do you select as the administrator your power and Being? A TV set? Who do you want looking out for your best interests? The pharmaceutical industry?

(Update: On July 3, 2002, an announcement was made that tells us that hormonal replacement therapy---those pills that almost every physician has tried to push down the throats of menopausal women, terrifying them with thoughts of having strokes, heart attacks, bone destruction, you name it---provides absolutely NO benefit to women, after all! Why am I not surprised? Who benefited from the buying of all those millions of "sugar" pills for the last several years? We will hear of more such reversals.)

A good auto mechanic intuitively understands the nature of a vehicle because s/he understands its "anatomy and function." The ear is attuned to listening for the subtle sounds. I see myself as the mechanic of my own vehicle; the more I understand the anatomy and function, the more I am able to open an intuitive channel of communication between my thought processes and the cells of my body. When that channel is open, body will follow thought in positive ways. I take my body in for well-woman checks on a yearly basis, just as I take my vehicle in for scheduled maintenance. I am not opposed to mild prescriptions once I have researched them. However, I see my physician as an adjunct to my health regimen - not the owner of it. Well-educated, compassionate, and conscientious physicians are blessings to the health of our communities and to our families. But, when I begin to sense that something feels "wrong", the first physician I visit is the one within me. I pay attention to my dreams; I try to look objectively at the events and situations surrounding me; I listen to that small voice inside. (I am NOT advocating that you, the reader, cancel your medical tests and visits! But if you are experiencing medical problems, you might first try consulting your inner physician.)

We humans are certainly not invincible (yet), but we can become more conscious about the incredible power of the mind/body connection. Self-improvement is a lifelong project and what we are here to work toward. "Stuff" is always going to appear. The trick is to rethink our attitudes and beliefs ABOUT that stuff!

My father technically died at age 72 of a heart attack secondary to lung cancer. A majority of people would blame it on his desire for tobacco. But if he were writing this with me today, he would tell you that what created the cancer was a groundswell of guilt and loneliness he felt after the loss of my mother 11 years before. The energetic shutdown began there, then came a string of negative events that drew to him like a magnet and served to further weaken his immune system. He no longer had the desire to live. Throughout his life, he had enjoyed abundance of health because he had a wonderful capacity to laugh at life and think creatively. This time, he just chose not to do so.

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The orientation of our time/space is that of dualities: up-down, back-forth, good-bad. In this light, I personally understand that for all the potential "bad" things , we also have access to the "good" things to balance it out. Nature provides antedotes to everything. Her greatest gift is WATER. Six to ten glasses of water per day (I flavor mine with green tea or other natural teas) is a powerful antedote for flushing the system of the pollutants we inhale or ingest. When we develop dis-ease, it is usually because we have allowed that balance to slip away. This can occur in one or more of the SEMPH layers. Some of the most deadly pandemics of history such as the Black Plague killed so many people due to a gross depletion of the immune system which was being emotionally attacked by the repressive and depressing issues of the era. There were also many who cared for the dying and did not themselves become infected? Why? Do you know of any kind of mass "plague" occurring in eras where healthy, tolerant, expressive civilizations fluorished?

From my point of view, the HIV virus (supression) arose from oppressed and "suppressed" geographic areas of the globe and will remain as long as judgmental and intolerant belief structures continually perpetuate fear in populations, of course striking the weakest links in the flow of consciousness that connects humanity.

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As a student of quantum physics, I truly vision science and metaphysics rapidly converging into an ultimate Truth as we chart our journey into the 21st century.

If you would like to know more about Reiki body work, please click "What IS Reiki?" on the link below, where I have outlined the principles and practices of Reiki Energy Support Therapy (REST).