I am a healer because I heal myself: By Giving I Receive

My Spiritual practice is a journey. My healing practice is a reflection of the divine in all things.

Since I was a little girl I have found myself searching, looking, dreaming pulling “something” towards me. As a child and now even as an adult I am often seen as the girl lost in her own world, with a vivid imagination dancing to the beat of my her own drum. I’ve had many wise women tell me that I have one foot here in this world and my other in another, or that I often long for someplace else. I think this “someplace else” is my spirituality. My connection to the divine, I feel it. I’ve always felt it, but as a child I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know the language, the symbols and like most things in my life, the more I understand-the less I understand. The more I know- The less I know. I don’t think spirituality is a place, or a thing. I think it is a journey, a path, a connection of my bare feet upon the earth. The sacredness of being right here in this very moment living fully, in the moment, authentically and in my truth. Nourishment on every level!

All healing is self healing! Like many others, I have turned to the Healing Arts for my career as a way to earn a living. The connections between my spiritual tradition and my healing practice are deep and varied. I am a healer because I heal myself, by giving I receive!  By giving I facilitate sacred space in order for another person to be safe enough and nourished enough to begin the healing changes needed within their own body. I hold witness and offer nourishing energy and bodywork. In order to create this healing sacred space I need to be fully in the moment. There is no faking it, I need to be authentic and in my truth.

The importance of the journey, the connection to the divine and that which is sacred within myself is what my spirituality and my healing practice is centered upon.

The Best Medicines

The Best Medicines are the ones that nourish our bodies, have little or no side effects, are available to all of us, and prevent as well as soothe symptoms and restore our bodies back to our natural balance of health.

Laughter-Love-Positive Energy: For me these three are a given. When you surround yourself with these three things beautiful there is a special kind of healing that is more powerful than we give credit to.

Touch: As a massage therapist one of the first things we learned in school was the Gate Control Theory: this is the simple idea that touch, makes everything feel better. Its the reason why we immediately touch a wound or place of pain. It’s why mom rubs our tummies! I recently had a friend I care very much about tell me, his mother never rubbed his tummy when he was sick! I was astounded and sad! The power of touch is a force to be reckoned with.

Herbs: mmmmmmmmmmm Over the past 9 months the deep beliefs I had held onto became validated. There is an herb that can help our bodies in almost any way that common drugs can.  little to 0 side effects and the pleasure of meeting the plant spirits that come with them. while I still feel new to this modality  of healing it seems as though I have been doing it for centuries. There is an ancient ache that calls me to this practice, it is the eyes of my classmates and the heart in my chest that I find a deep knowing that Mother Nature is our best Medicine.

Herbal Intuition~ The importance of your own journey

“It is through science that we prove, but through intuition that we discover.” – Henri Poincare

I was recently asked how I knew that herbalism worked. Was I certain it wasn’t all just hocus pocus, and how did I know? My first instinct was to get all of my facts together, to try and find all of the research and scientific studies about the chemical components that made up each plant and how they reacted with our bodies. I started typing up the information about how many of our modern medicines really came from the herbs and plants I now keep in my kitchenn, but then…… Then I realized that wasn’t my answer. That was not how I knew that all of the plants I had just fallen in love with was not hocus pocus. Sure there are studies, but the person asking could have very easily looked them up herself, so to answer how I knew, meant I had to throw all of that information to the side for a moment.

The truth is I know because I know. I have not just read about these herbs from a text book, or listened to a lecture about their ability to raise my vibration. It is much more simple than that. I have sat with these herbs, I have invited them into my home, which is my body, and I have asked them for guidance. I have drank them, ate them, smelled them, covered my body with them, soaked in them, prayed to them and with them, meditated with them, and watched others as they had done the same. I have witnessed others find joy in and connect with these herbs in such powerful and intimate ways. Some of us connecting strongly with particular herbs while others finding their medicine with herbs my body is not ready for, or does not need. I remember the first time that as a class we had experienced pine resin. Each of us reading back from your journals “It feels like coming home” almost like clockwork the majority of our group had written down the same phrase individually/privately about the herb. I think of Nettles who some people fell in love with right away, yet I couldn’t get passed the first few sips. This medicine was NOT for me, NOT YET, according to my intuition. While everyone balked at the bitterness of Blue Vervain, my father who was in much need of her medicine, didn’t find it bitter at all.

It seems as though each of us are different, we all experience things in different ways, and we all are in need of different medicines. We may indeed use the same herb for very different reasons, and it is here where the importance of knowing our own bodies becomes evident. Using our own intuition, listening to the needs of our own bodies and how they react to a particular plant is paramount in our own healing. All healing is self healing and therefore we, our individual selves must play a part in our own journey to wellness.

Protectors of the Earth

Disconnected. We are a culture of people who are disconnected from the Earth. We rely on Walmart and shopping centers to provide our meals and write angry letters to supermarket managers when they are out of our favorite boxed cereal. We have no idea how long it took for that orange to make it into town. We no longer worry when the rain  decides to stay too long among the clouds or whether or not the cows have been fed properly. We only know what we read on labels and the sensationalism in the media. We’ve all scanned the articles calling out Monsanto and our decisions about GMO’s are based on the majority of our most annoying facebook friends not on facts. Our attention is glued to the bright little screens that contain our whole world and the real world …… is completely ignored.

Change is slow

And when so many voices are yelling out to be heard all that becomes audible are muffles. Again the world is completely ignored. One person, one moment, one conscience decision to make a difference. Mother Nature bides her time, she makes her changes slowly, subtly and with the power or persistence. For it is in haste that destruction follows, Tornadoes, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Landslide, but the colors of a sunset take their time, and the growing of our trees moves slowly. So must we.

Deliberately choosing to make our own contributions, our own subtle movements. Through acknowledgement, Through Prayer, Through Gratitude and Ritual.   By making peace with own place on this beautiful planet, by Joy and by action. Making our own choices to do better…be better and finally sharing this with our kindred spirits. One by one, two by two until we all finally stop to notice soil beneath our feet and the blue above our heads is actually our “real world”