A Spiritually Enlightening Online Magazine. January's Theme: "Health"
Volume 5 Issue 2 ISSN# 1708-3265

Index Meet Our Staff Free Subscription Donations Come Shopping Advertising Archived Issues ***OUR NEW FORUM***

Illuminations Aleesha Stephenson About the Cover Kara Glasgow The Bookshop Chapter Six Jennifer Kusz Why Eat Raw Foods? Jennifer Cornbleet How Much is a Tomato Worth? David Suzuki PhD Fasting The Formula For ALL Life Ray Kent Fasting 101 Tom McGregor and Miss Linda A Simple Formula to Recover "Youth" Alegria Imperial Shavasana - 61-points of Light Aisah Spirituality on a Stick Marlene Buffa Opening Doors To Healing Dj Brown Acting Out the Roles on Your Stages of Life Michael Levy Is It All in the Genes, Or Out of My Hands? Rev. Cheryl Jewett Life in the Raw Melissa Gilbert Lifetalks Dawn Baumann Brunke Being Mindful Janet Alston Jackson Pet-sense Jean Hofve DVM Walk Your Talk Aleesha Stephenson Wyrd Lynx John Sacelli Meditate a Moment Featuring: Aleesha Stephenson Nia - Unplugged - DVD Debbie and Carlos Rosas Nia - Global Unity - DVD Debbie and Carlos Rosas Raw Food Made Easy For 1 or 2 People Book and DVD Jennifer Cornbleet Atlantis and the Ten Plagues of Egypt Graham Phillips Transfigurations Alex Grey Lady of the Beasts The Goddess and Her Sacred Animals Buffie Johnson

A few months after our big black Lab Max found his way into our home, he hurt his eye while playing outside in the woods. The lid was swollen and he could not easily see from the eye. Although a situation like this might normally warrant a trip to the veterinarian, something stopped me. On the surface, I worried that I didn't know enough to handle this problem. But on a deeper level, I felt called to healing.

After cleaning and treating the wound, I centred and focused on Max. He assured me it was a superficial cut and what he needed most was to close his eyes and rest. "Trust yourself," he said to me as we ended our conversation. Later, I was struck by the implication of those words, for trusting the call to healing was something which would bring about a much deeper change than I ever would have imagined.

As he was resting that afternoon, I sat down next to Max. I had the idea to place one hand lightly over his eye and rest my other hand gently at the base of his spine. I then imagined soothing pink-white light bathing his eye and flowing easily through his body. Max slept deeply for a few hours. During the ten minutes or so while I was working with Max, my daughter Alyeska, who was then four years old, watched intently. She wanted to know what I was doing and how to 'make pink light'. When she sat beside me and put her little hands on Max to help make him better, I was reminded we are never too young to participate in a healing relationship.

Alyeska then wanted to make a potion to help Max. What kind of potion, I wanted to know. Like a magic spell? Alyeska laughed, "No, mom. Let's make a potion of real healing things!" And so, together, we collected real healing things for Max: a crystal (to see clearly), some tiny flowers (to observe beauty), a penny (for luck). As we looked around for more, I suggested we make a pouch to hold these things for Max to wear. Alyeska liked the idea. We sewed a small pouch and Alyeska drew a red heart on a piece of paper to put in with the other healing things, which by this time also included some dried mint and lavender. Placing all of the healing things into the pouch, we sewed it shut and tied it securely to Max's collar.

From the moment we placed the pouch on his collar, Max moved with a new sense of pride. It brought tears to my eyes to see this change: it was evident throughout his whole body and demeanour. Clearly Max knew we had given him something special, that we had pierced beneath the surface in caring for him, and because of this, he felt "beloved" by our family in a deeper way. I was even more surprised to find my own vision shifting too. Something had happened in just a few short hours, and suddenly I was seeing Max in a whole new light. I was touched by what I hadn't seen before: the enormous amount of love this dog held for our family.

Of course, it wasn't the pouch or potion that brought about this change, but the energy which was activated throughout the process of making the pouch. It began with the "call" to trust, to go with the flow of events, to welcome others (my daughter) into the healing venue, to open to unexpected ideas (the potion, the "healing things") and expand upon them (the pouch). Max's hurt eye was merely the symptom, and although we treated the symptom, it was what happened beneath the surface where true healing occurred.

Symptoms are our body's way of giving us clues, telling us something is not quite right. Some symptoms, like cuts, broken bones, or burns, require immediate attention. To treat only the symptom, however, and ignore the underlying problem which caused the symptom in the first place, is to miss out on the deeper nature of healing. Symptoms are often treasures, great mysteries that—if explored—show us more about who we are.

For example, was the reason Max hurt his eye (as opposed to his paw or tail) an indication of something which needed to be seen more clearly? Was the injury an invitation to become aware of another perspective, to peer beneath the surface of things? Or, was it a reminder that sometimes we need to pay more attention to ourselves when racing wildly through the forest?

As we embark on any deep healing journey, we will inevitably discover an amazing interconnected network of thoughts, feelings, emotions, and bodily symptoms. Deep patterns are involved—from cellular to soul-related, all reflected in who we are and what symptoms we have at any given moment in our life. In all areas of healing, we need to listen to the body as well as the mind; we need to hear the call of feelings as well as the stirrings of the soul.

So, what does it mean to listen to the body or sense the stirrings of the soul? How do we do such a thing? First, we must realize we all fluctuate from moment to moment in the way we relate to the world. Our "centre" can shift easily, and often.

For example, when we make cool, calm, rational decisions we are focused in our head centre. This centre is all about our thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and how we make sense of things. When approaching healing from the head centre, we want to know the facts of a situation. We might list symptoms as signs or indicators and then search for patterns of correspondence between the mental, physical, and emotional aspects. We might seek insights from medical research, alternative healing studies, ancient cures, and home remedies to determine the best techniques to address the problem.

When we have a gut feeling or instinct, we are often sensing from our belly centre. From the belly, we relate to the world in a visceral way. This centre tells us how we "stomach" ideas or "digest" information. If we come to healing through our belly centre, we learn to trust our instincts. With practice, we can sense when things are not right before physical symptoms appear, and we may even learn to pinpoint what those things might be. Coming from our belly, we are guided by hunches, instincts, intuitions, and feelings.

Our heart centre reflects our emotional connection to the world. This centre loves to have heart-to-heart talks and warm, meaningful, heartfelt interactions. If we come to healing from the heart centre, we open ourselves to the deeper levels of another being—and we may even go so far as to meet at a soul level. A centred heart does not judge or discriminate; rather, it sees and feels what is, accepting the world with unconditional love.

To work effectively with others in a balanced, healing way, we need to find balance in our own centres. Drawing upon the wisdom of our head and heart and belly, we make use of all our resources and find the most appropriate responses for each situation. Using our mental abilities, we assess a situation and discern whether emergency care is needed or not. Using gut feelings, we sense underlying causes and are intuitively guided to appropriate healing therapies. Using our heart, we meet our patient in a profoundly caring, connected manner, thus encouraging self-healing to begin.

While this sounds like a wonderful plan, the truth is that we will all have moments of doubt and confusion. When I first saw Max with his bloody, wounded eye, I was frightened. That initial fear knocked me so far off balance that my head centre seized up and began telling me I knew nothing and could not properly treat a wound and what was I even thinking to imagine such a thing? Luckily, my belly centre did not jump into fear. Instead, my intuition heard a different call. That part of me was centred and strong enough to calm my thoughts. As soon as I let go of my worries and fears and began following the flow of healing energy, all doubt disappeared. My thoughts returned to centre and even brewed up some brilliant ideas to make use of specific healing techniques. As I allowed my hands to touch Max, our hearts engaged, and I felt a rise in consciousness to what was real and whole.

And that's really how it works: sensing our way with all facets of our centred selves, to simply "be" in that healing space of unity—with ourselves and with others. It's from that place of balance we feel the movement of healing energy and begin to flow with it, thus becoming a tool of healing. As my dog Zak later told me, "The point is to listen and trust. To find a space of centredness and then be open to hear whatever you need to hear."

Indeed, it is by listening deeply—or being listened to—that we engage the energy of healing. We feel understood when others listen to us attentively, without judgment. In such a space, we are free to share parts of ourselves we may not even have been aware of before. It is as if we are finding ourselves anew, unfolding ourselves, expanding in an exhilarating, healing way.

One of the most important things we can remember is to be open to the flow of healing, whenever we are called to it. The experiences that come to us are the ones that are right for us, providing the perfect situation for us to deepen and discover more. We must take care, however, not to project our thoughts of how healing should happen or what constitutes healing for another being. Our idea or image of healing may be completely unsuitable for the individual we are attempting to heal. In fact, as soon as we believe we are the ones doing the healing, we are in trouble. So too, our own healing may not bring us what we envision. Sometimes, healing looks much different than what we imagine.

True healing is about relationship. We open to a space in which energy flows naturally, in the most perfect way for everyone. In allowing ourselves to be a healing space of love, we allow others to heal at their own rate, in their own time, in their own best way. So, too, we naturally bring healing to ourselves.

Dawn Baumann Brunke is the author of Animal Voices: Telepathic Communication in the Web of Life and Awakening to Animal Voices: A Teen Guide to Telepathic Communication with All Life. Both books explore the deeper nature of our relationship with animals, nature, each other and ourselves. For more, see Dawn's website.

Be sure to read the reviews of her book "Awakening to Animal Voices" in our May 2005 Issue and her book "Animal Voices" January 2006 Issue.

Copyright (c) 2007 by Timeless Spirit Magazine. All articles are the copyright of the particular writers and cannot be reprinted without their expressed permission. All rights reserved. International copyright laws prohibit reproduction of or distribution of this page by any means whatsoever, electronic or otherwise, without first obtaining the written permission of the copyright holder. We retain legal counsel to protect our copyrights.

Any advice given is for informational purposes only.