In late January of 2016 I made a split second decision that would change my life.
A few weeks earlier, during a special trip to Tucson, I was in the middle of a Bowen session when something happened for which I had no logical explanation. I was standing at a client’s feet, arms outstretched, quietly visualizing a beautiful golden light. Slowly, with the sensation of being on a turning airplane, I found that my arms were being moved—first to the left, then to the right. Then, as if someone were trying to prove a point, I found myself turning around, bending over, and threading my arms through my legs. Later I would come to understand this as the playful nature of my guides. In the moment, I was stupefied.
I did not consciously set out on a spiritual journey to become a healer of light and sound. If someone had told me in my younger years that I would eventually be able to read people’s energetic fields to tell them about their past lives, that I would help them release blockages and old patterns carried in the subtle body, or that I would be able to channel healing songs, it would have been inconceivable to me. For a long time, not only was I blind to the concept of such a possibility, but I resisted it.
Getting sick changed everything.
At the time that I fell ill, I was on the professional track to become a therapist. I had just received my license to practice independently in the state of Arizona, but everything seemed to be falling apart. I was in the midst of a divorce and decided to move across the country. I carried with me a frame drum, art supplies, some books, clothes, my laptop, a lot of grief and the question: what’s next?
Lying exhausted on a mattress in my apartment in a one hundred year old building, I wondered what I was doing in the moldy city of Cincinnati anyway? In that moment I heard a voice, one that would eventually become familiar, say, “It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as your light shines.”
That was July of 2012, during the height of my illness. I hardly felt like I could shine. I was often bed bound with excruciating headaches, insomnia, anxiety, nausea, foggy brain, irritability, digestive difficulties, a chronic virus, adrenal exhaustion, inflammation, and multiple food and environmental sensitivities. I found myself alone, staring at the ceiling for hours on end, waiting for my symptoms to subside. Holding down a 9-5 day job was out of the question, and would be, for several years.
Eventually I found my way to a Chiropractor who was trained in Kinesiology—also known as muscle testing—at an integrative health clinic in Cincinnati. Using some of the principles paralleled in Bowenwork, the method helped my nervous system calm and desensitize to the food and environmental triggers activating my immune system.
It wasn’t long before I realized that if I wanted to resolve my symptoms at the pace of the clinic’s availability I might either go bankrupt or it would take the rest of my life. So, I began to take things into my own hands. I used muscle testing to devise a protocol for both identifying and clearing the reactions that were occurring in my body. Within a week I had myself off of all supplements except as needed, and over the course of nine months I resolved a hormonal imbalance that had plagued me all of my adult life. Although I was still quite debilitated, I had the sense that I was rapidly healing.
I continued to work with the muscle testing approach, letting my curiosity lead me. I began using it to guide and educate myself on the electromagnetic and other subtle body energy field phenomenon that can be explained through quantum physics. My skeptical, Western influenced brain ceaselessly questioned everything along the way, but my doubts were often disproven. The more I learned, the more I trusted this new way of being in the world.
Although I considered myself to be a spiritual person, I didn’t have a great connection to the divine. I did not necessarily believe in angels, nor did I have a daily spiritual practice. I wasn’t even sure if I believed in past lives. In fact, there was a part of me that lived with a sense of cynicism and a deep rage at the state of things. It was this anger at the greedy and the powerful in this world that deepened my feelings of being small and trapped, feeding my immune system collapse.
That cold January day when I found myself being moved in the middle of a Bowenwork session I was forced to stay open in my understanding of the way the universe works. As I drove back to Cincinnati I found myself incessantly muscle testing, asking, “Who are you?” “Are you angels?” Yes. Spirit guides?” Yes. “How many of you are there?” There was no end to the conversation, only interruptions for food, gas and a place to sleep for the night. Upon my return, I continued the query. My body was aching from the road, so I laid out the yoga mat. “OK,” I thought, “move me.” Half an hour later, after being rolled around on the mat in what I was later shown were yoga moves designed to stimulate acupressure points, I was brought to standing. I felt better.
Over the next couple of weeks I tried further experiments with movement, then writing. Finally, one night without much forethought, I said out loud, “Well if you can move my body, can’t you just move my vocal cords?”
The answer came back: yes. This brought on both fear and excitement. I took some time to settle myself in a safe space. What followed was the feeling of an ancient, ancient being vibrating through my entire body as I furtively spoke the first words that came through:
“Thank you for being a Planetary Helper,” it said. “There are many of you, and not enough of us….”
What followed is now going on nearly six years of conversation, training, and initiation for facing life with courage and stability in these challenging times. Even as I sit to write, I struggle to find the words to describe this chapter so thick with learning that it will likely take some time before I can fully articulate the breadth of wisdom gleaned from it.
What I can say is that I am honored to have the privilege to share the wisdom that comes through for the benefit of all beings. Whether we have had a session together or not, whether we have even seen each other face to face or not, our paths have crossed because there is an opportunity for reciprocity of learning from each other that is being supported. We are a part of a bigger story which is about so many souls choosing to come to earth at this time to serve the greater good of each other and the planet.
I remain curious and grateful to be able to work with you and your guides, as it is truly a collaborative process. My hope is that it will bring you what you are looking for and support you to deepen your trust in what you are already being shown on your own path.
No matter where you are, or what you are doing, may your light shine.