ALCHEMY WISDOM: Messages for the Journey
May 2007
Traditional Wisdom, Transformation, and Time Travel
Recently I trekked North to meet with Jhaimy Alvarez-Acosta, a traditional healer from Peru, who was visiting Vancouver, BC with Andean medicine man, Puma Quispe Singona, and the lessons learned were very interesting. I relate these here because I believe they may also be useful to each of you as you pursue your own growth and healing. I had no specific illness or issue that I had in mind to work with when I made the appointment a month ago. But I had read from Jhaimy's bio that his purpose in working with people is to help them overcome limitations, so when we talked briefly through an interpreter at the beginning of the session, I asked for the intent of the session to be about removing limitations in my work so I can better serve as a healer. Jhaimy said that the session would be in two parts: the first part would burn away the things that hold me back, and the second part would promote a feeling of expansion and freedom. I got comfortable on the table, and Jhaimy began the session by anointing my face and hair with a warm smelling liquid that literally heated my face and forehead, a very physical fiery sensation. I allowed myself to relax and my mind to follow its own trail. An hour later, after drumming, feathers, fire, and crystals, I drifted back to this reality with a sense that lightness and freedom from limitations was not only possible, but easily accessible with only a slight shift of consciousness.
But, even though the healing part of the session was over, the learning was not. With the aid of the interpreter, Jhaimy told me some very interesting information. He said he mostly worked with my inability to express emotions, and he felt it was very important for me to continue to work on expression. I found his comments very interesting, but for more reasons than you would think. Jhaimy is right. I grew up in a home where no one expressed emotions: love, excitement, anger, all were suppressed. With such an environment, it is easy to see how I would develop empathic abilities in order to feel what was not being said, and that ability helps me greatly in my healing arts practice. But since expression of emotion was not acceptable in my family, I learned from a young age not to feel my own emotions, and spent most of my life in a state that medical doctors would call clinical depression. Later in my adult years, as I worked on my own healing and growth, I learned to feel my emotions and to be able to discern them from the emotions I felt coming from those around me. But since, as a child, I had not learned any way to express emotions, talking about emotions as an adult was still difficult.
Time Travel
This is terrific, you might think. This healer identified an important limitation in my life during the session, and was able to initiate transformation so that I could begin to express myself more fully. Except here's where it gets weird. Two weeks prior to this session, I had a realization that the suppression of emotion that I had learned as a child was getting in my way. And a week prior to the session, I made a conscious decision that I was giving up the silence, since it really wasn't serving me; in fact it only seemed to make things confusing and unclear, so I decided I was finished with it. Right on cue, the day before my session with Jhaimy, a friend brought up a long-term misunderstanding, and I was given the opportunity to clearly talk about what I felt. All of this happened before I ever met Jhaimy. When Jhaimy was telling me that I should work with crystals to facilitate freer expression, one of my guides was telling me, "It is already done." And this is only one example of my recent experiences of how linear time seems to no longer have anything to do with cause and effect. In fact, it clearly illustrated several ideas that I've been working with in my healing arts practice. One is that access to all information is always available, regardless of where the information is located in linear time. Once I had made an appointment with Jhaimy, I consciously set up connection with him so that I could begin learning from him. Since linear time is simply an illusion (according to scientists), I believe that I had access to the transformation he would facilitate before it even happened, and the sequence of events seem to confirm this. In addition, my guide's insistence that the transformation was "already done" seems to also confirm this new understanding of time. We don't have to process change over time if we choose not to. There seem to be times when I can access immediate transformation and times when things seem to unfold as a process. I have seen both of these possibilities play out in my own office as well. Healings that appear "miraculous" are seen that way because the changes didn't play out over time, but occurred completely in one moment. This is also a concept my guides have been asking me to work with in my sessions with clients. (You might be wondering if healing is that simple, if it is really "already done." I'll be writing more about "the onion effect" of repetitive patterns and reoccurring issues in a subsequent newsletter, because it is such a great question, so check back).
Lessons Are Everywhere
When asked if I had any questions, I did ask Jhaimy if he had any sense of how I could find more clarity with the glimpses of the visions of what I should be accomplishing in my mission, and he did not have any ideas about this. He advised me to first work on clearer expression so the universe could then have something to work with. I had felt that this trip to Vancouver was supposed to be a start towards a better understanding of these visions I've been having, but I am also learning that the teacher is not always who you expect it to be, and sometimes the lesson is not learned the way you think it will be. After the session, I started talking to Starr Muranko, my interpreter and host, and Sara Kinakin--the two women who organized Jhaimy and Puma's visit to Vancouver. I realized that the opportunity to hear about their experiences in creating a transformational event was very important for me in terms of moving closer to the vision I have of an International Center for Alternative Healing to cultivate an international exchange of ideas and learning among healers as well as a center where low income patients can access alternative healing arts that insurance won't pay for (read more about this vision in upcoming newsletters). As I talked with Starr, Sara, and Puma about my ideas, Puma turned to me and said, "Peru awaits you." It was a synchronicity that I won't ignore, as going to Peru has been on my mind for some time. Perhaps he only said it because he and Starr are organizing a trip to Peru next year, but the universe has a way of answering your questions and showing you the way to your own dreams, if you stay open to all the ways it sends those messages.
Messages for the Journey
My message to you this month, then, is this: When you seek out a practitioner to help you with a physical, emotional, or spiritual issue, you can actually access transformation and understanding on many levels. Simply take the time to write down a list of what you want to accomplish. But realize this very important point: Even if the healer you work with does not consciously or purposely address each of the items on your list, you can still affect transformation with all them. You do not even need to tell your practitioner what is on your list because you are tapping into the state of transformation that the healer is holding for you. And in that state, many things can happen. I use this method not just with the alternative practitioners I see, but with medical practitioners as well. When I decided to have surgery for a herniated disk a couple of years ago, I realized that "surgery" itself has a huge morphogenic field. So I mapped onto the state of surgery a list of other transformations I wanted to see occur--from increasing the number of patients in my practice to changing my personal relationships. It worked! All of the shifts I specifically asked for occurred within a few months of my surgery, some of them immediately, and others played out over time--and my physical problem was better too! My visit to Vancouver was transformational in many ways, and extended beyond meeting Jhaimy, Puma, Starr and Sara. I learned from and was transformed by the street people I met in downtown Vancouver, the man who asked me for directions in Stanley Park, who turned out to be from Seattle as well, the pink cherry blossoms floating over the city as the wind shook them out of their trees, the heavy weight of the rain drops, the two black crows that swooped down on me as I arrived, and the majestic mountains north of Vancouver.
So after the experience, how do I feel? Free! Without limitations! And my heart is full of a greater understanding of love (did I mention that was on my list?).
***If you are interested in learning more about Andean traditions and teachings from Puma and Jhaimy, bookmark Starr and Sara's website: http://www.thismomentevents.net/. I hear Puma and Jhaimy will be back in Vancouver next year.
As always, thanks so much for all your support!
Blessings,
Reggi Shelley
Alchemy Wisdom