I am one of the baby-boomers who have experienced a grand shift in consciousness
over these years, having been right in the middle of it all and privileged to have been the
honored guest at so many healing and transformations. So many incredible shamanic
stories have risen from my experiences and nudge me to be told. I will tell a few in this
chapter along with what I learned that has become my Shamanic Energy Medicine as
requested by my dear friend and colleague Linda Star Wolf with more to come.
Healing Begins
I had to heal and transform myself first. Certainly I had a diagnosis. I could have had
several. Without knowing all that, I began my personal healing journey in the late 70s
and 80s with a giant intention to transform my life. I was ready to heal my body and
commit to something for myself. It worked. My whole body changed in what seemed to
be a very short time. Although I have never been as excellent and disciplined as I was
in those days, I have maintained a new body.
I continue to work on this in my life today. What I learned: Intention is a powerful
dynamic life force. Attention gives energy to what you are focusing on. Intention is the
part of the mathematical equation which is responsible for a transformation. These
principles are as accurate as science and mathematics.
My early work was about understanding the dis-ease of alcoholism and addiction as
members of my family went to “treatment”. I was no different, really – my drug of choice
just happened to be people. The treatment methods changed me in some way when I
witnessed a psychodrama of a young person so afraid of speaking the truth to her
mother. This fascinated me…having a voice… speaking my truth?
My true and deep personal healing journey formally began after that as I navigated
many dark nights of the soul and spiritual emergency for myself, moving through the
middle to the other side. Psycho-Spiritual processes and Shamanic Breathwork were
my therapies, along with a small group I participated in where I saw my life on the
chalkboard every week to my amazement. I became aware. Group work was amazing
to me and for me.
What I learned: The energy frequency vibration of love and connectedness gets
activated when we work together in groups. Somehow, we became separated from the
whole, and as human beings, we have been seeking that wholeness ever since. We
long for the divine, and look for it through people, places and things. Our addictions are
that search for the sacred, that connection to something bigger than ourselves. Feeling
whole is about feeling excellent and secure. It is about living a life of no limits and
knowing that we are divine, like feeling the greatest self-worth ever.
FIRST VISION
In 1987 after what seemed to be my first initiation from the cosmos - I began to
communicate with the universe in new ways, not totalIy aware I was downloading from
the future. I began to have visions and knowings about things. One day while on my
knees praying and meditating, I visualized, the future in a geodesic dome. The dome
was divided into day and night – the top of the dome was the daytime, and I saw
musical notes and sunlight; and in the bottom half were people sitting in a circle doing
healing work. It was clear. It was real. I knew I must work with people in this way, and
that some day I must build this dome. This was my assignment and I agreed to take it
on. More would be revealed.
Not long after the VISION, I was to chaperone high school seniors via a school bus to a
meeting, in Orlando, Florida as I was one of the Future Teachers of America Club
sponsors at the high school where I worked as a special education teacher. Ok, I admit,
I took on the job for the extra stipend awarded for club sponsors. We needed the
money.
Interestingly, that day I had a horrible and painful toothache and so made arrangements
to meet the girls and other sponsor there later, as I would go to the dentist and then
drive up by myself. While driving my red Ford Aerostar Van, something happened
which changed my life forever. All I said was – “so, God, what did you want with me?”
figuring something was up if now I was all alone driving out of town - unplanned.
Bam. With pen in hand, and purple journal in my lap, and car on cruise control, I
received information about what to do in that dome – information about healing and
transformation, music, sound, love and connection to all that is. I drove and cried and
wrote and sobbed and knew something big was happening to me…for me, and for the
whole world. It was the most incredible and remarkable time and I knew at a very deep
level of my being that I would never be the same.
When I did arrive at the meeting destination, it was inside a geodesic dome. With that
kind of validation, I was in a trance, not in my body, chills and sunlight running through
me. I sat in the center of that dome, underneath the skylight and kept writing. I never
went to any meetings for Future Teachers of America as I had been called into a
different meeting that day, and I was taking good notes.
What I received that day was The Imagination Process™ - a shamanic healing and
transformational journey program that I was to do. I began the first Imagination Process
group in 1990 and have been delivering to people ever since with amazing success. It
is my love and passion.
Within 24 hours, my home phone rang and I was offered a job as a counselor in a
psychologist’s office – a friend I knew asked if I wanted her job working with teenage
alcohol and drug addicts. I had worked for her boss, the doctor - one night a week with
families of alcoholics, teaching what I had learned from my own life.
I said “yes” – even though it would be a $5000 a year cut in salary. I quit my job the
following week because I knew that I must begin to work with the people in a different
way. I was committed to following the signs that I had just been given so beautifully and
intensely.
What I learned: The universe will always support your decisions and dreams if you
follow the signs and symbols. Your thoughts and feelings create your life. The universe
sends you information and power through your thoughts and feelings; you are a cocreator
with the causative power. Whatever you give your attention to will grow stronger
and whatever you take your thoughts away from will disappear, sooner or later.
The next week I was sitting in my own office at a new desk ready to begin something
new. I did not even have a license or any kind of credential as a counselor or therapist.
FIRST OFFICE
I worked for the doctor at that first job for several years, continued my own healing,
learned and evolved and became more and more the authentic me, created a very
successful Co-Dependency Treatment Program there for him. I was the poster child.
The Doctor trusted me and gave me permission to do just about anything I wanted.
Eventually, I took courses required to get my own license as a Marriage and Family
Therapist, and a Drama Therapist so I learned more about family systems, patterns,
communication, Creative Arts Therapies, Sound, Theatre, and the basic stuff for
individual and group therapy.
Now I understood my BA degree in Early Childhood Education and my training as a
teacher for all ages. These were my stepping stones, toward what would become a big
thing for me later. I would need to know all that I had learned and was learning. What I
learned: There are no coincidences, no failures - just experiences that are part of the
whole, my bigger story.
I was pulled toward and loved processes and techniques for healing, which were
considered way out in those days - interested in risk taking, going to the edge of reality,
taking people to new places of being, experiencing pain and joy to break through the old
and transform into the next. I was a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist doing
shamanic work, drama therapy, meditation and altered states work… and insurance
was paying for it. Mostly, the people healed and transformed way past the diagnosis/
prognosis.
Eventually, I wanted to leave that place, express my personal best, be my own boss,
because there was so much more I wanted to do. Other people, old bosses, thought my
ideas were too "far out." This way, I could do what I wanted to. If we wanted to yell and
scream and march around the room singing the Italian National Anthem, or crawl and
cry and feed each other singing nursery rhymes, it would all be ok. Because I decide.
(By the way, the police did come a few times during Shamanic Breathwork as people
were screaming and re-birthing in our office building.)
My spiritual friend, Kevin would meet with me in those days, remind me of the universal
spiritual truths, teach me, gave me books to read which took my spiritual training to the
next level. He would always ask me – “what do you want?” Somehow he was trying to
tell me that I could have what I want if I followed the universal law – that I am a cocreator
with Great Spirit, that all my experiences are part of the whole.
One day I answered, “ I want my own office.” I had so felt the need to take a risk for
myself and I had just seen the film clip from Raiders of the Lost Ark when Harrison Ford
trusted his instructions and took a step over an invisible bridge which became visible
when he trusted! I knew I had to do the same thing.
Kevin said, “then go”. And he sent me out in the world for no apparent reason at that
moment. I left.
The night before this I had been talking to my mother on the phone. She asked me the
name of the Indians in Florida. I told her that I did not know; and that was the end of
that phone conversation. What a strange question for my mother to ask me when she
was the one writing a book on Native American Indians; president of the Archeology
Association in her area.
I left Kevin’s office and began to drive around our town, was pulled toward the
downtown area which dead-ended onto Seminole Street. Seminoles, mother! They
were the Seminole Indians. I turned left, and at the end of the street I saw the most
perfect place – yes, a quaint little office on Seminole Street with one large room, a
small room and a bathroom. It was in downtown Stuart, Florida, on the water, a perfect
location, and a building I had always loved. I must have it!
After finding it for rent that Friday afternoon, I told the landlord who lived next door that I
would "take it”. She trusted me and said, “OK”.
I had no money. By Monday morning I would need first, last and a deposit, around
$1200. I told no one about this. After all, was I being realistic? On Sunday afternoon two
different people, unknown to each other, called me saying, "God told me to give you
$1000." By Monday morning I had the money and I was even able to have power and a
telephone. It was a sign. I was on the right track. I called my new business Solutions
Center for Personal Growth, Inc.
What I learned: The energy from the Universe in the quantum field is influenced by your
thoughts and by the power of your focusing. Your body is energy and information, and
you are not separated from the rest of the universal energy and information in the
cosmos. You can attract energy consciously. Then, things begin to happen as you
begin to Master your energy. The Universe will arrange the solid objects, situations and
people in your life to come together to match your intentions/vibrations like a radio
channel. This is why it is important to see all things as perfectly part of the process, and
to have gratitude for everything. It is the lower system which holds us to the idea that
something is good or bad. We say in our shamanic work, the good, the bad, the light the
dark - no difference.
I remember my friends painting and re-painting that first office. And I remember when
two men carried the secretary desk up the stairs for me. They placed it in the perfect
spot and we began to wipe off the dust. In the bottom drawer we found a 20 year old
newspaper on which was printed two advertisements for two separate businesses in
town. Incredibly, the ads had been taken out by the two men who had at this moment
lovingly volunteered to carry this desk up stairs, unknown to each other. It was another
sign that I was on the right path.
I turned 40 that year. The clients lined up a city block holding balloons for me in
celebration. I was touched and surprised. I was helping people take risks to express
their pain and joy, going beyond the traditional. I was loving people well and it was
working. We were attacking co-dependency, addiction and repressed feelings from our
lives. We were learning to sing and dance in shamanic ceremony and celebration,
moving energy, healing old trauma and falling in love with the process.
EINSTEIN
I am quite sure that Albert Einstein decided to pay me a visit in 1992. I don’t remember
how it started, but I do remember that for a period of about 2 months, his energy
seemed to be around me constantly. Everywhere I turned, the man was beckoning me,
leading me to the secrets of energy and the healing process.
I had just designed and started The Imagination Process. I began to find quotes of
Einstein wherever I turned. Every other day, I would see a quote, or a person would
walk in with something that had Albert Einstein on it.
During the last week of his visit, I had these encounters: On Monday, I received a letter
in the mail with a wax seal on the back, imprinted with Einstein. The letter was
someone writing and thanking me for the healing energy of the work I was doing.
As I had been looking for a house to rent, I went the next day to for an appointment with
a realtor in town. On the realtor’s desk was a picture of Einstein with E=MC2 under the
picture. I took note of that. I did not like any of the houses this realtor showed me. The
next day, Tuesday, I looked in the newspaper, and found another house I wanted to see.
I met the woman there that afternoon. To my amazement, I saw over the fireplace, an
original painting of Einstein! It did not come with the house, but I did rent it.
Wednesday, I was in a mall, rounded the corner and saw a very large framed poster of
Einstein looking at me, with the phrase, Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Somehow he was validating my work, beckoning me to understand imagination and
energy… shamanic energy medicine really. I bought the picture. What was he trying to
tell me? I searched in books, old and new. Finally, on that Friday, a woman came in for
an appointment with a book on Reiki and Energy Healing. She said she just knew I
needed this book. I opened the book randomly, as I often do, and of course, it was
chapter on Einstein and how his theory on energy applied to healing work. It was the
only chapter in the book about Einstein. I read and discovered what he wanted me to
know. That was it. He left after that day. I am grateful for his visit. He is in my heart
and soul. His picture on my wall in my office, as I remember each day to thank those
genius minds who opened the work up to the world, to me.
What I learned: All your thoughts, words, and actions are imprinted in your soul. There
is a record there from all time. Everything you think, say and do are constantly
influenced by this recording which could be joyful or painful. Your body holds these
imprints. Your cells and tissues have a memory of everything that has ever happened to
you in your life beginning with your conception. It is important to clear out any imprints
which give you the impression that you are not worthy, that you are not intelligent,
creative, beautiful, or important. It is important to implant new ideas which say that you
are unique, special, wonderful, talented, can create your dreams and do your passions.
I understood for certain now that I must facilitate the expression and release of past
trauma, reverse negative old beliefs in the subconscious through re-programming and
feeling new feelings; then teach the Universal Laws of Energy for manifestation and
creation. I get it! We can’t reprogram if the old stuff is still in our energy system. Yes, I
will help the people do this.
What an exciting Shamanic Journey I have had so far. All those early stories in my life
have been followed by many more. Since then 6-7000 people have healed and
transformed their lives through The Imagination Process™; I have written workbooks to
accompany the work; opened a school for training, and am able to give out Continuing
Education to new therapists for their awakening. We continue to take quantum leaps in
the field as keep breathing, breathing, breathing.
We are integrating psychology, a variety of incredible healing modalities, discoveries
about the human mind, body, emotions, spirit, consciousness studies, quantum physics,
neuroscience, spirituality, shamanism and technology.
I love giving human beings the opportunity to transmute, heal, release, transform cell
memory and work with the energy systems in the body while learning and practicing the
art and skill of changing consciousness. And, that is what we must do. It is indeed
Shamanic Energy Medicine extraordinaire here for the taking. I am having a most
incredible and beautiful life.
What I’ve learned: The Universe will bring together the most incredible designs you
could imagine when you let go completely and walk the path of trust. As you surrender
to your personal shamanic spiral path, all the necessary pieces and parts will show up
to create your magical, mysterious masterpiece. Keep your eye on the prize and it will
all come to you. Open your heart, mind and soul to receive information from other
dimensions. Love whatever shows up first and keep your energy vibration high. This
will accelerate evolution and all your dreams will come to you. It’s the law.
