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My
Journey
Like many
kids, I was raised in what might be considered a
dysfunctional family; a Pentecostal mother and
alcoholic father do not make a good combination.
I was witness to "holy-rolling, hell-fire and
damnation" preaching as well as speaking in
tongues and people dancing in the spirit,
banging their knees on the backs of pews
oblivious to pain before passing out on the
floor, the church elders covering the lower
limbs of the ladies to maintain dignity.
As a young
child, I watched all these ceremonial
proceedings with a detached wonder, not knowing
that years later, I would be a willing
participant in another type of ancient ritual. I
would also learn the healing power of rituals,
not only in families and communities, but in
modern healthcare.
During high
school, I was not the big man on campus. My
brother, a cousin, the janitor's boy and I were
at the bottom of the pecking order. I was angry
and I wanted out. Vietnam was in full swing and
I wanted to go in order to vent some of my
hostilities. However, my parents would not sign
the necessary papers to let me depart in my
junior year, but did let me join the National
Guard. I attended weekend drills until I became
a resident of Fort Polk three days after
graduation from high school.
After my
initial military training, my foray into
healthcare began at the bottom, as an
orderly...now known as a "nurse's aide." The one
general surgeon in a small town in Louisiana
thought I was on track to become a physician and
taught me much more than he should have so I
wound up perhaps the most highly trained orderly
in the world! Another physician provided my
first exposure to the healing role of the mind
in hypnosis.
Eventually, I
wound up in a medical reserve unit after
training as a medic. I tried several times to
go back into the regular army and Vietnam but
something happened each time to protect me. Even
after being out of the reserves for a few years,
I interviewed for reenlistment as an officer. My
paperwork was lost and I backed out. A few
months later, my reserve unit was called up for
Desert Storm and spent a year overseas!
After training
as a medic I then
challenged the California state boards and
became a registered nurse...without going to
nursing school. Working as a registered nurse
was good practice for when I actually entered a
program to become a registered nurse!
Like many registered nurses, I
focused on "doing things" and became proficient
in starting IV's, putting in a variety of tubes
and hooking up machines and other equipment.
After years in the field, I became more
interested in the emotional side of what the
patients were going through and completed a
masters in psychiatric nursing.
After years in many different
areas of nursing, I became very disenchanted
with the reductionist approach to Western
healthcare as it just didn't make much sense.
Western medicine was great for trauma and
surgery, but did not have a good record with
chronic conditions or psychiatric problems.
I was intrigued with Chinese
medicine so became an acupuncture student at the
Academy of Oriental Medicine at Austin, Texas.
It turned out that Chinese medicine was a very
complex and theoretical form of medicine even
though it viewed the body not as a machine, but
as a garden to be cultivated. At the same time,
however, I was taking a form of Asian body
therapy known as Zen Shiatsu which was taught by
the lovely and talented Pam Ferguson. I fell in
love with this modality and have had great
results, with many clients coming to me after
failing to get results from other types of
treatment.
One nurse I worked with had
injured her shoulder catching a patient who had
lost her balance. She missed a month of work and
had consulted several doctors, had a battery of
x-rays and a CAT scan as well as physical
therapy and medications. On her first shift back
to work she was crying with pain. With just 15
minutes of touch she was 90 percent better and
on the way to a complete recovery.
On a medical mission trip to
Mexico, a little old lady develop chest pain.
The medical team wanted to take her to the
hospital for
 treatment
as they had no nitroglycerin. The lady refused
to go as "all they do is stick needles in me and
make me lie there." I worked the Heart meridian
in her arms and her chest pain went away. The
medical team was speechless. She shadowed me the
rest of the trip, a diminutive figure beside my
6' 3" frame (see picture).
In a children's psychiatric
unit, the supervising nurse asked me for help as
she was at her wit's end. A seven year old
psychotic child was continuing to beat off
demons with his pillow even though he had
received a tranquilizer over an hour ago. While
a mental health tech gently held him in order to
prevent injury, I took his feet and held some
points that bring energy down from the upper
body. In less than a minute the child fell
asleep and slept over 11 hours!
In a medical-surgical unit of a
hospital a physician wrote orders one morning
that his patient who had received vaginal and
rectal surgery could be discharged as soon as
she had a bowel movement. Her husband was a
professional magician and had entertained us
with many tricks. I found out about her orders
late at night and went in to see if she wanted
me to work on her Large Intestine meridians in
her arms and legs. I did, and ten minutes later
she had a bowel movement and was able to go
home. Wish I had known earlier! I could not
resist telling her husband, "bet you can't do
that!"
Now, I'm a well educated guy and
at one time did not think too highly of what I
considered "new age, tree huggers." However,
when I did Zen Shiatsu without trying to fit it
into my western framework, it worked better. It
also helped to read articles on Zen Shiatsu
written by a German family practice physician
who now does more Zen Shiatsu than family
practice medicine as he likes it better. Then a
few weeks ago, I read where MIT researchers were
able to get a light bulb to light up by
connecting it to a tree...guess the "tree
huggers were feeling something after all!
While at the Academy of Oriental
Medicine, I took a formal class in shamanism as
well as a weekend seminar. A friend had also
given me a small book titled, So You Want to
be a Shaman. After reading Alberto
Villoldo's book, Shaman, Healer, Sage as
well as some books on the subject written by
physicians, and after hearing the prayer for
opening sacred space, I took the plunge and
enrolled in Alberto's school at the Four Winds
Society.
At Alberto's school, there are
quite a few physicians as well as psychologists
and other healthcare professionals. They are all
searching for what Western medicine is
lacking...a soul. One physician who also held a
Ph.D. in cellular biology told me that he was
frustrated with the lack of progress in his
patients. Well, we certainly witnessed some
dramatic progress during our training!
Journey Update 8/8/07
Before I left for the West
session (part of our core training in Shamanism
is the four directions) in Utah, a client who is
psychic told me that she could see me part way
up a mountain in a hut on stilts and that I
would get a "message from the west." I was
thinking that I would receive the message in
Utah since Utah was in the west. It wasn't until
the next day that I remembered that I would be
attending the "West" session.
Well, it seems my condo (hut) was partway up the
side of the mountain and the pilings under me in
the parking garage certainly looked like stilts.
I thought I had received a message after a
pretty intense session near the end of class.
However, after class was over the next day at
noon, I went shopping in downtown Park City,
Utah. I walk into this shop and the lady behind
the counter said she was expecting me. Turns out
she is a shaman from Peru!
We talk for a short time and she
does some energy work on me and tells me things
not only about me, but also about my son and
wife. She gives me a meteorite from Machu
Picchu, which now lives in my mesa (sacred altar
and healing stones).
After lunch, she closes her shop
because, "she just has to work with me." She
does a session with me in her shop's dressing
room, teaches me a healing exercise, and to make
this potentially long story short, this lady
cleared up a lot of "trash" I was hanging onto
since 2,000 years ago when I started doubting my
healing powers because I couldn't heal an
Egyptian lady who was also a healer and who was
well known at the time.
A few days later when I went to tell her bye,
she asked me to come back after work (she was
leaving to pick up her kids). So, we go back
later to her closed store and she does another
session in her "treatment room" and we finish
clearing out some "bad guys" that have been
holding me back.
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