How does healing happen?

When I was learning hypnotherapy, one of the things we learned to do was to help people stop smoking using hypnosis. I watched with both my external eyes and my clairvoyance as the teacher did the procedure (I actually do it differently today). What I saw was a revelation:

As the teacher hypnotized the student, both of their energy fields grew large and sort of diaphanous -- until they merged into one large field. Then certain words were spoken and other things happened, and eventually, as the session concluded, their fields shrunk down again into their individual ones. The field of  the 'client' (actually a fellow student) shrunk into a slightly different form than the one with which she'd started the session. My guides tell me that part of her change came from her field directly modeling the more healthy field with which it had been merged.

So healing comes, at least in part, from a group field. And the less healthy parts of the field, model and take energy from, the healthier parts.

Why do I bring this up? Because last week, I was part of an intervention for an alcoholic. The alcoholic did make a shift, and I'm pretty sure it was, at least in part, from the field effect.

It also had a profound effect on me. I'll tell you about it -- but I don't want to do it in writing, so you'll have to listen to my radio show, "Your Life, Your Relationships" on 8/29/12 (or the podcast) to hear that part.

Seasons of Life

Last week, I was living in what was surely the outskirts of the 8th circle of hell, simply due to the oppressive heat. This week, though, things are different:

I'm noticing that the shadows are longer on my daily morning walks, the light more golden. The tops of the maple trees are beginning to be tinged with orange. Kids are out, on their way to school, and more adults are out exercising, presumably because it's cool enough to do so. 

So summer gently gives way to autumn, which will elide into winter, which will warm into spring which will give way to autumn again. And so on and so on...

Much has been said about the seasons of a person's life. Spring is childhood, summer is the teen years and early adulthood, autumn is middle age and winter is old age. But those seasons, those same cycles,  exist in everything nature does, and everything we do.

A tree begins life as a seed, grows tall and stays mature for many years, but each tree species has a natural life length, so eventually all trees grow old and die. Within that life cycle, however, there are the annual cycles of the seasons: buds then flowers in spring, then leaves which grow large and deep green as summer begins, then fade into other colors and finally drop off in autumn, to be followed by a dormant period in winter. So there are cycles within cycles.

This is true of everything in our lives: relationships, jobs, businesses. So a romantic relationship usually begins with that crackle of newness: the first look, the first flirtation, the first date, the first kiss, etc. Eventually, this grows into stability: you know each other well enough to predict what he wants for dinner, when she'll want to nap, what each of you will get annoyed about. And you can let that annoyance grow(autumn) till it destroys the relationship, or you can work at it, and each change yourself enough that the relationship continues. So when autumn comes, either the relationship can drop off, or certain beliefs and attitudes can drop off. This can take a while, especially if you are retreating into yourself to do internal work (winter). If the beliefs change, then you go into spring again. It's like kissing and making up, but on a deeper scale.

When you start a new job, you learn the people, the systems, the tasks -- it's all new, and often a bit overwhelming (spring). Then you settle in for a while, and all is well (summer). Then something happens: you get a new boss, or the work changes, or the company is sold and the systems change, and there you are in autumn again. Things are unstable, even chaotic, and you generally have to let go of something -- an old way of doing something, or a belief about something, in order to get back to stability. Sometimes, as in the case of a layoff, what drops off is you; you leave the company. And look for work (winter or dormancy) and then begin another new job (spring again).

Within that larger cycle, there will be lots of smaller ones -- you develop a relationship with a coworker (spring). That relationship works for a long while (summer) -- and then she leaves the company (autumn). You may miss her for a while (winter) and then develop a new relationship with her replacement (spring). And if you stay in touch with your former coworker, that's different than it used to be, because you no longer see each other every day (spring again).

So everything in our lives has a cycle -- and it's useful to note where you are in the cycles in different parts of your life. What's new? What's stable? What's falling apart? What's dormant?

{With great thanks to Tim and Kris Hallbom, whose wonderful Wealthy Mind workshop talks about this, among a great many things.)

Two Degrees of Separation

The West Coast Dowsers' Conference, where I taught one of the sessions 6 weeks ago, was at UC Santa Cruz. We stayed in the dorms and ate in the dining hall of one of the residential colleges.

Although I'm fairly shy, I did manage one night to sit down at dinner with some strangers. Of course, we had a lovely conversation -- the people at the Dowsers' Conference are all lovely, and we obviously have something in common. The woman who sat diagonally across from me was from Milwaukee -- and she was a real estate agent, so we had that in common. In fact, our discussion was mostly about commercial property. She looked to be of South Asian ancestry, and had a South Asian name, but I honestly didn't think twice about that. We exchanged business cards, and I added her to my mailing list.

Last week, I wrote about the Oak Creek shooting, and posited that perhaps it was not random violence.  Since my weekly email contains a teaser for my blog post, she got that teaser, as well as the link.

A day later, I got an email from the Milwaukee woman, saying that the Oak Creek temple was her temple! She said she knew 3 of those who'd died, and several women who'd been hiding in the kitchen with the kids. That makes me only 2 degrees of separation from the people who died -- and you only 3 degrees of separation. It's a really small world. How is this possible?

It's possible because of small world networks. 

Consider the  game, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, where players try to tie a given actor to Kevin Bacon in as few steps as possible, based on the movies they’ve acted in together. So if an actor has worked in a movie with Mr. Bacon, he has a Bacon number of 1, if an actor has worked with an actor who has worked with Mr. Bacon, she has a Bacon number of 2, and so on. As you can see in the table below, using data from the internet movie data base, www.imdb.com, which has over 500,000 actors, the vast majority of actors are within 3 degrees of separation from Bacon, and virtually all are within 4 degrees:

Degrees of Separation      Cumulative Bacon Percentage    

        1                                                .3
        2                                            24.1
        3                                            84.9
        4                                            98.8

The book, “Six Degrees”, by Duncan Watts, from which the above data is abstracted, is all about “small world” networks, looking at networks as different as movie actors and the power grid from a mulitdisciplinary approach. After considering several models and research from the 1930’s onward, he concludes that “As long as individuals are more likely to know other people like them, and — crucially — as long as they measure similarity along more than one social dimension, then not only will short paths exist between almost anyone almost anywhere, but also individuals... will be able to find them.” And other research suggests that the two most powerful dimensions to explore are geographical connections and professional ones.

Was the Oak Creek shooting a random act?

I feel sick. Literally. I just heard about the death of the father of a friend of a friend. I'm sure you heard about it, too  -- the shooting at the Oak Creek Sikh temple. (Amazing how small the world is, huh?)

There is a back story here -- one you are not going to hear on the nightly news. I think the mass murder in Oak Creek happened to prevent a documentary film from being made. Here's the story:

Dr. Steven Greer, who started the disclosure movement, has had numerous attempts on his life over the years, because he has brought forward hundreds of credible witnesses to the fact that extra-terrestrials are here, and because he ties this to the suppression of technology. Because I am one of his students, I was present at one of the threats, if not an exact attempt (no shots were fired) -- so I know this is no joke and no exaggeration. 

Amardeep Kaleka, an Emmy-winning documentary film producer, had signed on with Dr. Steven Greer, to produce a feature-length movie about Dr. Greer's work. As the website for the movie says,

"This film exposes the greatest story never told:

• The Earth has been visited by people from other worlds who are not malicious, but in fact concerned for the future of humanity.
• A cabal of military, industrial and financial interests have kept this contact and what we have learned from it secret for over 60 years.
• Their secrecy is meant to suppress the knowledge that can liberate the world from the yoke of oil, gas, coal and nuclear power and replace the current world order with one of New Energy and true Freedom."

I understand that threats had been made on the life of Amardeep and his family. This was gossip, though, I have no proof.

 Amardeep's father, Satwant, was the head of the Oak Creek temple. He died a hero, trying to stop the shooter.

Here is how I back up my supposition:

Right after the shooting, there were said to be several shooters. That was later changed to just one. Satwant Kaleka was tackling the shooter, and he was shot in the back. If there were only one shooter, that means he was shot by a cop, right? No one, however, is talking about who shot him. How come?

Also, I note that Kaleka's name was originally on the NY Times website -- and is no longer there. How come?