Hey Folks, Thanks for a great class! Lewis, I've had a difficulty getting the entire e-journal together. In my member area it says I have 15 posts (which is correct) but I can only access nine of them. Here are the nine and if I figure it out will send the rest.
July 31st. So glad we have a place to share sweat experiences. Sometimes I feel a bit like a baby lamb set free in NYC after a sweat. It was so luxurious to have space to lay down during this sweat. I know Lewis said it wasn't really that hot, but I was feeling it, so being supine was great. I challenged myself to keep upright as much as I could. There was even a moment where I was dreaming of the moment I would jump in the pond. I planned on running. At that moment I knew I could give more, that there was more work to be done. With the final round of gratitude I was happy to sing a song and notice how much energy came from me. Moments before I was locked in a losing battle with gravity, and suddenly with the song everything was much lighter. Even humming when I didn't know exactly what song Lewis sang was good. I feel like so much more happens at sweats than words can touch. I was happy to share that with all of you. -Karina Aug 8th Wow. It seems like Morita Therapy would be an excellent addition to American therapeutic styles! Our inability to slow down, or even remember how too without labeling ourselves as "lazy" or "selfish", is a bit of a lost art these days. As an Alexander Technique teacher, I find that teaching a student how to stop "doing", so that the right posture or movement can evolve on its own, can be a difficult effort. Although this is the case, once students get the hang of it they LOVE taking time with what they are doing, or just recognizing how helpful stopping can be in every day life. -Karina Aug 8th I agree with how refreshing the Mexican healers' view of illness is, while at the same time would argue a bit for the validity of illness responsibility. Maybe it's just my sadomasochistic tendencies, but I think there is a lot of strength is "owning" an illness: in truly digging deep in to how a patient may have set the stage for an illness to occur. Plus, is one is the cause of an illness one can be the remedy. But, as I think about it, there is something surrendering about seeing illness as being cursed: 1) It's not your fault. 2) You don't have control over everything that happens to you. 3) All you've got to do is find someone to remove the curse and you are well. Who knows? -Karina Aug 8th I am so pleased that awareness for refugees has become increasingly popular in the USA. JSC focused on refugee issues, such as war and genocide, last year. There was with a book "The Long Way Home" and lecture by the author, a child soldier of Sierra Leone. There was a wonderful movie "The Refugee All-Stars" and performance by the starring band. In a country where many international struggles take YEARS before they make it into our newspapers, I am happy to see it take the stage. -Karina Aug 8th I think that anything we can do to calm our oh so active minds, so that divine guidance appears, it is an act of healing. To parapharase Eckhart Tolle, it's not that we use our minds, our minds use US. The onslaught of repetitious thinking that unconsciously moves us through our day, when cleared via spiritual practice, meditation, or even being surprised into the present moment, creates a space for connection to the creator and, ultimately to ourselves. Being the essence of who we are is a very healing act. -Karina Aug 11th The more I learn about traditional healing, the more I find such value to communal ceremony. It is so clear that we need each other, our threads of communion, in living vital, joyful lives. And yet, dang, if it isn't the hardest thing to stay connected. I love my autonomy, love my alone time, but because of this it makes it difficult to ask for help from anyone but a medical stranger when I am seriously ill. How messed up is that? Reading Sandra T. Francis' chapter on "The Role of Dance in a Navajo Healing Ceremony" strengthened my beliefs in communal ceremony. As a dancer, I was drawn to the chapter because of its specificity and my own interests. After learning of the Sun Dance in class, I was intrigued to learn about the Nightway ceremony of the Dine (or Navajo) people. "The Nightway ceremony is prescribed for diseases of the head, including decreased vision, hearing loss, and mental disturbance. It is also used for 'deer sickness,' which may be associated with rheumatoid conditions (in Sandner, 1979, p. 45)." The ceremony can last up to nine days, a considerable financial investment. The medicine man and his helpers are paid in cash, sheep, blankets and are fed throughout the ceremony. "If a public dance is held [more powerful ceremony], the dance teams must be paid and the audience, which often numbers in the hundreds, must be fed." My first thought at this amount of time and money was, "No way!" and why not, being a child of a culture of quick fix and individualistic independence. I was very touched by the family support given to the patient because of the Dine belief that if "a person is not well, that person's family, clan, and community are also not well. In fact, the Navajo Nation is not well." What a wise story to keep a people caring for one another, and quite an effective one as well. The Nightway ceremony is phenomenal in the attention to its detail. One mistake and the whole ceremony can be canceled. That is why the medicine men study for about 10 years to learn every act exactly. The costumes of the dancers are exquisite, with masks, jewelry, spruce collars; while, there are even clown dancers to entertain the crowd. The patient him or herself does not dance, but is danced for acknowledge at the beginning and ending of each dance. There are many ways in which the dance effects the healing but I find the most attractive to be the Recreation of a Sacred Healing Episode (hero's journey) that effects the patient outside of the Euro- Americans' linear time. While ceremony happens there is pause or shift in typical thinking patterns and even Francis comments that "[i]t is easy, even for an outsider, to forget time and place and enter the world of the legend and its account of the first Ye'ii Bicheii dance to be observed by an earth-surface-person." In this place, which the Dine call "flexible time", through repetitious drum beat and dance, the hero can travel out to their journey while suspending "time" and space. This is an excellent example of connecting to the healer within, beyond the mind. With the abundance of communal support, healer within activation, and guidance by the medicine man and dancers, it is no wonder the amazing results that these Nightway ceremonies can have. They feed so much beyond the healing requested, showing us how much more is truly available...when we ask for it. -Karina Aug 12th Patricia, I too believe that the healing will come, and needs to come from within us. Just as professionals study the mind or body, they should also be studying themselves, healing themselves along the way. What spiritual offerings can one make when one lacks connection to spirit? Hopefully more and more people will awake to this reality and, thus, the government will follow. Let's all wake up! Karina Aug 14th I find Chapter 3 to be such an important part of the healing puzzle. Anyone going into any healing field should read it and let it sink in. Not only is recognizing other peoples' cultures important for healing, it is also priceless in problem or conflict solving (which I see as being so similar to illness). Not only is addressing our own unique belief systems integral, but also the belief systems WITHIN our own systems, i.e. medical, gobenatorial, familial, etc. Beginning to unravel the unconscious patterns of expectation is to open new worlds inside of the old. Some remarkable similarities carry from culture to culture regardless of how "civilized". Just as the Indo-Muritius believe that illness may result from punishment from saints or gods, so can orthodox Catholics. I find myself in a similar state where I will blame myself for unwittingly, or wittingly breaking a rule, and so, be punished with an illness. But "civilized" culture can also clash with tradition to create a world of miscommunication. One case is part of the traditional African American diet that lingers from slave times, where slaves were given the least appetizing parts of the food. They ingeniously created appealing meals with these foods. In current times, these foods are valued for their heritage, but create many health problems. Medical doctors, mostly coming from a place of ignorance to the cultural value of these foods, address in dismissive ways how these foods should no longer be consumed; with little success. Such a bridge makes acknowledging own different beliefs, cultures to be radically important. But what of the actual scientific medium? Is it without beliefs? Without culture? It claims the removal of bias as the most valuable of scientific traits, thus the celebrity of the double blind study. Yet, one can never say for certain that an act/experiment of any kind is not influences by the influences of the primary investigator. It just isn't that black and white. Pretending like it can be has caused quite the mess: a mess that has affected us all in the way that we seek more than just the stories we were given, and so create new worlds. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CulturalandTraditionalHealthandHealing" group. To post to this group, send email to culturalandtraditionalhealthandhealing@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.ca/group/culturalandtraditionalhealthandhealing?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
