Читать книгу The Healer Within - Mariena Foley - Страница 6

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” –Carl Jung

“It’s a beautiful little boy!”

My history with cancer dictated a certain infertility, which was utterly contradicted by the beautiful baby they now placed on my abdomen. My exquisitely wonderful, healthy little boy: Johnathon Andrew.

Jack.

He didn’t cry. He just looked straight into my heart with those deep pool eyes, peacefully, contentedly, but somehow determinedly. It was as if he knew, as he does now, because he still knows.

You go through a pregnancy feeling that baby moving, relishing each kick, shuffle and roll from deep within your body, knowing that child. Yet that moment when they actually arrive…the moment they take their first breath on this planet and you meet them for the first time is truly, truly majestic.

There really is nothing like it.

Oh, the unfathomed beauty of my boy.

Jack went straight to the breast and had just finished feeding when there was a knock at the delivery room door. My father had come to the hospital to see if I was alright, not realizing that Jack had in fact arrived. Something magic occurred when these two met. Jack was twenty minutes old and his Pop, a tall mountain of a man, was cradling his little namesake with the gentleness only real love knows. As those old eyes looked up, staring into the misty eyes of an overwhelmed grandfather, a bond, unspoken and pure, was formed. A certain line was expanding; a certain contract coming into play.

There were congratulations all around as they wheeled us back to the ward. As everyone does, we showed off our small precious boy as if no-one had ever had a baby before. We were embarrassingly blissful. The next few hours were filled with wonderful friends and family arriving to celebrate, and in flooded an abundance of balloons, flowers and gifts. You could feel the relief of those closest to me, for this body of mine was tired. Illness, which had evolved into disease, had left my body battle weary and it had struggled under the weight of creation. Pregnancy had always been considered impossible for me and it had been difficult. Toward the end I had started to waste away, losing weight as the baby had flourished and seemed to just eat me alive. I loved being pregnant but it was clear my body didn’t, and the concern of those nearest to me was evident. This day relief came in the shape of a divine baby, an enormous individual.

Finally there was a lull in the visiting traffic and I was able to simply cherish my boy. He was fussing so I fed him, and went to change his diaper when I noticed his breathing…

His diaphragm seemed to be going into spasm. His breathing was a little wet. Was this normal newborn behaviour? His breathing was normal after delivery. I turned to my husband and asked him to drag out the baby books. No answers there. So I buzzed the nurse and asked to see a paediatrician.

The midwife who attended gave me that annoying, patronizing look. “You’re just nervous, Melissa. You’re a new mum, and it’s normal that you doubt yourself…”

I broke in, “I’m not the panicking kind. We need to see a paediatrician, now. I insist!” These last words I delivered about three inches from the midwife’s face. I had noticed my son’s nostrils flaring a little.

“You need to get back into bed and rest, Melissa.”

“Please, please get a paediatrician. Please!”

“Please get back into bed! I know you’re nervous…”

“I am not f…g nervous!” I picked Jack up and started walking as best I could, after twenty-four hours of labour and stitches to boot. “Where do I find a paediatrician?”

Because of my medical history we had chosen a Level 3 hospital, ready for all eventualities. We assumed if anyone might need that level of care, it would be me. In answer to my insistent demand, they brought the registrar down from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, because that was who was available at the time. She took a brief look at Jack, alarm struck her gaze, then she picked him up, saying to my husband, “You’d better follow me!” I had enough time to beg Andrew to not leave Jack’s side, and they took off at a run.

I was left sitting in the hospital room, alone. No explanation, but a generous amount of fear had been left with me, so I wouldn’t get bored or lonely. The silence in the room closed in around me. No one came to inform, explain, comfort or otherwise. Looking through the doorway of my room, I could see the concerned faces of the midwives and hear the hushed whispers as they glanced with trepidation toward my room.

I tried to get up and follow Jack, shuffling determinedly out of my room and down the hall, but the many hours of labour had taken their toll and I collapsed in the hallway, clinging to the rail on the wall. My heart was shredding within me, the sobs tearing within my chest, the tears falling unaccounted down my cheeks. Nobody was telling me anything! That was my son! I had been holding that little boy for nine months, what made them think I would let go now? Something was very wrong and I needed to get to my little boy.

Someone saw the grief-stricken heap in the corridor (me), and I heard yelling. I was ready to fight to the death to get to my son! I would not be going back to that room! It must have been written all over my face, because the nurses raced to me with a wheelchair, threw me in, and ran, pushing me, all the way to NICU.

Jack had been exposed to bacteria in the hospital and his newborn immune system had no hope of defence. Jack had double pneumonia. They raced him to NICU and started treatment immediately. When he was only eleven hours old, they did a lumbar puncture that confirmed he also had bacterial meningitis. He was fighting for his life.

He was supine in what looked like an open tray, angled upward. Tubes ran in and out of this tiny newborn body, taped across his face, aggravating his soft, petal-like skin. Each breath was a struggle, with only the energy to survive. I couldn’t leave him. At the time I remember the need to keep going despite how unwell I was, to keep my wits about me, to hold my boy. Years later, my sister would show me a photo she had taken that day, and the terror in my eyes and the state of my health is plain.

The discovery of Jack’s infection triggered a search for others. Seven babies in total that day had been exposed to this bacteria and all were infected. Within a few hours they were all alongside Jack in Bay 7 of the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit, critical. The time that passed before finding the infected babies was crucial, and as my son and I fought for his life together, the others were losing their battles around us.

The horror was far too real.

It was one o’clock in the morning when they assured me that he was stable and wheeled me back to my room to rest. Three hours later, at four o’clock in the morning, the nurses exploded into my room. “The baby has taken a turn for the worse! We have to get you to NICU!” How much worse could it get?

He was sixteen hours old. Jack had gone into a massive seizure, his entire system trying to shut down. They couldn’t get any lines in and the panic on the faces of that extraordinary medical team was evident as they parted so that I could be next to my son. They told me I needed to speak to him; he needed to hear my voice.

I looked down at his grey, stiff little body. No detectable heartbeat. Not breathing. I touched his sweet, soft cheek, and said, “Hi Angel.” And his little head turned toward me.

I started to talk to him. It was our first serious conversation. Believe me, there was no brave hero or courageous mother in me when I told Jack that if this was too much, he could leave. I won’t even try to describe the utter desolation and despair in my heart at the thought of losing my child. Only experience lends you that kind of pain. My heart only knew sheer despair at the thought of him dying; the pain is still real for me now. But the battle ahead of him was brutal. Please, don’t mistake it. I was not spiritually evolved, I was not an outstanding woman by any means, there was truly nothing heroic about it.

I loved my son. I had, from the moment the incredulous doctor said, “You’re pregnant!” I didn’t understand why he would leave so soon, why he needed to go now. How could any mother’s heart understand? But I knew something big was at play here and the decision was Jack’s.

They worked frantically as I sang and spoke to him. Finally, I heard the magic words, “He’s stable.” A nurse touched me on the shoulder tenderly. “Would you like to call your husband?” I looked at the clock. It had been two and a half hours.

Not even a day old.

Seven babies had been exposed to these bacteria that day.

Jack was the only one to survive.

Exactly three years later, on Jack’s third birthday, I met one of those significant friends that come in and out of your life with a single purpose: to direct you.

I was reading an article about some fairly extraordinary work a gentleman had been doing with healing in the United States. This article was vague, but it was about the possible effect of quantum frequencies on human cellular regeneration. I read this and something within me clicked over, not unlike the arrow on a compass. I burst into tears, and not really understanding why I was so overwhelmed, I turned to my husband and said, “We have to find this man.” Bursting into tears is not common practice for me; the importance was evident, so after reading the article he said, “Whatever it takes. We’ll find him.” We had no money to spare and it looked like we needed to go the United States, but we both knew this was incredibly important. We started placing phone calls around the world trying to find him, only to discover that three days later he would be lecturing in Melbourne, the city where we lived.

So I went. From the beginning it was an unusual journey. The lecture was held at a facility I wasn’t familiar with, so when I arrived, I was at the wrong entrance for the facility and walked in at stage level. Immediately there was a small smattering of applause, as a few in the audience assumed I was the presenter. I took rapid evasive action and dived for a seat in the front row.

The crowd surprised me, to say the least. I had a double degree in science and had worked in the rehabilitation and sports industries. I expected other such professionals to be there. Honestly, part of my anticipation of these things is the incredible education that sprouts from the incidental acquaintances you meet; so I was expecting doctors, specialists, physiotherapists, etc. However, the incidental education I was to receive was not at all what I expected. Instead, the audience was filled with an extraordinary mix of people, having all manner of injury and illness, all of them wanting to be healed.

The lady next to me presented a very bad mix of chronic fatigue syndrome, and I spent most of the time throughout the “presentation” asking her if she was alright. She was all bundled up and yet still shivering, her breathing rapid and shallow. If I needed to know where the presenter was, all I had to do was watch her watering eyes as they tracked him. She desperately needed help, she wanted to be healed, and this man was the “miracle healer” she had been waiting for. (Miracle healer? Am I in the right place?) I listened to her impassioned yearning throughout the presentation. All I heard of the lecture was at the end, when one of his assistants responded to an audience question “…No, I’m afraid he doesn’t do private sessions. However, he will be teaching a workshop in two weeks’ time, here in Melbourne…”

Immediately I was miffed. I thought, Bloody charlatans! Here they go trying to rip us off with their bloody New Age workshops!What an incredible waste of all of our time.This is Jack’s third birthday and his mother is in here, listening to this rubbish!

My family was just outside, including Jack, three years old just that day and my eldest daughter Colby, just nine months. I could hear my husband happily chatting to someone, so I turned to the lady next to me to see if she needed assistance to leave. She was devastated. She had been hoping this man would work on her. As we talked and I consoled, the beautiful woman with whom Andrew had been speaking walked over and interrupted, introducing herself as Savannah. “Can you hang around for a while, sweetie? He wants to talk to you.” Savannah indicated the gentleman who had just been presenting. I was suspicious.

“Why?” I could see this man watching us through the crowd.

Andrew leaned in, smiling, and said, “We can hang around, can’t we?”

I couldn’t believe it! “Why?”

A voice said, “You have a gift for this.” I looked up into the eyes of a man who would turn out to be a key friend on this road of discovery. And so we hung around.

I didn’t really know why I was there, but I knew I had to be there. I assumed at the time that it must have been for Jack, and you couldn’t find a stronger purpose for me to stay. You see, the previous three years since Jack’s arrival had been laden with many a battle on my son’s behalf.

Jack has a severe level of spastic quadriplegia cerebral palsy. He acquired it from the trauma to his brain due to bacterial meningitis. His is not what you’d call “textbook” cerebral palsy, (although what the hell that is I don’t know). Jack’s a handsome boy with clear speech, and all of his spastic tone is reactive tone. This means that you don’t really see the CP until he first tries to move, then his body rejects the idea and fights him, and Jack fights back. Man, does he fight back! He fights to do anything; to breathe, to eat, to speak, let alone sitting, walking, etc. I tell you, he is one extraordinary person.

He’s also intellectually all-happening. He started reading when he was two years old (we’re yet to figure out where he learned this) and has a phenomenal memory, particularly for music. From as early as fifteen months old, he would hear a piece of music once—Mozart, Ben Harper, Jimi Hendrix—and could sing it back note for note. In sheer contradiction to all that ticks within, the last few years have seen my son develop an incredible battle with communication. He has great speech, but to get it all in the right order is a challenge. Originally he would tell me there was “too much noise” in his head. Other traits began to show more prominently, and sure enough, my boy falls under the umbrella of Austism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Again, not textbook. He’s very social, has a great sense of humour and is very connected, communicative and affectionate. He’s quite the adventure, my beautiful son.

We’ve watched in the gifted role of parent, calling this child our son, as he reaches out to everyone he meets and changes them. What I’m talking about here is not about disability. It is a lot of fun watching various reactions to a child in a hot-looking fluorescent yellow wheelchair, and in his disability there are lessons for everyone. But that’s the least of Jack’s work. Jack has a presence and ability to affect people as I’ve never seen. People change because they meet Jack. He is all love, and more and more I recognize just how indulgent and patient he is with me, as my teacher.

I’ll try to explain a complex situation to him, and he’ll look at me quietly and say, “I know, Mum.” Not condescendingly or cheekily, just patiently waiting for me to recognise. Those who can see auras tell me his is huge and white, pink and gold. Those who can see spirits, see an enormous crowd with him. But if you haven’t recognized your gift yet, rest assured you would still see Jack as he is, for he is beautiful.

My friend, who “doesn’t do private sessions”, asked us if he could work on Jack. Of course we said yes; what parent wouldn’t? And my initiation began.

During the session, as my friend worked on him, Jack was singing a favourite song. He suddenly stopped singing and pulled the man toward him, reached up and kissed him on the forehead (right on the third eye) and said, “No thank you, I’m alright.” And sure enough, there was no physical change in Jack.

Apparently this “miracle healer” was almost as disappointed as I was. Two days later, the phone rang with a request to work on Jack again. In a calculating move, he had asked Savannah to call me. The bond between Savannah and I had been instant, familiar and warm. From that moment she had introduced herself, I’d felt like saying, “Where have you been? I’ve missed you!” rather than the usual rudimentary salutation. Larger than life, gifted in spirit, Savannah embodied both gift and guide throughout this crucial turning point.

So when she called again, we went. They filmed this session for a television show. Jack had trouble staying still during the session and was chatting, “The birdies are everywhere, Mum! Look at the birdies!”, so the two of us started singing a song about lying straight and still. I recall hearing a lot of sniffing and when I looked around, everyone had tears running down their faces, including the cameraman and the sound guy. I turned back to my son in time to see him grab the gentleman’s hand as he was working, hold it and say, “It’s alright, you know. I’m okay.” And again there was no change.

Jack was the first to show me, before I’d even begun this work, that people can and would refuse healing. This was a brutal, heartfelt lesson for me, as it had to be in order to recognize the magnitude of the role I was here to fulfil: It is not for me to interfere with any individual’s journey if it isn’t appropriate.

With Jack it was a decision he was aware of, whereas most people are consciously unaware of the road before them. My own journey continued to unfold…

I spent the next ten or so days with this team, embracing an introduction to this gift of healing, as they generously imparted as much as they understood of it. I didn’t learn a lot about the frequencies from them, but I was most certainly introduced to the concept that these quantum-based frequencies were readily available, for all of us. I learnt how to utilize the ever-present buzzing in my hands, how to start working over a body, what to feel, where to look, how to work with it a little.

The day after I met them, my neighbour Lynn came over. She had laryngitis and had completely lost her voice. Andrew told her some version of what had happened and what I was doing and, courageously, she lay on our dining room table while I worked on her for about five minutes. I really had no idea what I was doing, but I could feel the rush of “energy” move through me instantly. I moved my hands slowly about her throat and head, feeling inexplicable pockets of “pull” in and kind of around my hands. I would stop and stay at a place where there was a pressure sensation in my hands. Then when I no longer felt that “pull”, I would move to another area until I felt that sensation again.

From my side of it, it felt like never-ending silk scarves were being quickly pulled through the palms of my hands, up though my arms, shoulders and neck, and out through the top my head. Two more “scarves” were constantly moving through the soles of my feet, up my back and again out through the top of my head. Even then, I knew this wasn’t of me. I was not the healer here. And strangely for me at the time, given that this should have been “foreign” to me, I was not afraid of these frequencies.

I looked at Lynn and what was happening to her. Her eyelids were flickering madly and her breathing was shuddering and short. Beneath her closed eyelids, her eyes were slowly oscillating from side to side. Her head moved rapidly from side to side, intermittently.

With a bemused smile on his face, Andrew watched intently. You got the feeling he knew something he wasn’t telling me and truly enjoyed watching it unfold. (What had they been discussing while I was resisting all of this?) To his credit, not once did the man I married ever doubt what I was doing. He never questioned it or denied me access to the avenues I had to go down. In hindsight, there was a knowing, long before I recognised it, that this was what I had to do. What I was here to do. The belief and support of those closest to me was priceless.

Lynn’s head was still moving about but now her eyes opened, although it was clear that she hadn’t meant them to be. Her strange, unfocused gaze was a little unsettling. That was enough for me! I placed my hand on her shoulder. She sat up and looked at me and said, “My throat doesn’t feel any different. I don’t think it worked but don’t be discouraged, Mel. You’ll get it!” before she realized that her voice was completely restored! Trust me, I was more shocked than her. But Lynn was so excited.

A professional renovator, Lynn had some furniture removalists at her house that day. She’d come over for a cuppa (that’s Australian for “cup of tea”) to escape the chaos. She was paying these guys by the hour and one had broken his foot the day before. You can see her motivation here, right? She ran out to get him. In short order, he hopped in on his crutches while Lynn gave him a rundown that I was a “healer”. So I worked on his foot…and in ten minutes he walked out the door, pain free, and actually forgot his crutches. Once Lynn picked her jaw up off the floor, she took them to him.

I was not even a day old in this role. Something was afoot.

That same night I returned to the hotel to have part two of an “axiatonal alignment” procedure completed. Done over two days, the cost was $333. The money alone made me take it seriously. I remember the first stage, for my part, but I have no memory of the second stage or of the four days after it.

It was recommended that I have this done. My friend informed me that when he had had this procedure, in short, he awoke the next day with an unprecedented and inexplicable healing ability. I could certainly relate to that…although I hadn’t as yet undergone this procedure. He would not tell me its source or where he had learned it, but…again it was my “gut”, my own intuition that led me to this. I trusted enough of what had already unfolded to undertake this step too.

This was my first personal “session” under quantum bioenergetics. And it was key.

Ultimately and to this day, I have only undergone one procedure, guided by my own intuition and by the loose tongue of the gentleman facilitating it. David was as generous with information as he was in himself. He took time to try to help me, to guide me when I truly needed guidance.

The company they worked with referred to axiatonal alignment under another name that they’d trademarked and registered, etc. When I asked if it was the same, he replied, “Exactly the same”.

The session itself was curious: David would be the first to tell you he did it wrong. He forgot stuff, forgot to do some of the lines he’d been taught, found himself “improvising” and even doing a few bits backwards. Whatever he had been taught, he did not do to me. It was not an axiatonal alignment by its or any other name. And for that I am eternally grateful.

Key in this journey and pinnacle in quantum bioenergetics is an unprecedented and extraordinary procedure known as the Axial Initiation™. A structured multi-dimensional web in its mechanics, The Axial Initiation is a process that is felt, a kinesthetically fluid dance in balance rather than a counted out or memorized bumbling two-step. For each individual who chooses to undertake this, it feels and is as unique as they are.

Well beyond the physiological process of placement, it is driven instrumentally, primarily by intent. It is an initiation into the recognition of the whole present self. Your whole present self.

An enormous personal shift, this procedure enables unique vibratory levels and frequencies for healing and, ultimately, for our own personal evolution. Enormously personal, unique for each individual, this procedure enhances your knowledge both of yourself, and at a higher level, of the journey you are upon.

In this, my first session exposure to QB, the importance of the Axial Initiation was made clear to me. But first, the experience itself…

(One of the sources that attempts to explain this healing process, and in particular this axiatonal procedure, is The Book of Knowledge: The Keys of Enoch. In order to learn of the procedure and its purpose, Chapters 3:1:4 {the “what”} and 3:1:7 {the “how”} are quite informative for those following at home.)

During the first session of this frenetic alignment, the “quiet in my mind” was anything but. If there has ever been a time when my head hasn’t been moving at warp speed, it’s unbeknownst to me. To quiet the mind and “check out and relax”, as had been suggested, was my greatest challenge during this. For some reason, apparently just after David had started the whole thing and I was trying to stop thinking, I had a flashback from an episode of M*A*S*H. For fans of M*A*S*H, it was the moment when Henry Blake is searching for something in Hawkeye’s tent and shakes the flue as he’s looking up, and is consequently covered in black soot. What I remember was the effort I went to not to laugh; what was reported later was that I laughed and laughed out loud for ages. Damn.

I felt physically chilled, really chilled, and quite self-conscious because I could feel myself shuddering all over. The sensation then changed to a heavy buzz that felt as if it was just under my skin, uniformly throughout my whole body, and moving deeper within. This was not a light tingling. I was sure you would be able see my skin rippling, with such fierce activity beneath it. Disconcerting? Yes! It felt like something was taking me over! I started to question what would happen when this noisy buzz actually reach skeleton depth. At this point I was forced to make a decision: I could get up and say “No thanks. You’re all a pack of nut cases”, and leave. Or I could trust my own heart and let go.

I chose the latter.

The moment, I mean the moment I made that decision to surrender, I saw a huge array of colour rushing past me as if I was propelled down (dare I say it?) a tunnel of some sort. It wasn’t a solid tunnel, but instead very like the television depiction of a wormhole. Different coloured clouds of light formed the shape of a tunnel around me, and it undulated incredibly up and down and around. This ride was incredibly fast with the colours flying past me, and not so smooth, I might add, for when I finally slowed as I arrived at where I needed to be, I felt physically nauseous.

I had arrived at a place, or rather at a colour; an indescribable (although of course I will try to describe it) blue. Enveloped and cradled within an iridescent, pearlescent blue that had no structure, yet I knew it was spherical. It had no size, no beginning or end to it. It was ever shifting, moving, but without limitation and without boundary. It is communicative. It is…Home.

“Home” identified by the feeling of arriving there, the emotion. If you could physically enter the most generous of smiling eyes, that is what it felt like. My tortured heart rested, my busy mind stilled, and I was just…feeling a blissfully ecstatic, soulful entwining that I never wanted to leave. My journey continued there for some time, and much happened.

Then suddenly, quite brutally, I was brought back to a basic physical awareness when someone took hold of my arms. Two hands, one on each arm, had taken hold of my forearms, and I was thinking, What is he doing? Isn’t he supposed to be drawing some sort of lines off the body? I was furious. I’m talking tantrum-sized furious, as I had not wanted to leave the “blue”. Five minutes later (I think), he was still holding my arms. By now, I was only just stopping myself from sitting up and bawling him out. I mean really, I’d paid $333 for this, and I could have held hands with anyone for free! Some time later, he touched me on the chest to indicate the session was over.

I opened my eyes, and only then realized that the whole time, when I thought I had been there (I could hear him moving about, hear the storm raging outside), I hadn’t in fact been in the room. When I opened my eyes I had that singular recognition that something big had happened. A moment later, I realized that I could still feel the hands holding my forearms, only I was physically alone in the room. Like weighted shadows, the two hands were different; one was large, strong and somehow masculine, the other finer and smaller. To this day I can still feel them there.

That night, I awoke at 3:33 am and, without thinking, got up with purpose, feeling I had something to do. I wandered into the kids’ room, out of habit no doubt; both were sleeping peacefully. What woke me up? I felt edgy, like an unknown equation was upon me (which of course it was) but I talked sense to myself, logically. I silently chastised my melodramatic response and went back to bed.

I have no real memory of the second stage. I can’t even tell you how I got there, let alone how I left. You might recall that I have a fairly extraordinary memory, so this is no small statement. For the few days after the process was finished, I have no memory. I know I functioned normally, attending to appointments and family as I typically would have, but I simply have no recollection of what and how I did any of it, during those days.

When my cognitive brain did kick back in, I was different: more awake, more aware. But more incredible to me was that for the very first time in my life, I had something I had always sought…contentment. A peace had arrived within my heart that I had not known before, a smoothness where before there had been jagged edges.

Later in my experience, a client finally gave good description to this feeling. She told me, “It’s like your heart has a huge ‘ease’.” I love that. It’s spot-on.

The process of Axial Initiation™ is an enormous and very unique shift for an individual. When I am doing this for someone, there are times when, even though I am essential as the tool through which this procedure is applied, it can feel like I am intruding. What each individual goes through is as unique and transcendent as the person themselves, and it brings in whatever they need on their journey. It enhances them in every way, truly bringing them “into their own”. As these sessions did for me, it accelerates the flow of these frequencies and completely alters one’s perspective and one’s life (not to mention the lives of those around you!)…and that is merely the beginning.

There are never two Axials alike, and they are never small. I am absolutely awestruck by the sheer magnitude of this transformative process. My respect for both this procedure and for the person choosing to take this step has never waned. Nor has my gratitude for it. It is enormously beautiful, as it was for me. That much I do remember.

The effect of this procedure on me was instantaneous and very much like the “drop in the ocean”. So you can imagine how this affected our family, our household, our business, friends, the grocer, my hairdresser…and the ripples keep going out.

It was a palpable change. We had an amazing gift come to us, in the form of a respite carer named Karen. She came to us for a couple of hours a week to give me a little break, although we spent most of the time chatting anyway. Karen had only recently made some fairly radical changes in her own life, and while at this stage she wasn’t sure where she was going, she knew these decisions were true to her heart. Unlike me, she trusted that. She is truly wonderful. Eventually I had the privilege of doing both her and her husband’s Axial Initiations.

Karen arrived for her shift on the same day I worked on Lynn and her removalist, just as the removalist was walking comfortably out the door. Karen looked a little perplexed as she watched him leaving, then came inside, took one look at me and said, “Oh my god! What has happened to you?” Apparently I looked entirely different. Being in the room with me felt changed also. I honour the role Karen played in this transition, as it was not dissimilar to the backboard in basketball: Just as it seemed all over and I’d convinced myself that for some unknown reason I had become delusional, she’d rebound the reality back into play. Such friendships proved invaluable as I transitioned into this purpose.

About ten days after I’d met my friend and his team, and about a week after my own quantum bioenergetic initiation, I attended their workshop. There I learnt a lot about people! This was a crowd I’d never experienced before, a New Age crowd. Reiki masters were many, and every type of alternative healing method and procedure was represented in that room; Thought Field Therapy, Quantum Touch, EMF Balancing, Reiki, Bowen, Pranic, Crystal, Kahuna, massage therapists of all types and more. It caused quite a stir when we were asked to each introduce ourselves and I stood up and said, “Hi, I’m Melissa Hocking. I’m an anatomical physiologist. Until recently, I was an officer in the Australian Army. And most importantly, I am a wife and mother.” In a nutshell.

New words such as “modality” entered my vocabulary, and new experiences abounded. There were some truly amazing, genuinely gifted people in that room, sharing wisdom and generously sharing themselves. I was learning so much. An unexpected bonus was that I also had numerous unsolicited readings from various psychics and clairvoyants. Someone would walk up to me and say, “Do you know you have nine spirits working with you at the moment? One of them is a child.” I replied, “That would be right! I thought I left the kids at home.” And we would laugh.

Inside though, I was reeling. I felt as if I was clinging to my sanity by my fingertips. Changes were occurring at warp speed. I wasn’t sleeping for the burning and buzzing in my hands, arms and upper body, which had started the day I “hung around” after the talk. I was seeing things that in this life I had been conditioned to fear. People who weren’t in the physical, shall we say, would walk toward me and take my hand or sit next to me and, frankly, scare the heck out of me. These were not spirits that were “stuck” or “ghosts”, if you will, but spirits who apparently just wanted to say “hi”. A very confrontational battle with fear began. I had anticipated physical healing, literally phenomenal physical healing, certainly, but this spiritual element…

In that crowd, I also experienced an element of hostility that was new to me. The few close friends I made there were defending me as only friends would, as apparently jealousy became an issue. Savannah became my sanctuary. I was an attending novice in this crowd. I thought these people would be spiritually evolved and certainly above such petty rubbish, but it seemed I was wrong. In fact, I would venture to say that in some regards ego was a greater issue in this particular audience. Everyone there wanted to be special, to be gifted, to be better than everyone else, and above all, to be recognized as such. Normal human behaviour, just amplified.

On Sunday morning as I walked up the stairs to the last day of the workshop, much to my own surprise I quickly turned the other way and ran into the ladies’ room. I hid in a cubicle in a fog of uncertainty as I pretty much lost control. I shook violently and tears flowed; my heart pounded and I did not want to leave that cubicle. Actually looking at the words now, it looks pretty much like a panic attack, doesn’t it? It wasn’t, but it apepars to be one. All the time, I was thinking, This is just some New Age workshop. What is my problem? Just walk in there and finish it, Melissa! But I had never felt so alone, just desolate, and strangely, kind of abandoned.

I was aware that I had crossed a line of sorts but couldn’t remember making the choice to do so, a difficult concept for a choleric individual. It wasn’t about the healing gift, it was about the absolute abandon from a world I knew and functioned pretty well in, into a world I had always known but couldn’t recall the techniques with which to survive. I was despondent and terrified and really not sure why. I was trying to remember who I was, or at least how I was. These changes were occurring at the very core of me, at a deeper level that I had ever known in this life.

The next day my friend and his team left the country and I entered the abyss. I have always and will always appreciate that they did their best to escort me in my introduction to this gift, and I am always grateful for it. Beyond the enigma of what was happening through me, we had discovered friendship between us. To have such friends, those who had walked similar paths and could empathize, to at least some degree, was priceless…The friends that rapidly came onboard as word spread about what I was doing had mad schedules of their own. Under constant demand themselves, I didn’t want to bother them. Occasionally, of course, it all became too much and I did.

I would call and say, “Something weird is happening” and go into it. I would usually finish with, “Is this normal?” How any of them did not blatantly laugh at that question, I don’t know. Invariably the answers were bloody frustrating. If it wasn’t “I don’t know”, (one of my own common answers these days), then it was “You already know the answer to that, Melissa, don’t you?” (apparently not) or “Keep going, Melissa. You’re doing an incredible thing.” These wonderful people knew, as I do now, that the truest education would come from within. That’s why I had to go over the precipice and down deep into the abyss.

The close-up into the life I now lead, the path I now go down, I would not ordinarily share with you. It is personal, and it hasn’t been easy. However, in the past couple of years it has become evident that people need to see the battle that went on within me so that they don’t feel alone in their own transition. Wisdom is born of experience and I would rather you could share in mine than walk the road alone, as I did.

That said, I recognize that I do in fact continue to walk the road alone. Scott Alexander King reminded me, in his book Animal Dreaming, that in my commitment to pass this on to you I chose to walk this spiritual path alone. For the only way I can truly assist anyone else is to take on the lesson myself and be true to the contract I not only agreed to, but orchestrated. I am fortunate that I have great friends and family who walk a similar road beside me, and my gratitude for them never wanes. When you get right down to it, however, this contract, this purpose, is my own responsibility.

A year or two into this, I was invited to a conference in Sedona, Arizona. By that stage I was tormented by the choices I had before me. Honestly, I was about to walk away from this work. I’d absolutely had enough of the small-minded, unethical and unprofessional behaviour of the people I was trying to work with. My business manager, Helen (very professional and great friend), was out shopping (while I was working!) when a man, a total stranger walked up to her and said, “I need to meet your friend.”

Helen knew me well, had walked beside me for some time, and replied, “That would be Mel.” By this stage, Helen was used to the amazing adventure that is my life.

He was Native American and he offered to take us into the Grand Canyon, to places that the general public wasn’t able to access. Helen arranged our schedule to enable us to go with him. It meant missing a crucial day of the conference (“It’s alright, Mel. You’re not presenting on that day.”) and I was expected to attend a dinner that evening, so I couldn’t believe she had arranged this. And yet we went.

Asked to meet him at 6:45 am in the hotel foyer, I was at the desk telling the staff that if anyone asked where I was, they should say they didn’t know, when I heard Helen greeting someone. I turned around and looked at this man for the first time, and fell back a couple of steps. I didn’t know who he was but I could feel how big he was. His presence was extraordinary. His peace was palpable. He introduced himself as Two Bears.

Helen had told me very little of the man who was taking us on this trip, so naturally I assumed he was our tour guide. A man of integrity (a hard thing to find for me at the time) with a great sense of humour, my god he made me laugh; but more than that, Two Bears had a calm that radiated wisdom. This, amid all his jokes and ironic anecdotes! But in his presence all at once you felt totally humbled and yet secure in an embrace, a blissful, soulful embrace, warm, effortless and comfortable. Helen had discovered quite a tour guide!

Loading us into his four-wheel drive (with me thinking, You’d think he’d keep it cleaner for the tourists), the journey began to the canyon. And oh, what a journey! Nonstop chatter bounced between the two of us and enormous laughter echoed off the metal shell in which we travelled. Every time we hit a bump in the road, Two Bears would break seamlessly into chant then re-enter whatever he was chatting about.

A colourful two hours later, we turned and crossed a boarder of sorts that had me perplexed, then entered what I can only sadly describe as a “poor” town. Poor financially, but rich, so rich in people.

We entered the Hualapai community and were welcomed openly, warmly, on a day that was celebration. Two Bears was welcomed reverently (He’s such a good tour guide, I thought) and chatted with those who seemed “in charge“. We were then guests at a parade for which the entire community came out. Tiny little dirt dancers kicking the dust up, with drums and music and chanting, children all playing their parts, and families all coming together. Beautiful. No-one wondered, stared, or asked what the blonde was doing in amongst it. I was readily welcomed. So of course I joined in.

We were farewelled with blessings as Two Bears then steered the four-wheel drive down what I was pretty sure was a goat track and we descended deeper into the canyon. I had handed myself to spirit, I must say, for I was fairly sure, travelling most of the trip bumping sideways down non-existent tracks, that we wouldn’t be leaving the canyon. My “tour guide” then pulled the car over. Towering walls of rock were around us and with tourist delight, I asked, “Is this it? Are we here?”

“We have stopped so that you understand…” The demeanour of my tour guide had new weight. He gently took me by the shoulders and turned me to face a cliff face. I fell to my knees as the tears fell from my eyes, looking upon the many, many anguished faces.

“This is the Crying Wall of the Hualapai…” he began in explanation.

To my jumbled body’s amazement, sometime later we arrived on the banks of the milky and hallowed Colorado River. Having an honoured and delicious lunch with Noni (the keeper of the canyon), I was ready to kick back in gratitude (that I was still alive) and relax, when Two Bears turned to me and said, “You need to tell me about the work you are doing.”

Two Bears, as it turned out, was a Sioux holy man. On this day he brought it all home to me, as I so desperately needed it to be. Upon his request I became his tour guide as I shared the journey I was now upon—”I work in healing…”—the challenges I faced, the incredible healings that were only becoming more amazing, the demand for me to teach and to share, and the dark night I was presently in.

“I was guided to bring you to this place. Look across the river.” On the other side of the river was a tall, sheer rock face and peaked upon it a huge rock formation, like a sculpture of a woman’s face, her face to the sky, her mouth in silent song, her hair cascading down the cliff. “This is the Guardian Maiden. She sings to Father Sky.” He turned to me. “Do you know where the Sioux come from?” I shook my head as I looked onward. He gently turned my face to his. “We come from the stars…”

He shared his story, personably, genuinely, before he asked me to work on him.

On this bright and brilliant day, I found myself doing a healing session on a Native American (he told me I could call him an Indian) holy man on the banks of the Colorado River in the middle of the Grand Canyon, our awning the incredible red rock grace known as the Guardian Maiden. Two Bears taught and shared so much, because it was what we were there, together, for; the one day in this life where he would play the role he had determined to play. The one day I would play my own for him. At the end of the day, the four-wheel drive slid sideways into the hotel in a cloud of desert dust. As we regretfully parted amid huge hugs and many blessings, he turned and imparted the wisdom he was there for.

“Melissa. Walk your path, and walk it true.” Then turned and walked away.

And I went to the dinner that night committed, come what may, to the task I am here for.

Allow me to share the wisdom I received with you.

Above all else walk your path, and walk it true. For it will benefit others even more, as well as benefit you. Seek and live by your own truth as you know it. Know your heart, your truth, and then whatever the situation, you will know: If it doesn’t ring true, it isn’t.