Several months ago, a friend approached me with a question. If I were to get up in front of a large audience and speak about something I thought would make their lives better, what would that subject be? For the last several years of my teaching and speaking career, my first response would have been to say, “Empowerment.” This time however, I looked at my friend and without missing a beat said, “The Serenity Prayer.”

HEALING

What defines “healing”? Webster would say to make healthy, whole, or sound. But, what are the determining factors for this? Is there a perfect picture of health we must strive for and anything less than that needs to be “healed”? Is it a life without any sense of physical pain, or mental, emotional anguish? We could probably all agree that without discomfort we wouldn’t know comfort. So, how do we know what needs to be “fixed,” who does the fixing, and when? If you are looking to be healed by a “healer,” are you actually relinquishing your personal power over your own state of well being? An important introspective question to ask yourself would be whether or not you are anticipating the healer to know what defines health for you above and beyond your own self-knowledge. Perhaps if signs and symptoms of disease present themselves in an overwhelming manner it could shake your self-confidence enough to lose faith in your own understanding of the healing process. At that time, it may indeed make good sense to illicit the help of another, but with a clear sense of partnership in the relationship.

Dear Editor,

I have enjoyed your paper and its simple advice for some time. It is nice to read about others and their paths to enlightenment and happier living. By hearing about others’ attempts it offers the strength to find our own path.

This is why I would like to submit the following piece about my path to a happier state of mind. It is about my commute, the bus and a slower pace. Please enjoy.

Anton Rick-Ossen, Hartford, Connecticut

This little boy looked
To his mother
Why mom why
She replied I don’t know
Son that is just the way
It is now go out and play
As he turned and took
That first step
The search began

In the summer or 2005 I was invited by Jose Luis Herrera to travel into the high Andes of Peru with a select group of people to sit in Ceremony with the mountain spirits (Apus). I had heard tales about Q’ero Medicine People who were able to summon Apus into rooms. The Apus would manifest as Winged Beings, and would travel great distances, flying through walls. The beings would come for the purpose of delivering messages of healing and well-being. The medicine people who have a relationship with mountains and sit in ceremony with Apus are called Altomesayoks. To be asked to travel with a small group into the Andes with Jose Luis was an honor. This would be the first Mountain Research Mission into Peru with the intent of recording and learning more about the work of the Alto Mesayokes.

Women have been giving birth for thousands of years. The processes of labor and birth have remained the same, but the ways women give birth have changed dramatically over the past 100 years (just ask your mother and grandmother). Fortunately, women giving birth today have more choices in childbearing than ever before. One option growing in popularity is the freestanding birth center.

If you chose to work with a freestanding birth center, you would have your prenatal visits in the office at the birth center, you would see your care provider on the same schedule as you would if attending any other clinic, you would have the option for the same prenatal screenings and tests as you would in another clinic setting. You would go to the birth center when you are in labor, just as you would go to the hospital.

So what makes a
freestanding birth center different?

When stress takes over your body, your muscles tighten, your teeth clench, and your heart pounds. Adrenalin floods through your tissues, sending your body the fight-or-flight signal. Long-term exposure to stressors causes a constant state of body tension and emotional exhaustion, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Without a release, your body can react with headaches, chronic fatigue, ulcers, high blood pressure, insomnia, and a host of other health problems.

Koshonic Body Stress Release© or a Koshonic treatment as it is otherwise known is a method of complementary and alternative/ integrative medicine used by trained and certified allied health professionals who manually apply a subtle movement of the chi or "life force energy" about the body in an attempt to bring the body, mind, and spirit into harmony.

The Koshonic treatment combines deeply relaxing techniques with energy balancing and remedial bodywork. While working on an emotional level, after a treatment the receiver often experiences freedom from worry, anxiety, fear and other negative thought patterns. The true purpose of a Koshonic treatment is to bring balance and sense of well being of body, mind and spirit.

In the middle of a field
he stands alone
No supports
No visible comforts
None of his own kind within
voices reach
Awaiting the unsure seasons