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Give the Gift of Health this Season.
Miakoda, Healing and Transformation Consultant
for all Ancestral Apothecary Products and Services
(Most consultations with Atava are available by phone, email or Skype, so you don’t have to live in the Bay Area to benefit from her healing expertise.)
Services Include:
Herbal Consultations: Wish to fine tune your health for the New Year? Looking for someone to help support and guide your path back to good health? In these individual appointments, we will discuss in detail your health history and concerns. You will receive a unique herbal formula made just for you by Atava to address your particular needs and constitution. Follow-up visits continue until your health issues have resolved. Occasional herbal consultations are a great idea for health maintenance as well.
Flower Essence Consultations: Stuck in an emotional rut? Wish you had a magic wand to conjure up some special energy for yourself? Flower essences are like this kind of magic in a bottle. They work particularly on the emotional, spiritual and mental realms to help us come back into balance and harmony.
Acupressure and Jin Shin Jyutsu®: Stressed? In pain? Feeling run down or in poor health? A quick way to help tune up your body is to receive a hands-on healing session from Atava. After sessions, clients report feeling immediately much better, including having more energy, more mental clarity and focus, and a greater sense of peace and well being.
Limpias: The limpia is a traditional Mexican ceremony that helps cleanse the body and spirit of unwanted energies. Limpias are a great way to work with shock, trauma, loss, and grief and they are also good if you just want help letting go of something.
Deep Genealogy Coaching: For people of all backgrounds who wish to connect more deeply with the indigenous spiritual traditions of their ancestors. In theses sessions, you will work one-on-one with Atava to navigate your personal ancestral remembrance process.
For more information including rates, click here to go to my website.
Buy Three Get One Free!
Purchase a package of three of any Ancestral Apothecary services and get the fourth free!
Treat your loved ones and yourself!
Mix and match any three services.
Call 510-541-2715 or email atava@ancestralapothecary.com, or click here to go to services page.
Good towards Herbal & Flower Essence Consultations, Acupressure and Jin Shin Jyutsu Sessions, Limpias, or Deep Genealogy Coaching. Purchase package of any three services and receive one free of equal or lesser value. Sliding scale rates do not apply.
Offer Expires 12/31/09
Tags: december specials, gifts
10 Tips to Stay Healthy This Season
1. Slow Down. Winter is for slowing down, taking time to rest, and drawing our focus inward. Many of us continue to stay too busy this time of year when our body naturally wants to slow down and get more rest. Learn to pay attention to your body’s signals for rest and make it a practice to not push yourself (or grab another cup of coffee) when you’re tired.
2. Eat well. Nutrition make a big difference for the immune system. Refined sugar both depresses your immune system and also feeds viruses and bacteria, so limit your intake of white processed sugar. It is best to limit wheat products, dairy products and cold food (ice cream), which all create more mucous & dampness in the body.
As the days grow colder, it is better to eat more cooked foods than raw. This means eat less salads or raw fruit and more steamed veggies, apple sauce or fruit compote. The best foods to eat this season are warm, cooked, nourishing foods like soups and stews. Cook with pungent foods that nourish your respiratory system like garlic, onions, and leeks. To make my soups more medicinal, I like to to add my Wei Chi Vitality mix, a blend of medicinal mushrooms and herbs, to my soup stock. It’s a very easy way to eat your medicine!
3. Sleep More. People need on average eight hours of sleep per night. Most people are getting less and are suffering from a sleep deficit. Lack of sleep can depress the immune system and contribute to many physical and emotional disorders including depression, anxiety, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
4. Wash your hands thoroughly. A client of mine who is a nurse recently told me that to get rid of all pathogens on your hands, you must wash your hands for at least 15 seconds. Anything shorter than that can leave bacteria and viruses on your skin. Friction is also important, so scrub your hands well. Good old fashioned soap works just fine…. don’t contribute to the polluting of our waters by buying anti-bacterial soap.
5. Garlic. Garlic is one of our most powerful herbal allies. It has anti-microbial, anti-viral and anti-fungal properties. With a strong affinity for the respiratory system, garlic has been traditionally used for colds, sore throats, coughs, and respiratory infections. When I feel the first signs of a cold I start eating lots of raw garlic- up to one clove 3-5 X/ day. My favorite thing to do is to cut it up and put on toast or on top of my food. You need to eat garlic raw to keep its anti-microbial benefits. To lessen garlic breath, chew on some fresh parsley or cilantro. Personally, I like the smell of garlic! For children and for people to whom garlic can be irritating to the digestive tract, a nice way to consume garlic is to make garlic honey or fire cider. Both garlic recipes can be found on other blog posts.
6. Elderberries. Elderberry brandy is a traditional wintertime tonic. Science has demonstrated that elderberries help protect the cell walls against viral attack. Daily consumption of Elderberry cordial can help prevent both flus and the common cold. For more elderberry recipes, see my blog post on elderberries.
Reishi (ganoderma lucidum) decoction.
7. Medicinal Mushrooms. Medicinal fungi like Reishi, Shiitake and Maitake mushrooms are amazing allies for our health. Mushrooms have been shown to boost the immune system and to help both prevent and treat many chronic illnesses, including cancer. Eating a few mushrooms (always cook them) every day or taking a Power Mushroom extract can boost your overall health tremendously. Click here to buy Ancestral Apothecary’s unique line of Power Mushroom medicinal mushroom extracts.
8. Vitamin D: I recently attended a panel on the H1N1 influenza virus. The panel consisting of a medical doctor, acupuncturist, western herbalist and a naturopath all unanimously agreed that boosting our levels of Vitamin D is one of the most important things we can do to support our immune system. A minimum recommended dosage is 4,000 IU/day and can be safely increased up to 10,000 IU/day.
9. Essential Oils. Most essential oils have amazing anti-microbial properties. This is because the essential oils are part of the plants’ immune systems. Over thousands of years, the plants developed these chemical compounds to protect themselves against bacteria, viruses and fungi.
To have the protection of essential oils when I go out in public, I like to carry an essential oil hand spray that I made to spritz my hands when needed. Good anti-microbial essential oils include lavender, rosemary and tea tree.
A good investment is an aromatherapy diffuser to infuse your home, car or office with the essential oils. I highly recommend the Community Immunity Diffuser Blend Series from Floracopeia. They blend together many plants of similar ecosystems to create powerful anti-microbial protection for your living environments. My favorite blend is called Forest, and smells like a good walk in high Sierra woods. Click here to visit the Floracopeia website.
10. Make an appointment with your herbalist and your bodyworker! The best way to create a health care regime that is custom designed for you is to work with a professional clinician. I may see several clients with the same condition, but I will treat each one with different herbs, based on each person’s unique constitution and set of circumstances. Also, as an herbalist I am trained to help guide and support you to make nutritional and lifestyle choices that will help you achieve better physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. I am available for appointments via phone, Skype or email for people who do not live in the California Bay Area.
Acupressure and Jin Shin Jyutsu® sessions can help to tune up your body’s energy, can help to release emotions stored in the body (which can lead to illness), can boost your immunity and vitality, and can leave you feeling calm, energized and totally rejuvenated. Many of my clients report that they “feel like an entirely new person” after receiving a session from me. For more information about making an appointment, click here to go to our website.
Tags: flu, Health, herbal medicine
I heart Ginger
This month, despite careful hand washing and herbal preventative care, I fell prey to a nasty stomach virus. Or it could have been food poisoning, due to eating Thanksgiving leftovers that had been left out a little too long. (Good thing I don’t have to see or smell another stuffed turkey for at least one year!)
One herbal ally played an important role in nursing me back to health: ginger, the fabulous tropical root. Warming and spicy, ginger is one of the best all-around remedies for digestive upset caused by unwanted bacteria or viruses. Ginger is anti-spasmodic and anti-microbial and has a strong affinity to the digestive tract and is great for relieving nausea, diarrhea, indigestion, gas, and intestinal cramping. It is good at warming up the body and can be used for poor circulation and cold hands and feet. It is also warming to the uterus and can be helpful with menstrual cramping due to congestion. Because of its anti-nausea effect, ginger has also gained attention for being helpful for motion sickness.
There are many ways to ingest ginger! You can decoct (gently boil) a piece of the fresh root for 20 minutes to make a strong tea. I like to add 1/4- 1/2 tsp of powdered ginger to hot water to make an instant cup of tea. For nausea, it sometimes helps to suck on a small piece of the fresh root. I have found candied ginger to also be helpful for nausea.
Here are some more specific ginger recipes for the stomach flu:
Ginger-echinacea tea for stomach virus or food poisoning
1 tsp echinacea tincture
1/4 tsp powdered ginger root or tincture of ginger
Add ingredients to your favorite tea mug. Cover with boiling water, allow to steep for a few minutes. Best to drink hot.
Alternative Recipe:
3 TBS echinacea root
3 TBS fresh ginger root
4 cups water.
Add ingredients to pot. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain and drink hot.
For diarrhea, add 1 tsp blackberry root tincture or 2 TSP blackberry root to either recipe.
Ginger Honey Recipe
Fill small jar with lots of chopped or grated fresh ginger.
Cover with honey.
Store in cool dark place for 2 weeks.
It’s ready to eat! You can scoop it out of the jar and add to warm water or enjoy a spoonful by itself.
Whole Foods Ginger Tonic Recipe
Thanks to my sister, who figured out this recipe.
Ingredients:
Fresh ginger root
Limes or lime juice
Agave nectar
Chop big piece of fresh ginger root.
Add to pot with 1 quart water.
Simmer gently for at least one hour.
Cool, then blend the contents of the pot (ginger and water).
Strain and add lime juice and agave juice to your taste.
Garlic, Garlic, Garlic!
With all the media attention to the H1N1 virus, everyone is talking about remedies for preventing the flu. One of my favorite herbal allies for the cold & flu season is garlic.
Garlic has anti-microbial, anti-viral and anti-fungal properties. With a strong affinity for the respiratory system, garlic has been traditionally used for colds, flu, sore throats, coughs, and respiratory infections. Garlic has also been used for earaches, parasites, intestinal infections, fungal infections and weak digestion. Garlic also has great benefits to the circulatory system as it helps with impaired blood circulation and also helps to lower both cholesterol and blood pressure.
When I feel the first signs of a cold I start eating lots of raw garlic- up to one clove 3-5 X/ day. Garlic needs to be consumed raw to keep its anti-microbial benefits. My favorite thing to do is to cut it up and put on toast or on top of my food.
To lessen garlic breath, chew on some fresh parsley or cilantro. Personally, I like the smell of garlic! For children and for people to whom garlic can be irritating to the digestive tract, a nice way to consume garlic is to make garlic honey, syrup or fire cider. For babies and small children, mash several cloves of garlic, mix with olive oil and tape to the soles of the feet. Cover with socks and leave on for a few hours or overnight. The garlic is absorbed through the skin and moves quickly to the respiratory tract.
GARLIC HONEY
You will need: A jar, lots of garlic (2-3 heads), and honey.
Chop up or press the garlic and fill the jar.
Pour enough honey over the garlic to cover it. (Garlic may float to the top)
Cover, place in a cool, dark spot for 2 weeks.
Your garlic honey is ready. You may eat directly, or mix into some warm water. Enjoy!
ENCHANTED GARLIC SYRUP (From A Kid’s Herb Book by Lesley Tierra)
“This syrup is especially good for stubborn coughs, bronchitis, penumonia, mucus and lung congestion due to coldness (when there is clear to white mucus).”
Mix together thoroughly:
1/2 cup lemon juice (freshly squeezed is preferable
1/2 cup water
5 large cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 tsp grated ginger or 1/4 tsp ginger powder
a dash of cayenne powder
1/2 cup honey
Take in teaspoon doses every two hours or as needed.
FIRE CIDER
Ingredients: Garlic, ginger, onions, horseradish, cayenne, mustard seeds, black pepper, honey.
Mix together in equal parts (or adjust to your liking):
Lots of garlic
Lots of ginger
Lots of onions
Lots of horseradish
Optional ingredients: Cayenne powder, mustard seeds, black peppercorns.
Chop, mince or grate all the fresh herbs. Fill into a glass jar.
Add additional ingredients.
Cover with apple cider vinegar.
Sit in a cool dark place for one month. Shake daily.
Strain, add one part honey to 3 parts of the vinegar mixture to help preserve.
Drink 1 tsp daily as a tonic. Increase to 3 X/ day when feel first signs of a cold.
Can be taken when you have a cold with cold symptoms (feel cold, clear runny mucus). Not recommended when you have fever and signs of heat (yellow mucus).
Tags: garlic, garlic recipes
10 Tips to Stay Healthy this Fall Season
1. Slow Down. Winter is for slowing down, taking time to rest and drawing our focus inward. Take time to read, write, be creative, cook yummy foods and to rest.
2. Sleep More. People need on average 8 hours of sleep per night. Most people are getting less. Lack of sleep can contribute to many physical and emotional disorders including depression, anxiety, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
3. Avoid Processed Sugar. Refined sugar (including corn syrup) is very inflammatory. Inflammation in the body is the leading cause of many diseases, including heart disease, arthritis, asthma, colitis and chronic pain. A sugar binge can depress your immune system and make you more susceptible to getting sick.
4. Listen to your dreams. When we pay attention to our dreams, they can advise us and guide us about our physical, emotional and spiritual health. Find a dream journal, keep it next to your bed and jot down your dreams when you wake up.
5. Do what you love. Happiness releases serotonin in our brains, which naturally boosts our immune system. Happiness is good for your health!
6. Spend time in nature. Breathe fresh air, watch birds, feel the ocean breeze….
7. Elderberries. Elderberry brandy is a traditional wintertime tonic. Science has demonstrated that elderberries help protect the cell walls against viral attack. Daily consumption of Elderberry cordial can help prevent both flus and the common cold. Ancestral Apothecary sells Elderberry Cordial.
8. Exercise regularly. Exercise boosts both our mood and our immune systems. Find some kind of exercise that you enjoy. It’s best when it is something you look forward to doing!
9. Medicinal Mushrooms. Medicinal fungi like Reishi, Shitake and Maitake mushrooms are amazing allies for our health. Mushrooms boost the immune system and help both to prevent and treat many chronic illnesses, including cancer. Eating a few mushrooms (always cook them) every day or taking a Power Mushroom extract can boost your overall health tremendously.
10. Give thanks. If you need inspiration, check out this great website: www.gratefulness.org.
Tags: Health, immune system
Adaptogens, Herbal Allies for Stressful Times
As a clinical herbalist, one of my favorite categories of herbs are the adaptogens. I love adaptogens because they help us to adapt to all kinds of stress, including physical stress, emotional stress, and environmental stress. This means that they help the human body to adapt and better handle the stresses we face everyday, from being stuck in rush hour traffic, to a fight with our boss, to being exposed to countless toxins in our food, air and water.
“Adaptogen” is a term that was coined by a Soviet scientists in 1968. At this time in Soviet history, the Soviet Academy of Science was given an assignment to create a product that would help increase the performance of its top athletes, dancers, cosmonauts and military class. Their research led to an extensive study of herbal medicines that could help optimize the potential of the human body.
The first modern definition of adaptogen, as defined by Soviet scientist Nikolai Lazarev is:
1. An adaptogen is nontoxic to the recipient.
2. The adaptogen produces a nonspecific response in the body- an increase in the power of resistance against multiple stressors including physical, chemical or biological agents.
3. An adaptogen has a normalizing influence on physiology, irrespective of the direction of change from physiological norms caused by the stressor.
Modern adaptogens include plants and fungi that have been held in highest regard in different cultures for thousands of years. They include Siberian Ginseng (eleutherococcus), Reishi Mushroom (Ganoderma lucidum), Ashwaghanda (Withania somnifera), American ginseng (Panax quinqefolius), Asian Ginseng (Panax ginseng), Schizandra (Schisandra chinensis) and Rhodiola (Rhodiola rosea).
An excellent book on adaptogens is Adaptogens: Herbs for Strength, Stamina, and Stress Relief, by David Winston and Steven Maimes. They cover the history of adaptogens and the physiology of stress and how adaptogens work in the body. The book also covers in depth many of the modern adaptogenic herbs and talks about how to use them in clinical herbal practice. I love this book and consider it one of my most treasured herbal referenced.
Tags: Adaptogens, herbal medicine, stress
Flower Essences for Healing, Recovery & the 12 Steps
This post is based on a workshop I taught on Flower Essences for Recovery at the Mandana House in Oakland, CA.
Flower Essences are a form of vibrational or energetic medicine. They address the emotional, mental, and spiritual components of wellness. By connecting the individual to the spirit of Nature, flower essences help awaken the beneficial and healing qualities within us. Flower essence remedies are safe and effective for adults, children, the elderly, animals and plants.
Rescue Remedy/ Five Flower Formula
Crisis: Desert Emergency Formula- Encourage calmness and stability in any time of shock, trauma, stress, or injury. Great for all levels of recovery, whenever in place of extreme stress, transition, or crisis.
Cherry Plum- For fear of nervous breakdown, or losing control of the mind. Helps one to connect and surrender to their Higher Self/Higher Power. (To “Let Go and Let God”.)
Sweet Chestnut- For the “dark night of the soul.” Helps cultivate courage, as well as and faith and trust in a Higher Power/Goddess/God/Spirit World. Indicated when one has reached “rock bottom” in their addiction.
Self-Heal- To connect to one’s innate ability to heal. Helps cultivate a strong sense of wellness. For taking responsibility for one’s healing.
Sacred Datura- For disintegration of a known form of reality. Feeling as if your being/identity is dissolving. To help see beyond one’s present view of reality to a much more expanded state.
Angelica- For connecting with one’s Higher Power/Higher Self, as well as benevolent angels and spirit guides in one’s life.
Centaury- For an unhealthy need to serve or please others, a remedy for those working with co-dependence.
Sticky Monkeyflower- For deep fear of intimacy and sexuality, which can manifest as either sexual addiction or anorexia. Helps build balanced integration of human warmth and sexual intimacy.
California Poppy- For those who are attracted to the glamour of spiritual highs that come from outside of the Self. For addiction to narcotic and hallucinogenic drugs, materialism, and fame. For cultivating a true spirituality centered in one’s heart.
Black-eyed Susan- For penetrating insight into the painful and buried aspects of personality. Cultivates ability to consciously acknowledge all aspects of self, including the “shadow”.
Holly- Remedy for a closed heart. For jealousy, suspicion, anger. Opens the heart, develops compassion.
Willow- For feeling resentful, bitter, like one is a victim. Encourages acceptance and taking personal responsibility for one’s life.
Pine- For guilt and self-blame. Promotes self-acceptance and forgiveness.
Mimulus- For known fears, and shyness. Helps with courage and confidence.
Mariposa Lily- For healing emotional wounds around childhood, especially issues around mother and mothering.
Saguaro Cactus- For feeling powerless, and not trusting one’s inner wisdom. Helps us access our deepest inner wisdom. The “true father” remedy that helps us to empower ourselves.
Scarlet Monkeyflower- For repression and fear of intense emotions, such as rage and powerlessness.
Buttercup- For low self-esteem issues. To cultivate self love, and a knowing of one’s inner beauty.
Wild Oat- For finding one’s true calling and vocation. For developing a life and work that is a true expression of one’s inner values.
California Wild Rose- A remedy for apathy. For enthusiastic love for and service to All Our Relations.
Iris- For creativity and divine inspiration. A remedy for feeling dull and uninspired.
Administering Flower Essences
How do I use Flower Essences?
The most common way to take flower essences is directly from a dosage bottle. A common dosage is to take 4 drops 4 times/day. We can take a single flower essence at once, or in combination with other flower essences or herbs.
Another way to use flower essences is to add seven drops into a mister bottle. In this way, we can mist our home or office environment with our flower essences. By adding essential oils to the mister bottles we enhance our flower essences with the benefits of aromatherapy.
For topical use, add 4-7 drops of flower essences to your favorite cream, lotion, or massage oil. You can also apply the essences directly to the skin.
Flower essences are safe and effective for adults, children, infants, animals and plants. Animals and children are especially sensitive to the healing energies of flower essences. For children, add 1-4 drops of flower essences to juice or water. For animals, add 1-4 drops to their food or drinking water. Essences can also be applied topically to skin or fur. For plants, add flower essences to watering can. Diseased or injured plants, as well as transplants all benefit from Rescue Remedy. Mist with flower essences in the home environment of the animal, child or plant.
SHAKE WELL! Always shake your flower essences before taking. Shaking helps activate the energy of the flower essence. As I like to say, shaking the dosage bottle wakes up the sleeping flower fairies and lets them know it’s time for work.
Flower Essence Therapy
by Atava Garcia Swiecicki, MA, Registered Herbalist (American Herbalist Guild) and Flower Essence Practitioner in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Thich Nhat Hahn
What are Flower Essences?
Flower essences are the energetic, or vibrational imprint of a plant. Flower essences contain the essence, spirit or intelligence of a plant. Each essence contains the unique life force and healing properties of each particular flower from which it is made.
How are Flower Essences made?
Flower essences are made with the blossoms of a flower infused into water in full sunlight. In making a flower essence we are careful not to harm the plant. Only a few blossoms are needed. Sometimes, with rare or endangered flowers, we need not even pick any- instead, we gently lean the flower into the water. The original flower water is called the mother essence. From the mother essence, flower essences are diluted in a way similar to homeopathy, and then preserved with brandy.
How do flower essences work?
Flower essences help to shift our consciousness. Flower essences help awaken our awareness to our patterns of imbalance, and provide us with the energetic support to make positive changes. They bless us with the power of Nature. Cynthia Athena Kemp Scherer of Desert Alchemy writes that flower essences are “nature’s tuning forks. As we use the essence we begin to resonate in harmony with the qualities of the flower, and limitations and disharmonies begin to change.”
Flower essences stimulate our own innate wise woman ability to heal ourselves. Dr. Edward Bach, the pioneer of flower essence therapy writes:
“They cure, not by attacking the disease but by flooding our bodies with the beautiful vibrations of our Higher Nature, in the presence of which, disease melts away as snow in the sunshine.”
How can I be helped with Flower Essences?
Flower essences are a subtle, yet profound system of healing. They help harmonize our mental, emotional, and spiritual bodies. In this way, flower essences address the root of many of our healing projects. Flower essences work with a broad range of important healing issues, including depression, creativity, sexuality, addiction/recovery, old traumas, stress, relationships, spirituality, and work.
As a form of vibrational healing, flower essences do not work directly on the physical body or issues of physical disharmony. Instead, they work on our energetic or etheric bodies. As the flower essences help shift our energy fields, they reach the emotional and spiritual roots of physical illness. In this way, flower essences can be a catalyst for deep healing within our mind, body and spirit.
How Dreams Can Heal
How Dreams Can Heal
Mr. Hale Makua, Hawiian elder
I have been listening to my dreams my entire life. In fact, one of my earliest childhood memories is of a scary dream of a big black raven. Later, when I was around 9 years old I had another nightmare that at my tender age sent me to the library researching books on dream interpretation.
As I grew up, I continued to jot down my dreams in journals. I never knew quite what to do with them, I only knew that they felt important and worth keeping.
In graduate school as a student of Dr. Apela Colorado, I was introduced to an entire new universe of dreaming. I learned that dreams are of central importance in many traditional indigenous cultures. I began to track my dreams according to the signs of the sun, moon and planets. I realized that my dreams were full of messages from the ancestors. We students in the Indigenous Mind program began to rediscovered the power of our collective dreaming. Sometimes our dreams would have similar themes or images; sometimes we would dream for each other; sometimes our dreams would fit together like pieces of an intricate puzzle.
Reverend Jeremy Taylor
One of our assigned books to read was Healing Dreams by Marc Ian Barasch. I was fascinated to read the story of the author, who was able to diagnose his own cancer by listening carefully to his dreams. As someone who had studied and practiced healing arts for 20 years, I became intrigued by this process of dream diagnosis. What if our dreams do in fact, hold the key to our healing? I have had many clients with illnesses hard to diagnose and even more difficult to treat. I began to encourage them to look towards their own dreams, not just for information on their illness, but also to find the prescription for cure.
At the 2007 IASD’s Psiberdreaming Conference, I participated in a workshop entitled “Mind-Body Healing through Dreamwork” led by Ed Kellog, Ph.D. I was very inspired by his work. Later, in a live lucid dream chat, I learned from Ed about his “lucid dream challenges”. In these, the dreamer becomes lucid (awakens in the dream) and challenges himself to some task he or she has chosen before falling asleep. As a die-hard Harry Potter fan, I was intrigued by Kellogg’s “Harry Potter” lucid dream challenge. In this challenge, the lucid dreamer would visit Hogwarts and practice various Hogwarts spells. I was thrilled at the opportunity. Who hasn’t had the fantasy of being able to make magic?
Around this same time, I was dealing with a chronic painful condition in my right shoulder. I decided to incubate a dream in which I practiced a Hogwarts spell which would also send some healing energy to my shoulder. The spell I chose was “Lumos!” which calls forth light. The directions I gave myself before going to sleep were: 1) become lucid, 2) practice the “Lumos!” spell, and 3) once the light appeared, direct the light to help heal my shoulder.
As I drifted off to sleep, in my mind’s eye I practiced waving my magic wand. The next morning I woke up around 5:30 am and without my lucid dream. “Oh well. I’ll try again another night,” I thought, too sleepy to really be that disappointed. I drifted back to sleep. Soon I was dreaming again and found myself in an underground cavern. Suddenly I realized. “Wow! I’m dreaming! Time to practice my magic spell.” I began to enthusiastically wave my hand, which was holding a magic wand. “Lumos!” I cried as a bright light burst from the tip of my wand. My wand blazed with a neon green light, much like a Star Wars light saber. “Cool!” I exclaimed and began swirling my light saber, watching the beams bounce off the walls of the cave. In the midst of the fun, I remembered that I still had more work to do- heal my shoulder. As used my mind to direct the light to my shoulder, it changed both color and shape into a bright lazer-red eye, shaped like the eye of Horus. This eye is an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection and power.
I awoke amazed. The chronic pain in my shoulder seemed to have decreased. In the months to come, I continued to reflect on the red eye of Horus to guide my healing process. My shoulder went through many more phases (including completely frozen!) but my dreams continued to be my allies that guided my process.
Tags: Dreams, Healing, healing dreams
