On Healing

I have been thinking about healing lately, and it is a big subject. Too big for one brief blog post. I have many thoughts about healing.

Is healing for me, or for thee?

It is interesting to me that most of the initiations that we receive start with magick for self-healing. Reiki, Vodou, even my ascension practice with Kwan Yin - they do not say this explicitly, but it is obvious that the very first patient to be treated is the self.

All I can say about that is that it may be the hardest part - the healing of the Self.
Because it triggers everything that comes after it.

Anyway, I never thought of myself as a healer for anyone else. It is presumptuous, for one thing, to believe that "we" can heal anyone but ourselves. For another thing, I feel that healing in our society has become medicalized to the point that it is hard to understand exactly what healing is! Is healing the same as curing? Is healing about reconciling with physical affliction? Is it something that occurs from the inside out, or from the outside-in?

I have since come to two conclusions that I have more to say about: first, as Karen McCarthy Brown, the Religion anthropologist, has said, all rituals - no matter how big, how small, in every form and in every respect, are about healing. Healing here simply means balancing, normalizing, optimizing form and energy. Healing may or may not be physical.

Second, and this is most important: healing is a matter of free will. This is a tough concept. Suffice to say that all of us do not want healing in this time and space, for any number of reasons. In order for a person to be healed, they must agree with an honest "yes," to themselves, and to the healer.

...and this is because ultimately we are the only ones that can heal ourselves.

to be continued