A DAY FOCUSED ON QUIETING THE MIND USING A VARIETY OF TOOLS

by Marlene Harris 

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Around 15 years ago Calgary First Spiritualist Church enjoyed visits from Rosa Trakostanec, also known as Rosie White Elk Medicine Woman, a spirit medium working as shamanic healer, teacher and master practitioner of the healing arts, based mostly in Port Coquitlam, B.C. The day before giving her Sunday lecture, titled “A Tool to Quiet the Mind”, she arrived at our Saturday’s Advanced Energy Healing session to experience a trance healing. At the end of our healing hour, when all the recipients had moved out of the client care room which was downstairs then, and when I was just straightening up the chairs, I noticed a pipe wrench was left sitting on a chair in the same area where Rosa had been sitting. And I wondered if she had forgotten the tool she would be using the following day to quiet our minds! Fortunately it was not that tool! 

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The tool Rosa talked about was the ability to keep one’s mind focused on the present moment, obliterating all thoughts from the past and all worries about the future. Only in the present moment does healing occur, and miracles take place. Eckhart Tolle has written extensively about the “Power of Now”. ASHA’s retreat this year at the Priddis Spiritwood Retreat gifted 18 participants with a variety of tools to quiet the mind by experiencing the POWER of NOW: Prayers, Qi Gong movements, pendulum work, La Poodella’s insights, and soundscape frequencies, to say nothing about the fabulous lunch provided! 

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A big thank you goes to the very helpful team of ASHA healers who generously volunteered their time to ensure the success of this retreat: event committee members Rev. Bette Wood, Lelania Diniakos & Sandy Estabrook, with Bette as organizer, Bette & Lelania as shoppers who prepared an exquisite lunch, and Sandy who contributed to kitchen clean up; Loraleigh Peterson as greeter and treasurer who dealt with contracts and accepted payments online and at the door; all drivers who offered ride share; all ASHA members who contributed to its Angel Fund; and all those who assisted Doug McMurray and Sidney Clayton with take down and clean up at the end. 

Doug McMurray, ASHA’s president, welcomed everyone and gave the opening remarks, followed by Trudy Mayer, owner of Spiritwood, Priddis, who also gave a warm welcome to everyone, along with a few housekeeping details. Rev. Bette Wood then honoured our spiritual connection to the Light and the ‘power of now’ with an opening prayer, the perfect lead in to the first major activity of the day: Qi Gong movement sequences aptly directed by Joanne Clarkson. With such relaxing, slow and graceful movements through our auric fields, we all turned into angels enjoying what could be called ‘spiritual line dancing’. 

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Qi Gong movements look and may feel quite innocuous but many years ago I was made aware of their amazing power. A teenage boy, about 18 years old was describing his experience as a participant in a long weekend Qi Gong retreat. He and a friend had worked as partners for the final confirmation of the power coming through their auric fields at the end of the 3 days. For the final test, this boy was standing about 10 to 15 feet behind his friend who was facing away from him, so that his friend could not see anything taking place behind him. The boy behind was instructed to do some Qi Gong sequences and then at one point, without indicating to the friend in front, he was to extend his open hands, arms and body slightly ahead and very forcefully give a big push in the air toward his friend’s back. The boy doing the pushing said he could hardly believe his eyes when his friend just about fell forward onto the floor! This was obviously an indication of the ‘power of now’! 3 

 

Qi Gong is said to merge martial arts, meditation and breathing to enhance the flow of one’s life force. Joanne admitted to us that practising Qi Gong exercises has been truly transformational for her, changing her life for the better. Thank you, Sandy, for putting us in touch with Joanne! 

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Next came our first session of ‘Working with the Pendulum’, facilitated by our expert dowser, Louise Gebhart, who would continue with her second session after lunchtime. Unlike the sweeping body movements of Qi Gong, we could instead all sit down and watch the sweeping movements of our pendulums! Louise first issued some important guidelines when using the pendulum: 

• Begin with the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I cannot accept, and the wisdom to know the difference.” 

• Always keep a positive mindset because the pendulum will pick up your most frequent thoughts. 

• Have compassion. 

• Use simple and precise questions that can be answered with a yes or no. It’s often wise to make the first question “Is this a good time to ask this question?” 

• The pendulum is an honest system and coincides with the natural laws of the universe. 

• Ask for permission before asking questions pertaining to others. You have to be invited in. 

• Pendulum work is good for gathering information. 

• It’s our intention that makes the pendulum work. 

• Once blockages caused by trauma have been removed, you must fill the space with positive energies that are for the highest good of everyone. 
   

After working diligently in dyads or triads, asking multitudes of questions, some of us started asking our pendulums, “Am I feeling hungry at this moment?” Being an honest system, the pendulums circled a forceful ‘yes’! And in short order we found ourselves exercising our jaws with mouthfuls of scrumptious sandwiches, coleslaw, chickpea salad, watermelon, squares, etc. Thanks to Bette and Lelania we were again smitten by the power of now! 

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After an hour-long peaceful, relaxing lunchtime, we were well-prepared to withstand the unleashed, gut-wrenching and passionate onslaught of advice from the spiritual enigma we’ve come to know as La Poodella, the woman who runs with poodles! La Poodella (Rev. Jane Fleming) delights living in the present moment, taking full advantage of the ‘power of now’, as she pays no mind to traditional ideas nor to future concerns. Her timely crusade implores us to become like her, shamans in our own ‘rite’, adopting more modern ways of doing shamanic journeys with our indigenous guides. She exudes confidence that we too can create our new natural shamanic journey by following her wise counsel: 

• Choose your power animal, either real or stuffed. 

• Do a sun dance with Sunscreen—Block 15, and have compassion for Mother Earth. 

• Prepare for your shamanic journey with some unusual spirits, the likes of scotch whiskey perhaps. 

• Create your own medicine wheel by making a circle of all your prescription drugs, wherein you can be your own shaman. 

• Go on a vision quest, such as a shopping spree. 

• Honour your ancestors’ heritage by sharing the fruits of your shopping quest. 

 

Finally, La Poodella asked herself, “I wonder, how many of us have already become shamans in our own ‘rite’?” My guess is that most of us are already there! 

Bidding farewell once again to La Poodella, we wished her all the best in her next shamanic journey, and welcomed back Louise, our pendulum guru, to continue working with an honest system that we could all trust! This session of pendulum work focused on influencing the future with our positive thoughts. We were asked to look for the circumstance that appeared to cause a problem we are facing. Using our pendulum in conjunction with our intuitiveness and our voices, we practiced in triads and dyads removing blockages and creating positive changes in our life. Problems in and around knee joints seemed to be quite common. Louise pointed out that our knees are our hardest working joints and behind our knee joint is the biggest ligament in the body, extending down to our feet. She mentioned that problems with hips often relate to family issues. Louise finished with the words of a true optimist: “We can change the karma in our lives.” Regarding the karma we attract, Paramahansa Yogananda has issued a wise reminder: 

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Before you act, you have freedom, but after you act, the effect of that action will follow you whether you want it to or not. That is the law of karma. You are a free agent, but when you perform a certain act, you will reap the results of that act. 

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Next arrived Trevor Uruski, another skillful guru working in the ‘power of now’, blowing with great expertise into his didgeridoos, non-stop for at least one hour, as he did for ASHA at last year’s retreat. Along with these huge wind instruments, Trevor was incredibly adept in adding in a variety of smaller percussion instruments, culminating in the transmission of a great number of healing frequencies, a process he referred to as a ‘Soundscape’. Some of us sat in our chairs while others laid down on yoga mats. Trevor, on the other hand, walked around us all the time as he performed. 

 

Trevor had great stage presence, explaining at the outset how playing didgeridoos had greatly aided his own healing, and then after his hour of music, demonstrating how he does circular breathing and finally answering many questions. 

One participant asked if it’s very difficult blowing into a digeridoo. Trevor said he learned from his teacher, Gary Diggins, based in Ontario, who is a professional horn player, that it’s easier blowing into a digeridoo than into a horn. Trevor, who also teaches playing the digeridoo, was able to recommend a couple of digeridoos for beginners to start with. I asked Trevor what he thought the causative factor in this music might have been with respect to his own healing from an addiction. He said that he had to do the spiritual work first, to realize that he wasn’t just a ‘stupid piece of crap’ (his words), and that he had a purpose in life after all. Just at this time he ended up in Diggin’s digeridoo class and realized he could play the instrument well and that’s how he could share himself with others. His passion now is to share his joy in teaching the digeridoo to his students. Trevor put the WOW! in the POWER of NOW! 

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On the heels of Trevor’s Soundscape, came Pepita Gicuhi’s Quietscape, a concluding prayer of immense gratitude to the Great Spirit. What else could we say but a sincere thank you for the empowering and healing light that shines forever in us and in all creation? Thank you, Pepita, for voicing your heartfelt prayer of gratitude on behalf of all of us. 

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There is a light this world cannot give. Yet you can give it, as it was given you….Light is unlimited, and spreads across this world in quiet joy.  (A Course in Miracles.)