High Mesa Happenings & Heartstrings

Massage School

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of some body massage by one of our students* . It was so good to be lying there in the yurt having a beautiful young lady work on my shoulders. She did not know it but it was a compliment to the Physical Therapy I had in the morning. It was just great to be in the energy of the students as they learned and worked together on each other. They seem so happy to be learning a new profession and Shiva is right there with her enthusiasm and love of teaching. Now, am I a lucky woman or what? 

 

Barbara

 

 

* Students of the Mountain Meadow Massage School

Come see China through Barbara's eyes.

Barbara Mader will be presenting a lively talk & slide show on her recent experiences in China, where she traveled with the Delegation of the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health. Join her at High Mesa Healing Center on Saturday, October 24^th at 6:30 to hear her speak about, and show us, some of the ways in which the Chinese have integrated modern Western medicine with TCM, traditional Chinese Medicine. She will include her impressions of the differences between the Chinese culture as she saw it and the perceptions we have seen portrayed in the American media, and talk about the warmth & friendliness of the Chinese people.

 

In this time of intense conversation about health care, you may find it interesting to learn how such an ancient culture as the Chinese has managed to integrate traditional and modern practices to gain the maximum benefit from both.

 

The Nightingale Initiative works in conjunction with the People to People Citizen Ambassador Program which began in 1956. The trip to China was led by Barbara Dossey, PhD, RN, AHN-BC, FAAN.

 

Barbara Mader, RN, CHTP, Reiki Master, has been a registered nurse for 56 years, has been active in energy medicine for 23 years, and is a member of the AHNA, the American Holistic Nurses Assoc. She is the owner/operator of High Mesa Healing Center in Alto, New Mexico, where she specializes in Healing Touch and a wide variety of energy work.

Time-Honored and Skilled Sweat Lodges at HMHC

Sweat Lodge participants are expressing concern, following an ill-fated Sweat Lodge incident in Arizona. Shirley, a HMHC Reader, sent the following message to our mailbox:

“Just wanted to let you know about this concerning sweat lodges.  Two deaths at a sweat lodge in Sedona Arizona at Angel Valley.  We have been to this place. James Arthur Ray was holding a retreat there. We have met the owners Amayra and Michael. Just want y'all to be careful inviting people to a sweat lodge 'right now' and take proper precautions. Please read: “

Author hires investigators to review sweat lodge deaths

Early yesterday, Memo Licona, Pourer and Singer/Sweat Lodge at HMHC, had already sent out the following message to Sweat Lodge attendees:

“Some of you have asked, and been concerned about our sweat lodge practices and here is how my Sundance chief responded, I hope it helps. “

Chief Michael Hull writes:

I have been asked about this question and so I will respond as well as I am able. 
Our ceremonies are traditional. We who lead them have been taught and trained to lead them in that manner and we do so. We lead them under the guidance of the Spirit hearing and following that guidance as well or as poorly as we are able. Our lodges follow the traditional teaching about size and shape and components. Participation and how the ceremonies are done are all traditional. 
 
In my lodges no one must come in and you are welcome to leave, and if that changes for a particular lodge for a particular reason, then you are told in advance. We don't charge for our ceremonies. 
 
I don't know anything about what happened in AZ. Based on news reports it would appear that the leadership did not have the training we have, did not use the structure we use, and used a different set up in terms of what happened inside. 
 
A lodge is a place of healing and purification, not a place to be macho or tough. 
 
With all that said however, please also remember that I was taught that a lodge, a vision quest and other ceremonies are ceremonies of health and healing, of life, death and rebirth, of prayer and purification. Events like the one reported in the news, whatever happened there, serve as reminders that what we do is not a game, is not an "experience", is not a workshop or a time to trot out to the country and play Indian. 
 
Ceremonial time is a profound encounter with the Divine, at a very basic and core level, a time that continues as a way of life for a people. It can be an encounter with life and death and rebirth for people and absent a willingness to chance that encounter one should not enter into the ceremony. 
 
When you hear our Lakota friends complain about the wannabe white "Indians" you will understand that the kind of thing that the news makes AZ out to be is a prime reason for the wannabe complaints. Our Lakota friends who have been living in the ceremonial way for eons will now have to use part of their time explaining why what they do is not what was done there. For as long as the people remember people have gone to lodges to pray, without publicity or fanfare, but the event that people will remember for a very long time, an occurrence that is not really a lodge, will be an event labeled by the media as a "sweat lodge". AZ will become the image for many of what we do. When we understand that, then we can remember that our responsibility to those who came before us and shared this way of life with us includes the responsibility to represent the ceremonies responsibly. 
 
Mike
gracesanctuary@yahoogroups.com

Thank you Memo, for taking the responsibility to ease concerns about Sweat Lodges.

Thank you Chief Hull, for taking the time to recount the true meaning of a Sweat Lodge Ceremony.

 

More Books on 50% sale

We have just lowered the prices on our books to 50% off retail price. Just in time for early Holiday shopping, consider giving books this year and $ave. These babies need to be out there in good homes rather than sitting on our shelves. This all started with a generous donation from a bookstore in California. So to sweeten the pot even more we have added our own merchandise on $ale! Come early and come often for the best selections! If you have the time we might sit down for a cup of tea!

Art Show

 

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I just got home from an art show and I am so glad that I went. It was a different kind of art show, one in a designer home. The home is a piece of art, filled with beautiful pieces of creations from our local artists.  It was such a comfortable setting, maybe it was the water that you could see outside every window and there were lots of windows. Very relaxed and calming atmosphere.

I am so glad that Vicky Mauldin and Jamie Slack invited the "Open Circle" to attend, It was well worth the trip.

It is on tomorrow as well (Sunday) You just find the balloons on Gavalin and turn onto Homestead Acres follow the balloons one more time and you are there! Enjoy!

Never Too Late to Heal

Last year when I went to renew my drivers license I was totally bummed that I could not pass the vision test. Try as I may I could not make out those letters. This event seemed to start me on a downward spiral of the aging process; or, at least, my thoughts on that process. I was convincing myself that I might as well just hang it all up and go into retirement. Well, that option was not very attractive to me, but what was I to do when this body would not do what I wanted it to do? I was diagnosed with dystrophy of the cornea many years ago and it just got progressively worse. I had cataract surgery several years ago and that did not do that much for my vision.

As synchronicity would have it, someone came into my life only long enough to tell me about her doctor and teacher at the Eye Associates of NM. and then she was gone, off to do other things. I did get in to see the doctor who founded the clinic and he immediately referred me to the corneal specialist who looked at my eyes and said you will have to have surgery sometime and you might as well do it now. Well, he is one of the few doctors who are doing this new corneal surgery and I found him right here in Albuquerque. I had the first implant in April, which did not take but the one in May did take. The vision improvement was slow and I was still wondering if I would ever be whole again. Slowly I began to regain my vision and I began to become more hopeful for an active life again.

I guess on some level I set an intention to continue to heal for the next thing I knew I was going to a sweat lodge with my friend Lydia and she mentioned that her new TurboSonic machine was in and wouldn't I like to come try it out.  Well, sure, I am always open to experience the newest and the latest. When I went in to use the TurboSonic, Lydia asked if I had any condition that might qualify this treatment for Medicare to pay for some sessions. Well yes, I had this white water river accident 22 yrs ago that left me with a right arm and shoulder that had restricted movement. Following an evaluation we began PT treatment 2 -3 times a week. We were both amazed that this body wanted to heal after all these years.

So these two events proved to me that it is NEVER too late to heal; it is a life long process.  And to think that I was beginning to believe that it was over and time to throw in the towel! Well I did not, and I am back in the game of life to it's fullest.

Then in January I get this invitation from Dr. Barbara Dossey to be a part of a Holistic Nursing Delegation to China. I read it and put it aside until Kate came in and I showed it to her. Her remark was "and you are going of course" ? No, I can't go and spend all that money, that's my kids inheritance. Actually, in retrospect, it was more about me still feeling too old to go to China. I am so grateful that Kate responded with "and how many more times do you think that you will be invited to go to China this lifetime?" That was my wake up call, the light bulb went on and I saw things differently. I no longer saw myself too old or too unworthy to take this wonderful opportunity.

So off to China I go with 18 other holistic nurses and what an experience that was for me. The time was just right for I returned with an inner calmness and self confidence.

Barbara Mader

9/25/09

 

Image courtesy X-ray: NASA/CXC/JHU/K.Kuntz et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/JHU/K. Kuntz et al; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/K. Gordon

 

I’d Like a Barbara Hug

 

We moved to Ruidoso in 2000. We built a house at the end of Cedar Creek, and I started teaching English at Ruidoso High School just as the World Trade Center fell. A Google search before we left Austin lead me to High Mesa Healing Center. I was shy at first to venture to Alto for a visit to High Mesa, but finally I did, and I was greeted warmly and with a room filled with books. I knew immediately that I’d “come home.”

Like so many I have been aware of my spiritual journey my entire life, and my path has been circuitous. Though I felt often like I’ve wandered rather aimlessly, at High Mesa I began to sense the pattern to it all. Pieces fell into place and prepared me for the next difficult stage of things. I was free at High Mesa to believe or not believe as spirit led me. No one judged, and everyone loved generously.

I took classes, weeded the labyrinth, enjoyed healing touch therapy, and found a safe haven among kind people. A group of like-minded women came together as a Sacred Circle, and we met for two years – until I left the mountain strengthened for the next leg of my journey. No doubt, the mountain is a sacred place, and the good energy there is palpable. But High Mesa focused that energy for me and still does to this day.

I left the mountain five years ago, but High Mesa remains in my heart. As I write this I tear up longing to be there walking the labyrinth or engulfed in the warmth of a circle of women.

I’d like a Barbara hug right now.

Carol Knox

A Click and a Minute for Peace

 

Nancy Bankston and the HMHC Team are inviting all readers and families to consider participating in the A Million Minutes for Peace, on the United Nations International Day of Peace

 September 21, 2009.

It means you click once, right now to pledge your minute, and you pray, meditate or reflect a minute on September 21, 2009 at Noon.

Odyssey Networks is “the nation's largest coalition of Jewish, Christian and Muslim faith groups dedicated to media production, and distribution of media. Odyssey’s membership includes over 40 faith groups and organizations and comprises more than 200,000 congregations with 120 million congregants.” ( Mission Statement)

Visit Odyssey Networks to get acquainted with their mission and work, and opportunities to find bloggers, discussion groups, and young advocates for Peace Movement , films, etc.

To pledge click here on Pledge to Pray for Peace.

Still undecided ? Watch below:

“By working together, there will be peace one day” JEREMY GILLEY

Jeremy Gilley is an actor turned film maker, who in the late 1990's became preoccupied with questions about the fundamental nature of humanity and the issue of peace. He decided to explore these through the medium of film, and specifically, to create a documentary following his campaign to establish a day of ceasefire and non-violence.
In 1999, Jeremy founded Peace One Day, a non-profit organisation, and in 2001 Peace One Day's efforts were rewarded when the United Nations unanimously adopted the first-ever day of global ceasefire and non-violence on 21 September annually - Peace Day.
In 2007 according to the UN, over 100 million people were active on Peace Day, in 192 countries. There were life-saving initiatives in 14 countries, and over 80 activities in Afghanistan alone where 1.4 million children were vaccinated against polio. (YouTube.)

 

What Barbara is Up To

… these days;  rumors of her retiring can now quietly go away; Barbara is up and about as ever!

Barbara Mader, RN, CHTP, Reiki Master, has been a registered nurse for 56 years, has been active in energy medicine for 23 years. She is the owner/operator of High Mesa Healing Center in Alto, New Mexico, where she specializes in Healing Touch and a wide variety of energy work. Barbara has recently returned from China where she was a member of the Nursing Delegation of the Nightingale Initiative for Global Health, working in conjunction with People to People Citizen Ambassador Program, to continue the tradition of professional diplomacy that began in 1956.

She also lectures, writes, and conducts workshops in a range of applications which include Capacitar, Intro to Healing Touch, Labyrinth, Integrated Health Care, Spirituality in Healthcare, and others subjects.

 

Healing Trauma Class: Change of Schedule

The Healing Trauma: Transform Wounds into Wisdom Class by Barbara Mader, RN, CHTP and Founder of HMHC has a schedule change.

Please mark your calendar as following:

* The one-day-workshop is now scheduled for Saturday Sept. 19th,  1:00pm-5:00pm;  the workshop is still taught in the Yurt and the fee remains $20

** The series classes are now scheduled on Friday afternoons, from 1:00pm-4:00pm. The dates are:

October, 2nd, October 9th, October 16th and October  23rd.

All classes are taking place in the Yurt and the fee remains $50.

 

 

 

 

 

HMHC hopes this schedule change won't affect adversely your planned attendance to this fabulous opportunity.

Thank you.