Hank Wesselman, P.h.D.

The Sacred Garden as a Place of Healing

Our previous several columns have explored the parameters of the Sacred Garden, a place in the inner worlds that each of us may find—a place we may visit through our dreaming or through shamanic journeywork—a place for personal empowerment and healing.

My small book The Journey to the Sacred Garden reveals that the garden, once found, operates by four rules:

1) Everything in the garden is symbolic of some aspect of you or your life experience; 2) everything can be communicated with; 3) everything in the garden can be changed; and 4) when you add something to or delete something from your garden, some aspect of you or your life will change in response.

With relation to healing work, suppose you are suffering from something serious like cancer or Crohn's Disease, AIDS or Hepatitis C. You might go into your garden on a daily basis, connect with power (see our October 2005 column) and then use whatever visualization you care to create to reverse the illness' effects and diminish its presence in your body.

For example, you might invite a spiritual healing master to come into your garden to work on you, or better yet, a team of specialists. Think of all the great compassionate healers across the millennia--Imhotep of Egypt, Aesclapios and Hippocrates of Greece, Avalokiteshvara of India, Kwan Yin of China, Jesus of Nazareth, Galen the Roman, the Renaissance physician Paracelsus, Florence Nightingale, Albert Schweitzer or Mother Theresa in our own time.

Needless to say, there are countless numbers of compassionate spirits who may assist with our healing, and they emanate from all cultural traditions. It is through them, and through their connection with us, that we may penetrate to the original cause of our affliction, neutralize its spiritual/energetic complex that is living within us, and embark on our path of recovery with their full and loving support.

When you are in your garden, you can invite any or all of these great healers to be on your team, whenever there is need. Their embodiments walked this Earth, and for countless incarnations, so they all know what suffering is.

Probably the easiest way to connect with these great souls is through prayer, but if you are an adventurer at heart, if you are an active explorer of the Great Mystery, shamanic journeywork will allow you to approach them by connecting directly with their oversoul fields.

My wife Jill Kuykendall and I have had an active practice of spirit medicine for more than 15 years, and it is quite astonishing how often the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth will come, offering healing through the power of unconditional love, whether or not the sufferer is psychologically Christian.

For those interested, chapter 17 of my book Visionseeker: Shared Wisdom from the Place of Refuge, presents a personal account of a direct encounter with this great soul, as well as the miraculuous healing that he facilitated.

Once in connection with these healing masters, you can ask them to help restore your body to a state of harmony, surrendering to their ministrations and allowing yourself to experience their compassion, as well as their healing power, in your time of need. With practice, this healing energy can also be extended to others—something we will explore in a future column.

But to illustrate how you may be of service to yourself, here’s an exercise to get started, one that is adapted from the small guide book that my wife Jill Kuykendall and I have published through Hay House called Spirit Medicine--a book that also includes a drumming and rattling CD for altering consciousness.

A Personal Healing Ritual in the Garden

Select a time that is good for you, a time when you can be alone and undisturbed, wherever you are. While listening to the CD, close your eyes, relax your body, and make a journey to your sacred garden.

For some, this experience is very much like daydreaming. For others, the altered state we call “trance” descends upon us with varying degrees of depth as the focus of our conscious awareness shifts from “here” to “there.” Both small books, Sacred Garden and Spirit Medicine, contain explicit directions for engaging in journeywork using the CD.

When you find yourself in your garden, look around to see if it has changed since you were last there. Study your garden carefully, and then use your creative imagination to make a healing space somewhere within it. This might be as simple as a circle of stones on an earthen mound beneath an old grandmother tree, or it might be as complex as a room in a magnificent temple.

Once the place of healing is established in your garden, observe it carefully. Study it while you enhance your personal power by the deep breathing method outlined in last month’s column (October, 2005). When you feel power-filled, put out the call for a team of healing masters to come. Invite them to join you in your garden in your time of need--and your need is what empowers your connection with them. The greater your need, the stronger will be their response. And rest assured, if you ask specifically for spirit healers, that's who will come.

Welcome these esteemed healers as they arrive. Some of us see them as lights or light-beings, others see them in human form. You may recognize one or more of them, or they could all be strangers. They could very well be a cluster of indigenous spirits, great medicine women and medicine men all. Acknowledge and honor them, even if you're not sure who they are. Remember, you're the one who put out the call, and they are the ones who have responded to your call.

When all are present, invite them to sit around or within the healing space you have created, then explain to them what it is that you require. Be specific. These are great healers and there is no need to dissemble or make yourself small. When interacting with these spirits, it’s not about worship; it’s about relationship. Ask them for support, for power, and for protection, and then make your case.

If you are suffering from a life-threatening illness, you might indicate to them that you have not yet fulfilled your life's purpose and that you need their help in prolonging your life so that you can do so. There may also be other compelling reasons for enlisting their help. Consider these reasons carefully and discuss them openly with your visitors.

Then step into your place of healing and invite them to encircle you. Listen to the sound of the drums and the rattles on the CD and watch as these great healers go into deep meditative trance. They can hear the sound to which you are listening—a sound that is enabling them to connect with universal power of the Source so that they can extend it to you in a healing capacity.

Instruct your body soul to welcome and accept their healing intentions for you. Your body soul is where your own inner healer is located (see the archives for the June 2005 column on the Three Souls). Ask your body soul to internalize the energy they extend to you and use it to erase any distortions in your field, replacing them with light.

Perhaps you will see these healing masters as the ones beating their drums and shaking their rattles, supporting you with their collective power. Perhaps they will sing over you and you will hear their healing songs merging with the drumming and rattling. Perhaps they will dance around you while drumming and rattling.

Don't be surprised if one of these healing masters steps forward to be of service to you—one on one. Perhaps this spirit doctor will do a shamanic “extraction” for you. Watch as he or she scans your energetic field with their eyes, their hands, feeling for the illness intrusions and pulling them out. This might also be a team effort with several healers working together, even with a power animal or a plant spirit helper assisting.

See if you can perceive the illness “intrusions” that are extracted from your body. How do they appear and what do your healing masters then do with them? Feel the relief in your body as the intrusions are removed.

Watch then as your spirit healers bend down and refill the newly-vacated spaces in your field with their breath—with their healing breath of power. Feel the sense of warmth as this is done, and know with absolute certainty that a corner has been turned and that you are now fully on the road to recovery.

Continue to listen to the CD and rest in the beauty of their unlimited compassion for you. Feel their healing intentions flow into you like water filling a bottle. Allow their presence to manifest a deep and abiding sense of safety and tranquility within you.

Know with new-found confidence that your body-mind-spirit complex is in complete harmony in that moment and that your balance is being restored. Using whatever visualization seems right, "see" your illness diminishing as your sense of well-being grows... and grows... and grows.

When you hear the return beat on the CD, the rapid-fire drumming and rattling, take leave of your spirit friends, asking them to remain on call for repeated healing work in your garden. Then shift the focus of your attention back to your physical body.

Feel the tranquility in your body as you make detailed notes of the journey just completed. Maintain that feeling as long as you can, and remember it throughout your day. Refresh it with another garden ritual when the time seems right.

You are now in relationship with your healing masters, your "astral doctors." Invite them to meet with you in your garden on a regular basis. Often, someone new will show up to be of service to you.

For those unfamiliar with shamanic healing using extraction of illness intrusions, our small book Spirit Medicine is an effective guide to shamanic healing practice.

In next month’s column, I will discuss a dramatic example of how shamanic healing can effectively heal someone from cancer.

Until then, allow me to invoke the spirit of my great Hawaiian friend, Kahu Hale Makua, and extend to each of you the Light and the Love of the Ancestors, The Source of Life, rejoicing in the Power and the Peace, braided with the cords of Patience, revealing the tapestry of the strongest force in the Universe, your Aloha.

--with warm thoughts--Dr Hank