Christmas is Coming

Hello Everybody,

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

The article included here this month is written by Sheryl but Paul has a couple of articles elsewhere online, too. One is a funny piece called "Bliss over Ignorance Divided by "Is" and it's at http://paulhood.blogspot.com/2007/11/because-ill-need-to-know-based-on.html. The other is about Spontaneous Kundalini and our experiences answering questions about that. It's at http://paulhood.blogspot.com/2007/11/spontaneous-kundalini.html.

Except for the tidbits of news we've included below, that's all we have to say for now. We both wish you a wonderful Christmas season and lots of love and joy in the coming year.

Sheryl Karas and Paul Hood

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Bring the Light Back Home

Starting in 1980 I spent almost 8 years (part-time) researching, writing and illustrating a book about the pagan origin, history and folklore of the Christmas Tree. It was called The Solstice Evergreen and it was once called the “definitive book” on this particular topic. Not a surprising feat, given that at the time it was the ONLY book that covered this subject in any depth. It’s still in print and I still have a few copies available for sale through our websites, the quickest link being http://www.healingcommunication.com/myproducts/solstice.html .

In pagan cultures, the evergreen had great meaning but the depth of its significance has mostly faded away from public memory. Oh, many of us have heard that because it stayed green in the winter when everything else appeared to die that it represented the promise of eternal life, and that IS significant in itself. But the meaning of this statement goes far beyond the simplistic season change explanation most of us might expect.

Because the evergreen tree grew on the earth with its roots stretching down into the underworld and its branches reaching to Heaven, it was used to symbolize the passageway between different states of existence. Furthermore, ancient peoples believed, as many of us do today, that the soul is eternal. It’s not just the world that was promised to return to life each Spring—the SOUL never dies as well. It simply transmutes itself into some other form. Ancestor spirits were perceived as living on in the world around us and in some cultures they were thought to most often reside in large evergreen trees. A grove of evergreens was considered, for multiple reasons, a sacred sanctuary. And, like many churches today, they were used as a place of salvation for sinners (runaway prisoners) attempting to escape capture and punishment. These trees were never cut down and it was forbidden to even break a branch. Ornaments representing the gods and offerings to them were hung in the trees by various cultures and that evolved into the custom we do today.

In flower essence therapy the evergreen plants we most associate with Christmas, the Holly and the Pine, are used to increase a person’s ability to give and receive love and for self-forgiveness and compassion. Compassion and forgiveness, salvation and eternal life with the addition of the coming of a personal savior, aren’t these qualities the true significance of the holiday so many people celebrate today?

As we enter into the holiday gift-buying and giving frenzy, it’s easy to forget what this flurry of activity is all about. It’s darker and getting cold, the leaves have dropped off the trees in northern climates and since Halloween the aura of death is all around. We contract against the cold, and naturally seek the warmth and comfort of what matters most. Love—gathering together with family and friends—and faith—believing with all one’s heart and soul that if we do all pull together we’ll make it through. No matter how dark and cold it is we’re affirming that the world is not coming to an end. With the passing of Winter Solstice (Dec. 22 this year), we celebrate the birthing /return of the sun (Son) with all the attendent hopes and dreams this new light will bring in the time yet to come.

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Spiritual Counseling, Mama Love Perfume and Reiki-Infused Gifts

If you haven't done so already, consider giving the gift of healing this Christmas and wrap it in lots of fun! Paul and I approach our work with a sense of humor. And yes, you can ask us for a gift certificate and give a session or more with us to one or more of your friends! We're cute and cuddly and lots of fun to be with, but if putting a session with us under the tree isn't your style, why not try another cute, fun and cuddly gift—a Reiki-infused teddy bear and Mama Love perfume! 12 original formulas in all plus three made especially for Christmas. Visit the "products" section of the Mama Love perfume site at http://www.healingcommunication.com/mamaloveproducts/mamaproducts.html .

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Nature Photography and Nature Gifts

Paul and I believe there is an inherent connection between health, healing and our connection to the natural world. Of course, that extends beyond what we can see to the universe and All That Is. . . but why not start where we're at on the day to day? Bringing elements of the life we live with into sharper view is at the heart of what a spiritual counselor does but it's also a huge part of what artists are all about, too. We spend most of our recreational hours outdoors looking for opportunities to use our cameras and this last Thanksgiving weekend was no exception. We spent it at the Australian and South African flower gardens at the UCSC Arboretum and had a GREAT shoot. We put lots of photos up on our Cafepress gift shop (http://www.cafepress.com/paulnsheryl) already. And I'm in the process of creating an exotic flower photo section -- you can see that work in progress at http://www.cafepress.com/paulnsheryl/3989078.

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Donate a Reiki Bear to the Homeless Shelter

The Rebele Santa Cruz Homeless Shelter has brand new toys (they can't accommodate the large supply of used ones they get) on their wish list. Sheryl will be donating several of her healing bears to the children there this Christmas. If you'd like to do that, too, she's offering her bears at a reduced price (if they're used to add to her donation only) through her website. Visit http://www.healingcommunication.com/mamaloveproducts/mamaproducts.html and go to the very bottom of the page.

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Interested in a session? Send us an email or give us a call at (831) 325-4076.

November Newsletter - Happy Halloween!

Hello Everybody!

We're returning to doing a plain text newsletter again. Takes up less space in our email inboxes and people who have trouble getting email with pictures and fancy text will still be able to read the mail they get from us. But we do so love those pretty pictures so if you'd like to keep seeing Paul's great photography and the occasional artwork from Sheryl please read our newsletter online! It's at http://www.healingcommunicationnews.blogspot.com/. Older archived newsletters can be found there as well.

Paul wrote a nice article this month but first we have a few announcements:

First, we have a gift to offer those of you who would like to do ongoing spiritual counseling and healing work with us over time. We've lowered the bottom of our sliding scale to work with both us back down to $100 / hour. Don't hesitate to drop lower on the scale than you have been paying us if it makes ongoing work more accessible to you.

Also, there are a couple of new videos online at Sheryl's Mama Love Perfume site. Last month she did a talk called "Flower Essences as a Tool for Personal and Spiritual Growth" at Way of Life in Capitola. Paul brought the video camera and, even though we ran out of batteries twice and Sheryl didn't look at the camera once, it's still a great introduction to flower essence therapy. You can watch her talk about Dr. Bach and some theories about the scientific basis of this work at http://www.healingcommunication.com/mamaloveproducts/FESciencevideo.html . She talks about spiritual archetypes found in the natural world and how ancient people determined what herbs to use for various complaints at http://www.healingcommunication.com/mamaloveproducts/archetypecorrelationsvideo.html .

Sheryl has been hard at work making new perfumes, just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas. She also has added 3-Perfume Gift sets and Reiki Bears. She'll tell you all about them later in the newsletter but, if you can't wait, take a look at http://www.healingcommunication.com/mamaloveproducts/mamaproducts.html . We also have new items at our Cafepress site (http://www.cafepress.com/paulnsheryl). Paul, in particular, has been uploading new photos like crazy (including a wild bobcat we ran into just yesterday on a hike at Wilder Ranch).
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WORLD TURNING
by Paul Hood

November, the time of year in Santa Cruz when it might rain, or you might want to spend a day at the beach getting a tan. Nonetheless it is Fall and Sheryl and I are trying to get our heads wrapped around that. Halloween is a secular holiday which seems to largely revolve around eating candy, especially if you’re a kid. Sheryl and I are kids.

Why do kids run around in costumes, usually “scary” costumes and all that? Without getting too deep into it, it’s a seasonal holiday that has to do with Winter being on the way. Winter being the scary season (historically) if you’re from a cold climate because you’re going to need enough food, fuel, warm clothing, a secure shelter and all that to make it through. Halloween is the harvest season, basically it’s the last harvest of the year. So generally we’re supposed to rejoice in the abundance of that harvest and “Laugh in the face of death.” That’s one interpretation. Other cultures have the “Day of the Dead”, and the Celts had Samhain (pronounced “Sowen”) which our Neo-Pagan friends have adopted along with other seasonal wheel of the year celebrations.

Most of our holidays have roots in seasonal change, Sheryl wrote a whole book about that called “The Solstice Evergreen” (http://www.healingcommunication.com/myproducts/solstice.html), all about the origins of the Christmas tree. We humans relate changes of the season metaphorically to changes that we go through personally. We adopt rituals in order to help ourselves through those changes. When the earth shakes, the leaves turn and the wind starts to blow cold we’re reminded that we’re more like the leaves than the wind.

A couple months from now and we’ll be in the middle of another “secular holiday”, or a deeply religious one depending on your point of view. There’s more than one holiday occurring in mid winter around the world. On the longest night we rejoice the coming of the sun. Seasonal holidays mark those transitions in our lives; honoring where we’ve been, where we are at right now, and where we may be going in the future. They may honor turning points in human evolution, too, if only by contrast to the past: Halloween is meaningless now, but we still like it because it appeals to a deep memory. Oh yeah, I forgot Thanksgiving. That’s all about eating a giant bird, football, and trying to stay awake until your relatives leave. In a techno-industrial society with mechanized food production, I generally look up the meaning of various Holidays on the internet, trying to get back to some sort of roots with some kind of meaning.

What needs to change then, in your life? What’s died but you haven’t buried the body yet? What's hung around this year like many other years, but now you know it’s time for it to go. . . anything? When you say goodbye do you do so with respect and thankfulness? How about forgiveness? At the same time we must allow for all things to come and go in their own time. Autumn leaves turn and fall when they’re ready. We don’t go ripping them off the trees for convenience sake. Those beautiful colors are the rainbow of change, and the loveliness of death.

Happy Halloween Everyone! Eat some pumpkin pie and get cozy with the reaper.
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And speaking of the dark time of the year, Sheryl has three new perfumes and they're all just perfect for the changing of the season:

The first one is called "Comfort and Joy" and, while it's named for a line in an old Christmas carol, it really invokes the kind of warmth we might like to have starting right now. It smells of cedarwood, citrus (bergamot) and cinnamon -- kind of like sipping hot cider by a blazing fire. And it has flower essences specially selected to help you lighten up, relax, and enjoy this special time of year.

The second one is especially designed for Christmas but it sure would be nice if we thought of it the whole year through. It's called "Peace and Goodwill" and it has Holly flower essence for a greater ability to give and receive love, Pine flower essence for self-forgiveness, and essential oils of Sandalwood, Frankincense and Myrrh for promoting feelings of safety and peace, revitalizing the spirit, and increased capacity for spiritual focus, meditation and prayer.

The third one really could be considered a formula for year-round use. It's a good antidote for depression and it's called "Renewed Faith and Optimism." It smells mostly of Rose, Bergamot and Cinnamon and contains flower essences selected to help one have the faith to carry on when things take longer than we expect. The darker emotions are like that. In the middle of the darkest night it's easy to forget that the sun always returns and new life is just around the bend.

You can find them all at http://www.healingcommunication.com/mamaloveproducts/mamaproducts.html .
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Would you like to join our effort to provide brand new Reiki Healing Bears to the Homeless Family Shelter in Santa Cruz?

The Homeless shelter has "New Toys" on their Wish List and Sheryl just got two huge cartons of teddy bears to infuse with Reiki. She plans to give away several of them and make the rest available for people to buy as gifts. You can buy one and have it delivered to the Shelter with a gift tag in your name or get one for yourself and send it wherever you like. Find out more at http://www.healingcommunication.com/mamaloveproducts/mamaproducts.html at the bottom of the page.
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Interested in a session? Send us an email or give us a call at (831) 325-4076.

October Newsletter

Hello Everybody,

Sometimes you put your heart and soul into something and things don't turn out the way you hoped. In one of last week's papers there was a story about a little girl in Seattle named Gloria who died of cancer last week, despite months of prayer vigils by, literally, thousands of people. It was one of those stories that makes a healer team like us take pause. I mean, in this business we get calls all the time from people who want some kind of assurance that they can be healed and we have to tell them, sorry, there is no guarantee. We can hold your hand, help ease some of the pain, maybe help you turn to a new direction, and gather momentum for a much better life. In the end, though, it's really not up to us. Sometimes the universe has other plans for our lives.

When I was a family caregiving consultant for family members taking care of a loved one with Alzheimer's Disease and related dementias I struggled with this every day. ALL of my clients' patients died. That's what happens when you're 80 or 90 or whatever age you happen to make it to. There was nothing I could do to stop the inevitable. And I often thought that I had so few resources available to help them in the way they wanted (monetary aid and adequate help to keep their relatives at home) that there really wasn't anything useful I could do. But whenever my day felt bleakest I'd get an email or an actual handwritten letter letting me know that the emotional support I offered at what seemed to me some insignificant step along the way meant more than I could ever know. I wallpapered an entire wall with these notes. I still have them stuffed in a file somewhere, a reminder that sometimes the smallest things matter the most.

Paul and I were wondering how some of you have been. You'd be surprised at how little we find out about the impact of what we do. I understand why. I see my chiropractor or acupuncturist when I'm in pain -- not when I feel good again! If you felt like dropping us a line or two we'd love to hear from you.

In the meantime Paul and I would like to share the most recent blog I wrote about Gloria and info about the free talk I'll be giving on Wednesday. We both plan to be there and it would be great to see any of you who would like to attend.

Sheryl Karas

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A Prayer for Gloria

Yesterday's Santa Cruz Sentinel had an article guaranteed to break a mother's heart. A child's family in Seattle gave up their medical battle with the widespread neuroblastoma (cancer) that was overtaking their daughter and turned to prayer instead. The family asked for people to pray for their daughter Gloria and the Seattle Times gave the story 5 months of serious coverage. Reporters close to the family say they are forever changed by the family's determination to heal their daughter through the power of prayer and by the heart-wrenching struggles they faced in making this decision. Four years of medical interventions had been of no avail. It seemed fruitless and painful to put their child through more torture. Yet, despite the efforts and outpourings of love and faith by literally thousands of people, on Friday last week Gloria died.

What can a person say about something like this? The child's mother apparently had heard a voice she believed to be the voice of God tell her before Gloria's cancer was diagnosed "When I heal her, I will change the lives of many." The family says that their faith allows them to believe that healing has occurred even in death because to be with Jesus in Heaven is a healing in itself. But, as a person brought up Jewish, this is a thought pattern that's hard to fathom. My gut reaction was that her death could lead just as many to doubt their faith as the story within the hospital walls led so many to embrace it.

Jerry Brewer, one of the Seattle reporters who covered the story and who has been writing regularly in his blog about this, hadn't analyzed his feelings yet at the time I wrote this piece except to say that the miracle everyone was hoping to have happen occurred for him in the five weeks preceeding the girl's death. Something about how everyone touched by this family was transformed by the power of their faith really got to him and he firmly believed that the prediction the mother received must have been meant to be much more than about whether her daughter's body survived the "healing."

I asked Paul for his opinion about this. He seems to always have a deeper understanding of the spiritual significance of things than I tend to. He believed that the fact that Gloria frequently prayed for other people in the hospital and in her room, even offering up her suffering as a sacrifice for some other child in pain, touched people most of all. "It's not just about whether you win or lose." He said. "We all die." It's more about how we choose to live while we're here. What we do and why.

Why are you here? What inspires you to get up in the morning? And if you could honor the urgings of your heart -- and not just your head -- what would it be trying to get you to do with whatever time you have left in your life?

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Free Talk:
Flower Essences as a Tool for Personal and Spiritual Growth
by Sheryl Karas M.A.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
United Way Conference Room
(next to Way of Life store in the Begonia shopping center
at 1210 41st Ave., Capitola)
FREE
(sponsored by Way of Life)

The evening's lecture will include:

• Brief introduction to flower essence remedies
• The mind/body/spirit connection and the world of psychoneuroimmunology
• Archetypal spiritual expressions found in nature and in ourselves
• Using flower essences to come more fully in alignment with our Highest Self
• Questions and answers

Sheryl Karas M.A. has been studying flower essence therapy for 10 years and is currently developing a Flower Essence self-awareness deck to help people learn to use flower essences more effectively.

Contact Sheryl at (831) 325-4076 for more information.

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Thanks for Your Referrals!

We've gotten a few of those lately and we so appreciate it.

Interested in a session yourself? Send us an email or give us a call at (831) 325-4076.

September 2007 Newsletter

Hi Everybody,

Hope you've been enjoying this sunny Labor Day weekend.

News About the Guidance We've Received to Teach

Well, we don't know what to say about that. The people who are interested are VERY interested but there's not enough (yet) for a class. We've been reluctant to say what exactly we plan to do in each class session, preferring to be guided in the moment as to what the needs of the class members might dictate. You see, we don't follow a set rule book as to how we do our work, we don't use a single set of techniques that we follow by rote, and the thought of creating a class where we would promote any such thing just doesn't float our boat. Yet, our current way of promoting what we really want to do appears to be a bit too freeform and undefined for conventional taste, so we're still giving some thought as to what pieces we've learned that we most want to put out there.

On the other hand we ARE teaching. It's just taking several other forms . . .

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This Month's Article:

Pecking at the Roots of Perfectionism
by Paul Hood

I was thinking I would write about something I like to call “Pollyanna syndrome.” That’s when a person gets it into their head that they have to be so very filled with sweetness and light at all times, else they are somehow failing to be a good person. With all the emphasis lately on “manifesting” there seems to have been a misinterpretation of how positive thinking as a general habit actually should fit in with being a human being in possession of a whole wide range of juicy emotions, including "negative" emotions.

We’re created as multidimensional beings with an entire pantheon of passions; shutting them down tends to cause malfunctions. But I thought of that subject weeks ago when I heard about an acquaintance exhibiting all the signs and symptoms of "Polyanna". Then it took awhile to resurface in me, and I'm less clear on the subject now because I pushed it aside: not wanting to be critical. It's so much better to be present with where we are at, and to take a minute or two to write an article or sing or shout or whatever. Repressing emotions doesn’t eliminate them, they just go underground into the subconscious to ferment for awhile-- they’ll be back, but in a more, shall we say interesting form?

When it comes to dealing with our emotions the best bet is to be aware of one’s thoughts and how those thoughts are feeding emotions: we can change what we think, we can change our beliefs and our opinions, and certainly we can choose to look on the bright side of life BUT, we can’t be all one thing and still be human. Shakespeare wrote tragedies and comedies. Artists utilize darkness and light and musicians play major and minor chords.

Of late I’ve been looking at the concept “picture perfect.” It’s a fact that the standard now in wildlife photography is to take pictures of captive animals. Usually these are rescued creatures who were found injured or abandoned: mountain lions, wolves and so on. Sure, there are still plenty of photos taken of animals in the wild, but there are essentially “super models” of the animal world who live on rescue ranches where the paparazzi regularly visit. It still takes skill, quality gear, good light, some luck and a fair amount of photoshop tweaking to get the impressive images but hey, it’s photography and photography is it’s own reality. But I struggle with that. Captive animals used to capture captivating images. I think what we like about wild animals is that they are actually wild, elusive, uncontrolled. It's that part of us underneath the surface, like the smoldering hot core of the earth.

Also recently I came across another photographer’s gallery and I think he called it “the perfect image.” That gallery consisted of studio images; impressive and highly commercial stuff, which always gets me thinking about the many varieties and angles of artificial light it takes to reproduce those images: not to mention the makeup and other tricks. Did you know that aside from all the soft boxes, umbrellas, reflectors and there is even a light called a “beauty dish”, a good studio shoot might also include a “hair light” which is suspended just above your head but out of frame and it’s sole purpose is to put a highlight on your hair. I can’t seem to get the hair light out of my head. But I must admit that I’ve seen the effect and it does look good.

Where was I . . . I don’t know. The subject of perfection gets old and tedious and the mind won’t dwell where it’s weary. Sheryl has recently discovered the value of downtime and how important it can be to just watch the ducks at the muddy bog called a wildlife preserve just down the road. We watch the ducks and don’t even think about taking more photographs, trying to capture some fleeting moment of perfection or otherwise working away at our practice to make sure everything is going the way we want it to... Out of the bushes one day came these two little chickens with their red crests and yellow feet. Chickens are pretty darn domestic and they don’t belong at a wildlife preserve. Somebody let them go. Wild chickens. We don’t know how they got there, ruining the perfection of a preserve with their clucking, crowing, their charming presence. They run from the ducks and fly into the trees, incongruous and beautiful.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Side note:
Do you like Paul's bird photographs? He's gotten quite a few up online right now at http://paulhood.imagekind.com/ .
If you click on the Barn Owl it will take you to everything he has up so far.
More shameless self promotion; our gift shop is at http://www.cafepress.com/paulnsheryl
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Free Talk About Flower Essences as a Tool for Personal / Spiritual Growth
Sheryl will be presenting this topic as part of the educational lecture series sponsored by Way of Life in Capitola. The class will meet at the United Way Conference Room, located behind the building next to Way of Life, which is located at 1210 41st Ave. (in the Begonia Plaza next to New Leaf Market). It goes from 7:00 - 8:30 pm.

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Writing About Flower Essences
You may or may not know that Sheryl has been working on a book about using flower essences as a tool for personal and spiritual growth. That wound up being a much more involved endeavor than she expected so, to keep her spirits up over the long journey yet to come, she's decided to work one piece at a time and share parts of that online. Mostly musings about the flower essence she is studying at any particular time. You can read the first few installments here:

Walnut-- Protecting the Young Seeker's Heart

Zinnia, Dance and Me

Oh yeah, Jondi Gumz at the Santa Cruz Sentinel recently wrote about Mama Love, Sheryl's Flower Essence- Based Healing Perfume. The article was on the front page of the business section with several full color photos and one of them was a huge one with her face scowling and distorted because it was shot through a wide angle lens! Oh well. If you missed that you can read it online at http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/September/02/biz/stories/01biz.htm .

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Videos

We just put the videos on our website up on YouTube where they load ever so much quicker. There are all kinds of people on YouTube and lots of educational stuff (mixed in with the hundreds of teenagers dancing and lip-synching to their favorite songs in front of their video cams) if you know how to search by keywords. We decided that some of what we had to share might be helpful to others that way. If you haven't seen our videos online yet we have the following ones available so far:

Paul's Kundalini Awakening
Paul had a full Kundalini awakening at the age of 13. In this video he shares in his most sweet and unassuming way how that experience changed (or, rather, didn't change) his life. He also shares information about the challenges of putting such an experience into the context of an everyday life and some thoughts on the pitfall of believing such an experience makes someone "special."

Listening to Spirit Guides and Other Psychic Abilities
Sheryl had a traumatic experience in the third grade and hearing the voice of one of her guides helped her through. In this video she shares what happened and also talks about intellectual capacities like the use of active imagination and how that can be used in a healing capacity.

Paul Becomes a Healer
Paul shares how he first became a healer. Also some examples of early steps on the healer path.

Early Healer Lessons
More early healer lessons, this time from Sheryl's perspective.

Why People Get Sick
Paul gives examples of emotional reasons why people get sick and talks about the importance of taking steps towards what you most need and desire when it comes to life transitions.

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Thanks for Your Referrals!

We've gotten a few of those lately and we so appreciate it.

Interested in a session yourself? Send us an email or give us a call at (831) 325-4076.

June Newsletter

Hi Everybody,

We're doing a plain text newsletter this month. We've gotten some feedback that at least two people on our list have trouble reading our emails because we add pictures and include html code. Chances are you either have an old mail reader that can't handle these items or you have your preferences set to either reject html or convert it to plain text. If you need to receive things from us in plain text please tell us -- we'll start a separate mailing list for that. Otherwise you can always read our newsletter online at http://www.healingcommunicationnews.blogspot.com . We have all our past newsletters, including photos, archived there and will include a link to that site at the top of our mailing each month. Thanks!
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Rate Increase:
It's become clear to us that we need to change our rates. The new rates are pretty close to what most people pay us anyway: $75- 150 / hour to work with one of us OR $125-180 / hour to work with us both.
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Art As A "Day Job"
Well, probably not. But both of us have always wanted to find ways to share our artistic talents in addition to the spiritual counseling and healing work we love to do. Oddly, we get more excited by the idea of seeing our images on things people can use like coffee mugs and refrigerator magnets (!) than limiting ourselves to pieces to hang on the wall. We decided to team up with an internet on-demand printing site as a place to begin. You can see our initial efforts at http://www.cafepress.com/paulnsheryl . We expect to add lots more stuff as time goes on.
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Just For Fun
We've been advertising on Craig's List since the beginning of our practice -- we got some of our first clients that way and got hooked. We're still learning the ropes of how to advertise on the internet and took it all so seriously at first (and still put very straight forward serious ads up). But now we're starting to experiment a bit and have more fun. Surprise! Hits on our website went up as soon as we did. Now we're running an ad campaign based around Paul's fictitious guru Fred, the grand master of the tea kettle. Recently Paul had Fred disappear unexpectedly; a presumed ascension. But then a disturbing report came through a trusted friend. Sheryl immediately launched a campaign to "save" Fred. We don't know how this is going to end up but if you'd like to read the whole story (so far), or join the "Save Fred!!!" movement by buying a T-shirt, you can do so at http://www.healingcommunication.com/savefred.html .
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Trusting Your Heart (This month's article, written by Sheryl)

Paul and I have been sitting with the possibility of us doing some kind of support group or class. It seems likely to happen sometime this summer but we're still working out how and when. In the meantime we did hear from one person that they wanted us to share how to trust that one's inner guidance is genuine. I felt the question was at the heart of why so many people come to us in the first place--not knowing how to trust their hearts--so I thought I'd talk about that issue here.

This could be the one concern everyone has from time to time, myself included. How do you know the difference between "genuine" guidance and one's typical self-talk mix of hopes and fears, "shoulds" and desires? Well, as I said before, sitting with something you're not sure about—especially when there may be fears running the show for better and for worse—is always the right choice. Far easier to get a more genuine response if you can get into a more meditative place before even asking. So, that's step one.

Then, when you're not feeling driven by urgency and/or fear check inside again: is this something you really want to do? Something you dream about doing? Desire with all your heart (whether it would be good for you or not?) Would you desire to have this thing you're dreaming about EVEN IF it led to "mistakes" being made, disappointments, criticism, etc.? Well, if you really want it and trust that whatever the consequences are that you'll be able to pick up the pieces again and walk away with your head held high (at least I tried), go ahead. That's your heart leading you forward.

If not, then you need to look at why you're being nagged about this decision. Fear can be a good teacher, too. "Gee, I haven't done the dishes. I SHOULD do them before going to bed but I'm just so tired. I really don't want to........but I know the consequences will be a return of the horrendous ant infestation we had last week when I did the same thing so.........ok, fear and "shoulds" win out. I really don't feel like the consequences of my action are worth going to bed early. You get the difference. Sometimes "shoulds" need to be listened to. Sometimes they don't. Think about the consequences. What are the "shoulds" attempting to protect you from?

The last part of the process involves timing. Especially when there are risks involved, emotionally or physically. Sometimes you just need to do what needs to be done to feel more prepared. Other times the need to act isn't developed enough to overcome the inertia of staying in one place (which can also be a great thing to do). Right timing is part of everything. I tend to trust myself more when I've done the preliminary groundwork and the momentum builds up to a dull roar. For me, an inner clamoring starts to happen and then I know it's time to get 'er done.

This topic could be discussed over time in several emails or group meetings. I welcome your comments or suggestions.

May Day News

Healing Communication News—May 2007

Letter From the Editors

Happy May Day, Beltane and Walpurgis—the first day of summer in the Celtic pagan calendar, a festival of fire, and the day that commemorates the international labor and socialist movements. A loud and large group of UCSC students just marched peacefully down Mission Street waving banners and carrying protest signs. This is a traditional day for uprisings of all sorts -- both spiritual and political, so to speak. We certainly feel an upsurging of energy these days. Do you?

Not coincidentally, we have spent most of the month thinking and writing about the intersection of spirituality, health and healing, the environment, big business and the political scene, among other things. We've been busy little bees . . . and, yeah, we wrote about them, too. All the articles Paul wrote in April are at http://paulhood.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html . Sheryl's are at http://healingcommunication.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html .

Other than that, there's not much to talk about. We keep thinking about doing a "support group"—not a class exactly, but it could take that form. We'd like to get your feedback on that: what would be of interest to you? Please weigh in on it, even if you only have one or two suggestions. We're trying not to shirk on what has become an obvious trend—helping people explore their own healing and spiritual potentials —but we could use your ideas to help shape it together.

Bye for now,

Paul and Sheryl
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Spiritual Warrior
by Paul Hood

The photo above is of our household warrior, Chai. We’re trying to teach him to change his ways, but there’s a neighborhood cat who wants to join our household, and Chai, more than once now gets in knock down drag out fights. He’s a real warrior, but he’s also the most sensitive cat we’ve got. I find him charming, maybe I relate to him a bit.

When I was a kid I played with toy guns, we played “war” and I was also horrified by the news footage from the Vietnam war. I got in fights at school. I hated to but I was also willing. Between all the real violence and the fantasy violence, I somehow learned to hate the real thing but still appreciate all the “guy flicks” and cop shows on TV. A few years after Vietnam, I was powerfully interested in spirituality and still watching John Wayne movies.

What is a spiritual warrior? The feel of those two words put together got my attention real fast the first time I heard them combined. The GUY part of me wanted to strap on a sword and do whatever it is that spiritual warriors do. It must involve a sword, yes? No? A spear then. Something you can stab with, poke with, swing like a club and smash things with. . . come on now, it says “warrior” doesn’t it?

Who coined the term, was it Carlos Castenada? Kind of, but not really. He certainly used the term, or more precisely, his fictional character, Don Juan, used it a lot. That’s right, I said fictional, and I meant it. That’s just the kind of warrior I am. Take no prisoners. I’m pretty sure a lot of spiritual stuff I read when I was a teenager was a lot more fictional than I believed at the time, or even wanted to believe for many years to come. I’d probably write a lot more about that, but “them’s fightin’ words!” and like any good spiritual warrior I’m not interested in fighting.

The spiritual warrior as a concept might have its roots in the (now outlawed) caste system of India. Yogic knowledge and practices were forbidden to those in the lower castes, but not to the warrior caste, the one just below the priests, judges and teachers. Warriors were allowed to eat meat too, allowed to kill, which of course meant dealing with bodily fluids. The warrior was a peculiar mix of “untouchable” habits and priestly privileges. That’s odd. Oh wait, the warriors were the ones with all the weapons and the power and skill to use them. Maybe it’s not so strange after all that a warrior could scarf down half a pig, go out and kill people for a living and then seek enlightenment in his time off. Where does a 500 pound gorilla sleep? In the middle of the temple if he wants to, snoring as loud as a freight train if he’s so inclined.

Which brings me to a couple of points: the spiritual warrior, by nature is willing to confront, and to fight. But the confrontation is not without purpose, and of course it has to do with the spiritual world. So the spiritual warrior confronts his own ignorance, his habitual patterns, his preconceived notions and beliefs. Ultimately the spiritual warrior confronts his own defeat, because every philosophical road leads to the existential abyss, if you follow it far enough. The spiritual warrior drops his weapons when he finally realizes that there is no enemy, and no homeland either.

How is that the end? Well, spiritual pursuits are about converging on the ultimate. Ultimates are limited to the conceptual; as far as we know they don’t exist in nature. There’s “tall” and then there’s “taller.” There’s “small” and then there’s “smaller.” We never find that which is smallest nor do we confront the end of the universe as if we’re bumping into a store window. The spiritual warrior, therefore, finds his conquest finishing at the gates of paradox because ultimate “suchness” must also include ultimate possibility-- and ultimate possibility would have to consist of profound, unimaginable emptiness. Sound complicated? It doesn’t have to be. Some warriors choose to battle for ultimate simplicity.

Bottom line, a spiritual warrior battles for territory which exists inside himself. He battles with himself, for a piece of himself. The battle might rage for quite some time, until one day the warrior realizes, “Hey, what if I just surrender?” and then the battle is won. Later on the Spiritual warrior will recount his heroic exploits, epic battles on the way to his grand and hard won hilltop where his flag is now planted. He might not realize that others have reached his summit and beyond (there’s always a beyond) by skipping the battle entirely.

The other point I have to make speaks directly to the whole “warrior” thing, in relation to spiritual pursuits. It seems ridiculous to put the words “spiritual” and “warrior” together, and yet the term really caught on and became popular, it appealed to people, guys, I’m betting, especially. Guys who recognize a certain warrior nature within themselves, but also a profound call to the spiritual. Women have a warrior nature too, of course, but for now I’m sticking to the stereotype to make my point. Anyway, once the warrior is on the road to the spiritual he may be poorly dressed, in his heavy steel armor. He may be badly equipped, with mace, sword and shield against an enemy who will never truly materialize. The warrior may be the silliest thing you’ve ever seen on the spiritual road: but he’s on the road, and he’s there because you let him bring his toys with him.

April News

Letter From the Editors

Paul and Sheryl have nothing to say this month! We thought about nothing, wrote nothing . . . APRIL FOOL'S! But we have lightened up. After all it's spring, our cats are leaping all over the house and on each other, we've met some really great people this month and enjoyed our sessions with them immensely, and it's really a great time to be alive.

Enlightenment, Loving Life and Video Online
by Sheryl Karas

Hee hee. Paul got a small camera with video capability for his birthday and we've been trying it out by playing at interviewing each other about topics on our mind. Some were quite funny, others ridiculously long. Then we realized the importance of editing . . . uh, oh. We managed to get a few online (http://www.healingcommunication.com/videos.html). In one I got Paul on tape talking about what it was like to have a Kundalini awakening at the age of 13 and how that led to him having a very matter-of-fact attitude on the subject of enlightenment and "being enlightened." Not that he doesn't care strongly about spiritual advancement himself -- it's been the most driving passion of his life since he was very young -- but it doesn't make you superior. You're still you and you still have to live on the planet and figure out how you want to live your life.

That's been a theme this month. As a child of the 60s I grew up hearing that the transcendant spiritual path was the "cure" for all physical suffering and internalized the belief that if one could just learn to meditate well enough all your mundane material world concerns would just go away. Since I didn't grow up meditating and studying any spiritual teachings besides Judaism my thinking on the subject was probably colored more by the times I was living in than any true instruction on the subject. Still, even as an adult, after having woken up to a more spiritual perspective than I had before and having had a Kundalini awakening myself, I still haven't found the transcendent path to be a cure for my ills on the physical level. Far from it! What's up with that?!

I suppose if I chose to stay in the state I experienced in my expanded meditative state of mind all the time that may be so -- I certainly feel free from all pain then -- but remaining in that state while getting off the meditation cushion, going to work and focussing on physical reality is a choice even the most adept spiritual masters would be hard pressed to maintain. Today (Wednesday), I think, I got some insight.

Woke up this morning unclear on what I most needed to do related to money-making and work. My guidance lately has been to stay on the path of balance in ALL aspects of my life but evidently my expectations of what balance ought to be has absolutely nothing to do with what my higher guidance thinks I need. I asked today "What do I need to work on next?" Their answer: "Melatonin."

It turns out there were multiple levels of meaning in that request (as one of our clients pointed out) but what I knew it meant up front was that I should take the time to go outside and soak up some sun. Work on my melatonin production -- my sun tan! And I didn't appreciate that answer! (grumble, grumble). My uptight Bostonian self has bought way too much into the Puritan work ethic to put playing outside on a weekday ahead of work!

But we DID go outside. Paul and I went out for breakfast and then went for a walk on Seabright Beach. Paul brought his camera and we both took lots of pictures, mostly of birds and the local scene. Then we came across more than a dozen tiny seals very close to the shore carousing in the surf! Surfing seals? I knew they played but this had to be seen to be believed. Way cool! Way fun! And I really did appreciate being out there to see it.

Somewhere in the middle of this I remembered the very little I know about Tibetan Medicine and practices involving the Medicine Buddha. According to this very ancient tradition balance among the physical, psychological and spiritual elements of human existence is the essence of true health. And one of their many cures for illness on the physical level is to meditate on the seven limbs (bojjhangas) of enlightenment, one of which happens to be joy. (Read more about Tibetan medicine at http://www.dharma-haven.org/tibetan/tibetan-art-of-healing.htm . )

Joy. How about joy of living in a physical body on this very physical Earth? Playing. Having fun. It's important. And it makes life worthwhile. What do you enjoy doing? What do you enjoy experiencing? Make sure you make time for that every day. _________________________________________________________________________

"By stimulating and directing positive, joyous feelings we can change the essence of our inner patterns and experience. When positive or joyous feelings and attitudes pass through each organ and circulate throughout our whole system, our physical and chemical energies are transformed and balanced." -- Tarthang Tulku
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More Writing
Okay, we did write this month - several articles apiece where we work out some of our thoughts about miraculous healing, the power of intention in the process, and why it works sometimes and not as well at others. I shared why and how I got interested in doing medical intuition and what it meant to my life, and also how I got started doing energy healing and what I got out of that. Paul's blog is at http://paulhood.blogspot.com/ . Mine is at http://healingcommunication.blogspot.com/ . _________________________________________________________________________

What's in a Name?

Apparently quite a bit when it comes to selling products. As some of you may know I (Sheryl) have a small business selling healing perfume, kind of an oddity in the natural products field. It's a completely organic product (which is rare enough in the perfume industry) that is designed specifically for emotional healing. They're made with flower essences (an offshoot of homeopathy that have NO smell) and essential oils to take advantage of the healing properties of each. You use them once in a while for transient effects or daily over several weeks for long term and sometimes permanent transformation. I use them myself, test marketed them on others, and know that (if you pick the right one) they work amazingly well. . . But how does one go about marketing something like that?

Well, naming the individual perfumes has had some effect and today I want to announce three new name changes:

Creating Healthy Boundaries
This one used to be called "Balanced Caregiving" but it's become obvious that that limits who people think the product is for. What it does is address the typical codependent dilemma of being overly influenced and consumed by other people to the detriment of one's own well-being. It helps you come back to yourself and it does it fast!

PMS, Postpartum & Menopause Support
Oh! What a BORING name change this one is -- it used to be called "Women's Changes" -- but people didn't really know what it was about before. This addresses the specific but very cyclic issue of emotional imbalance that occurs in conjunction with hormonal change. It is NOT for pregnancy -- those hormonal changes are different. Rather it addresses issues that seem to come up when we as women are letting go of what no longer serves us -- monthly, after pregnancy, and at our final reproductive changes at menopause. It helps you integrate the lessons of those times and transition into a new state in a smoother fashion.

Opening the Heart
This one used to be called "Heart-Centered Sexuality" but it never really was about sex. I asked my guides for a "true" aphrodisiac, thinking as a member of the Viagra age that that's what it would be all about ! Oh silly me. Aphrodisiacs are LOVE potions -- not sex potions! They're for enhancing your willingness to give and receive love and they work by opening the heart chakra. You can buy my perfumes directly from me in person or through my perfume website at http://www.mamaloveproducts.com. Or, locally, visit Artisans Gallery downtown, Way of Life next to New Leaf Market on 41st Ave or Amoureuse on Soquel Ave. across from Gateways bookstore. _________________________________________________________________________

Want a Session?
We have slots available in the afternoon and early evening weekdays and most weekends. If you've never made an appointment with us make sure to check out our "Typical Session" page (http://www.healingcommunication.com/sessions.html), and "Fees" page (http://www.healingcommunication.com/fees.html) first. Then call us at (831) 325-4076 or send us an email.

March Articles

Psychoanalysis of the Miracle
by Paul Hood

A good friend just asked me,

“Have you "investigated" miracles? Seems we've talked about that before. Where do they REALLY come from? Are they ever part of our subconscious at work, I wonder.”

Have I investigated miracles: Yes, in some ways. I don't know that you can subject them to the laboratory. They're generally considered "anecdotal" which means they can't be reliably repeated under laboratory conditions, therefore they tend to fall outside the realm of scientific investigation. Other phenomena seems to hold up pretty well in the lab, including Psi experiences which some people think are miraculous, not scientific or explainable in normal terms.

But the anecdotal evidence is overwhelming, miracles happen all the time. Just not to everybody and not in every situation. I'm not saying miracles couldn’t happen to anyone at any time, just that sometimes they don’t happen when you think they should, and sometimes they do happen when you think they shouldn’t.

Something else happens too; bad luck. You could think of it as the flip side of a miracle. Sometimes it hits the same person again and again. Sheryl and I just got a call from a young woman who thought she was cursed. We determined that we weren't the best people to work with her (I still don't know exactly why), but I did talk to her for a long time on the phone about keeping positive intentions and avoiding setting up a downward spiral of belief/manifestation. We often participate in our own miracles, maybe we do create them. The "law of attraction" says we do all the time, that we're constantly creating our own reality by what we hold in our minds and hearts, for good or ill. Makes sense that we could create our own bad luck, but why does a miracle, or conversely a run of bad luck sometimes seem to come right out of the blue for no rhyme or reason? It's not always so simple, we live in a consensus reality which we all create together. The company you keep is important too. As is how you choose to live your life and how you describe it. However, everyone experiences some suffering in their lives and I don't know that anyone can avoid that forever. "Investigating" miracles opens up a whole can of worms, so to speak, it goes to the heart of our lives if you take it very far at all, raising a lot of questions, maybe more than I can answer in a single article. One person who contacted Sheryl and I pointed out how sometimes terrible events in a person's life can lead to a complete and miraculous transformation-- that we should be just as thankful for our suffering as we are for all the good things that we receive.

Read More here.

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Good luck? Bad luck? An Old Story

There is a Taoist, some people say "Zen," story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically. "May be," the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed. "May be," replied the old man. The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune. "May be," answered the farmer. The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out. "May be," said the farmer.

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Do You Really Need to Know the Future?
by Sheryl Karas

Early in our practice dire predictions of the future our clients could do nothing to prevent came up all the time. It was upsetting. I didn't want to tell people these things but we had set the intention that only what was in the highest benefit for all concerned would occur.

Read more here.

More on Predictions of Death
by Sheryl Karas

Many many years ago I used to listen to a radio psychic I respected a lot who, one day, spent part of his show talking about ethics and why he would NEVER tell anyone about bad things happening in their futures, especially never predicting about their deaths. The VERY NEXT WEEK a man called in the very late stages of terminal cancer.

Read more here.
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The Good and Bad Process in Positive Manifestation
Sheryl speaking here... as I'm compiling all these blog entries for this newsletter I'm reminded of the old saying "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game." It seems like it's human nature to want to put a label judgment of "good" or "bad" on an event and to want to avoid "bad" events at all costs. I think that's why we get obsessed with the future and why so many people (myself included) have latched onto "The Secret" as if it's the be all, end all suffering to our existence. It isn't. Bad things happen even with the BEST intentioning. Sometimes what we wish for most has unintended consequences we never would have dreamed possible—for better AND for worse. Sometimes bad things lead to great consequences—choices we wouldn't have made, people we never would have met. Sometimes we never see the benefit in our life times. . . but future generations might tend to disagree. And then again... it's all evolution. It's said that a meteor crashing into the Earth and changing the climate patterns killed the dinosaurs off. How unfortunate! For them. I'm not sure I want to live with saber-toothed tigers and tyrannosaurus rex in my backyard. A judgement. Good, bad, it's always some of both. I had a conversation with my guides about that. They had very interesting things to say. Click here to read more...


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Links to Other Blog Entries We Want You to See

What's All This About Meditation?


The Angels Among Us


And there's a lot more.
We're highlighting specific things we write in this email format. If you want to see it all check out Paul's Blog at http://paulhood.blogspot.com and Sheryl's Blog at http://healingcommunication.blogspot.com .
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And, oh yeah, we don't spend ALL our time writing.

If you want a session, give us a call at (831) 325-4076. We'll save a place for you!

Letter From the Editors

Hi Everyone,

Did you see us in the newspaper? We were in the Good Times in their Health and Healing issue last week. They put a really nice photo of us in there and said some really nice things. If you missed it, you can still read it online at
http://www.gtweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=194&Itemid=1

What else is new? We have a new website, same address: www.healingcommunication.com

Also, if you've had a session with us we'd really appreciate it if you'd vote us "best psychic" in the Good Times reader poll. Please? (We'd rather they had a "Best Spiritual Counselor or Healer" category because that's really what we do . . . but they don't.) You can do the voting online at:
http://www.gtweekly.com/index.php?option=com_surveys&Itemid=186&act=view_survey&survey=2007%20Best%20of%20Santa%20Cruz%20County
Or you can vote in this week's (paper) issue, there's a form included. Thanks!

So, what's in our newsletter this month? Well, we're still on a writing rampage, happy to say. Our work gives us lots of food for thought. This month Paul waxes philosophically about the nature of mystical reality in regards to miracle-making, including the role of what at first glance appears to be "bad luck." He talks a bit about the dropping of ego boundaries and the implications of that in this article as well as in another article about meditation he posted in his blog earlier this month. We'll include a link to that, too. Sheryl's blog is also full of new entries. She's also been taking a hard look at "bad luck," specifically in regards to dire predictions of the future. What's that all about? I don't know, maybe it's the "Ides of March." Also, both of us felt moved to write about "angels" in the flesh. Guess we've met a couple lately and we're glad they came our way.

Hope you're well.

Love,
Paul and Sheryl

We're in the news!

Good Times writer Chris Magyar interviewed us last week for the Good Times Health issue that came out this week. Check it out:

Visions of Health
Good Times - Wednesday, 21 February 2007

© Good Times

Powerful Beliefs, Intention, and The Law of Attraction

Every time I see a pelican I'm reminded of how things change when a concerted group of people choose to make things happen. When I was a kid the brown pelican was on the endangered species list because of DDT poisoning. I remember being completely terrified by reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. She and most environmentalists at the time believed we were doomed and as a very impressionable child I was convinced they were right. Instead DDT was banned, the pelicans have rebounded, and I am no longer capable of believing that the end of the world is around every bend.

Well, all right, I AM capable of it...I get as swayed by gloomy predictions as the next person...but I'm no longer willing to settle for that mindset. In our practice, Paul and I meet people who have been made to believe (and have the evidence to prove it!) that they are not capable of having what they need and deserve to have in their lives--whether that's a healthy body, a decent paycheck, or a positive relationship with a spouse, their families of origin or their kids. And on hearing their truly terrible stories one would be inclined to agree. And yet....very often we see the most miraculous changes occur simply as the result of a simple change in their belief systems. It's as if a switch can go off in our brains that says "I AM capable of having such and such a thing today" and it happens!

I won't say that I've seen "the lame walk and the dumb speak" (yet) as a result of a single change in belief. But we have seen intense pain disappear, new hope flood in, and painful emotional dilemmas resolved instantly at the point when, through a belief shift, the client was finally able to allow it.

It gives us pause because there are plenty of times when Paul and I think WE can't have what we need, when we give up hope (temporarily), when we need a reminder of what we're capable of being. In the healing business the healers get helped along with their clients. What can we say, we're not perfect either. But then a new client walks in, we put aside our own distress for a moment and concentrate on them, healing guidance comes in and the session winds up being of healing benefit for all concerned, ourselves included.

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The Secret
One of the concepts we've been working with a lot for ourselves and our clients is The Law of Attraction and what I call the Power of Powerful Beliefs, the basic premise of a new movie being talked up a bunch called "the Secret." A great friend recently lent us a copy. Paul and I both have problems with it-- the first half, especially, is overly simplistic and somewhat misleading -- but I think, generally speaking, that it is really good at introducing people to these concepts in an uplifting and, at times, powerfully moving and inspirational way. That's the power of this form of media and that makes it worth seeing for that reason alone. But I have major concerns about the very strong statement made that whenever bad things happen it's because we as individuals attracted it into our lives. That's impossible, my guidance tells me. There are always multiple purposes to everything that happens and sometimes horrible things are there to remind us of the immense importance of what we're really here to do. From a spiritually whole-istic perspective the whole of humanity is responsible for what happens to the human race as a whole. We collectively manifest issues and problems as a whole and work them out through millennia. (We'll have to get back to this in future issues.) But the gist of the movie is that we attract all kinds of things to ourselves and, since form follows thought, we're more likely to manifest happier experiences if we train ourselves to focus on happier thoughts. "The Secret" is available only on DVD or by watching it directly on your computer off the internet. You can check it out at http://www.thesecret.tv/ .
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The Law of Attraction is at the very heart of what we do on a daily basis. When I listen to clients I am always struck by the themes that repeat over and over in their lives. That's the Law of Attraction at work and it's ALWAYS a glaring red flag as to what they need help with. If they weren't stuck in a particular way they wouldn't attract the same experiences time and again.

How do you heal something like that? Well, first you have to recognize it's happening and take a good peek at what might be causing it. There's always a set of underlying beliefs passed on from family, friends or the societies we live in combined with beliefs we created as a result of unresolved issues in our past. We tell ourselves that our stories -- the ones we tell to make sense of our lives--are the indisputable whole truth and that what happened to us then limits what we're capable of being from that time on. But from our perspective as healers nothing could be less truthful than that.

Sometimes the "conventional wisdom" of society has told someone that "there's no cure or treatment for that" and that's not just a product of the American medical system. Rape victims are told repeatedly that they'll "never get over it." Victims of other crimes wind up thinking that they'll be looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives. The cure for all these people frequently lies in rejecting the "wisdom." You learn from what happened-- no one over the age of five crosses the street without looking both ways--but you can heal from the most horrific things and live your life freer from pain.

Sometimes you literally have to have faith no matter what other people say you can and cannot do.

Paul wants me to share how I got my first book published because he thinks it's a great example of the importance of belief in the face of nay-saying. And I guess that's the case because I believed in that project completely whereas in other areas of my life, where I had significantly less faith, I have struggled to manifest important things I wanted. Conventional wisdom says it is next to impossible for first time authors to get published and it's a long hard road if they do. But I had my first book, The Solstice Evergreen, published by a real publishing house without sending a single query letter out in the mail. In fact, there were only two publishing people who even read it. Unfortunately, the first person was an agent who was offering a workshop about how to get published. He told me he didn't think there was a market for a book on such a specialized topic as the pagan origin of the Christmas Tree. "Who would be interested in that?" And, at first, I believed him....I mean, after all, I just paid him for his "expertise." He must have known better than me and that stopped me cold in my tracks for seven years. Then I woke up. What the hell? The Christmas Tree is such a popular custom, who wouldn't be interested in where it came from? There HAD to be a market for that. So I went to a mini-workshop on publishing your own work led, as it turned out, by a small publisher fishing for something to sell. He read the very same query I gave to the first workshop leader seven years earlier and said "Wow! I want to publish that." It sold really well and has been in print ever since.

So is that all it's about -- belief-inspired intention? Well, there's also the issue of follow-through. We have to act on our desires, follow our hunches, and learn from whatever comes next. Getting back to the pelicans: It's not good enough that a committed group of people thought it was outrageous to spray poison on the earth and kill the birds, animals and fish. On some level they weren't as convinced nothing could be done as it seemed to me back then or they wouldn't have spoken out at all. On some level they intended to make a difference and they acted on that intention. They shouted out what they saw with the belief that it could make a difference...and, even though the message was scary, their desire to get people to stand up and stop the destruction they were predicting is what made their efforts succeed.

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How to Ask for What You Want

George prayed every day for three years to win the lottery, but never heard from God or hit the jackpot. After a while he began to lose hope, but he never gave up his faith entirely.

Finally, God woke him up in the middle of the night. "George, is that you who's been praying so hard to win the lottery?" the Supreme Being boomed.

"Yes, Lord, desperately!"

God sighed, paused for a moment, then said thoughtfully, "George, you have to buy a ticket."

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What's interesting to us as healers is how often people come to us with problems -- especially on the physical level -- "perfectly" designed to help them experience in material form a thought pattern / belief they don't express in a more conscious way. According to the Law of Attraction we experience physical results of whatever we focus on consistently over a long time. You don't have to be afraid of every random thought--there's a time lag built in to buffer that -- but the chronic patterns, the ones we were taught to believe at an early age and have practiced our whole lives manifest in big ways. As I said before, this can be on a societal level but there are more frequently "collective" manifestations than run through whole families -- even genetic switches that turn on and off based on environmental factors including the emotional environment we live in and how we respond to it. (I've been reading about genetic switches in magazines like "Scientific American.") That's leading to ripples of hope in the scientific community. If a genetic switch can be flipped by the introduction of certain environmental influences, we can learn to switch them back again.

I believe as healers that we actually participate in this switching on and off. The world of psychoneuroimmunology already has proven that persistent beliefs affect the release of certain neurochemicals in the brain that impact every system in the body. Over time this can lead to serious illness. In fact, all the immune system-related illnesses ranging from susceptibility to the common cold to the most life-threatening disorders are profoundly influenced by a person's chronic state of mind. Beliefs are the most persistent of thoughts and that's why the bulk of our healing practice revolves around making those beliefs conscious and shifting them along with the energy healing and spiritual guidance we provide. It's not enough that WE know we can intend strongly enough to override those unconscious patterns. Without the client's increased awareness and participation they can just undo all the work we did in ten seconds flat. And what would be the point of that?

We're all creative and powerful beyond belief and 99% of the people we meet fail to realize that about themselves. That's one of the reasons I so wanted to comment on the Law of Attraction and the importance of conscious intention. It's at the heart of everything we do. And what we help our clients make use of most.

-- Sheryl Karas
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Spiritual Prosperity and Everyday Riches

Recently Paul was instructed by his guidance to pay more attention to his last priority than his first. Like most people, more of our attention gets sucked into the demands and concerns of everyday practical life than into why we're wanting to do what we're doing in the first place. Why are we here? What makes our hearts sing and what gives our lives purpose?

Paul is a talented photographer. He takes photographs of hummingbirds in mid-flight -- some as pristine as a still life, a truly fleeting moment absolutely frozen in time; others a colorful blur, like a gesture drawing of flapping wings and flashes of light that capture the essence of these amazing creatures like nothing else I've ever seen. He is an artist and a mystic who, for minutes and sometimes hours at a time, can connect with his subjects in the most profound manner. I've seen birds literally cock their heads at him and come in for a closer look. They pose for him, turning this way and that, pausing over and over while he clicks away to his heart's delight.

Paul says that the driving passion of his life is to help himself and others rise above limited perspectives and reach higher levels of spiritual development. He likes helping our clients by applying broad spiritual perspectives to the most personal and significant aspects of their daily lives. Living a spiritually evolved life in the context of everyday physical existence is no small project. Becoming aware of the greater meaning and possibility inherent in every life situation lifts people out of stuck places, helps them see the benefits in the challenges they're faced with, and allows them to sally forth with new vigor and determination, awe and delight. It's a challenge we both relish and we support each other by using our complementary focuses to help our clients and ourselves.

According to Chinese mythology, the role of the mighty dragon is to soar to heaven and come back to earth clutching the pearl of enlightenment, spreading good fortune and prosperity to one and all. Paul was born in the Year of the Dragon. I feel lucky to have him in my life.

What's my role? Well, I don't take too much stock in this usually but, according to Chinese astrology, I was born in the Year of the Dog. Oh joy, not the most exciting sign (woof, woof) but the good qualities of the Dog are that they are loyal, faithful, trustworthy and honest, and literally keep their noses to the ground, "doggedly" pursuing their projects and interests with single-minded determination. To be honest, I don't really care that much about spiritual transcendence -- I'm here on earth and while it was useful to have had the spiritual awakenings and experiences I have had, I'm much more interested in living a happy and satisfying physical life and helping my clients do the same.

Is it different from what Paul wants? Well, our beliefs about it differ considerably. He cares about your spiritual development; I use a spiritual perspective to concentrate on life on earth. Together it's like we're attempting to reenact the ancient dance of Shakti and Shiva, melding the transcendent and immanent, the act of rising above mundane physical reality for divine inspiration and the task of using that inspiration to create new realities on the physical plane.

We come at our work from different perspectives but it's really all about the same thing.

What's my passion?

Well, I absolutely love it when an inner voice prompts me to say what seems like an innocent little comment to me at the time and the whole sky opens up for one of our clients. I love the look of excitement and possibility that comes into their eyes and the energy and light that infuses their beings. I love seeing people be lifted up and I find myself touched, awestruck and blessed every time it happens.

That's why I'm doing it. It's for you but-- I'm not ashamed to admit it --it's also good for me.

Sheryl Karas, © 2006