True happiness is to be won by learning to love with such elevation of spirit as to attain the power to stand up to grief…. Surpass the old love with an even greater new love.
As the creative effort involved in this book draws to a close, two things come to mind. Immediately after each of my previous books went to press, events occurred and stories were shared that I thought would have been perfect for the book, but it was too late to include them. The Art of Healing will be no different, for when you start thinking about a certain topic, your consciousness attracts into your life more of what you think about. It connects with the universal consciousness and changes people’s beliefs and experience. It is no coincidence when that happens, or who it happens to. Jung called it synchronicity. Another trait my books have in common is summed up by the saying “It takes a village.” I have yet to produce a book all by myself, and I would be surprised if anyone has ever been able to do so. Just as surgery requires a team of trained, dedicated people, so does a book.
In our final days of editing, events occurred that illustrate and augment the things I have written about in these chapters. This time they happened before we went to press, so I am able to share them with you now.
Rita was excited to hear that my next book was going to explore creative approaches that delve deeper into the subconscious and that cross boundaries of time, space, and matter. She wrote to me saying that recently she had been finding hearts in nature and photographing them — heart-shaped rocks, a heart-shaped watermelon, and even a three-dimensional heart of meat stuck inside the lid on a can of dog food! Just as my finding pennies reminds me that “in God we trust,” for Rita the hearts represent “in love we trust.” The most remarkable story she shared with me, however, was about her mother’s painting. I’ll let Rita
tell it in her own words.
My mother was in her late seventies when she took a one-day workshop from a teacher of the Rudolf Steiner method of veil painting. This is a method of watercolor painting that involves using a lot of water and doing layers of color washes down the page. As it dries, you wait to see what emerges. Mom called me after the workshop to say how disappointed she was. All the other students in the class saw trees and many wonderful things emerge from their paintings, but her painting remained just plain color washes, nothing else. She felt she had failed — something she often felt throughout her life.
Mom was an incredible mystic and way ahead of her time spiritually. She had suffered from many tragedies to do with her father and later my dad, but she was a survivor because she always looked ahead and kept going no matter what. She respected all life, all beings, and made no distinctions of any kind. I felt sad for her that after having such hopeful expectations of the veil-painting class, she’d had none of the results the other students achieved.
The next morning she called me in great excitement. “Come and look at my painting,” she said. “Come quickly! I can’t believe what I’m seeing.” I drove there as fast as I possibly could, all the while wondering what in the world could have happened to her painting. When I arrived, I was astonished to see four small human figures emerging from the various layers of color wash. They wore robes and had no faces, and they seemed to be at various depths, with a couple of them farther back and the others moving forward, as if walking toward the front of the painting. My mother swore that the night before, they had not been there. She kept the painting in a safe with her other important papers and documents, and we often pulled it out to look at it together. There was a sense of benevolent energy about the figures that made them seem as if they were really approaching us and weren’t just tricks of color and water.
After Mom died, my sister and I had the task of clearing her house. One of the first things I did was go to the safe and look for her veil painting, because I wanted to bring those beautiful beings home with me. As before, it was tucked carefully between her other papers, but when I pulled it out the figures were gone! The painting looked exactly as she had described it after she finished it — plain layers of color wash and nothing else. Along with the four figures, the sense of benevolent energy had left. I realized then that these beings were great spirits; they had come to Mom offering protection and guidance in the next phase of her life’s journey. After she passed, their reason for being here was over. Their loving task was completed.
Rita’s story did not surprise me. Her mother’s benevolent figures might have appeared initially to remind her that she was not a failure and to bestow on her some sense of how beloved she was. But when she died, they became the guides who accompanied her home.
In the beginning of this book I recalled a time that I needed to feel energized and renewed and was out walking the dogs in a local cemetery. I noticed a white object lying on the roadway. I walked over, picked it up, and found that it was a teddy bear with a heart and the words Love Me on its chest. I went home renewed. Guides appear in many forms, sometimes in something as simple as a stuffed toy, the words of a song, or a prediction in a horoscope. Sometimes a chain of events is sparked, and the person being guided feels as if she is watching events unfold as another hand makes them happen.
On December 30, 2012, I forwarded to Cindy, my coauthor on this book, a copy of my numerology reading that had been sent to me. It struck me as being remarkably accurate and contained an exciting New Year’s prediction. No coincidence. Because Cindy and I share the same numerology Life Path number, I knew she’d be interested to read what it said:
Numerologists see 2013 as an exciting year when new beginnings are based on an impulse and, like a lineup of tumbling dominoes, are fueled by an energetic chain of events. The person with this Life Path number displays independence and confidence and has a gift for initiating and organizing schemes and working to get things done. This is a time when action must, and will, be taken with extremely positive results. Moving forward, you will create a better life for yourself. Hold on to that which enriches your soul and supports your life goals, but let go of that which is no longer useful or distracts you from your path. Create a new blueprint of what you would like to have happen in your life. This year especially, the dreams that you express in a visual form are the events that you will see unfold.
Cindy has been living and working in the United States for the last ten years. Before that she lived in England, where her daughter, son, and four grandchildren are living now. After reading this numerology report, Cindy confessed that she often feels torn about whether to stay in America or move back to England. Her grandchildren are quickly growing up, and she regrets not being able to participate in their lives. At the same time, she has a deep love for the place where she currently resides; in many ways it feels to her like home. We had just finished working on the edits for the chapter on the drawings, so I said to her, “Draw a picture of yourself in England and another of yourself in the United States.”
A few days later, I received an email with only one picture attached (fig. 70). Cindy wrote, “I had no problem drawing the scene of myself in England, but I couldn’t begin to imagine what scene to draw here. Looking at this picture makes me feel so happy; I couldn’t wait to show it to you. I’m on the left and am supposed to be half running and half squatting so I can hug the kids. But I’m not too good at drawing me squatting on the run. In fact, I’m not sure I can squat on the run! It wasn’t until I finished the drawing that I noticed there were no suitcases. I wondered where my bags were, and then I thought, ‘Oh good. I’m leaving all that old baggage behind.’ And it felt like a new beginning.”
After I opened Cindy’s scanned drawing, I began writing in a stream-of-consciousness style that lets my intuition communicate at the same time as my analytical mind. My immediate response to her picture was: “Your knees are buckling a little, but you can handle it, and their feet are all turned toward you. Man, this is great. There are eight matching windows on the plane. Every religion has seven days in the week, so the number eight represents a new beginning. There are ten yellow rays on the sun. Ten is a significant number. It comes from the undifferentiated ‘no thing’ — the zero — and from the ‘one’ (God), and so, you have creation. (And it is also my birth month!) All your outfits are like a rainbow of healthy colors. Your daughter’s husband has bonded with you, with his arm. All the shoes are the same color, as if the family is on the same journey. Everyone has all their senses to communicate with each other. The oldest grandchild is reaching for you, as is your daughter. All your connections with them are right on, with your feet pointed toward each other and the family touching each other. Looks like a great choice.”
Doors opened for Cindy when a totally unexpected opportunity for moving back to England presented itself within weeks of her doing this drawing. Her new life will begin in October — the tenth month — and Cindy will be reunited with her family.
When our publishing editor heard this story and saw the drawing, she was delighted. These events couldn’t have happened with better timing, nor could there have been a more heartwarming example of how using our creative consciousness helps us to identify our true selves and the future we are creating. They showed how we can set healthy goals and walk into the miracles that bring meaning to our lives. I asked Cindy if her story and drawing could be used in the book. “I guess I’d better call my daughter first and let her know I’m coming,” she said, laughing.
As you close the covers of The Art of Healing, don’t think of it as the end of our time together. Think of it as the beginning of your new journey. You can always visit and read it again. I have learned that if I reread the same books every couple of years, and the books get better each time, it tells me that I am continuing to grow and becoming aware of wisdom that I did not previously notice, owing to my limited state of consciousness at that time.
So, learn from the things I have shared with you. Put them in your pocket or toolbox and continue on your own journey of discovery. Try the various exercises and see what happens. Reparent yourself. Recreate yourself. Find your true path and become who you were always meant to be.