Encounters with Power: Adventures and Misadventures on the Shamanic Path of Healing - José Luis Stevens 2017

An Encounter with Power Through a Healing Crisis: The Natural Traveling Pharmacy
Inspiration—Ceremonialist-Healer

After returning from three weeks in Peru and resting for only a week at home, I foolishly planned to travel to Russia to carry out an intensive seminar schedule. To make matters more difficult, I was very ill with a virus I came down with on my last day in the jungle. I was to give a two-hour lecture on prosperity, a three-day seminar covering the entire Power Path Personality System (a.k.a. the Michael system), and after a planned day of rest, a two-day seminar called “Being on the Right Track.” I did not yet know that a number of other public appearances would be added to my schedule once I got there.

I arrived in Moscow after a thirty-hour journey with a cough that had started in the Amazon and was getting rapidly worse. In a state of complete exhaustion, I knew I had made a terrible mistake in not making sure I was completely healthy before embarking on such a grueling schedule. One of my hosts left me at a hotel near Red Square to rest up. I fought off late calls from various “very special” Russian girls soliciting sex in the lobby, left my phone off the hook, and finally got some sleep.

The next day I had an orientation meeting with my hosts, interviewed various interpreters, and planned the week’s events. Late in the afternoon we drove through horrific traffic to a big hall in a bookstore where I was to give the talk on prosperity. Fighting a bad cough on the drive, I tried to go over my talk while in a delirium of jet lag, waves of chills and fever, and trouble breathing the polluted air. I was already losing my voice and wondering if I could make it through the evening. But failure was not an option so, buoyed by the crowd and driven from my head into my heart by my worsening condition, I delivered an outstanding spontaneous talk on prosperity through my interpreter, all the while sucking on cough drops to avoid croaking or screeching my words.

Afterward, I was mobbed with beaming Muscovites wanting me to sign their tattered Russian-edition copies of Transforming Your Dragons. To my great surprise the book had sold sixty thousand copies and was being reprinted. I managed to accommodate them amid an incessant flash of cameras, a most strange experience of celebrity when all I wanted was to lie down and sleep. Then there was dinner, conversation, and finally the bliss of bed.

The next day I began the three-day seminar in an ice-cold, drafty hall with seventy people in attendance: therapists, journalists, and other people of importance. I felt cold all day. By late afternoon my voice was failing badly and the mild October weather had become blustery and chilly, threatening to snow. I was woefully unprepared: I needed a long overcoat, a knit hat, and gloves. My kind hosts, seeing my distress, loaned me wool sweaters to keep me warm. I did not want to alarm them by letting on how ill I felt, but I told them I was under the weather with gastrointestinal discomfort, probably due to the abrupt change in climate and the different bacteria in the water.

That night after the seminar in the cold air, I knew my health was crashing. I could feel myself sliding into flu-like symptoms, and when I reached my hotel room I had uncontrollable diarrhea and such waves of illness that I could barely get undressed in the frigid room and flop into a stupor under the covers.

Now I was in sheer panic. I could see no way I could continue the seminar series. I had come all the way to Moscow and was facing a disaster. In my entire career as an international speaker, I had never been in this dilemma before. I was on the verge of calling the front desk and trying to get them to send a doctor to my room to help me immediately. My mind was out of control as I lay there thinking of all the possibilities of what could be wrong with me. Perhaps some terrible jungle disease was blasting forward in full viral or bacterial form. Maybe I was coming down with typhoid, meningitis, dengue fever, or yellow fever. Maybe I had some unnamable disease that doctors in Moscow had no idea how to treat. Might I even die in Moscow because no one would know how to treat me? I pictured Lena flying in just in time to see me expire in some cold hospital with hammers and sickles on the wall.

I had a thermometer with me and discovered that, although I was sweating, I was a full two degrees lower than normal. What could this mean? Thyroid disease? I had a dry cough, backaches, diarrhea, a headache, and waves of weird, bad feelings driving through me, making me feel terribly anxious. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was green jungle vines and plants all around me, and I felt the spirit of some alien viral intruder in my body.

I had reached a crisis point, absolute bottom, and had to face reality: I could not tough it out and carry on my ambitious schedule. I took stock and assessed my situation. Maybe in the morning I would have to tell my hosts how sick I was and cancel. They would take a terrible financial loss; I would offer to compensate them as best I could. Not only would I not earn anything from my trip, but it would cost me a lot of money.

Step one in managing my crisis was that I stopped resisting this idea but instead accepted it and found that I could live with it. Step two consisted of making an inventory of my tools for healing. As I considered my travel pharmacy, I realized I was actually in the same position as most people in the world who had to rely on their wits to get better.

I made a mental inventory:

1.I had a bottle of cough medicine that warned against taking it if blood pressure was low. I deduced from my low body temperature that I had low blood pressure, so the cough medicine was out.

2.I had some cough drops and they were helpful.

3.I had a thermometer to take my temperature.

4.I had some black walnut drops to help get rid of parasites.

5.I had some maca (like ginseng) from Peru.

6.I had a cassette tape of some icaros sung by two different shamans for my protection and healing.

7.I had some Agua Florida in a little bottle containing some icaros given to me by a shaman in Peru.

8.I had some mapacho, cigarettes that had been prayed and sung over by the same shaman in Peru.

9.I had a hawk feather I was using as a bookmark.

Then I remembered my most important healing tools:

1.I had my two hands for healing myself.

2.I had the ability to focus my mind toward certain specific subjects.

3.I had the power of my intent and my choice to have a positive attitude. Now I was on a roll. I realized I had some more extraordinary ingredients in my pharmacy.

4.I had my allies, my invisible helpers including Guadalupe, the Huichol teacher I had apprenticed with for ten years and who had passed on.

5.I had knowledge of chi gong, an ancient Taoist shamanic practice of accumulating power and energy, and the ability to focus and send my breath where I needed it.

6.Finally, the most powerful ingredient of all was that I had my ability to go within and talk to Spirit.

I had no aspirin, painkillers, or Western medicine of any consequence, yet I realized that I had quite a powerful traveling pharmacy. Immediately I felt stronger and a little better about my predicament, so I went to work. I decided that the first action should be going within and talking to Spirit, or my own essence (the two being basically the same). I opened the dialogue, and to my great satisfaction I made immediate contact. Here is the gist of the conversation that took place.

Me: Well, Spirit, I am in a nasty situation. First of all, I want to thank you for the gift of my life, for creating me and giving me this opportunity to come to Russia. Thank you also for helping me in my time of need. I came all the way over here to keep my agreements and do my life-task work. I have work to do, so I will try my best to fulfill my duty if I possibly can. If not, I will accept my situation and not resist. What do I need to know at this time?

Spirit (or essence): José, indeed you are quite ill. Yet this is not the allotted time for you to die. There is no need to be quite so dramatic. We can help stabilize you and help you get through your obligations here. It will not be easy but it can be done. First, you absolutely must agree to one thing.

Me: Okay, anything. I’m desperate.

Spirit: We can help you, but when you get home you must agree to rest and take time to heal yourself. You must make it your number-one priority. Do not launch headlong into another frenzy of work. You have pushed yourself too hard and too far and you are paying the price.

Me: Okay, agreed. I get it. What else?

Spirit: Right now you must get control over your anxiety and your thoughts. They are not at all helpful, but you can use your mind to your advantage. No matter what, you must not concentrate on your worries. Be in the moment at all costs.

Me: Okay, got it. Sounds hard but I will do it.

Spirit: You are physically sick, but this illness has its roots in the hard work you did in Peru on your lack of unconditional love for yourself. Now you must practice what you learned there. Love yourself no matter what, even if you have to cancel everything.

Me: Tall order, but I get it.

Spirit: Take a very hot bath and then get under the covers and sweat.

Me: Done!

So I began. First I took out my jungle pharmacy and, with affection, doused myself with some aromatic Agua Florida. Then, in a ceremonial manner, I smoked myself with some special tobacco, calling upon my shaman healers in Peru to help me. I called upon Guadalupe and other allies and thanked them for all their help. Then I asked them to help me through the use of my limited but potent tool kit. Using my hawk feather as Guadalupe had taught me, I thoroughly cleansed my body of unwanted or alien energies, concentrating on my chest and throat, where the malady seemed at its worst. Then, using my hands, I gave myself an intense foot and hand massage, concentrating on those points that hurt a lot.

Next, I performed several chi gong exercises that are good for people who are bedridden and ill, including the inner smile, where you create a smile on your face and smile inside at whatever you focus on. This is a powerful technique for strengthening the immune system and shifting stuck patterns.

I found chi gong challenging at first because I was feeling so poorly, but I forced myself to do it and after a time it came more easily. I found something easy to smile at: the mental image of my dog, Russ, sleeping with his head on the cats or looking at me with his big funny ears hanging down. Then I smiled at various parts of my body and at my situation, even laughed out loud at the craziness of it all, despite the fact that I didn’t feel very amused.

Then I told my body that I was very sorry I had mistreated it, taken it for granted, and pushed it so hard, and I promised to take better care of it. I told it I loved it and thanked it for all its hard work supporting me over the course of my life. Since I was so sick, my heart was open and this was easy for me to do.

I filled the tub with the hottest water I could stand, got in, and soaked deeply. Climbing out steaming, I dried quickly, staggered over to the bed, and snuggled under the quilts, sweating heavily and soaking the sheets through. As I lay there I worked intensively on my mental state: my focus, intent, and attitude. I disciplined myself to avoid worry and concentrated on getting well. Over and over again I repeated to myself and to what the shamans call the field of intent and physicists call the quantum field, “I am well. I am well. I am healed. I am strong. I am powerful. Spirit, I am in you and you are in me” and on like this creatively.

As I repeated this mantra, I reached an unusually clear mental state. I saw that whatever illness I had was a mental construct: things are thoughts and thoughts are things. Since the body is composed of subatomic particles that wink on and off millions of times a second, appearing only briefly in the present moment, and since what I call “myself” is mostly empty space, the illness must likewise be made up of mostly empty space. I saw that the illness was being created moment by moment and had no real permanence or fixed reality — it was ephemeral in nature. I could also see that I might starve it by withdrawing any mental energy I was giving it. At that moment I remembered the tape with icaros from the jungle. I pulled out my tape recorder and listened to the icaros over and over, singing along with them with all my focus and strength. The Shipibo icaros are designed to work at the subatomic level, clearing away maladies and foreign energies and inserting healing frequencies. With an enormous sense of relief, I could feel them working: clearing, cleaning, purifying, raising the vibratory level of key points in my body. I could sense that the illness the icaros were clearing out was indeed a tendency to be deeply critical of myself, a legacy of early childhood held over and still operating in the now point. I patted my body all over and felt great compassion for it, realizing that it was my responsibility to heal myself and I could do that with the tools I had with me. I was truly amazed at what I was learning at the deepest experiential level. Finally, I drifted off to sleep.

In the morning I awoke very weak, very delicate, and still sick, but “better.” I slowly got dressed, and by the time my host came to pick me up for the seminar, I believed I could actually carry off teaching until at least noon. I was honest with her and told her that I had been very ill but assured her I would do my best. I could see the look of genuine fear on her face, so I did what I could to calm her down. She was kind enough to inform a doctor friend, who brought me some homeopathic drops that proved to be quite helpful in the coming days.

I arrived at the hall fortified with warm clothes and began the seminar. Soon I got into the swing of lecturing, answering questions, and interviewing audience members about their “overleaves,” or personality traits. Their genuine openness and willingness to reveal themselves in such a public forum was so inspiring to me that I forgot all about being sick. At the end of the day I remembered my agreement with Spirit and declined all the Saturday night invitations to go out, instead returning to my hotel room for more work on myself using my tools and to get a good night’s rest.

I was definitely not well, but I was incredibly relieved and grateful to be able to carry on with the seminars and my work. The chill I got and my coughing had pulled a rib out and twisted a vertebra in my neck, causing me a lot of pain. I figured I was being sorely tested and reminded myself not to get too complacent. Nevertheless, I genuinely began to enjoy the whole experience of being in Moscow teaching, lecturing, and meeting so many interesting people.

I completed the third day and had a day off before the next seminar began. I was well enough to go to Red Square and see a little of the city. The next seminar took place in a different hotel. We had a powerful two-day experience that included many chi gong exercises — rather difficult for me with my pulled rib but nevertheless manageable.

I was finally done and had met all my obligations — or so I thought. My hosts had enthusiastically arranged for a lecture at Moscow State University, the most prestigious university in Russia. I was to deliver a three-hour talk to some seventy faculty members of all disciplines on the subject of communication. Stunned, I realized I had left my notes on this subject back in Santa Fe, not thinking I would need them. I quickly drew up what materials I did have and wrote down as much as I could remember from my notes, and then went out to give a lecture to a highly educated and possibly highly critical audience. Nevertheless, a strange calm settled over me as I walked into a state-of-the-art theater-style classroom with big-screen TVs hanging from the ceiling.

After what I presumed was a fancy introduction given with a flourish by my host Anatoli, a doctor of psychology, I began my talk with the help of an interpreter. I told the audience that I preferred not to use jargon, and my talk would not be heavy on research and scientific language. I preferred to use simple practical language to make straightforward points about a subject that could be very beneficial to them. I mentioned that I had discovered in my own life that the most useful information is often the simplest. I then proceeded with my lecture, hoping they would agree with my observations. From the many smiling faces and nods, I deduced that things were going well. Then it was break time and Anatoli drew me aside and nervously suggested that I give them more complex material because he was worried that it might be too simple. After all, this was his class and he wanted to make sure they would be satisfied and challenged. Again, I felt strangely calm and understood completely that there was no problem but that I would have to somehow satisfy this concern.

I told the class that they might think my concepts were very simple but that it was part of a much bigger system of understanding people, and I was sharing only a very small but important part of it. I launched into value systems and different ways of perceiving the world. I mentioned seven attitudes, modes, needs, and fear patterns that could easily block meaningful attempts to communicate. By this time the class participants were writing furiously in their notebooks, and hands were shooting up everywhere. I could see that they were beginning to glimpse a much larger way of perceiving people and how vast the topic of communication really was. Then I finished the lecture after answering many questions and giving them practical advice about how to teach more effectively. To my great relief, they were very grateful and happy and I felt a deep satisfaction surge over me. I had a clear sense that I was doing my life-task work and that I had just fulfilled a major set of agreements with a group of people in a far-off land. Aaahhhh. Seventy more agreements completed. How many yet to go?

POSTSCRIPT

The Essence of the Natural Traveling Pharmacy

Not everyone is going to just happen to have a tape of icaros from the Amazon with them, nor is everyone going to carry a hawk feather, Agua Florida, maca, mapacho, or black walnut drops or have knowledge of chi gong. These just happen to be in my pharmacy but you may have different tools in yours. So let’s concentrate on the most important ingredients of the pharmacy that almost everyone has at all times:

1.Two hands for healing

2.The choice to focus your mind toward specific subjects

3.The focus of your breath

4.The power of intent using a positive attitude

5.Various allies, invisible helpers, if you believe they exist for you

6.The ability to go within and talk to Spirit, if you believe this exists for you

If you have no problem with numbers 5 and 6, you have six powerful tools at your disposal. If you do have trouble with 5 and 6, you have at least four tools. If you are too much of a skeptic, you may be in real trouble.

Each day that passes reveals to me more clearly that the most powerful device in the universe is the mind: the ability to think, feel, and intend. This is what programs the quantum field, or field of intent, to magnetize itself into specific forms or manifestations that we then experience as reality moment by moment. This is what allows us to create and re-create our experience at will.

It has been said that we human beings are made in the image and likeness of our creator. I believe this has nothing to do with our appearance but rather refers to our minds, which are able to create at will using the power of intention. We can intend to use our hands for clearing, opening, organizing, unblocking, and circulating energy. With our hands we can nurture, perform direct healing, and make powerful gestures that shape a new reality, like a wizard waving a wand.

Even if we are missing our hands, we can still imagine them with intent. With our focus and intent we can choose to recreate our experience, and with a shift of attitude we have the power of the universe at our disposal. A relationship with allies extends this power infinitely, and ultimately the ability to speak directly to Spirit grants us access to wisdom — important information that we may need in the moment to guide us to make better choices.

Through an uncomfortable illness in a challenging time, I was granted a rare and great opportunity to learn a great deal about my core resources and how to apply them effectively. Once again I was reminded that the price of becoming more powerful is leaving my comfort zone. I hope that my sharing this experience with you will make your own traveling pharmacy more accessible to you when you need it.

EXERCISE

At random times, check in and see if you can identify the forms of medicine at your disposal in the natural pharmacy of nature: sunshine, shade, moisture, heat, the presence of an animal, a person, and so on. Even if you are not outside, check out what is in the pharmacy of your life, including your own medicinal thoughts, attitudes, insights, and feelings. Realize that you are surrounded by medicines everywhere, all the time.