Author: Orenda Healing International

 

 

Being a health care professional or healer is extremely fulfilling… and yet the work can lead to overwhelm and burn-out.  When you’re not at your best and your “energy bank” is empty, it’s challenging to provide compassionate, effective care to others.  But there’s light at the end of the tunnel!

We invite you to join us for a workshop with Qigong Master Mintong Gu, specifically designed for health care professionals and their clients, to help integrate Wisdom Healing Qigong tools into other protocols and modalities. Qigong is the ancient art of energy healing and has reaped benefits for nearly 5,000 years in China.

Many years ago Qigong Master Mingtong Gu envisioned today – a time when many health care practitioners like ourselves would be called to activate a new healing paradigm.  Professionals who are unsatisfied with experiences of symptom-relief-focused medicine, looking for

A practice deeply effective and complementary to your area of specialty…

A way to preserve your deep love for the healing and health care craft, and to replenish the energy to keep doing it in the midst of a challenging and stressful systemic shift…

A way for you, the healer, to “heal thyself,” as well as clients, patients, and loved ones…

This workshop is for you!  

Wisdom Healing Qigong for Health Care Professionals
July 30 in San Rafael, CA
July 31 in Petaluma, CA
or via Livestream

 

You can learn more here about Qigong and Master Mingtong Gu’s work and register  for the workshop today.

 

There’s still time to send in your article, short story, poetry or art work for the Fall issue of Four Winds Journal!  The theme is Art As Activism:  How It Heals.  You can learn more about this theme here.

The submission deadline is July 30, 2017.  Let us know if you have any questions and we’ll get right back to you.  Email us with Art As Activism in the subject line:

journal@orenda-arts.org

 

 

If you missed Dr. Rosie Kuhn’s fascinating MiniWebinar presentation on July 5, take heart!  You can still view the video recording.

Just sign up here to receive the recording link.  You’ll gain a lot from her extensive experience, lively sense of humor, and deep wisdom.

OHI is proud to honor The Santa Fe Dreamers Project , a group of local lawyers who are modeling for other legal professionals what needs to be done to help young immigrants stay in the US and how to do it.

This small group of Santa Fe lawyers, led by founder Allegra Love, travels through rural areas in a van/mobile legal aid clinic, guiding each of their 500 clients through the application for DACA status from start to finish.

“The Project primarily focuses on assisting individuals in deportation defense (specifically political asylum and special immigrant juvenile status) and through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) process, the immigration policy founded by the Obama administration in June 2012.”

Every now and then we’re reminded of how good it is to live in Santa Fe!

 

 

If you haven’t had a chance to see the YouTube video recording of Facing North:  Navigating Turbulent Times, take heart!  We’ve extended the time for free viewing, and we welcome your thoughts, comments, and interest in this particular example of Orenda Healing International’s work in the world.

OHI is a 50l.c.3 nonprofit, based in New Mexico since 1993.  Originally a service organization, we’ve morphed into an institute whose mission supports education and research in the many aspects of Alternative Healing.

The Facing North Webinar was created with the understanding that in chaotic times, what people need most– what is most healing– is to feel there is something they can do to improve the situation for themselves and their loved ones.  Our guest speakers– Alan Levin, Jan Edl Stein, Bahman Shirazi, and Ana Perez-Chisti– have all dealt with multiple challenges and found calm and balanced ways of working with them that have proven most helpful.  We are delighted to be able to support them in sharing this wisdom with viewers.

We’re also excited to let folks know that we’ll be publishing the Spring issue of our Four Winds Journal in May, expanding the theme of Facing North, with thoughtful articles, riveting art work and poetry, book reviews, and more.

For more information on Orenda Healing International’s programs and projects, please visit us.

From Jan Edl Stein, Director of Holos Institute:

I recently had an opportunity to share my thoughts on a webinar panel discussing how we can face the events of our time and maintain our center. The webinar is now available on Youtube, free, but only for one week (until April 9). After that, it will be available for a fee from Orenda Healing International, which sponsored the event.

My participation in this webinar confirmed my hopefulness in a complex but unifying vision of an emerging awareness that can heal the many splits in the collective human psyche we are now experiencing.

One of my offerings in this webinar and for the Holos community is a very simple, heartfelt, and nature-based list of ways that one can take care of oneself in such turbulent times: Some Thoughts About Self-Care and Action in Turbulent Times. Please feel free to download this by clicking the highlighted link and feel free to share this as you wish.

I’d like to point out that one of the panel members, Alan Levin, is the founder of Holos Institute. I welcome your feedback and encourage you to subscribe to Orenda Healing International for further events such as this one.

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From Alan Levin, Founder of Sacred River Healing:

I recently had an opportunity to share my thoughts on a webinar panel discussing how we can face the events of our time and maintain our center. The webinar is now available on Youtube, free, but only for one week. After that, it will be available for a fee from Orenda Healing International which sponsored the event.

Participating gave me an opportunity to further clarify my understanding of the seeming split many people feel between focusing on the inward quest of spiritual awakening and the outward activity of healing and repairing the world. All of the panelists, in their own ways, shared the view that we need to dissolve the misunderstanding that such a split exists. We are, after all, in this together.

I encourage you to watch the video and I’d be very interested in hearing your feedback or questions.

If you sign up at Orenda Healing International, you can receive notices of future events that they sponsor.

Peace and blessings,

Alan

(Alan Levin addresses these issues on his website in his insightful article, Spirituality and the Political World.)
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Facing North:  Navigating Turbulent Times

How do we confront today’s challenges—as individuals and as members of local, national, and global communities?

How do we deal with this maelstrom of unpredictability, this sandstorm of change?

It seems we’re beset on all sides—the current political scene, climate change, war, poverty, mysterious diseases—how can we stay centered and calm enough to steer through these choppy waters? 

Guest Speakers

Alan Levin, MFT,  Founder, Sacred River Healing, Tomkins Cove, NY

Ana Perez-Chisti, PhD,  President, SUFI Universal Fraternal Institute, Orinda, CA

Bahman Shirazi, PhD,  Professor, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA

Jan Edl Stein, MFT,  Director, Holos Institute, San Francisco, CA

(Reprinted by permission of the authors.  Photo credit Holos Institute.)

 

Facing North: Navigating Turbulent Times

How do we confront today’s challenges—as individuals and as members of local, national, and global communities?  How do we deal with this maelstrom of unpredictability, this sandstorm of change?  It seems we’re beset on all sides—the current political scene, climate change, war, poverty, mysterious diseases—how can we stay centered and calm enough to steer through these choppy waters?

 Join Orenda Healing International’s guest speakers online as they share their insights

Spring Webinar

Saturday, April 1, 2017

10 AM PDT

Sign up here!

https://orenda-arts.org/facing-north-ohi-spring-webinar/

 If you miss the webinar itself you may still view it online for one week.  After this you may purchase your own digital copy.  But you must sign up to receive the webinar link!

Speakers

Alan Levin, LMFT.  Founder, Sacred River Healing, Tomkins Cove, NY

Murshida Dr. Ana Perez-Chisti, PhD.  President, SUFI Universal Fraternal Institute, Orinda, CA

Dr. Bahman Shirazi, PhD.  Professor, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA

Jan Edl Stein, MFT.  Director, Holos Institute, San Francisco, CA

Readers be warned:  this is a political blog entry!

There are so many arguments about how and when to address the monumental political changes that are occurring in America today that people are confused– overcome by a combination of righteous indignation, resentment, outright anger, and fear.  It’s this last emotion I want to address here.

The time to speak up about how you feel is now.  There will never be a better time.  Unspoken, these turbulent emotions only serve to make us even more angry and fearful and often affect our health as well.   Friends, family members, and clients have complained about how sick they’ve felt since the presidential inauguration and the resulting avalanche of comments and activities flooding the  media, Twitterverse, and Facebook.

Despite knowing this, many have resigned themselves to suffer in silence.  Reasons vary.  Some are afraid to arouse the Beast.  Some simply hope that if they don’t energize it, all the bad stuff will quietly disappear.  For others, one fascinating justification is the belief that our speech and actions create what we will experience.  Whether this is true or not, acknowledging and “outing” an unacceptable situation does not automatically predispose the Universe to deliver a negative result.  Yet people insist: “Talk about what you want.  Not about what you don’t want.”

My response to this advice is that if you have a serious disease and refuse to acknowledge and address it, it may kill you.  Knowledge is power.  Shared knowledge energizes right action.  So speak up!

The other point that needs to be addressed is what to say.  For many months now, people have tiptoed around the serious issues that confront us– more blatantly and alarmingly every day.  “Don’t call him names,” I hear, and “Don’t say he’s crazy.”  “Don’t use the word resistance because it just aggravates the opposition.”  “Maybe there’s nothing to this Russian thing.”  “Maybe it’s just a performance– like reality TV.”  “Maybe the Republicans will move him out on their own.”  And since last night’s address to a joint session of Congress, “See?  He’s softening up!”

Maybe.  And maybe not.  If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, chances are it actually is a duck.  And this duck is a reality TV actor– nothing that he says can be considered truthful.

Our country’s new president has spent the entire past year and his first month in office spewing venom and vindictive comments about Latinos, women, Muslims, Blacks, refugees of all ages, and members of our own military.  He has vowed to undo every piece of positive legislation passed since the 1970s, to undermine any attempt at social justice, and to roll America back to the 50s and earlier, when the only citizens who enjoyed any sort of privilege were wealthy white men.   Ignoring the clear evidence of climate change and the existence of far more efficient and planet-friendly energy sources, he has promised the impossible:  to return us to an economy based upon inefficient technologies– steel mills,  coal mines, and fossil fuels– despite the fact that the collateral damage includes not only unnecessary world-wide wars for the purpose of seizing other countries’ fossil fuels, but the total destruction of the planet itself.  He has threatened to silence the media because he cannot stand criticism.  And he has blamed all his mistakes so far (which are many) on others:  his staff, his political party, former President Barack Obama, and the American people.

Is this what we want to be?  A global bully, despised by the rest of the world?  A totalitarian state run by an amoral dictator and his cartel of unprincipled supporters?  The leaders of other nations– Mexico, Canada, England, France, and many more– are begging us:  AMERICA, WAKE UP!

Say what you see.  Say what you feel.  Say what you fear.  Say it to your family members, your close friends, your doctor, your pastor or spiritual counselor, your representatives in Congress.

But do speak up.  And speak up now.

 

 

Copied and pasted in FB by request:

Cruel, heartless behavior and, the sad truth is, we don’t even need the oil.
From Zen Honeycutt’s page. Please share.

With a very heavy heart:
Harrowing news out of Standing Rock from volunteer, Deborah MacKay.  Warning: It’s not pleasant. But you need to know this, and share.

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Friends, I have returned from Standing Rock with my mind blown, my heart broken and my spirit troubled with foreboding of a deepening tragedy. Volunteering as a legal observer with the Water Protector Legal Collective I witnessed several confrontations between Water Protectors (WP) and law enforcement: national guard, sheriffs and private security (LE).

On 1/18/17 – 1/19/17 I observed WP with their hands in the air chanting “hands up don’t shoot” being fired upon at a range of 10 to 15 feet. Tear gas canisters and rubber bullets ( rubber bullets are regular bullets covered in rubber) were used against unarmed WP who had been singing and praying. I observed national guard chasing WP off the Backwater bridge, firing at people running away. I heard people choking and gagging from tear gas. I saw access to the WP medic vehicles being blocked. I spoke with medics and WP who described bullets penetrating flesh and causing terrible injuries, including to one media person who nearly lost his finger when his camera was targeted.

I talked with a media person and was told of 4 media people on the bridge that night, 3 had their recording devices shot and the 4th, his hand. I saw a photo of a sheriff aiming a rifle directly at a media woman who was standing apart from the crowd. I heard testimony of the back of the medic pickup truck being awash in blood after evacuating wounded.

I watched, and then, inadvertently became a part of, WP being forced off the bridge by national guard who were hiding behind WP vehicles parked along the road and firing rubber bullets at fleeing people. Many people were shot in the back, the neck, the head. When LE fired at people at close range, many were shot in the genitals or in the face. I received information about DAPL security breaching the short wave radio channels of the WP with taunts such as ”come out and fight like men you faggots or we will come to Camp and fuck your women.”

There are some young warriors, who, without the support of their elders, many who want the camps cleared to mitigate the economic and social damage being suffered by the local community in having the bridge closed, have vowed to not leave the camps or to let the last section of pipeline be built.

Driving away from the area on Monday I saw a convoy of construction vehicles heading to the drill pad. Last night an indigenous website live streamed reports of drilling and construction noises coming from the drill pad.

Without the eyes of a free press these attacks and trespasses continue, with the human rights and sovereignty of indigenous peoples denied. The UN Committee on Transnational Corporations and Human Right Abuses was in Standing Rock this week to take testimony of the many transgressions against people: crop dusters spraying poison pesticides and fertilizers on the camps; hair samples indicating the presence of these chemicals; people who have been injured, beat up, arrested, strip searched; media and medics being targeted by snipers; (one medic told me he stopped wearing his Red Cross vest due to medics being targeted); praying people being attacked and the refusal of DAPL and our government to abide by the Rule of Law.

The vets who came in Dec to stand down against these crimes need to be on the ground there now, right now. We need to stand up for our brothers and our sisters, for their way of life and, I believe, for our social contract as a democracy which is now threatened.

Please share this so word gets out what is happening, thank you.
Deborah MacKay

This is copy-pasted. If you choose to share, please do the same.

It is important to know that our legislators have our backs.  To that end, we are sharing a letter from Senator Martin Heinrich (Democrat, New Mexico).  Many thanks to the Senator for this encouraging response to recent events.

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January 29, 2017

Dear Friend,

Like many New Mexicans, I am sickened by an administration that now poses dangerous threats to the values and freedoms we all cherish.

During his first week in office, President Trump ordered an unraveling of the federal workforce, floated the idea of bringing back the CIA’s use of ‘black site’ prisons and torture, imposed a gag order on federal agencies, ordered construction of a wall along our southern border, and revived the Keystone XL and Dakota pipeline projects. 

All of this culminated with an executive order blocking refugees from around the world from entering the United States, including Hameed Khalid Darweesh whose life was in danger in his home country due to the work he did to help the U.S. military. 

We are not a nation that turns our back on the innocent victims of terrorism or the allies who risked their own lives so that American soldiers may live. 

We are not a country that discriminates based on how you pray. 

President Trump’s reckless actions seek to turn us into the kind of authoritarian nation that we have always stood against. This is not greatness, in fact, this is un-American.

Our immigrant communities have helped to write the economic, social, and cultural story of America. I know this firsthand. My own father is an immigrant who came to America as a boy to escape Nazi Germany in the 1930s. 

I’m familiar with the promise America represents for families. I know how hard immigrants work, how much they believe in this country, how much they’re willing to give back, and how different my own life would be if America had turned my father away.

I will not stand aside as the values that created the greatest nation on earth are trampled. 

Together, lifted by the incredible spirit of the American people, we will fight back against injustices and build a better future for our children and all future generations.

Sincerely,

 

MARTIN HEINRICH
United States Senator

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