After Charlottesville

 

In response to the events of the last few days, which were sparked by unacceptable and vicious acts of violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, Orenda Healing International stands with the people of conscience who gathered there to oppose the Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, and other Alt-Right White Nationalists.

While it needs no more fuel added, be very clear:  the wave of racism and hatred sweeping America today is a forest fire lit by the man who currently occupies the White House.  His behavior—both before and since his installation—has given permission to those who, for whatever reason, may feel they suffer and must therefore strike out at their tormentors.  Unfortunately they mistake the real source of their misery and, egged on by Mr. Trump and his backers, have chosen to accuse immigrants, refugees, and other non-White citizens and residents of this country of causing all their woes, when in fact it is the oppression of capitalism that has divided this country into the “haves” and ”have-nots” and continues to wreak havoc around the world.  This is hard to look at, and harder still to address.  But as with any other illness, we cannot heal until we are willing to acknowledge its extent.

Orenda does not espouse or condone violence, no matter its perpetrators.  But until the truth is widely known, events like the melee in Charlottesville will continue to happen.  Rather than attack each other, all Americans must begin to use their gifts of observation and common sense, see what is really behind the furor our country is currently experiencing, and work together to oppose it and replace it with a true democracy.

We believe there is enough land, enough food, enough shelter, for all.  America, whatever challenges she faces today, still has the potential and the obligation to encourage and support everyone in this country– citizens, immigrants, and refugees– to thrive, free of condemnation, repression, or violence of any kind.

Photo by Steve Helber for the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Wisdom Healing Qigong for Health Care Professionals

 

 

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.

 

3Ds of Spiritual Rehab Still Available

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.

Walking Their Talk in Santa Fe!

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!

 

 

Facing North: OHI Spring Webinar Update!

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.

Some Thoughts about Facing North: OHI’s Spring Webinar

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.)

 

OHI’s Free Spring Webinar – A Reminder!

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

What to Say– and When to Say It

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.