Joyce Whiteley Hawkes writes: "Carl was only forty years old when he was diagnosed with cancer. He had sought medical assistance after the pain became unbearable. I was called by his wife to his bedside at a hospice center attached to a local hospital. My first meeting with Carl was upbeat and interspersed with visitors coming to cheer him. Carl’s bedside was a social event. He was not ready to die, although his tumors had massive metastases and his prognosis held no promise of recovery. Over weeks of short visits, usually interrupted by his many friends, family, and colleagues, the end approached. No longer besieged with visitors, only his wife came to the hospice unit to see Carl. He was sleeping more and more, and his breathing was intermittent and labored. When Carl’s breath repeatedly stopped, his wife hoped each time that it was his final rest and relief from intense suffering. Sadly, he would shudder back to life, appearing terrified.
"At this point, I was called. With both his wife and myself at his bedside, I synchronized my breath and awareness with his. I journeyed with him into the altered states of consciousness I had learned to navigate safely under Jero Mangku’s tutelage. I saw fearsome images looming before him and understood why he had jammed back into his body. In seeking what he saw, I could speak quietly to him, guiding him past the frightening illusions. I paused with him and encouraged him to move steadily toward the light beyond all the apparitions. The energy from this extraordinary light communicated Divine Love and welcome. We proceeded until he finally broke completely free from his body and soared toward the light. Tremendous peace pervaded the room. Carl’s wife acknowledged that he was gone, free, and blissfully at peace, and then we wept together, almost in joy.
"Choosing to die at home, Sarah had left the hospital with all of her treatment completed and only pain management to help her during her transition. Meeting her for the first time at her home, I was directed to her bedroom, a small space with a futon bed, a high window, and respectfully quiet roommates. As I sat beside her, silently meditating, she seemed to slip into a coma-like state. However, there was no sense of her life being at an end. No death energy lingered around her. I simply tracked her while staying fully grounded in present time and space. It seemed that my work was to provide an anchor for her return. After nearly an hour, she opened her eyes and excitedly told me about her vision. She had seen a glorious light. She described a beautiful place where she felt totally whole. Sarah virtually glowed with a perceptible light of her own as we spoke.
"When I returned a week later, she looked much better, and she was even able to walk a bit. We went ahead with another healing session. Similar to the first session, Sarah found that place of beauty and healing, returning with more amazing stories of light and peace and glowing with an even more strongly emerging radiance. Sarah said she felt markedly better. Eventually she recovered significantly, as her journeys to the other side seemed to fill her with healing energy. She eventually died eight months later, but she had used the extra time extremely well. She found a sustained sense of peace, viewed her life with new awareness and appreciation, and accepted loving care from her formerly estranged family. Although not a cure, our work together was profoundly healing.
"When assisting a person who may appear to be dying energy from the other side may actually be physically healing. Not fearing the journey beyond this material reality allows us to gather healing energy for physical life. We do not return easily, unless it is truly our time to make our transition. Each morning in my own meditations, I envision a bridge to the other side and ask to cross it in order to bask in the luminous energy and then return to my day’s work. Sometimes it looks like a mossy footbridge on a mountain trail. At other times it stretches across the sky with rainbow colors. My sense of connection and being ‘at home’ both in my body and the universe are enhanced with each meditative session. In working with others, I often feel as if I have one foot here and one foot on the other side. The clarity of insight and palpable touch of healing energy are strongest at those times. Over the years, the gap between this side and the other has shortened, and the bridge is not as vast as it once was.
"May your own practice of gratitude, clearing, focus, and Cell-Level Healing create your own bridge to connect Soul to Cell and back again, thereby extinguishing any fear of death. May your experiences be safe and blessed, and may they sustain you in all your endeavors."
Joyce Whiteley Hawkes, Cell-Level Healing: The Bridge from Soul to Cell (Atria Paperback, 2006).
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