Theta Healing - my new qualification

I'm now a Theta Healer. Andrew did a refresher this weekend and I did it for the first time. I'd not wanted to previously, despite seeing that it's an excellent modality, but when this course was offered I was suddenly enthusiastic. A matter of timing, obviously. Now I know it was probably because of the connection with the 14 other people there - perhaps a soul group, all powerful healers in other fields already.

Two of the women had had psychic readings from me at local markets in the past. One of them still had a gratitude rock which Andrew gave her in December 2006! (As in the DVD "The Secret" only ours are full of Reiki as well. He gives them away to passers-by at the markets we do.) This lass remembered my reading very well. She said that it changed her life and she always knew we'd meet again. She's probably going to enrol in WordsFlow, my writers' group, next.

It was an amazing weekend. Our teacher was someone I've known 15 years. In fact I set her on her healing path with Reiki I all that time ago – and how glad I am that I did, now it's all come full circle. At that time the local Hare Krishnas had been praying for a resident Reiki Master in our area, and I turned up, so for the first couple of years after we moved here 90% of my students were devotees. This particular lady is a beautiful singer, famous among the devotees. She played the harmonium at the beginning and ending of Sunday's session and we did some chanting, a joyous experience; and we all received one of her CDs as a graduation gift. A few years ago she became the first person in this area to learn Thought Field Therapy, then went to America to train as a teacher with the guy who founded it. That's an astonishing modality, devised by a psychiatrist, which can handle in an hour things that might otherwise take years of therapy. Then she discovered Theta Healing and also went to America to learn that from its founder, Vianna Stibal.

Being a very spiritually aware person, highly intuitive yet grounded and practical too, she knows how to make powerful healing modalities even stronger, and quicker to take effect. On the first day I cleared some deep-seated programming from an ancient past life. The second day I learned ways to enhance my psychic skills, and received a profound reading from another student as part of our practice exercises.

There was another professional psychic in the course too. That was exciting for both of us. She had done the work before and was having a refresher. She said she knew she had to come to give someone a message. As soon as she said that, I got that it was me, so at lunch on Day One I asked her. She came back to me at afternoon tea and said she'd been told to tell me that this is my time to shine; I am about to realise all manner of dreams, some of them quite old. I have been getting this message from other sources too in the past few days – from Tarot, astrology, and a psychic friend who volunteered it.

As we drove to the first day of the course on Saturday, running through my brain was the song, "Helpless". That made sense when the past life that a fellow student helped me clear turned out to be one in which I was a slave, in a society that believed hierarchy was the natural and right order of things. In great contrast, I drove home with "Bridge Over Troubled Water" going through my head: "Shine on silver girl, your time has come to shine. All your dreams are on their way...."

Andrew also had a wonderful time in this course – unlike last time he attempted it, a year ago, and had to stop halfway through when he had a heart attack! He wound up in hospital that time. It was a good thing really. It was a very mild heart attack, he got help he needed and hasn't looked back.

The other students remarked today how unusual it is for someone of his generation to be so open to learning new things. He will be 80 next birthday (February). The teacher did a future reading for him and said she saw his children's book, "Jorell" as a play. And guess what – one of the other students writes and produces children's plays professionally. Yes, we have now sent her a copy of the book.

Opinions Wanted!

I also operate a blog for WordsFlow, the writers' group I facilitate in real life. I recently posted there some thoughts following a discussion we had on what makes the difference between poetry and prose.

We'd really love to hear from others what they think on this subject!

So please wander over, have a read, and leave us your comments.

Many thanks!

I Did It!

Set things in motion at last re Dear Husband. I spoke to our doctor about Aged Care Assessment and detailed a few of the things I have noted here as "evidence" of his state of mind. He is at the doctor's right now, for another reason, but the doc will talk to him about this too - which has to happen before he can send away the ACA forms. I told Dear Husband what I'd done. He took it calmly, just said he didn't see the necessity as we are doing a special Theta Healing course this weekend, which he believes will fix the problem. I stressed that it is I who need help because I'm not coping.

He has been somewhat aware of what's happening to him, instituting strategies like writing down words he has forgotten, when he finds out what the words are, so that he won't forget again. Yes, I can see the flawed logic there – but in any case he then he forgets he has written such a list!

So now I wait.

The Event in Sydney

I was doing a pretty good job of ignoring the Pope – which has been quite tricky really, what with the TV and the newspapers full of images of rapturous children flooding our biggest city and even older people burbling on as publicly as possible about how wonderful to be near him – but three things were harder still to ignore.

One was the hilariously-named Popemobile, making him sound like a mate of Batman, a sort of sedate super-hero in his own right. (Like this.)

Another was this pic a friend sent, with the message: "It could only happen in Australia.......................there's always gotta be one joker!! This photo is legit and was taken at Bondi Beach in Sydney on Friday morning........... may the force be with you!!!"


Unfortunately the third thing that couldn't be ignored was less amusing – a starry-eyed youngster from Alaska was reported in the press as saying that Catholicism was a great religion because of its openness. (I gulped so hard I nearly lost my false teeth.) "We are really accepting," he continued.

WHA-A-A- ? Well as long as you're not hoping to enter into a gay marriage or become a woman priest, of course.

Who's Out There?

My stat counter reveals some intriguing things. While I'm not a super-blogger with thousands of hits a day, I do have readers from all over the world, and some of them come back repeatedly to this and my other blogs. It's very gratifying! And I can't help wondering who they all are.

It amazes me that I have readers in Chile, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Korea, and Sweden. Who could they be?

I know who looks in from Greece, and the identity of my most frequent UK visitor. I know who one of my California readers is, one of those in Switzerland and one in Canada. (Not least because they comment. Thanks, gals!)

It makes sense to me that I have lots of readers in Australia, the UK, Canada and the United States. I can work out who a few of these might be, too, because I know which people in my personal life read my blogs.

But who are all these others? Who, for instance, is the devoted reader from Richmond in Queensland? Who is tuning in from Perth, Western Australia? (For that last I have a few ideas, but couldn't say which it is for sure.)

Whoever you all are, I'm gad you like to read what I write!

What Use Is Poetry?

'What is your ideal dream blog job?' asked Lorelle VanFossen recently on Blog Herald. She was talking to freelance writers and she meant paid jobs. But what popped straight into my head was, 'To be free to write lots of poetry and have it read by people all over the world.' Well guess what – that's exactly what I've got!

No, it doesn't pay me, and I do have to eat and pay rent like everyone else, so it's fortunate that I have other sources of income. It's also a blessing that those sources of income don't take up so much time and energy as to crowd out the poetry.

Not everyone sees it my way. There are those who think I am irresponsible and even crazy for wasting time on poetry that could be spent pursuing more money. And it's not as if I have huge numbers of readers nor any great fame, so really, what's the point? What's the good of all this poetry?

Actually, the question's academic.

First of all, poets don't get very famous anyway, so that's beside the point. Nikki Moustaki, in The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Poetry (a very good book, by the way) says: 'To begin with, the phrase "famous poet" is an oxymoron. There ain't no such animal. You and your friends might discuss poets X, Y, and Z, but that's because you love poetry, I hope. Poets simply do not get recognized at the post office, nor do their publishers take them out for lavish dinners. Most poets, in fact, write poetry between teaching, watching their kids, and picking up after their dogs.'

Secondly, writing poetry is something I can't not do. On the rare occasions in the past when I could not do it, I experienced that as a condition of sustained misery. No writer likes writer's block! So I'm not likely to stop. But does my writing have any value beyond self-indulgence?

This morning our friend Amanda came to breakfast. She's one of a number of people in my Yahoo! group of Rosemary's Readers, who like to receive my new poems by email. I started mentioning something about the latest, then asked her, 'Oh, have you seen it yet?'

'Yes,' she said. 'I loved it.' Then she told me how it lifted her spirits to receive my poems that way. 'It's lovely,' she said, 'When you've got a whole lot of work emails, to see a poem amongst them, and to be able to read something beautiful.'

I was reminded of a reading that my friend Raeline Brady did for me with her Spiritual Voyager cards when she was here in January. One of the messages that came through was, 'Poetry gets to the core, the heart. That is the pertinence of poetry now. It is essential for people to have access to poetry as a means for heart activation.'