Ignorance or Arrogance?
by Galina Vladi
“Seva in
rehabilitation, November 2002 (two weeks after accident)”
“
We fail to perform such miracles mostly because we
choose to fight over “the only right way” instead of
accepting that there are many."
|
It was a late
summer morning when our small group of four climbers pulled off the
road and parked by Weiner Lake, fourteen miles north of Palmer.
Immediately, we were approached by two other climbers, who camped in
the area. They brought disturbing news: a woman driving an ATV
four-wheeler badly injured her back.
The ambulance was
on its way but it would be some time before help arrived. We all
agreed to delay our climbing to render assistance. Within our group
of six climbers was a medical doctor, a paramedic in training, a
fire fighter and myself, a holistic healer with knowledge of
Traditional Chinese Medicine and energy healing.
We followed a
steep, narrow ditch to the site of the accident. Behind a
four-wheeler, across the ditch, lay a woman on the dusty ground. She
was on her side—the less painful position she said—with her legs
stretched out lifelessly.
The leader of our
group, Gary*, an experienced climber and fire fighter by profession,
took control of the situation. “How did it happen?” he asked Marsha,
the injured woman. On an uneven surface, she had lost control of the
vehicle and was thrown to the ground, her back twisted and bent in
an awkward position. Gary continued questioning Marsha, then opened
a blood pressure kit that he happened to have along. Matt, the
paramedic trainee, wrapped the cuff around Marsha’s arm.
A nurse herself,
Marsha was calm and amazingly patient. But behind her calmness she
hid a great deal of pain. With every small movement of the
procedure, her facial muscles twitched and her eyes closed.
“How necessary is
it to do this right now?” I asked Gary. “She is in pain. She needs
healing.”
“Are you
Russian?” the injured woman asked.
“Yes, I am
Russian, and I am a healer. Would you like me to do some healing for
you?”
Marsha nodded,
“Yes, I would love that.”
“110 over 60,”
Matt reported to Gary. “It’s low.”
“It is my normal
pressure,” Marsha replied.
As Gary removed
the blood pressure cuff from Marsha’s arm, I expected him and Matt
to step aside and let me do my work. Instead, Gary continued his
questioning. “What is your full name? What is your address? Any
allergies to any medications?”
Marsha answered
patiently though her voice grew quiet.
“She needs
healing,” I insisted. “The questions can wait. She is in pain, Gary.
Please let me work on her.”
I could explain
to the group that energy healing brings great benefits to the
injured person. Trained in Qi-Gong and other forms of healing, I had
many opportunities to experience the power of energy healing, both
on myself and others. In physical trauma cases like Marsha’s, the
sooner healing is applied, the greater is the result, with fewer
complications afterwards. In some cases, the phenomenon of instant
recovery—often called miraculous healing—takes place.
The first step of
every healing is to eliminate the shock to the nervous system caused
by trauma. With a calming and stabilizing effect on the body, energy
healing eases pain, normalizes blood pressure and returns the
functions of vital organs to normal. It also greatly reduces risk of
hemorrhage and coma.
I observed such
changes in a hospital setting in Minneapolis after working on a
friend who was badly injured in a car accident. His blood pressure,
heart rate, and every breath of his damaged lungs were closely
monitored by the machines. After every healing session, a nurse
registered a dramatic change in the machines’ reading as his vitals
returned to those of a normally functioning person.
“Gary, please let
me work on Marsha!”
“Step aside,”
Gary abruptly turned toward me. His face was tense, his voice cold
and hostile. “If you keep intervening, I’ll have to physically move
you away.”
Shocked by such
intense and unexpected hostility, I stepped back without a word. I
knew Gary as a very positive person. But now, I couldn’t recognize
the person I knew before.
Matt kneeled by
Marsha’s side to measure her blood pressure again, but she declined
the procedure as unnecessary.
“Marsha, do you
want me to work on you?” I asked in another attempt to help.
“Yes, I do,” she
responded.
Yet, nobody
moved. The circle remained tight around her.
“I feel
claustrophobic with all of you around me,” Marsha finally cried out.
“Can you please move?”
“Please give us
some space,” I joined her effort to break the circle.
The climbers
reluctantly pulled back, barely giving me enough room to kneel by
Marsha.
“We have a
medical doctor here to help her,” Matt commented behind my back. I
turned toward him, suddenly feeling enraged.
“Medical doctor?”
I exclaimed. “My son was in a coma after a motorcycle accident. Did
medical doctors help him? No, they didn’t. I did.”
I turned back to
Marsha, shaking. “I didn’t mean to be hostile,” I continued. “But
why do we have to fight over helping another human being? Even with
different beliefs we can be more tolerant and acceptant to different
ways of helping...”
There finally was
a silence around me—not necessarily supportive but, at least, a
silence. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. My left hand
habitually turned palm down, facing the Earth, and the right one
stretched to the sky. “Mother Earth, please give me strength to do
my work,” I whispered. “Father Sky, please send me God’s healing
energy.”
I didn’t wait for
the familiar warm, tingling sensation in my hands. This time, I had
to hurry. I couldn’t trust that I would be given enough time to do
my work. I bent over Marsha, hands trembling, lips whispering a
prayer. As a fine instrument, my hands moved above her body,
observing, registering, healing. I was at their command, listening
to their messages.
“Here it is, the
blockage of energy.” As if punctured with a hundred invisible
needles, my hands froze over the lumbar spine. My right hand
encircled the area and pulled a dense energy out while my other hand
continued to send healing energy. This motion has to be repeated
over and over until the blockage disappears completely.
My work as a
healer has become a natural part of who I am. In Minneapolis and San
Francisco, Siberia and Alaska, my work had been always valued and
appreciated. Always, but not this time: even with Marsha’s
insistence, I had to fight for the right to help. “What is it?” I
asked myself then. “Ignorance or arrogance?”
I didn’t do what
I could have done for Marsha. Several minutes into the healing, Gary
suggested taking an action that could easily wait. My time was over.
Alone in the circle of people who openly resisted and opposed my way
of helping, I couldn’t fight and heal at the same time. I put my
hands over Marsha’s back and held her hand. All I was allowed to do
for Marsha was to give her some support and to comfort her
The paramedics
finally arrived. With their help, we carefully transferred Marsha to
a stretcher and carried her to the ambulance that waited on paved
ground.
“Thank you,
Galina,” Marsha said, grasping my hand as the stretcher was pushed
into the ambulance.
“I am very sorry
I couldn’t help you more.”
On the way back,
I sat quietly, listening to the group’s conversation.
“What would you
have done if the ambulance hadn’t showed up for another few hours?”
Gary asked Kate, the medical doctor.
“I would’ve given
her morphine,” she replied.
This was the only
“healing” a medical doctor was trained to provide. And nobody asked
me about my work as a healer, or if my son ever recovered after his
motorcycle accident. I wished that somebody would break the silence,
and ask, at least from curiosity, what had happened to my son.
It happened in
October of 2002. On one of the mountain roads in Northern
California, my son lost control of his motorcycle, smashed it
against a tree and was thrown off his bike, hitting the ground 50
feet below. Within a half hour, he was picked up by helicopter and
brought to the nearest hospital in San Jose.
I arrived at the
hospital soon after receiving the news. Medical staff gave me a
report on my son’s condition. “He is in coma,” a nurse said and we
both rushed to his room. Seva’s body, stretched under a white sheet,
looked long and flat, his bruised and broken face almost
unrecognizable.
Immediately, I
asked the nurse for permission to start a healing. She met my
request with respect and understanding. “Nobody will disturb you,”
she said. “Take your time.”
With my hands
stretched over my son’s body, my eyes closed, I began healing. At
first it was dark, and then I saw Seva walking down a long tunnel
with many doors on both sides. He was a three-year old child again,
and he was walking away from me. He seemed completely lost. He kept
looking for an open door but was finding none.
“Come here,” I
whispered, sending a healing energy his way, my heart wide open.
“Come here, toward my light.” Seva stopped and looked back. Hearing
my voice, he turned and walked toward the light.
The moment I
finished my healing, Seva opened his eyes. “Hi ma,” he said. “How
are you?”
The nurse who
stood behind me gasped for air: “He is back!” She ran out the door
and, the next moment, a doctor rushed inside. He pulled a chair
close to the bed and waved his hand in front of Seva’s open eyes:
“How many
fingers? What’s your name? How old are you?”
“I am three,” my
21-year old son finally responded.
The doctor gave
my son a fifty-fifty chance for complete recovery. “He has suffered
a severe concussion and might never regain his intelligence,” he
said after his examination. I asked if medical doctors could do
anything about it. The doctor turned his eyes away: “There is
practically nothing we can do in his case.”
Seva completely
lost his short-term memory. Once a strong and intelligent young man,
now he was helpless as a baby. His father helped him get to the
bathroom. His girlfriend washed his body, joking and smiling in
front of him, crying behind closed doors. Every day, I did a healing
for my son. I called all my healer-friends and asked them to send
their healing energy his way. Seva’s friends prayed for him.
Five days later
he was discharged from the hospital; a few days later, I brought my
son to a small town near Lake Tahoe where I lived at the time. There
I continued to do healing and rehabilitation work with him.
A month later,
Seva was back at his work as a software engineer. For almost a year,
he had occasional headaches but it didn’t prevent him from applying
to the University of Berkeley. After two years of intense studies,
he graduated with a Bachelor of Computer Science degree. Despite the
pessimistic prognosis of the medical doctors, my son completely
recovered after his motorcycle accident.
Nowadays, in
Russian and Chinese hospitals departments of traditional and modern
medicine complement each other for the greater benefit of their
patients. Among my clients in California were medical doctors. They
learned to believe in something different than they had been trained
in their schools. When their own medicine failed, they turned to
acupuncture and energy healing that helped them to get well.
My experience
tells me that we can exist peacefully in the world of different
beliefs, without judging that one way is superior to another. If we
follow the example of Native groups to respect wisdom and knowledge
of others and the world around us, we’ll make it as a human race. If
we allow and accept different ways of knowing and doing, we’ll find
peace.
The day after
Marsha’s accident, I asked myself if there was anything I could do
differently to assure a positive experience for us all. Since
everyone knows how to pray, I could have asked the group to say a
prayer for Marsha. Even with our different beliefs, we could do that
together.
The power of
prayer and the power of healing done in a positive and supportive
environment can create a miracle. We fail to perform such miracles
mostly because we choose to fight over “the only right way” instead
of accepting that there are many.
Here in Alaska,
where we are a part of ethnographic diversity, we have a unique
opportunity to learn and benefit from each other. By humbly
accepting the fact that our knowledge is limited and there is so
much to learn, we give ourselves a chance to grow in our
awareness—to grow as people.
It was a good
learning experience for me. Was it for the climbers? Did any of them
walk away with less ignorance or less arrogance? I hope so.
* Some names in
this article have been changed
“Seva and
Galina, May 2006”
Galina Vladi, holistic healer and licensed acupuncturist,
specializes in Qi-Gong healing, Japanese, esoteric and facial French
acupuncture. She teaches Qi-Gong classes and can be reached:
727-1723 or
www.parallelreality.org
