I am at a turning point in my life. It is time to close down the bridal work I have been doing for the last 28 years, and devote my time to my writing, teaching, and my healing practice. I am very happy to be doing this.

I love teaching. It is so much fun to observe my students coming in, nervous and not knowing what to expect. By the end of class they are ready to start doing Healing Touch on their own. I do have to admit, I often think I have 15 plus or minus teachers and 1 student (me) in each class. They teach me so much. I can’t help but come to appreciate each student for their gifts to me, to each other, and to the clients they will soon be helping.

Writing is also a source of joy in my life. I just finished the rough draft of a new book on death and dying. I have wanted to write the book for a long time. You’ll be hearing more about it as I get closer to publication time.

Having a healing practice is more rewarding than I can say. I love the work, even when it goes in unexpected directions. That happens a lot. I especially enjoy working with skeptical people.  Seeing the surprise on their faces after they have received a treatment and find themselves feeling much better is the best!

Marketing all of this is a pain in the pringle. I don’t like it to be up front and honest. However, it must be done. I’ll be exploring things like Instagram, Hotfrog, and Pinterest. I am open to suggestions about good ways to get the word out without annoying people.

So it goes. May this blog find you all in good health.

People often ask me, “When do you find time to write?” I don’t. I make time to write. I do best going down to the local Starbuck’s and settling down with a nice cup of earl grey tea and my laptop. Two or three hours can go by and I don’t even notice. I love it.

Why don’t I do as well when I am home you may ask? Well it’s like this. It begins with setting up the laptop and turning it on. Then I let the dog out. While the dog is out, I make tea. Then I let the dog back in.

I just get comfortable with the dog in my lap along with the laptop and a hot cup of tea beside me, when I find my glasses have developed feet again and have moved out of reach, or more likely out of sight. So, I put the laptop aside, disturb the dog by getting up, and go search for my glasses. While looking for them I notice there are dirty dishes in the sink. I think I should wash them, but the dog lets me know in no uncertain terms, that he hasn’t been fed yet. I feed the dog and read some mail left on the counter using the missing glasses.

I put down the glasses and wash the dishes. It’s time to get back to writing. I just get comfortable with the dog, laptop and cooling cup of tea, when I realize the glasses are still back on the counter in the kitchen. By the time I have found them for the second time, I have noticed six other things that need doing. Some days I never get back to writing.

I make time by setting a couple of hours aside several days a week as an appointment to write, and most of the time I keep it. I like early morning best, as there are fewer things to interrupt me on my way to Starbuck’s. Also, I haven’t yet cluttered up my mind with all the things I think I need to get done for the day. That can wait until I have finished doing the writing.

I never know what lesson life is going to throw at me when I get up in the morning. Sometimes those lessons can be fun and sometimes not. I recently had an experience that was both.

A few years ago I hired a nice lady to help me set up this web page. I didn’t believe I had enough money to pay for most of the work, so I had her set up the raw skeleton using WordPress. I bought a book about how to use WordPress so I could do the rest. At the time I thought I could handle entering all the information and details necessary for a good web site. How wrong I was.

It took hours of study to figure out how to do the simplest things for the back end stuff of a WordPress web site. As a result I didn’t do it very often and would forget all the little requirements between entries. I got discouraged.

One of the things my guru set up was a signup sheet for a newsletter. I was to be notified by email each time someone registered to receive a newsletter. I was excited about that. However, I never received an email saying someone wanted to read my newsletters and I lost interest in the whole thing.

Ahem. Now, I need to be more active with the web site. I haven’t touched it for two years. I hired a new guru and decided I needed to pay full price and get the thing done right. My time is becoming more valuable to me than saying “I can do that by myself”.

Top my surprise she found 740 people had signed up for the newsletters and I never knew it. It just goes to show, you get what you pay for.

We have been using the term ‘energy medicine’ for some time now. In the Pacific Northwest we were using the term ‘biofield therapy’. I think what we do is more of a therapy than a medicine. It has been confusing a lot of people, and it came up at my 50th high school class reunion. 

I looked up “medicine” in the dictionary: “1 a substance or preparation used in treating disease; 2 the science and art of dealing with the maintenance of health and the prevention, alleviation, or cure of disease; 3 a substance, such as a drug or potion, used to treat something other than disease; 4 an object held by Native Americans to give control over natural or magical forces.”

Most people think of number 1 or 3 when talking about medicine, but I have encountered people who refer to number 4, and don’t like the mysticism it implies.

So, I looked up therapy: “therapeutic treatment as remedial treatment of a bodily disorder.”

I like the definition of therapist best: “a person trained in methods of treatment and rehabilitation other than the use of drugs or surgery.” This sounds more like what I do.

When I wrote The Encyclopedia of Energy Medicine I think I did a disservice by not calling it “The Encyclopedia of Biofield Therapy”. I discussed with other practitioners which term to use at length. I wish I had looked up the terminology in the dictionary, before I created the title. When I do the revised edition, I will probably change the name. 

I once went to a memorial service and afterwards people were doing the usual standing around and talking. They were mostly professional people. Someone asked me what I did and I said “I’m a biofield therapist. I work with the human energy field.” 

“Oh, isn’t that interesting”, people would say. “That’s an up and coming field.” 

The truth is, they didn’t have a clue in the closet what I was talking about, but it sounded good. And non-threating or woo-woo.

It’s that conversation that comes to mind when I am working with terminology.

Please let me know your thoughts.