HOLOGRAPHIC HEALING

In the final stages of editing this book, while I was at home at Aesculapia, sitting in front of the computer, I experienced a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.  Ironically, here I was writing a book, in part, about the shortcomings of the medical profession; yet it became critical to my survival to put myself into the hands of a surgeon!

The statistics with this type of aneurysm happening at home, (in this case some twenty-five miles and thirty to forty minutes from the nearest hospital), are only one in four of even making it to the hospital alive. Once in the hospital emergency room, the odds are once again, about one in four of even surviving the surgery!  I lost more than eight pints of blood during the ordeal.  Yet arrive and survive I did, in part thanks to my good friends who insisted that I didn't need a second opinion and drove me to the hospital, breaking a few speeding laws in the process.  Thanks also go to a very fine team of cardiovascular surgeons.

So, here I am in the position that medical science, of which I have been so critical, was instrumental in saving my life.  One might fairly ask: has this changed any of my thinking or views?  Indeed, this question has been very much in my thoughts during my recovery period.

The answer is, that it hasn't.  In reviewing what I have written, I see no reason to change any of it!  The medical odds were eight to one against me surviving such a trauma; but survive I did and am now flourishing, able to row down the lower Rogue River once again.  Something within me survived through the ordeal, and medical science can't take credit for that.  My friend Janice, who drove me to the E.R. in a  timely and caring way, is my hero in that phase.

According to those who were present when I came from the operation and into post op. recovery, and the intensive care unit, the medical team was experiencing considerable challenge stabilizing my life signs.  I was still, clearly, not out of the woods.  My body was convulsing and my life functions, such as blood pressure and respiration, were vastly out of normal limits.

"Maggie and I drove from Mt. Shasta to Grants Pass and were able to go in and see Graywolf in the ICU," wrote my close friend David in the e-mail he sent out the next day to those who were concerned about me.  "The ICU nurse was working on getting his blood pressure up and his heart rate down.  My first impression on seeing Graywolf in this state, (tubes everywhere and numerous life support machines), was that he was going to make it.  It didn't have anything to do with the ICU or the machines, but his incredible life force [spirit] that was doing everything in its power to stay around."

Others who were present echoed these thoughts, including some of the medical staff.  Without this spirit, I suspect I would not be here to write this.  Clearly, the skill of the medical staff was vital, but so too, was my spirit.  That was my contribution to the treatment, and clearly necessary to beat the odds.  That spirit, which is part of everyone and can be evoked and used in our healing, is in large part what this book is about.

Spirit was also present in another important way.  I was barely on the edges of awareness following the rupture, and by the time I reached the emergency room was falling into a long, dark and narrow tunnel.  In my peripheral awareness, I was vaguely aware of much activity and shouting about me.  I don't have a sequential memory of this, but at one point I was aware of my friend Janice by my side and someone asking her about my "next of kin."

"Man, am I ever in trouble," flashed through my mind, and then one of the surgeons was talking to me.  He told me that they had to operate, or I would die.  He grasped my hand and said I was now holding a pen with which he would help me make a mark on a consent form for the operation.  I was aware of being wheeled on a gurney to the operating theater and letting go as I went.

There was something in that surgeon's touch.  Although I was set against surgery and would rather die than turn a surgeon and his knife free to cut my body open, I felt something in his holding my hand that spoke to my spirit.  It was at this point that I let go of my fears and aversions, and began to flow with the challenge with which I had been presented.  From the depths of my spirit, from the essence of my namesake, the Graywolf, I felt connection and trust at this profound level with him.

Three or four weeks later, I entered the waiting room of this team of surgeons, and immediately was drawn to a picture prominent on the wall.  It was of surgeons operating on a patient, and standing next to the lead surgeon, with his hand on the surgeon's shoulder, was Christ, one of the world's great spiritual healers and teachers.  That these medical doctors would choose such a picture for their waiting room spoke to the connection I had felt with the doctor in that moment before the surgery.

At that point of letting go, I began my own Consciousness Restructuring Process, and flowed with my creative spirit, which I am sure is what carried me through the procedure and kept me alive.  Medical science, technology and the skill of the surgeons gave me the one change in eight of surviving; my spirit and its creative consciousness dynamics helped me to realize that one chance.  Both were clearly necessary.

My criticism of what is ignored and left out of the medical profession still stands: the total reliance on classical science as a base so far as excluding spirit and consciousness.  In fact, my experience strengthened and confirmed these criticisms.  My consciousness and spirit were just as necessary to my healing, during the surgical procedures and my recovery, as were the surgeons and medical personnel.  We were all partners!  And that is the relationship I hope that the CRP can establish and maintain with medicine.  In fact, it even suggests other applications of the CRP, for example, helping people in preparing for intensive surgery.  Who Knows?  Perhaps that is one of the reasons I needed the experience and survived it.

Graywolf, 2000

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Rem and The Consciousness of Healing

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