Tuesday
Then: Under Healing Hands
Pick up Jon MacRae's business card and all you see is a huge palm in Day-Glo yellow surrounded by Day-Glo orange and the word: Healing.
How dumb of me not to realize upon first viewing this card that Jon used his hands for healing.
I'd gone to a talk for new cancer patients at the American Cancer Society. But it was obvious from the wigs and faces that there were some very sick people in the audience. Brenda Hartman went first, telling of her diagnosis 14 years ago with stage four ovarian cancer. She was given a five percent chance of living two years, but the likely outcome was that she would be gone in two or three months. Her passionate and successful fight turned her into a counselor for cancer patients.
Then Jon MacRae began to talk. My first impression: What a cool, cosmic dude, but what the hell is he talking about? Jon, not a polished speaker, shuffled back and forth from foot to foot and talked about clutching an aunt in a coma when he was 18 and she was days away from death. She awoke soon after and was cancer free six months later. Jon sought traditional psychotherapy with disappointing results, and then disappeared to the mountains of South America for nine years. He lived with what he calls his ‘teachers,’ healers among the indigenous peoples in Peru and Bolivia.
Where I started to ‘get it’ was when Jon drew a big circle on the easel pad and talked about how too many men never could get close to their ‘centers.’ They were always at the periphery or outside this internal circle that should be guiding their lives. Instead, these men were letting external circumstances guide their life, including the onset of disease like cancer. I could tell my wife was in awe of this guy’s groove, because she’s long been a seeker through books about the spirit and alternative thinking to what religions teach. For me, I was struck by Jon's description of capitulating to what was happening around me rather than consciously guiding life the way I wanted to live it.
We scheduled a private session with Jon for a couple of weeks later. Entering his office, I spotted the massage table and it hit us that he practiced the healing touch. Snap. Up went my barriers of skepticism. Having no knowledge of the practice, I hoped we’d have a nice chat with Jon and that would be all. I couldn’t imagine stretching my body out of a table for someone to wave his hands over it, or worse yet, to actually touch me.
The three of us talked in a pretty non-specific way for about 40 minutes and finally Carla The Questioner asked: “Just what is it you do? Jon beckoned me to the table. My thought: Ok, here goes nothing.
Slipping off my shoes, I lay down on my back and closed my eyes. Jon, on his rolling stool facing Carla with me in between, simply rested one hand about a half inch over my prostate area. He continued to converse with Carla. I had a flash that my skepticism was going to melt. And melt it did. I think within a couple of minutes Jon’s words melted into ‘white noise’ and I felt – each 30 seconds to a minute – my whole body slumping into a deeper level of relaxation.
Then the fog rolled in. Still aware of where I was and what was going on around me, my mind suddenly filled with a gray fog like you see in the dim morning light hanging over a mirror-still lake. I think I reveled in this fog for a moment while noticing that Jon was now pressing both hands on my abdomen. But it wasn’t pressure I felt there. Or the warmth of his hands through my thick shirt. It was a very subtle energy flowing upward from me into his hands.
Lightening struck. Yes, actual vivid lightening bolts pierced the fog. At that moment, still with eyes closed, I said: “Whoa!, Carla, you can’t believe what I just saw.”
Jon was quick to say: “No Kim, you don’t talk.”
Within a minute, the sunspots burst forth. For a moment, the fog lifted and I saw – as if watching from a satellite hovering over the sun – a section of the sun's surface with huge pillars of fire and energy spouting from the surface and then falling back into the cauldron.
That snapped me back. Now I could feel Jon’s hands working on my lower legs and feet. And then he patted me. And I knew it was over. Twenty minutes of bliss. Pulling myself upright and standing I felt as if the best masseuse on the planet had just worked me over, but with no pounding or grinding. After that I truly walked around for three days with a light step, marveling at how good it felt just to suck in and expel breaths.
The second time it was the light show. When I saw Jon a couple of weeks later, and climbed onto the table after a half hour chat, the fog came quicker, and the feeling of energy flow to Jon’s hands was more pronounced, probably because I was concentrating on it. Awaiting the lightening and sunspots probably was what kept them from appearing.
But this time, Jon moved from my prostate area to my chest area, and spoke while working on what he called the head and heart sides here about how I needed to find my center among these opposing forces.
With fingers spread spider-like Jon clutched my head like a basketball. Immediately an intense but very thin vertical line of light appeared in the center of the fog from top to bottom. There was a small round spot of more intense light at its center. I don’t know how long I ‘looked’ at this sliver of light, but then BOOM. The light exploded horizontally right and left like the fake warp speed light effects from a Star Trek ship. And the remarkable thing about the explosion was that the light separated from the center in a perfect ‘scissors joint’ cross hatch pattern.
Then the pat signaling the end. And another three days of delight and clarity.
My final session with Jon a week before surgery was remarkable for three reasons, none having to do with visions. By then, I believe my mind had no room for visions as it focused on the impending event.
First off, slipping off my shoes I thought about how chilled my feet were. Then Jon’s thumbs pressed my feet just below the anklebones and instantly the feeling was one of warm water flowing from my lower legs, completely through my feet and out the toes.
Later, Jon moved back to the prostate area and stopped pressing there to raise his hand above my sweater slightly. His hand began shaking intensely. Of course, the question popped into mind: “Is he faking it?” The answer came a millisecond after the question: No way.
Lastly, near the end of the session Jon spoke quietly and with calm assurance: “Kim, I feel your cancer is small. Not like the doctors say. You’re going to come out extremely well.”
Preceding each session on Jon’s table we conversed. I can’t even begin to write accounts of these conversations, especially Jon’s stories about his teachers in South America and the vision quests that took him nine years to decide he was ready to teach. I have marveled several times following my sessions about the conversations. I put it this way to friends once: “Jon is so cosmic that all you can do is nod, knowing that he knows ancient truths and you’ll benefit just by listening, not by trying to recall or consciously put his words into action.”
Without the skill to put Jon’s words down here, I do want to write about my medicine bag. At our second session Jon opened a cabinet drawer in his office and brought out a small bundle folded in a colorful cloth. He placed it on the floor between our chairs and carefully unfolded the cloth, revealing an unremarkable collection of sticks, stones and man-made objects like an old pocketknife. Some of the sticks had a few strands of colored yarn wrapped around them.
Jon related the tradition of the medicine bag in South America. He told of vision quests where along the rocky mountain paths he was told to select sticks and objects and then, reaching his spots of reflection, he would build a small fire and flick the tiny tenders one by one into the flames, ascribing each with a demon in his past and psyche to shrivel away in the flames. Then, on the way down the mountain from his quests, he was to look for more sticks and stones, and add these with other personal treasures to his medicine bag to represent powerful icons of his newfound strengths.
Jon created my medicine bag for me that day, with a cloth and some stones and bright red seeds from South America. This was just before the family trip to Spain a few weeks before surgery, and I carried my medicine bag in my front pants pocket throughout the trip, adding stones from the Costa del Sol to it.
Two regrets about my medicine bag. I’ve fully intended to find and burn icons of hurt in my fireplace at home, and I have yet to do that. And sitting in my cabin at Gunflint with the fireplace near me, I decide to go out and do that during a break from writing – and collect some new permanent objects. But I didn’t take, nor did I ever think prior to make certain I had my medicine bag with me on that trip. In fact my bag was in shambles at home, with some objects lost. Shame on me.
I of course have related the stories of my sessions with whoever would listen during that first year and since, and I prepared myself for the expected reactions of my Christian friends. But, gratifyingly, none ever scoffed at or challenged me, and most were very supportive because they could see the benefit I was taking away from Jon.
In anticipating possible debates about my belief in Jon's healing ways, I had fun running silly scenarios in my mind. For instance, I imagined that the ancient Peruvians and Bolivians had been the first with leaders who sent hoards of murderous crusaders to overrun geographies with philosophies. Then these same cultures were the first to develop written language and book publishing. If this had happened, I imagined the iconic practices with sticks, stones and seeds would hold as much significance as those with grape juice and crackers today. ¶ 1:06 PM
How dumb of me not to realize upon first viewing this card that Jon used his hands for healing.
I'd gone to a talk for new cancer patients at the American Cancer Society. But it was obvious from the wigs and faces that there were some very sick people in the audience. Brenda Hartman went first, telling of her diagnosis 14 years ago with stage four ovarian cancer. She was given a five percent chance of living two years, but the likely outcome was that she would be gone in two or three months. Her passionate and successful fight turned her into a counselor for cancer patients.
Then Jon MacRae began to talk. My first impression: What a cool, cosmic dude, but what the hell is he talking about? Jon, not a polished speaker, shuffled back and forth from foot to foot and talked about clutching an aunt in a coma when he was 18 and she was days away from death. She awoke soon after and was cancer free six months later. Jon sought traditional psychotherapy with disappointing results, and then disappeared to the mountains of South America for nine years. He lived with what he calls his ‘teachers,’ healers among the indigenous peoples in Peru and Bolivia.
Where I started to ‘get it’ was when Jon drew a big circle on the easel pad and talked about how too many men never could get close to their ‘centers.’ They were always at the periphery or outside this internal circle that should be guiding their lives. Instead, these men were letting external circumstances guide their life, including the onset of disease like cancer. I could tell my wife was in awe of this guy’s groove, because she’s long been a seeker through books about the spirit and alternative thinking to what religions teach. For me, I was struck by Jon's description of capitulating to what was happening around me rather than consciously guiding life the way I wanted to live it.
We scheduled a private session with Jon for a couple of weeks later. Entering his office, I spotted the massage table and it hit us that he practiced the healing touch. Snap. Up went my barriers of skepticism. Having no knowledge of the practice, I hoped we’d have a nice chat with Jon and that would be all. I couldn’t imagine stretching my body out of a table for someone to wave his hands over it, or worse yet, to actually touch me.
The three of us talked in a pretty non-specific way for about 40 minutes and finally Carla The Questioner asked: “Just what is it you do? Jon beckoned me to the table. My thought: Ok, here goes nothing.
Slipping off my shoes, I lay down on my back and closed my eyes. Jon, on his rolling stool facing Carla with me in between, simply rested one hand about a half inch over my prostate area. He continued to converse with Carla. I had a flash that my skepticism was going to melt. And melt it did. I think within a couple of minutes Jon’s words melted into ‘white noise’ and I felt – each 30 seconds to a minute – my whole body slumping into a deeper level of relaxation.
Then the fog rolled in. Still aware of where I was and what was going on around me, my mind suddenly filled with a gray fog like you see in the dim morning light hanging over a mirror-still lake. I think I reveled in this fog for a moment while noticing that Jon was now pressing both hands on my abdomen. But it wasn’t pressure I felt there. Or the warmth of his hands through my thick shirt. It was a very subtle energy flowing upward from me into his hands.
Lightening struck. Yes, actual vivid lightening bolts pierced the fog. At that moment, still with eyes closed, I said: “Whoa!, Carla, you can’t believe what I just saw.”
Jon was quick to say: “No Kim, you don’t talk.”
Within a minute, the sunspots burst forth. For a moment, the fog lifted and I saw – as if watching from a satellite hovering over the sun – a section of the sun's surface with huge pillars of fire and energy spouting from the surface and then falling back into the cauldron.
That snapped me back. Now I could feel Jon’s hands working on my lower legs and feet. And then he patted me. And I knew it was over. Twenty minutes of bliss. Pulling myself upright and standing I felt as if the best masseuse on the planet had just worked me over, but with no pounding or grinding. After that I truly walked around for three days with a light step, marveling at how good it felt just to suck in and expel breaths.
The second time it was the light show. When I saw Jon a couple of weeks later, and climbed onto the table after a half hour chat, the fog came quicker, and the feeling of energy flow to Jon’s hands was more pronounced, probably because I was concentrating on it. Awaiting the lightening and sunspots probably was what kept them from appearing.
But this time, Jon moved from my prostate area to my chest area, and spoke while working on what he called the head and heart sides here about how I needed to find my center among these opposing forces.
With fingers spread spider-like Jon clutched my head like a basketball. Immediately an intense but very thin vertical line of light appeared in the center of the fog from top to bottom. There was a small round spot of more intense light at its center. I don’t know how long I ‘looked’ at this sliver of light, but then BOOM. The light exploded horizontally right and left like the fake warp speed light effects from a Star Trek ship. And the remarkable thing about the explosion was that the light separated from the center in a perfect ‘scissors joint’ cross hatch pattern.
Then the pat signaling the end. And another three days of delight and clarity.
My final session with Jon a week before surgery was remarkable for three reasons, none having to do with visions. By then, I believe my mind had no room for visions as it focused on the impending event.
First off, slipping off my shoes I thought about how chilled my feet were. Then Jon’s thumbs pressed my feet just below the anklebones and instantly the feeling was one of warm water flowing from my lower legs, completely through my feet and out the toes.
Later, Jon moved back to the prostate area and stopped pressing there to raise his hand above my sweater slightly. His hand began shaking intensely. Of course, the question popped into mind: “Is he faking it?” The answer came a millisecond after the question: No way.
Lastly, near the end of the session Jon spoke quietly and with calm assurance: “Kim, I feel your cancer is small. Not like the doctors say. You’re going to come out extremely well.”
Preceding each session on Jon’s table we conversed. I can’t even begin to write accounts of these conversations, especially Jon’s stories about his teachers in South America and the vision quests that took him nine years to decide he was ready to teach. I have marveled several times following my sessions about the conversations. I put it this way to friends once: “Jon is so cosmic that all you can do is nod, knowing that he knows ancient truths and you’ll benefit just by listening, not by trying to recall or consciously put his words into action.”
Without the skill to put Jon’s words down here, I do want to write about my medicine bag. At our second session Jon opened a cabinet drawer in his office and brought out a small bundle folded in a colorful cloth. He placed it on the floor between our chairs and carefully unfolded the cloth, revealing an unremarkable collection of sticks, stones and man-made objects like an old pocketknife. Some of the sticks had a few strands of colored yarn wrapped around them.
Jon related the tradition of the medicine bag in South America. He told of vision quests where along the rocky mountain paths he was told to select sticks and objects and then, reaching his spots of reflection, he would build a small fire and flick the tiny tenders one by one into the flames, ascribing each with a demon in his past and psyche to shrivel away in the flames. Then, on the way down the mountain from his quests, he was to look for more sticks and stones, and add these with other personal treasures to his medicine bag to represent powerful icons of his newfound strengths.
Jon created my medicine bag for me that day, with a cloth and some stones and bright red seeds from South America. This was just before the family trip to Spain a few weeks before surgery, and I carried my medicine bag in my front pants pocket throughout the trip, adding stones from the Costa del Sol to it.
Two regrets about my medicine bag. I’ve fully intended to find and burn icons of hurt in my fireplace at home, and I have yet to do that. And sitting in my cabin at Gunflint with the fireplace near me, I decide to go out and do that during a break from writing – and collect some new permanent objects. But I didn’t take, nor did I ever think prior to make certain I had my medicine bag with me on that trip. In fact my bag was in shambles at home, with some objects lost. Shame on me.
I of course have related the stories of my sessions with whoever would listen during that first year and since, and I prepared myself for the expected reactions of my Christian friends. But, gratifyingly, none ever scoffed at or challenged me, and most were very supportive because they could see the benefit I was taking away from Jon.
In anticipating possible debates about my belief in Jon's healing ways, I had fun running silly scenarios in my mind. For instance, I imagined that the ancient Peruvians and Bolivians had been the first with leaders who sent hoards of murderous crusaders to overrun geographies with philosophies. Then these same cultures were the first to develop written language and book publishing. If this had happened, I imagined the iconic practices with sticks, stones and seeds would hold as much significance as those with grape juice and crackers today. ¶ 1:06 PM
