The Shamanic Muse

This blog marks my return to writing after a lengthy absence due to my being deeply immersed in the production of my book, Tails of a Healer: Animals, Reiki & Shamanism.

The book is a collection of previously published articles spanning the eleven years of my healing practice, and chronicles my adventures, mishaps, and growth as an alternative healer for animals (and people). It also contains dozens of my photos. I would have thought that it would be a relatively easy process to assemble the articles and lay them out in a pleasing format for publication (my career as a graphic designer comes in quite handy at times!). After all, they had appeared in publications such as The Kaleidoscope Journal, The New Times, WomenNetWork, and VerveWomen, how difficult could this be?

What I learned was the true nature of a core aspect of shamanism, which is that all things have spirit. In this case, the book literally took on a life of its own, and while doing so, took over mine. Additionally the book seems to have an energy of its own for others; several people who were reading the manuscript reported that their animals would try to lie on it no matter where they moved it to, and further the people reported that they were having a difficult time actually editing it as they would get caught up in the stories and forget what they were supposed to be doing!

While the 45 articles had been previously published, they had never before been assembled together under one roof (or cover). I have done a lot of personal healing work around the various events chronicled in the book, but had never thought to tackle them from the standpoint of integrating them as a whole, something the book demanded. While I had tackled the major issues, there seemed to be pieces that had gotten overlooked, or, perhaps, that I was simply not ready to clear at that time. So, in addition to running a healing practice and teaching classes, I also had to add time for my own personal healing. No slacking was allowed, I had emotions and hucha (stuck heavy energy) coming to the surface on a daily basis!

In amongst all of this was the actual book production, which required some orchestrating and balancing between people who had agreed to review the book, edit it, overview it, and so on, as well as coordinating with the publisher. Was it all exciting, yes, absolutely. Was it scary, YES, absolutely. The next emotional hurdle I encountered was my own fear of being seen for who I am. There is no way to hide from scrutiny with a book containing your innermost thoughts and feelings while embarked on your own personal journey! Yikes! What had I done? Back to the energy healing drawing board for more of my own clearing work.

Finally, I encountered some technical problems with software, fonts, and hardware. All of which culminated just when I thought I was going to production. One week of very intensive trouble-shooting detective work, and a final crucial session with my Macintosh technical support (Ruben Jeffries, MacDaddy), and I was ready for a very long vacation. But the book was finally at the publisher!

So, I am happy to report that it is due out sometime in mid-January. Tails of a Healer is available as a pre-order which does entitle one to an autographed copy at no additional charge! Now, maybe I can catch up on my writing!