Breathe....................

Here’s one method, and 2 variations, to use to help you lower your stress level. Make this part of your daily practice: in traffic, waiting on the phone, during the commercials. Then it’ll be one of the tools you can use during challenging times.

Sit straight up, feet flat on the floor, hands comfortably in your lap (but not folded). Breathe in through your nose, with your mouth closed, for a slow count of 4. Breathe out, through your mouth, to a count of five. Rest for a moment, there at the bottom of the breath, and begin again.

For pain relief, I’ve found it helpful to breathe in through the mouth, and out through the nose, using the pattern above.

When you need to sleep, and are having trouble, lie down and breathe in and out through your nose; again, using the pattern above.


By allowing yourself to rest in your breathing, you are giving yourself space to expand into the present moment, and taking your mind off of whatever the difficulties of the situation that in which you find yourself. The re-oxygenation of your blood through the breathing is helpful, too.

Cancer............

Oh, man, too much cancer. I have a number of people in my extended life now who are struggling themselves with, or who have close relatives who are struggling with, that scourge of the post-industrial world. One is a seven year old boy. It’s mostly metastasized cancers and brain tumors.

It’s a disease of the immune system. A way for the poisoned earth, of which we are a part, to cry out in pain. A wild growth: weeds of the body. All of us have cancer within us, every day. For many of us, our robust (or at least functioning) immune systems pull out the weeds as a matter of daily maintenance. But for some, the maintenance either doesn’t take place, or doesn’t keep pace, with the wild weeds.

Praying for these people is part of my vocation. Healing, if possible, too. But healing is not of necessity curing. Coming to terms with our mortality, with limitations, with narrowing, is part of human existence…..

For those of us standing at the sidelines, who’d rather have the disease ourselves than watch our beloved ones suffer, it is one of the hardest lessons of our incarnation: we can’t save them. We can’t take their journey: we can only take our own. To be supportive, to allow them to be where they are, rather than where we think they should be; to be kind. Holding hands, sitting by the bedside, breathing-with. Loving, really, as gently and as thoroughly as we can.


As the rain drips gently down outside, so too my thoughts are with those who have this disease, and those who are at the bedside. Please know that even if we don’t know each other, I stand with you: whether in the disease, or standing with someone who has it. As a healer, as a psychic, I am with you.