Throughout history there have been men and women dedicated to keeping a sacred trust - one that may someday be instrumental to the survival of humanity. In the Americas they were known as Earthkeepers, and among the Inka they were known as the Laika. In many parts of the world they were persecuted as heretics, for they believe that humans are not only the stewards of creation, but play an equal part with God as creators. They did this by ‘dreaming’ the world into being. For the Earthkeepers, dreaming has not been relegated to the domain of sleep as it has been for us. They learn to dream with their eyes open, and they understand that if you do not dream your world that you have to settle for the collective nightmare created by others.
The Four Insights are the core wisdom teachings of the Earthkeepers. I remember deciding to write this book shortly after I first visited in the high Andes. I had been offered a glimpse of the power and grace these medicine men and women were gifted with. Then it took me 25 years to learn the essence of these wisdom teachings. (I often thought that I should have written the book in that first month, when I could see it all clearly as an outsider, like a visitor to New York City who goes to the Empire State Building, where few New Yorkers have been.) But I had to absorb the Insights into every cell of my being. Like the practice of integrity, and of being true to your word, for example. We all know we should be true to our word. But with time I came to understand that when you are true to your word, everything you say becomes true. Eventually, whatever you speak becomes so. Now I get why some sages give up speaking altogether!
Early in my research in the Amazon and the Andes I discovered that the Laika healed by erasing imprints in the luminous energy field (LEF) that could manifest in physical and emotional disease. I was very reluctant to learn the practices of energy medicine, as I realized how wounded and unhealed I was myself. How could I help others if my own soul was aching? Besides, I wanted to make sure I would not try to heal my hurts through another person. But with time I learned that the only way I could heal myself was by learning how to help others. One of my teachers, an old Laika named Antonio, once pointed out to me how I would hide behind my role as ‘anthropologist’. I was using that role to keep me from facing the hard truths about myself. He was so right! So I began to learn the ways of the healer and the practice of energy medicine, which we now teach at the Healing the Light Body School. I stopped being ‘Dr. Villoldo’ and became a humble student.
Early on I was terrified of these practices. I saw how easily one could hurt another person. I remember seeing clients in my office who had been to a very gifted but poorly trained healer. This person had ‘done’ healing on their cancer, which had then metastasized and spread throughout their body, because cancer loves blood flow and energy. The healer had treated the cancer, instead of the client. (When we employ energy medicine in an allopathic fashion, treating the disease instead of the person, it often backfires.) So I came to understand that having a gift is not enough, that one had to be expertly trained. I myself had no gifts as a healer. But I had excellent mentors. And just as important, you had to be on a healing journey yourself. In the Amazon they call this ‘cleaning up your river,’ so that your psychic debris does not contaminate the person you are trying to help.
Cleaning up my river has been the ongoing task of my life. For a long time I believed I lived a spiritual life, but then I discovered that I simply read a lot of spiritual books. You have to remember that you clean up your river so that you can water many fields with pure, crystalline spirit-water. When cleaning your river becomes your only task, you grow narcissistic and self-absorbed. You must water the fields of plenty, and grow great tall ears of corn and sunflowers everywhere. Your healing has to become manifest in the world by the beauty you create. That’s what we came here to do, after all!
Originally published in The Four Winds monthly newsletter © Alberto Villoldo 2007 www.thefourwinds.com
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