My last post in February was about the break through of getting our beach back in Muizenberg after the lockdown, which had occurred just before Christmas in South Africa, preventing us from having access to the beaches. The presidents announcement had caused me a physical reaction that felt similar to suffocation, a little panic attack. My teenage daughter sitting next to me watching the live announcement picked up on my tension and had a similar reaction.

On new years day I took up a friends offer to go horse riding – we would be exercising a horse she was looking after. I felt very privilaged to be able to go horse riding during lockdown. Being with horses is very comforting for my soul. Even though it was new years day, usually the busiest day of the year for the beaches, the coastal roads were empty. It was eery. I was aware that I was very lucky to be able to escape. I drove over the mountain to Scarborough where I climbed onto an old white gelding whose name was Spirit.. My friend told me the horse did have a tendency to try to get his rider off, so I should ride close to her. She trotted off bareback with only a saddle blanket and a bitless rope bridle. I had a bitless bridle too, but was glad for the saddle. Spirit took me over hill and dale through forests and protea’s. However, there was an abrupt ending to the ride, not a happy one, and it lead me on a healing journey. Spirit tossed me off his back out of the blue from a standing position on the top of the hill in a well practiced movement. He put his foot down and lowered his head and bucked. I felt myself falling and landed on my third eye, twisting and turning my neck as I landed and causing severe whiplash. “Oh he throws everyone off!” Said the friend when she found me lying on my back on the ground. Spirit was an old trail horse, who had lost his job, my guess is that he stopped being a trail horse because he was doing this to all his clients. I felt somewhat betrayed both by the horse, who I felt I was building a relationship of trust with, and with the friend who had not revealed the details of this earlier, she had been quite vague.

This has all been part of the intense healing journey which commenced on the first day of 2021. So the healing journey I have been thrown into expanded and inspired faster action towards processing the steps one needs to take in order to:

• Unwind physical and mental trauma,
• Let go of toxic and painful betrayal,
• Heal myself
• Realize the importance of regular swims in salt water for aligning the spine.

The latter lead me to realize the trauma caused by being locked down was for the collective psyche.

Being told that we had to stay home and could not venture out to ocean, river or park, was such a stifling idea for my psyche. It’s because it meant that we were blocked from connection with all that is healing- nature herself. I believe we are nature. We are not separate robots running only on hormones and enzymes as a scientifically narrative would have us believe. Being locked down made me felt like a wild horse locked up in a tiny pen.

We are like the forrest floor, part of a network, each affecting the next. We are all originally part of one original source soul, so when we hurt each other, we only hurt ourselves. When we mistrust each other, we only create reason not to trust ourselves.

There has been too much hurting recently, too much pain. There are many ways to cope with the pain. Many prefer to find ways to avoid feeling it. Others make it worse by hurting themselves intentionally. However one chooses to cope with pain, there is always an option. We do not have to be victims of it. We do not have to lie down and give up. It’s hard sometimes. Depression is hard. I have lived with it for most of my life. It is a constant battle to find stepping stones out of the bog. These stepping stones are regular practices or pillars of support. The regular practices can take the form of simply walking the dog. Meditation, yoga classes, swims. The support can be regular meet ups with friends or therapy or group work. Being with other humans is another way to be in nature, because we are nature. Humans are nature too.

If we are disconnected from nature and use only our screens to connect with the outside world, there is something massive missing. It is delusional not to realize this. The screens are a land of illusion. They are simply a two dimensional fantasy. They are not truth. If people interact with the world only through their screens, they become like avataars in a fantasy land. Their minds are awake in a lucid dream, while their bodies are asleep-passively forgetting who they really are.

My journey of self healing forced me literally back down to earth, and I have to draw on my own resources and find support around me. Firstly I had the opportunity to test out my own medicine- a balm I had made. I had created a Bliss balm- by infusing Artimisia from the Karoo into oils and raw Shea and cacao butter. I had invented a Bliss Balm for massage and for healing aches and pains. Artimisia is also known to be an aprhrodisiac an anti-inflammatory and a natural anti-histimine when used topically. Ironically I had created a label for my product out of a doodle I had made of a wild horse looking backwards. That was me. That balm was the one that helped more than anything on my wounded neck. How amazing that I had already invented my own medicine!

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The next step in my emergency treatment was to call on my neighbourhood healer friend Juliet Wells. She was amazing in giving up the time to help straight away. She is the person I always recommend to everyone as she really has a lot of tools and is completely focused in her work. She uses a combination of Body Stress Release (Directed Pressure Point Technique) and some of the other healing modalities including Cranio Sacral Therapy and Kineseology. She showed me that just taking the trauma off removing it bit by bit through body stress release and alignment processes was what facilitates healing.

Real healers do not promise to do the healing. They just create the space by clearing the way and facilitating the right connections for the body to heal itself. Alternative healing is so different to the medical profession in this way. They give the power back to the patient to take back the reigns and ride. That is when you are ready and have made all the connections you need to make to fix what might have been disconnected by the inflammation and bruising. Luckily nothing was broken. I did go to see a medical doctor, who checked that. Medical doctors have certain tools to facilitate healing in acute situations and that is useful, however, one can actually do a lot by seeking to heal oneself from anything if one seeks out the tools and resources that are already available to you.

After a few weeks with Juliet, A synchronistic opportunity arose for me to attend an energy healing workshop. This being an obvious opportunity to obey the calling to learn to work as a healer, a calling I have known about for decades, but not given myself the space or time for. The modality was Bio-energy Healing, with Diana Collins Smith. The Bio Energy technique, which was originally taught by an Irish doctor/priest was very potent. Many ordinary folk watching this technique performed, may have just laughed it off as ‘woo woo” as it entails the clearing sweeping actions – working with energy in the auric field. The sweeping movements clear blocks and trauma in the energy field and help to facilitate healing. Even after my first treatment, which was just a learning practical with each other as paired students, (students who were quite gifted) I felt huge relief as the dense trauma energy was cleared from my aura. Afterwards, I felt like I had light between the bones of my skeleton. I felt a warm lightness in my body.

The incredible lightness of being is realizing that we are not only our bodies and our bodies are not only flesh. We are energetic beings and we are affected by the energy around us.

The energy around us can be more traumatic than we realize even if we think we are blocking it out. If we are feeling sensitive as empaths, we are fragmented by noise, shouting, smells and visual clutter. One should be aware that one’s energy body may be affected by ones surroundings. We are not rhinoceroses. Our skins are thin and our energy bodies reach out beyond them.

It is important to realize how our psyche’s can be affected by our environment. Teenagers are especially vulnerable. After all teens by nature of their stage of developement are in transformation between being catapillars and butterflies. They are neither here, nor there, constantly trying to reinvent themselves. Inside the cacoon, the caterpillar becomes a kind of transformation soup while they take themselves apart and re-assemble themselves as butterflies. It’s a messy business. I have two of them and they are both a pretty soupy right now.

When one is young and trying to make sense of things, especially in the disconnection of lockdown, it’s quite common to associate with false realities of social media as a form affirmation. It is a delusion, which is disconnected from nature completely. Many begin to believe that their bodies and physical appearance are all that exists. Body image and gender identity become a struggle as one’s body changes and morphs from child to to adult.

One can begin to believe that one only exists because one is seen online and one becomes addicted to receiving the feedback received from selfies posted on social media. It’s so dangerous. There is a epidemic going on beneath the pandemic and that is one of self- harm and self destruction.

My observation is that many teens fantasize about being something other than what they are. So they are constantly reinventing themselves or getting depressed about not being able to live up to the fantasy.

“All that we have is our souls!” Is all I wish to tell them, if they would listen.

It’s time for RE-wilding the children by taking them back into nature, to show them how it really feels to walk alone among the stones, in places where there is only nature, in it’s most powerful form. Where one cannot see a single other building. Where there is silence but for the sound of the wind and the call of an eagle.

Watch this space for Wild Healing RE-wilding eco-therapy retreats at Highlands Sanctuary Trust for redirecting roots to the true earth.

I am guided to find a team of true eco-therapy healers who will help me hold the space.

Contact me if you are interested in joining us for a wild healing retreat in the Karoo Highlands mountains.

hdkingwill@icloud.com

My Bliss balm and amazing empowering lipbalms made with pure natural oils and butters and infused with Artimisia from this special valley (in the picture above) in the Karoo, are available to order.

These lip balms made with all natural healing ingredients are available to order.