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Julia
Interviewed
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by
Jules deBere
of the Mind, Body,
Spirit Book Club
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RADIANCE
the website creator's own pages |
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Julia |
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Jay - or Julia, healer, diviner,
poet, and artist shares some of
her life experiences with Mind
Body Spirit and reveals
how she became a healer.
* Jay, can you explain exactly
what 'healing' is/means to you?
Phew, that’s a big one to
start with, I’ll try to
answer it reasonably succinctly!
Healing is a natural technique
for providing relief from stress,
enhancing the body's own healing
powers, and promoting
wholeness and balance. It should
be used strictly as a
complimentary therapy, not as a
substitute or alternative.
I am not religious, but I do
think of a SOURCE, or Universal
Light (life) Force, or
Consciousness.
I believe we are all linked to
that source, and if we learn to
be still and listen, to trust the
guidance available, trust our
inner voice or intuition, we can
journey towards becoming our true
or higher selves, naturally being
drawn to heal as
part of that process.
A simple description of how we
heal is that we channel universal
energy through ourselves, into
and through the patient.
We work with the subtle bodies as
well as with the physical body.
We can sense problem areas
(blockages of the energy
flow) and clear them. We learn a
lot of medical and other detailed
information surrounding the
healing process. We also
learn about protection of
ourselves and of our clients, and
aim to work only with the highest
good, compassionate intent
and unconditional love.
* When and how did you first
decide to become a healer?
My becoming a healer really
began with your book club! I
ordered Jack Angelo's "Your
Healing Power" from you -
it was one of the first of the
many books I ordered - and I read
it thoroughly, made notes etc.
and taught myself.
The address of the National
Federation of Spiritual Healers
was in the back of the book too,
so that is how I first got in
touch with them. Jack’s book
is actually required reading for
their courses, so I was one step
ahead there.
Anyway, it is relatively recent
with me, although I did always
have a sense of there being
something like this out there -
it was just so great to actually
find it, and all the super people
involved too. My local NFSH group
of healers is a
particularly wonderful bunch. We
do training courses through the
NFSH, who are rightly very clear
and careful about the
methods we use. (Membership also
gives us insurance cover,
although they say you cannot
actually harm by healing.)
It is quite a commitment in terms
of time and money to train
properly. First there is a
gradual process of releasing
one's
own past blocks so that one can
be as pure a channel as possible.
Release of pains & fears,
forgiveness (of one's self
and of others), trust,
unconditional love, being open to
receive, and gratefulness, are
all key words here. Affirmations,
Visualizations, and of course
Meditations are indispensable
tools along the way. Meditation
is amazing – I am currently
in the process of reviewing
another of your books –
"Wisdom Roads", which
is dialogues with meditation
masters.
Anytime we genuinely ask for help
it is there for us. We are ONE
with the Light Source,
particularly during the
meditative
state, and can access unlimited
guidance and information. It is
not a path that will ever get to
any particular place, one will
continue to learn every day. We
continually polish the instrument
- that is ourselves.
* Could you tell us when you
first sensed an inner feeling or
instinct which ultimately lead
you to become a healer?
As a child, Jules, I always knew
there was something more,
something that would fit,
something that would be right for
me.
I always had trouble with the so
called laws of physics, the rules
of different groups or religions,
racial prejudices,
anything like that. Is it fear do
you think that makes people and
groups of people build fences
around themselves?
(We can learn to let go of fear
and give and accept love, and
forgive ourselves for not seeing
this sooner, just as we can
forgive others.)
The way we treated our earth and
each other appalled me. I knew
deep down that everything was all
part of a whole,
we were all one, and that we
should be loving and respectful
to all. I was writing poetry from
a very early age, searching.
Neither science nor religion
offered complete answers, they
were always too limited, there
had to be something beyond.
The answers I have been looking
for are all there now, I have
found them through healing,
meditation, and studying
broadly around these subjects. It
just took me a pretty long time
to find it… it feels like
coming home, at last.
* You grew up in the
Drakensberg mountains in Natal,
South-Africa, living close to the
land and animals. How strongly
and in which ways do you feel
your early upbringing and life
experiences influenced your
becoming a healer?
Very strongly. There were
bushman paintings on our farm,
gorges, rivers, waterfalls, black
eagles nesting on cliffs .…
it was heaven! There were snakes
too, of course, and lots of
animals. If one is patient you
can sneak right up close and
touch wild animals. You learn to
imitate them too, their movements
and their sounds. You love them
and you respect
them, same as you do the
mountains, a river, or the ocean.
When we weren’t at school,
we were allowed to spend all day
just being out there soaking it
up. You feel so close to it all,
you feel at one with it, and you
know in your heart without
even thinking about it that you
are part of it and it is part of
you. And so it makes sense too
that other people are also
part of this oneness, that there
are no boundaries, not for real.
One gets a sense of space too,
that somehow makes it easy to
visualize the space out there in
the universe, not feel
overwhelmed by the concept of
infinity. I was lucky to spend a
little time in the desert and
some time at sea too, they were
similar in many ways, undulating
vast spaces, yet filled with
life.
I think living this way also
helps one to be strong in
oneself, so that one questions
generally accepted ways of
thinking,
and rules, instead of just
following blindly. My Mother
certainly encouraged that. My Dad
was a strong influence too.
He went out to farm in Africa
when he was 19. He carved a farm
from the bush in what was then
Rhodesia, and lived with
the African people as his closest
friends. One of my poetry
collections is called
"Following Father". (By
the way, Jules,
I hope to soon put together a
collection of earth and spiritual
poems, but in the meantime there
are some of these available
on my website.) Often I would sit
alone up a tree, meditating. Well
I didn’t know it was
meditating then. One can do that
anywhere, listen to a stream, the
sea, or the wind. Watch the birds
or animals. Even simply enjoy the
sun. Anything that
helps you let go of the daily
grindstone and any inner turmoil,
to still your mind.
* What, do you believe is the
most powerful or fulfilling thing
that you have achieved through
healing?
Well, it’s early days
for me yet Jules. I have worked
and continue to work with a wide
range of people and conditions,
plus with people who are just
looking for a general "top
up" to help them on their
way. I don’t look for
gratification by
following specific results, but I
do see that there is improvement,
and that these people are
convinced in themselves that
this works. I know in my self
that it works too, but I do not
pretend that it is a miracle
cure. When I started out I used
to
see lots of colours and movements
of energy, and even sense the
clients’ emotions, which was
all very exciting, but I
began to feel that I was
sensationalizing things
unnecessarily, so now I mostly
just trust, and let it happen.
Our group
leader, Maggie, is always a
wonderful example to us all.
Perhaps the best thing is how it
has helped my family, and changed
my own life, giving me that sense
of having found the
answers and the way of life that
I was looking for, of being
fulfilled at last, and of having
a road to continue steadily
along,
with lots more to learn along the
way.
I would like one day to be
involved in scientific research
into how healing (and for that
matter, water divining too)
works.
I would also love to teach and
pass on these skills, well I
guess that is already happening
in many subtle ways, so I am
happy there. I would also like to
work with children more – I
have studied towards, and worked
for a time as a special
needs assistant in schools, as
well as working with special
needs children as a poet, and I
think healing could help in
many cases. I am also open to
working with animals. And of
course I’d love to work
alongside medical professionals.
* Can anybody become a healer?
Yes. I think it is a natural
ability we have as children but
lose in the humdrum of consumer
society and the complex
stresses of trying to survive
financially and socially. It is
something we can all find our way
back to if we want to enough.
The NFSH training on offer is
excellent, and because of their
strictness, it is widely
respected, which I think as very
important, and helps us not to
get too crazy!
May I just add that although
children are natural healers, it
is still something they have to
discover for themselves really,
you can’t push them, just
like with anything else, you can
only show them a little by
example, then maybe you have to
just let go and trust that they
will find their way back in their
own good time.
* What advice would you give
to anybody interested in becoming
a healer?
Order Jack Angelo’s
book, have a look, and if you
think healing is for you, then
get in touch with the NFSH and
find out
about groups local to you. If you
go along to these groups the
leaders of them should be able to
guide you along your
way. Or you can do it the other
way around and check out the
groups first. Either way, if you
find you do wish to learn to
give healing you should be
prepared to do a lot of
self-development work, as one
does need to initially
concentrate on
fine-tuning oneself to be a good,
clear, channel, but of course,
receiving healing will assist you
greatly with this.
The National Federation of
Spiritual Healing can be
contacted at:
Old Manor Farm Studio, Church
Street, Sunbury on Thames,
Middlesex, TW16 6RG.
Phone: 01932 783164 / Email: office@nfsh.org.uk / Website: http://www.nfsh.org.uk
* And lastly, as a poet in
schools, performer, workshop
leader, tutor, publisher, editor,
festival and events organizer and
storyteller how do you manage to
fit everything into your life
without sometimes feeling
overwhelmed by it all?
Well, Jules, as they say
"if you want something done,
ask a busy person!". No,
seriously, I can’t help
myself, I just love
to be doing these things.
Actually, I have been a publisher
and editor for many years, mostly
of poetry, but also of an
environmental magazine before
that, and I have had to give all
that side of things up now, along
with the festival and
events organizing, in order to
make room for healing and water
divining. I began water divining
a couple of years ago,
and have been well trained by one
of my brothers, Doug Bates, who
works full time as a diviner in
Scotland and sometimes
abroad. He trained as a geologist
straight after school and came
into water divining later, so he
is very thorough. I think
water divining and healing must
use similar parts of the brain,
and that practicing the one
helped lead me into the other.
I feel that I enter the same sort
of state of relaxed concentration
for both. The fact that we can
divine accurately on maps
supports the idea that the
information may come from some
sort of collective unconscious,
which also ties in with ideas
behind healing, and I have read
that quantum physicists are
coming round to thinking this way
too. The instruments that
we use on the ground to pinpoint
a drilling spot for water and
read its depth, volume, and
quality are only magnifying
reactions from one’s own
body. We have worked very
successfully without using any
instruments at all. One learns to
trust the small signals received
in answer to specific
questioning, in a very similar
way to how one learns to hear and
trust
the whispers of ones intuition
when healing.
I have only been practicing as a
healer now since about April, but
feel relaxed and quietly
confident about it. I guess it
also helps that I did such
intensive reading in the early
stages. Anyway, I know I still
have a long way to
go…indeed,
don’t we all? I think one
never stops learning, and that is
precisely what is so fascinating
about life!
I do still work as a poet,
storyteller, and artist,
performing and teaching. I think
this is all part of the real me
who is also
the diviner and healer. They seem
to go so wonderfully together.
I am a mother of two sons as
well, now aged 13 and 14, and
they get their share of
attention! Fortunately for me my
husband does let me be who I am
and do what I have to do, despite
thinking that I am totally mad.
He gives me trust and
freedom, and helps out with some
of the housework too.
I do these things instead of a
normal job, not as well as, so it
isn’t that amazing really, I
just live a bit differently from
your
regular 9 to 5-er. I used to be a
9 to 5-er for the first few years
of my adult life, then I spent a
couple of years on a yacht –
from South Africa across the
South Atlantic via a couple of
islands to Brazil, then up to the
Caribbean, Bermuda, USA.
I couldn’t do the 9 to 5
thing much more after that. At
least I am at home more often
than not when the boys get back
from
school, or soon after, and can
give them time in their holidays
too.
I do also work as a website
designer. That is my attempt at
making some money. I enjoy it
because it is creative too, it
also
fits in well with the other
things, I mean look at the
website I have done in relation
to healing www.radiance-solutions.co.uk
for example. That website enables
lots of links to other websites
in the areas of healing,
creativity, the environment, and
divining, as well as having its
own information pages.
I have also done
a joint website for
myself and my brother at
www.waterdivining.com which has all
the divining information
on it plus links into our
older individual sites.
I think the internet can
be a superb tool, yes
even for healers,
poets, diviners… and
what with all that
information ….
one could be in thrall
for ever! It enables a
huge amount of
information sharing, and
networking of ideas.
Sorry, I do go on a
bit….let’s stop
there.
Thanks again!
My pleasure
View
Julia's full CV
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