Reverb10. December 19.

Healing. What healed you this year? Was it sudden, or a drip-by-drip evolution? How would you like to be healed in 2011? (From Leonie Allan)

There are levels of healing. Gradations. Like paint chips, or fine wine, the colors and flavors deepening subtly. I’ve broken many times over this year and the healing has been profound. Ivory to Marigold to Saffron. Sand to Cocoa to Polished Mahogany to Caviar to Mud.

My body has been healed by physical therapy, chiropractic, surgery, acupuncture, Reiki, applied kinesiology, myofascial release, diet changes, supplements, sleep.

My mind, my heart and my spirit have been healed by touch, by love, by voices over the phone. They’ve been healed by Reiki too, by prayers sent from all over the world, by angels, by the right words at the right time, by the Divine.

It turns out the grief of losing a child is healing wounds I didn’t even know existed. Grief is what forced me to look deeper into myself, to open my heart to all the pain I’ve been hiding behind. Grief has made me a seeker, and a healer myself. Grief turned the leaky faucet method of healing into a flood and every layer peeled away has revealed another, and another, and another, until I’m left staring into the essence of myself, amazed, confused, delighted, stunned. For a moment I take my own breath away. Then the layers fold back in on themselves, like a flower at the last rays of sun. Peeling them back again, there are fewer to heal. I go deeper. I continue on.