Beans and Cornbread D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
October 2009
Rx for the Earth
Mary Myers focuses her healing work on the planet itself.
Most "energy workers" and shamanic practitioners focus on the healing of the human body. A few become animal communicators and work on the bodies of our pets. Mary Myers is a practitioner focused on healing a different body — that of Mother Earth. Myers lives along the banks of the San Pedro River in southern Arizona, but is a regular visitor to the Silver City area. We asked her about her healing work, prior to Myers' upcoming "Medicine for the Earth" workshop in Silver City Nov. 6-8:
Q. What is your background as a shamanic practitioner?
A. My work is based on a lifetime of living in direct contact with the natural world, training with a Hopi Indian mentor on Third Mesa in the 1970s and 1980s, the techniques of a well-known New Mexican shamanic teacher, Sandra Ingerman (who wrote Medicine for the Earth), and on my knowledge of new scientific studies that demonstrate and verify some types of energetic work with the earth.
Q. What inspires you to focus your energies on healing the body of the earth?
A. By far my most significant teachers have been the spirits of the land. I'm especially talking about a period of five years between 1995 and 2000 where I lived alone in a remote location in the Sonoran Desert in a strawbale house I built, and worked directly with all the beings in that environment.
Q. Was this like a spiritual retreat?
A. In part it was, but it was also part verifiable observation. One of the most important lessons I learned about the power of intention and healing the earth is to be clear and steadfast with my intention but to let go completely of any anticipated outcome.
A case in point was that some unprincipled landscapers were driving past my remote house each day with huge saguaro cacti they were removing from the wilderness and taking to Tucson to place in the yards in new housing divisions. The sad thing is that saguaros don't transplant well, and more than 90% of these plants die, but it takes them about 10 years to do so. At first my intention was that the landscapers be stopped. Then I realized that was actually an outcome, and that the most basic intention was that the number of saguaros not be diminished in this wonderful corner of the wilderness. I just made that a prayer each morning for several years.
Nothing seemed to be resulting from that effort. Then one day I had a professional botanist visiting my land. As she walked around she observed that for some unknown reason there were three or four times the normal number of new saguaro starts in this area.
Q. Were you first called to do healing work with other people?
A. I could see almost from the start that healing work with people was not to be my principal calling. I had already put together an "environmental shamanism" workshop when I read Sandra Ingerman's book, Medicine for the Earth, in 2000. I realized that I resonated with every word she wrote, and immediately signed up to be trained by Ingerman — eventually as a Medicine for the Earth workshop instructor. Ingerman developed a powerful set of exercises and techniques that allow people to transform toxins in the service of Mother Nature. Its a fuller, richer perspective that speaks to the personal as a transformative daily practice, as well as offering healing for the environment.
Q. Do you also have an interest in that gray area in the 21st century where the understanding of the spiritual and scientific understanding seem to be merging?
A. Absolutely. Many people have already learned about the quantum nature of our world and know that the energy of intention can manifest in the material world. But until Medicine for the Earth was developed, little attention was given to forming intentions that move beyond individual goals to deepen and enrich our connection with the web of life on this planet. Could it be that our inner state of consciousness is being reflected back to us by our polluted environment?
In my workshops, attendees learn how to use intention in a focused way to transform both personal and environmental toxins. We use a shamanic spiritual framework, but the body of techniques does not require us to adopt rituals of indigenous cultures not our own. General shamanic principles form a core for our own personal practices. And those practices we bring forth from within ourselves are our most powerful tools.
For more information about Mary Myers' upcoming Silver City workshop, visit her website, www.marymyers.info, or contact her local representative in Silver City, Laurie Van Vliet, 388-4328. Size of the workshop is limited; register early.