Looking back over my life it would seem that I was somewhat destined to work in the healing profession, to enjoy art and to explore all things esoteric. My family and friends call me a gypsy, an adventurer and sometimes a visionary.
I have worked in the healing professions since I was seventeen. Half of that time I have worked in hospitals sometimes as a Nurse in Labor and Delivery and sometimes as a manager or teacher. The other half I have worked and studied Alternative Healing sometimes as a hypnotherapist or inner child therapist and sometimes as a healer or shaman.
My formal education spans both of these worlds of healing. My informal education came from my experiences. My greatest education came not from people and experiences I searched out but people and experiences that found me.
As a child I learned about the memory in trees and respect for all of the great mother's creatures from my father. I learned the importance of service and politeness from my mother. I learned of the health care industry and alternative methods of healing during my fathers long term illness. I learned of God though my grandfathers, one who taught the way of the church and the other the way of nature.
In 1965, I was 13 when our high school teacher started a T group. She taught a small group of us girls about group process, energy, meditation, hypnosis and out of body experiences. She read the works of people like Alan Watts and Carl Jung. She was brave and her reward was to get fired for indoctrinating us into the "work of the devil". Bless her.
I attended Douglas College School of Nursing graduating in 1977. For the next 14 years I worked at MSA hospital in Abbotsford primarily in Maternity and sometimes in Emergency.
This was a busy time: Working full time, raising two beautiful daughters, and building a house. As a family we were involved with all of the kid’s activities and the parent groups that were attached to the activities. I was always taking courses and learning something new.
In the spring I spent hours in our gardens and in the summer we canned fresh fruit and tomatoes. As fall came around we froze and stored our vegetables. In the winter we had many gatherings. Our home was always full of kids.
When I look back I am not sure how we did it but I know I could not have done it without the love and support of dear friends, co workers, family and my dear husband and lifetime friend.
In 1985 I decided to go to art school. I still worked full time at the hospital but dropped many of the community activities. The girls were older and very independent. The house was now full of wonderful teenagers.
I attended the Fraser Valley Academy of Art where I gained my formal education in the art world. My teacher was the eccentric but fascinating Hungarian, Atelier Sándor Mészáros. He taught by apprenticeship and by studying the works of the old masters. I was truly blessed to have such a wonderful foundation in Fine Arts. I also grew to love Leonardo da Vinci and studied his life and all of his works. Sometimes I even think I knew him. I often have a vision of being a young girl of about 11 or 12 asking him about how he made the colors.
Then into the unknown again. I Studied Mysticism and everything esoteric. Hung out with metaphysicians, psychics and healers of all types and disciplines. Sometime in there I received my first drum from a Métis in exchange for healing.
I did my inner child work and became a therapist through a now defunct Vancouver Private Training Institute in 1990.
In my thirties I went out to explore my heritage. Many elders and teachers showed me things. Some pretty dark ones tried to give me things like pipes and items for a bundle. I was saved when Grandmother Leah found me. She was a very private lady. She claimed she had been waiting for me and I was late. She taught me listen to the native plants of northern British Columbia. She showed me how to tan a hide, catch and preserve fish, make a drum and remove a demon.
I was asked to help a friend in her self help bookstore. She wanted to start study groups and bring healing to people. She cleaned the shelves, formed quiet sitting areas and made things nice. She was a very cheerful and positive young lady. I formed a group and circle. We brought in speakers and discussed all things spiritual and metaphysical and sometimes we did healing circles. Many people came from all walks of life. The local pastors and priests came to view the array of bibles; the new agars came to view the esoteric. Pagans and Wiccans found their books and candles and magic potions. Friends of Bill came and often sat and talked. Therapists and Doctors came looking for reference material. The street people came to sit in the warmth. It was a great place to be. I woke early every morning to get to the bookstore. I loved it there. On Tuesdays new books would arrive and I could read and read.
One day while sitting in a rocking chair at the book store a gentle native man sat next to me. He told me that I had not come to see him so he has come to see me. Over the next couple of years he became much like a father to me. He continued where Grandmother Leah left off. I learned about the sweats and more about healing circles and the drum.
This wonderful family man and Leah shared some very specific characteristics. They were extremely private about what they did. Their source of income came from working at a job not related to healing or medicine. They both had an incredible sense of humor. Neither hung up a shingle saying Shaman or Healer. In fact they joked about it that if you had to say you were a shaman or healer you weren't. The work they did with people was loving and gentle.
When the store closed I joined the world of therapists doing inner child work in the addiction field and worked contract for women's' groups, native organizations, colleges and the government. I was doing two or three healing circles a week and sweats for the youth and women. I traveled into some very remote areas of British Columbia with a strong faith that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. In 1995 I started working for the Native Friendship Centre. Three years later I managed the Youth and Family Treatment Centre in Nenqayni. The history of these two native organizations came out of a desire by their founders to provide and safe place for the healing of the people. It was like having my own healing center. Health issues, exhaustion and my own darkness forced me to stop.
I decided to spend time with my grandsons who were just babies. For the next 18 months I became grandma and babysitter. It was great fun. We painted, made jam, baked and played in the park. In my spare time, which wasn't much, I sold Northwestcoast Art on Ebay. I made drums for the artists and for youth groups. There was no money in making the drums I just liked to do it. During that time I met some of the finest native artists of our time and some wonderful youth that taught me how to find your own drum song.
Sometimes the art entwined with the healing (mine). Reg Davidson a prominent northwest coast artist invited me to attend a Potlatch in Masset on Queen Charlottes. I had been making drums for him for months. At the end of January, on my half century birthday I traveled to the Queen Charlotte Islands. Out of that Potlatch came a good story of the power of art and of healing. If you ever see me wearing the argillite pendant of the raven, ask me about the story.
Right after that Potlatch I left to work in the US. I always had said I would never go back to work in hospitals. After 10 years of not working in hospitals here I am. Fortunately I work for myself taking short term nursing contracts in US hospitals, 22 hospitals in 18 cities in five years. It gives me lots of time to paint and write and explore all things unknown.
In February of 2006 I was headed off to Mendocino for another nursing contract. I had been there before and loved the community. There are lots of artsy types and some retired Berkley researchers and metaphysical scholars. I was looking forward to reconnecting with everyone.
I was driving west along the winding Highway 20 towards Mendocino-Fort Bragg. I was thinking how wonderful it was to be going back to Mendocino to work for a few months. I was excited to see the ravens, the deer and the ocean. I remembered how much I painted and wrote while I was there. "How to think like Leonardo" was playing in my car stereo. It was raining hard and parts of the gravel road were washing away.
The energy suddenly shifted to a lighter and brighter one. "Nice", I thought.
The next few minutes were surreal. The rain came down like a waterfall. The road disappeared. The energy in my car became light and intensely bright. There was a sudden silence and intense calmness. I felt a presence. That presence manifest a voice, "Do you want to leave now?” I knew at that moment I could leave the earth plane. I contemplated for a few moments. I thought I want to see my grandsons grow up and I must still have things I can do here. I decided to stay and I recommitted to my path. The road reappeared. Shortly after the road was closed. It had washed out.
The next few months in Mendocino it was made clear to me that I needed to spend time resting and refueling for the upcoming journey. I had no idea what that journey was but it was important.
At the end July 2006 I left Mendocino and embarked on another chapter of exploration. Where this will all lead I do not know. Painting a little. Studying all things esoteric. Working at a hospital. Thinking about the children and how I will fulfill my commitment to my path.
Linda - August 2006
It is now January 2009. And my story goes on. I had worked near non stop at various hospitals in California. I am somewhat burned out from working the long hours at the hospitals but am taking a bit of a break. I paint and I write. I am not much into the alternative healing and metaphysics at this time. If I had the means I would now retire and enjoy my friends and family and paint and write. Despite all the finacial concerns of the earth world right now I have faith and hope for the future. I know how resilent I am. Linda
Jan 2010: No more stories. As I look back at the last year I could tell a story or a few. However, they are just stories. What is important to me now is Now.. And right now I am typing here.. Remembering it is all an illusion. Saying "Everything is an Illusion" I create the illusion I want to live. It is full of sunshine even on a cloudy day, fragrant flowers, skys with a million sparkles of colour, lots of dancing, singing, music and art. So many beautiful people I will have to live another couple hundred years to express how much I appreciate them all.
If you actually read this far good for you.. and now here is my actually truth.. Feb 23, 2010
I finished the Lady of Nations or All my relations or Water Goddess. She is beautiful! She is done.
1990 - I was returning home following a chanting session with a very sweet group of people. I was driving over one of the many bridges here in Vancouver and an energy joined me and manifest a voice. The energy felt male and for some reason I thought Jewish. The energy manifest a voice. His first words were "you know this bridge will not be here forever. I went into a no time no space feeling. He went on to tell me about an event that will happen in the future. He showed me the City of Vancouver a blaze. He showed me safe areas of the lower mainland of Vancouver. He showed me where I would be at the time of the event. I have visited this place in one of the old parts of downtown Vancouver. There is some sort of energy anomaly there.. When the male voice told me of where I would be I could see it in my mind. It was an archway like an entrance. It was soapy looking or sort of morphing. I have a group of children with me. I am shown the way through the archway and then go underground for a distance and resurfacing. We would walk along a route I know in Vancouver and through the waters .. (location of the Water Goddess) and end up at the point of my guardian totem painting. And there were beings there. I never could figure it out if it was alien ships or something else. I have never shared this total vision with anyone except my long time friend and husband who has passed on. Of all the people in my life he was the only one that also a knowing that this is what I had to do.
I was told my own children would be ok. I was shown that one would be east of the Rockies.. which she is and the other would be where she is in the Vancouver area. I was told that it was not going to happen right away.
Very quickly after this vision I went on a long journey of near 20 years. Learning about myself and the many parts as well as the ways of aboriginal cultures from around the world. I have had Osho come to me in dreams and I never met him nor have I read any of his works. I hear music all the time in my mind usually very beautiful music. I've joined groups and such, thinking I would find people of like mind but that was not at all what I found. I had these dreams of classrooms.. where I started in kindergarten in 1990 and in August of 2007 was told I was done.. there were no more assignments. All those years I followed a knowing or a guidance that came from a source I can not explain.
A year ago my whole world was turned upside down and the guidance I had followed for near 20 years abandoned me. I always had faith and knew I was guided and I was directed. In November I made a decision to go into isolation. It was in a way forced as everyone and I mean everyone abandoned me. This included my children who I had always had a mutually loving and supporting relationship.
During this time I have had to face some of my own demons and darkness.. shadow self... and do it all alone. This whole thing remains beyond my comprehension and yet there was another drive to work through this time. I look back on my life and I know I have done the best I could. I know I have been generous with my time, money, and energy in supporting people and their dreams. I may not have been perfect but I know I have given my best.
This last year has been a very tough time. I did my best to connect with people in a good way but was constantly bombarded with negative reactions and outright mean spiritedness.
Today as I watch all the happenings of Olympics and the huge party with so many having a rip roaring time, I also notice the business in all of the surrounding communities are dead causing a great deal of concern for the owners, and I notice the protesters mainly the homeless and hurt people crying out. I notice the native people dividing themselves on the benefit of the Olympics to their people on who this land belongs to. I notice all the drama of security and most of all I am noticing the vast disrespect for the land here. Beautiful Stanley Park, the surrounding beaches and city itself are all taking a beating with all the partying. I notice how much people are enjoying the entertainment. There is lots of cheering and beering. The constant noise of security bells and whistles and planes and ships is shaking the very earth. And then there is are the intense bright lights in the wee hours of the morning blinding you as you drive by. And I saw my grand niece, a few dear friends, an old client proudly walk or run with the torch during the torch relay. I see a sea of maple leaf flags proudly displayed all over the city and on ever second car and plastered over trucks and vans. I see red shirts and painted red faces. I see everyone grabbing arm loads of souvenirs at London Drugs half price sale. I celebrations of long years of training paying off with the award of the Gold.. and it rains today calming much of all this down... and me i am very tired.
I see me standing at the place in the vision 20 years ago.. and feel like I am just waiting now.. as the timing is crucial.
And when all the lights go out... there will be a shift ..
and then there is a part of me that feels this is all a grand illusion created by an illusionist.... and the illusionist was me.!
Interesting life I have lived..
Today I go to the laundry room in my apartment .. most of my clothes and other possessions were lost in shipping so I don't have much. I carry my clothes in my pack. I learned from a sweet Ecuadorian native lady you can make, with a towel or a sheet,a pack to carry a whole lot of clothes. Although it was easy I really wish I had a laundry basket. Washed and put my laundry in the dryer. I feel asleep for a bit. When I returned to the laundry room, there was a large brand new laundry basket with my clothes all very neatly folded with a note. "This Basket is Yours, ENJOY!!!
And Some Say I am currently going through "The Dark Night of the Soul".
