Choices in Healing

When we first started this work, back in 1991, we made only a few Spagyrics, and had only a few customers. After those first few sales, we noticed a strange phenomena, in which we would suddenly be overtaken by a strange sensation of connection to another person, like being in deep conversation or closeness to someone, only there was no one else there. Then, a flood of energy would come in, making us both joyous or sad, loving or angry, or any number of other random assorted sensations of emotion and feeling.

We took note of these, and since our circle was still small, we would often hear from a friend about their experience with one of the Spagyrics, and it would correlate with the feelings we had. So, the night before when we both felt mad might have been one friend taking the Mars Magistery for the first time, and the other day’s sudden joy would have been another supporter working with the Sun Magistery in a meditation.

We still feel very connected to all our Spagyrics (you know this if you’ve ever asked one of us to pick a favourite, and we can’t!), and of course we work to empathize with our customers, but as the circle of products and customers has grown, the intense events have become attenuated and spread more thinly. I also think that, whether they know it or not, our customers are now supporting each other in the circle in the way that only we used to do, and that’s a wonderful thing.

Those early experiences stuck with us, though, and taught us very important lessons about connection, and about how a link is created every time we make something that someone else uses. The tugging on those strings by our earliest supporters taught us about responsibility and care, and how everything that we put out remains connected to us, even as it also connects to other people in the wider world.

This awareness is part of why we are sometimes picky about who we sell to, why we will sometimes say “no” to someone when they want to buy our Spagyrics for themselves or a store, if it seems like a bad match that won’t serve for good. In this way, we’re making a personal choice on behalf of the Spagyric, saying that it doesn’t wish to go with that person, even though that person has chosen it.

At the same time, we try to respect the personal choice of our clients and supporters, even when it might be different than the choices we might make or the approach we would suggest. It happens fairly often, especially at events where we are talking to many people, that someone will describe to me the issue they are working on, and I might be inwardly sure of what they’re going to ask for help with- and then they ask for something totally different.

For instance, a customer who I also consider a friend recently told me he has a cancer that the doctors have said is probably terminal, and he wanted to talk with me about how I could help. Immediately, I started thinking of the many wonderful herbs that have been used on such “lost causes” with success, sending cancer into remission and leaving the person cured

I said “let’s talk about some of these herbs, that might turn this around for you”, but what he wanted from me was support for discovering and fulfilling whatever remained of this life’s work, since so little time was left. I was stunned by the wisdom of it, even as I felt some sadness that he wasn’t choosing to fight to be cured, as I might do in his place.

Another person came to me to talk about her chronic inflammatory disease, which leaves her short of breath and deprived of oxygen. She liked my suggestion of Cordyceps as a respiratory tonic, but it wasn’t her primary goal. Her main wish was for something to help her feel less of the loneliness and isolation that illness can bring, and so we talked about some Spagyrics for connectedness and unity.

One one level, you could say these people’s priorities are all wrong- why don’t they want to be cured as fast as possible? And on an equally valid level, you could say my priorities are all wrong, approaching things so literally and materially. But it’s all a matter of personal choice, of taking responsibility for how one is in the world, even if our choices aren’t the ones that others would make.

And these choices that surprise me have taught me something really valuable, which I try to remember when I am talking to anyone: there are some things that cannot be cured which nevertheless can be healed. I’ve always had confidence in the plants’ ability to achieve either effect; what I am working on is the wisdom to know which is being asked for by the person in front of me.