Facing your Dragons in the Muddy Waters of Transformation

Healers have come a long way since the days of witch-burning in the Middle Ages, when they were branded as witches and persecuted for sharing their gifts. In the 21st century, healers of all persuasions are stepping into the light. Not only are healers increasingly sought after for their varied offerings, but energy medicine is recognised as an important therapy in the rapidly growing field of integrative medicine.

Coined in the late ’80s, energy medicine is defined as ‘energetic or informational interaction with a biological system to bring back homeostasis in the organism’.Quantum healing is one of many modalities that fall within this broad definition of energy medicine. Even if not yet fully part of the mainstream, quantum healing is backed up by science. Quantum physics explains what mystics and healers have intuitively known for eons – that everything is energy and initiating change at the energetic level creates change in the visible world of matter, flesh and bone and even in the less visible fields of heart and soul.

As much as it can be explained by science, healing remains an art. The art is in coaxing stagnant, sometimes frozen, energy to flow. Trawling the energetic body’s murky pools and stagnant wells to get the inner waters flowing like a river of light through the body, modern healers dissolve, transmute, and channel energy in a fundamentally unique way with each client. Ultimately, healing is an alchemical process working with the base elements of stagnant or dense energy and channelling high-vibrational light to forge a new synthesis while guiding those that seek it to the deep well of wisdom within – their spiritual gold.

This process is not a straight line but a deepening spiral. One of the most ancient symbols, the spiral represents the journey inward. When we go within and are prepared to do the distance, we tap into our innate wisdom and wholeness.

When I started working as a professional healer, I approached the job as if I had to solve all the problems that each client brought to my healing room. While miracles abound in the healing space – and I have witnessed many almost instant cures – healing is not so much about providing a cure as it is facilitating a journey back to self and wholeness.

Wholeness does not mean perfection. One way of understanding wholeness is integrity of being. Integrity means that all parts – mind, body, and spirit – are integrated and work harmoniously in unison. We have lost much of our innate wholeness in our rational western society.

We operate from our heads, cut off from our hearts, disconnected from our bodies and very often alienated from our souls. This cut-off state of being reflects a deeper malaise in our modern world, where we have been separated from our instinctual natures, from Source and from the heartbeat of Mother Earth. And so, we find ourselves in a spiritual wilderness.

The goal of healing is to return from the wilderness to a place of deeper connection with our bodies, our souls, each other and with Gaia herself. Through connection, we create community in the very real sense of the word – a unified body of individuals, groups, or species. This inner unity is the very basis of emergent oneness consciousness, for how can we hope to be in harmony with our world if we are cut off from ourselves? The art of healing is to hold space for inner transformation and a return to wholeness.

To illustrate my work as a quantum healer, the book includes case studies and short anecdotes based on my work with clients over the last 14 years. These healing vignettes highlight a range of typical issues and the energy work that supported my clients to heal, transform and find their version of wholeness. Through these real-life stories, I share unique insights into the world of energy with its special rules and mysteries.

Although I have used the subjective “I” as my point of reference when discussing the healing work, a more accurate understanding of how healing works is that the healer is a channel for healing energies. It is an intricate co-creative dance between the channel, the spirit guides who relay important information and the recipient of healing energies. The recipient is as important as the healer to the healing process and their availability to receive healing energies greatly influences outcomes.

Time and again, I witnessed the most powerful results when my client believed in the power of energy work and engaged with their healing journey as a process rather than a quick-fix cure. In the end, the healer’s most important role is to bear witness to this process – with great respect, compassion, tenderness and encouragement.

That said, my role as a healer required dedication and skill to harness the available energies. It was undoubtedly a steep learning curve that called for constant refining and reflection. Everything I learned about working with energy is conveyed through the healing vignettes and my reflections on them.

At the end of each chapter, you will find the Dragon’s Gold, a summary of the lessons and insights gleaned through the healing work with clients. Every client was a teacher. While I might have helped my clients, they pushed me to grow and rise to the challenge of new knowledge frontiers. It was an inspiring dance and the dragon a demanding choreographer.

Even in the writing of this book, the dragon kept me on my toes. Quite by chance, I wrote part of it at the foot of the Dragonridge Mountains in the Western Cape, where the shape of the dragon on the ridge was a constant reminder of my faithful companion. The dragon, in this manifestation, demanded truth.  Writing a memoir is a tracking exercise, following memories this way and that, tracing multiple story lines across time, letting some things go and others not, weaving the narrative threads until they yield a version of the truth. In the end, memory informs identity and reveals the substance that remains after all the paring down. This was an often-uncomfortable process! It forced me to look in the mirror, confronting every choice, every perceived mistake, the wrong turns, the detours and the things that were not within my control yet had a life-changing impact. Neatly laid out in narrative form, my path appears coherent, but it hides the ‘what ifs’, the ‘should haves’, the regrets, and the paths not taken. There was both joy and grief in confronting these voices and other possibilities. And yet, writing about my life and encountering the dragon once more brought a deep acceptance of the imperfect path. I wrote No Gold Without the Dragon for everyone, but especially for those facing their dragons, diving into the muddy waters of transformation, scouring the depths for their treasures and returning with their gifts, whatever they may be. Your offering to the world is so necessary right now.

My offering is the most authentic version of my story, with its many imperfections and the treasures that have prevailed. Now I place it in your hands in the hopes that you find courage to answer your soul’s call and inspiration to walk your unique path of heart.

Except from the book with the permission of Sacred Dragon Publishing.   
No Gold without the Dragon. Wisdom Teachings of a Quantum Healer by Heather Linn.

Heather Linn is a quantum healer and spiritual teacher. With a background in journalism and a first career as a professional writer and editor, Heather qualified as a healer in 2008. She has a thriving healing practice in Cape Town and works online with clients worldwide. She is the founder of the Emerald Wisdom School, through which she offers a range of online courses and webinars on energy-related topics. For more information go to www.emeraldwisdomschool.com

Heather holds a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in English Literature (cum laude) from the University of Natal and a master’s degree in Development Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. She has also trained extensively in the healing arts in South Africa, the United States and the United Kingdom and is an accredited healer with the British Alliance of Healing Associations. Heather lives in Cape Town