Written by: Isa Moon
Meditation:
Just taking time for relaxation will help immensely when you’re ill. We tend to stress when we’re sick, which only prolongs the illness. A five or ten minute meditation period every day, even when your not sick, will help to keep your immune system strong. Should you fall asleep while in meditation, all the better for your body, you should be sleeping more than your average anyway.
The Body Scan:
Body Scanning is a type of meditation uses a great deal in stress reduction groups and other support groups that have a medical focus.
Lie on the floor with your knees raised to give support to your lower back. Place a pillow under your knees or lower back if needed. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Take a few long deep breaths. Now focus all your attention to the toes of your right leg. Feel them, do they hurt or ache? Do they tell you anything?
Continue down your foot and up your leg. Ask for help from your body in problem areas. "My knee has chronic pain, how can I make it better?" Listen to your body it usually knows the answer. After the thigh of your right leg, move to the toes of your left and proceed up your left leg. Continue on to your pelvis, focusing on regions now unless you feel you need to focus on specific organs. In the pelvis focus on reproductive organs, bladder, and colon; in the belly work on the stomach, small intestines, kidneys, spleen, liver, and pancreas; and under your ribs its lungs, and heart.
Move up to your shoulders and down each arm individually, again, focusing on the areas of the arms. Continue on to your neck and head and finish up by taking a few more deep breaths. Write down anything that you heard or saw so you can have it for later.
Body scans usually take 45 minutes to an hour to do. I don’t suggest doing one between classes, even if you have a huge chunk of time as most people get done and want a nap.
Healing With The Elements:
Earth:
Earth is one of the easiest elements to heal with, as all you have to do is ground. Since grounding, in many cases is a release of energy you simply release your illness.
We are privileged on this campus to have a labyrinth, a wonderful healing tool. Walking a labyrinth is just another way to ground, though it can be more intense and lasting than a simple tree grounding. To do a healing walk through the labyrinth simply imagine your illness being taken in by the earth with every step toward the center. (Please make sure that you feel your illness has left before you reach the center.) When you reach the center reground, center, and take a few deep breaths. You may feel like meditation or just sitting listening to the trees, that’s fine. When you leave imagine that with every step out of the labyrinth you are taking in healthy energy, energy that will help you prevent further illness and finish off what is left of the one that remains. Ground and center again when you reach the outside.
Water:
Another excellent healer and very easy to work with. The easiest way to heal with water is to take a bath or shower. I prefer baths because you can fill them with herbs, salts, or bubbles. To do this little healing ritual simply lie in a bath and imagine the illness seeping from you into the hot water of the bath. You might want to enjoy your bath a little bit before you do this because you’ll want to get out pretty quickly after it’s done. In the shower you don’t need to leave as quickly as the water is constantly draining. Imagine the water pushing your illness out of you and down the drain as you shower. Remember to push it all the way out or a head cold may become a chest infection.
You can also charge an object with your illness and send it into running water. I did this one quite a bit before my tumor was diagnosed. I believe it helped it from spreading into the rest of my body. Take a stone, preferably one that is receptive and you have asked its permission, (there are many stones that don’t like being used for this kind of work) charge it with your illness and place it into a stream or river. You can also charge something that floats just make sure that you keep the illness contained, in case some small child picks it up down river. You don’t want and epidemic on your hands.
Air:
A little bit trickier to work with since air can be more of a playful thing. The simplest way to use air in healing is with smudging. Many traditions use smudging as a way of cleansing the energy field. A simple energy cleansing could be all you need to feel better. Any sent or herb can be used to cleanse a body, just make sure it is a sent you like. I, personally, would never use Jasmine in my cleansing. I find the sent over bearing and use it only in protection spells but if you like it and it makes you feel good use it.
Anyone who has ever been to Johnson State College knows that on the calmest day in the valley you are guaranteed wind on campus. Wind can be used for cleansing in a way similar to a shower it pushes the illness out of you. Stand in a place that you can feel the wind. Let it pass through you and don’t resist it; let it tangle your hair and mess your clothes. As it plays around you ask it to take with it your illness. Ask it to blow it to a place where it will harm no one and become helpful energy.
Fire:
Fire is the most harmful of all the elements and not just for obvious reasons. Fire is an excellent healer but can be too good at times, destroying things that are helpful as well as harmful. The easiest and least harmful way to heal with fire is to smudge with it. You smudge with flame the same way you smudge with air only use a candle instead of incense.
You can also release into flame the same way you release into water. Write what it is that you want the fire to heal on a piece of paper. Light the paper and place it in a flameproof container. As the paper burns imagine it is devouring your illness. A word of caution with this one, should the fire spread in the physical it will spread in the magickal. A simple healing spell may become a raging fever so make sure the container is flame proof or you’re working outside in a fire pit.
