At a recent Eden workshop, I decided to approach each exchange with a classmate as if I was talking with Donna. It's amazing how much I learned with that open and respectful attitude. I felt like I was in a sea of energy gurus with each person contributing something worthwhile to the knowledge pot.

The Energy Community Report has always been about tapping into the knowledge within each of us. Every ECR item is a gem from a peer. As you read each one, notice how it contributes to your knowledge or to how you think about some aspect of energy. Then realize how you, too, have an earned spot in this fellowship. We're all touching the world through a combination of knowledge and intuition.

This issue of the Energy Community Report is chock full of issues and insights Contributor attendees at two of Donna Eden's workshops: Illness, Pain and the Difficult Case in Portland, OR and the 5-Day Energy Medicine Intensive in Miami, FL. Additional insights from the 5-Day Intensive will appear in our next issue. Many thanks to all of our contributors.

Six years ago I was looking at wheelchairs and had to move out of my house since I could no longer even crawl up the steps to the second story. Through energy work and other modalities I stopped the progression of my disease and gained back function I'd been told would not return. Although I still have to be very careful to sleep and eat enough and not work too many hours, I can often hike moderately, climb steps, and live normally.

I'd heard that neurofeedback could decrease some of my symptoms further. In April I began some treatments and was persuaded that a short burst of magnetic stimulation might be useful. I responded paradoxically and not only had a flare of my MS but started deteriorating more than I had before. I was frightened but kept using the energy skills Donna and others had taught me. To keep myself able to sit up and move I had to do the practices every hour and a half or so while I was awake. Although they helped, having to focus so much when I didn't feel good wore me out.

I was ecstatic when Donna was willing to have me be her "guinea pig" for the Difficult Case workshop in June. I worked even harder at my exercises and did what I could to clear out obstacles to healing.

I was in for another good surprise before I made it to the workshop. I was working at the Therapeutic Touch Intensive when Dolores Krieger quietly asked me if I wanted her to help me. Since the hot weather we'd had worsened MS symptoms, even all the work I was doing was not keeping my symptoms at bay: I was totally exhausted, seeing double, having "twitchy" eyes and spastic legs, losing my balance, and having trouble with incontinence. As she helped me, I was surprised that the function came back so readily. I'd been sick a long time, though, and still needed more work than she had time to give.

How wonderful then to be able to go to the workshop and learn by having Donna work on me! I most appreciated that she worked one step at a time and when one thing didn't hold, she used that information as a way to figure out what to do next. In that workshop more than any other, we learned how she assesses and problem-solves her way through complicated situations.

Once again, I was struck by the importance of checking to see if a vivaxis is out before any further assessment or treatment. If it is, correct by spinning the magnet at all the beginning or ending points of meridians. Further, it was good to find out how useful it is to move the table so that the client's feet are facing in the direction of their weak vivaxis throughout the session. I have had even more powerful sessions with clients since I've started doing that.

Group 1 worked with a guy who had a long history of heroin addiction, plus chronic pain from massive injuries (energy, physical, spirit and emotional) from service in Vietnam. He was such a great soul AND his energies were so intense. This created intensity for the individuals in the group and some starting having energetic overloads/TW overdrive. This again reminded me how important it is for practitioners to receive this kind of work for our own well being. We practitioners are not exempt from needing to keep our energy balanced. To think we can do it all ourselves is not such a good idea. I sure was glad I had a session during the workshop for myself so that my own energy got attention without me trying to do it while being practitioner, teaching assistant, and human all at the same time.

The Difficult Case workshop was an amazing weekend with many incredible experiences. I want to share something that was a constant subtle theme during the weekend for me, i.e. setting the energetic tone for a session.

Attending the energy medicine workshops is always a very powerful experience and I often feel like I am swimming in a sea of energy. The interconnectedness of this work, how energy moves around us, between us, and through us, is one of the more abstract aspects of energy medicine but one Donna alludes to often. Being balanced in your own energy body and creating a clear intention is such an important step in the practice of this work. Preparing ourselves prior to working on others is essential for the work to be appropriate and of the highest benefit.

One of the things we did at the workshop was work as a group on one person with a difficult illness case. The groups were approximately 13 people each and that is a lot of energy to be focused on one person. In our group, we began the process by synchronizing our energies. We did this by being present in the moment with ourselves and each other. We introduced ourselves and consciously created an intention together to honor this process and to create a circle of energy that had integrity and respect. We could all feel the energy come up and the session was incredible. We were able to work in an amazingly fluid fashion integrating intuition, knowledge of the work, and honoring of the process as it unfolded. A powerful healing took place for our client because she was ready and open to receive the experience and we as a group had set the stage for the energies to move.

Preparing yourself to do this work is a very personal process. The five minute routine, crown pull, grounding or any of the energy medicine techniques that bring you into balance will make your session more balanced. When your energies are humming you become a much more effective and responsible conduit of the energies. Another piece that I believe is really important, and Donna personifies, is holding the intention that whatever you are doing will be for the highest good of the person you are working on and the highest good for you as a participant in the healing experience. We can learn all the techniques in the world but if we are not clear in our intention and present with the energies, we can not access the true richness of this work.

When working with other people's energy, I have noticed that moving too quickly or chaotically can move a lot of energy but can cause disturbing physical responses such as dizziness or nausea. I like to think of approaching other people and their energy fields as similar to approaching a timid child or a nervous animal. I approach softly, hold still and let their energy move towards me when they are ready.

In the past, when I would make a correction and it wouldn't hold my first thought was that I had done something incorrectly. Now I can see that it is just another piece of the puzzle.

My second Aha! came from observing the people involved in this workshop. There is a song by Kate Wolfe. This is the first verse and the chorus:

Kind friends all gathered 'round
there's something I would say.

What brings us together here
has blessed us all today.

Love has made a circle
Which holds us all inside,
Where strangers are as family
Loneliness can't hide.

So give yourself to love
if love is what you're after
Open up your heart
to tears and laughter,
And give yourself to love,
Give yourself to love.

When Donna worked on Kathy Wilmering, who has multiple sclerosis, she said several times that people with MS (and other seriously ill people) can only take small "doses" of healing work. She emphasized that they have trouble assimilating a lot of input and that includes energy work. This sank in deeply. I often feel like I need to take care of everything that relates to a problem when I see someone.

It also brought to mind some basic principles that I learned over the 20 years I have studied and used homeopathy. There is an idea of matching the pacing of the symptoms or person's constitution with the inherent pacing of a remedy you select for treatment. An example would be a very fast moving flu that brings on a high fever and chills suddenly would need a high intensity remedy like belladona. However, a slow paced summer cold that makes you tired but you're not sure that you're sick and slowly reveals another symptom each day or two, taking a couple of weeks to run its course. This symptom picture would require a slower paced remedy like gelsemium.

So how does this relate? It made me wonder if there is a way to look at the pacing or basic rhythm of the illness and the person's constitution and have that set the pacing for the healing session. So a person who has a great deal of sensitivity would need healing in a shorter, less intense session than someone who has a lot of intensity. I am going to be more mindful of the intensity of work and try to match it to the client and their issue.

My second aha was more of a synthesis. When we divided up into groups to work on our person with the "difficult case", the group I was working with first talked to the person about the unfolding of the case history. As we discussed the progression of ailments, I got out my star chart with the 5 elements. I marked the progression of the issues that came up on the chart and watched the progression of energy issues by observing the progression of related meridians.

For example, ulcers - stomach meridian (yang earth), upper wisdom teeth surgery - spleen meridian (yin earth), spleen rupture and removal - spleen meridian (yin earth), diabetes - spleen meridian (yin earth), kidney stones - kidney meridian (yin water, controls spleen meridian), .... you get the picture. As I did this, the case history was no longer a wild progression from one thing to the next, seemingly jumping in a chaotic fashion. Instead there was a definite pattern that centered around earth element and its control flow of water. This gave me a much deeper insight. The symptom picture seemed chaotic, but the underlying energy message was very consistently pointing to a major imbalance amongst the elements in the system.

One of my biggest aha's from the Difficult Case workshop was in witnessing the deep impact we can have when coming together with intention and skills combined. I am so eager to hear the 6 month follow-up from each of the 5 clients. I came away with renewed interest and inspiration to get back to a more active practice of study and work on my own energy body and others. I am also feeling very overloaded/overwhelmed due to the demands of my life currently. I am pulled in many directions - just trying to keep my head above water. Life seems to be this way for many around me right now. Assimilating skills now is my focus. I have been using the 14 individual meridian tests daily to get comfortable with those and have also used the "folding" technique for pain release a couple times.

I loved watching Donna detangle the difficult cases. By detangle I mean, she would try one thing and make a little progress. Brush another direction and get a little more information. Have things fall apart only to reveal more information. It was amazing to watch Donna do the healing dance on just one client for an extended period of time. As she was working on Carolyn, it dawned on me why Sandy Wand is so good as an energy practitioner. Sandy simply watched Donna work for so many years, just as we were all doing that night.

I have always loved the Pearls that Donna throws out. By pearls I mean the little tidbits of information and tips on how to do things better. I got enough Pearls this weekend to string a long strand. Here are a few:

• When weak on spleen, rake energy across the chest and run spleen meridian backwards. Trace spleen forward 3 times.
• If there is chronic pain for a long time, there are probably neurological issues as well.
• If someone is not getting better, look to homolateral and/or neurological.
• If bladder is involved, everything hurts more--everything is more sensitive.
• Hook ups really help to hold change.
• Massaging adrenals (bottom rib on back) is a deep sedation of Triple Warmer.
• Spin magnet over both ends of a meridian to keep the energy moving.
• Work gait points on the feet when pain is not directly located on a meridian.
• Heel pain is on Bridge Circuit and Regulator flow.
• Go SLOW, Slow ,slow when treating someone with multiple sclerosis. Give lots and lots of assimilation time.
• On very weak people, use the bicep muscle to energy test for info
• Stomach 42 (3 finger widths above the base of the 2nd toe) is 4 times more active and affects EVERYTHING on Stomach meridian
• Stomach 42 is good to tap if you have been flying for a long time. So are Stomach sedation points.
• While working on someone, check whether penetrating flow stays strong (hand over mouth, then energy test). If Penetrating Flow is holding, work is penetrating deeply! Very cool!
• Do a hook up on yourself before doing surrogate work.
• If the energy strengthens by turning alarm point 'dial' clockwise, use strengthening points on that alarm point meridian. If the energy strengthens by turning the alarm point 'dial' counterclockwise, sedate the points on the meridian for that alarm point.

The pearls are my favorite part of any adventure with Donna.

During my group session with Shanti and Neville, I was in awe of how no idea was a bad idea. When stumped, we just started trying things. Is this field holding? Is this alarm on? Is this thought pattern reversed? There are no bad ideas, just process. This is the formula for expanding intuition. Think it. Try it. What happens? Intuition is a skill like anything else; it needs practice.

This is also a great way to teach a class. It builds courage to trust the inner voice. Just let a group move through a case.

My feeling is that one's inner healer is much wiser than modern psychedelics. But I have no idea how to answer this, as drug use never came up at any of the workshops.

Two friends told me to attend Donna's 5-Day Introductory Conference so that I could teach them. Last night at our local networking group, I taught the "strange flow" exercises/rhymes (thank you Sara Allen!) Tho I never wrote down the rhymes + moves, they are in my brain and in my body. And I laugh. They do connect me all together.

The demonstration of how a reader whose energies were "off" impaired the energy levels of the audience was a huge "aha" learning for me. My energies remained weak -- I held a homolateral pattern. And so I am faithfully crossing over my energies. Crosscrawl, homolateral-crawl, cross etc twice daily or more when I'm feeling "not quite tops". After almost 4 weeks of practice, I am now able to tell when my energies reconnect and they are staying connected for longer periods.

This story would not have had any importance to me if I had not been to Donna's workshop. It verifies Donna's claim that intuitively we all know what our bodies need, if we just listen.

I would like to share with you an event that occurred during our five day intensive course in Miami. My friend was having a lot of flux from all the energy that was swirling around the room and was feeling just awful. While Donna demonstrated the Chakra balance to us, two of the group leaders worked on my friend. At the end of the session one of the leaders asked Donna what to do when you have tried everything and nothing has worked. Donna came over took a quick look at my friend and said "Oh I see the problem, turn over". Donna could see my friend needed her Chakras worked from the back because she had a lot of issues from the past that were coming up.

Now I will never forget that the Chakras may need to be worked from the back. And it was good to see that even experienced practitioners can get temporarily stumped at times.

Speaking of knowledge, I also feel that the combination of people I met, and new energy flows, especially the strange flows, have allowed a window of wisdom to enter. I feel an opportunity and desire to leave the old patterns and stuck behavior behind. The best part is it seems to be coming from a warm, safe and peaceful place. A place of wisdom.

I'm grateful to be able to help friends and family. I have already helped a friend with migraines keep them at bay with the exercises.