2006 is the year of the energy community. This year the Energy Collaborative makes its debut. The Report has grown up to be a Collaborative. Here's what we're working on:

• Providing an online knowledgebase of energy topics, where you can both give and take. Get the information you need. Contribute your own knowledge and experience.
• Hosting live Internet courses on energy topics, 3-4 people per class, from around the world.
• Enabling you to speak at length to any energy practitioner in the world -- for free.

We're ready to take our community to the next level.

During January and February, we will offer a few energy classes to test our wings. Check out the details in Energy Classes on the Web below. If you're interested in the class topics or in receiving consultation from advanced energy practitioners, let us know. These initial classes will give us valuable information about teaching and learning using the Internet.

A 60 year old lady came to me complaining of back/buttock pain that shot down the side of her left leg to the outer portion of her foot. She had left her employment as a cook 6 months earlier because of the pain. She was quite gruff and abrupt when answering questions about her health and spoke about the difficulty of caring for her sick husband. With further questioning, she admitted to having frequent temple headaches.

Her gall bladder meridian tested weak, the gall bladder lymphatics were very tender and she had multiple tender points along her gall bladder meridian. I started the treatment by holding the bladder and gall bladder neurovasculars since she was obviously very stressed. It took almost 10 minutes to feel the pulse in these areas. I followed with the triple warmer flush (smooth behind the ears) to settle her whole system. She was surprised at how relaxed she began to feel at this point and no longer had a temple headache. I held her gall bladder sedating points. She then stated she felt great and was able to bend forward with no pain. I taught her how to hold the gall bladder sedating points, to massage gall bladder lymphatics and hold the gall bladder and bladder neurovasculars.

One evening, I received some very traumatizing news at 2:00 am. The following afternoon at 2:00 pm I observed my energy system completely shut down. Although I was in the middle of an important activity, I had to apologize, lie down on the floor with my legs on a chair, and breathe my way through my body's stress response for over an hour. My brain had completely disintegrated and I was exhausted. Until then I had been running on adrenalin and was overcharged. When I reached the 12 hour mark my energy system had a complete meltdown.

I have since observed that 12 hours after the onset of a significant trauma, the meridian system is extremely vulnerable and completely depleted. Parents of children who have heard traumatic news or experienced significant trauma at a particular time of day should watch for the 12 hour "shadow" (exhaustion 12 hours after deep shock) as the body attempts to rebalance itself.

In addition to calming triple warmer, consult the Meridian Flow Wheel (pg. 126 in Energy Medicine) for important information about which meridians are most affected. As Donna has stated, a meridian conscripts energy from its opposite on the meridian flow wheel. During critical incident stress, you can watch for the 12 hour nose dive in energy, and plan accordingly, using the body's rhythm to facilitate healing.

When under the influence of the fight or flight response, it is easy for people to force themselves to push forward when the body needs to rest, however this leaves them very vulnerable to accidents, injuries, etc.

I feel that having a person on the table, sedating triple warmer, and allowing rest at that exact time could be a huge help in restoring balance to the body. "Helping witnesses" such as parents, friends, and healers can nurture a friend or client using this 12 hour rhythm of the stress response itself with the specific meridian involved. It’s not time to go for a brisk walk; it’s time to rest and rebalance.

I have recently had some problems sleeping because of thoughts chattering away in my mind or because of menopausal symptoms. I remembered Donna showing us the Child's Pose exercise that stimulates the Penetrating Flow. In this exercise, you sit back on your feet, then bend forward, turn your head sideways, and rest it on your pillow. Stretch your arms out in front of you or put them next to your body. Raise your buttocks in the air, if it’s comfortable to do so. Rest in this position.

I began using that pose instinctively when trying to sleep. I was amazed at how it calmed me down and put my busy mind to rest. It takes about 15 minutes to kick in, but it REALLY puts me to sleep. And I have a very busy mind! What fascinates me about this is how I connected to my own memory of being an infant in my crib and using that pose to comfort myself in the night. I had a visual memory of being in the crib and rocking myself with my little buttocks in the air. What a perfect connection!

When I pulled into the lane at Lenda's home for a massage, I noticed she was kneeling on the ground in the pasture with an animal lying in front of her. Her face was so red it was almost purple. She said, "It's Swade. I've been working on her for over an hour and nothing's helping! There are no sounds in her belly!" There on the ground was a half-grown white and brown horse lying limply on its side. Her eyes were closed and her belly was bloated. She seemed oblivious to the flies crawling over her.

I instinctively squatted beside her and rubbed my palms together. I called to Swade's angels, asking them to come close to help her and began circling my open palms counterclockwise above her belly, remembering Donna’s teachings to clear chakras and release stuck energy. Within a minute or so, she raised her head, looked back at me, and then lowered her head to the ground. After a few more minutes of circling my hands, shaking off energy drawn out, and sensing her angels with us, this little horse began stirring and tried to stand up. After a couple of tries she was on her feet! She looked a bit dazed and unsteady but started walking. Lenda cried out with joy. Suddenly the two HUGE horses that had been standing quietly nearby came running straight toward me. One of them stopped and nuzzled the left side of my chest with her nose and then the two of them galloped off toward the barn. I learned later that the nuzzler was the little horse's mother.

I teach and use Touch For Health (TFH). Many of the techniques that Donna teaches are from TFH. In Touch For Health we teach how to test and balance the 14 meridians, and how to add a goal to the balancing process. This can be very powerful.

A woman who had gotten a good result from a student of mine brought her boy friend to my booth at a holistic fair. He knew nothing of energy work. I asked him if he had any stress in his life. "WORK!" he loudly responded. He had a job at a turkey slaughter house and he "hated" his job. On a self-scoring stress scale of 0-10 he said his job was a level 10 in stress.

We did a balance with the goal of "feeling neutral about work". (This was not a job he wanted to feel positive towards and he gets to choose the goal for his balance). Every meridian was out of balance, which is unusual.

When we finished I asked him how he now felt about work. He shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. I asked him again how he felt about his job. He said he didn't feel anything. I said, "So you feel neutral about it now?" and he said, "Yes." On the stress scale he now considered his job stress a zero. The whole process took 20 minutes to transform the biggest stress in his life.

Here’s how we do a balance. TFH has a step-by-step protocol for balancing the meridian system. We first check for switching by touching while muscle testing the K-27 points, the ends of central and governing meridians and the tailbone. If any points test weak, we correct by rubbing them. We then check that the central meridian flow is intact and check for hydration. These are all things we teach in TFH that will help ensure greater accuracy during muscle testing.

We test a minimum of one muscle for each of the fourteen meridians. A weak muscle test tells us that something is off in its corresponding meridian. We then work a series of energy reflexes starting with neurolymphatics, followed by neurovasculars, meridian tracing and acupressure holding points. After we work each energy reflex we do a retest to see if the muscle is now strong. If more is needed, other options for correction can include the origin and insertion of the muscle, nutrition for the meridian or muscle, the spinal reflexes, Emotional Stress Release and other techniques including balancing with sounds or color. Once we have checked and balanced each meridian, the process is complete.

Most balances are done in the context of using goals that set an intention for the balancing work. Specific goals organize the body's energy pattern in reaction to that issue so that when we are balancing we are releasing reactive patterns to allow the person to achieve their goals more easily. TFH balancing work therefore addresses issues of the body, mind and spirit and is of great assistance to individuals for personal transformation.

One loyal student whom I’ll call Ted has a tendency for his heart to go into atrial defibrillation, which can be very serious. At a recent class, Ted said that his heart was out of sinus rhythm. I know that he has chronic triple warmer stress. But even if I were not familiar with his energetic patterns, we know that a good starting place for treating heart problems (and so many other things) is to sedate triple warmer and energize spleen. I had the class do the cover the eyes routine. Taking a full breath with hands over the eyes helps calm the sympathetic and activates the parasympathetic nervous systems. As we repeated the sequence I described the relationship on the meridian flow wheel between Spleen and Heart meridians, and between Triple Warmer and Spleen.

Someone else in the class mentioned shoulder pain. There can be many sources of that pain, but on this occasion I suspected small intestine. I had people place the heel of their hand on their shoulders, and press with the middle finger in the spot where it lands, just above the shoulder blades, asking if it was tender. Most said it was, including the person who’d mentioned that area. Ted claimed this point was unbelievably tender.

Heart and small intestine have a yin/yang relationship on the fire element. I explained the relationship of yin and yang meridians, and how it is common when the pair are out of balance for the yang meridian (in this case, small intestine) to be over-energized while the yin meridian of the pair (in this case, heart) will be under-energized.

If it had been a private session, I probably would have held small intestine sedating points for Ted, but as this was a class, I instead tested the small intestine alarm point for class members and found that it was weak on most. Pain at the shoulder point just above the shoulder blade would make me suspect the meridian is over-energized and needs to be sedated. The class flushed that meridian, tracing it backwards once and forward three times.

It took only about ten minutes of class time for us to do these two exercises. When Ted checked his heart at the end of the class, he proudly shared that it was back in sinus rhythm.

I started regular energy medicine work this past March with a daily routine that took about 20 minutes. I've dropped and added things as my work with an Eden Energy Practitioner has cleared old patterns and presented me with new ones, but I always include the regular routine, tracing meridians and strange flows, simple chakra balancing, aura fluffing, and attention to keeping unscrambled and out of homolateral.

To alleviate the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, I've taken armor thyroid and NADH for many years and cortef for 2 years. Since I started my regular energy routine in March, I have gradually reduced my cortef by two thirds and my NADH by one half. My doctor told me this week that my blood work shows that my dose of thyroid is too high, and I'm to reduce it by a third, and that my cortisol level is very high normal, so I can keep lowering my cortef. Apparently it's very unusual to lower thyroid medication, so I'm especially proud of that.

Preparation: Place thumbs over index finger nails and hold "oh my God" points on the forehead (pg. 217 in Energy Medicine) with middle, ring, and little fingers until you take a deep sigh, yawn, or feel a release. This helps triple warmer let go and prepares it for change.

1. Cover eyes with fingers. Inhale. Exhale.
2. Inhale with eyes still covered. Exhale while dragging fingers across eyes and out to temples.
3. Inhale while dragging fingers up over ears, and exhale while dragging fingers down behind ears to shoulders. Hang fingers on shoulders at neck.
4. Cross arms, placing fingers on opposite shoulders. Inhale, smoothing hands down arms to forearms. Exhale.
5. Inhale, place hands flat across ribs under bust area.
6. Exhale while sweeping fingers down legs and off feet at toes.
7. Inhale while sweeping fingers back up legs to under arms.
8. Exhale while sweeping fingers down and off body at side of waist.

Recently I learned that holding a quartz crystal often organizes a person's energy field instantly so that their energies begin to cross over. My son's energies tend to go homolateral. Recently, he tested strong with both the X and ll. I handed him a quartz crystal to hold and immediately the X tested stronger than the ||. My test was a little mushy on the X but when I held the crystal, my X test was solid.

My brother has a dear old friend named Ed who has lung fibrosis. His lung capacity has steadily decreased over time, and he now awaits a lung transplant. Ed lives several states away, so I was not able to offer him regular Energy Medicine sessions. However, I was able to teach him the three thumps during a short encounter while he was in town. A few weeks later, Ed reported that thanks to the 3 thumps he could now complete a full round of golf, a passion he had not been able to enjoy for quite awhile.

Classes will be held using Skype, a free software application that allows free calls from computer to computer, anywhere in the world. We will assist you in downloading and installing Skype and will train you in how to use it.

The only requirement for participation in a class is a high speed connection to the Internet. We are sorry that we are unable to offer live classes using dial-up connections.

Meeting times will be scheduled by the instructor and students.

The Orlando Energy Medicine Study Group meets the third Wednesday of each month (excluding December) at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Orlando. The meeting is hosted by Frank Dowler and Cindy Haight, practitioners from Orlando. The meeting runs approximately one and one-half hours. Each meeting focuses around topics from Donna Eden's Energy Medicine book. There is no charge for this meeting. For more information contact Frank Dowler.

The Eden Energy Medicine Certification Program (EEMCP) will be inaugurated in May, 2006. This is a two year course of study with an optional third year of clinical study. You can find complete information on the Innersource website.

The next Donna Eden Energy Medicine 5-Day Intensive will be held in San Diego on February 24 - March 1. This is a perfect class for Energy Medicine beginners and anyone wanting to review what they've already been taught. To find out more, visit Innersource and click on "Classes".

A new study group for energy enthusiasts is forming in Fallbrook, CA. This group studies Energy Medicine, the Shamanic Arts, and Touch for Health. They welcome all who have a sincere interest in healing, the Shamanic Arts, and a personal code of respect for all others. For more info, contact Christie Hoops.