A spiritual journey

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  Feb-March, 2004  by Irene Alleger

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Profound Healing: The Power of Acceptance on the Path to Wellness

by Cheryl Canfield; Foreword by Joseph Chilton Pearce

Healing Arts Press, One Park St., Rochester, Vermont 05767 USA; www.InnerTraditions.com Quality paperback, 2003, $16.95, 242pp.

As a young mother and wife, Cheryl Canfield had a vision one day as she walked in a forest of giant trees in Northern California. It was the beginning of a long journey on the spiritual path, leading to an interest in the Theosophical Society, and her meeting with her teacher, Peace Pilgrim. This woman had been crisscrossing the country on foot for more than two decades, vowing to walk until "humanity learned the ways of peace."

Much of Profound Healing consists of the teachings of Peace Pilgrim. The message of her pilgrimage was "Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love." There's nothing new in that message, she said. "The key word for our time is practice." A non-sectarian spiritual teacher, Peace Pilgrim's wisdom shines through this book, taking the reader on an authentic journey for inner peace--the first step to peace on the planet.

Over the next decade, Cheryl Canfield and her family go on several retreats with Peace Pilgrim--to Alaska and Hawaii. These trips are opportunities for learning, for listening to Peace Pilgrim's stories and the three steps she had taken: Preparation, Purification, and Relinquishment. Preparation has to do with the right attitude toward life; "problems serve a purpose." Purification has to do with living in harmony with the laws that govern the Universe and run through religious teachings. Relinquishment, of course, has to do with materialism: "Simplify life--unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens." These principles are similar to many Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism.

Inspired by their teacher, and yearning to be of service, the author and her husband go to Haiti to work with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. The deplorable conditions are described in detail, as well as the causes of the extreme poverty--large American companies who controlled the land, and therefore, the economy.

On the next lap of her journey, the author and her husband lead a group walking across the country in memory of Peace Pilgrim's recent death. This trip is full of little vignettes of people met and situations resolved--illuminating brief glimpses of how the group's "peace principles" worked in the real world. This trip, however, ended with the separation of the author and her husband--the first bass note sounded. A few years later; after a second relationship ended, she was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer.

Cheryl Canfield refused the extensive maiming surgery and opted instead for an alternative cancer clinic in Mexico. She brought a protocol back with her (not described), rented a small apartment, and set about healing herself. She began reading books on cancer and nutrition, and she read that cancer doesn't grow in oxygen, and that her kind of cancer tends to metastasize to the lungs. So she took up jogging to oxygenate her lungs (this is intuition at its best).

Forgiveness is mentioned in many books on healing of illness, and in Profound Healing, it is described not as forgiving others per se, but as understanding that wholeness and happiness come from within, not from circumstances or people outside of us. These clear guidelines are like beacons of light along the way, and the author works her way through some old pain, and begins to have lucid dreams that help guide her as well.

One of many interesting medical experiences described involves her doctor after her Pap smear comes back normal. The doctor wants to do another colposcopy because she doesn't believe the cancer can be gone. The author agrees, not wanting to seem "irrational," then waits several weeks for the results, undergoing tremendous stress. All of it unnecessary, it seems, when her doctor finally tells her that "all cells were normal," but that she had conferred with three pathologists and two gynecologists who all "agreed that the tests didn't mean anything."

Profound Healing is not about vitamins, or diets, or any particular regimen. It's about changing our belief systems to allow our inner wisdom to guide us. Spiritual awareness brings healing on a deeper level: "When we see ourselves from the perspective of ongoing spirit, we have less attachment to the survival of our bodies; paradoxically, as we get our lives into harmony with universal love, we have more energy available to heal our bodies. When we embark on this spiritual journey, however, whether we heal our bodies or make the transition and let our bodies go, is not what matters. What matters is how we use the life we are given this very moment."

Cheryl Canfield says, "What I have learned is that healing isn't about living or dying; it isn't even about illness. Healing is about reconnecting to our wholeness, and living from a foundation of love."

Here are 12 steps which she identified as guidelines along the way: