A Surgeon Sheathes his Scalpel

Let me tell you now about the way in which the Mystery of the Universe revealed Itself to me, changing my life forever.

In 1975, I was struggling with anger, not knowing that it was mine. I complained to my practice manager that I thought the world was angry with me. His response was to offer me the loan of a Nightingale-Conant INSIGHT audiotape that he had received a week before. He told me that he thought it addressed my concern. In it, Earl Nightingale, radio personality, author, and co-founder of the Nightingale-Conant Corporation, talked about a variation of the Law of Returns that he called the Law of Correspondence. Simply stated, it says that the attitudes you sense in the world around you are reflections of and correspond precisely to the attitudes that you project into that world.

I was in a crisis over the anger. I had to make another choice, and when I found myself in a familiar, anxious situation where the anger would come up, I encouraged myself to “take it easy,” repeating it over and over in the face of  the anxiety that led to the anger. The effect was immediate… and I knew the meaning of “Physician, heal thyself!”

I subscribed to the monthly INSIGHT tape series and discovered a great resource for my own development. Coincidentally, every new tape seemed to bring helpful ideas I could share with those patients who wanted more than an operation. They clearly benefited from their vicarious studies of what I came to call “the psychology of success.” They recovered very quickly from their operations and got out of hospital with record short stays. This psychology had no direct correlation to the “bedside psychology” I had learned in medical school, so I had to take time to see if it really worked. After ten years of its study and application, I knew I had to take a critical look at conventional therapeutic psychology. Rather than leave my surgical practice and its wonderful people for two years in a graduate program, I chose to study under a tutor, and my intention led me to Barry Wood  M.D., a gifted psychiatrist in a nearby city.

He was a wonderful mentor. Over the following year, we developed a rich, productive relationship. He had a great reserve of valuable experiences, including extensive work with the  “Twelve-step” recovery programs of Alcoholics Anonymous. He sensed my own recovery needs and suggested that I became an active participant in that part of the twelve-step program that focused on helping Adult Children of Alcoholics recover from family patterns of addiction (which I did not realize were present in my family). I followed his recommendation and the experience proved to be instrumental in what was to follow.

Our relationship deepened in many ways when he found he had incurable cancer. While he was still in hospital after the emergency abdominal surgery that diagnosed the illness, he was given a copy of Bernie Siegel’s Love, Medicine and Miracles. Bernie’s experiences and knowledge fascinated Barry and he connected with Bernie shortly after getting home from the hospital. When Barry and I came together again, he arranged for Bernie and me to meet.

That meeting took place at one of Bernie’s workshops called The Psychology of Illness and the Art of Healing.  I also found Bernie’s work fascinating, and I commented on it to the hosts who told me of the similar work of Jerry Jampolsky, M.D. who would be giving a workshop one month later ,so I signed up on the spot.

Both Jerry and Bernie were working with medical/surgical patients in support groups. Barry’s experience with non-medical 12-step recovery support groups became the third element in discovering the miraculous potential humans have when they join their minds in a shared intention.

Three months later, five of my cancer patients  clearly had the potential to be able to support each other’s lives in the face of their illnesses. I asked them if they would like to start a support group for each other. We came together for the first time on February 12, 1987, and chose our name — HOPE. At the next meeting, we made our name an acronym for Healing Of Persons Exceptional.  "Healing" was synonymous with wholeness, health, and holiness; "persons" signified our common human-ness; and "exceptional" reflected our wondrous diversity.

Because of the lethal potential of cancer, death of some group members was inevitable; so I knew that I needed to learn about the growing hospice movement. Moreover, one name in the hospice movement kept cropping up — Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D. A brochure for one of her workshops called "Life, Death, and Transition," appeared on my desk  It would take place in a lovely Shaker village fifty miles from home, so I signed up.

I had not read the brochure at all well, biased as I was to learning about hospice work. This workshop was not at all about such work... it focused on healing the traumas that life could bestow on a human! The stories I heard stunned me with their suffering, calling me into a space of grieving that I had never experienced. At dawn on the third day, emotionally exhausted, I wandered out of the dormitory into a gray, misty dawn and down a maple-lined lane toward the peaceful Shaker cemetery with its single stone with one word on it, "SHAKER."

Halfway there, and right next to a full-size wooden sculpture of the crucified Jesus, I was aware of a presence in the mist beyond a gap in a stone wall — it was my mother, and she had died ten years before! She was sitting still, looking gently at me with her remarkable, yellow-brown eyes… just looking. Without giving a thought to this seemingly unnatural phenomenon, I said to her, "Mom, I love you. Thanks for waiting. You’re free to go." She smiled with her whole being and swished off into the mist!

Now, something to my left got my attention. There, in the same mist was a human outline in black, looking as if someone had drawn it on the whiteness of the mist with a piece of charcoal. I knew it was my father, twenty years dead. Behind him was another outline of exactly the same shape… his father who had died in 1929! I heard myself say these words: "Dad, I love you and I’ve always loved you. Thank you for waiting. You’re free to go." As I said these words to a father who could never talk about love,  I saw a black cord that stretched from my heart through his heart to his father’s heart. It begin to glow cherry-red. The glow became brighter and brighter, finally becoming yellow-white, at which magical instant, it burned! And these two images swished away into the mist. I felt as if some great power had lifted a huge weight from my shoulders.

When the work began later that morning, I wept no more. I felt the pain and the suffering, but no longer suffered myself. I sensed then that my parents had suffered in their youth, and I had somehow taken on their suffering. The pain had ended with that simple, beautiful moment of love, compassion, and forgiveness that I had experienced with their souls in that early morning mist. As the day of peace wore on, I knew I had to tell the others what had happened to me that morning. I had not taken my turn “on the mat” telling my story, and it seemed that the time for the story had not been right until that evening, the last evening of the work. I told the story in full reference to what had happened early that morning. My facilitator commented, “Elisabeth calls that divine intervention.” I responded with a silent nod....

Essential to this experience was the Grateful Dead song, Ripple, a spiritual, metaphysical piece about the wonder of the path of life for every human being. I’d been singing it to myself when I met my parents in the mist, and I knew I had to memorize the words to the song, create a dance to express them, and share them with the group in the "skits" scheduled for the next evening. I spoke with the "MC" of the evening, and he accepted my offering.

The next day dawned bright and clear; so I began in earnest to develop my gift to everyone there. I danced and sang when and where I could in private, away from everyone else. By that afternoon, I had it, and I was as high as a kite from the repetition of the song and its dance. I heard a voice inside of me say, “You’ve got to ask the dancers their opinion of your dance.” “The Dancers” were the Shakers who used to dance to attain altered states of consciousness.... I was in as high as a kite as I walked down the lane to that cemetery, and as I turned to face the latched cemetery gate that I knew from my visit the day before was hard to open, I saw a smiling face in every maple leaf in the dozen trees in front of me—the souls of the many inhabitants. In that instant, I found these words: "I have a song and dance I’d like your opinion on. May I come in please?" The smiles widened, so I reached for the gate… but while my hand was still a foot away from the latch, it moved back and the gate opened wide — I had not touched it! In my delighted amazement, I said aloud, "It opened all by itself!" I sang my song and danced my dance for this space full of souls. I felt a warm acceptance, a deep gratitude, and an inner peace. It was October first, the 54th anniversary of the day I took my first breath. Happy Birthday, Kenneth!

Today, I wear a brass belt buckle cut to make the word, "SOAR." People often comment on it, and then I tell them two things about me that both satisfy and pique their curiosity. First, I tell them that it reminds me of my soaring experiences in a beautiful, white, long-winged glider from 1967 through 1981, during which time I asked a friend to make it for me. These motorless, soaring flights lasted as long as eight hours, went as far as 200 miles, and climbed as high as 24,700 feet! Second, I tell them that today I soar longer, farther, and higher than I ever did in that glider as I help people discover their soul’s journey through HOPE Groups and SoulCircling.

Many have requested that I write about HOPE and SoulCircling. It has  been a delight to be able to respond to those requests.

I have divided my response into three parts:

Part One opens with a look at the history of the universe and our world, and how we got to where we are today. It then examines ego, soul, and the psychology that describes their relationship. It describes homecoming in detail, and it emphasizes how awareness of the presence of soul is vital to the achievement of success.

Part Two contains a detailed description of the process that opens the dialog between ego and soul — SoulCircling. It contains specific exercises to help you with the process. It also tells you how to create a powerful support group to help you on your journey.

Part Three offers a consideration of the potential that lies in front of us… the soul journey of our human race.