Healing to Face to Face

 

Image courtesy of joshbousel

Last night I learned a text on Purim from the Shaar Hakavanot by R Luria and R Vital. His explanation for something I commonly experience was quite beautiful and I'll try to explain it here.

What I experience is that on some days the divine energy flows and on some days it just feels like it's inaccessible. It flows in a very cyclic manner. The other thing I experience is a period of deep stillness during my treatments. In craniosacral terms they are known as "still points". The energy in the patient and the room seems to come to a halt as everything slows to a stop. Sometimes they last just moments, sometimes they extend beyond the time I have for the treatment. When things start to move again, it as if everything has "reset" and where there was dysfunction is now health. I always explain it as equivalent to hitting Ctrl-alt-delete in the PC world. But I think the Ari's explanation is a lot more beautiful.

In Lurianic Kabbalism, when God created man during the first creation story, God created man as androgynous, one being containing both male and female, connected back to back. During the second creation, God put the man to a deep sleep דורמיטא and separated the two halves which allowed them to turn around and be face to face.

One way of understanding the effects is to look at how the two beings would relate to each other. Back to back allows no communication and, although they are connected, they aren't having much of a relationship. When they are face to face they can really relate to each, see each other, understand and love each other.

God took a being in a state of dysfunction, caused a still point, and they awoke from sleep in a state of health. My experience in the treatment room models on the same process. I help the client enter a stillpoint at which point God rearranges them into a state of health.

The Ari points out that during Purim, Haman, who was a master Astrologer, knew when the connection between the Jewish people and God would be weakest. It was then that Haman planned to destroy them.

The Ari writes that the human experience of the deep sleep דורמיטא is a time of troubles and difficulties, during which there is very little divine providence. God feels very distant to us, but when the cycle completes and the connections again strengthen, there is much greater health. In the midrash around Purim, it is believed that Esther's son became King and assisted the Jews to return to Israel to build the second temple.


The cycles of divine energy are part of the healing too. This is a beautiful way of understanding the ebb and flow of divine energy in the world, and how that too, pushes us towards healing.