The Circle of Healing

By Cathy Walker and friends

Circle of Healing is an intentional community of healers that grew from the hearts and longings of each individual to find something more for themselves and their practice. We are a non profit organization offering integrative healthcare and health education. Currently there are seven practitioners in our healing collaborative: a collaborative that draws upon the strengths and advantages of community and enables us to offer our clients a form of healing that is dynamic, multi-dimensional and deeply supportive.

But most importantly we are a community. On a warm July night in 1998, seventeen curious people gathered in the living room of Alix Leopold and John Hopkins, a recent graduate of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. Drawn by the interest in community and in healing, Glenn Cratty — a psychotherapist, Circle of Healing founder, practitioner, and Board Member — describes the first meeting like this:

"I walked into the living room blind. A medical doctor I was working with had invited me to a meeting somewhere out a dirt road in Middletown Springs, Vermont. A group of people were gathering to discuss their dreams of establishing a holistic healing center.

"My own practice as a psychotherapist had been evolving into something less conventional than the average shrink's work. I'd been on a quest to find therapeutic interventions that might be more effective for my clients than the traditional talk therapies I had been trained in.

"When I walked into the room it was filled with massage therapists, energy healers, a chiropractor, an architect, the physician I knew, a carpenter, and other folks who had an interest in alternative and complementary healing."

That night, after the introductions, each of us shared his or her desire for themselves, their practice, and their vision for a healing center. Our collective vision encompassed not just a healing center, but an organic garden and a restaurant, as well as a birth and hospice facility so that every aspect of our lives could be held in respect and wholeness. By the evenings' end two things were evident: first, a sense of excitement and possibility and secondly, a feeling of fellowship. The discovery of so many kindred spirits lifted us all.

Glenn continues: "We met in that living room for years. We explored visions, business structures, financing, and models for working collaboratively It took us two years just to come up with a name. Many months of discussion went into the decision to create a 501(c)3 or a not for profit corporation. Because of this long process many people fell by the wayside. This left us with the core of seven founding members."

As we started on the physical realization of our center and began working together, we ran into many different perspectives and discovered our diverse styles of getting things done. This provided some difficult challenges for the group. At times meetings were very uncomfortable, the personal and the impersonal were hard to separate, feelings and egos conflicted, competing with our goal of community. We struggled to find a form of governance that could streamline some of these issues. We danced with inclusion and consensus, trying to balance our differences and use our strengths wisely. In the end the process provided our first tests and our bonding as a community. These challenges taught us that we needed to be direct and gentle with each other. This continues to be the key to handling issues to this day.

Two years later, in the fall of 2000, we finally settled on our name, and then, almost magically, Spirit started opening doors. John Hopkins, energy worker and spiritual healer, founder, practitioner and Board president recalls the excitement. "We found a partially converted barn that had a beautiful circle room created from an old silo. Our recently decided name was appropriately Circle of Healing. The lease with an option to buy, combined with my former knowledge of the building, served to seal our deal. I was previously a carpenter and timber framer and had done extensive restoration in the unfinished part of this barn 20 years ago. Circles within circles seemed to be happening.

"We had decided to become a non-profit 501(c)3 organization to create much needed financial assistance and more clearly emphasize our commitment to health education. Our practitioners' first big commitment to our community was contributing rent before we had usable treatment space. The next commitment came with the work of renovation — creating treatment rooms, adding new windows and doors, lighting, and a handicapped accessible bathroom. Together as a team we spent week-ends for the next six months framing walls, installing windows and doors, hanging sheetrock, taping, trimming, and painting. What a joy to work with dedicated people with a clear purpose: a beautiful gynecologist on her knees pounding nails, a chiropractor hanging sheetrock and rolling paint late into the night, an energy psychologist hanging doors, all of us dirty, sweaty and smiling. Volunteers from the community, excited about what we were doing, just dropped in to lend a hand. This was incredible!"

In June of 2001 we celebrated our open house and Blessing Ceremony. Over 100 members of our local community joined hands in our barn as we sang, prayed and danced. In our corner of Vermont this was a tremendous turnout!

Of course there were moments of doubt that kept us growing. John Hopkins shares one of his: "For me personally, this was both a dream come true and a fearful place. Could I give up my nice secure practice at home and step into a space with other practitioners with different styles and truly work together? Aahh — sweet fear. It's just an illusion. Community works. In fact it works really well."

Then in February of 2003, Spirit, through some generous donors, blessed us with the funds we needed to purchase our center. Another step in the dream became reality — complete with a mortgage, taxes and maintenance!

Throughout this time both our board of directors and our practitioners were deepening the community bonds. The practitioners were discovering and refining our collaborative model of healing. We used our circle as a council and a container to support us personally and professionally. Jasmine Hurtak, herbalist, nutritional counselor, plant-spirit healer and aroma therapist describers her experience:

"The Circle of Healing is a place where we create a community for each other and for our clients. Instead of competing with each other we team up and support each other. We bring our different modalities and we are all aware of the value of the others' knowledge in addition to our own."

Our meetings are an opportunity to share our professional experience with each other, such as how to maintain good boundaries with clients that are consistently late, or how to handle a client who triggers our own issues. We can also ask for the personal support we may need. The compassion and integrity with which we address each other creates a deeply supportive safe place for all of us.

We take this same support into our founding vision of bringing the richness and strength of community to our clients. When our clients give us written permission we present their case in our council of practitioners. Glenn describes the process;

"When we sit in council and discuss a case we have signed releases for, the sharing is rich and varied. The collaboration has become the joy of working at COH. It has enlivened my practice and stretches me to new understandings and insights. Together we can offer a unique and individualized treatment plan for our clients."

The result is a healing plan that combines the wisdom of all our modalities to address the many facets of the individual and their "dis-ease." The synergistic effect of bringing together different healing modalities and insights has been remarkably beneficial for our clients and our practitioners.

The benefits and the joy continued to unfold as we initiated another form of collaboration. Glenn had a client he felt energy healing would be helpful for. But this person was uncomfortable with the idea of working with another practitioner. He asked John if he would be willing to see this particular client with Glenn sitting in to support his client. All three agreed to try this. On the appointed day all three met in John's office and the session began. Almost immediately John and Glenn aligned with each other and the healing flowed back and forth between them, assisting the client to feel safe and to move into a deeper, more productive space. This collaboration allowed this client to break through some entrenched issues, and progress in their healing process. Soon we found that this confluence of modalities had a profound and dynamic effect on our clients' ability to move forward in their healing journey. The practitioners were ecstatic and excited, the clients delighted as well. All of us, clients and practitioners loved this and felt very grateful for this new tool. We have found that all of our modalities combine well — chiropractic and acupuncture, acupuncture and energy healing, etc, aided in part by the fact that we have a good working relationship with each other.

Another form of communal healing is our Team Healing Day, which we offer each fall and spring. Cathy Walker, energy healer, astrologer, founder, practitioner and board member tells the story.

"The idea came in a conversation with my dear friend Rosie Carey, a talented energy healer in Phoenix, Az,. On Team Healing Day we open our doors and invite the public to experience healing from a team of four to six practitioners working simultaneously.

We already knew the power of two working together, so this was a natural for us. Twice a year we invite healers from all over the region to come join with us. As we gather in our circle room to meditate you can see the radiance grow, as the compassion and energy builds. The work with our clients is always particularly touching on these days, and I never cease to be amazed by the diversity of wisdom that comes forth from the healers during a session, how the team aligns with each other and the client, and how each healer has a gem to offer. By the end of the day we are all glowing, and the community of healers has grown. It is a day our clients and the healers look forward to, and easily our most enjoyable way to raise funds."

We regularly sponsor community events, and over the past 6 years have offered 60 presentations that range from meditations to belly dancing, panel discussions of ADD/ADHD, to summer solstice celebrations and free movies with the popcorn included.

It is sometimes hard to understand why community isn't a more important part of our culture. Jasmine observes:

"When I think about community in general, I see an enormous lack of it. Our time is an age of individuality. Once we were 'pack-animals' living in tribes, villages, clans, or at least a few generations together in a house. Everybody older than ourselves was a parent to us, others, about the same age, were considered brothers and sisters, everybody younger was our child. It created an enormous sense of belonging and provided a network for support and security.

"This network is non existent for a lot of us. Parents are often also the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc. Many families are broken up in very small units. Without the network of the community we become not only lonely, but also exhausted and burnt out, with the tasks of many fulfilled by a few. "One of the gifts our community offers is a shared work load. Much effort goes into running a center, a healing practice, or keeping the circle strong and healthy. There always seems to be a bit of insight, a pair of hands or a good listener available to help with whatever the task of the moment is."

Community is at the heart of Circle of Healing. It fulfills so many of our longings, and gives us so much in return of our efforts. Molly Beverage, our licensed acupuncturist puts it this way:

"Imagine your work place as surrounded by people who care about you, and support you and challenge you to be your very best, while offering a perspective that allows a much larger vision of healing for each client. Imagine that difficulties are dealt with head on and not allowed to fester. That spirit and connection and healing really are the most important aspects of the community you work in. That even the environment is beautiful; set in a renovated old barn on 5 acres leading down to the river. You have just imagined the community within which I work, the Circle of Healing. After five years, I continue to be so grateful to be held by co-workers who have a sense of humor, high integrity and an understanding that only by healing the body, mind, and spirit can anyone be opened to wholeness."

Community is a great thing — pass it on!

About The Circle of Healing

Circle of Healing is a non-profit organization of health care practitioners offering integrative health care and education in a nurturing, comfortable, and safe environment. Our mission is to awaken each person’s innate healing process and sense of well-being by creating balance in body, mind, and spirit.

We are a collaborative group of healers, practicing conventional and alternative therapies. We view healing as a personal and communal endeavor; our vision for the future enables further personal and communal growth. The Circle of Healing strives to empower the individual, embrace the community, and honor the environment.

Circle of Healing practitioners are independent, and schedule their own individual client appointments. All practitioners are licensed or certified in their field. Clients may also schedule to work with more than one practitioner at a time. This creates a deeply supportive environment that we have found to be very powerful in assisting clients on their healing journey.

Website: www.circleofhealingvt.org

Email: info@circleofhealingvt.org

Circle of Healing | Rural Route 30, P.O. Box 295, Pawlet, Vermont 05761 | 802.325.3300