Shore View

Friday, December 28, 2007

Shamanic practitioner Maia Lynd uses an energy healing technique on client Sally O'Such,
a technique in which her hands flutter above O'Such without ever actually touching her.

Energy fields

Shamanic practitioner is part spirit guide and channeler

By Robert C. Pollack
ShoreView Staff

You lie on a zero-gravity chair at the Shoreline Center for Wholistic Health at 35 Boston St. in Guilford, your eyes closed, as soft music and what sounds like a gently bubbling fountain soothes your senses and magnifies your sense of detachment from the tensions of the world.

You have just spent half an hour sharing your feelings, thoughts and vulnerabilities with Maia Lynd - a Shamanic practitioner who also bills herself as a hypnotherapist, Reiki Master, "angelic channeler," cellular healer and spirit guide artist - and now you lay back under a thin blanket and hear her making what sounds like incantations to the North, South, East and West, ostensibly receiving wisdom, getting insight and somehow transmitting a sense of serenity.

You are a journalist. A scientist. A writer trained to deal with facts, logic and the provable "is" vs. the unprovable "could be." But after listening to Lynd talk about self empowerment, the energy and life force within all of us and her belief that "there are no inanimate objects; everything has consciousness or spirit - even computers, cars, trees" - you are startled to find yourself opening your mind to a new way of looking at virtually everything.

She pointed out that all matter is made of atoms that themselves are mostly made of empty space. "It's a little unsettling, isn't it," she said, her blue eyes dancing, "to think of yourself as made of virtually nothing."

Born and raised in Sweden with a college degree in chemical engineering, Lynd decided that her studies did not reveal the things she wanted to know about the world around her or the mysteries of the human spirit.

She cast about for a new approach, a new direction - and in holistic healing she found a niche she has made her own. She has studied under many holistic and Shamanic healers and said the craft is "all about channeling energy."

Lynd makes it clear she cannot be the force that helps you heal from whatever afflicts you - either physical or mental - but merely the conduit who can help you empower yourself.

"I cannot help you without your cooperation," she said.

She cites several cases in which Shamanic healing has worked. One client, she said, was suffering from emphysema and after working with him, "X-rays were taken that showed no sign it was ever there."

The method, she explains, deals with light body healing - which is not a substitute for traditional medical care but can augment and expand it - "energy extraction," which is designed to deal with depression and "soul retrieval."

"That is used when part of a client gets lost," she said.

Kim Gilbert of Oxford, who has been Lynd's friend for the past 12 years, is a registered nurse currently working as a Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner and writer.

"Maia and I connected when both of us had other lives," Gilbert said. "She has three kids and I have two and they all went to the same elementary school, which is how we met.

Through circumstances, I became involved in energy healing and so did she.

"Maia definitely has a gift. She has a kind of peacefulness about her that is almost palpable. She gives you a sense of well being and empowerment which is one of the reasons, I am sure, she is successful as a practitioner.

"I would recommend her to anyone with physical, spiritual or emotional needs that are not being met by traditional methods."

Gilbert added that what Lynd does complements Western medicine, but does not replace it.

"In this field, you cannot efficiently help others until you have done a lot of work on yourself - which Maia has done in spades," she said.

But now you are lying in that amazing chair and Lynd's hands are fluttering above you. They move up and down your body, inches away, but there is never any contact of any kind.

Soon she began holding a crystal pendulum between two fingers, and you see it swinging and rotating, almost with a life of its own.

Lynd explained what she was doing in Shamanistic terms but her words were a blur. She was drawing negative energy out of my body, replacing it with a different kind of force.

That's nonsense, I started thinking.

And then a kind of tingling took over my body. I can only describe it as a different kind of inner energy than I have ever experienced.

The power of suggestion? The force of Lynd's personality, charisma and persuasiveness? Maybe.

But I had just gone though a personal trauma and for the fist time since it happened, I was feeling whole - secure - serene.

Lynd smiled when I told her what I was feeling.

"I would like to stress just one thing," she said. "This is not hocus pocus. It is magical, the way life is magical.

"I have not found a physical manifestation of an illness that did not have an emotional root. And unless you address the underlying emotions, you will not fully heal.

"I can assist you in bringing clarity and awareness into your consciousness and can help you use your own energy to help you heal.

"But I cannot make you let go of something you are not willing to let go of. There is free will - and you can't hocus pocus free will."

Hocus pocus?

No. Lynd charges $70 for an hour-long session - the same fee covers 90 minutes the first time around - $50 for senior citizens and students.

Whatever your value and/or belief system, I can only report that my session stirred something inside me I had not felt before and left me craving more.

Photos by Dennis Bell. Reprinted with permission of ShoreView.