After Dance Tribe on Sunday, I stopped in to sit with a sick friend.

Reclining against the arm of his sofa, he motioned for me to take the armchair. I took the last pillow on the couch and put a hand on his shoulder. He got up to take a pain pill and we watched football, interrupted by two calls from ladies that love him.

Again I put my hand on his shoulder, then worked my way around to his neck on the side where the cancer was eating at his jaw. He sat up, giving me another twenty seconds to feel his spirit, then arose abruptly to set up a massage table. As he placed a sheet and pillow, I rolled a stool out from under the counter. He climbed onto the table, draping a blanket over his legs, and laced his fingers across his breastbone, waiting.

I had told him that I had come to get his head out of the way of the parts that were working toward healing: his heart, lungs, liver and kidneys. As I felt around, touching him gently, my right hand eventually came to rest along the right side of his head, fingers behind the ear.

I saw then the scene he had described before: the noose choking him as he grieved for his people and land.

The evil eating still at him.

I had advised him that many sacred beings stood in attendance to aid him in his struggle, and I did nothing for those twenty minutes other than facilitate the introductions. They gathered under my palms and fingertips, secure as I felt around in the corruption until safe harbor was found.

He relaxed completely, patient with my intuitive explorations. It was only at the end that I hooked my fingertips under the choking circle and widened it, lifting it over his head twice. Remnants remained – the connection to those others that had suffered with him, a connection that he needed to strengthen to transmit the pattern of healing.

I admitted: “I think that I need to allow you to process what you’ve received. Is it OK if I leave now?”

Dear friend, what an honor it is to support your struggle to bring light into the world.