AW: Dr. Hawkes, I’m struck by what you just said, how you look for what’s underneath the expression. Say if you were to look at 5 people with the same stage of cancer, and yet they’re all different. Do you just get an intuitive sense, that in this situation there was a toxin in the environment and I think it’s still there. And in that situation, there are lots of books written about trauma, and how something happened and about 18 months later after a divorce or something happened to knock out that immune system, and that part of the spirit is still a bit unclaimed and got kicked out of the body. Or is it DNA – “My mom had breast cancer and so I’m going to get breast cancer.” It’s a very complicated situation.

JH: It’s very complicated. And we’re very complex beings. I take a pretty good history. So I listen for what people say. Because often people kind of know inside, even though they can’t express it, per se. And there are times when nothing lights up as positive. Like, it’s unknown, you don’t know, it’s a mystery. So I take that, and put it in my analytical brain, and then I try to forget it as best I can, and just go where the energy moves and where the guidance is. And sometimes those two will dance together really closely. And sometimes they don’t. So I don’t have a “1, 2, 3” protocol that says, “Do it this way.”

AW: If it could only be so easy…

JH: I’m just grateful any one of us can actually help another human being in the midst of their journey. And you know, another point on this is that not all allopathic treatments work for everybody. Even though there are all kinds of studies, one medication may work for 10 people, but on the next 5 people, it makes them sick as can be and it doesn’t work at all. And so new methods are continually developed in chemotherapy for cancer. One type of chemotherapy will knock down those cancerous cells for one person, but it doesn’t work for another. So they’re facing the same dilemma, “How do we help all these people when everybody really is pretty different?”

AW: Yes. We’re not all in the median on the bell curve, with the average of this or a median of that, and your chances are within a certain confidence interval that this drug will work.

JH: Right…

AW: It doesn’t quite work that way. You know, it surprises me that even modern medicine is as unpredictable as it is. I mean, it seems like it should work. A medicine should do this, a dosage should do that. But even Rosalyn Bruyere said the same thing. She said 30% of the time, antibiotics don’t work. The doctor can give you an average. “The average is this.” But the bell curve could be really flat, and you could be on the wing end of one. I understand how this question is very frustrating for patients and clients when someone is ill. I’m curious what you recommend in situations where people are sick. There’s limited amount of resources of time, money, energy. Can’t go around trying every modality. It’d be exhausting.

JH: Oh yeah…

AW: How is someone to know, if they were to do energy healing which person to go to? They all say different things, they do different modalities. Or should they consider homeopathy? Or is it an herb? It seems each patient is out there on their own, patchwork for themselves.

JH: Yeah, it’s tough and I really have a compassionate appreciation for what people who are ill are facing, in trying to make those decisions and sort through all the offerings, and all the [sigh] – you know, there’s hype out there on what’s going to fix you and obviously that doesn’t work…

AW: Absolutely.

JH: I pretty much take the person who comes to me as they show up. My prayer all these years has been, “May the people who I can actually help show up.” So I assume when someone calls me that I can help them in some way. So part of it is, OK in what way can I, and how much? I don’t send them with a list of, “Go do this, this and this,” or, “Stop doing this this and this.” Make an assessment of what is actually benefiting you. When they’re working with me I do an hour session, and then for the next 5 mornings I do an additional 5 minutes or so in my morning meditation of sending to them that’s just part of the session. I don’t call them back, I don’t charge for that, but I support the work we started over the next week. I ask them take a week and see what’s happened to their body. Make an assessment after the biology of their body has had a chance to catch up with these treatments. And that has worked really well. Because sometimes stuff happen instantaneously. Woohoo!

AW: Yeah, oh we love those!  [laughs]

JH: Oh yeah, definitely! And sometimes it happens 4 or 4 days down the road.

AW: I’m curious about your technique. There are so many out there. I didn’t see any reference that you do “X” or “Y”, whether it’s Reconnection or qi gong, or specific schools of ways of working with energy. When you work, are you holding a vibration? Are you sending? Are you unwinding? Are you using a laser? You know, one day we’ll have a lab that can measure the differences of all these different focuses…

JH: Right.

AW: Is your work chakra based? Are you following the flow of the meridians? Or are you in the shamanic world and retrieving things?

JH: You know, I’ve had direct experience and training in a pretty much all of that. And so I pick out whatever I’m guided to do that’s going to work for this person. So I don’t have a bunch of certificates hanging on my wall. The first part of my work was guided directly by, um, beings not in body, [laughs] and I still rely on them. In the book, “Cell Level Healing”, I talk about how early on, I learned about chakras healing. So people would come in and I’d be busy balancing chakras. Red, the traditional colors on up to purple. And I get people who were sick. They’d get sick. They’d almost throw up on my table. And I’d go, “Yikes, what is this?”And so I began looking at this and working with it, I began looking at what I didn’t know at the time, the shushmna, which is the channel which lies just above the spine, and the two nadis channels on either side. I saw them!

JH: And I saw this one woman who was just so sickly. And her whole area was silver. And I went, “Oh, ok” So I started supporting silver, with little shiny sparklies in each of the chakras. And she’d go, “Oh I can’t tell you! What’d you do? That feels so good!” She was becoming a Jungian therapist and she was so ill it was really tough for her. She wasn’t sure she was going to make it. And that began to strengthen her. And then I started mixing. And this wasn’t by someone’s technique or book or anything else. It was just pure, straight forward guidance. Mixing a little of red in her first chakra with the silver, and it let her incorporate that and handle it. And it allowed her to have more of a sense of [laughs] actually being comfortable on the earth! And then I taught her how to do that. And now she’s became totally healthy, very successful and well known in her field.

AW: Wonderful…

JH: So, I don’t have a protocol. I do teach this work, and I teach at Omega Institute. I love teaching there and other places. I try and help each student find what are the tools that work best for them, from what they’ve studied before, or what they can by study about knowing about cells. And then let’s practice. Let’s figure out what it will take for you to learn to move energy and get it to the right place.

AW: And that brings me to a question I’ve been sitting with. Why do you think there are so many different ideas about how energy works, in terms of different ways of healing. You should do this, or the 2nd chakra should look like that. There’s not an agreement, even amongst different modalities within the energy medicine profession. It’s very confusing. Why do you think that is?

JH: It’s kind of fascinating, I think. It’s based on healer age and experience. I did it this way “Whooa, and it worked!”

AW: So everybody should do it that way…

JH: “And I did it this other way and it worked even better and so…”. You know, it’s like religion. They all have an approach that goes, “I did it this way and that’s cool so it needs to be done this way by every body every time all the time.” It’s a mystery, it’s just a mystery. And who knows? Maybe one person you work on, maybe their genetic background is Native American and they need a certain way of energy work. And another one is Norwegian and theirs works different. And maybe someone actually flew in from some other planet. I don’t know. I wish I knew!

AW: [laughs]

JH: But people are different. And I think it’s sad that healers have to create their own cosmology and fight each other about their cosmology. You know, if it works, cool.

AW: Great! I’m pragmatic. Whatever works. You know, if I have to stand on my head and that somehow changed the energy in the room and your migraine went away, fabulous!

JH: [laughs]

AW: But it’s trying to put a scientific framework around this… because humans are weird. We want to know why. It’s like, I can’t trust that this is really working unless I know why and the theory and I can learn everything about the right colors of the chakras, and then I might feel comfortable in just being with it. It’s funny.

JH: Right. But even in science, things are changing all the time. Right now, the Big Bang is no longer the most important theory of how the universe happened. It is in question. Everything changes. It’s evolving in our understanding as our tools and technology evolves. For example, in the cells, it was thought that the mitochondria power pack in the cells float around and deliver their energy, gets picked up by a certain enzyme and then is utilized by another part of the cell that makes all these proteins and enzymes within the plasma particulum. And they just kind of float around. Well, within the year or 18 months of when this article was published in the journal of science about how there’s a molecular link that couples the power pack and the plasma particulum together! It makes such sense! It’s not just left to just floating around and maybe it will work. The complexity of how those cells work is exquisite. And the more we know the more we can technologically ask ourselves to tell its secrets to us.

AW: I’m fascinated with science. I remember one time, earlier in my career, I was in a meeting where we took a drop of someone’s blood and put it on a slab and put it under a microscope. We took a visual look of the cell activity – how quickly the blood cells were moving under the microscope — because they start to slow down after leave the body. And I moved 30 feet away and someone told me to send energy to that blood drop under the microscope. And I’m 30 feet away, and I thought, “Oh God, this is crazy”. And I sent it energy. And we looked under the microscope. And sure enough, everyone could see the cells were starting to get peppy. And you can see that something is happening. Science cannot quite understand it yet. Like, “How can this be?”

JH: Interesting…

AW: When you look at cancer, what does it look like to you? I see cancer a certain way. Rosalyn Bruyere sees it a certain way. Every healer I’ve interviewed sees it differently. We all see it differently. Some people see a mist. Other people see this grey stuff. I see things that looks like a cell with TV antenna wires coming out of it, that don’t belong there. Like, wall is not smooth. It’s got things poking through it, like metal shrapnel. That’s what I see. I’m interested in what you see, when you work with cancer at the cellular level.

JH: Interesting. I haven’t experienced those images with cancer. But there are a lot of images of cells with stuff poking out of them in both normal and ill cells. They’re receptors on the cell. That would be at a level the electron microscope can’t even see, but has been researched by other biochemical techniques and such and artists’ depiction of them. They look like they have a variety of different kinds of shapes and sizes all over them. They are part of cell signaling. They’re part of how cells actually communicate with each other, and how they grab whatever that cell needs and pulls it in. So that’s interesting description.

JH: When I work with cancer, once again, each individual is really different. There aren’t any two exactly the same. Sometimes I’ll seee the tumor mass itself. And sometimes there’s the sense of almost rapid vision that’s making that cell divide too fast. So I’m drawn to the inside mechanism that has gone awry, and has taken that particular cell population out of balance of what its normal rate of division would be.

AW: Do you use any destructive methods? There are some healers who will use energy like a sanding block to whittle down a tumor in a destructive way. Do you do that?

JH: Yes and no. The strongest answer is No. What I do is ask the cell to do a natural process. There’s a very interesting properly of cells that they can actually dissolve themselves. They have the ability and enzymes in them to dissolve and give it up through cytolisis. So I ask them to do that for the benefit of the whole.

AW: Wonderful. So you’re talking to the cells and having a conversation.

JH: Yes, in a sense. We’ve had really good luck with that with people. There are other times when I hit up against a cancer it feels really aggressive. And it perks up my warrior and I go, “Allright, I’m stuck in the light by you baby” [laughs]

AW: I’m coming in! [laughs] Wonderful!

JH: That’s part of the shamanic training. I don’t apply that all over the place and every time.

AW: Well, sometimes time is of the essence, you know?

JH: Sometimes being a warrior is what we’re called to do.

AW: Absolutely.  What thoughts do you have for aspiring healers?

JH: I would encourage aspiring healers to develop their own practice. First of all, that they develop a real solid meditation, which is a catch all phrase, so they’re in touch deeply with themselves and with however they connect with the universe. That’s how they develop a sense of confidence in their calling in the first place, and then the unfolding of their own journey. And realize whatever training they have, training wheels are wonderful, but not everything everybody teaches you is going to be applicable, that you sort through it. And to stay open to learning. I mean, I’ve been at this for almost 30 days. Every single day at the office, I learn something new. Stay open to guidance, stay open to discovery. Otherwise, that’s when we begin to die inside, when we begin to lose our enthusiasm and we’re no longer learning. Because stuff changes all the time. Our bodies aren’t the same. Our bodies totally aren’t the same. Our red blood cells only live 4 months in a human. They’re recycled by the spleen constantly. So every single second you and I have sat and talked, our bodies have cleaned up 2 to 3 million old red blood cells and produced 2 to 3 million new ones! That’s every single second!

AW: Wow! Do you think people need to be specially trained to do this work? There are more and more people interested in pursuing this work.

JH: Well, that’s a really good question. In Great Britain, people are trained and certified by certain organizations. They can work in hospitals, and that organization is quite conservative and they have a way of doing it. Here, there’s no real certification for it like there are for other professions. So people are kind of doing whatever. Who knows where that will go in the future. I think some people are born with the gift. I think some people acquire one way or another along in their life time. I think it’s natural for every one of us to be healers. And so, to be aware of how we can share with another person comes with a skill or calling. Right now, there’s a plethora of different styles, techniques and schools. When young people ask me, I ask them, “What lights up for you? What feels juicy? What makes you feel truly alive?” And for some people, it’s going to medical school. For some people, it’s acupuncture school. And for some, it’s studying various forms of energy healing. I just honor all of the paths, and it is important for people to have an integrity about what they do and what they say and what they can offer.

AW: Yes

JH: Rather than, “Hey, yo! I have the supplement that will keep you alive until you’re 175”.

AW: What would you like to see happen in this profession? You’ve been doing this for a few decades. You’ve probably seen all kinds of things changing.

JH: I have. I think the conferences that are out there draw people together so they can hear each other and hopefully honor each others’ paths and learn from each other. (Adele’s Note: Stay tuned for my posts on having attended the 2011 NICBAM conference in Hilton Head, SC. I’ll be posting some interviews with some fascinating folks I spoke with there.) I see an energy medicine group in Boulder CO. I’ll be key-noting and doing a workshop in Montreal that’s going for 35 years, called the International Association for Integral Human Sciences. www.IIIHS.org. They draw all kinds of people doing all sorts of different sorts of things. And a consciousness group out in Santa Fe that is no longer operational, but that drew a lot of people that were interested in the intersection of both science and healing work. Conferences are helpful. And Hay House sets up and runs a number of conferences all over the United States that draw thousands of people. And people are presenting what they’ve found actually works, not trying to find the end-all be-all, or the, “This is it, this is the one pill that will do it,” or one style. And there are international conferences. And so, as a community that can talk to each other, and a community that can encourage each other and explore together, the question is, “How we help each other the most? What are we called to, and what are the ways in which any one of us as an individual can benefit on earth?” And at some time, there will be someone or a group has the ability to take all of that and, with synthesis, go, “OK, here’s the bottom line.” But we’re not there yet. And we’re not there in medicine yet, either. Or alternative.

AW: Right, right. Do you think that will get easier as more data becomes available? Do you think research is helpful for getting the two sides to talk? It seems like without data, there’s always a certain skepticism.

JH: Yes I definitely think that levels of research are really helpful. Right now, there’s not a lot of funding, which is one of the bottom lines for setting up any kind of research. It’d be very fascinating to see what cells look like with the electron microscope in someone whose had healing work or not healing work. You know, take a sample biopsy from someone and run it through all the processing it takes to actually get a picture on the electron scope. It’s not like taking a smear and putting it on a slide and viewing it. It’s very complicated. It takes at least a week or two weeks to get tissue ready to look at with the electron microscope. It’s very expensive work. Very expensive. And there are a few places worldwide where there’s funding for interesting research. There’s a neurological center in Germany, Singer has a lab that has presented material at the Mind and Life Conferences that the Dalai Lama goes to. Very interesting. So here’s a hotspot in the world that’s doing some of that. There are some places in the United States now where alternative medicine is actively studied. The NIH — their alternative and complimentary medicine group is funding various studies. Richard Davidson’s lab at the University of Wisconsin has made fabulous headway on the brain states of people in deep meditation. And so there’re little sparkly places here and there. I was in Japan and tested at Nahan University in Dr Akio Mori’s lab on what goes on with my brain when I’m doing healing work. What’s the signature pattern? How does it work? What does it look like? So here’s another place where people have some curiousity and somehow [laughs] some funding.

AW: [laughs] Oh yeah, that…

JH: And I think as our work as alternative healers becomes more accepted and there’s more observational data on, “Hmm, some of this works! It’s not just hokey stuff,” society pushes for changes and studies and for acceptance. Goodness, when I started several decades now to where it is now, our culture is much more open. We’re seeing much more of it. Something between 40 to 60% of Americans use some form of alternative healing. And that wouldn’t have been the case 15 or 30 years ago.

AW: And I think because of our healthcare system and how outrageously expensive everything is, people are considering cheaper, less invasive and natural ways of healing. So there can be an opportunity that this work can be part of an offering that includes everything else.

JH: Um-hmmm.

AW: Certainly cuts down on a lot of chemical reactions. It’s drug-free, and it feels good.

AW: Well this has been so wonderful to speak with you, Dr. Hawkes! You have such an amazing background and wisdom and perspective on this profession. For everyone, if you want more information on Dr. Hawkes work or her book, go to http://www.celllevelhealing.com/. Thank you!

JH: You’re welcome.