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A Story of Good Medicine and Bad Medicine to Heal the Earth
- Deborah Gaal
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Welcome to “Healing From Within” with your host Sheryl Glick author of the newest book in a trilogy, A New Life Awaits Spiritual Guided insights to Support Global Awakening which shares stories and messages from Spirit that show us our challenges are not merely economic political or societal but a disconnection form our true being or soul wisdom. Sheryl is delighted to welcome Deborah Gaal, author of Synchronicities on the Avenue of the Saints, a fictional tale of a woman told by a shaman to write a story to please the ancestors…a story of the indigenous world and modernity coming together to heal people, the earth or a story of bad medicine and good medicine.
Sheryl shares with Deborah that like with many of her very gifted authors, she usually has coincidences or synchronicity with them. Over 25 years ago Sheryl was told like the protagonist in your story that she would write 3 books and while she said at that time, “I don’t think so,” before too long she was journaling all the metaphysical mystical happenings and has just completed the third book in the trilogy.
As listeners well know Sheryl and her guests share intimate stories trying to illuminate a clearer understanding of our dual nature as spiritual beings having a physical life and also our growing awareness that we are more than our physical bodies connected by energy to every living being. In that knowledge lies the key to allowing, accepting, surrendering all fear, trauma, suffering so we may find peace happiness and ways to use our connection to Spirit, bringing Heaven to Earth and life to life.
In today’s episode of “Healing From Within” Deborah Gaal shares with us through a fictional work certain personal events in her own life that have lead to remarkable, miraculous healings. We will discover the theme of her novel or the coming together of modern and indigenous beliefs as a way to cure what ails us. Right now we all know we can use more than a little help. Of course, in all great stories there is a plot populated with heroes and villains. Deborah shares her imaginative but very wise rendering of how Spirit is guiding many intuiitves to explore the wisdom of Spirit to improve the quality of life in these very challenging days of transformation.
Sheryl always loves to ask her guests to think back to their childhood and remember a person place or event which may have signaled to them or others around them the life and livelihood they would embrace as an adult, for she feels we are born with our soul’s intentions and goals within us and the life journey reflects those needs and desires as we evolve and discover more about who we are and what life is really all about. Deborah shares with us that she was involved in performing and acting, and her mother encouraged her to develop a love for creativity and movement. Sheryl tells Deborah they share another humorous synchronicity, for Sheryl’s daughter Stacy was a successful, professional child actress for 10 years in theatre, film, a soap opera, commercials and all aspects of that industry.
Deborah goes on to tell us the theme of her novel and about the main characters in the book.
Sally Friedman runs a pharmaceutical company and used her company’s resources, along with the help of a psychiatrist, to develop a drug to manage her son Noah’s bipolar disorder. Noah, a physicist working to prove the theory that the fifth dimension is awareness, has been on the drug for fourteen years when the story begins and through his childhood journalist friend, meets a shaman who foresees the drug has deadly consequences. Meanwhile, Noah’s dying great grandmother tells him about a witch from the shtetl in Russia in 1918, who has cursed the family because they stole from her rather than following through on a promise after she helped them escape from the pogroms where they were killing Jewish people. Guided by the shaman, Noah must right his family’s wrong, stop a pharmaceutical kingpin from raiding the family business, halt the global launch of this deadly medicine, and prove that love creates a synchronicity with what and who is loved.
Deborah goes on to tell us about what inspired her to write this novel. She goes on to tell us, that nearly twenty years ago, when one of her family members was struggling with mental illness, she recognized that Western medicine’s approach for a cure—a combination of medication, hospitalization and talk therapy---wasn’t working. She feared she might lose her loved one whether it be to drugs, alcohol, suicide, homelessness or a perpetual state of crazy from which he’d never return. Adhering to the motto, “when things are at their darkest, I’m at my best,” Deborah frantically searched out possible treatments. She found an article in an alternative medicine book that described a shaman, Malidoma Patrice Some, who took an 18 year-old bipolar patient to live with his tribe in Burkina Faso. The Shaman’s villagers believed that anyone with mental illness was in truth a “healer in the making: who was not attuned to their true purpose, rather their energy was blocked from discovering their destiny. Because of this misalliance, the person’s messages from the spirit world came through as dark, chaotic and jumbled.
In indigenous cultures, the village understands an individual is a soul in process and society offers that disconnected person support rather than isolation. In the case of the teenage bipolar patient, he was able to discover his true gifts as a result of the tribes caring. He healed and returned to the United States to attend Harvard and become a doctor.
This story gave Deborah hope. She read the books Of Water and Spirit and Ritual written by Dr. Some, who holds a PhD from both the Sorbonne and Brandis University. In addition, he is an elder of the Dagara Tribe who has been given the mission to spread the teachings of his culture to the wider world. When modernity accepts the indigenous teachings, this mutual importance will heal the earth. When Deborah discovered Dr. Some would be speaking merely a hundred miles from me, she made an appointment and journeyed north to see him. This led to her spending a week with him and his students in the woods of Oregon where she studied African Indigenous Ritual. While there, she received a divination from Malidoma a session where he read spread runes and delivered messages from the Ancestors. The ancestors told her she would write a novel. “Your story is on fire.” Synchronicities on the Avenue of the Saints is that story. Her sessions and learnings of indigenous culture taught her to let go of the process of trying to heal her family member. We are surrounded by ancestors who want to assist in our healing. Her job was to release and trust that her family member would come in alliance with Spirit and his purpose when the timing was right. The process of letting go and trusting was as much hard work for her as was his. “Mental Illness is a family disease, a tight web where we are truly all in this together.”
Deborah tells us that the title of the book comes from part of the novel that takes place in St. Louis, the city of her birth. Even though she lived there most of her life, she did not know there was a cobbled together highway of connected backroads called The Avenue of the Saints, which traversed from St. Louis to St Paul, Minnesota. She was in a writing group with a fellow writer from Iowa who knew about the highway and when she brought in pages that had her protagonist traveling from St. Louis to Minneapolis, he told her about this little known backroads map of infrastructure. The coincidence of this writer being in group with Deborah listening to her pages and knowing about the “avenue” was a synchronicity she just couldn’t ignore. The title stuck to the story.
What is synchronicity, anyway? Deborah says, “the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have now discernable causal connection.: This was an area of study for Carl Jung the spiritual father of psychology and also a subject of interest in physics. Freud was the ego based or physical father of psychology that concentrated mainly on physical life. Until I started research fo the book I had no idea that physicists as early as 1915 were studying and mapping the connections of synchronicities. Experiencing a series of coincidences has taken on the meaning “You are on the right path.” Deborah believe that and Noah, in her story, certainly does too.
Sheryl goes on to say that the title of her first book in a trilogy was Life Is No Coincidence: The Life and Afterlife Connections, which focused on awakening to the many energetic possibilities of higher awareness and consciousness and exploring our interconnectedness at all levels of physical and energetic life. Shery is always delighted when one of her authors mentions Carl Jung, who had a near death experience and described what happened after death as being so unspeakably glorious that our imagination and feelings can not even manage to capture the magnificence of that reality. Spiritual teachers who have in meditation attained this higher level of awareness also know the infinite possibilities of our soul to create this beauty in our physical life, so she is always delighted when Carl Jung’s name comes up.
Deborah tells us how synchronicity comes up in her life. Deborah says that she believes in everyday magic. If you slow down and take the time to notice, there are synchronicities happening all the time. The beauty and images we focus on to the exclusion of multitudes and other data are synchronous. The people we meet, even casually, can represent a synchronicity. Why in this sea of billions of people did we come in contact with this specific soul? There is always a reason, and always a message that is available to us from our interactions if we simply take the time to notice. Slow down, map out your day with all the details you can remember and you will start to notice the signs that keep you on your path.
Sheryl likes to tell her students and clients that no one is ever alone, nothing happening to us is random and that our soul planned all the events we would experience in this particular life that were needed to reach higher ground or bring greater love and compassion within, as we raise our vibration and understand ourselves more realistically, achieving greater self -love and compassion.
Deborah tells us why she is the right person to write this story. The novel is a story of past and present: a bit of her family history that collides with world history: a bit of her business background that she’s able to draw upon: a thread of physics, indigenous belief, African mysticism and philosophy which are all subjects that she’s drawn to and the story of her real-life son. As complicated as this story might be for some, for Deborah it is very simple and a description of the world as she knows it. She was a female running a company in a time before #metoo and #timesup, and that was challenging. The tools to deal with sexual harassment were not available in 2002, when the story takes place and women, sadly, didn’t feel as though they could speak up, no matter how powerful their position might seem. Sally the mother of Noah in the book did the best she could given the circumstances of her time.
Sheryl says it is now 2021 and sadly the harassment in business, politics and the old patriarchal and religious limitations for girls or women in the family are still too strongly prevalent. Look at the scandals all over with women reporting sexual harassment or abuses at work and at home. Why do all these women wait until scandals arise until they feel empowered and can finally tell about the abuses suffered. Sheryl personally has never been beholding to any large corporation for her income and even as a child stood up to social injustice, abuse, hurtful actions by any male or female against others. It’s almost like she didn’t see or feel the discrimination between the sexes, religions and economic conditions, functioning from a highly spiritual nature. Sheryl thinks when men and women further evolve and act with a soul-based integrity as she always did because as an empath and medium she has a strong connection to Spirit and the Oneness of Being, relationships between men and women will finally be equal and the power structure in the family and workforce will be just. Sheryl believes we must continue to help all people speak up and protect our “First Right Amendments” which are also severely challenged at this tipping point in human history. Power does not make right as only truth and selflessness, love and compassion, can lead to better times.
Deborah’s family backstory played into the themes of this book. Deborah goes on to say that her father was the only male Jew to survive a pogrom in his village in 1918. He was five at the time, and her grandmother hid him in the house of a “crazy woman” Because she had a reputation, Deborah’s grandmother knew the Cossacks would be too terrified to enter her house. It worked and her father survived the rampage. He and his sisters and her grandmother escaped Russia by hiding underneath the hay in a wagon that transported soldiers across the border to Poland. That story of emigration made its way into the novel. Deborah has always wanted to thank the woman who saved her father. She never knew her name or any details about her. But she became the character Hadassah and this homage to her is Deborah’s way or remembering honoring and thanking her to her contribution to her families survival.
Deborah tells us this is the right book for the right time. Deborah says, “The earth is sick and all the animals on it. We live in a world of bipolarity. One day we’re hopeful. The next day we’re in despair. The stock market is up: No, it’s down. We’re on the brink of losing our democracy: wait, perhaps, we’ve saved it. Racial discrimination feels hopeless. The pandemic is raging. Conspiracy theories abound. And the next crisis is brewing and about to explode: mental illness. And with mental illness comes increased homelessness, which then further exacerbates mental illness and round and round. Mental illness will be unbridled as a result of societies increasing complexities and dysfunction. Our health care system and our social network is unprepared as it has always been to deal with the exponential growth of mental instability.”
Sheryl as an empath knows this reality to be true at this timeline in human development and in her book A New Life Awaits addresses the fact that every soul who has chosen a physical life is dealing with some form or physical or emotional trauma and this life offers everyone the opportunity to heal in so many ways.
Sheryl writes, “Whether in a body or in pure energy, the soul is the essence and complete oneness of Spirit’s Intelligence and Universal Love and travels with us through time and space, lifetime after lifetime, as we gather experiences to refine our already magnificent soul. Death, in my opinion, is merely the next destination or adventure on our continuous circle of life.”
In reading A New Life Awaits, Sheryl knows you will discover much synchronicity with your own daily observations and find comfort in validating many of your dearest wishes to live life in an expansive and bolder approach, creating new perspectives, new thoughts, taking you in the direction that your soul and heart were born to experience. Unencumbered by the rules and limitations of societal or family systems that may have temporarily made you forget the amazing, loving, magnificent entity that you are that was born to walk in delight on our beautiful earth landscape and in spiritual light. You will find that a new life awaits you, and know that you do not walk alone.
Deborah tells us this story need to be in the world. She hopes this story brings darkness into light. There is hope and a cure that is as old as time for mental illness. Yes, medicine might be the only answer depending on a some people’s illness. But if society can embrace someone with mental illness and provide support by making people feel seen, we can go a long way in healing society. And if society at large is mentally ill, which she believes it is, then it is critical that we begin to remember who we are. Spiritual beings who are experiencing a three- dimensional reality that offers us the opportunity to draw on our eternal nature as souls who have the personal power to transform, heal and create through their thoughts and actions a better reality for themselves and others. Any challenge is merely a way to find greater hope, love and compassion if seen correctly not as good or bad just experience.
Deborah would like readers of Synchronicities on the Avenue of the Saints to take away with them after reading the novel which delves into the subjects of love, acceptance and the importance of connection as well as minimizing the weight of the past, which can then lead to greater self -awareness, expanding the potential in the here and now tremendously. When everyday magic, coincidences and synchronicity become your way of life, you are aligned to your ancestors and souls of the past always by your side to guide and help you face any challenge here in the physical world. So the truth of our real being is what Deborah might want you to gather and bring into your life for in knowing your true essence, you are free of many illusionary fears and limitations.
We thank Deborah Gaal author of Synchronicities on the Avenue of the Saints for an interesting look at many of the challenges faced by all of us these days in the 21st century. For like many of us who have hoped that science and technology would bring an illumination of our divine spiritual gifts, it seems, instead it has created a whole new world of limiting or untruthful ideologies that we must now overcome, if we are to raise to a higher vibration of just, kind and workable solutions, which is the way of the soul.
In summarizing today’s episode of Healing From Within we have seen have in a fictional story based partially on the realities of Deborah Gaal’s life, a brilliant young physicist Noah Friedman, who is bipolar and is racing against time before the experimental drug either steals his mind or his life will stop, to halt the manufacturer aiming to turn a huge profit on a questionable medicine. As Noah frees himself from the medicine to find other means to self-heal, he aligns himself to a group who eventually help him and themselves in the process. All the events eventually lead to the realization that love creates a synchronicity with what and who is loved.
Deborah writes, “ After Noah’s mother Sally’s wedding a neurologist poked, prodded and scanned Noah one last time, determining he had suffered no permanent damage from his years on the drug Selexikote. No signs of early onset Alzheimers. Jean Paul, a shaman, had already rendered this diagnosis insisting Noah had been healed by his initiation into his spiritual practice and said, “ You came into this world with all knowledge. It is in your bones. When the information is needed you will remember.” Jean-Paul shared his teachings during countless hours of hospital vigil refusing to leave Noah’s side acting as a talisman to keep him in this world. The sound of chanting had lulled him to sleep and brought him back. When at last Noah’s strength returned the shaman announced a trip to oversee the construction of a medical facility in Africa. Shaman and disciple said their goodbyes.”
Deborah and Sheryl would have you remember as spirits having a physical life you have the wisdom within to navigate the challenges of this physical world and the ability to create health, prosperity and happiness with your thoughts which can translate into reality. We also have the ability to self-heal and in learning meditation and gathering knowledge through alternative healers, energy workers, shamans and spiritual teachers, it becomes possible to transform negativity and foster well being and greater love for life. So please seek out ways to enlarge the spiritual knowledge you were born with and find peace through the truth of knowing you are a being of infinite potential.
Sheryl Glick host of Healing From Within and author of A New Life Awaits: Spirit Guided Insights to Support Global Awakening invites you to visit her website www.sherylglick.com to listen to and read about leaders, changemakers, visionaries, healers, scientists, spiritualists and educators who help us to rediscover the true nature of life, both spirtuallly and physically in order to heal mind, body and soul. Shows may be heard on www.dreamvisions7radio.com and www.webtalkradio.net.
