November 19, 2003
Awakened Woman's Circle is working for peace
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"Meaning is what heals us":
An interview with JoEllen Koerner
By Stephanie Hiller
JoEllen Koerner,
her daughter Kristi, with Kristi's sons
"When anybody's not feeling well, it's that great invitation to take stock . . . If you have a respect for life, it takes you to interesting places but it also holds a presence. You kind of just know that in all this there'll be something for you, and it's very sustaining. " -- JoEllen Koerner
JoEllen Koerner is a nurse from South Dakota who became President of the American Organization of Nurse Executives. But none of her training or experience was equal to the challenge she faced when her daughter was stricken ill after giving birth to her first child. "I had spent my life in one field and I was happy and proud of the way it saves lives, and when none of it worked, and suddenly a whole new healing paradigm came in, it took us to another place and brought us health and wholeness."
That new paradigm was the healing practice of the Lakota Sioux.
JoEllen had grown up among the Lakota Sioux, who had been helpful to generations of her Mennonite family. Despite their proud tradition, the Lakota have the poorest health statistics of any Indian population. Their average life expectancy is 46.2 years. This poor health is linked to their extreme poverty. Reservation income is around $3,350, according to Koerner.
After earning her PhD at the innovative Fielding Institute in Santa Barbara, she worked at the Sioux Valley Hospital, where she helped to establish a program that brought Lakota healing traditions into a modern hospital setting. That is when she met Wanigi Waci, a traditional healer. Although the program was eventually dissolved with the arrival of a new director, the friendship between Wanigi and JoEllen did not end there.
Some time later, JoEllen's daughter Kristi became pregnant. After a difficult pregnancy, her labor turned into a life-threatening ordeal culminating in a Caesarian. The baby, after a prolonged period in the birth canal, was in critical condition. It was the beginning of a time of terrible difficulty for Kristi and her family, one in which modern medicine failed. She suffered from terrible pain and discomfort that no medical doctor appeared able to diagnose or correct. When Wanigi Waci offered his assistance, JoEllen was ready to receive it. The Lakota community helped Kristi choose life, healing not only her own body but addressing the four-generation lineage of maternal ancestors who had struggled in childbirth.
JoEllen has written a book about this experience with the arresting title, Mother, Heal My Self: An Intergenerational Healing Journey Between Two Worlds, published by Crestport Press here in Northern California. It's a powerful story that effectively conveys the intensity of the healing process that mother and daughter went through together. Reading it, I was struck by JoEllen's open-ness to the suggestions given her by tribal healers and her willingness to act on them. We spoke by telephone last September.
AWe : This concept of intergenerational healing is fascinating. Would you say that it's the focus of the book?
JK: For me, that was the biggest discovery. The generational notion is one prevalent in many cultures. What I love about Wanigi Waci's culture -- if you'll hold up seven fingers, finger number four is you. On one side, there's your child, your grandchild and your great grandchild. On the other side are your parent, your grandparent and your great grand parent. Our story, and our energy and our connectedness spans that width.
AWe : Kristi's healing embraced the four generations of women who preceded her in the maternal line. When we heal ourselves, are we actually healing the people who came before us? Or are we just ending a pattern that's been passed down to us?
JK: My understanding is that when we free an energetic pattern of bondage, all things connected by that span are changed. My mother had been a very dedicated civic woman who did all the right things but was never very present. She's 83. She does kitchen Tai Chi with a friend and she went camping for her 82nd birthday! The woman has absolutely transformed. She doesn't even look the same physically. As I got clear, I no longer expected anything of her or judged her, so she was free to do that for herself. When we're not disappointed and we don't feel bad anymore, other people don't have to feel that from us. It's a liberation of consciousness.
AWe : Does that have some effect on the people who … have already died?
JK: I'll have to assume that you're open to all sorts of things . . . I don't think we ever really die. We transition to other dimensions. Our soul is always in place and according to Wanigi Waci, we're in many places at the same time. We have access to other dimensions and when we're open to them and see them, they're absolutely there. So for that seven generational span, yes. If we become liberated, so does everything in the span.
AWe : That's pretty exciting!
JK: Isn't it wonderful? I mean, it's so hopeful.
AWe : And we need some hope right now.
JK: Especially now, as the earth starts to shift and we become energized, there's an increased tendency toward violence, depression, suicide, in people who are inflexible -- because increasing energy vibration requires increasing flexibility. There are a lot of children whose parents had difficulty. They may not be present in their lives anymore but forgiving them frees up the parents as well, who were only responding to the best of their ability at the time. Intergenerational healing is a really important part of getting to a new and better way of being in the world.
AWe : Could you talk more about that energetic shift?
JK: Scientists and spiritualists are coming together in an interesting way. Scientists studying the earth are finding that there's an increasing frequency at the core of the earth and so there's increasing energy coming into our bodies from the earth as well as from the universe. And since we are living beings, we respond to everything that's around us. The Western world defines the material world by the five senses. But the new science is showing that we really have seven senses. Another one is your endocrine system and another is your immuno system, and they respond to the emotional and energetic things that surround your body as well. Candace Pert showed that 18 months before you develop cancer, you have a debilitating event and that disrupts the energy flow to the cells, which then makes them mutate and develop cancer.
AWe : So we are undergoing a planetary shift and all of the intensification of the global drama that's going on, with terrorism and our government's response -- how do you see that, in terms of this shift?
JK: I really think that -- we're all connected, you know -- what's really being required of us is to be more open, and just to reclaim our curiosity, which is our birth right. Children are incredible, they're curious and they're always exploring, they see what's right in front of them. I think we're trying to hold onto one right way -- or THE right way -- and the old way, while it's good, it's not complete. And we start to resource ourselves. Kristi's experience was really about becoming resource-ful (resource dash full). I had spent my life in one field and when none of it worked, suddenly a whole new healing paradigm came in, and it took us to another place and brought health and wholeness.
There's a teacher for each of us. It has to be someone you trust and believe in. We've been getting calls, people who want to meet Wanigi Waci, and he says to tell them the blueprint for healing is in the book, they just have to be open and look in front of them. In your life, there are people around you that you may feel curious about or interested in, and that relationship will lead you to the resources you need. It's a journey and a process, and everybody has the opportunity.
He said, I want to be the immaterial in the material world, that's the only way I can help people. The last thing you would want to be is another sage on the stage! It's not about that, it's about every person having their own ability to heal.
Nothing is ever lost, it all goes back into the greater knowing. We are helping the universe become more conscious and aware through every experience that we have.
AWe : You describe some of the experiences your daughter went through with the medical system where they just failed her. What do you see about the state of our healthcare system?
JK: It just breaks my heart. It just breaks my heart. A few years ago, Wanigi Waci said to me, because we're starting to see an increase of energy, it increases the light. So, he said, everything dysfunctional will be shown. That was when the Clinton era was in difficulty. Then he said, You'll see it in the Catholic Church. And then he called me one day and he said, You'll see it in business, and the Enron story came out. And then he said, healthcare. And right now we have terrible things going on. I think it's the end of an era. There's the old model of power, control by a few, and what's happening that's so exciting is, as the Berlin wall came down in Europe, one more example, the barriers and the walls of power are going down, and people are starting to be resource-ful. That's why the Internet is such a hopeful thing because it gives everyone equal access to information so they can make their own informed decisions.
The healthcare field is being so badly impacted by the way the reimbursement systems are set up; for physicians and for hospitals, they are in direct opposition to each other. So there's a great deal of conflict about doing the right thing and doing the things that one can afford. Many physicians are very unhappy in their work. It's a hard time and that spills over into patient care.
AWe : I think you used the word patriarchy in the book. Is patriarchy the name of the system that's being brought down?
JK: Yes, I think it definitely is, and it isn't about men or women, it's that worldview, that the qualities of patriarchy are more valuable than the qualities of the feminine. Jeanne Achterberg wrote a remarkable book called Women As Healers. She did a study on healing and found there was a time in history when your goddess, your love of the goddess, was very much the human model, and they used rudimentary earth medicine much like the indigenous people. And then came the era of medical science, and she looked around the medical school and saw all these pictures of men, and she asked the question, Where are the women?
She discovered that it became a patriarchal thing and it was all about the technology, and how our healing is "anti" -- anti-septics, anti-biotics -- and even the warheads, "surgical strike," oh my goodness. That was the imbalance and what she is calling for now is dancing between opposites -- when the masculine and feminine models can work together, society will become whole.
AWe : That was the point of the healing, wasn't it? To bring the masculine and feminine into balance in your own experience?
JK: Absolutely. Thank you for putting it that way. The bottom line I guess is an invitation to us all to become more aware of the beauty of everything, and let people find their own right path.
My daughter is so . . . different. She was wonderful before, but now, she's so clear. She says, you know mom, I would take 100 days of what we went through for one moment of clarity. Because now, whatever I do is going to be left for my children. So my life really counts.
AWe : As you explained in the book, the feminine is in need of healing because of the oppression in the past --
JK: Look at the earth. Look at the jobs that are primarily women's work. Teaching. How important is that? Where does the money go? To the oil industry. Nursing, walking alongside patients. The money goes to the cardiac surgeon. Certainly there are great skills there. But the disproportionate ration of dollars spent on a few key medical positions…
AWe : To get the balance back, do we need to give some special attention to this wounded feminine?
JK: Boy that's really what's required! In Kristi's case, it was when Waniri Waci said -- let me give you the context. I broke a rule. I never called on my friends for anything because it put them in an awkward position but when she was so ill, I called the best kidney specialist and he said, Sure, send her in. He spent five minutes with her and said, There are no stones, it's impossible, she's too young. She had kidney surgery the next morning for a near ruptured kidney.
I went to see a medicine man. He did a healing ceremony and then told Wanigi Waci that she had five stones -- the last stone was finally taken out by surgery. Those stones were the memory of the five generations of women who had died [or almost died] giving birth, and she had a big decision to make for herself.
That explanation gave me a sense of knowing and a reason for all the suffering. All suffering has a reason and when people don't know it, they get despairing. The meaning of an event is what heals us.
AWe : I think the work of healing the feminine without blaming the masculine is a whole new direction and you're making a big contribution to that.
JK: Stephanie, thank you. I can remember very clearly standing in that kitchen when he said, It's all the oppression of those generations that caused the women to choose to leave, and I said, Well, what do we do? And he looked at me and he said, Well, all you have to do is forgive all male oppression in the world, and the feminine will be restored.
AWe : Have you been able to do that?
JK: (She laughed.) I felt like a Mac truck ran me over. I gasped, I clutched my heart, and I said, How can I possibly do that? He just started to laugh and he said, Well it's so easy. You just have to forgive yourself.
I had to forgive myself because I had such a strong aversion to the masculine abuse in the world. I was putting out more violence.
Stephanie Hiller is the editor of Awakened Woman.