 Hi, I'm Jackie Weirach and we are premiering a new show here at Orca Media called You and Your Health. And there's so much that we could be talking about, about the history of health care in the world through the centuries. We could be talking about what's happening with Obamacare. We could be talking about the Affordable Care Act, which if you didn't know, it's the same thing. Or we could be talking about how we as individuals could be more proactive in caring for our health and rather than going the traditional route of go to a doctor, have the doctor practice medicine. And then in general what I've been discovering is prescribed pharmaceutical pills to cure your ails which may or may not work and may conflict with different things that you're doing that maybe you're not telling your doctor about. I found that for me personally reaching out and doing what some would call alternative medicine for personal wellness is a route that's more successful for me and others that I know. So we're going to be bringing in different guests here to Orca Media Studios to talk about their practices and the different ways that they endeavor to help individuals. Our first guest today is Wendy. And Wendy has a practice here in Montpelier on State Street called Lucid Path Wellness, is that correct? So Wendy, welcome to the first show. Thank you for having me on your first show. And tell me more about what brought you here to Montpelier in particular and I read your book this weekend and it's just fascinating. It's called Slaying the Mouse. It's a story of her helping a young man who is in a coma and that's all I'm going to say right now because it's a fascinating adventure working in the spiritual realms. So Wendy, what brought you here? Well, I came to Vermont in 2004 and I came here and worked for the state. I was a psychotherapist working for an employee assistance program. And I did that until 2014 and at that time I had had an alternative healing practice out of my house under the radar doing shamanic healing and it was just a word of mouth and it pretty much still is just a word of mouth practice. But I kind of was feeling like there was something more and these interesting synchronicities happened in 2013. Well it started with a bat in my chair. A bat? Yeah. Aren't they normally like hanging from their afters? I reckon. So I can give you the very short story version of the story. My husband and I were having dinner in our little family room and I was sitting in this old beat up chair that came with the house. It's a really old house that we live in and the previous owner left us some antiques and I was sitting in my chair which was just trashed. It's you know the springs are hanging out of the bottom and it's just ripped. It's really comfortable but I was starting to eat my dinner and I heard this really strange metallic vibration and I couldn't figure out what it was so I stood up. I couldn't even tell where it was coming from. I stood up and then it stopped and I sat back down and it started again and then the dogs came over and the dogs are all circled around me. And so I figured out that it was coming from the chair. My husband and I lifted the chair up, turned it upside down, got a flashlight and looked inside and down in the very corner was this tiny little bat. And so since I have this shamanic slant I took this as a very personal message because the bat symbolizes death and rebirth and shamanism. So I figured something's about to change. So we took the chair outside and I'd got a long handled wooden spoon and I carefully pulled the little bat guy out of the chair and put him on the driveway and he crawled off on his wing elbows and hopefully he was okay. He was super cute. So it was really strange, I mean my chair in the house we'd never had a bat in the house before that or since. I know bats can get in houses but we don't have a chimney, a traditional chimney. So I have no idea how the hell the bat got in the house. I guess it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You got the message. Yeah. So within a week of that experience I was watching an interview just on this subscription website that I belong to and I just happened to look at this one interview. The name of it, the title of the interview didn't really get my attention but I clicked on it and was listening to this inventor talk about this technology that he created and I was so blown away by the research he was citing that they had, it was kind of informal research but over a decade they had collected a lot of data on this particular technology and I had such a strong reaction to listening to him and I haven't had that kind of reaction many times in my life but when I do have it I pay attention. So within 48 hours of watching that interview I had booked a flight out to Colorado and scheduled sessions in this thing called the life vessel which is the technology he had invented and so I flew out there and had really mind blowing experiences and was working on a business plan on the plane home because I just, I knew I wanted to bring this technology to Vermont. And so it was exactly a year later the same week that I was in the life vessel in Colorado that I opened in on State Street in Montpelier, Lucid Path Wellness with the life vessel. That's great. Yeah. Did you, many of our viewers may not know much about shamanism or the life vessel so can you explain more about both? Absolutely. Well I mean it's all very strange. It's not well known to the American population. It's strange. It's strange. I'll say it's strange because it is. I mean it's just not mainstream stuff obviously hence the title alternative. I'm hoping that someday it'll be more mainstream because it's pretty profound stuff and it's actually very simple. Well maybe the shamanic stuff isn't very simple but let's see where should I I can explain, I'll explain the life vessel first. And actually I have since I opened two and a half years ago, I have upgraded from the life vessel to what's called the energy genesis. And it's the same technology, it's actually the inventor's original conception. Wow. And so it took him a long time to bring this into fruition. So what it is, the energy genesis is it's a giant chamber that you recline in. And it shouldn't work but it does. You've said that. Why do you say that? I say that because no one knows why it works. The concept is really simple. It uses light and sound. And the sound is music and the music is chosen specifically for the energy genesis. It's music that exists out in the world. It's just chosen for the quality of the sound, the instruments that are used and the notes that are played. So the music and then there are these light bulbs. There's five of them that are recessed in these mirrors, these octagonal mirrors. And the light bulbs are just incandescent bulbs that are painted the colors of the spectrum. So they're nothing fancy. And the chamber itself is this giant sphere. It's like nine feet in diameter. And you can fit one or two people in there. And what happens when you're reclining in there is that when the music starts playing and the light and the music work together, they create a resonance, your body entrains to it and you start feeling your body drop down into relaxation. What does entrained to it mean? Well, basically that your body matches the frequencies and your brain in particular. And my understanding is the research has shown is that the dominant brain wave that you attain when you're in the energy genesis is a delta brain wave, which is a really slow, very deep relaxation. So when you're asleep and you're in delta, that's like the deepest sleep. This can take you actually lower than your deepest sleep if you let yourself go in there. So the idea is that once your body goes into this really deep state of relaxation, that the research has shown your autonomic nervous system is starting to reset and balance. And then when that happens, exactly, your body starts to heal itself. Physical stuff, emotional stuff and toxins start off-gassing from your cells when you're in there. You start drinking a lot of water to help flush out those toxins. So you talk about that on one of your body knows to do, is that now? Well, that's the whole thing is that my tagline is your body knows what to do. And the idea is that when you're not feeling well, you want to sleep. And the reason is because that's the time your body regenerates and starts to heal itself. So this getting in the energy genesis is like condensed deep relaxation that promotes self-healing. So that's really the concept behind it. And I think the only way I can describe the experiences, and this is using, you have to use your imagination, but it's akin to being inside of a giant musical instrument. So it's kind of like you're inside of a cello or a grand piano, and you're resonating with all the tones and the frequencies in there. Yeah. So why does it take so long to... You need to be replenishing with water, electrolytes afterwards for a couple weeks, right? Yeah, the chamber is designed to be used ideally three sessions in three consecutive days. And that consistently gives your nervous system the message of relaxation. Because typically we're not in that state. So it reinforces it in those three days. And then for the next three weeks, you're continuing to process those sessions. So you have to continue to drink a lot of water for that period of time so that you can continue to flush out the toxins. And in addition, not do any other kind of... Energy medicine. Yeah, for the first 14 days, you want to avoid chiropractic and acupuncture and massage and Reiki and craniosacral, all those other energy medicine modalities because it's just too much information for your body to process and it could throw you into a deeper detox, which is not always pleasant. Right. Okay. Now it makes sense to me. Yeah, see, I was saying, joking earlier, that I don't do moderation and that goes with healing too. If I'm going to be pursuing personal healing, I'm getting acupuncture every other day. I'm getting massages and I'm like, wait a minute, I can't do any of that for three weeks afterwards. But the not detoxing in a pleasant way is... It's good motivation. Yeah, good. Thanks for explaining that. No, that's no problem. And the shamanism. Yes, that. Well, that's... How did you get involved in that? How did I get involved? Well, the... I'll try to do the short version of the story. Started, I would say officially in 98, even though I didn't know it was starting. In 98, I started having spontaneous visionary experiences. Not a lot, but enough to get my attention. What were they like? Well, they were... They weren't like dreams. The very first one I had, I was actually awakened by my neighbor. I lived in Denver at the time. I was awakened by my neighbor who was mowing his lawn Saturday morning. And I had really bad eyesight, so I squinted. I woke up hearing his lawnmower and his kids screaming and playing and having a great time. But I looked at the clock and it said 7.57. And I thought it should be against the law to mow the lawn on Saturday morning before 8 o'clock. Before 10 o'clock. Before 11 o'clock. And so I was very much awake and my room was really bright with sunlight. And I just... I decided I'm going to try to sleep some more. So I just closed my eyes and I was dreaming. The only thing I can say is that I was like a hitchhiker in someone else's body. I was looking out of someone else's eyes. I had access to someone else's thoughts. And she was going through this experience and basically it's kind of gruesome. She was being led to her execution in an electric chair. And so she had a guard on either side of her and she was shackled. And she was wearing, you know, kind of like this sort of pajama-ish outfit. And she wasn't quite stable. I could perceive that. Yeah, I remember too when I had this first visionary experience. I was just a couple of years out of graduate school for clinical psychology. So I didn't tell anyone about these experiences except for my now husband, John. I told him about them and he thought they were cool. But I, you know, I was... So what were you thinking of yourself as being trained for clinical psychology and having... Well, I mean you could easily go into the, I am hallucinating. I am delusional direction. It was really strange. It wasn't unsettling. It actually wasn't frightening to me to have these experiences because I go through the whole death experience with her. And it was intriguing. It was really intriguing. And I, after the experience, after the kind of vision wound down, and I, because I was going back and forth between my focus in my bedroom and my focus in this dream experience. And I kept testing to see if I was awake. Am I really awake? And I would hear the lawnmower and I would hear the kids playing. I could, you know, I could squint my eyes a little bit and see the sunlight. And I'd be like, and I'd close my eyes and I'd be a little bit farther along in linear time in the experience. So after it, after it, after she died in the electric chair, I came, brought my attention back to my body. My body couldn't move. It was like paralyzed and that's when I freaked out. And so I just slowly started to move my fingers and kind of come back. And so that was the freakiest part of the whole thing. And then I wrote everything down. So you tracked this each time you did it? Well, I tracked it that time, yeah. But I still, it's one of those things that I probably didn't need to write it down because it's so imprinted on my brain because the experience was so strange, so extraordinary to me. But you did write this story. I did. Of slaying the mouse. And I highly recommend this book. It's fascinating, absolutely fascinating. And it can be found at your store. What's the address? It's 97 State Street. 97 State Street, which is here in downtown Montpelier. And we'll put all of your information at the end of the show and in Lower Thirds too. So people will know where to go to find out more about this. Do you want to tell a little bit about the story? Yeah, sure. So that first visionary experience led to me, I didn't know this at the time, but all these synchronistic events happened again in my life. This was like the first time they really started to kick in. And I ended up studying under this woman who called herself a shaman. In Denver? In Denver. And that was a short period of time. And I learned how to vision intentionally. And so I would say my apprenticeship started about then. I ended up training mostly under another teacher later on. His name is Hank Wesselman. Early in my apprenticeship, my little brother, my younger brother, he's actually six feet tall, was dating this woman whose brother mysteriously slipped into a coma. And of course everybody was really concerned and freaked out. And nobody understood what was going on with him. And they knew about my practice and asked me to check in with this young man, who I called Jason in the book. And that started this whole adventure. I checked in with Jason shamanically three times a week over a period of nine months. Maybe a little bit less frequently towards the end of the nine months. But in the beginning I was pretty regular and I took copious notes after each adventure connecting with him. And the experience is really strange. It was a profound experience for me as an apprentice learning this practice. And it's my invisible friends, my helping spirits, whatever you want to call them. They highly encouraged me to write it down, but they showed me a movie marquee. They showed it to me as a visual medium, the story. I was like, well I don't know how to write a screenplay so I'll write the book. And then actually I ended up writing, pretending I knew how to write a screenplay and then I wrote a screenplay and that's what this version of the book is based on, is the screenplay that I tried to write. So yeah, it just captures my, it's written in, I broke a lot of literary rules. It's written in third person. I'm a character in the book. I didn't want to be the star of it. I wanted the shamanic, it's like a case study to me. I wanted the shamanic practice to be the star of it. And also Jason's experience, what he comes to understand about his coma experience and how he evolves in response to that experience. That's what I really wanted it to capture that. You did very well. It gives me chills just hearing you say it. And I can't believe that our time is up already. I thank you very much for coming. I am very much looking forward to actively participating with your practice beginning next week and seeing what my experience is like. And I think because there's so much that you do, I'd like to bring you back again for another show later this summer if that would be something you would be open to. I love that, are you kidding me? Awesome. It's been fun. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you viewers for tuning in and watching our first episode of You and Your Health. This is something I've been thinking about doing for a long time and I'm glad we've finally gotten it off to ground thanks to our wonderful team here at Orca Media. And until next time, namaste.