Dear Friends,
Another busy year is finishing up with a last work trip and a writing retreat. As you can see by my calendar this 35 th year in the work has been busy. Helping people to heal from trauma and mentoring healers has continued with wonderful teaching opportunities.
While there are no prisons or refugee centers listed on my calendar, each year I get my hands on people from all such situations and more among the general population. Each teaching trip involves engaging the life wounds of individuals who carry the worst of it in heavy hearts, rounded shoulders, painful joints, and mental anguish- all the while saying they are fine. Warm hands have a hospitality all their own that brings out secrets, that longing for wellness, and to let the burden go. This is a wonderful work for my gifts.
The Quaker Initiative to End Torture- QUIT! is twelve years old. I have been teaching the history and current status of American torture as the founding convener of QUIT all this time. Each night I search for news of American torture to share and teach. I offer presentations, publish news stories, and now we are rebuilding the website.
Writing and publishing is a great joy for me. My first book, The Dance Between Hope & Fear, teaching about healing from trauma, continues to bring me high praise from healthcare professionals, clergy, and survivors. My second book, How Far Have You Traveled, is being wrangled by editors with the hope of going to print this year. This second book focuses on having a sense of ones goodness, a powerful idea in healing and all of life. All of December I will be in a solitary retreat in the California desert to work on book three- the stories of my own healing and spiritual adventures. While writing is not an easy or natural act for this learning disabled gay Quaker healer, it’s a necessity.
I have been invited to give the keynote plenary to Great Plains Yearly Meeting. This is the tenth yearly meeting invitation to give a plenary I’ve accepted with gratitude and delight. Recognition from fellow seekers and workers of compassion is energizing.
For 35 years I have worked primarily by invitation and lived mainly on gifts. (I do not recommend this to anyone shy about suspense.) All this time you and many others have kept me on the road- teaching, doing hands-on healing energy work, and reporting new hope from difficult places. I need your help to continue. I need your practical and pragmatic support to do more. I’m only 65 ½. I know there’s more to come. Please help.
In the Light,
John Calvi