Diane Stein - The Womens Book of Healing: Auras, Chakras, Laying On of Hands, Crystals, Gemstones, and Colors

The ancient women healers knew that the body is more than what is seen. They respected the wholeness of body, emotions, mind, and spirit, saw the Goddess as within all Be-ing, and treated their patients with respect and caring. Healing was a three-way agreement between healer, Goddess, and the person being healed, and healing was an active choice. Such partnerships and participation are missing in todays modern medicine, along with the concepts of wholeness and respect. The great secret of healingthat anyone can do it and can choose itgoes back to the worldwide traditions of the women healers, back to ancient matriarchal cultures that valued the Goddess and women, valued life. Despite modern allopathic medicines denial of this secret, denial of the concept of wholeness, and denial of the Goddess-within, the secret is still fact. Anyone can heal, and anyone can choose well-being. By learning and using the ancient skills of healing, many dis-eases of the body, emotions, mind, and spirit are preventable, or are easily transformed before they become matters for allopathic medicine. The skills of the ancient healers are available, powerful, and very much alive right now.

Womens healing, which is healing for the benefit of women and men, children, animals, and the planet alike, includes such skills as aura and chakra work, colors, creative visualization, meditation states, laying on of hands, psychic healing, and crystals and gemstones. These ancient and universal knowings are elemental, and though long submerged, they have never been lost. Receiving increasing attention in the New Age and Womens Spirituality movements, healing is being re-learned and reclaimed. The Womens Book of Healing demystifies, explains, and teaches these skills in ways that anyone can learn and use. It teaches basic healing, then applies those skills to healing with crystals and gemstonesa beautiful, effective, and empowering aspect of the ancient womens healing methods. Healing and well-being in these ways are within choice and reach, for the benefit and good of all.

Copyright 1986, 2004 by Diane Stein

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Crossing Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com

Crossing Press and the Crossing Press colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.

Originally published in the United States in slightly different form by Llewellyn
Publications [Woodbury, Minnesota], in 1986.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stein, Diane, 1948
The womens book of healing: auras, chakras, laying on of hands, crystals, gemstones, and colors / Diane Stem.[Rev. ed.]
p. cm.
1. Mental healing. 2. Precious stonesTherapeutic use. 3. Women healers.
4. Alternative medicine. I. Title.
RZ401.S8118 2004
615.5dc22 2004003699

eISBN: 978-0-307-78374-5

v3.1

This earth is my sister; I love her daily grace, her silent daring, and how loved I am, how we admire this strength in each other, all that we have lost, all that we have suffered, all that we know: we are stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget: what she is to me, what I am to her.

S USAN G RIFFIN,
W OMAN AND N ATURE: T HE R OARING I NSIDE H ER

Healing is a journey within oneself to reunite body, mind and spirit. The life energy connected with all living things is channeled through one so as to release blocked energy. Exercise, fresh air, sunshine, healthy diet, adequate rest, free expression of emotions all open the passages.

When we give power, our energy, we are nurturing without limiting, caring without controlling. This is true of our relationships with each other, with nature, with the earth.

When we are in need, we are nurtured without being controlled, we are cared for without feeling powerless. We are cradled in plenty.

L EE L ANNING AND V ERNETTE H ART,
R IPENING: A N A LMANAC OF L ESBIAN L ORE AND V ISION

I would like to thank Lee Lanning and Nett Hart for their comments and critiques of this book. Their time, effort, interest, caring, and discernment have been greatly respected and appreciated. I would also like to thank Susan Sheppard and David Speer for healing information and feedback, the late Kay Gardner for encouragement, and the people of Ten Speed Press/The Crossing Press for reissuing this book and making its information available for a new generation of healers.

DEDICATION
for Kay Gardner

I n these times of great global change and upheaval, many ancient healing techniques are surfacing in teachings from a myriad of spiritual, disciplines. Healing is the recognition that wholeness comes when our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and psychic senses are in balanced relationship. In this balance lies the holiness and perfect health both of individual and of Earth.

Woman as Mother has been healer from the beginnings of humanity. As bringer of life, Woman has known which runes to speak, which magic chants to sing, which healing touches to apply, which images to visualize, and which herbs and stones to gather for treating the imbalance of dis-ease.

In the West during the Middle Ages, women were excluded from the new patriarchal medical schools. As a result of patriarchal religious persecution, we were burned and tortured for our healing wisdom.

After being forced underground for centuries, women healers are re-emerging in the twentieth century to take our rightful, ancestral places at the forefront of all healing practices.

Diane Steins comprehensive text, The Womens Book of Healing, brings a wealth of healing knowledge from womens tradition and culture. A thorough exploration of how our unseen energies flow through and around our bodies leads to a complete, practical guide for applying that healing knowledge with our hands, psychic energy, and gemstones. Steins book is an important addition to the libraries of both beginning healers and professional practitioners.

May the compassion and wisdom of Woman continue to bring healing and wholeness to all.