SIACAP and Lightworkers

Many people have talked of late about a large awakening process underway in the world. More and more people are being put on the path of the lightworker. I’ve noticed this explosion of people becoming more in tune with their spiritual selves in my own area of rural, Southern Illinois. When I say Southern Illinois, think more Kentucky and Missouri – where I live is below the Mason-Dixon line and not near major cities.

Region is important because up until recent years, most progressive spiritual practices seemed to take place on the east or west coast of the nation, but for a rural area to have this explosion of people learning about Reiki, or tarot or a host of other lightworker tools is remarkable. Yesterday, I went to an all day Reiki Healing Retreat put on by SIACAP – The Southern Illinois Association of Complementary and Alternative Practitioners. With four 45 minute healing exchanges throughout the day, we broke into small groups of four and took turns healing each other through various modalities. There were two lovely guided meditations, and vendors who read tarot, took aura photographs, sold massage supplies such as eye pillows, and much more.

SIACAP’s mission is “to promote alternative healing modalities through teaching, sharing, and practicing and to promote community health through outreach programs and classes in various modalities.” The modalities?

· Acupuncture/Acupressure

· Chi Gung

· Cranial Sacral Therapy

· Crystal Healing

· Dowsing/Kinesiology

· Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

· Exercise Physiology

· Feng Shui

· Flower and Gem Essences

· Guided Imagery

· Healing Touch

· Herbal Modalities

· Homeopathy

· Hypnosis

· Massage Therapy

· Meditation

· Psych-K

· Recreational Therapy

· Reflexology

· Reiki

· Shamanism

· Tarot reading

· Total Body Modification

· Tai chi

· Yoga

Just to name a few. SIACAP membership is $20 and members who pre-register for the all day retreat get in for $5, even if they are vendors. Not a member? That’s ok, the retreat costs only $10 for non-members if they preregister. As SIACAP is a non profit organization, registration at the door is not that expensive, either. Members who haven’t pre-registered it is $10 and nonmembers who register at the door are only $15. These retreats happen 3 times a year, and the cost at the door is to pay for the location costs, and eventually, guest speakers and teachers.

Why do I bring up the price of a retreat? Because it illustrates that people are getting together to help each other spiritually, not for money, but because it is needed. Once upon a time, to become a Reiki Master you needed $10,000. Now, people are passing on Reiki attunements for $20. This doesn’t mean that Reiki has become an undervalued system, it means that people are recognizing that the world needs as many healers and lightworkers as it can get. There are even some Reiki Masters who pass along attunements for free simply so that people have this skill and can help the world with it.

I think that certain people are instrumental in training more lightworkers. During yesterday’s retreat, all of the Reiki Masters were asked to meet together so that people could get to know each other. As we made our introductions, almost all of us could trace our beginnings on this path back to the SIACAP founder and president, Lorie Allen. Through her continuing education classes at a local Community College, we all first learned how to use our talents and focus our skills on healing touch or Reiki. This one lone woman taught us and then brought us all together and my bet is this is part of her life’s purpose – she is one of those souls who are meant to train and awaken large groups of people. http://www.touchingpaws.com/ is her website, although she is so busy with classes and clients, the class page hasn't been update in a while.

Women and men like her are out there, helping others put their feet on the path of healer and lightworker. Organizations like SIACAP are forming and gaining members because lightworkers are growing in numbers and banding together to share talent, share knowledge, and help others. Have you ever asked yourself why someone didn't start something like this in your community? Maybe, just maybe, you are the person who is supposed to start the group. If you build it, people will come.

For my own personal journey, finding Soul’s Journey online helped plug me into a network of caring people, much like those people who are part of SIACAP. For Soul’s Journey and SIACAP to both come into my life around the same time says to me that something profoundly wonderful is happening. Lightworkers are coming together more and more and together we are finding the support and care we need to help others in meaningful ways. Isn’t that what being a lightworker is all about?

Interested in SIACAP? Go online at http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/SIACAP/ to join the online listserv or go http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=475959990576&ref=ts to see the Facebook group – although many of our members are not very interested in computers, we do have a bit of online presence should you like more information.