Physician Healer Teacher Community
HEALER MEDICINE
These pages are about my journey as Healer
Healer Curriculum Vitae (bottom of page)
Becoming a physician was not training in becoming a healer (one who is able to heal, to make sound or whole). Medical training was all about being a curer (one who is able to end a disease condition or problem by treatment or appropriate action). Curing and healing are overlapping concepts that often, but not always, travel together.
Both healing and curing is wonderful powerful work to be involved in. I am not placing a negative connotation on either one and see both as fantastic accomplishments. It was my medical training that allowed me to see the distinction between healing and curing. It was during this time that I met people that were cured but not healed, and others that were healed but not cure.
I met many individuals who were cured of serious medical conditions through the application of modern medical practice. There were people who were considered critical and walked away cured. There were others with serious tumorous masses that were cured. I came to realize that while many of these people were cured, it was also true that many of these people never healed, never became "more whole" in a broaders sense. Some were angry intolerant individuals who had horrible relationships with their family and everyone else (including their caregivers).
Becoming more sound and whole (i.e. healing) refers to more than just the physical. That is why someone can be healed but not cured. I had the good fortune of meeting many individuals that lost their battle with a terminal condition and died. Yet I am here to testify and voice to you that they had great healings before their death. Through the process of facing their mortality the healed. They healed relationships with family and old lost friends. They expressed kindness in their every action. They forgave themselves and others. They brought wholeness to their family life. They healed big time. They were not cured, they died.
I came to appreciate that I was both a physician and a healer. I went through the process of becoming a physician. Then I became a physician who was also a healer. Currently I know myself as a healer who is also a physician.
Aumdoc's Healing Medicine Curriculum Vitae
"Curriculum Vitae - Healer "
(A résumé; also called curriculum vitae or CV, is a document that contains a summary or listing of relevant job experience and education. --Wikepedia)
Aumdoc is Richard J. Clofine, D.O., F.A.C.O.O.G., A.B.H.M.
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Home: 2880 Hadrian Drive, Snellville, GA 30078
Family: divorced, 3 children & 1 grandchild
Birthdate: 2-22-53, Philadelphia, PaResident of Atlanta, GA since 1989
Cellphone: 770-633-4257
Personal fax: 770-217-0614
Here are aspects of my life, with comments, that I directly relate to major teachings I have had about Healing, and becoming a Healer.
With benefit from 5 decades of retrospection, I have come to more clearly understand where my learning occured.
Born February 22, 1953 in Philadelphia, PA.
I grew up with no special interests in music, art, nature or spirituality.
1968 (age 15) First class in Hatha Yoga taken from Grace Stern at her suburban home on Surrey Lane, Havertown, PA.
First chanted Aum.
Grace Stern was my first yoga teacher. I grew up in a baby boomer middle class jewish suburban neighborhood of Philadelphia. Grace was a beautiful Italian woman who had married an intense jewish man, Sid Stern, who ran United News Agency. Grace had "gone over the edge" (according the the gossip in the neighborhood) and had transformed her basement dance studio into a Yoga Studio. Grace was always riding the crest of the wave. I dabbled in these things minimally through high school years and began to more seriously engaged them the summer outside of high school.
Grace's yoga was styled after Swami Satchidananda's Integral Yoga Hatha.
Grace held safe space for me to see things differently.
Thank you so much!!
1968 First experience with sacred plant medicine.
1970 Dismemberment Experience and introduction into the shamanic world view.
1971 First read and use Be Here Now and The Psychedelic Experience.
1971 First Healing Circle at Mr N's hippie farm at the Sassafras River on the Chesapeake Bay, many hours chanting
krishna to the stars.
1971 Meteor Shower baptism.
3/1972 Formal initiation into Meditation.
6/1972 Move to Divine Light Farms, 5 years of learning earth medicine.
First healing herb garden.
First exposure to Energy Medicine.
Five years of intense interest in Natural Healing.
11/1972 Spent 6 weeks in India.
1976 Farm is sold, I return to and experience college career as a spiritual path.
1976, 1977 Assistant manager of health food store while in college.
1979 My mother, Jolyn, dies and I realize she was a true healer of community and families.
1977,78,79 Frustration in entering my chosen lifepath, I was denied entry into Medical School for 3 years.
1979 Enter Osteopathic Medical School (Osteopathic Medicine) and meet my MENTOR J. Gordon Zink, D.O.
1981 Homedelivery of son Matthew (in my second year of medical school) was the first birth ("first-breath")I ever witnessed.
1982 Start one year predoctoral fellowship in Osteopathic Manipulation spending time working with physicians
who are healers (e.g. John Upledger, D.O., Viola Frymann, D.O.)
1984 to 1989 Five years of postgraduate clinical training in Obstetrics and Gynecology.
1989 Start medical practice in Atlanta.
1990 Rededication of interest in healing plants. The study of sacred plant medicine leads to my intense interest in cross-cultural shamanism.
1991 Several study sessions led by Ed Anderson in Atlanta were my first classes in shamanism
1992 Introductory course from Foundation for Shamanic Studies.
My teacher was Dana Robinson who did a great job.
1992-2007 Every 3-4 months I would spend a weekend alone in sacred space at Fort Mountain State Park; a powerful series of journeys.
1993-2003 Ten years of study and initiation with with Oscar Miro Quesada's
Pachacuti Mesa Shamanism (eclectic approach to north coastal Peruvian mesa/san pedro shamanism).
1994 One year Inca Medicine wheel training and initiation with Alberto Villoldo.
1989-2001 Ob-Gyn practice delivering 1800 newborns and operating out of 3 hospitals.
1995 Marraige fail beginning several 'dark night of the soul' years.
1998 New friends help me to release pain into the past learn to play again.
1995 - 2000 Held a continuous ceremonial series of 60 Full Moon Fires
1999,2000,2002 Sacred pilgrimages to Fleshlab in the holy land of BURNING MAN with brothers Steve and Chip.
1997 (?) First Fourth of July Georgia Reunion.
2001 First Big Dance in Georgia.
2001 Start working with Peruvian Jungle Shaman.
2003 Attend my first Beltaine Celebration, opening my heart to community.
2004 Fall in love with dearheart Sara Evans.
2001 - 2006 Working at Millennium Healthcare. Temple of Health Radio show
ARTICLES ON HEALING
Article on Healing Partnerships
Home Intro Aumdoc's Lotus Healing Medicine Pages
Ritual & Ceremony Temple of Health Radio Show Links & References
Events Divine
Light Farms
