What do our physical health, our relationship to the earth, and the practice of dowsing have in common? It turns out, a great deal!

I grew up in a rural culture in which dowsing was practiced regularly. My father would bend two coat hangers into L shapes, hold one in either hand, and walk through flooded fields. When the hangers crossed, he knew that he was standing over the location of a broken or clogged tile that drained the fields. Bill, a member of our country church, also dowsed, but for wells. He cut a forked willow or peach branch, holding either end of the Y in each hand. Once he had me hold the ends of the branch as it tugged down over a water dome. It would have removed the skin from my palms if I had held on very tight, the pull was that strong!

This practice is something I accepted as commonplace. My father tested each of us for our ability to dowse. While dowsing comes more naturally for some, most can learn how to hold an intention without words (like a broken tile, or location of a water dome), only image, and then relax into the world. Artists and scientists utilize this state called flow when creating, a state also entered by accomplished athletes and high-level meditators. When in this state, we are open to much more than our everyday consciousness allows. In fact, the cerebral cortex, until recently that area of the brain most associated with consciousness, quiets, and older areas of the brain become more active. There is a feeling of timelessness, of empathy, and often, of universal love. Steven Kotler reports that athletes who open to the flow state are able to receive inner guidance which allows them to do superhuman feats thought impossible. And importantly, the more often these states are entered, the easier it is to access them. Kotler calls this evolutionary: the brain is evolving (Kotler 2014).

But back to dowsing—and flow states. What exactly happens? In my adult years I have questioned the mystery of it. When I was pregnant with my second son, I learned biofeedback to stop headaches, which also helped with labor. I quickly recognized this relaxed state is how I felt in dowsing. My blood pressured lowered, muscular tension released, and I felt energetically large. Imagery appeared. This spurred a literature search on dowsing. I learned something important was happening in consciousness, something that may be critically important in restoring us and our earth to health.

Neuroscientists studying high level dowsers, meditators, and more recently, super-athletes, have found these individuals are able to consciously use more of their brains. We know that our emotional and physical health is supported by relaxation states, states that register as alphabrain waves (8-13.9 Hz). Cortisol levels, helpful in fight or flight situations, contribute to negative health consequences if they linger. Alpha is a baseline state, one in which we are not only relaxed but also receptive.

The next lower brain waves, theta (4-7.9 Hz)are those of REM sleep, meditation, insight, and taking in novel information. This is a state that requires some cultivation to enter consciously, one devalued in the last 200-300 years when we championed rational thought. Imagery may appear. In REM (rapid eye movement) sleep in which we dream, we experience this unconsciously. But it is possible to enter the frequency of high theta/low alpha, or 7.8 Hz, consciously. In this frequency we are relaxed and receptive to novel information. This is the flow state of artists, meditators, super-athletes, and dowsers.

But as it turns out, this 7.8 Hz is also the fundamental frequency of the “resonating cavity” in which we live (the atmosphere), a frequency calculated by dividing the electrical charge of the ionosphere with its distance to the earth (Ross, Wright 1990). When we are in resonance with the earth's cavity, we are receptive to the other, including the non-human. We can hear the "language" of the plants and animals. In nature we more easily experience this mindlessness in which we are at one with the earth and its beauty. For our health, it has also been shown that in this state in which we often experience love, empathy, and compassion, we also produce immune supporting antibodies which fight pathogens (Martinez 2014).

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung said that healing happens when the patient is put back in contact with the Divine Order, reestablishing a healthy balance. Many healing disciplines acknowledge this. Our ignorance of this has threatened not only our own health, but also that of our planet. In fact, it seems that our continuance on earth, at least in the way that we have known it, depends on this heightened consciousness and our ability to re-establish resonance with our Earth.

Patricia Damery is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Napa, California, a Biodynamic organic farmer, and author of Farming Soul: A Tale of Initiation.
pdamery@patriciadamery.com