Interview for Kauai Community Radio with Tracey Schiavonne, 2003
Tracey: Welcome to Community Profiles; Thanks so much for taking the time to come in and share with us today. Many of you probably know Elandra. She and her husband, Antion, have been mainstays here on Kauai in the healing arts, Hawaiian music and sacred chanting. Elandra's been practicing and teaching a wide range of healing arts for over 30 years, and we're just going to start with how you even got involved with the healing arts. Let people know your roots.

Elandra: I got involved as an answer to a lifelong inner search. The roots of my search actually start as early as birth! Strangely enough I even remember my birth. I felt I was born knowing it was for a reason, to learn about healing consciousness and so I was always searching for it even as a child, and learning and studying constantly. First it was in my place of birth, Denmark , then in New Zealand from 6-21 years, then London , then California , and Hawaii . The most dramatic learning was about what it was NOT! You know how that can be… In London in those days of wild swinging London of the 60’s someone said, "You should be a movie star," and I said, "Okay," and I became it. I worked with Roger Moore…Tony Curtis and many famous people, it was the height of what people seek in terms of desirability of fame and fortune and power, the most excitement you could imagine, yet it was still not what I was searching for. But can you imagine walking away from this? everyone would think you were truly gone nuts! And that is what happened.

This is relevant to your question, because I was searching for consciousness, a certain kind. So one day I found myself in a yoga class and I fell in love with this yoga teacher, Antion, who is my husband for over 30 years! And before I knew it that was the end of my life as a movie star. I was launched into the healing arts as a yoga teacher, director of an ashram yoga center in San Diego , and mother, childbirth teacher and midwife. But it wasn't until I had an accident where I broke my ankle that I really was called into the healing field.

T: Tell us about that.

I was running down a mountain and fell on a rock. I fainted with the pain, and in that moment, I felt like I was being held in the arms of angels. I was carried down this mountain and after my ankle was x-rayed the doctor said, "This is really bad; you must have an operation immediately. 6:30 tomorrow morning and we're going to put pins through it and that's it. There's no alternative, or it'll be badly deformed."

That was what I was faced with, and very expensive too. I went home; I lay down on the bed and my foot was very swollen, very painful, and I felt a hand on the foot and there was nobody in the room. And you know, this sounds like, woo woo foo foo, stuff but this is the truth. And the swelling and the pain went away and I felt utterly blissful. Then my chiropractor friend called and she said, "I'm going to come over and look at it because I'm also a radiologist, I saw the x-rays and I spoke to the doctors and they said that there's no alternative; you've got to have this operation." And I didn't feel like telling her about this experience right then because it was too extraordinary. And she came over that night and she put her hand on my foot and things started happening. And all of a sudden, I said, "Hey, I don't need this operation." I got up, walked around on it, and I called up the hospital and cancelled this 6:30AM operation. Then something else happened that was amazing. The body is in shock after such an accident. I wonder now, how did I have the energy in the morning, to resolve to go for more x-rays? I felt that this ankle that was really badly broken, had been perfectly healed. So I wanted proof. And sure enough, x-rays were taken and the proof was there; it was perfectly healed.

T: And what did the doctors say? Did they even -?

E: You can imagine another extraordinary thing. It was too much for them and it was like I became invisible. It was like - they didn't speak to me anymore. The receptionist didn't say goodbye. I walked out of there as if I were invisible.

T: Amazing. So then what happened?

E: The chiropractor/healer invited me to join her and work with her and we created this miracle healing clinic. Louise Hay was one of our patients and miracles would happen all the time. Patients with tumors who were scheduled for operation, they were miraculously gone. I got my massage therapy certification, and then kept on taking all these courses and classes, in massage and every form of healing I could. In fact I learned and practiced about thirty modalities in all!

T: How, why, did you leave all that to come to Hawaii ?

As you know, Tracey, many of us who move here speak of being “called”. Antion and I were visiting, driving around Hawaii and it was like - this Hawaiian music - we were so utterly entranced by the chanting and the music we had to learn it. It was amazing for Antion, being only into Indian music at that time, having been a rock and roll star, then leaving all that behind to do Indian music, suddenly without looking for it being called to again leave behind his music to move here to embrace yet another! At that time, 12 years ago, it wasn't easy to learn Hawaiian chanting, and the Halau that were available weren't readily available either, so I started teaching myself at first. It felt like it was something I had to do. And then what happened was, always I felt like I still didn't know enough! I had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on spiritual and healing training over a period of some 20 years, and still it was never enough! And then I heard an inner voice, a message from inside that said, "Elandra, give up your need to know," and I became aware that I couldn't figure it out in my mind and my head. I had to let the energy come through, and it was then that it started happening, the magic really started happening. The Lomi Lomi work, plus all the modalities, particularly the abdominal work from Mantak Chia, called Chi Nei Tsang, started synergizing and synthesizing together, creating a form of healing that was extremely effective.

T: And you've been teaching internationally now for how long?

E: For two or three years I have been being invited to teach around the world. What happens is that people - as we know, come to Kauai from all over the world, and somehow they find me like I am on a cosmic internet...One medical doctor was actually sent to me from a psychic who had never heard of me. So they receive a session and then they say, "Wow, this is what I want, this is what I want to learn. I want you to come to Germany , New Zealand , Tibet , South Africa etc and teach." And so I have been - and on the Mainland, too, various locations there, just allowing myself to do that, to pursue these invitations and teach and it's just been incredible to spread the aloha vibrations from this wonderful island to these places around the world where there is such a need for them.

T: Definitely. And you're going to be offering - is this the first time you're offering this training here on Kauai ?

E: It's not the first time I'm teaching, but it's the first time that I'm offering the full teachings that I now have developed and created called Lomi Chi Holographic Healing. It is Spirit coming through in such ways that I have been understanding that this can be taught and that the energy can be extremely healing for people, that the energy moves so that perhaps the sources of the physical problem that haven't really been touched by the medicines and everything that a person may have been doing for let's say… cancer. It came to my understanding that in cancer there is, as part of the original source, a disconnection from yourself, a forgetting to love, a forgetting to communicate - the communication between the cells is lost. The body is a community of cells, so it is vital that they commune together, and the work is a way of restoring that. And with regard to healing cancer, I'd love to tell a story.

T: Yes, please do Elandra, I want to hear this.

E: There's so very much that has been learned in developing this work, Lomi Chi Holographic Healing, and yet in the moment of standing in the energy, it's all let go of, and it comes from within, so it's like Spirit moves so that whatever that person needs happens. They come to understandings that are beyond what you could think of in your head, brain, mind, with the support of this “field”. This Field is the field of what I call all-encompassing knowing that the Hawaiians call the “aka” field of fibers, the morphogenetic field that can be held that knows all, and this understanding just will then happen through the field. So I'm going to tell a little story. This is really one of the most dramatic stories that are actually utterly unbelievable. With cancer there is a fear around that, that it's something that we can die of, and yet because of my experience with my ankle having been healed overnight, I don't see a physical body in the same way. I see the body as being pure energy, and in the state of pure energy – (which of course is all there is, as we are shown by the new quantum scientists these days)--there aren't physical problems! I don’t see physical problems as problems! so it's actually a joy for me to work with the worst of the worst problem cases.
And in this case, a man came to me who had cancer in every single organ and I thought that perhaps he had come to the island to die because he looked like he was about to. He had no energy, no aura around him, and he was like white and gray -
T: Ghostly looking? -
E: Truly so. I was holding my hands in his abdomen, and all kinds of things started happening. I always play Antion's CD, called “One in the Goddess”, because the sound current of it is so high. The Hawaiian music, the sounds, the syllables, the meanings, the kaona of them is so powerful; the vibration is so high that it holds the energy. Some of the chants that Kawaikapuokalani Hewitt has taught us are truly extraordinary. So with this music playing, this is what was happening. Energy started coming into his body and his color changed, his whole body was coming back to life. And two weeks later, I got a call from him and he said, "Elandra, you won't recognize me." And so it was, he was a different person, it looked like he had put on about 30 pounds, and suntanned and radiant! All tests, all medical tests showed that every single cancer in all of his organs was totally in remission, gone.

T: Wow; how could that be? Miracle! Absolutely beautiful.

. E: It's exciting to witness such a thing, and this happens with knees and hips and every kind of problem that people come with, gone. And they come back a few years later and tell me it never came back, so this is permanent, and that is significant. Sometimes symptoms go away and then they come back later, perhaps somewhere else. However, when the original source of the problem is connected with, it doesn't come back. If it's treated in various ways, even alternative/complementary, as we call it, wonderful ways of nutrition and acupuncture and such herbals and Lomi Lomi - all kinds of ways, still it's possible that the problem can come back if the original source is not connected with. So doing that is the joy of this work. And that's why I came to call it by the scientific word "holographic," to convey the Hawaiian all permeating pervasive understanding that all is connected through the aka fibers, including connecting with the original Source, and how to do that, and how the ancient Hawaiians did that, and indeed, it's surprisingly easy when you learn to allow it.

T: A lot of times, the beautiful thing about mastery is that sometimes it is very simple, as long as you realize it is possible.

E: Yeah; it's the allowing of it, isn't it that makes it simple? And it's hard because the mind doesn't see it as simple, the mind always wants to know exactly how this and this and this and it won't - the mind doesn't want to let go enough to allow the magic. The rational mind wants to be in control, right?

T: Yeah; the monkey mind. So it’s about getting out of the way of the monkey mind.

E: Yes, the ways of allowing that mind to be let go of is part the key.

T: And then of course you mentioned how it's really important to stay out of the way; that's one of the things that you talk about in the teaching, in the training, is like really stepping out of the way and letting guidance come through and Spirit come through.

E: Yes, it takes training to be able to do that, it is not so easy, it is the challenge, because we derive our identity from our controlling mind, that so much wants to fix and help in every way. To just be in a place of suspended belief, just utter release, a place of neutrality and compassion that's beyond that, without judgment, it took a lot for me to get there. But science is proving though experiments that instant healing occurs through being able to do that. Lynn McTaggert reports in her book “The Field”, that there was a study that resulted in the discovery that the healers from different traditions and forms of healing, shamanic and Christian or wherever it might have been from, or Lomi Lomi, Hawaiian - these people who were being studied and tested all had this in common, this ability to step out of the way and let, what shall we call it? - Spirit or Source flow through.

T: Divinity or whatever works for you.

E: People need to feel this as readily possible, so helping to make this ability available to more people, empowering them to know they too can do this, is a strong motivator for me. And making the teachings available to those who want them and are in need, whether there is money or not, is important to me. Obviously, when we receive something, we have to give; it has to stay in balance, and yet, I feel that the idea that anybody needs treatment and cannot have it because of money is intolerable to me. The importance of community is part of what is so essential for all of us. There must be help available for everybody who needs it, regardless of money.

T: That's true, and then of course, there are lots of people who have an abundance of money and their health isn't well, so - you can exchange it that way.

E: To live in pono within and without is so important, and community is the beauty of this island, isn't it? It's what people are searching for, come here for. And also the body is a community, the body is a community of cells and when you understand that, then any sickness, any illness, any physical problem, or mental/emotional problem is because of community breaking down within the body. So I feel that community is so important on all these different levels and so I offer that in all that I do, making it available to everybody. And that is the true meaning of ohana, family, and aloha.

T: Let's talk a little bit - because a lot of people are familiar with Lomi, but a lot of people are not familiar with the abdominal work that you do. So would you like to talk a little bit about why you got involved in that and the teacher that you studied with? Let's dive into that a little bit because it seems like such an important foundation of the work that you do.

E: Indeed. Lomi Lomi in some understanding means "path to the stars." And there's an understanding in me from living in Hawaii that perhaps that as we make the trip to the stars we also need to make it back to the body and living in this body maintaining it sacredly is very important to us. To really honor and acknowledge living in this body as being already Spirit, aloha, a feeling you are there, home. Our society has separated mind, body and spirit from each other and made God/Spirit something better and higher, with body being lesser, just a mere vehicle. If you understand energy, the truth about energy is that the body is nothing but energy. The body is pure spirit and science is proving this now. There's no physical evidence that we exist! The zero point field, all of this, the DNA, it can be instantly changed according to perception as shown by Dr. Bruce Lipton. Here in Hawaii in spite of the detrimental influence of the western world and Christianity there is still a natural sense of honoring nature and the body as being not only life itself but spirit itself, the center of life. This is reflected in the kaona of the language, piko is the belly button, na’auo means guts, center of the being, the inside of the body, and also means wisdom! So when Gilles Marin came to the island to teach abdominal healing Called Chi Nei Tsang, I jumped at the opportunity to study with the Taoist teachings which also have not made that division that spirit is separate and higher than our bodies and guts. And this is indigenous Hawaiian, indigenous teaching, that had been almost forgotten! Mantak Chia achieved the recording of it in written form for the teaching to be spread. I started to realize the abdominal work is the key, that the organs are the key for that honoring the body and the emotions, and that when you find an address for your anger, for your sadness, within the body in terms of where it is in your body in the organs, it's empowering! It makes you feel there's hope after all, for being able to get a handle on and heal negative feelings, depression and trauma, and all the numerous ailments that we have difficulty with. A very important point I want to make here is that, as is now confirmed scientifically by Dr. Candace Pert, who says “The body is the subconscious,” the Hawaiians knew that the subconscious expresses through the body, and that belly work is the place to connect with what it wants to express and heal. The Hawaiians originally were not afraid to massage and press there, knowing that at the piko the center of the being integration and harmony of the whole being could take place.

T: You found it!

E: Yes. Mantak Chia's teacher was just like a Hawaiian, he just knew what to do, Master Chia watched, and then wrote it all down for the first time. For example - let me just give this example. The large Intestine - so what I will do - and remembering that here at the navel is the center of the being. Everything is there, everything crosses pathways; all physical and all energy systems cross pathways, and it's an amazing place and it's a sensitive and vulnerable place. We hide stuff in there, right? And just to be there and connect with what's there and allow it to just feel welcomed. In the large intestine, for example, that's an organ that we know that lets go of physical waste, right? It also lets go of anything and everything that no longer serves, anything and everything that we want to let go of, the pain and the sorrow of life and indeed, the large intestine is understood to be the place of grief and sadness in Chinese medicine. . So here we have it and the - its strength and courage. So these, in Chinese medicine, are the qualities of the large intestine. So as we understand that, we think, "Wow, if I can just get my large intestine massaged, getting it moved, energy clearing it a little bit that means I have more clarity in my life, work, relationships."

T: More courage to do the things you want to do.

E: Yes, you go it exactly; courage is the quality of the Large intestine and partner organ the lungs, and as this is activated so the old pain and the sense of losses can leave.

T: Yeah; once you move things out, then it creates space for newness to come in.

E: Exactly; that's it, Tracey, you've got it. And isn't that the way with the large intestine; that's so obvious with it, right, because of that? And yet it's true of all the other organs, too. Another one that always excites me a lot, that is really, in a sense, the core focus of Lomi Chi Holographic Healing - is the spleen. So the spleen - you say, "What is the spleen?" you look it up; it doesn't seem to mean very much, unless you've got a problem there. People don't know about it, right? Everyone knows about the heart, and yet the spleen is an integrating, nurturing stabilizing empathic energy; it's the earth element, and most of all, what's really important is that it knows how to hold your boundaries for you. It is your immune system and that is what immune system does, decide what to get rid of “oki”,-the invading pathogens, and what to keep and nurture! It knows how to hold your giving and receiving in balance so that you don't become - as many of us have just overly giving in many areas and then getting angry at ourselves and becoming out of balance in those ways. It holds the power of centeredness and balance. Those are its qualities, worries and stress, centeredness and balance. And so with that perspective that it's an organ that knows how to hold nurturing for yourself, it knows how to do that for your whole body, Spirit, emotions, everything, then it's like, "Wow, I already have it within me, there's somebody helping me, my spleen knows how to help me do this; I don't have to fall into this grief in my next relationship with pain; I can strengthen this part of me.”I don’t have to figure out how to do it in my head!

T: And also just create boundaries that are safe so that people aren't crossing into your energy field or reality or imposing themselves upon you. I think that is something that a lot of people are missing, especially in the United States - I don't know about other places - but good, safe boundaries. It's really important for energetic field and mental field and spiritual - I mean, for everything.

E: Let's spend a moment talking about that because that's part of the work that's so valuable. The Hawaiians were so tuned into energy they knew it all from that standpoint, they didn’t have to speak and write about it, they just knew it, and practiced the healing coming into wholeness naturally. It comes from the body’s own self healing direction. It was forgotten and then verbalized by Mantak Chia so as to be brought back to consciousness of humanity.

My experience is that the healing work gives an understanding of that, not just the strengthening, but an understanding of how the boundaries were lost as children. For example, we know that in the case of a divorce, a child blames himself. They think it's their fault. And we do this as babies, as children; we think everything is our fault that we experience that is negative in our reality. We think it's our problem and our fault, and in the effort to make things right, we take on the responsibility for it, when ideally; all we need to do is be joyfully responsible for our own lives and reality and happiness. We don't need to carry it for others, but we took it on from our parents, we took on responsibility for their happiness because we saw them unhappy, and we carry that in our bodies, on our shoulders, in our organs.

T: And then we recreate it in our adult lives with other people… Well, Elandra, I see this is very profound bodywork you have put together, that deserves to be spread and taught worldwide. Are you planning on writing a book?

E: Yes, I am always working on writing, for several books at the moment, when I have the time between teaching. I do see that as the way to spread the work…

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