FAQ about my payment philosophy

But what if your work is excellent and people don’t pay?

That is for them and their gods to discuss. But, truly this is the least of my worries... my clients are honorable, intelligent, sensitive, dedicated, brutally honest and inspiring people. Good, good people that make me proud to be a human. If my work is excellent, inspiring and useful, my needs will be met... though perhaps in ways I don’t expect. Of this I feel sure.

But what if people don’t value your work because you don’t charge a set price?

People ask me this a lot, and tell me vivid and unhappy stories from their own experience. Until I experience this myself (I have not yet), I honestly don’t have a very good answer-except to say that, if so, this world is more distorted than ever I knew, and I’m sorry for all of us. All the more reason to try a new path, if this is where our ailing civilization has arrived on the current one!

Do you think it’s wrong to charge for healing work?

Nope. I know many skilled and dedicated practitioners who charge handsomely for their time. I trust they are trusting their inner wisdom. I have long charged for my work, and certainly may again someday. The trick, I think, is for each of us to strive to listen to our own wisdom on this important issue, and not judge or copy another practitioner’s choice. For me, for this moment, this By Donation path challenges and honors my deepest intentions, and so it is right. For now. For me.

All these years later, I still feel like a beginner with more questions than answers. Some days there's too much doubt and not enough strength in all it's various forms. I want to be a better student. I want to have more faith and discipline. I am also grateful that I am on the spiritual adventure of my life.     ~John Calvi, an inspiring Quaker healer who offers his gifts by donation www.johncalvi.com

There is a quickening, a vitality, a life force that is translated through you into action and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and it will be lost! The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other’s expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to stay open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.      ~Martha Graham

Do you have another source of income?

I do rasp the hooves of other people’s horses a few times a month, and I do charge for that work.

Do you ever turn clients away?

Absolutely.

Most healing practitioners charge a high fee to ensure that those who ask them for help are truly, deeply committed to their own healing-not just wanting to have their problems instantly and easily “fixed” by someone else. Certainly this precaution is wise. But in my experience, a high fee is an imprecise filtering mechanism, since the wealthy are certainly no more committed to the difficult work of healing than the poor or the tortured. And an animal’s willingness to grow and heal certainly has no bearing on her person’s wealth!!

That said, I do not want to waste my time and yours when I sense, for whatever reason, that I cannot be of much use to you. Perhaps the problem is out of my depth. Perhaps the suffering is yours to grow through and learn from. Perhaps the animal you call me to help does not want my assistance. Perhaps, for some mysterious reason, it is not the right time or I am not the right practitioner. Perhaps I will give you some “homework” to do, and invite you to contact me again in a few months. Perhaps I will offer, instead of a healing session, to guide you into a deeper relationship with your own spirit. But, yes, I do sometimes say no.

Aren’t you scared?

No. I was at first. But after a year of working by donation I have to say, Spirit is one heck of an exciting employer. The pay can be strange, intangible and erratic, but is it ever satisfying. I feel more secure working this way than I ever did with an earthen paycheck.

“When I dare to be powerful-to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”      ~Audre Lorde

“When you have come to the end of all the light that you know, and are about to step into the darkness, faith means knowing two things-that there will be something to stand on, or that you will learn how to fly.”      ~Anon.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.      ~Ambrose Redmoon

“Sometimes snakes can’t slough. They can’t burst their old skin. Then they go sick and die inside their old skin, and nobody ever sees the new pattern. It needs a really desperate recklessness to burst your old skin at last. You simply don’t care what happens to you, if you rip yourself in two, so long as you get out.”
      ~D. H. Lawrence

What I spent, is gone; what I kept, I lost; but what I gave away will be mine forever.      ~Ethel Percey Andrus

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.      ~Henry David Thoreau