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Jeannette McCullough is a a healer, teacher, Shaman, gifted human being and a friend.

Jeannette McCullough came into my life a few months after I had a heart attack. The heart attack was in September, 2004. I had met a number of shamans over the years when they had come to give workshops in the store I had co-owned, The Reiki Store, but I had never really spent much time with them or attended their workshops. The first shaman that I truly connected with was Bernie Morin who is also Reiki Master. After the heart attacked Bernie introduced me to shamanic practice by doing a Soul Retrieval with me. It was a life changing event. Bernie lived in Peterborough and I am in Toronto so seeing him wsn’t going to work. He introduced me to the Foundation for Shamanic Studies and they in turn introduced me to Jeannette.

I’m not going to go into detail here about the work that I have done with Jeannette but I am now one of her students and I continue to see profound changed in my life as the result of the work that I have done with her. Sometimes a few words from her can really open up a whole new world. A truly thoughtful and caring human being.

Following are the words that I have lifted directly from Jeannette’s website shamansong.ca. Why re-invent the wheel.

Jeannette McCullough is a Registered Nurse and Shamanic Practitioner who has experience in many diverse health care settings including medical cardiology, orthopedics and addiction treatment. As an educator, she developed and taught courses in Pharmacology, Human Growth and Behaviour, Psychology, Life Skills and Addictions for George Brown College. Jeannette helped to establish, and successfully managed, a fundraising operation for Bayview Community Hospice.

She started training in 1996 with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, an international organization dedicated to the preservation, study and transmittal of shamanic knowledge and practice. She is a graduate of the Foundation’s Three-Year Program in Advanced Shamanism and Shamanic Healing. Michael Harner and Sandra Ingerman are her teachers. And she has completed Sandra Ingerman’s Two-Year Teacher Training Program.

Jeannette has been offering approaches to health and healing from a shamanic perspective in her independent practice since 1998. She feels she has found her true home in her shamanic work.

Jeannette is also a founding member and served for three years on the executive of the Complementary Therapies Nurses’ Interest Group which represents the growing number of nurses who practice complementary medicine in Ontario. The group was officially recognized, and given special interest group status by the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario in September of 2002.

As well, she is on the steering committee of the Spirituality in Health-Care Network. The network was founded in December 2000 by Yvonne Kason MD and John Thornton MD and is dedicated to integrating spirituality with psychotherapy and health care.

Jeannette served for two years on the Integrative Health Care Round Table as a representative of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario. The Round Table is an affiliation of conventional and complementary organizations established in 2004 to promote the development of integrative health care in Ontario and beyond.

She is a past board member and a life time member of the Friends of Alternative and Complementary Therapies (FACT), a community of professionals and consumers who provide credible information and education about complementary and alternative medicine. FACT was founded in 1998 by psychiatrist, Dr. Ted Lo.

Jeannette serves to foster community, healing and empowerment through her work and in her life.

Visit her website shamansong.ca.

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Anne Abbott is a gifted artist and an extra-ordinary human being.

OK, so all artists are gifted and we are all extra-ordinary human beings.

BUT Anne is special.

Anne has had Cerebral Palsy since birth, is confined to a wheel chair and communicates with an ACC - Augmentative and Alternative Communication device. She points her finger at a letter or symbol on a board in front of her to tell you what she wants to say.

And the magic is in her finger. Anne uses her finger to paint.

A single finger. With a single finger Anne created Flowers in a Blue Mountain Vase, the work that you can see below.

Anne has a website: http://www.artistanneabbott.com/

An article titled Anne Abbott Artist written by Emily Walker Thornton has recently been published in Good News Toronto on June 2008.

As the article mentions you can find Anne every Saturday at The St. Lawrence Market - on the Lower Level - where she has a stall and sells her art. Why not visit Anne? Meet a wonderful person and enjoy her art. Perhaps something she has created will appeal to you and you will take it home.

So how do I know Anne. We meet a number of years ago in a course that we were taking…a year long program for people with disabilities. I had had a car accident and was suffering from the effects of Subtle Traumatic Brain Injury and working at rebuilding my life that had been turned upside-down.

We were a small group of entrepreneurs who needed help nad found it through the TDBC - Toronto Business Development Center. The course was very useful but it was my fellow classmates who were the inspiration and continue to be.

Visit Anne. Fall in love with her art.

Buy her art, support her and add something beautiful to your home or that of a friend or loved one.

Ric Ward

Technorati Tags: Anne Abbott, augmentative and alternative communication, cerebral palsy, gifted artist, people with disabilities, wheel chair

My blog Jobs Work Careers Coach is up and running again after being out of action since January 2007 and it feels really great to have it going again.

The byline is Get the job you want. Find the people you need. The focus is on both jobseekers and employers and ties into the many features available in my job board JobsWorkCareers.com.

I am looking for writers who have something interesting to say about employment and careers as well as finding the much sought after-after and apparently elusive life balance - work, personal and family. And of course I am always looking for great blogs to connect to as well. So if you have any ideas please connect with me.

Ric Ward

Technorati Tags: careers, job posting, jobs, Resumes, work