Come in. Shut door. Sit down. Close mouth.
Barely out of her teens, Joyce Surbeck-Harris
found her life forever altered by those words. As a child,
Surbeck-Harris was aware and proud of her Eastern Cherokee and Cree
heritage but was starving for more cultural knowledge. Her search
led her to the most influential teacher of her life.
Surbeck-Harris grew up on a farm outside
Hillview, Ill., with her parents and older brothers and her beloved
companion Silver, a white horse. Her father died of a brain tumor
when she was 12.
Early on, she had indications that she was
heading for a unique destiny: “I had a lot of knowings,” she
says. While her mother and brothers held out hope for her
father’s recovery, Surbeck-Harris recalls, she was fully
aware that her father would succumb to the tumor. “The
information was devastating — and I had no one to
tell,” she says.
Surbeck-Harris also says she knew her that
young husband, the first man she had cared for since her father,
would not return from Vietnam. She was left a widow at the age of
21. Seven months after her husband’s death, on her way to
finish her college degree in education, she encountered her
cherished mentor and spiritual leader.
Surbeck-Harris arrived at a North Carolina
Cherokee reservation and for three days searched for someone to
teach her about her heritage. After being directed to several
people, she says, a door was finally opened by “the tallest
Indian I had ever seen.” He was 70 years old and stood
6-foot-4, and he uttered a simple but blunt greeting:
Come in. Shut door. Sit down. Close mouth.
Surbeck-Harris spent that first summer camped
out in her mentor’s back yard and embarked on a lifelong
spiritual journey. For the next 34 years, until his death at 104
years of age, Surbeck-Harris served as one of the man’s five
apprentices learning healing methodology that she calls Native
American Healing Practices.
“I always worked with him as a helper,
and I was happy in that role,” she recalls. As an apprentice,
Surbeck-Harris was taught methods of energy assessment and a
variety of techniques to correct any abnormalities or imbalances in
the energy field. It is after the practitioner achieves the balance in energy
that healing can occur, sometimes, she says, with miraculous results.
She began to treat others as her skills developed. There were amazing
incidences of healing, such as the pregnant woman with an inoperable
brain tumor that disappeared with treatment during a healing ceremony,
that took place over a few days, incorporating energy work, Native
American ritual and prayer. But Surbeck-Harris is also a firm believer
in modern medicine and would like to see energy work used in a
complementary fashion: “I think miracles happen when medicine has
run its course or is off course.”
In explaining the complexities of her American
Indian energy work, Surbeck-Harris says, “Science, namely
quantum physics, has confirmed there is a field of energy around
us. What occurs in that energy field affects us mentally,
spiritually, physically, and emotionally — which are the four
places on the medicine wheel.” Used for personal and
ceremonial guidance, the medicine wheel is an ancient complex tool
that also represents the four directions and four elements, as well
as animals and plants. In her tradition there are 36 gateways to
the mystery of the body’s lymph system, joints, and organs.
During treatment sessions, clients remain fully clothed as they lie
on a massage table and respond to her light touch as she assesses
the energy and corrects any deficits.
Surbeck-Harris does not limit her practice to
human subjects and has seen profound results of the use of energy
work in animals. She tells of a horse in which gait problems
persisted even after thousands of dollars’ worth of treatment
at various veterinary schools and clinics. After one session with
her, she says, the horse recovered, and the next day it cantered
for the first time in months.
Is Surbeck-Harris gifted or trained in these
American Indian practices? “Both,” she says.
Surbeck-Harris says that she was taught that God, also known as
“All That Is” or the “Great Mystery” or
“Creator” — descriptions her teacher used —
provides the healing. “Before each treatment I pray to become
hollow bones to allow Creator’s healing energy to flow
through to the person I’m treating.”
Her current practice is three-pronged, with
the American Indian energy work as one prong. Surbeck-Harris, who
holds a doctorate in education, says her educational consulting is
a more mainstream practice; she specializes in assessing and
developing an action plan for individuals who need assistance
because of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, brain injury,
or other special needs. The final prong is values-clarification
work with couples who want to enrich their relationships. In eight
sessions she helps couples understand their values and develops
mission statements for their relationships.
Surbeck-Harris’ most important lesson
thus far? “I am part of the Great Mystery — there is
this place in me where God is. I wish everybody could find
that.”
Joyce Surbeck-Harris’ office is located
at 3233 Mathers Rd. in Springfield; 217-553-0106 or jasurbeck@yahoo.com.
This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2005.
