Where Does Healing Come From?

The Octopus Tree and Other Miracles

It’s a rainy day in Madison County, Iowa—a quiet day after a busy couple of weeks. I got home on Tuesday after a 10-day trip to Hollywood and the wilds of Oregon—two very different places, two very different purposes.

Hollywood was a field trip with forty of our Story Summit writers, designed to “ground their aspirations,” as founder David Kirkpatrick says. We toured Paramount Studios, where David once served as president, and accepted our very own simulated Oscars at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. We stayed at the iconic Roosevelt Hotel, with the Walk of Fame right outside the door. And we capped it all off with a Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson concert at the Hollywood Bowl.

One of our Summiteers had multiple celebrity sightings (not surprising—he’s a celebrity in the making), and many of our writers took important first steps in selling their scripts and series during our pitchfest with agents and managers. It couldn’t have gone much better.

Then came Oregon.

I traveled to a tiny hamlet on the ocean, where three massive rocks rise from the waves just offshore. My dear friend Charlee felt a call to live in this National Wildlife Refuge area, but since her move there a couple of years ago, she has been diagnosed with ALS. Two friends and I went to be with her. Though her speech is difficult to understand and she can no longer use her hands, she communicates by typing with her eyes, her words read aloud by a device that speaks for her.

Despite it all, Charlee took us sightseeing—visiting the Octopus Tree, standing in awe of the coastal views, and doing a healing meditation in the woods nearby. Let me tell you, a group of women calling on the power of the universe to heal is a mighty force.

That tree stays with me—the Octopus Tree. A marvel of nature with eight limbs rising more than 100 feet high, with no clear central trunk. No one really knows why it grew that way. It’s a mystery. And yet, it stands. Strong. Beautiful. Healing, somehow, in its very mystery—a reminder that things in this world don’t always have to make sense to be sacred.

Now I’m back home, where my mother’s bodacious pink peonies have opened, and her purple irises are in full bloom. The garden was green before my trip, but in ten days it exploded into full color. I’m so grateful I didn’t miss it.

All of this has me thinking about seasons, beauty, and especially healing.

Just this week, my brother-in-law was diagnosed with walking pneumonia. A friend learned she has metastatic cancer in her spine and pelvis. Two co-workers came down with viruses. Another friend was declared legally blind in one eye after a surgery failed to correct a problem the doctors still can’t explain.

I am a firm believer in the power of spiritual healing. Medicine can do miracles, no question. I personally have a stake in Excedrin to keep my daily headaches at bay. But I also believe healing comes from something deeper: prayer, belief, hope—and the word that so often sticks in our throat—forgiveness.

When I had Lyme disease two years ago, I spent three days in the hospital on IV antibiotics. I’m thankful for what that medicine did for me. But I’ll never forget the doctor who came in on my last day. He looked me in the eye and said, “You’ll be fine.” Every question I asked, he answered with calm and confidence.

“What about recurring symptoms?” I asked.

“They can happen,” he said. “If you feel sluggish, take some aspirin and rest. You’ll be fine.”

“How soon can I return to normal activity?”

“Finish the antibiotics, get some rest, and you’ll be fine.”

And I believed him. What had been the worst morning of my hospital stay suddenly felt manageable. I got dressed and packed up while Bob came to take me home.

So where does healing come from?

It doesn’t always come in the form we expect. It’s not always a cure or a fix. Sometimes it’s not even relief. Sometimes healing is simply presence.

The presence of a doctor who says “You’ll be fine” with such grounded assurance that you believe it.

The presence of friends who fly across the country to sit beside you while your body is doing something mysterious and hard.

The presence of those rocks in Oregon—watchful, ancient, unmoving.

The presence of the Octopus Tree that defies logic and still stands strong.

The presence of flowers blooming while you’re away, a garden that doesn’t need your tending to burst into beauty.

This week, with so much sickness in the air—my brother-in-law coughing through pneumonia, friends facing cancer and viruses and partial blindness—I find myself returning not to fear, but to faith. Not to answers, but to alignment.

Because healing, real healing, is not just about eliminating pain. It's about remembering who we truly are in the midst of it. It's about making space inside ourselves for love to do what love does: restore, renew, and remind.

In A Course in Miracles, it says: “Healing is accomplished the instant the sufferer no longer sees any value in pain.” That’s a deep teaching—that we often grip pain, identify with it, even defend it. And part of healing is loosening our grasp. Letting go of what no longer serves. Forgiving what was. Welcoming what is. Allowing what might be.

That day in the woods with Charlee and the other women, I felt something that defied language. A presence, yes. But more than that—a power. A shared knowing that no diagnosis, no prognosis, no earthly limitation can cancel out the Spirit that animates us. The body may weaken, the voice may falter, but the light within us is never diminished. And healing can happen in the most sacred ways.

So today, I offer this reflection and encouragement: Let yourself be healed. In ways you don’t understand. By people you may not expect. Through words as simple as “You’ll be fine,” or through trees that twist in inexplicable beauty.

Let yourself believe again. Not just in medicine or miracles—but in the invisible presence that meets you right here, right now. In the rain. In the garden. In the ache. In the quiet joy. In the ordinary, holy unfolding of your beautiful, mysterious life.

With blessings,

Deb

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A NOTE TO MY READERS: I write “A World of Your Own” as a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, which is led by Julie Gammack, of Des Moines. I’m honored to be part of this group, featuring the diverse voices of more than 70 professional writers and journalists across the state of Iowa. I encourage you to check out their columns.