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ClifNotes 1
March 2000

Sitting next to us on the flight from Singapore to London was a lady who lives in Hongkong. She was chatting with Galina. Among other subjects was our work, but she told a very unusual story about her friend who had been a hostess with Cathay Pacific for many years.

On one long flight she went downstairs to the bunks below where crew members can lie down and rest between shifts. She was surprised to find that there was a lady lying on her bunk. This woman complained that she had not been feeling well and so she had come downstairs to rest. This was highly irregular but anyway Gill’s friend started talking to her with the intention of encouraging her to go back to her seat in the main cabin.

But the lady was adamant that she would stay in the bunk. The hostess asked her if she was with a friend and she replied that her husband was sitting in such and such a row and seat number.

So the hostess went upstairs to ask the husband to come down and help his wife.

The man reacted strangely, saying that his wife had died over two years ago!

The hostess of course was terribly shocked and although Cathay Pacific provided counseling for her, she has never been able to fly again.

After the long flight from Singapore through London to Porto we were a little tired and there didn’t seem much chance of helping our host with his back problem immediately, however as we watched TV (John Cleese’s “Ferocious Animals”) I moved behind him and placed my hands on his shoulders. He shifted in surprise as he felt “like a hot channel of energy” running down his spine. For three weeks he had been unable to walk properly with a lot of pain but next morning he got out of bed without effort and exclaimed that his back was at least 80% improved.

The point of that story is that both of us had our centres of attention diverted, not trying to do anything at all yet significant changes happened.

Some feedback from last visit to Portugal:

One lady, who was in the last stages of AIDS and not expected to last more than a few weeks saw me only for one visit, declaring that no-one could help her, she expressed a lot of anger at her sister for even bringing her. I can’t say that there was any noticeable reaction at the moment of contact but shortly after that her doctors changed her diagnosis when they found that there was no longer any evidence of AIDS and it is now three years later.

Another lady was absolutely unable to move out of her house due to phobia but she overcame it immediately and now her husband jokingly accuses me of costing him a lot of money because he cannot stop her shopping!

One case was a man who didn’t really agree or disagree with the treatment but went along with it. It took him six months to realise he hadn’t had a recurrence of the herpes that used to arise due to the stress of his business meetings. He hasn’t had it again since.

Not so much luck with the lady who used to get a totally itchy skin every night at 7pm – the exact time when her husband, six years earlier, had told her he had been sleeping with another woman. She won’t even change her diet at all and chooses to eat chocolates, all manner of goodies and her skin is literally killing her.

This visit to Portugal we didn’t see so many people as we were presenting our Relaxation Techniques to possible companies for consideration in the future.

Portugal left us with some wonderful feelings and confirmed our belief that the people there are very considerate and aware.

We also were taken to meet a Catholic priest, Father Bernadine who runs an orphanage for kids from the street, drug addicts, AIDS parents etc. It was remarkably similar to ‘our’ Chernobyl experience and we fell in love with the kids and their open faces and their desperate need for touching, holding and loving. It is a very very clean place – almost new- and they all have toys and eat good food and there are lots of volunteer helpers. I was asked to give the priest a healing session for his very bad stomach and we heard a few days later that he would not now need to have surgery so that was a satisfying gift to him and them. A few days later we were having lunch at a wonderful oceanside café (red umbrellas, Atlantic rippling gently on the golden sand) with our friends, Mario and Luisa deSilva (he’s a professor of physics who is very interested in my work) and we were talking of Father Bernadine and they laughed because he was the priest who had married them!

I was also happy to give sessions to several ‘high-powered’ executives suffering from tension and stress. It also confirmed our wish to focus on help for business people who are suffering terribly as things in the world get faster and faster.

Our good friend Graça took us to Ponte Lima which is where her family comes from. Her Aunt and Uncle still live there – he has been ambassador to the Vatican, Angola etc – in a 12th century mansion which is more like a museum filled with mementoes including a carved set of chairs and settees from India – each intricate piece was carved from a single piece of a tree. And the aunt won’t walk in their extensive oak forest because she feels the presence of spirits who don’t like her.

Graça also introduced us to a man who had been at school with her many years ago and he became a goldsmith specialising in Celtic style because there was a huge settlement of Celts there many centuries ago. He took special pride in unfolding sachet after sachet of heavy gold belts, torcs, wedding breastplates and intricately detailed symbolic totems. We felt that, just to stand there in the midst of these reproductions of ancient comments, brought about a feeling akin to a religious experience.

Back in Porto, Phillip and Margaret have reiterated their offer for us to spend some time in their house on the Spanish Mediterranean coast and we are considering the possibility of a weeklong residential retreat later in the year. Stay in touch.

Now we are in Holland and the next ‘issue’ will include visits to Emmer Compascuum on the German border; a man who was on the brink of suicide and claims my work has totally changed his life, and other stories.

For three weeks we have not had one day off and it will be a few days (!!) before I get around to putting together a summary of the corporate workshops, private sessions (10-12 hour days) and deep satisfaction at being received with open hearts and minds in Holland.

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