Last April I gave a seminar in Vancouver, and
there I met Jenny for the first time in my
life. We chatted, found many interests in
common, and I ended up spending a couple of
enjoyable and relaxing days staying with her
lovely family. We met again when Jenny, her
husband Steve and daughter Rachel came to
England in the autumn, and this time they
stayed at our house in Devon.
During their visit, I took the three of them
to a favourite spot by the sea, with the
intention to walk along the coastal path and
have lunch in the next village. As it turned
out, the narrow, winding Devon lanes took
their toll on Jenny, who was feeling somewhat
queazy by the time we arrived. Nothing to do
with my driving, I'm sure. The original plan
was shelved, and, after a recovery period on
the beach for Jenny, we headed instead to a
nearby pub for lunch. The interesting thing
is that we hadn't ended up where we were
'supposed' to be....... or had we?
As I arrived at the table with drinks and
took off my hat and coat, Steve was busy
studying the map on the wall directly behind
where Jenny was sitting. While I tried to
work out where we were on the map, Steve's
eye was drawn to a body of water which, he
noticed, formed the shape of a lizard. I
recognized the shape he was pointing to as
the outline of a nearby estuary, and
commented that, to me, it was not a lizard,
but a salamander.
And this is when events took an unexpected
twist. The word 'salamander' triggered a
flood of half-forgotten memories for Jenny,
who looked rather shocked and had to regain
her composure before she could explain what
was going on. It transpired that around seven
years earlier, Jenny had a tarot reading
which, although interesting, made little
sense at the time. The reader had told Jenny
that she would have some important and
fulfilling work to do in a few years time,
with someone new to her. It would be
something related to homeopathy, but would
not be homeopathy. Suitably vague, you might
think, but there was more.
A man would be coming into Jenny's life who
was described as 'very safe'. 'I see
him', said the reader, 'wearing a long
coat and hat, and he will hang his hat on the
back of your door. You may form some sort of
partnership.' 'There is water around,'
she continued, 'and you will know him
when you see the water and the salamander on
the wall.' Now Jenny's first thought on
hearing this was that there was no way she
would be working with someone who has a tacky
salamander feature on the wall! And the
strange prediction was filed away and
forgotten - until that day seven years
later and six thousand miles away, when it
all came flooding back.
Now Jenny and I both knew for sure in that
moment that we would have some work to do
together, and The Healer's Journey
which starts in Vancouver next month is the
result. Coincidentally (or perhaps not), the
last time I ran this course was seven years
ago, just around the time that Jenny was
hearing this strange tale for the first time.
'We are always being guided', Jenny
wrote to me in a recent email, 'and we
just have to pay a little attention'. I
have the feeling that she's right. And a
crucial part of this process seems to require
that we pay attention to the
feeling-signals
that get triggered whenever a piece of the
puzzle is being revealed to us, no matter how
small or insignificant it seems.
Whether we are 'on track' or 'out of
alignment' at any given moment, it is
primarily through
the internal guidance system of the body
sensations and feelings that this is made
clear to us. We literally have a body of
wisdom available to us all of the time, and
all it takes is an increased awareness and a
little practice to attune yourself to its
signals.
