Reflections on Japan

I recently returned to Cape Town from Tokyo, where I was presenting a Colour and Tissue Salts workshop to a group of Aura-Soma practitioners. It was an enormous privilege to be there at this beautiful cherry-blossom time, just a month after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March. Some folks questioned my sanity before I left South Africa, with aftershocks and radiation dangers omnipresent in Japan. For me, there was never any question about following through with arrangements unless the invitation was postponed, but I did reflect on this quite deeply before I left.

There was a synchronicity that I felt unable to ignore. In order to obtain my visa, I needed proof of my return air ticket. On March 10 I paid and collected it from my agent and headed off to the local Consulate of Japan with all my forms completed. Less than 24 hours later the earthquake and tsunami hit. I must say it left me wondering what would evolve, but I felt very deeply that I was in this situation for a reason.

The second part of this synchronicity unfolded when I asked Sachiko, the course co-ordinator and my gracious hostess, whether she felt it appropriate to go ahead with the arrangements at this time; if it would not be too much for her or the students to deal with so soon. I would be arriving within 3 weeks of the devastating event.

Her reply to me was unwavering: ‘We are going to do your course, and the students want to do it. Now we have still earthquakes in Japan, and we have a big problem about the radioactivity. The students would like to learn Tissue Salts much more because of such time.’

There was my answer; with such a magnet pulling me, I would not resist. From that moment on I relied on an old friend: the trust that I would be safe and protected wherever I am. Whenever I heard someone else’s fears echoing toward me, I called on this sense of trust that is something I have developed as a consequence of living in South Africa with all its inherent ‘dangers’.

I began the workshop as I usually do – checking the energy fields of all the participants. I was humbled to see that 99% of the participants had the ‘Humpty Dumpty’ shock-trauma stress pattern, where we ‘jump out of our skins’ and the energy field shifts to a position on the left-hand-side of the body. Although one expects shock patterning after the events Japan has endured, I have not seen this so consistently in a collective situation before. Some of my students had not slept through the night since the first earthquake. It makes me wonder about the shock-trauma of all the other people in Japan as well, when I was just observing a group of 26.  We managed to work on correcting this pattern immediately, with tissue salts and the Aura-Soma pomanders. At the end of the four days, their energy fields were all balanced again.

Later on that evening, I thought the washing machine I was running was going a bit ballistic in a spin cycle. I could feel the room shaking. At the time I was looking at an astrological chart for my friend Retha in South Africa, and communicating with her via direct messages on Twitter. I realised the shaking wasn’t coming from behind me, but rather from beneath me; and then the building started to sway. And creak. And it carried on for long enough for me to move with my laptop onto the floor alongside the bed (to create a protected triangle position according to the e-mail my osteopath had sent me before I left home) to ride it out, continuing our conversation as it progressed. My sense of fearlessness was certainly getting a serious test!

I listened for sounds of evacuation, or an alarm, and there was nothing. So I stayed alone on the floor in my room on the 18th floor while the building did its groaning slow dance for the next 20 minutes. In the meantime Retha had found the earthquake report on the internet, and I managed to switch on CNN who were also reporting it live. Originally classed a 7.4 magnitude, this aftershock was later downgraded to a 7.1 – the biggest since the original event. It was quite good to have Retha on the other end of cyberspace; if it all went down like a house of cards, someone would know about it! It was a scary and wondrous experience, but I did not feel fear.

After that there were at least another 6 aftershocks, one of them quite intense late on the afternoon of Monday the 11th. This time I was lower down on the third floor offices of my host with my translator, Sachie, and a client, at the end of a consultation. The Aura-Soma bottles threatened to bounce off the shelves as the building did the jitterbug. The other staff were keeping things in place in the offices alongside, and again, no one panicked or evacuated the building. Later that evening, dining with Aura-Soma friends 40 floors up, other fearless souls from the UK and Australia, we gently swayed to the motion and continued our meal. Each time I silently thanked my angels and the ingenuity of Japanese engineering. I was safe and secure, wherever I was.

It feels a bit like having sea-legs after one of these experiences – it’s like being on a boat, but instead of moving relative to the horizon, everything shifts and sways. Walking feels a little strange afterwards. I think the unusual movement does something to disorient the energy field pole of grounding beneath the feet, which Aura-Soma teaching calls the Earth Star, and this has to find its position again afterwards.

These events have the potential to create fear and insecurity. Certainly where one is in the epicentre and directly affected by acts of God there will be little choice but to feel this.  For many people though, there is no direct devastation, just the repetitive cycle of facing the fear. It can create a spiral of trauma in the psyche as one feels helpless and at the mercy of the gods.

Part of the journey of conquering fear is to consciously feel the gratitude of being spared from harm, whilst acknowledging the mighty power of nature; and looking for the lessons to be learned. Here are two insights that I feel are most important to consider; and to apply them wherever we are in the world:

• Do we really do our bit to honour Mother Earth? How can we expect her to find balance if we continue with our devastation of nature?
• Perhaps the Frankenstein of Fukishima offers the world a chance to look at our choices regarding nuclear energy, when there are natural energies to be harnessed if only science would prioritise and invest in optimising these sources of power.

In South Africa, I think it is time to stand up and say a very strong NO to the proposals regarding fracking in the Karoo; and to oppose the plans for more nuclear plants on the West Coast where there is also an earthquake fault line, even if not as active as those in the Pacific rim. Yet.

Please take some action, that the recent events in Japan may help to serve us everywhere in bringing balance to our planet.

Say NO to Fracking in the Karoo – Greenpeace Africa

Nuclear Energy – Earthlife Africa