Image: With Nicholas Petit, owner of TCM Schule Basel, and Sonja Schadt, German translator.
I am writing while looking through the window of my room at the beautiful Märthof Hotel in Basel, Switzerland. Last night I had a superb dinner at the home of my host, Nicholas Petit, his beautiful wife, Cecile, who played the harp exquisitely before dinner, and their two exceptionally happy children. Until yesterday when we were walking around the old city, I had no idea, due to his modesty, that only three years ago Nicholas actually founded the school he runs, and is steadily building it with a focus on classical medicine. I have the honor of visiting to teach the Complement Channels—this week three days of Eight Extraordinary Channels—and I can’t wait to begin tomorrow. It will be my first experience of being translated live into German, a huge task to be carried out by the lovely Sonja Schadt.
I’m writing this blog now because yesterday I received an email from a student who is deeply concerned about a discussion occurring online in which a practitioner is judging their patients. She urged me to intervene, which I don’t want to do, but I would like to clarify a possible stance for a practitioner—a stance that would prevent this kind of situation arising.
We are facilitators of destiny, in that we treat for the growing freedom of humanity, to assist in the flow of life’s path. Impeding movement in this regard are illness and discontent, caused by and contributing to interference in the clear flow of blood and qi in the channels. Ultimately, the cause of disease is that we forget that everything is divine. Everything simply is, in this moment. Every thought, every emotion, every action is therefore divine, emerging from the giant, limitless consciousness that is everything. Our job is to hold the energy of all is divine with the human spirit fully present. The magnificent human spirit has infinite capacity for wellness because it can experience love for all, and with no agenda whatsoever. That’s what makes human beings extraordinary. People object: “What about anger, hatred, war, rape, murder?” We must know our bearings. Negativities arise from small internal influences that lack clarity. These can spiral into deep-seated disturbances of mind, and can even be transmitted through the generations, fueling all the negativities in the world, small, large, and global, and ultimately, fueling the wounds we see in our patients. It’s a repeating pattern. And since we may suppress our seeds of negativity as we seek to be “better” or to “improve”, we must become aware that anything suppressed has something like a beacon attached to it, able to attract more of its own energy.
Our medicine is built upon the practice of compassion. Compassion is not merely the desire to help alleviate suffering. The compassion we cultivate comprises two aspects: first, we see our client-patients as whole and divine even as they are caught in negative states of mind and body, and second, we see also within ourselves the potential for every possible seed of their suffering. We are unified in our humanity while not allowing ourselves to be ensnared by negativity.
The practitioner who reacts against a thought or an emotion in the client is denying that aspect in themselves, whether or not they will ever experience it. A practitioner reacting negatively to the client rejects both the client and themselves. They have dashed any hope of a healing energetic in the room.
A practitioner fully engaged in a pivotal healing encounter is one who recognizes the entire spectrum of emotions as a blessing inherent in humanity. She understands what she hears from and sees in the client as being a gift to her, enabling the forming of a diagnosis. Therefore, she remains steadily non-reactive and compassionate.
Through the pulses, we can locate the impedance to the flow of qi and blood that holds the illness and the unclear mind in place. We can see where it is held up both in the patient, and in all humanity, including in ourselves as practitioners. The presence of judgment in this process is the essence of ego, separation, arrogance, and guaranteed failure in the session. There can be no judgment in the room. There is discernment, a tenderness for the state of humanity, compassion for all, a decision regarding the channel to treat, and a gathering of needles from the drawer to shift it.
Let’s get back to work.
Ann Cecil-Sterman,
October 8, 2023
Basel, Switzerland