NOVEMBER 2008
HOMESICKNESS AND LOVE STORIES
by Hans TenDam
This time I don’t want to talk about how our profession is developing or how it may develop or should develop. I want to talk about something altogether different. I want to talk about what our profession is about.
I don’t want to talk about what witches do or might do or should do or shouldn’t do. I want to talk about the inside. The inside of the witches’ cauldron. About what is bubbling and stirring and stewing in there. About what is in the soul of our clients when they do sessions. About what is in our soul when we do sessions.
Our soul is a witches’ cauldron. A holographic cauldron in which the present boils, the past simmers (and sometimes erupts) and the future is a bunch of ingredients that are waiting to be added, stirred and absorbe
d. Often by ourselves, often by others, and
possibly, probably, most of the time by invisible hands. Sometimes our own invisible hands. Sometimes hands that are hardly human. Divine hands?
Preceding the World Congress last September I did a workshop on Alienation and Loneliness. I did the same workshop in October in the Netherlands. I want to do comparable workshops in the future. When the subject is not a method, but a
psychological issue, the resonance between sessions and between participants appears to be much stronger. Similar chords are struck in different people and the workshop gets an almost symphonic quality.
Loneliness is a deep subject, as deep as the soul. What comes up when souls turn inside, into their own loneliness? Basically two issues: homesickness and love stories. It is difficult to witness more moving stories. About leaving home and losing the connection. And about finding back the connection. About losing and finding back true love.
When we are alone, the world around us is empty. When we are alone, the world inside is empty. Experiences of seemingly irretrievable loss, about darkness and chill, about despair and about pain that is so deep that only the pain itself dulls the pain. Somewhat.
In regression, we cross the barriers of space and time. To heal the hologram that we call our soul. And though we don’t enter our home physically and though we not embrace our love physically, we enter and embrace nonetheless. And then we discover that deep loneliness has tempered our soul and gave it an undying individuality. We discover the cauldron to be a womb. A womb in which we give birth to ourselves. Regression means rebirth.
I am considering the potential of workshops on other fundamental issues, as there are: fear, depression, anger, despair, imprisonment and, not the least, the deep weariness of being a body. Such workshops even do not need a workshop leader showing his or her tricks. They need a moderator to focus a group of colleagues who want to experience the issue as deep as they can. To find healing. For themselves and for their clients.
Anybody for workshops on madness, perversity or cruelty? Probably not. But still better than workshops on closedmindedness, disgust or boredom. Though they may be liberating too, perhaps. As long we are not boring one or another or worse: boring our clients.
I will propose next General Assembly three articles, one for the Aims of the Association, one for the Code of Conduct and one for the Admission Procedure:
1. It is the aim of the Association to make the life of their members less boring.
2. Thou shalt not bore the Client.
3. Candidates for membership should declare they have not been boring, and will not be boring. (This statement only need to be valid for the present lifetime.)
Be good, be alive and be serious, but don’t overdo it. And let’s see what Obama is going to do. Till January.
Hans TenDam
