At the Edge of Ireland (24 page)

“And how does this craniosacral therapy work?”

Alan laughed again. His blue eyes glinted but, as from the start of our chat, hardly ever blinked. I felt if I looked too closely I really would be hypnotized. “Well—fast version—at the core of our bodies is the cerebrospinal fluid, which cushions and bathes the brain and the spinal cord in sort of wavelike ebb-and-flow movements. The other pieces—bones, organs, and whatnot—each follows its own particular pattern of movement. So with the hands of a trained therapist, these movements can be perceived and manipulated, especially to relieve strains and stresses stored up in the body and mind, which can restrict overall holistic functioning. It's a strange process and hard to explain, but I use my hands to identify ‘congestions and blockages' and then reflect them back into the body to remove them. One analogy is a mirror. If I hold a mirror in front of you, you may see in the reflection that you're frowning and then, if you decide you'd prefer not to be frowning, you'd relax your eyebrows and smile. And—poof!—the frown is gone…”

“And that's it?”

“Well, it took me almost three years of hard slog to get a diploma in this, so it's obviously a bit more complex. But, in essence, that's what I end up doing. Helping unblock blocks. The point is that, in most cases, the ‘health' of the body is there. You just need to release it. You can never control everything—life's a random crapshoot. The Creator's got all the aces! But we can help enhance the edges—that old saying—‘Life throws you curves so you learn how to swerve.' So—I suppose that's my main job. Teaching physiological and psychological driving skills!”

 

M
ARY
P
ADWICK—ONE OF
Beara's leading reflexologists—giggled when I quoted Alan's job description. She was an attractively vibrant woman living with her photographer-husband, Neil, and immensely proud of her son Matt, whom we'd met and who directs all the administrative complexities at Dzogchen Beara.

“But Alan's right. That's really the essence of all these healing practices here. I remember way back when we lived in England, Neil treated me to a health farm weekend for my birthday once, and boy!—they had the lot! Yoga in a dozen different forms, acupuncture, reflexology, Reiki, massages, tai chi, hot stones, dancing circles, crystals—you name it. It seemed a bit wacky at first, but wonderful in a way. A whole new world for me. And I asked—what's it really all about? And one of the therapists told me: ‘It's very simple—the body is a mass of energy pathways and channels, and some get blocked and need help in opening up again. After that, the body usually has ample capacities to restore its own equilibrium. All you have to do is work with the body—but don't get in the way of allowing its own healthy generating powers to do their job.'”

“Everyone here, all the healers I've met, seem to make their roles appear very simple and obvious,” I suggested, staring out of the windows of their home overlooking the vast panorama of Bantry Bay and thinking, You could heal anything and anyone in a setting like this.

Mary laughed. “Well, it is simple. I always knew I had a gift for listening to and helping people. The key I find to my way of reflexology is to open up to each person and allow them to trust you while you're working on the foot exercises. Once they sense you're truly focusing on them, they allow themselves to improve and to heal. In the end—no matter how sophisticated the techniques you use—it's their choices about themselves that really make the true difference.”

There was warmth and translucence in the way she expressed herself—definitely the kind of therapist I'd seek out if I ever needed one.

Mary's husband, Neil, had been working quietly with his photographs in a corner of the living room, only moving when he spotted spare slices of Mary's amazing homemade ginger cake. (“It's Delia Smith's recipe. Not mine,” she said modestly.) But he'd obviously been listening to our conversation and finally added his own opinion. “I honestly think that one of our main problems today is that we limit ourselves by the false and very incomplete logic of scientific knowledge when all the major forces and energies are infinitely powerful and way beyond any kind of logic.”

That seemed to sum up what Mary was saying, so we spent most of the rest of the time admiring Neil's remarkable high-resolution landscape shots of Beara. “This peninsula is just full of these vast panoramas,” he said enthusiastically, “and I'm starting to produce a whole series of cards to sell locally—plus some very expensive megablowups for affluent blow-ins. They seem to love them and find them ‘very relaxing'—so I guess it's my small contribution to all these healing activities on Beara!”

 

“I
WOULDN'T CALL THEM
affluent—most of the blow-ins I meet here are carrying backpacks and eating day-old sandwiches,” said Julie Aldridge, founder of Soul Ray. The sign on the door next to the supermarket was a little frayed at the edges, but there was a pamphlet pinned to the hallway wall inside explaining that Soul Ray offered a variety of services, including art therapy: “A unique approach to emotional and psychological problems…enabling access to your deeper understanding as well as strengthening your imaginative and creative potentials.” And it also mentioned something about “flower remedies.”

“What in the world are flower remedies?” asked Anne.

“Never heard of them,” I said. “I thought I'd seen just about every kind of therapy there was offered on that notice board in the supermarket—I even found some new ones today like shiatsu, ayurveda body massage and acupressure, pulsating magnetic fields therapy, asana,
pranayama
, trance-dancing, hyperthermic chamber therapy, timeline therapy, mora and hydro-colon therapies, chakra and regression therapies—oh! and kinesiology and iridology. And all this in and around little Castletownbere. If they had someone doing Kabbala training, we'd just about have the lot.”

“You're forgetting angel channeling,” said Anne with a grin.

“What?”

“Angel channeling. Using the power of your own guardian angel, or something like that. There was someone talking about it on Irish TV last week…”

“Okay—if you say so, although I haven't seen that offered here yet! But ‘flower remedies'…I'm stuck!”

“Actually,” said Anne, “it says ‘Peralandra and Bach Flower Remedies—offering gentle support during times of difficulty, stress or crisis.'”

“So—let's go and ask this Julie Aldridge what she's really doing.”

We climbed two long flights of stairs, and just as we reached the door to the Soul Ray office, out stepped this very tall bundle of energy, high spirits, and infectious laughter.

“Oh, hello,” she said (with that very infectious laugh). “I'm Julie—are you coming to see me? I was just leaving…”

“Well, we'll come back—” Anne started to say.

“Oh, no no—come on in. I'm not going anywhere special. I just needed a break. Fancy a cup of tea?”

And that was it. We were smitten. She was lovely, lively, and seemed to float about on a little cushion of joy and giggles—all topped off with a dainty broad-rimmed bonnet sprouting ribbons and feathers. “It takes me forever to put this thing on, so—if you don't mind I'll leave it on. I'm trying it out for a wedding next week.” Ah—zaniness personified. I sensed we had found a potential new friend. Anne was laughing a lot too, along with Julie—always a sign of instant-bonding. And as it turned out, there was actually some serious and very valuable bonding to be done with Julie in our future on Beara.

Julie Aldridge
by Celia Teichman

It began almost immediately in her cozy counseling room overlooking Castletownbere harbor. We were talking about the peninsula and its ability to lure people into its mysteries and magic. Julie grinned. “Well, first it's the landscape, I think. There's a kind of gateway here at Glengarriff. The town itself can be touristy in the summer with its weirdly humid Gulf Stream climate, those two fancy botanical gardens, and the gorgeous hidden valleys back in the forest there. You've got to explore those. It's another world. But if you turn west, and pass through that invisible gateway, you're into a different form of energy altogether. Some people can't stay here on Beara for long. Others find it very hard to leave. Must be because—like everyone tells you—we're sitting on this enormous crystal bedrock here! It also all depends really where you are in your own evolution. If you need to go deeper or find space for your own creativity—Beara's very conducive for doing work on yourself. Expanding your artistic eye, writing that novel, opening up new channels of health and happiness for yourself and for those you love too.”

“Well—you certainly look happy enough!” said Anne. “Beara obviously works for you.”

Another enticing laugh from Julie. “Yes but it's not for everyone. Certainly not the way we—Jim, my partner, and I—live…a tiny cottage near Eyeries up on the mountainside, no running water, no electricity, no TV…oh, and no car!”

“No car?! How do you get around?” asked Anne.

“Walk…or get lifts.”

“That's a heck of a walk—over the top from here to Eyeries. What is it—six miles? Maybe more?” I asked.

“Almost seven. But it's a lovely experience. Except in the winter. That can be a bit nippy! Sometimes I think we're crazy. I'm originally from Sheffield in Yorkshire—the
Full Monty
city. That's a strong place too, but I never really learned to love it like Beara. The landscape is so powerful here. It works on you whether you know it or not. It's like a purification process just living here. That's why we've got our little cold, damp cottage—we're living intentionally at a pretty primitive level. But it's real. I've never felt so connected to anyplace before—at all levels. When we first came to Ireland we traveled around with a tent for five months looking for…something. And then we found Beara, and we were, well—transfixed and transformed! It was like we'd entered one of our own fantasy dreams. We couldn't leave. Even now if I have to nip over to England to see family or whatever, I always feel the land trying to hold me back. And that's after years of living here!”

“How did you get into therapies and counseling?” asked Anne.

“I suppose it just sort of came—but of course it was possibly already cosmically preordained! I thought I'd be doing some painting. Trying to sell a few canvases to make ends meet. And I must admit, that side of things is working out pretty well. I've just had an exhibition at Anam Cara, and some galleries are now interested. Jim was planning to do some computer work—teaching, programming, and whatnot. It was all very vague, but we both sensed that we only have this one life and time seems to be relatively short and there was an awful lot we wanted to do without distractions and without wasting energy going after material things we really didn't want or need. So, as we opened up to the place, the place sort of opened up to us too. In the most natural and gentle of ways. It showed us—reminded us—that the human being is so much more complex than most of us imagine. We often end up barely scratching the surface of our own lives. But when you do release different facets of yourself, you're on an incredible learning curve. You start to love yourself and all those new facets of yourself more and more. Then you find yourself opening up to similar kind of facets in other people. You see things—into things—much more. It's like, the deeper you go inside yourself, the wider you can spread your understanding…your empathy and love.”

“And out of that…empathy…comes an ability to heal?” Anne asked.

“Yeah—eventually it can. If you direct it that way. But not all at once. I can't say suddenly you become some kind of mystical guru—because I'm not mystical at all really, and I'm certainly not a blinking guru! I'm really quite pragmatic. I think, to a large extent, we're all capable and in charge of our own healing. All that's needed usually is someone to listen, to really hear, and to suggest where the paths to recovery might be. How they might be used through—well, all kinds of resources—imagery, art, and art therapy; I teach a course in that at Cork University now—and all the various holistic processes. They're all different, but their potentials and benefits are similar and all mutually reinforcing.”

“And then there's your ‘flower remedies'…what are they?” asked Anne.

Julie laughed once again. We were learning to love that laugh. “Ah…,” she began, “oh, heck—look. I'm finished here for the day. I was going to set off home when you arrived…”

“Walking?” I asked.

“Right—walking. Or getting a lift…whatever. People know me and stop. I usually don't need my thumb! And in this blinkin' bonnet I'll get a lift in no time flat! So why don't you come back to the cottage. See how we really live in the rough on Beara. We can walk or…”