Breakfast was what you’d expect at a Paris two star hotel: baguette, fruit juice, coffee and croissant. Unfortunately they get their baguettes in the night before and they taste like they are twelve hours old when served. This morning I visited a nearby boulangerie and got my bread to pack a lunch to take with me on my outing.

One of the first things I noticed upon my arrival in Paris yesterday was how mild and dry was the weather compared with Sweden and Germany. Last night I was out in just a shirt, scarf and jacket on top, and this morning I walked to the boulangerie in
sandals. However, the dry weather did not last. As I climbed the short distance from the hotel to the Basilica Sacre-Coeur it began to rain and kept raining until mid afternoon. I was without my umbrella, so, like so many others I purchased a €5 number at one of the dozens of tourist shops. I love Paris, but I refuse to walk around with an umbrella or wearing a poncho declaring that fact. I took refuge in the basilica for half an hour while a mass was in progress before joining a line of tourists walking an inside circuit of the basilica.

My next destination was the Rambuteau metro station which is near the Pompidou
Centre and near my favourite vegetarian restaurant. I wanted to check opening
times of each. Both were closed. I walked the short distance to Musee Picasso. It had been closed since September for twenty months of renovations to the building in which it was housed. However, part of the exhibits will be displayed at the Art Gallery of NSW starting 10 November. The remainder will go to Taipei, Montreal and a Californian city.

I decided to return to the hotel for an early evening sleep, something I rarely, if ever do. I ate at a brasserie close to the hotel. What is it with the French and their sauces and oils? I ordered a vegetarian salad which floated around the plate. It’s a
near impossibility in France to get a simple, unadorned vegetable salad. They should move a little to the east to see how the Italians do it. (For anyone traveling anywhere overseas and looking for a vegetarian/vegan restaurant, go to the Happy Cow website: www.happycow.com)

02.11.2011

I had a relaxed start to the day after which I went straight to the Musee d’Orsay arriving around 11.00am and not leaving until around 5.30pm during which time I think I took in nearly every square metre of exhibition space.

Vincent van Gogh is one of my favourites. So many people don’t see it to old age and we are denied their genius. One wonders what he might have gone onto paint had he not cut short his life at age 37. I was reminded today when I read some of his history that after he spent a relatively short time in Paris he visited places like Arles and Saint-Remy-de-Provence, two cities I passed through on my walk, both of which claim a connection with th artist. In fact, he spent time in an asylum in St. Remy.

I also loved the impressionist painters of which Monet is probably the most famous. I was fascinated to see the contrasting styles between a large two panel painting of Monet’s from the 1860′s (which is hung in a little out of the way space to the left of the ground floor) with those in the impressionist section of the gallery, quite a number of which were painted in the 1870′s.

There is a richness about spending time in a gallery like d’Orsay with thousands of pieces on display. I always take time to read the name of the artist, when the work
was painted and it’s name. I also like to read the short introductions to the artists and descriptions of the particular style in which they painted. Some paintings draw me into them: I just have to get up very close and examine the brush strokes.

I did notice that some of the museum’s acquisitions resulted from their former owner’s having handed them over in lieu of taxes owed to the State. Also there have been many bequests, some involving large collections.

Tonight I made it to my favourite vegetarian/vegan restaurant. I arrived late and left after 11.00pm. Since my last visit in 2009 it has expanded into the buildng next door. I’ll return there tomorrow night for an early meal after visiting the Pompidou Centre.

I felt a sense of elation as I stepped onto the train headed for Gare du Nord where I changed to the Metro for a station near my hotel in the Montmartre district, not far from the Basilica Sacre-Coeur. I am so looking forward to visiting some familiar places like the Pompidou Centre (contemporary art museum) and Musee d’Orsay which recently completed a two year upgrade of it’s exhibition spaces. This is, I think, my seventh visit to Paris and I’ve never taken one of those tourist trips on the Seine. Weather and time permitting, I might do it this time. Tourist numbers should be down this time of the year.

I was gifted with a random act of kindness as I descended steps of a Metro station when a young man in his late twenties beckoned to take my suitcase. I knew it was heavy, 23kg, because the airline had labelled it. He resisted my feeble protest, carried it onto the platform where he let it go and walked on like it had never happened. I thanked him but for him it appeared that no thanks was necessary.

Dragging this suitcase behind me and carrying it up many flights of stairs on my way to the hotel made me think about how I had carried 28kg on my back for 1900km of my recent walk. I find it hard to believe of myself that I actually did it. The mind is a powerful beast, if only we could harness it’s full potential. Carrying this weight for the distance I did was my short glimpse of how the beast can be harnessed.

After checking into the hotel I strolled up Rue Caulaincourt and found a great little restaurant where I enjoyed a meal over ninety minutes of watching. I deliberately took nothing with me to read so I could sit and look at the people, their clothes, their mannerisms, their facial expressions, and what they ordered. I just wanted to be the observer.

It was a miserable morning: raining, a dull sky with not a hint of the sun breaking through. Anette had arranged for Felix, his girlfriend and me to help her offload anything not tied down on her yacht, including sails, and take them back to her house where they will be stored for the winter. We got that done by late afternoon.

Around 5.00pm the four of us went to a local community hall where we saw another performance of a Requium, this time by Faure. It was performed by a handful of musicians from the Goteborg Opera and a local choir which was support by soprano and baritone soloists. It was a semi-church service with the local twice married priest who conducts a men’s discussion group at his home where they drink whisky and smoke cigars, spoke about what a church should mean to a community. I tried my hand at singing Psalm 191 in Swedish.

We later had a dinner of smoked salmon with steamed potatoes and broccoli. A lot of respect has been paid to me this week by preparing vegetarian dishes for the family evening meal. After dinner, while Anette looked through photographs of my Camino Peter baked an apple cake from which I helped myself a very hearty portion.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time in Sweden and have been looked after with abundant generosity. I fly out for Paris tomorrow.

Anette picked me up around 3.00pm after work. I went with her when she drove Felicia to an area by the sea where a friend of Felicia’s keeps horses, two of which Felicia exercises each week. While she was doing that we drove to a nearby harbour where Anette has a 36 foot yacht which she’s had only a short time but long enough for her and her family to spend a month on it last summer holidays sailing around the Danish coast. The yacht has to be taken out of the water in a couple of weeks time, put in a cradle and covered for the winter. The marina where it is moored will freeze over during the winter. It would not have occurred to me that this would happen, such is not our way of thinking when we come from a warm climate like Australia.

Shortly befiore 6.00pm we met with Peter in Goteborg to attend a recital of Dvorak’s ‘Requium’ performed by the Goteborg Symphony Orchestra and Goteborg Symphony Choir, and directed by Joachim Gustafsson. The principal singing parts were performed by a soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and baritone. I loved it. I’m told the concert hall, built about fifty years ago, has wonderful accoustics, but my untrained ear would not know the dirrerence between good and superior acoustics.

After the concert we had pizza and prawns at home around a very congenial and welcoming dinner table.

29.10.2011

Everyone was out this morning: Anette and Felicia at a gymnastics competition, and Peter, Felix (who lives in a flat in Goteborg with his girlfriend) and a neighbor of Peter’s who all went dirt-bike riding. I had time to complete filling the wood cellar, a task I set myself last Monday which I’ve been working on a few hours each day. A simple thing to do by way of acknowledgement of the hospitality, kindness, and generosity shown to my by Anette, Peter and their family.

Around 2.00pm Anette returned from the gymnastics. We went for a ‘Sunday afternoon drive’ on Saturday taking in Goteborg’s hinterland which I’d not previously seen. We visited the village where Peter was raised; saw how the countryside changed from roads lined by forests of pine trees to ones paralleled by stretches of land used to grow crops; and saw the many, many lakes, some of which were being fished from the water’s edge and many of which are local water supplies. As Australians we are very conscious of the scarcity of water, but here in Sweden its ready availability seems to generate a complacency about and extravagance in its use.

We had dinner at home after which I looked at photographs, the most beautiful of which were Pixbo and the area around Peter and Anette’s home while blanked in winter’s snow.

On the way back to the car by tram was the first time since my arrival in Sweden I’d noticed how quickly night time descends. It was broad daylight when leaving Goteborg and twenty minutes later we were in complete darkness.

Anette had bought us tickets for an ice hockey game between the Goteborg team and a visiting team. We met up with her shortly before the game was to start at 7.00pm. Now for someone who has never witnessed this sport, not even on TV, I saw it as quite a spectacle. The arena, in a building called the Scandinavium, looked like it had a capacity crowd with more than 11,000 spectators, but it was not full. Before the match there was a light show introducing the two teams, beamed onto the ice. Anette’s elder son, Fabian (21 years) has been involved in the production of these shows, but he didn’t do the one we watched tonight.

As I expected, the game was fast, colourful, and intensely fought with a few ‘sin-binnings’, and the occasional ‘fight’ which never amounted to anything that warranted a referee (of which there are three) taking action against any player. If a player is in the sin bin and the opposing team scores a goal that player is immediately allowed to re-enter the play, irrespective of the amount of time he has served. There were lots of heavy collisions between players against the wall as they competed for the puck. To deliberately collide with another player when not competing for the puck, is a sin binning offence. Each team has five players and their goal keeper on the field at any one time, but the five players seemed to be replaced by by one of the other twenty five members of the squad every three to four minutes. These changeovers are seamless, not requiring a stop in play. In between the three twenty minute periods of play the playing surface is topped with a film of water to fill in the marks left by the skates. The local team won by 5 goals to 1. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but I’m not sure I’d rush to watch another game.

Kahlo, who died in 1954 aged just 47 years, was relatively unknown in her lifetime, but her popularity has risen significantly in recent decades. Many of her paintings, which are self-portraits, have been interpreted to reflect her private emotional suffering, part of which arose from the tumultuous relationship she had with her not too faithful husband. When she painted her face it was with severe, black eyebrows which met in the middle, along with facial hair both above and below her lips. On Tuesday night we watched a DVD called ‘Frida’, a portrayal of her life. It helped put into perspective events taking place in her life when she was painting some of the works in the exhibition.

The Australian connection in ‘Frida’ was Geoffrey Rush playing Leon Trotsky, who was granted political asylum in the 1920′s by the Mexican Government, and who was assasinated while in Mexico at the instigation of Stalin. Kahlo and Trotsky are depicted in the movie as having had an affair while Trotsky and his wife were living in the Kahlo/Rivera house. Artistic license? I don’t know.

I visited the same Goteborg Museum last time I was here in June 2009. I noticed in the 2011-2012 program that “children and youths up to 25 years: free admittance” and that a season ticket, which incidentally allows admission to four other museums, costs just 40 Swedish Kroners, or about $5.90 Aus. (Sweden did not adopt the Euro as it’s currency even though it is a member of the European Union)

We came home to a dinner prepared by Peter, although Anette went out immediately to sing in a ‘church’ choir which she does each Wednesday. Each Tuesday it’s a ‘rock’ choir. Both she and Felicia will be singing at Peter’s father’s funeral next month.

The fine, sunny weather continues. Peter rode his motor cycle to work – an indication that conditions are still favourable. If there is the possibility of ice on the road it’s enough to change from two to four wheels.

I was surprised to learn the Swedish view on funerals, or at least the conduct of them in relation to the time of death. Peter’s father died in mid-October but his funeral will not take place until mid-November. I find this extraordinary. Funerals are meticulously planned, and can only be had on certain days of the week because that’s when the church will accommodate them. In times gone by if you died in the winter the body would be put outside where it would freeze and ‘keep’ until the summer time when the soil was soft enough to dig a grave. I can imagine this still happening in the more remote northern parts of the country.

After Anette returned from physiotherapy we drove a short distance from her home to Gunnebo Castle, which really isn’t a castle, but the former summer house of a wealthy Goteborg businessman. Built in the last decade of the eighteenth century, today it boasts one of the best preserved gardens of the French baroque style. This style reached it’s height of popularity during the latter half of the seventeenth century. In this style the main house is central to the garden which narrows the further away from the house you go, and where you have to go into the garden to actually appreciate an aspect of it. The garden of the Palace of Versailles is one of the best known examples. The house was bought in the 1950′s by the local council, Moindall Municipality. In June 2001 Sweden hosted an EU Summit in Goteborg. The summit’s guests lunched at Gunnebo Castle as guests of the Swedish Prime Minister.

I helped out a little today by carting firewood from a storage area to the wood cellar. I enjoyed doing some physical work, my first since mowing lawns when back in Australia last August. Now this raises an interesting contrast between something that is done nationally and something that is done locally. Sweden don’t produce any of it’s power from fossil fuel. They do have nuclear power, but about 50% of their needs comes from hydro generation. However, when it comes to private house they collectively don’t mind burning a forest or two during a winter. Some households now tap into thermal hot water several hundred metres below the earth’s surface to heat
their houses.

25.10.2011

I busied myself for a couple of hours this morning straightening things out in the wood cellar so that a lot more wood will fit into it than would otherwise have been the case. The outside temperature never got above six degrees today so working in
the cellar with the hot furnace nearby was a treat. I had the house to myself. Home alone in Pixbo.

This afternoon I went for a 7km walk which took me through the gardens of Gunnebo Castle, down to a lake and along it’s edge before heading back to a pine forest from where I started. Most of the tracks are now covered with a carpet of autumn leaves. Lots of the trees are looking spectacular with their red, orange and yellow leaves. Green is quickly disappearing.

Yesterday when Anette and I were at Gunnebo we had lunch at a cafe located in a building that once was the living quarters of castle’s servants. The cafe uses its own gardens to grow herbs and vegetables for use in its food. All food is grown organically. Lunch, which was vegetarian, was delicious, as was the pie and cream we had with a cup of tea after a walk in the gardens. It’s hard to imagine what this place would be like blanketed with snow and with children out on weekends sledding down the slopes.

Today was my last day of teatment: local hyperthermia, infusions and magnetic field therapy. I’ll have breakfast at the clinic tomorrow after which there will be a wait until 2.00pm before sharing a taxi to Frankfurt with Sylvia, an English woman with whom I’ve shared a number of meals, together with an English couple Arthur and Hillary. We’ve all played scrabble together after dinner on Arthur’s iPad. Sylvia is in that group of young women which seems to be over represented at the clinic. I’ve previously made this observation and it remains an abiding reminder that not everyone is fortunate enough to make it to the other side of fifty before a cancer
diagnosis.

We had a very foggy morning. We wake to streets which always seem to be wet from the condensation in the previous night’s air. I assume this will be the case until winter arrives.

I’ve enjoyed my time at the clinic. It’s not like any other place I’ve been for treatment. All the staff with whom I’ve had the most contact, nursing and dining room, have always been pleasant and helpful to me. The dining room chats with the
patients can be uplifting, full of laughter, instructive, and just plain pleasant. They
are, for me, and I’m sure for most other patients, part of the therapy which helps to heal.

22.10.2011

The beanie I bought myself a few days ago has become a blessing on my afternoon walks into Nidda and the morning stroll from my hotel to the clinic when the air can
be crisp and cold. There’s always a new face at the clinic. After breakfast this
morning I spoke with Mike, an Australian, at the clinic for the second time. Some people have a particularly hard road to hoe. What I find interesting about conversations like I had with Mike is that they can be wide ranging, but there will be something I’ve spoken about that resonates with the other person, and vice versa, which they want to know more about: I get the sense that what is picked up upon is what will give that person an extra sense of hope.

A stay at Clinic Herzog results in lots of good-bye hugs, and those short conversations where you wish each other the best and healthiest of lives. Today was no different.
Sisters, Sharon and Eileen from Idaho and Virginia respectively, were at the clinic as
support for their mum, Ginny. A couple of mornings ago I introduced them,
unsuccessfully, to that great Australian spread, Vegemite. Eileen, a vet, suggested it might be a good substance for concealing tablets to be taken by a medicine-shy dog. I later responded that an American dog (not knowing on what side its bread was buttered) was more likely to discard the Vegemite and mistakenly take the medication as a better option.

I also said my goodbyes to Om and Beila from New Delhi. Beila was the support
person. We, like I’ve done with many others both at the clinic and while in Abadiania, exchanged email addresses. They’d like me to contact them when I visit India, which I will in the not too distant future because I feel that the the south of that country, in particular, is richly spiritual. Finally I said my farewells to Hillary (who has the cancer) and Arthur, who are from the south of England. Over dinner especially, we’ve shared lots of stories and laughter. Looking forward to the fun to be had at the dinner table made it a time to look forward to.

After the taxi dropped off Sylvia at Frankfurt airport I soon arrived at my hotel. Don’t expect to do any sightseeing if you choose a hotel close to the airport. There was a small shopping centre across the road. I strolled there for a look around after booking into the hotel. I wandered into a liquor store. An odd place to visit, you might think, for someone who doesn’t drink alcohol, but I needed to while away some time. It was a barn-sized outlet. What is it about Germans and their beer? There was row upon row of the amber fluid in probably a hundred brands, not including at least thirty brands of alcohol-free beer. Now there’s something serious brewing here
if you can have so many non-alcoholic beers. What intrigued me was the price per litre: dearer if you bought it by the single bottle as distict from a box of twelve or
twenty four. Some was a cheap as 60 cents/litre and the most expensive, $1.90/litre.

Dinner was at the hotel, which leads me to another observation about Germany: the emphasis on meat dishes. The menu, which was not extensive, contained just one vegetarian dish. Ah! The challenges of being a vegetarian abroad.

23.10.2011 – Gothenburg & Pixbo

I had very little sleep last night. Apart from not sleeping well I was up at 4.15am to make sure I caught the 4.55am shuttle bus to the airport. By 5.30am quite a long queue had built up at the check-in counter, however, German efficiency saw me at the counter in about fifteen minutes. I had two bags to check in, but the second would have cost me €50. So after some hasty re-arranging to move liquids from one
to the other I was sitting down for breakfast by 6.00am. An Asian man (identified so as to not misleadingly imply him to be German) was demonstrating his grasp of the culture by putting some serious effort into a large mug of beer. Sitting not far from
me, in the shadow of a statue of the poet Goethe, after whom the cafe is named, was a woman making nice work of a carafe of red wine. A more serious case of time
dissonance I’ve not witnessed.

We had a fifteen minute delay in take-off while waiting for checked in baggage to be off-loaded after it’s ‘owner’ did not show up to board the aircraft. I arrived in
Gothenburg to be greeted by Anette with her beaming, broad, beautiful smile. It was a gloriously sunny day as we drove to her home at Pixbo. The pilot had earlier said
how beautiful the weather would be at 6 degrees. Apparently today was exceptional after recent weeks which have been very wet. There was lots of talk about my recent adventures and what has occupied Anette and her family over the past year. Most of the catching up was over lunch and dinner which have been with Anette, her husband Peter, and their 12 year old daughter Felicia.

I never cease to be amazed by the stories and experiences described to me by clinic patients who come from the USA and the UK about the intolerance of their medical practitioners, particularly oncologists, to therapies that don’t fit into their own treatment paradigms which focus almost entirely upon chemotherapy and radio therapy It seems that in the USA those who control admission to the profession will move quickly to eliminate from practice anyone who was to advocate, for example, hyperthmia. It seems that in the UK the result would be the same.

In Australia, we appear to be, if not more enlightened, more tolerant of non-conventional therapies. It seems that in neither the USA nor the UK would you have a doctor currently practising conventional medicine, endorse a month of meditation in Brazil and three weeks of hyperthermia in Germany as an entirely appropriate treatment program for the management of prostate cancer and follicular lymphoma, like my GP has done for me.

If you need a laugh after reading this, google “Three Holy Men and a Bear” and read the joke. If you want to tell it to a friend, do some work on your accents.

I toyed with the idea of going into Frankfurt today, having yesterday arranged my only treatment for 8.00am. However, before leaving my hotel I decided against it, preferring instead to get my blog up to date and read.

Last night I booked my fare to Gothenberg. I decided on a 7.30am flight via London. Direct flights are exhorbitantly expensive. I’m o’kay with a two and a half hour stopover at Heathrow. The flight will get me into Gothenberg a little after 1.00pm, a decent hour, especially so because my friend Anette will be picking me up. Between
now and Friday I’ll make up my mind whether to stay in Bad Salzhausen on Saturday night or get a hotel in Frankfurt close to the airport. I intend to go into Frankfurt on Saturday to do a little sightseeing, and possibly meet up with someone I met in Brazil.

Not eating lunch is a real blessing. Being in the clinic is such a sedentary life: I just don’t need the calories provided by three meals a day.

The weather had a bitter edge to it when I went on my walk this afternoon. The wind had a real chill to it. There weren’t many locals out there. They probably knew better. It rained in the early evening.

19.10.2011

I’ve woken to a cloudy sky. It rained during the night. As I looked out of my hotel
window across a lawn to the small pension next door I could see the kitchen staff busily going about their breakfast preparations. I love the cool mornings as I make my way to the clinic along the half kilometre of nearly deserted streets.

The days go by very quickly, especially when a morning is taken up with round after round of treatments. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred today: treatments, emailing, meals and chat. I bought myself a beanie. It came in handy on my afternoon walk into Nidda.

Another beautiful autumn day. The crowds were out in the parklands walking he many paths. At the gradation works a line of people sat with their backs to the afternoon sun while they breathed in the cool, vibrant air. No one walks at speed around Bad Salzhausen: aged people with walking frames are common. It’s rare to see a young person, except at the hospital where they are both patients and nurses. Occasionally I’ll see a youthful jogger, very occasionally.

This afternoon I went to the Barus Circus which has been playing in Nidda for over a
week. It has just seven performers, apart from the animals: there’s a lot of multi-tasking. A girl of about eight years of age sold popcorn before the show, performed as an acrobat/gymnast, did a supporting act as a belly-dancer, and finished by interacting in a comedy sketch with the clown. Children still squeal with delight at the antics of the clown and get into a complete mess while working their way through a mountain of fairy floss, nowadays, regretably called ‘candy floss’ by Australian children. (Don’t get me started on language imperialism, or am I just old fashioned?)

Recalling the hysterical laughter of children reminded me of my own childhood. The
town in which I grew up had a festival each year. When I was about eleven years of age I went with some mates after school to the town hall where a section had been temporarily turned into a cinema. A silent, slapstick comedy film, probably from the 1920′s, was showing. Word had gone around school that it was a ‘must see’. In one scene a number of men were in line digging in a trench with picks. As a car drove over the men in the trench their upward swinging picks caught the rear axle of the car resulting in each being flung into the air one after the other. The laughter that this scene generated was of the knee slapping, give me oxygen so I can laugh some more, rocking backwards and forwards in my seat, tears running down my cheeks,
and looking at my friends and being assured and infected by their laughter, type. Later we swore amongst ourselves that if we watched the film a hundred times we
would laugh just as much. Laughs like these are the great immune boosters: we all need more of them.

17.10.2011

This evenig before dinner we had another viewing, the third now, of the DVD ‘Healing’. About a dozen of us watched it, a couple for the second, and for me the
third time. What an impactful film! Everyone who has watched it is moved by this thought provoking look at the healing that takes place in Abadiania. I’m so joyed I’ve had the opportunity to share it with so many others, some of whom I’m sure will make the journey to the Casa when their time is right.

The highlights of today’s therapies were the foot reflexology followed immediately by a back massager. I allow myself to become fully immersed in these experiences.

Most of the patients who were here when I arrived have left. There are always new faces appearing at the clinic. As I’ve come to realise most of them have been here before, some many times. It seems to me they come for ‘maintenance’: topping up their therapies to keep their cancers in check. I’ve only heard of one patient say he is ‘cancer free’. There’s never going to be a shortage of patients, so pervasive is this disease.

As is also often the case there are travel clouds with silver linings. I had just walked
into the centre of Glauberg when I stopped to look at a small map of the archeological park in which the Celtic Museum is located when a man approached me from his home across the street. I pointed to a brochure of the museum. He waved an arm and I pretended to understand his directions as I thanked him. I hadn’t walked 40 metres in the direction of the museum when the same man pulled up in his car and waved me to get in. He drove me to the museum another couple of kilometres away. What a friendly gesture. He agreed to pose for a photograph.

The area where the museum is located is referred to as ‘the Glauberg’. It was
occupied by the Celts about 2,500 years ago. This was well into the age of iron. Celts left no written records of their beliefs. They were influenced by other cultures when creating their own visual language, for example, when decorating practical items like jugs and swords. Around the Glauberg it is estimated they occupied enough land to grow crops to support 15,000 people and to support 3,000 head of cattle. At the site the bones of cattle, pigs, sheep and goats have been found. Barley and millet were their most important varieties of grain, and from pollen residues found in storage vessels its been determined that their drink of choice was mead wine fermented from honey and water. Celtic warriors reached Rome in 387BC and in the
third century into Greece and Asia Minor, however, with the gradual conquest of western Europe by Rome in the second century independent Celtic communities disappeared. Excavations, as recent as 2004-2009 uncovered another twenty new settlements. Fascinating!

My next stop was Budingen, about ten minutes down the rail line where I looked over an ‘historic village’. The town developed out of housing for courtiers and servants outside the castle and was protected by statutes and privileges. The castle, erected in the 12th century as a moated fortress for the Count zu Ysenburg and Budingen,
has been occupied continuously since 1258 by over twenty generations of Ysenburgs. The late middle ages was the high point of Budingen’s growth when the early 14th century wall around the town was replaced by a new fortfication more than two kilometres long with 22 towers. It is regarded nowadays as one of the best examples of the way defence architecture changed as a result of the invention of firearms. The town’s houses are of the half timber and plaster/masonry type, and well preserved. Otherwise, the buildings are of stone. The only surviving gate, now called the “Jerusalem Gate”, the name of which is most likely derived from religious refugees who settled in the town in the 18th century, was built in 1503 with a drawbridge, to protect the easily accessible western side. These days you continue along the street that leads from the railway station and you will end up at these gates.

It was a great day, but I have to say, an exhausting one.

Some people face enormous burdens: I spoke today with a woman who was dealing with her fourth cancer since 1999, three primaries and one metastic. There are many who have been to the Herzog clinic several times. I had breakfast with a couple from New Delhi. They are on their ninth visit without ever having looked in their own backyard where there are, or have been, many healers like Sai Baba who died earlier this year. The wife of the man who has the cancer, said they were now prepared to look closer to home.

I can’t recall how many times I’ve been asked, “Is this your first time here?” or “How many times have you been to the clinic?”. My assumption, incorrect as I was soon to realise, was that you only needed one visit – problem solved. The vast number of patients accept that they will need more than one visit to get their condition under control, and keep it that way. Many of these people have serious, metastasised cancers, unlike me, with two which are localised: the two situations are worlds apart.

We had a beautiful sunny day. The sun was just losing it’s warm edge when I
stepped out for my walk around 4.00pm.

14.10.2011

I left my hotel shortly after 7.30am. A man was scraping ice from the windshield of his van. The air felt crisp and clean. There is no industry in the immediate vicinity of Bad Salzhausen, at least none that can be seen or heard. We are surrounded by agricultural farmland, forests of trees, green parklands and unspoiled mineral spas: it just feels unpolluted.

I had a 7.45am local hyperthermia session on my prostate. I finished it with the power on 150watts, the maximum. I visualised my cancer cells really cooking in what I call ‘Herzog’s Inferno’. I saw these cells with tiny arms, raised upwards, and tiny imploring faces, imploring to be spared the heat, only for them to wither into blackened, molten heaps.

It was such a sunny day. I was able to sit outside and read for the first time in more than a week.

I said goodbye today to Sid and Cathy from Iowa in the USA. Cathy was here for treatment and will be back soon, as will Maggie from Bedfordshire in England. Her husband had driven over to pick her up. I’ll miss their conversations at mealtimes when patients exchange their stories and learn from one another.

I had another consultation with Dr. Herzog this afternoon to discuss my case and get a treatment plan for next week. The thing about these consultations is that they are not rushed. I felt like I had all the time in the world to say what I needed to say, which is how it should be.

More of the same today: local hyperthermia on the prostate, infusions, magnetic field therapy, back massage, and foot reflexology. I had a consultation this afternoon with Dr. Herzog about my progress and where I go from here. I have decided not to have any more local hyperethermia on my stomach after this week, but will have a further three treatments next week on my prostate, making a total of eight treatments for the prostate. I have also decided not to have moderate full body hyperthermia, and, of course, chemotherapy is inappropriate for me unless I have extreme full body hyperthermia which is not warranted in my circumstances. I have another
consultation this coming Friday to review the first two weeks and discuss next week’s treatments.

I decided to stop eating lunch, feel better for it, and look forward to dinner. There isn’t enough of a gap between breakfast ending at 10.00am and lunch beginning at 12 midday.

It’s good to get out for my afternoon walk. I’m doing between 4km and 8km each walk. Sometimes the sun would break through but mostly it held itself back allowing for a cool afternoon.

11.10.2011

A couple of the patients I’ve got to know have left: one yesterday and the other today. There’s something comforting about walking into the dining room and seeing a familiar, friendly face, or just passing one in the corridors.

Sometimes we are a messenger and do not realize we have a message to deliver. On my second day here I told a story I had heard in Abadiania. It involved distant
healing. It is possible to take a photograph of a loved one, or perhaps a friend before the entities who will suggest a course of treatment, if needed. The man who told the story presented a rather bad faxed copy of a photograph of his sister. On an earlier occasion he had presented a photograph of the same sister. On that occasion the entities had prescribed herbs. When the faxed photo was presented he was told by the entity that his sister had not taken the first lot of herbs and questioned why further help should be given when the earlier course of treatment was not followed.
The fact that his sister had not taken the herbs was unknown to him nor to any member of the family, and came as a shock. But he was able to get help a second time for his sister.

Simone, a young New Yorker, with a particularly difficult diagnosis heard me tell the story. She said she had also received this same type of distant healing and had failed to complete her herbs. Inexplicably to her, of all the pills and supplements she could have brought with her to Germany, she brought her herbs. She made up her mind to get back onto them immediately. When saying good bye to her this morning she said she was glad to have met me. I don’t need to know why: there’s more than a touch of ego in making that enquiry. It’s sufficient to feel the warmth that comes from believing I may have helped her in some way.

12.10.2011

In the parklands of Bad Salzhausen is the Gradation works. Some call it an inhaleatorium. It’s where salt water trickles through black thorn twigs stacked about 3 metres high in two back to back rows about 15 metres long. The air that rises from this process has a high water vapor content. It is regarded as restorative. People can be seen walking around this rectangular structure doing lap after lap breathing in the cool air vapour.

Simone, who I mentioned in the previous post, tells the story with some amusement, of the child-like fasciation of a woman who intently watched her walk this circuit before she had had a half kilogram tumour surgically removed from the right side of her chest. Don’t you remember admonishing your children with, “Don’t stare!”.

It rained today, but this did not deter me from my afternoon walk into Nidda. One of the more unusual shops in Nidda, probably because it seems so incongruously located there, is ‘John’s Shop’. In the street display window can be seen all manner of
automatic and semi-automatic rifles, handguns and knives, along with camoflouage clothes and bedding, and the United States and German flags. I was told that they shoot wild boar in this area. I’m afraid there wouldn’t be much of a wild boar left if you let loose with one of these ‘little babies’.

Tonight a few of us again watched the DVD ‘Healing’, about the healing work that is done in Abadiania. It’s easy to see why it won a cinematography award: it’s beautifully shot.

My highlight today was moving into my hotel. The room is three times as big and much better appointed than was my clinic room. From the little contact I’ve had with the hotel owners, Joanna and Wolf, they appear to be a lovely couple. I’m now an outpatient. If in future I suggest to anyone else to come to the Herzog clinic, depending upon their particular circumstances, I would also suggest they consider a week at the clinic followed by the balance of their time at a hotel.

I had local hyperthermia this afternoon on my stomach for the lymphoma, followed in
the late afternoon by a walk in the brisk air and fading sunlight. A lot of the day was
taken up, or at least it seemed that way, with eating and chatting. Clinic life isn’t all that bad.

09.10.2011

Today’s highlight was definitely watching the DVD ‘Healing’. I mentioned in one of my Abadiania posts about buying it. It’s an award winning film about Medium Joao and the healing which occurs at the Casa. About a dozen of us watched it before lunch.
For some of us it was a tearful experience, especially when hearing the stories of
healing. In an early scene when I saw the Casa I felt a very strong connection in my heart. It was the first time I’d watched the film and I’m sure I’ll watch it many more times, hopefully when I’m sharing the experience with others. Today’s viewing may be the catalyst for some present to visit Abadiania.

I’m definitely putting on weight: I feel it and I can see it on my waist line. I realise I don’t have to eat every meal, but I do. I enjoy the socialising that accompanies them. I compensated by going for an hour and half walk this afternoon.

The temperature are definitely getting colder. I woke to a very misty morning. On
my walk today a breeze was biting into my hands. Tonight, around 8.00pm as I returned in light rain to the hotel after dinner, there was no one on the street. And
this is just the Autumn.

I was woken again by the nurse. Not a bad thing. It means I’m sleeping well. This morning I had my consultation with Dr Herzog. It was pleasing for me to hear him not suggest chemotherapy as part of my treatment plan. Local hyperthermia will be my principal therapy.

I was very excited to get the results of the PSA test I did last Tuesday before I commenced any of the clinic’s therapies. What I achieved was solely the result of the healing I sought and received in Brasil: my meditations and spiritual healing. My PSA
has gone down from 26, as measured in Australia before traveling to Brasil, to 20.5, a reduction of 21%. You may recall that in one of my Abadiania posts on my blog I
said I believed I could cure my prostate cancer if I sat in the Medium’s Current long enough. I had in mind six months. However, now that I’m here in Germany having treatment I won’t be able to test out my belief, but what I have achieved with the PSA reduction confirms for me the belief I have in the healing that is available at the Casa.

I went for a walk this afternoon to a nearby village, stopping on the way there and back at the lithium spa for a drink of this highly mineralised water. After this it was to the infusion room where for an hour I received two infusions different to the
previous ones, namely one for the lymphatic system and the other a detoxifyer.

Today I decided to become an outpatient from Saturday afternoon onwards. I reserved hotel accommodation for two weeks. I won’t know until the end of
treatment how much I’ll save, but for a room alone I’ve gone from €70/night to €30/night. I can get three meals a day at the clinic for about €18. Food at the clinic is not part of the room fee, it’s part of general care which costs €350/day. The cost of local hyperthermia (€200/hour) is additional to the general care fee. Oh, to have this treatment available in Australia.

07.10.2011

Getting woken by the nurse is becoming a bit of a habit, but I don’t mind. Next week three of my five local hyperthermia sessions begin before 8.00am so I expect to be embracing some cold mornings on my walk from the hotel, about 300 down the main street from the clinic.

The weather’s turned cold: a far cry from what it was a few days ago with temperatures of 25 degrees plus. Today it rained lightly on and off. On my walk this afternoon I needed to put my hands in my pockets to keep them warm.

Today felt like a slow day. There was not much energy in the air. It must be the change if seasons. Meal times seem to come around very quickly. It’s like I’ve no sooner finished one meal and I’m due to sit down for the next. Most social interaction occurs at meal times. There’s not a lot, at least by me, at other times. Although last night and tonight I did watch a DVD with a few of the patients. Nearly everyone has a support person: a parent, sibling, partner or friend. Some support people don’t stay for the whole of the treatment period, but this seems rare. I
certainly don’t feel like I need one. But they are necessary for some patiets, especially the ones who have to have full body hyperthermia, and in particular, the extreme version of it where the temperature is at it’s highest. Those who come out of this look wasted, but surprisingly recovery time is quite short. It seems that in next to no time they are back at the meal table eating and smiling. I’m aware that patients are so bad they are confined to their room.

I had local hyperthermia on my prostate this morning. I’m not sure of the unit of measurement used to measure the heat energy, but today I was on 110, up from 80 last Wednesday. 110 is about as hot as I want it. Some patients get burned by the heat, especially if it has to pass through several layers of fat to get to the tumour, and also when some of the heat is reflected back to the surface by bone that it has to pass through on its way to the tumour. I’ve got just one therapy session tomorrow, local hyperthermia just after lunch.

What a great sleep I had last night. I didn’t wake until after 7.00am. I hope this is a sign of things to come. A nurse was in my room by 7.30am taking my blood pressure, pulse and blood oxygen level. This will be a daily occurrence. I also got a chit outlining all the tests I was to have today (blood for PSA and a swag of other things, lung function and ECG).

One of the first things I noticed when I sat in the garden terrace and joined in conversations with others was how willing and open they were to talk, especially
about their illness. It’s an obvious point, but one still worth making, that people who find their way here to Germany are very accepting of those other therapies we call complimentary in Australia.

Food is an important part of the therapy at the clinic, but it is not anywhere near as strict as is the Gawler Foundation diet. Here there is dairy, sauces and sugar. Some of the food tastes quite salty. They tolerate smoking by patients, and staff. Their emphasis is definitely on the hyperthermia and complimentary therapies like massage, magnetic field, oxygen therapy, and ozone infusion. Chemotherapy in varying
strengths is used extensively for those undergoing full body hyperthermia.

This afternoon I had my first local hyperthmia session. It was on my stomach where I have some remaining lymphatic system tumour. For this treatment you lie on a water bed (very comfortable) and the heating device is positioned over the area to be treated. The arm, which has the heating device attached to it, is clamped into position. I could hardly feel any warmth. The energy which is delivered by the device can be regulated, depending, amongst other things, upon the nature of the cancer, it’s location and the tolerance of the patient.

05.10.2011

Today was a full round of treatments and tests: local hyperthermia for my prostate, magnetic field therapy over the prostate region, oxygen therapy, ozone therapy, back massage and ultra sound. During the hour I’m having the local hyperthermia I like to do a visualisation in which I see the heat destroying the cancer cells. I can achieve quite a good meditative state. While having this therapy oxygen is ingested via tiny tubes placed in the nose. The ozone therapy involves taking a quantity of blood intravenously, saturating it with oxygen and returning it to the body via the same way it was extracted. Magnetic field therapy involves lying in a cylinder about 25cm wide for half an hour. I placed my hands in the cylinder in the belief that if it was good for the cancer it may have some beneficial effect on the osteoarthritis in my finger joints.

I’m enjoying the meals and the conversations that go with them. There are a lot of nice people who have cancer. It’s particularly disturbing to see so many young people at the clinic, both male and female, but predominantly women. I heard a
disturbing conversation today: one of the patients from the USA was asking other patients from there if they knew of an oncologist in the US would be prepared to treat him after returning home. Apparently, those who come here from the US find it near impossible to get follow up treatment when they return home because US oncologists reject the German system. It does sound like personal and professional prejudices being put before patient care. I would like to think that this attitude does not exist in Australia.

While on my walk this afternoon I tasted the mineral water from all three spas. The lithium spa is by far the most preferable. This seems to be the view of everyone I’ve spoken with.

Dr Herzog came to my room tonight to let me know he would discuss my treatment plan with me tomorrow.

There was some discussion today about how much cheaper it is to become an out-
patient. That is, live in a nearby hotel and pay for all treatments on an item by item basis. I’m thinking about it, but will not make a decision until after I discuss my treatment plan with Dr Herzog tomorrow.

Already the leaves are beginning to turn: there were reds, crimsons, oranges, yellows, and browns silently announcing the arrival of autumn. Large areas of farmland had been harvested. Preparation was underway for the next crop. There were stretches of vivid green pastures. The 27 degree temperature was quite unexpected.

Bad Salzhausen is blessed with huge parklands with cobweb-like walking tracks. It’s just a couple of kilometres to nearby villages. Bad Salzhausen appears to be a place visited mostly on weekends. Today was a public holiday. The two outside cafes I saw were filled with patrons eating large slices of cakes accompanied by giant cups of coffee. The town is known for its mineral spas: there are three main ones. I tried the water at one of them. The initial taste was quite overwhelming with salt. The therapeutic value in ‘taking the water’ is well recognised. The village has its spa pool where you can enjoy the mineralied water at 32 degrees. The population is an ageing one.

I had an IV port put in my arm this evening. It will remain until my treatment is complete. It made me feel like a cancer patient for the first time. I don’t like feeling this way. I suppose it comes from the association I make between an IV port and the administration of chemotherapy. I was given Vitamin C snd B intravenously. This will occur for the first three days.

I’m enjoying the food which is largely vegetarian but unlike that to which I’ve been
subjected while a hospital patient, or that I’ve seen when visiting a hospital.

I watched TV until midnight in the belief that if I went sleep really tired I would have the best chance of getting my sleep pattern in order much quicker than my two recent substantial time zone changes. I flicted between CNN which was covering the acquittal for murder by an appeals court in Farrugia, Italy of the young American woman who has been in prison for the past four years, and the German equivalent of the Oscars. The film awards occupied most of my time. As the cameras panned across the crowd there were none of those post-pubescent types you see at the
Oscars: it was a much more mature audience, as were the recipients of the vast majority of the awards. One of the pre-award ceremony interviewers, a man, demonstrated a couple of unfamiliar techniques, ones you wouldn’t see at the Oscars, or in Australia. He asked the women to open their purses to reveal what they had inside, and later, after positioning himself near the women’s toilets, stopped those leaving and enquired how they managed to keep their hemlines off the toilet floor. The women played along and didn’t appear in the least embarrassed. I found this ‘open’ approach quite refreshing.

Every question is deserving of a considered response, no matter what. This is, after all, Abadiania.

Jenny, one of the UK group staying at the same pousada as me, told me of the problem she was having with her sight, which was failing her. Close to the end of her stay she went before Medium Joao electing to have a physical operation. For those unfamiliar with the physical operation, most are done either by scraping the surface of the eye with a scalpel or other type of knife, or inserting a piece of wadding clamped between the ends of a pair of medical clamps, up the nose about 10cm, holding the head forward and pulling the instrument rapidly out of the nose. These two operations are done for a variety of conditions, neither if which, according
to the entities are necessary, but, as humans we feel more convinced and are more likely to believe that healing is taking place if there is some physical evidence of it.

While having her eye scraped Jenny had with her her prescription glasses which I was later told by someone else had cost her a goodly sum. After the operation the entity, acting through Medium Joao, took hold of the glasses, snapped them in two while telling her, “You won’t be needing these anymore!” I’m waiting for a report from the UK.

Faith is all that’s required. This is, after all, Abadiania.

Sitting at a meal at the pousada after most of the UK group had left were Rob, Torgunn, a Norwegian woman, and me. Torgunn was describing the family farm she had recently acquired when Rob asked her what she was going to do with it. “I’d like to teach people how to communicate with the elves.” Naturally, my curiosity quickly reached boiling point at the mention of this most unusual choice of occupation. In
this and ensuing conversations I learned how Torgunn could not see the elves but they communicated with her; how they had led her to a beautiful part of the property she had not previously seen (This in itself was extraordinary because not only was it
near the farm house but she had a great familiarity with the property, it having been in her family for decades, although not lived in for many years.); how there are fruit and vegetable angels who communicate with the elves about the correct way to make things grow; and how she was worried about her village finding out about her proposed occupation and the reaction they might have to it. I have to say that on a couple of occasions I purposely directed the conversation to elves, it having caught
my imagination like no other topic was able. Because there were so many cat lovers in the group it was for me a blessed relief and far, far more interesting to talk about elves than cats. Rob suggested to Torgunn that if she was going to use the farm for that sort of work she would have to concern herself with ‘occupational, elf, and safety, and later asked, in the event of her being injured, would she be relying on ‘National elf’. She took it in good spirit after what was not lost in translation was explained.

The variety of conversation topics is boundless. This is, after all, Abadiania.

It was a good day, starting with a group of us going to the waterfall around 9.00am. This is a very special place; spiritually significant; a place to visualise the cleansig of our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual bodies as the water tumbles onto our head and streams down to our feet. The chill of the water can literally make true the expression “takes your breath away”. But you need no more than a couple of minutes.

On the way back to the pousada I stopped at the Casa for my second last meditation
of this visit to Abadiania. Following this I spent a half hour on a crystal bed. What a head spin when I sat up. These beds really get the energy field excited.

In the late afternoon I did my last meditation. When I looked back on my notes I was pleased to see that I had done at least four hours per day for every day I have been in Abadiania. I came here to meditate intensively. That is what I have done.
The meditations were intended to prepare me for; to make me more receptive to; and to enhance the healing power of the treatments I will undertake in Germany. I feel I have achieved this in abundance.

02.10.2011

My taxi arrived 15 minutes ahead of time but ended up waiting for me beyond my scheduled departure time allowing me to finish breakfast and say my goodbyes. Nick, Rob and I went to the waterfall at 6.00am for Rob and my last experience of this wonderful place. Nick and his wife Gemma were guides for the group of UK residents whom I befriended. All the group had left before today bar Rob who was
to leave later in the day with Gemma. I warmed to Rob early on: a good wit, some of which I’ll share when I come to do a piece about my more unusual conversations
and observations while in Abadiania.

I was at Brasilia airport more than two hours before my flight was due to leave. The flight out over Brasilia saw the well to do suburbs with their big houses and swimming pools sharing one thing in common with their not so well to do neighbors: the ubiquitous red soil that leaves it’s stain everywhere. Brasil has just entered
spring when the rain is supposed to arrive. There is no green around at the moment, but it will soon be there in abundance.

It was a ten and a half hour flight to Zurich. I flew with Swiss Air. There always seemed to be a member of the crew walking the aisles offering something, particularly water for which I was grateful. I got some sleep, but not much. I was
more concerned to keep exercising so as to avoid a DVT. I changed time zones by five hours. Getting closer to Australia.

Today was another four o’clock wakening. I did some work on previous posts on my blog until it was time to get up. I noticed soon after waking I was a little light headed. This feeling has been with me all day. I particularly noticed it after today’s crystal bed when I had to steady myself by holding onto a chair, and following the two meditation sessions. No condition surprises me in Abadiania.

I found both today’s two hour meditation sessions tougher than doing two three and a half hour sessions. The two hour sessions are without dialogue or suggested
visualisations, whereas these are integral parts of the longer sessions when Medium

Joao is working. Also today I felt the energy in the Medium’s Current Room (where I
have been sitting these past three weeks) much less intense than when healing is happening.

The first session was made all the more difficult because of a pulsating osteo-arthritic spot on my right knee. Every time it pulsed I received a shot of pain. The pulses continued throughout the two hours, sometimes just one second apart and sometimes as long as ten seconds in between. The situation eased enough this afternoon to not regularly capture my attention.

While walking this afternoon my attention was caught by a dark red fruit, heart shaped, with a solid olive green coloured tail attached to the point of the fruit. When I enquired I was told the tail was a cashew nut. Looking at it again with this knowledge I could see the that the tail had the characteristic cashew nut crescent shape.

29.09.2011

Sometimes there is much similarity about my days in Abadiania: wake early, check emails, shower, breakfast at 7.00am, meditation etc. Do I mind? No! There’s something very comforting about this familiar life, but it can throw up some very quirky, unusual or hard to believe conversations and experiences. I will do a separate post about these at the end of my time here.

The crystal beds really do impact on one’s energy field. I had another session under
the crystals after this morning’s meditation. During the twenty minutes I fell asleep and in that space between sleep and consciousness I could hear myself breathing
extraordinarily rapidly. As soon as I came into consciousness my breath immediately returned to normal. It was like I was separated from myself listening to me breathe and when I realised it was me, turn off the rapid breath instantly. When I stood up at the end of the session, about five minutes after the breathing episode, I felt so light in the head.

This afternoon’s two hour meditation was tough: tough in the sense that there was one recurring topic that kept imposing itself upon my focus. This happens when out
of the meditation situation there is something on our mind: we take it into the meditation wth us.

My walking clothes are in the wash and so I didn’t go for a walk this afternoon. I put on a load of washing at 11.00am. When I checked for the second time at 4.30pm the washing cycle was still not complete. Even allowing for a two hour power outage
this afternoon, this would have to be one of the slowest washing machines on the planet, if not the universe. When I asked what time my washing would be finished a
pousada staff member could only offer me a shrug of her shoulders. Patience is
something to be learned both within meditation and otherwise.

30.09.2011

I saw a phenomenon today I’d never previously witnessed: a rainbow encircling the sun. When we emerged from this morning’s meditation at 10.00am a number of
people were looking and urging others to look skywards. There it was! A perfect circular rainbow with the sun at it’s centre. I managed to get a photograph of it. There was a second circle, white, which intersected the sun rainbow. It was too big to photograph in its entirety with my camera but I did photograph a section of it where it intersected the sun circle. Very, very special.

The meteorological explanation is that this phenomenon is caused by the sun shining upon tiny ice particles within clouds about 10,000 metres above the earth. The sun reflects and refracts the colours within the particles. It often means that rain is on
the way. But why does the reflected and refracted light end up as concentric circles around the sun? Assuming there is a complete cloud cover containing ice particles between the sun and the earth, why not a rainbow disc? Maybe it is a disc and all we see is the outer edge.

In some belief systems it is known as a Sunbow or Whirling Rainbow and is a sign that great change is on the way. It has also been understood as “s sign to people of the necessity to live a life in respect and harmony with all creations that make life possible: plants, animals, waters, minerals, fires, winds, and other human beings”.

The Abadiania explanation, at least by one person associated ith the Casa, is that it’s an ascension portal and there are at present spirits ascending.

Of today’s two meditation sessions I felt this morning’s went very quickly, but this afternoon’s tested me a little towards the last half hour. I was a lot more focused today compared with yesterday. I’ve just one day of Casa meditations to go and then it’s off to Germany.

When I arrived at the Casa the main hall was being cleaned and volunteers were preparing vegetables for the Casa soup. I wondered why this was happening if Medium Joao was not going to be here tomorrow. I later found out that tomorrow there will be two, two hour meditation sessions, 8.00am and 2.00pm. Very exciting that this is happening.

What I am about to describe about my Casa meditations today may seem to some
incredulous, but not to me. When I came to write up this part of my notes I could not remember the image I had of my prostate during this morning’s bedtime meditation. I started my first meditation at the Casa at 8.00am. The image of the prostate had changed from yesterday afternoon: now there was an enlarged prostate to the left of the picture and a solid mass about 3cm diametre to the right. I dissolved the mass to the right. What remained were a number of intersecting
circles. I then focused my attention on the enlarged prostate by directing energy into
it. At this point I left the meditation, went for a crystal bed after which I immediately commenced my second meditation.

The prostate had become even more enlarged: it was now the size of an eight year old child’s fist. In its centre was a dark mass. When I focused on this mass it
liquified and began swirling into different shapes, but all the time remaining a whole. I changed my focus to the outer perimeter of the prostate. The image I had was that it was only a casing and there was air space between it and the central liquid mass.
In a matter of seconds the casing, initially looking like it was made from thin leather, shrunk and finished up looking like a dried plum (prune). It encased the liquid mass after shrinking. I then directed my attention on what remained: it eventually
evaporated leaving me with a blank canvas. I decided to stop the meditation and write up my notes before I forgot any of the detail. I then anxiously awaited the afternoon meditations for the next installments of this fascinating voyage.

Something quite strange occurred this afternoon. I fully expected to go back to my visualisation and find a prostate for me to focus upon. The canvas was still blank,
almost. What I saw was the outline of my urinary tract up to where it joined my bladder. The image gave the appearance of me having had a radical prostatectomy (surgical removal of the prostate) and a surgical rejoining of the urinary tract to the
bladder. Three to four times I tried to impose the shape of a prostate on the blank canvas but immediately after I created the image it disappeared. I don’t know what all of this means but I’ll have a better idea when I get to Germany in less than a week’s time.

The weather was back to it’s old self this afternoon: while having my vitamin D session after lunch I could feel that the sun had it’s customary bite to it.

Medium Joao is in New York this week. Most of the pousadas, cafes and other businesses are doing their ‘spring clean’ while numbers are down. There are now just four guests at our pousada, but it will be a full house again from October 4 when Medium Joao is back.

I didn’t get my vitamin D time in the sun today because there wasn’t any: it was overcast and trying to rain. I followed up my first hour of meditation this afternoon with a session on a crystal bed. I think I mentioned the crystal bed previously: this is bed over which seven crystals are suspended. Each crystal, which is positioned over one of the seven main chakras, has one of the seven colours of the spectrum shining
through it. A session last twenty minutes and costs R20.

After the crystal bed I sat in the Casa garden. On the road outside the Casa grounds
was a donkey harnessed to a cart. I witnessed the expession “stubborn as mule” play out. Try as he might, which included cussing and a crack across the rump with a rod, the young driver could not get the mule to move in the five minutes I watched. He went for help. I didn’t wait to see this stationary drama play out. By the time I rerurned to the hall for my fourth meditation session the only concession the mule was prepared to make was to give his ears an occasional flicker. Mule 1 Driver 0.

All of my meditation sessions today were spent sending energy to the prostate while holding the intention that the energy was destroying the cancer cells within it.

What rain we’ve had has settled the dust along the roads I walk each afternoon. After dinner four of us went to the home of Nick and Gemma, an English couple who bring groups to Abadania and act as their guides while here to watch the film ‘Nosso Lar’ (Our Home) about life after death, based on a book by Chico Xavier which I read on my first visit to Abadiania.

The owners of the pousada are wanting to get some work done on a number of the
rooms, one of which was mine. I moved into a much nicer room: double bed, alcove with writing desk, and bigger bathroom, at no extra cost, for the remainder of my stay.

I returned to the pousada. The day had begun to heat up. A young man had set up
a display of hand made jewelry on a footpath corner. I don’t understand why he has chosen a Sunday when there are the least number of people around than any other day of the week. I saw him in the same spot last week.

I returned to the Casa hall for another hour of meditation. I started visualising on a
lymphoma tumour in my stomach. I dissolved most of it by the hour’s end. There’s plenty of time this afternoon to return to it. I’m excited by the visualisations I started yesterday.

In the garden of the Casa is a bronze bust of Dom Inacio. It’s been rubbed a shiny
golden colour by the many thousands of pairs of hands that have touched it. I’ve seen people embracing it. It’s nearly midday. Time for lunch.

On the way back to the pousada, about a 500 metre walk, I’m the only one on the street. I see a lone car heading towards me. It turns off into a side street. The pousadas along the main street look deserted. Two elderly women sit in the shade outside one of them. The older of the two is knitting. There’s one shop open. It’s beyond where I have to turn. There are a few clothes displayed out front. The cafes, restaurants and other businesses are all closed. A couple of dogs roam the streets.
Abadiania is almost a still life painting at this time if the day.

After lunch I had my vitamin D time in the sun. Following a refreshing shower I’m still perspiring. I put on the ceiling fan to cool down. It’s not working. The elements are in control this afternoon. I headed back to the Casa shortly before two o’clock. The number of people on the street has increased. Ten’s not many. About the same number are sheltering from the heat of the day under the awnings of buildings. The man was still on the corner with his jewelry. He’d taken refuge from the sun in the shade of a wall while platting a necklace.

It took little time in meditation to kill off the last of the lymphoma tumour and dissolve the dead cancer cells. I then scanned my body for rogue cancer cells. They appeared as red dots. I killed them off. I moved through my entire body repeating this process. At the end if the meditation I stretched out on a bench seat in the hall and went to sleep for a little over an hour. It was a deep and peaceful sleep. I finished my day at the Casa with a fourth hour of meditation.

There was no sun to be seen in the sky when I went for my walk around 5.30pm.
After dinner I sat around chatting beyond eight o’clock. By then it had started to rain: first it was a few drops , but then it picked up a littlt bu hardly enough to wet the road. It’s the first rain of the soon to arrive wet season. This was my Sunday in Abadiania.

There were lots of goodbyes today: most of the UK group have now left. There were just four of us at dinner tonight, although there are still quite a number of Norwegians, most of whom will leave over the next couple of days.

I did my four meditation sessions at the Casa where the energy is the strongest.
While in current the focus of my meditations is towards assisting whatever line is passing through. Of course, healing for me in the current, like for everyone else, is available by just being there and doing the work required. It’s a place where the entities work on you while you do work for them: giving and receiving.

Today’s meditations gave me the opportunity to put a visualisation in place. I use visualisations all the time, but not this particular one. (For anyone not familiar with
visualisations, it’s creating a picture in your mind and holding that picture. The picture will have some positive purpose to it.). In the second hour I began to visualise Divine energy coming into my heart and which I redirected onto the surface of my prostate with the intention of that energy killing the cancer. I could see the surface of the prostate turn a red/black colour similar to a dehydrated sun dried tomato or red chilli.

I continued this vsualisation during the third hour by which time the red/black colour began to move off the surface of the prostate like a crust or scab to reveal part of a very healthy looking prostate. I saw the red/black crust as a collection of dead cancer cells that had all been drawn from within the prostate itself.

In the fourth hour this crust completely disengaged from the prostate gland and
settled to one side of it revealing the surface of a very new, healthy looking prostate. I could palpitate its surface. It felt soft to touch. When a prostate is filled with cancer it’s surface becomes hardened and difficult to palpitate. I then set about dissolving the dead cancer cells so that they could be eliminated from my body. I had almost done that by the time my meditation finished and I got ready to go for my afternoon walk. While I was doing the dissolving I also directed healing energy into the prostate.

This was a very powerful experience I had this afternoon, especially as I watched while the blackened dead cancer cells detached from the surface of the prostate, and I was then able to dissolve most of those dead cells. I’m lookimg forward to getting back to meditation tomorrow to do some more work on my prostate, and perhaps begin to do something for my lymphoma.

Abadiania is very quiet tonight. Because Medium Joao will be away all next week most people have left or will do so in the next couple of days. Meditations at the Casa are very quiet experiences unlike Casa days when things can get a little chaotic.

At current this morning the last of the lines was for those people attending the Casa for the first time. The woman leading the dialogue asked us to remember the love we felt the first time we walked through the door to make our way towards Medium Joao. When she spoke these words I could feel the feelig I had back in December 2009. Tears welled in my eyes as I recalled that memory. The session went for three and quarter hours. As always, I enjoyed the Casa soup afterwards.

After lunch I had my vitamin D time lying on a deck chair in the pousada garden. It
was then back for the afternoon session of current which lasted three hours. Following my 45 minute walk it was time for dinner. These Casa days just seem to disappear.

22.09.2011

The two sessions of current today went for three and a half hours and three hours. I did my usual vitamin D exposure and afternoon walk.

A number of the members of the UK group I have befriended had surgeries these past two days. A consequence of surgery is to keep yourself isolated for 24 hours. Someone will take meals to your room. The idea is to have minimal contact with others. So the numbers around at meal times has been less. I haven’t had any surgery this trip but had it twice back in December 2009.

23.09.2011

I did more than 7 hours of meditation today: three and a half hours hours in the morning and three hours forty in the afternoon. I find the afternoon current a little tougher than the morning session where I will have done at least three hours, even
though there is a couple of hours break in between. On my walk this evening I caught the sunset. It wasn’t particularly spectacular, but I photographed it anyway.

There’s a lot to be learned in current: patience, endurance, discipline, awareness, focus, and being in the moment. Patience is learned by being able to stay with the task until the end. Endurance comes about in fighting aching muscles, joints and limbs. Discipline is being able to keep your eyes closed for the whole of the time. Awareness is learned by being conscious of the distractions which can be considerable with lines being called, speeches being made from the stage, and people walking to
and fro through the current room, but not allowing yourself to dwell on those distractions. Focus is always to be directed to the task at hand which involves raising the energy in the room and from time to time directing that energy in a special way towards particular lines. Finally, it’s important to experience all of the time spent in current from one moment to the next. There is only one moment that is important that is the present moment. So you see there is a lot happening even though the observer might just see a person sitting still.

Today felt like a Saturday: the relaxed feeling you get after a full week. I changed pousadas which meant walking 150 metres down the street with suitcase in tow. Pousada Luz Divina has changed little since I was last here in January 2010. The dining area has been expanded. It’s all under roof but it feels like it is outside the main building to which it’s attached.

I had a 70 minute massage at 9.15am. Again, I floated out of the room and made my way to the Casa to do an hours meditation after stopping off at the pousada along the way.

The largest group at the pousada are Norwegians. I had lunch with John, one of the Norwegians. We discussed my healing regime and hypethermia. He was very interested for his sister’s sake. She is still going through the full ‘medical catastrophe’ for breast cancer: mastectomy, lymph mode removal and massive doses of chemotherapy. Not surprisingly, the cancer has not been arrested.

Statistics indicate that the curative rate for breast cancer using chemotherapy is
between 2 & 3%. At best this therapy is palliative: it will just slow the progress of the disease. If you went to the races and a trainer (read trainer as specialist doctor who is in the know) said a particular horse had a 2-3% chance of winning you would not back it. Why do people keep backing chemotherapy with the same sort of odds?

Perhaps they are not told the odds. If they were surely they would ask, “What other choices do I have?” I suspect that a lot of western trained medical practitioners are ill-equipped to answer this question.

I feel blessed that I have never been afraid to try something different: not afraid to reject medical orthodoxy for both my cancers. I’ve never had a sick day from any of my therapies. I don’t know anyone who has taken a conventional approach who can make this claim.

I did just two hours of meditation today, but I did have an afternoon walk.

18.09.2011

It’s taken me a few days to get around to these notes. Any difficulty in recall is assisted by repitition. I did three hours of meditation today, the last hour starting at 7.30pm outside and to the side of the main hall of the Casa’s assembly hall where I sat in a cool evening breeze. Each day I go into the sun to get my vitamin D. Meal times at the pousada are 7.00am, midday and 6.00pm.

19.09.2011

My first activity of the day was to attend the waterfall with a group who come from the UK. I now eat all my meals with them. The waterfall is about a 20 minute walk from the pousada. It’s a place of healing and cleansing. It is now the dry season. There was no where near the amount of water coming over the rocks as was the case when I was last here during the wet season, and it was much colder to stand under than previously. In fact, it was quite breath taking: literally. A couple of minutes was sufficient. It’s a place where men and women can walk to near the waterfall together, but attend the fall separately.

I managed three hours of meditation today, a half hour of which was at the waterfall. This afternoon I had a pedicure and a manicure: showing a little love towards myself.

20.09.2011

I’m reading a collection if writings by Christopher Hitchens: ‘Arguably’. It was a light
on meditation day: just two and a quarter hours. I got my usual dose of Vitamin D in the sun while in the garden if the pousada, and I gave myself a little more love by having another 70 minute massage.

I’m enjoying meal times much more now that there is conversation – a definite change from my previous pousada where I read at meal times.

Except for Brazilians, the majority of people who attend the Casa are white Europeans. In this group I include North Americans, Australians and New New Zealanders. Broadly speaking this group comes from a Christian background. The
people you don’t see around the Casa are from Africa (except, perhaps white South Africans), the Middle East, India or Asia (although I have seen a few Japenese). Again, broadly speaking these groupings come from a non-Christian backgrounds.

Add to this past lives and reincarnation, a fundamental belief of Spiratism upon which the Casa is based, and it becomes a little clearer why people from these latter areas just don’t come. While some religious traditions accept reincarnation into forms other than a human form, they are unlike Spiritism where in order to evolve, reincarnation must take a human form. Reincarnation per se is not accepted by some religious traditions. For example, the Catholic Church would have it that you have one life at
the end of which you either make it to heaven or you fail: there is no second or
subsequent chance to get things ‘right’.

Further, a participant at the Casa accepts that the healing which takes place here is the work of thousands upon thousands of ascended spirits, some of whom are known by name (eg., Dom Inacio and Drs. Agusto de Almeida, Jose Valdivino and Oswaldo Cruz) who work through a medium (Jao de Deus), but most of whom remain unnamed and who support the work of the doctors. Many find this idea simply too difficult to accept, whatever their background.

Spiritual beings such as God, Jesus Christ, Mother Mary are regularly mentioned at the Casa. The names you don’t hear are those of the spiritual leaders of major traditions like Islam (Prophet Mohamed), Hinduism (gods like Shiva, Krishna or Rama)
or Buddhism (Buddha). The ‘Our Father’ and the ‘Hail Mary’, both Christian prayers, are recited each day both before and after each healing session. The Casa definately resonates with to a ‘christian’ message. It seems obvious to me why some won’t make the journey to Abadiania for healing.

My day:

I had another two long sessions in current today: the morning session went for 3 hours 15 and the afternoon session for 4 hours 15. I was amazed at the conclusion of the afternoon session after opening my eyes and being told by the woman who had been seated next to me that it was ten to six. I had my regular ‘afternoon’ walk but got back to my pousada in the dark.

I had a teary time in current this morning. There is an Irish woman who leads the dialogue: sometimes it was her words and sometimes my own thoughts, but all the time I felt them to be joyous tears. I simply love the meditations in this area. I feel like I can give so much to those passing in one of the lines, but I also receive so much by being there.

The morning session started for me at 7.30am and finished at 11.50am during which time my body complained a little but any discomfort cannot outweigh the benefits I
feel I receive. During current I kept thinking ‘I just want to be a good person’. I can’t articulate what ‘good’ means, but I feel I know it’s meaning. I don’t know how this will play out in the months and years ahead but I am confident the criminal law will not be the medium in which it occurs.

This afternoon was a marathon: I settled into my meditation in current at 1.35pm snd opened my eyes at 5.50pm. Needless to say by the time this session finished, despite all the exercises I did during it, my left foot was quite swollen from all that sitting. I walked out of the Casa into darkness, but still managed to take my walk. I
know my way up the mountain path by now.

Dialogue does make the meditation sessions easier. There was little of that this afternoon. When you’ve sat through a few current sessions you get to know the different lines: spiritual operation line; second time line; first time line; and revision line. As the day drew on I could hear someone in the main hall talking for what seemed like a very ling time. At the end of the talk there was another line that passed through current. This was quite an unusual order. After the session I found out it was Medium Joao (John of God), who had incorporated Dr Agusto de Almedia,
was doing the talking. After the talk he did three physical operations onstage. This was filmed. We are asked to keep our focus. Having a little information helps me do that. Having no information can be a distraction. It was for me this afternoon.

15.09.2011

The Irish woman was back again for this morning’s session which was a little over three hours. It’s obvious how many people love her dialogue by the number who go up to her after a session and say so. The day commenced with Medium Joao on
stage telling stories, after which he again incorporated Dr Agusto de Almeida who did some physical operations on stage. This was filmed by a Brasilian TV crew who also did some filming in the grounds and around the soup line and tables. I was later told that a famous female Brasilian TV presenter was there to do a story on Joao and work at the Casa. There is certainly a place for this type of scrutiny of what happens at the Casa.

Mateus picked me up from the pousada at 12.30pm to take me to Anapolis for the ultrasound. On the way he telephoned the radiology centre to be told that I needed an appointment. Earlier I had been told I had to wait in a queue. Fortunately they had one at 3.00pm. We arrived in Anapolis at 1.00pm with two hours to spare.

Mateus took me to a bank so I could get out some money. There is no ATM’s in Abadiania and there don’t look to be many in Anapolis. We went to a cafe for a drink and at the radiology centre he acted as my interpreter. Where else do you get a taxi service like this?

I eventually started the US at 3.45pm and was out seven minute later. The US machine operator told me I did not have a thrombosis. The report and pictures won’t be available until Monday afternoon. Mateus will pick them up when in Anapolis. On the way back we called into the pharmacy so I could cancel my order of injections only to find they had not been ordered because the pharmacy owner made a mistake in price: instead of being $30 an injection they are $60. I still needed to get another four for air travel I’ll do between now and my return to Australia. At these prices
forget about getting a thrombosis in Brasil.

On the way to Anapolis I spoke with Mateus about the potentially disastrous effect Joao’s death would have on Abadiiania. He said they were all worried last week when Joao spent time in hospital. Apparently about 50% of businesses in Abadiana would go broke if he was to die. Mateus isn’t waiting: this year he started a five year, part time law degree at the Anapolis University. He’s married with two teenage boys. I congratulated him. It can’t be easy starting lectures at 7.00pm at the end of a work day five days a week.

Today I did four, one hour meditation sessions and a half hour between 8pm and 9pm. I enjoy these hour long sessions: some appear to pass quite quickly while others less so, but they don’t ‘drag on’ as has been my experience in the past. I think if you have in the back of your mind at the commencement of a meditation that you have something else to do it’s going to be a source of constant distraction. Here in Abadiania I have no such distractions: when I am doing a meditation that is all there is to do.

There is another energy process available at the Casa: the crystal bed/bath. A woman I know in Australia has one which I used before my first trip to Abadiania in 2009. It is a series of seven colored lights which shine through crystals. The colours are those of the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Each crystal/light combination is mounted on an arm. When you lie on the bed each combination is position above the seven main chakras: crown, third eye, throat (communication), heart, solar plexus, reproductive and base. Each session lasts twenty minutes and costs R20 ($12). I had plenty of them in my two previous visits.
It’s not difficult to drift off while under the lights/crystals. I’m yet to have one on this visit, but that will happen.

I enquired this evening why my room had not been cleaned since my arrival. I was told, for the first time, “We clean the rooms three times week but you have to leave your key at the front desk”. Information: the lifeblood of communication.

13.09.2011

You can definately feel the village come alive on Tuesdays. There are more people on the streets; buses arrive with those seeking healing; taxis deliver their passengers to the pousadas from the airport at Brasilia; and there are those who have been here for a week or longer. They all have one thing in common: they are looking forward to Wednesday at the Casa, some with apprehension because it will be their first time, and others with relish because they’ve already experienced its healing and wonder.

The vegetable cutting was so crowded with volunteers by the time I arrived I was told I was not needed. So I headed to the main hall to do the first of three one hour meditations for the day.

I am enjoying my afternoon walk. I’ve picked out some hills where I can get my heart rate up to around 160 bpm for about 20 minutes. Gee the countryside is dry. In the late afternoon clouds formed over most of the sky but they never looked like
they’d deliver any rain.

I had a unique experience this afternoon- unique for my time in Brasil, that is. It’s one of those things you don’t want to have to confront when overseas, especially in a small place like Abadiania. I’m talking about getting medical attention. I probably
picked up a DVT on the flight over. This is something I’d be onto immediately if I was at home seeing my doctor, having an ultrasound, and getting onto the drug warfarin. I’ve had experience of this condition after a previous overseas trip. They can be fatal, to put a not too fine a point on it.

So who do you go to? A taxi driver of course. Mateus has a taxi business. I have used him on all my visits here getting to and from Brasilia airport. He speaks English. I thought I’d have to go to Anapolis, a big city to the south-west of here. I got a taxi with a driver who spoke a little English but who was to call Mateus if any translations were needed for me.

When we arrived at the clinic the doctor was sitting around looking very relaxed, unlike doctors in the conveyor-line image of some Sydney surgeries. He spoke some English but it took a little time to get him to understand I needed an ultrasound, and a re-supply of the injections I take for air travel, and which I can use if I actually do have a DVT. While he saw a mother and baby I got driven to a local pharmacy where I was able to order my injections: no script needed. In Australia these same injections cost a little less than $6.00 for a box of ten (PBS subsidised). Here each injection is going to cost $30.00. Back to the doctor where I paid my R50 (no receipt) and got a referral to a clinic in Anapolis for an ultrasound, which are only performed on Tuesdays and Thursdays. No need to take a detailed history. All that was necessary was my name and whether I’d previousy had a DVT. I’ve got a taxi ordered for after lunch on Thursday to take me to the Anapolis clinic where you can’t make an appointment: I line up and wait my turn while my taxi driver waits for me.

I’ll keep you posted.