Living conductively with MS

"A few flowers springing up on the balcony"

As you can read in the link below, Susie Cornell was the first adults from Britain to attend the Petö Intstitute.

In the eighteen months that I spent in the adult’s department in Budapest there were more clients from overseas with MS than in the other groups. These clients also talked about how an active conductive lifestyle changed their lives and improved their health. None of them went on to do the work and exploration that Susie Cornell has done, and is still doing, but for many it was a step back into the world that they thought they had left forever.

I have been working with people with MS for twenty years now. From my experience the greatest changes that I have seen in the lives of these clients have come about when they have developed a lifestyle that included balanced exercising and have paid great attention to the food that they eat and its influences on their body. These clients find a balance of soul and body that AP talks about so much in his writings. They enjoy active living while at the same time avoiding strain on the body and extreme exhaustion, but always trying to reach new targets. They consult different specialists, people like Susie Cornell perhaps, who can advise on the foods needed to restore the balance in the body, and recommend other means of achieving the necessary balance.

It was very interesting to read again of the work of Susie Cornell, I will be passing the link on to my clients and of course helping them with translations.

Susie Cornell:

http://www.wds-global.com/news/2009_09_Cornell_ME.aspx

http://www.susiecornell.com/index.html

http://www.holistichelp.net/candida.html

Satisfying work + nature = echte seelische Heilung

"A lesser-spotted woodpecker, not knocking on wood!"

"Communing with nature at five past nine today"

The real healing of my soul

I had time on the way to work this morning, no, that is not quite true, I made time on the way to work this morning, to sit down on a bench beside the village duck-pond, to soak up some of the early-morning sun. I needed a few minutes of soul-healing medicine.

Spring really is in the air now, although on most mornings there is still ice on the sides of the duck pond and frost on the grass before the sun comes up with a touch of warmth.

I still find it hard to believe that I do not have to get to work an hour before the first group of the day in order to make all the preparations. Even after six months I still forget that there are two youngsters employed at the centre who get everything ready for us. It is just like old times, I just have to arrive in time to get into my whites, greet the group, have a sip of tea and get on with the very satisfying work with the adults' group. I still often set out too early, and that is why I had time for this soul-healing sit-down and a chat with nature.

I decided to sit myself down beside the duck pond with a cup of coffee for five minutes, it was nine o’clock and I was only two minutes from our centre. I called in at the baker’s and bought a coffee-to-go before taking a seat on a bench under the willow trees beside the village pond. There were quite a few people there, mostly young women walking back from the school or the Kindergarten, but there was still a bench free.

Rat-a-tat tat

I sat sipping my coffee and soon realized that nature was communing with me. I could hear a lesser-spotted woodpecker hammering away. Although I knew almost for certain that it was a lesser-spotted woodpecker that I was listening to and searching the trees for without having it in my sights, something was not quite right. The rhythm of the beat was right but the sound was not that of a bird’s beak hitting wood. It sounded rather like this woodpecker was drilling for oil!

Actually it sounded like he was hitting his head against a brick wall and this thought popped into my head: "Just as many of us, conductors, sometimes feel like we are doing!"

I sipped coffee and I nibbled on my raisin bun that the mallards were eyeing longingly. There is a sign telling bench-sitters not to feed the ducks otherwise I would have let a crumb or two drop to the floor for them.

As I drank and nibbled I searched the trees for the black, white and red bird, but there were no trees in the direction of the sound and, as I have said the sound, was not woody anyway. All there was where the woodpecker should have been was the very modern tower of the church!

Wait a minute

That tower is made out of metal.

And wait another minute

That lesser-spotted woodpecker’s pecking sounded a bit tinny to me.

And just one more minute

That tower stand in exactly the spot that the sound is coming from.

Then I spotted it

About two-thirds of the way up the tower there was my friend. He was tip, tip, tap, tap, tapping away on the metal surface of the church tower. He was trying his hardest to wake the whole neighbourhood and trying even harder to hammer a hole in the metal tower. Maybe he wanted to build a home near to heaven.

I just had time for a blurred photograph from a distance but as soon as I got near enough for a better shot the tapping ceased and my soul-healing friend of nature flew away into the sunny distance.

I still had time when I arrived at work to note down my story before doing the work that I love. I enjoyed every single minute of the work with my stroke group with its many soul healing moments for us all.

Notes

Bob Dylan: Knock, knock, knocking on Heaven’s door

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgAoe1o2134&feature=related

Keeping alert

"My model railway"

A few things that Google alerts brought to my attention over the last few days:

From New Zealand:

http://www.nzawards.org.nz/AwardRecipients/LocalHeroes/LocalHeroesRegions/HuttValleyRegion/tabid/41563/Default.aspx

http://www.edgazette.govt.nz/vacancies/Vacancy.aspx?VacancyId=580553

From China:

http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-SYQK201013024.htm

From America:

http://ofallon.patch.com/articles/kalebs-journey-ofallon-fundraiser-to-raise-awareness-of-child-abuse

http://triplepicsranch.com/ranch.php?q=what+is+education

http://azstarnet.com/lifestyles/relationships-and-special-occasions/article_b04374d1-0f46-5ae9-908f-5a4138bebf79.html

From Canada:

http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3037213

http://blog.211ontario.ca/2011/03/10-questions-with-march-of-dimes-canada/

From Norfolk:

http://www.networknorwich.co.uk/Articles/249173/Network_Norwich_and_Norfolk/Resources/Events/Rosemary_Conley_evening_at_Norfolk_church.aspx

Dreaming of that conductive magic

It that time of year again

The city is starting to come to life after a very long, cold and snow-covered winter.

There is a feeling of hope in the air

Last weekend I was at the BrainWEEK lectures but unfortunately I was too late to get any more tickets during the week. This weekend I visited the Nürnberg Exhibition Centre where products from workshops for disabled people from all over the country were on display.

I attend every year and usually come away with presents for many of my friends and family. This year I again came away with several things, but these mostly for myself.

I found for myself a pink Netbook cover! I was tempted by the pink because I had actually wanted a pink Netbook but there had been none available when I purchased mine. This cover, along with many other arty products, was made at a centre that treats patients with psychological problems.

I also bought for myself the ultimate in arty household equipment. An long-handled, oak dustpan and brush now stands elegantly in the corner of my kitchen, beside the arty cobweb-brush that I bought two years ago from the same place, all made at a centre for workers who are partially sighted or blind.

I bought for a special friend’s birthday a lovely handmade, ceramic pot with a bright design of trees and houses on the outside, made by adults who suffer from epilepsy.

All of the products at this exhibition are produced in the workplaces of people with different disabilities and problems. I worked in such a centre for several years in England before I set off to Hungary to become a conductor. We did not exhibit our creations at big exhibition centres like this one,but we did exhibit in small, local art galleries and we did quite well selling our wares locally. One day I will make my dream come true and work in a conductive workshop/art gallery for adults. I came away from this exhibition with high hopes again.

A nice massage

Just as I had decided that I would set off for home I had a last chat with the physiotherapists with whom I sometimes work. They were there at the stand from the Boxdorfer Workshop, giving a half-hour sample of Thai massage and hoping that the donations that they received would help to pay for a new cycling machine for their department.

They all at once spontaneously said that I should come back in fifteen minutes when they had a thirty-minute slot free. I needed no persuading, I said goodbye to my friends and settled down to be cared for by my colleagues. It was really very nice, because having walked around for three hours with my purchases in a rucksack on my back I was fully aware of where all my aches and pains were, and my colleague found them too. I will certainly be booking up for the full treatment one of these weekends.

One day...

After the massage coming out into the last warming rays of today’s spring sunshine was just the job.

I found a sunny spot to wait in for the underground train, that at that point is in fact over- ground, and contemplated my day and whether one day I can bring the magic of conductive upbringing into my Makarenko -style dream.

Notes

High Hopes –

Frank Sinatra sings High Hopes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIDLC8M4R28&feature=related

Workshop Exhibition Nürnberg -

http://www.br-online.de/studio-franken/aktuelles-aus-franken/werkstaettenmesse-eroeffnung-nuernberg-ID1300344317147.xml

http://www.werkstaettenmesse.de/

http://www.behinderte-nuernberg.de/arbeitsfelder/boxdorfer-werkstatt

So different to 1989! Arriving at Ferihegy with a rucksack and a bike!

Me in Hungary 1991, somewhere near Balaton

My Dad on my Claude Butler 1991 when we were camping in Southwold, UK

Me and my mountain bike in Hungary. 1991

I was looking at newspaper articles yesterday, looking in English, German and Hungarian papers, and I discovered this:

http://www.xpatloop.com/news/66625

"Ferihegy airport will be renamed 'Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport' under an amendment passed by Parliament on Wednesday 16 March with 231 affirmative votes and 71 dissensions. Development Ministry state secretaries János Fónagy and Pál Völner had initiated the name change to mark the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth."

Then I discovered this:

http://www.xpatloop.com/news/66665

After reading this article I thought: “So different to 1989! Arriving at Ferihegy with a just a thirteen-kilos rucksack,(mostly books and an electric kettle), and a bike!”

I left in 1993, with two boxes, sent ahead with an international delivery service, and a different bike! The airport looked very much the same on the day that I left as it had on the day that I had arrived. Now it looks very different indeed, in fact now it could be anywhere in the world. It no longer has that mystery of Eastern Europe.

The Claude Butler racing bike, my pride and joy that accompanied me everywhere, had been swapped for an American/Hungarian- manufactured mountain bike that I bought on the Korut in 1991, after I had a nasty fall amongst the cobbles and tramlines in Buda. Having spent three weeks in bed after a scan revealed nothing but concussion, even with a helmet on, I reluctantly sent the racing bike back to UK and invested in something a bit more robust. Somewhere amongst my treasures I still have the receipt for that, my first, mountain bike. With this new bike began my career mountain-biking in the Buda Hills:

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2010/02/has-anyone-else-got-one-of-these.html

"What do conductors do?" asked the little green man

"Green guardian of mystery" by Susie Mallett

Just before I read about the little green man asking about the work of conductors over on Andrew Sutton’s blog:

http://www.conductive-world.info/2011/03/little-green-man-asks.html

I read an advertisement for what I think looks like a very nice job for a conductor:

http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/jobs-available/conductor-required-stockholm-sweden

From the description of the position and from what I learnt about the work at Joriel School on my recent trip to Hong Kong, this sounds like the framework for very good conductive practise.

János, I wish you all the best in his search for a new colleague and congratulate you and the rest of the staff on your achievements.

If I were twenty years younger I might even have considered applying for the position myself!

Hip, hip,Hooray!

U.B. and my notebook are safe and sound

I did the detective work without Sherlock and ended up at the Post office on my way to work this morning.

I had already spoken on the telephone, to no avail, to two other people this morning when, at eight-thirty, the lovely lady at the Post Office seemed delighted to tell me that she had my books safe and sound behind the counter. She promised that they would still be there even if I could not get there before tomorrow.

Of course I would get there before tomorrow. I could not quite believe that they were really my books that she had found until I saw them.

I think I must have thanked her about a hundred times! I felt like giving her a hug when I saw her even though I am not a very huggy person.

As I said this morning the Post Office was my best bet because I had left my paper in there before, one day last week. When I have parcels to post I jump off the bus, while still reading, right in front of the Post Office door a stop before work. Instead of putting my reading material in my bag, on two occasions now I have put it on the counter while I get out my parcels and my money.

The first time that I did this I remembered just outside the door but this time I have absolutely no memory of it at all. I do not even remember paying for my stamps. I just remember going back again because I had forgotten to buy a top-up for my phone, but even then I did not notice my books on the counter.

It does not matter now how I lost them, although it is a bit of a mystery to me, what is important is that I now have my lovely book and can now go off to bed for a good read.

I have promised myself to have Urie Brofenbrenner finished at the weekend when I hope to have time for blog postings about Amy Chua the Tiger Mother from China and the comparison between upbringing in the USA and USSR, as made by Urie Bronfenbrenner.

Thank you Rony for your iPad idea. I will be checking them out at the weekend too in between blogging and visiting the National Convention for Workshops for the Disabled that will take place in Nürnberg.

Notes

Rony schenker and Andrew Sutton on iPads-

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/03/lost-worlds-of-childhood.html

Lost Worlds of Childhood

Lost Worlds of Childhood

Yesterday I was having such fun on the tram and then once more on the bus while on my way to work. I had dug out my copy of Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Two Worlds of Childhood:USA and USSR the day before and had started to read it again. On the bus I was sticking in more Post-it arrows in bright pink, yellow and green, and deciding which of the brilliant poster illustrations to use as a heading for a blog posting to describe the book. Then I starting taking down notes for a posting.

It was such a lovely start to what turned out to be a very lovely day. See my earlier posting:

http://www.susie-mallett.org/2011/03/transformers.html

I do not have to go to work in the morning so I thought that this evening I would get out my book and my notebook, set them out on the breakfast table beside the computer and prepare for a quick posting in the morning.

Gone!

What a terible shock to find that there is no lovely book in my bag, and no notebook either.

I have absolutely no recollection of where they are. I do not really remember where I sat on the bus this morning but I do remember very clearly turning round to see whether I had forgotten anything, as I have always done since I left a lovely summer hat on a bus several years ago.

I have absolutely no idea where to start my search, other than to retrace my steps tomorrow lunch time.

First stop will be the Post Office where I left my newspaper last week!

Second stop will be the baker’s where I picked up a cup of coffee.

Then, if those produce no results and I do not find it lying on the desk at work, I shall have to phone the bus company’s lost-and-found department. The problem is that I have absolutely no idea what time I got on the bus! I do know that it was the number 28 though and I have a receipt somewhere from the Post Office and I expect that it has the time printed on it. I went there immediately I got out of the bus.

Oh, how I wish I had Sherlock Holmes to help me

What did I want to say about Urie Bronfenbrenner? What had I scribbled down in my note book? The quotations will have to wait, there is no way I can remember them. I had just found something that I thought would be lovely to introduce over on my Upbringing blog, Brofenbrenner was describing upbringing of the character. Was that really what he had said? I am not quite sure now, that too will have to wait. On the bus I had been enthralled with what I had been reading about Sukhomlinsky and Makarenko.

I am hopeful that I will find my battered book that has been in my bag for months. It has been to England twice since I bought it on Abebooks and has made the journey with me to Hong Kong and back.

It really is high time it got finished. I had been stuck at page thirty-nine, where the lovely posters start, for too long! Now I may never get to finish it in the nice Penguin copy with the illustrations that had been so hard to track down.

On the same day on the same bus had had read the following in the “Reply” section of my 11.03.2011 Guardian Weekly newspaper:

“Tucked away on the distance learning page (25 February) was a truly sensational and very disturbing statement made by Catherine Anderson, director of residential and leisure services at Liverpool University: ‘ Students don’t read anything. If you put something in writing it’s absolutely pointless.’ ”

Having read this short article I was even more determined to get to the end of my precious Brofenbrenner book. I am not a student, I am really interested in the contents of this book and as it is under two hundred pages long I am gave myself until the weekend to get it finished. Then not many minutes later I lost it.

Hope

We will see later in the morning who comes up trumps for efficiency. Me, because I put the book away in my cupboard at work, the bus company at its lost-and-found department, the Baker, or the Post Office. I have my fingers crossed and bet on the Post office!