Report

Network Continental Meeting

Les Courmettes, Nice

5-7 October 2001

Diana Clift

Every Network event has its own distinctive character. The gathering at Les Courmettes in October was to have been the first French language meeting of the Network. ALEXANDRE GRIGORIANTZ worked tirelessly to promote the event to French complementary practitioners, sending out some 200 personal letters, but for reasons we cannot fathom, they showed no interest. The result was the smallest of the continental meetings since the very first one convened by Kevin Ashbridge in 1992 in Switzerland. And it was a gem, its character determined in part by the intimate, relaxed atmosphere of the small group, but also by the spectacular setting.

DAVID LORIMER, TONY PRITCHETT and I flew out from England on the Friday evening and were met by Alexandre who took us to the sea front at Cagnes sur Mer for a wonderful dinner before we undertook the 4kms of hairpin bends which took us a vertical 850 metres through nature reserve teaming with wild life to the rambling chateau that is Les Courmettes. There we met Silvana Hirt, a therapist and artist from Switzerland, OLE VAN HAUEN DRUCKER, from Denmark now living in Spain, and HILARY MIFLIN, who lives both in England and France. The following morning we were joined by JEAN-MARC MANTEL, the only true local of the group. The 'formal' proceedings were conducted in a mixture of French and English with a masterful introduction by David in both languages, but as Jean-Marc demonstrated in his presentation on 'Wisdom, spirituality and mental health', much was communicated in the silences. Jean- Marc is a psychiatrist with vedantic leanings. As with the pauses in Bohmian Dialogue it forced us to look deeper than the words. (That was certainly true for me as my school-girl French wasn't really up to the challenge!).

Then we emerged into the warm sun and mountain mists for an excursion to the delightful walled mediaeval town of S. Paul de Vence, so quaint that it's not quite believable - like a Disney theme park!

Back to Les Courmettes for Ole's description of his cancer clinic in Spain. Ole and his wife Suzette, are doctors who have developed their own distinctive holistic approach to cancer treatment. At the end of Ole's presentation he demonstrated his use of muscle testing on me to diagnose the state of my brain. I am indeed - as I suspected -somewhat weak in the head!

After a day of spectacular beauty, of thoughts, ideas and silences, I was ready for some noise! It was a balmy evening and a power cut encouraged us outside to enjoy the stars and the distant lights of the Cote d'Azur. I played my guitar and we sang, joined by some of the other groups staying at Les Courmettes and, the guest of honour, a large red fox. But the loudest noise was not my music but the baying of stags. Next day we saw them: huge red deer the size of horses and also wild boar and other animals.

On Sunday morning Alexandre held us in thrall with a talk on the movements of oriental spirituality in the Cote d'Azur in the early 20th century and some of the extraordinary characters involved. He is currently writing a biography of one of these. The English and Russian communities in the area were influential in bringing Theosophy and Buddhism to the West. Mrs Robinson, a wealthy member of the Rockefeller clan built a house called Nosnibor (an anagram of Robinson) where, among others, Madame Blavatsky and Krishnamurti stayed. Les Courmettes itself was bought by theosophists after the first world war as a sanatorium for gas victims from the war. Convinced of the healing benefits of the sun, they established one of the first European naturist communities there.

Hilary Miflin gave us an inspiring talk about the special garden she has created at her home in the Haute Savoie where she grows herbs and extracts her own flower essences. She left a conventional job as a botanist to explore the more subtle properties of plants and we were amazed by the power of the samples she brought. Both David and I experienced strong tingling sensations in the hands and spine just from holding vials of her plant essences.

That afternoon we went out into the mountains to experience the local flora and fauna first hand. We spent four hours hiking in the mountains, getting lost in the mists, around the isolated village of Courmes.

The following day, joined by Hilary's husband, Ben, a group of us set off to Cannes, took the ferry to the little island of Sainte Marguerite, bathed in the warm sea, picnicked on the beach, then visited Cap d'Antibes on our return.

It was an enchanted weekend of peace and privilege. As we returned to supposed civilisation we heard that the bombing of Afghanistan had begun.......

Diana Clift is a Network Council Member and co-ordinator of the Guildford Group