JULY 2013
by Athanasios Komianos
When Odysseus left for his kingdom Ithaca after the war against the Trojans had ended, he underwent all kinds of adventures to reach to his destination. His trip to the destination called the Odyssey is probably one of the most remarkable stories ever written and even today it stands out as a great piece of literature. I think that one should not call herself or himself a regression therapist if she or he has not read this masterpiece because this is the trip of the human soul to its deep essence.
But what would we need if wanted to sail to uncharted waters? First of all we would need a sailing ship, then a map of the charted territory, a compass and an astrolabe. You need a sailing crew, a group of officers and a competent captain. What else is imperative in order to sail? The winds. Aeolos (the god of wings) has to be on your side.
What is in this s
tory for us? The ship is EARTh. Our association is our ship. And a ship always has a hold, the place of storage. In our case our hold is our website, the place where we store all of our acquired information. Then there are the officers. Who are our officers? What else but the Board of our association of course. Then there is the administrator. For EARTh that means Karen. Karen is the control room and she assures the flow of supply and demand. She sees that all things go as planned she is the spine of this organization. What about the captain. The captain is the president. The crew are the core members. The core members that are working constantly and voluntarily for making sure that the ship is going to reach its destination. They participate in committees, in workshops, in newsletters, in translations, and they attend conventions regularly. With some like Ulf and Reşat, it is even possible to ride the storms and to create a wonderful EARTh Movie. Others are active in our forum EARTh page, some others are the silent power, or, heart of the association like Tulin or Yasemin for instance. However, we also have passengers. Who are they? They are the participants who attend at the “harbouring” conventions, citizens of the hosting countries who have an interest for regression therapy.
Now what is our valuable cargo? It is the accumulated Information, the acquired knowledge, the advanced training, the extensive experience, and the developed skills. What is our treasure? It is the deep understanding, a sense of meaning, an insightful wisdom…
What is our mission? Our mission is helping our clients to restore their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual health. It is not only to cure, but to heal; to achieve deep, cathartic and long-lasting therapy. What is our moving force? Our wind, our moving force is for us to become better therapists. As a wonderful saying puts it, “you cannot direct the wind but you can adjust your sails”.
What about our older captain Hans Ten Dam? First of all he was the ship-builder. EARTh is his baby, his creation, his dream. But he was actually the second president of EARTh. Iljia van de Grind preceded him. But our captain is a padre padrone figure. You know, in the Mafia this is the figure of a master and a father at the same time. The point though is that you can never get rid of them; when they say that they retire, they essentially imply that they are still in business. They still keep on making the major decisions. I dare to say that I fear that even when he passes away he will be still haunting us. But in the meantime we have to recognize that he managed to set aboard distinguished and pioneering crew. Morris Netherton, Roger Woolger, Jan Erik Sigdell, Barbara Bachman, Marianne Carolus. I mention only the older generation of members for reasons of courtesy. Some of them abandoned the ship for their own reasons. You can’t have it all! By studying the course of the ship he kept us afloat from harbour to harbour.
What is our next destination from here? Porto. But in Sailing out we have to watch for reefs and storms but I promise that we will make it safely to the port by next October and we will have the most successful congress ever…
All the best,
Nassos Komianos
