I sailed to the Solomon Islands in June 2011. On arrival, I
attempted to make contact with local charities and organisations to introduce
Bowen Therapy to the Islands. Guadalcanal Island is a hot sultry island in the
South Pacific, with heavy humidity and huge amounts of tropical flora and
fauna. Dried coral, being readily available, is used for paths and driveways;
the coral turns to dust with time and sits heavily in the air. Many people on
the island live with deep fear and emotional traumas due too past uprisings and
riots.
While there is now a
governing body, RAMSI - Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands - to
control and keeps things safe, counselling has not been available or an option
for the many of thousands of local islanders. I made myself known to everyone
who I thought might be able to give me any leads within the community to bring
about the introduction of Bowen Therapy to the villages. While everyone was
wonderful and listened with interest, no one to date was able to offer any real
advice in what direction I should take to make things happen. Then the Universe
decided to help.
Visiting the yacht club
where all visiting yachtsmen and women congregate, I seated myself next to Meri,
an English woman. Meri had married a Solomon islander, and lived on the island
with her grown family. Swapping stories, she told me she had been to many
therapists and doctors on the island, and also visited a surgeon overseas, and
she still could not lift her arm without pain. Asking her permission, I turned
her chair around and proceeded to do moves addressing her upper back and
shoulder. When I had finished Meri lifted her arm completely above her head
without the pain. She picked up her phone and rang her son Gerald.
He was a priest at St
Barnabas, the Church of Melanesia; this was something he would want to hear
about. Gerald is popular within the islander community being a local minister
and island healer. His church fills with about 1000 people every Sunday. Gerald
arrived within 15 minutes to meet me. After a short conversation, we arranged
to have our first Bowen Therapy class the next day. Was this all a Coincidence?
God only knows. I was surprised to find a class of 22 Solomon Islanders, found
at such short notice. I presumed many would be spectators.
Our classes were held in
an open-air hall so removing clothes would not be an option. We lined up
kitchen tables and church pews as our training tables and set to work. With
time being short, and this trip only a tester to see how well received it would
be, I decided on basic relaxation moves and a few extra moves for complaints.
With thoughts of
post-traumatic stress, asthma, anxiety, and any chest related illnesses, basic
respiratory moves seemed an obvious choice. The next most common complaint was
hip and knee pain, so pelvic and sacrum moves for the lower body, where also
taught.
We had Patterson (a young
islander ) as our male model. Patterson would remove his shirt for us. This
sent the islander women into hysterical giggles. Especially when I instructed
them to touch his well-defined muscles on his back, while I demonstrated the
belly of a muscle and the slack and challenge technique used in moving over it.
I would do the move, and then draw it on the board explaining how to measure
where to find the position of hands for the move, and then they would all
practice on each other. They were very intent on getting it right the first
time. In the group one little elderly woman carried, her brightly crocheted bag
on her shoulder and wouldn’t put it down. All moves where done with the bag. On
asking the priest her story I found she had no husband and her family did not
want her, so she was homeless and lived on the generosity of others. Her life
was in that bag. For her to learn Bowen would give her some importance in her
village, and she would become more valuable to her family and, she hoped, a
home may be offered to her.
Each person in the class
had their own story. In this class, there were two boys in their late teens
(unusual in my experience), the parish priest, with the rest of the class being
women of all ages. Each person attending our classes was intent on learning the
power of Bowen to improve their own lives and others.
Travelling around, I
engaged the services of a taxi driver and on learning my story; he wanted me to
meet his adult nephew who was unable to walk. The story told to me in Pigeon
English made translation difficult, but my understanding was that medically, it
appeared there was no reason why he should not be able to walk. Apparently, he
lost the feelings to his legs and they just stopped working. With the
introduction of basic Bowen Therapy, he will now be able to receive regular
treatments that give him hope.
During my time on the island, I had attracted many people in need
of treatments. Using the local dive shop, I spent my last day on Guadalcanal
Island sharing Tom Bowen’s work as the sun set on the horizon in the South
Pacific.
