The weather gets colder now, but for us at CCH it is spring. New people have joined us and the cycle starts again. It is always a relief when after a summer of timetabling and paper work and questioning ourselves: ‘Why do we do this?’ or ‘I never planned on being an admin officer’, the students arrive for the first day of the new academic year. The new students introduce themselves. It is a privilege to hear their accounts and stories of how and why they have decided to study homeopathy. I am always heartened to be reminded of the innate intelligence of people, their passion and understanding of what it means to be healthy or sick. Running a college is really like being a ‘collective homeopath’. Instead of a patient, we have a group of people who want to be guided in the direction of learning. It is an onerous responsibility for all of us. It can only work as a team effort from everyone concerned. Being a homeopath does not mean you are somehow enlightened as to the nature of life, immune to the vagaries of human nature; possessed of the qualities of integrity, honesty and openness, and all those things that make a person happy and healthy. Homeopathy, like other healing systems, religions and ways of thinking , can be used or misused.
Homeopathy and an understanding of homeopathy is a start that is all. Just like the remedy this understanding can only go as far as the student wants it to go. The remedy can be powerful and it can be powerless. The remedy can only utilise the patients own healing capacity and cannot act in spite of the patient or against their wishes. That is the frustration sometimes. You can see what a patient needs to do, prescribe on it but it makes little difference. Sometimes it takes time for a patient to start to see what needs to be done; changing diet, job and thinking etc.. Well the same is true of all of us. We are no better or different than our patients.
The word teaching derives from a Greek word that essentially means ‘to point the path’. Whether the student wishes or wants to take that path is up to them. The college and the staff offer guidance only . The only rule we strictly adhere to is that all of us maintain the qualities of integrity, honesty and openness. These qualities are the foundation-stone of a good homeopath. All the staff have these qualities in abundance and in that ‘soil’ it is delightful to see people from all walks of life prosper. All this combined makes it not to difficult to get up on a Sunday morning to go and teach for the day.
A huge welcome to all those who give up their weekends and time to study and to those who have had the courage to start the walk with us.