by Marion Cattley
The 41-year-old patient comes to my clinic because his sister insisted. He is suffering from dental problems that his dentist cannot help with.
Marion Cattley (MC):
Please tell me what is wrong with your teeth…
Patient (P):
My sister told me that you would definitely be able to help me. Actually I don’t worry about it that much. I think I’ll just have to wait a while and then the problem will resolve itself and everything will be normal again. I’m going through a crisis at the moment and people tell me I’m far too relaxed about it. Everyone says I should do something, but I don’t see any need.
I have changed and the things that used to matter to me have lost their significance. I’ve become calmer and I like being alone. It annoys me that people try to make me more active, to distract me. I’m fine when I’m alone; but nobody wants to hear that. At the moment it’s fine as it is. I just want to be left alone. I want time for myself and to be able to follow my thoughts. People always think they are doing me a favour.
My sister thinks I’m having a nervous breakdown because I seem spaced out and unresponsive – well, if that’s a nervous breakdown, it feels pretty good. I have changed as a man and my friends don’t recognise me anymore – but that’s their problem, not mine. I know there is a reason for everything that happens in life. At the moment I just don’t know exactly what this means for me and my life. Maybe I’ve always been a loner and just didn’t know it. Maybe life has been suffocating me?
MC: What about your teeth?
P: I have toothache; I’ve never had this before. I can’t chew properly any more. By now I avoid chewing my food and just swallow it. That’s of course far from ideal because sometimes that gives me digestive problems.
MC: Tell me more…
P: That’s basically it – I have toothache and can’t chew my food. (long pause) I can’t say more about it, it’s toothache that causes me to be unable to chew properly.
MC: Please tell me more about this pain that makes chewing impossible.
P: It’s just a pain – it feels as if I’ve lost a tooth at that spot – it’s not there any more, but the spot aches as if the tooth is still there. It almost feels as if my teeth are being pulled into the remaining gap and they hurt because they have been pulled into that gap to replace the missing tooth. My eyes also water, especially in the wind. I had it examined, but nothing showed on the X-ray. I actually have no gap at all, though it feels that way.
MC: How does it feel when the teeth are being pushed into the gap and therefore hurt? Because they are supposed to fill the gap?
P: I’m not saying it actually is like that; I’m only saying it could be.
MC: That’s very good, that’s exactly what I want to know. Your description helps me a lot, please don’t worry, just keep talking and follow your thoughts… Your teeth have to fill the gap and that causes pain…
P: No, it just hurts, I can’t say more than that.
MC: What does your dentist say about it?
P: He says there is no reason for the pain. The X-rays are fine, so my life can go on and so can the pain. He wasn’t particularly helpful, but at least he didn’t fiddle around in my mouth.
MC: Please imagine once more what it is like when your teeth are pushed into the gap and therefore hurt…
P: Well, that’s what the dentists would do to you. They wouldn’t leave the gap as it is; they’d put on braces – that is, when you’re a child – to straighten the teeth so that no gap remains.
MC: How does it feel – without a gap?
P: Somehow tight, no space – you’re forced to go somewhere you don’t really want to go. Always busy, no time to think, no time to be yourself. The gap has something good about it.
MC: Why is the gap good?
P: It exists for itself and that’s good. The gap stands alone, keeps distance from the others and that feels good. There is space and there is no reason to fill it. It stands apart from the other teeth and makes a statement, a clear statement. Everyone can see it. It may not look so good, but the gap doesn’t care whether it fits or not. It has successfully resisted and has not allowed the other teeth to move in and close the gap. It has the strength to resist everything and everyone. It knows what it wants. It is happy and content, very individual. Everyone notices that it is something special because it looks different (the patient pauses for a long time and looks out of the window – he sits very still and stares ahead).
Hmm, this is really an amazing experience…. You have made me talk about myself, which I don’t normally do. But it feels good, somewhat surreal, but I feel safe. For a moment my teeth even stopped hurting. I feel relieved.
You have probably noticed that I speak about myself when I talk about the gap. I was forced to join the others. It’s very difficult for me at the moment; my wife (she is American) has gone back to America and took the children so they can go to school there. The strange thing is that that’s fine with me. The separation feels good, but everyone expects me to hate my wife for it. But she hasn’t done anything to me. Why should I hate her? She was right, it had to happen. I never had time to listen to her. I work as a web designer, it’s a hectic world, you’re out there alone and I was only ever around in the evenings – even at weekends I worked. I had too much to do, never time to think, to be myself, to get to know myself. The whole thing has done me a favour. I’m not sure whether I need to change anything, but at the moment I’m content to be alone with myself.
Everyone thinks I must be absolutely desperate. Everyone thinks I take drugs because I’m so calm and composed. My sister says I seem spaced out. I now approach my work differently. I allow things to develop much more, it takes time and that’s fine – why should I hurry? Everything will be fine. Our marriage, the children – they are still there, we just need time to see how things develop. Simply being there – that is a very powerful state, something I have never felt before.
I need help to process this for myself – that they are now in the USA. And that it is alright with me to be so distant.
I know what this is about. I have a sense for these things, I know myself very well. It’s about my feeling, my distance, but also about my connection to my family.
MC: Tell me more about that…
P: Being distant, detached, is very liberating. I have time to think. My friends constantly want to give me advice, but they don’t really know how I am. I stand on the sidelines and watch my life unfold before me, I wait and observe until I know what I should do. Without hurry, I just let it happen.
S., my wife, did not take the children away from me. For five or six years she tried to talk to me and I didn’t want to listen. I never had the time. She was right, she had to do it for herself. I don’t hate her, I love her, she didn’t do this to me. I don’t have to attack her for that. She knows what is best for our family and is waiting for me to be ready too – without pressure. She is the most wonderful, composed person I know, but I don’t know how to build a relationship with her. She is very sensitive, very empathetic; I was never like that, I think, but now – well, now I can feel and observe much, I can see things. I never did that before.
MC: What do you mean by feel, observe, see?
P: I wait. I have time, all the time in the world. I just want to stand still and watch the world turn around me. There are so many things I have never seen before, the wonders of this world and the wonderful nature around us.
MC: What do you see?
P: Only me, alone, very calm in an environment where I can relax – I don’t move, I’m completely still, I feel the air, breathe the air, smell the air, look at the sky and marvel because everything is so wonderful. I need nothing, because I have everything – I am content. I can remain like that for hours, but when it gets dark I return to my family. The next day I come back, all alone, separated from the world. I feel the euphoria.
MC: Where are you?
P: Alone by the river, I stand on the riverbank and fish. It is a beautiful day, nobody is there, it’s very quiet, silence and calm. I am afraid to move because the magic might disappear, but I can move silently, very quietly, without making a sound, even the water remains undisturbed, nothing moves, it is so calm and still. I am one with the universe. It is a privilege to have all this. S. brought me to her without knowing it. It would have been so easy to follow the advice of my friends and destroy her as she left. But I didn’t want that. She just flew out of the nest and one day I will fly after her to be with her.
Prescription: Ardea herodias, the Great Blue Heron
Follow-up
Five weeks later: The patient has convinced his colleagues to open a branch of the company in America. In three months he will follow his family to America. He has already visited his wife and children there and the family is very pleased that he will come to them. He reports that he has changed a lot. His wife says he is the man she married again. She had to make a decision to see whether he would pause and think about his life. She took a calculated risk and was right.
Eight weeks later: He still enjoys his time alone. The family is in the process of buying a house in the USA – a river runs through the property where he can withdraw, quietly enjoy nature and still have his family close by. He longs to be able to go home after work and tell his family about his day. It has now become clear to him that he never really communicated with them and he greatly desires that connection.
He now knows what he has to do, which direction to take. He has no problem with having to fly to Great Britain on business from time to time. He loves flying; in the aeroplane he quite literally feels 'uplifted'.
The patient 
has a dream which he describes as very 'beautiful': “I walk along a river and feel a need to hear nothing. Everything is quiet; you could hear a pin drop. A little way downstream I see a heron, it stands on the other side; very proud, it radiates strength as it stands on one leg. It stands like a statue, completely motionless. It is such a large bird and yet perfectly balanced, looking at its reflection in the water – watching, waiting, patient…. So calm, so motionless, one with itself. That is how I feel too. I wait until life unfolds before me and instinctively I know what I have to do….
By the way: My toothache has gone, and my eyes don’t water so much any more.
I love S. and the children so much… I have found them.
Analysis
The analysis is based on information from Jonathan Shore’s work, Rajan Sankaran’s 2006 schema, the Goa lectures in India 2006, seminars with B. and S. Joshi and the examination by Jeremy Sherr.
Themes of the case
General bird themes: detachment, objectivity, intuitive knowledge, conceptual thinking (overview); spiritual awareness, empathy, relationships, freedom, travel.
Essence of the case
Connection versus independence and detachment
Patience; waiting versus goal-oriented action
Calm versus overwhelmed
Something hidden, activity beneath the surface; seeing versus being seen
Throat and head complaints on the physical level.
Ardea – the heron’s perspective
During the examination the patients felt very distant from friends, family and the world. They wanted freedom to follow their own path and experienced great inner calm when this was granted. Their own ideas regarding work and goals were defended vehemently. Obstacles in the way led to frustration and irritability. The opinion of others was not important; there was no need to communicate.
They view life from a different perspective; the intellect structures itself around their own concepts and ideas, with a dynamic shifting of priorities.
The case taking was conducted using the sensation method, but the following rubrics are also represented:
Teeth: shifted, feeling as if the teeth had changed position; as if they had moved
Throat, internal: constriction, suffocation
Eyes: flow of tears, constant; tears, sharp, salty, burning, heat in general
Mind: thoughts absorbed, in; absent-minded. Solitude; feeling alone; fear of others’ opinions; stress, overwhelmed by; patience; secluded; feeling like; industrious; mania, workaholism
Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)
The Great Blue Heron belongs to the wading birds and is native to North America. When hunting it stands completely motionless in the water and waits until a fish swims by. To catch it, it darts into the water in a flash. The heron walks in shallow water without rippling the water or stirring up mud. The remedy was tested by Jonathan Shore.
The emotional state of the remedy is very aptly described by Peter Fraser in his book ‘Birds in Homeopathy’.
The feeling of calm and detachment was cited by the provers as an overwhelming feature of this remedy and has been confirmed many times clinically. The themes of silence, detachment and a sensation of hovering and meditation are found in many bird remedies, but only in the herons is this the central sensation. There is an extraordinary stillness; nothing needs to be said. This quiet, contemplative basic mood leads these people to take on the role of observer; they do not participate in life. The expectation that something will happen is present, but because of their distant nature these people can wait until the time is ripe. Because they understand that everything happens at its own pace, they can wait until something actually happens.
This sense of distance becomes particularly apparent in relationships with people close to an Ardea patient. Even towards loved ones they feel a certain distance, which does not mean they cannot have deep feelings or are incapable of love. The heron has the necessary distance to perceive a situation as it really is; it recognises the deeper meaning of life.
Jonathan Shore also elaborated the euphoric aspect of the remedy, the uplifting, joyous feelings, but also the deep sadness.
Mythology
The Great Blue Heron symbolises the balance between masculine and feminine energy. It moves in harmony with its intuition, its intuitive knowledge and its grace.
Photos: Shutterstock: Young pensive man in nature background_45550666© Luna vandoorne
Categories: Cases
Keyword:
detached, separation, apart, connection, liberating, calm, silence, contemplation, reflection, patience, time to think, loner
Remedy: Ardea herodias
