Letter from the Chair
Hello everyone
I hope you’ve had a wonderful summer. Here in the Chair office, there has been an enormous amount of work being done especially over the last 6 weeks.
I am sorry for the delay in this newsletter but there were a few technical problems in sending it.
I’ve been very busy organising the Reflexology stand at the CAM conference in the Brussels Parliament which was on the 8-10 October. I’d like to thank several people for their input especially Tracey Smith who dropped everything to write and design the poster and it’s amendments; Ronald Grave, Spiros Dimitrakoulas and Orlando Volpe for their comments on the poster’s contents. Thank you to Marcel Waterschoot and BeVO for putting out the word for volunteers to work on the stand. Thank you to all the volunteers who’ll be working with me on the stand and for their help in the equipment list. The volunteers are: Hanan Ben Abdelslam, Fabienne Bouche, Grace Civello, Leon Cools, Armelle Desplanches Kastriotis, Virginie Prick, Greetje Van den Eede and Mieke Van der Veken. Finally thank you to those I’ve not mentioned.
The conference was a great success and we worked on over 65 pairs of feet!. I will send an extra newsletter with pictures and more information about the conference in a few weeks time.
I put together an information pack to take with me to the exhibition. Part of this exhibition pack was information on each of the RiEN member countries. For this information, I looked to the RiEN website, but much of the information was out of date or insufficient. I would therefore like to ask all of the RiEN representatives to update their information on the website and to please follow the example set by FDZ. The FDZ page gave me essential information for Denmark so that I can help fight the Reflexology cause in Europe. One or two country examples are not enough! I have sent out a questionnaire for which you can use as a basis for information to put on the site, if you did not receive this please let me know and I will send it again. Some of organisations have posted multi-lingual pages, this is excellent, though please can you put English first.
This information is essential to RiEN to allow us to work for you.
AGM 2012
Those of you who attended the AGM in Echternach should have received or about to receive your attendance certificates.
Please email Esther at admin.rien@gmail.com if you’ve not received yours.
Minutes to the AGM have already been sent out to some of you and are available on the website.
EFCAM
All energies have been directed to organising the CAM exhibition at the CAM conference in October, will will continue to liaise with EFCAM and bring you news as we get it.
Karl Axel Lind - RIP
I do not know the details of the story of how Karl Axel ended up as a reflexologist, but it should be mentioned that he had a background in electrical engineering. I suppose it was his curiosity led him into that path. This curiosity also influenced his work with reflexology. He was constantly looking to see connections between the phenomena he met on his way.
These phenomena are in many cases discovered by his friends and partners in Finland, Sweden and Norway. Many of these people were of course reflexologist, but he also had this kind of contact with other types of therapists. Karl Axel although sat in the middle, like a spider, and collected, systematized and distributed information. Theories were formulated and followed, until they eventually was revealed as dead ends, and rejected. For those who have followed Karl Axel through a number of years, it's exciting to look back at the maturation that has happened.
Karl Axel was a well-read man. Of course, he kept up to date with new research in medicine, but most inspiration he found in the writings of ancient times. Mathematics, Philosophy, Mysticism from the countries around the Mediterranean were used as the basis for the development of reflexology.
So what is it that made his contribution to reflexology so important? He discovered and mapped many systems throughout the body. This is in itself an important contribution, but by no means unique. That is, however, is his use of links between reflexological systems. When the different systems were linked to qualitative and psychological characteristics it became brilliant.
Of course I do not know everyone who throughout history have contributed to the development of reflexology, but a rough idea, I still claim that I have. In my opinion, Karl Axel contributed significantly, only surpassed by William FitzGerald and Yingqing Zhang. Unfortunately the knowledge of his work did not reach out into the world while he was alive.
We who teach reflexology based on the material from Karl Axel have our own approaches to this and it is obviously influenced by our experiences and personality. I hope that in spite of these differences we can be collaborate on the development of the subject. In fact, Karl Axel himself was the biggest obstacle to a wider distribution of his work. It was about the ownership of knowledge.
Karl Axel also had his dark sides. Without it being necessary to elaborate on this, it is still an interesting paradox. He was the one who found the remedy in relation to this darkness, but he did not follow its own cure. He dreamed of finding a small house by a lake where he could row out in his boat to fish.
AGM
May 10th- 12th 2013
Athens
The next AGM is being held in Athens, this is an important event o maximize participation in RiEN. If you are able to come please book by 30th October to guarantee your room. Please look on RiEN site for full details.
Board position available
CHAIR
The position of Chair will become free at the AGM, so please put your proposals forward now. We saw what it was like last time there was no Chair, let’s not go there again!
Articles for the newsletter
If you have any articles or information that you’d like to share with RiEN members,
Please email chair.rien@gmail.com. The copy date is 20th November, if you would like your article to appear in the December Newsletter
Member contact information
It is essential for the Board of RiEN to have up to date information to contact you on.
The admin team of Anneke and Esther are responsible for keeping our
Hello everyone
I hope you’ve had a wonderful summer. Here in the Chair office, there has been an enormous amount of work being done especially over the last 6 weeks.
I am sorry for the delay in this newsletter but there were a few technical problems in sending it.
I’ve been very busy organising the Reflexology stand at the CAM conference in the Brussels Parliament which was on the 8-10 October. I’d like to thank several people for their input especially Tracey Smith who dropped everything to write and design the poster and it’s amendments; Ronald Grave, Spiros Dimitrakoulas and Orlando Volpe for their comments on the poster’s contents. Thank you to Marcel Waterschoot and BeVO for putting out the word for volunteers to work on the stand. Thank you to all the volunteers who’ll be working with me on the stand and for their help in the equipment list. The volunteers are: Hanan Ben Abdelslam, Fabienne Bouche, Grace Civello, Leon Cools, Armelle Desplanches Kastriotis, Virginie Prick, Greetje Van den Eede and Mieke Van der Veken. Finally thank you to those I’ve not mentioned.The conference was a great success and we worked on over 65 pairs of feet!. I will send an extra newsletter with pictures and more information about the conference in a few weeks time.
I put together an information pack to take with me to the exhibition. Part of this exhibition pack was information on each of the RiEN member countries. For this information, I looked to the RiEN website, but much of the information was out of date or insufficient. I would therefore like to ask all of the RiEN representatives to update their information on the website and to please follow the example set by FDZ. The FDZ page gave me essential information for Denmark so that I can help fight the Reflexology cause in Europe. One or two country examples are not enough! I have sent out a questionnaire for which you can use as a basis for information to put on the site, if you did not receive this please let me know and I will send it again. Some of organisations have posted multi-lingual pages, this is excellent, though please can you put English first.
This information is essential to RiEN to allow us to work for you.
AGM 2012
Those of you who attended the AGM in Echternach should have received or about to receive your attendance certificates.
Please email Esther at admin.rien@gmail.com if you’ve not received yours.
Minutes to the AGM have already been sent out to some of you and are available on the website.
EFCAM
All energies have been directed to organising the CAM exhibition at the CAM conference in October, will will continue to liaise with EFCAM and bring you news as we get it.
Karl Axel Lind - RIP
I do not know the details of the story of how Karl Axel ended up as a reflexologist, but it should be mentioned that he had a background in electrical engineering. I suppose it was his curiosity led him into that path. This curiosity also influenced his work with reflexology. He was constantly looking to see connections between the phenomena he met on his way.
These phenomena are in many cases discovered by his friends and partners in Finland, Sweden and Norway. Many of these people were of course reflexologist, but he also had this kind of contact with other types of therapists. Karl Axel although sat in the middle, like a spider, and collected, systematized and distributed information. Theories were formulated and followed, until they eventually was revealed as dead ends, and rejected. For those who have followed Karl Axel through a number of years, it's exciting to look back at the maturation that has happened.
Karl Axel was a well-read man. Of course, he kept up to date with new research in medicine, but most inspiration he found in the writings of ancient times. Mathematics, Philosophy, Mysticism from the countries around the Mediterranean were used as the basis for the development of reflexology.
So what is it that made his contribution to reflexology so important? He discovered and mapped many systems throughout the body. This is in itself an important contribution, but by no means unique. That is, however, is his use of links between reflexological systems. When the different systems were linked to qualitative and psychological characteristics it became brilliant.
Of course I do not know everyone who throughout history have contributed to the development of reflexology, but a rough idea, I still claim that I have. In my opinion, Karl Axel contributed significantly, only surpassed by William FitzGerald and Yingqing Zhang. Unfortunately the knowledge of his work did not reach out into the world while he was alive.
We who teach reflexology based on the material from Karl Axel have our own approaches to this and it is obviously influenced by our experiences and personality. I hope that in spite of these differences we can be collaborate on the development of the subject. In fact, Karl Axel himself was the biggest obstacle to a wider distribution of his work. It was about the ownership of knowledge.
Karl Axel also had his dark sides. Without it being necessary to elaborate on this, it is still an interesting paradox. He was the one who found the remedy in relation to this darkness, but he did not follow its own cure. He dreamed of finding a small house by a lake where he could row out in his boat to fish.
RESEARCH
Arve has put up the page for the Abstracts library ready for you to put your Abstracts onto the website. It’s up to you now to make it work!
Arve has put up the page for the Abstracts library ready for you to put your Abstracts onto the website. It’s up to you now to make it work!
AGM
May 10th- 12th 2013
Athens
The next AGM is being held in Athens, this is an important event o maximize participation in RiEN. If you are able to come please book by 30th October to guarantee your room. Please look on RiEN site for full details.
Board position available
CHAIR
The position of Chair will become free at the AGM, so please put your proposals forward now. We saw what it was like last time there was no Chair, let’s not go there again!
Articles for the newsletter
If you have any articles or information that you’d like to share with RiEN members,
Please email chair.rien@gmail.com. The copy date is 20th November, if you would like your article to appear in the December Newsletter
Member contact information
It is essential for the Board of RiEN to have up to date information to contact you on.
The admin team of Anneke and Esther are responsible for keeping our
mailing list up to date, so please send all changes of contact person,
email to admin.rien@gmail.com
email to admin.rien@gmail.com
