Many of you know that I’ve been on a working and writing sabbatical for the past 6 months. While I love living like a solitary monk for most of the week, (except for 3 days when I’m on Skype with patients) a couple times a week, I love to go out. This past Friday, I spontaneously took myself out to the local Thai restaurant for coconut soup, pad thai and the best lemongrass tea I’ve ever had.
The server, and owner, was immediately engaging. Her beautiful welcoming smile, bright twinkling eyes, petite countenance and forthcoming manner let me know that I was not going to be dining alone, reading my book, for much of the evening. A Phosphorous Constitution will come across bubbly, effervescent and all sparkly-like. They’re so much fun to be with and you will hardly ever feel lonely in their midst.
I knew I was in the presence of a firefly (phosphorous glows green in nature) as I watched this woman flit from table to table. As she came back to tell me how to freeze stalks of lemongrass to make the best tea in boiling water, I noticed my Heilkunst spidey-senses pick up on something else about her tone. There was clearly another layer on top of her Phosphorus nature.
I sat quietly, and curiously, waiting for the signs and signals I would inevitably be brought, to render a more thorough diagnosis. She then asked me where I was from and I let her know that I’m a native of Saint John, New Brunswick. She then said, “Oh, I’ve been to Moncton. Not a good trip, though. I ended up in hospital there for pneumonia!” I heard the little “BOOM” I always hear in clinic when the pieces of a case start to phenomenologically congeal and then lock together.
That was the other piece I was patiently waiting for. Phosphorous constitutions possess a strong astral, more flighty (literally) nature. What this means, as per Rudolf Steiner, is that in the body, organs that are a mirror of each other like eyes, lungs and kidneys are related more to the cosmic, airy, astral realm. A Phos. lives more purely in the moment, with their affinity to the cosmos, they will naturally love to travel, fly, act, play and engage with people in the service industry. They love lots of change.
If, however, they feel suffocated to fulfill their true desired function, they’ll have a strong predisposition for the Tuberculinum Miasm. When they feel their dreams dampened (literally) down or suffocated, they’ll engender this disease matrix for which their constitution already has a strong affinity. They will develop a predisposition for this chronic constant disease and exhibit bronchitis, asthma and pneumonia every Winter.
Healthy Phos.’ are pure light-bearers but if they get too lodged in the material, physical world, they’ll get water-logged with etheric energy and their lungs will fill up and they will feel as if they’re drowning from the inside out. This was this other piece that I was feeling as I was engaging with this woman.
I also noticed something else. Every time my new friend, the server, walked away with a plate in hand after a clear closure in our conversation, she’d stop in mid-walk to turn around to tell me something else. This happened 3 times, twice, she seemed to correct herself mentally in mid-first-syllable and, as I looked up from my plate in answer, she’d smile and continue to walk away.
The one time that she could not resist the temptation to add something, she chose to add a tid-bit of information that didn’t really fit the prior conversation. It was sort of curious and mis-placed. Again, I felt inquisitive as to what this was about.
By the third time, I knew this was no accident. I recalled the rubric in Dr. Roger Morrison’s, M.D. “Desktop Guide, To Keynotes and Confirmatory Symptoms” and what he said about Tuberculinum in the sections under “Mentals” as, “Constant feeling that he has forgotten something. Returns repeatedly to office door to give insignificant information.” That was the confirmatory symptom I needed to render a thorough diagnosis. Both my gut feeling and mind were in agreement.
Hey, wait a minute, aren’t I just a simple woman out on her own for a good meal? Where is that bloody epistemological off-switch? That’s the problem with being a Heilkünstler, you can never really shelve that enthusiastic diagnosing tendency. After so many years, it seems to have a life of it’s own. Once you’ve readily agreed to ingest that homeopathic red pill, every situation becomes a source of further knowledge.
I knew in that moment, that my new Phosphorus friend with the Tubercular Miasm, was still harbouring this disease matrix. The underlying cause was still afoot. Whatever they’d given her at the hospital in Moncton (probably antibiotics which literally means “against life”) only suppressed the symptoms without curing it. It would come back each year around Dec. 21st, stronger than ever, if the root cause was not addressed on the basis of natural law, like cures like. I knew this to be true like Neo’s Oracle without the need to bend one spoon.
I paid my bill and tipped my new Phos. friend heavily, thanking her for her wonderful service and the best of meals. I will go back to eat there again sometime, and see if the opportunity organically presents itself for me to share a chocolate chip cookie with her (geeky Matrix reference … what can I say?!). Phosphorous’ are such beautiful spirits and I hate to think that she might suffer unnecessarily.
Perhaps in my next blog, I’ll share with you an illustration of the Arsenicum woman in my weekly yoga class, who eyeballs me to straighten my mat, a strewn outdoor clothes, and openly tells others how she’s a control freak and hopes the yoga will help her to let go more. God’s teeth … perhaps it is better if I just stay at home!
