Literally half a lifetime has passed since I left Marlborough; looking back over the intervening years I can see what an incredible journey of self discovery and growth I was embarking upon back then, the course of which was a mystery to me at the time.
I left the College at the end of the Lower Sixth: I was heading in a direction that held no appeal although the education I had thus far received gave me the confidence to feel I would be able to land on my feet in whatever walk of life I chose.
Spurred on by an acute awareness of social injustices and a burning desire to change the world, I spent the next few years exploring life beyond the ivory tower - as well as political philosophy and metaphysics - searching for constructive ways to channel my anti-establishment zeal. My partner Liz and I were already experiencing the joys and responsibilities of teenage parenthood, as we immersed ourselves in the dying New Age counter-culture of self-sufficiency. Attempting the practical application of libertarian ideals to the parenting role, while still providing necessary boundaries, presented us with learning opportunities at an early age: Khogan, my son, became one of my most valued teachers amd remains so today.
Since then I have engaged in a variety of rewarding lifestyles, from intensively indulging my creative passions in the production of psychedelic artwork through to living in a community of like-minded individuals in the remote outback of deepest darkest Wales, strumming a guitar and chopping wood to keep warm.
I was lucky enough to enjoy the camaraderie of the environmental protest camps at Newbury, playing my part in raising public awareness in the hope of influencing future road-building policy in favour of more expensive, lower impact options. At the time I was living in a converted truck, whose wood stove and mattressed beds provided a cosy respite when the cold and damp of our tree-houses became unbearable. I, and most of my fellow eco-warriors, espoused Non-Violent Direct Action (NVDA) as a meaningful political tool. It was during this time - helped by rubbing shoulders with more ‘spiky’ anti-authoritarian elements - that I became aware that the attitudes and behaviour of people around me was, for the most part, a projection of their own unresolved internal conflicts, and parental issues in particular.
A few months after the last evictions, I found myself on a plane headed for India, with enough money saved for a year long budget tour, and an aspiration to learn some kind of meditation technique. Once there, I was disturbed to observe that even in remote mountain regions - inaccessible by road and merely marked on the map as ‘here be leopards and ibex’ – satellite TV, and MTV in particular, informed the local population of the lifestyle of westerners.
I spent more than half my time in the Himalayas, some of which was spent escaping the monsoon season by visiting Ladakh, a Tibetan enclave now within the borders of Kashmir. At one point, on my return over the treacherous mountain pass, I found myself running from a landslide of giant boulders, convinced that I was about to die!
Whilst in Dharamsala - Himalayan home to the exiled Dalai Lama - I began my first 10-day silent meditation retreat, where I learnt Vipassana, or ‘Insight Meditation’, a technique introduced by the Buddha. As the technique predates the arrival of Buddhism as a religion, it is taught in a non-sectarian fashion, making it accessible to members of any religion or none. I later found that I need not have travelled all the way to India. There is a Vipassana centre near Hereford! 
During this, and subsequent retreats, I increased my awareness of the many ways we create and maintain a certain image of ourselves in our minds and the minds of others. The focus of the meditation is on observing the subtle interplay of thoughts, memories, emotional states, nervous and biochemical activity, bodily sensations, sensory input and perceptual filtering. The chief benefits are an increasing ability to function in the present, with the most appropriate responses to any given circumstance and an increased ability to meet the vicissitudes of life with a more balanced mind by putting a brake on the re-stimulation of ingrained negative reactions. I have since discovered and made use of Reiki, Chi Gung and Re-evaluation Co-counselling as useful tools, enabling me to experience greater emotional freedom and a deeper sense of fulfilment.
Like many travellers to India, I contracted amoebic dysentery within weeks, before going on to acquire giardia, which is endemic in the Himalayas. No sooner had one course of anti-protozoal medication done its work, than I found myself re-infected. My slender frame became increasingly skeletal over the following weeks until I was on the verge of returning to the UK. At this point, I gave up on pharmaceutical medicine and sought the assistance of a local Ayurvedic practitioner, who cured the constant diarrhoea and made me lastingly less susceptible to the parasites.
I later visited a homeopath in Varanasi, standing in line among the lepers and TB sufferers for a consultation that rapidly cured my residual colitis. Impressed by the result, I resolved to find out more. I learnt that the spread of homeopathy in India had been actively encouraged by Mahatma Gandhi, who saw it as a cheap, effective way of delivering healthcare to the masses; the cost of homeopathic remedies is negligible in comparison to patent-protected pharmaceuticals. Virtually every Indian state-run hospital has its own homeopathic wing and dispensary, successfully treating acute, epidemic and endemic diseases such as cholera, typhoid and malaria, as well as routinely curing cases of severe chronic pathology, such as pulmonary tuberculosis. Such results can be clearly demonstrated by X-rays and tissue examinations. What impressed me most about homeopathy, however, was its capacity to treat psychological disturbances too; indeed the psychological make-up and dis-ease of the patient plays a central role in guiding the homeopath in their quest to find a medicine that will remedy physical ailments.
On my return to the UK I enrolled for 3 years of full-time training at London’s College of Homeopathy, and I have spent the last 6 years practising as a registered homeopath in Cambridge. My general practice is complemented by a specialisation in the identification and treatment of food sensitivities. A wealth of life experience proved to be a far more valuable preparation for this career than a handful of A-levels could ever have been. I find it greatly satisfying to help people in their journey back to health, assisting them in their process of psychological integration and emotional growth whilst facilitating greater freedom at the physical level of their being.
From time to time I am made aware of hostility towards this discipline from those whose heads are stuck in the biochemical paradigm of health and disease. They seem incapable of comprehending a weight of sound clinical trials, which are dismissed on the anti-scientific grounds that the observed phenomena cannot be real because homeopathy’s as yet unascertained mode of action appears to contradict current knowledge and theories. I am sure that one day conventional medics will take their place alongside biophysicists in accepting that it is not only matter that is capable of interacting with matter within the human organism, but until that day comes, the hostility is likely to continue, much to the delight of pharmaceutical companies.
Homeopathy often entails a lot of hard work on behalf of the prescriber, but imagine how much more satisfying it is to see someone’s chronic inability to express anger resolved, along with their recurrent bouts of cystitis, than it is to continue administering antibiotics! Someone comes, for instance, complaining of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and departs from treatment with a perfectly functioning digestive system, having also freedom from their performance anxieties. How much more satisfying for the patient than being given medicines to bung them up, clear them out, or reduce their intestinal spasms for years on end!
The recurrent dilemma of the homeopathic profession resonates strongly with a conflict I often find myself grappling with. Where should I be putting my energy – towards achieving acceptance and success in the eyes of others or into attaining a more deeply gratifying sense of self-fulfilment? That having been said, perhaps my biggest sense of achievement is derived from the close relationships I maintain with my two sons, the oldest of whom is now seventeen, as well as the relationships I have re-forged with my parents, all of which have proved to be wonderful sources of personal fulfilment.
Axis Mundi Mandala - © Bob Blair 2007
The Mandala represents health, wholeness and integration, and can be used as a tool for contemplation and meditation towards this end. It symbolically traces the journey of the individual’s consciousness through the labyrinth to the mystical centre, the point at which communion with Higher Self is experienced. In alchemical and Taoist terms the centre is the axis mundi, the world-axis, or cosmic axle, wherein dynamic stillness and synchronisation with the events, movements and rhythms of the universe hold sway.
Photo 1: (Bob Blair 2007); Photo 2: Roadside services Ladakhi-style; Photo 3: Hanging out with Hindu Saddhus in Kathmandu; Photo 4: With Khogan
To contact Bob Blair:
Telephone: 01223 424544
Email: nicola@thebeechwoodpractice.co.uk