A strange, rare or peculiar symptom is pretty much like it sounds. We don’t see them all the time, and they can be a symptom that fits any of those descriptors, so they may be rare, or strange, or peculiar, it doesn’t have to be all of them. These less common symptoms can help us match a remedy to the individual. We need to take account of both these and common symptoms.


They can be a real gift to the practitioner when presented with them during a case session and can help us pinpoint a remedy to help the individual.


‘Homeopaths have a phrase for what is most useful in the study of materia medica, and so also in the study of patients in an effort to help them, ‘strange, rare and peculiar’. The clues to a cure lie in what are uncommon and characteristic in both the properties of the medicine and the symptoms of the patient.’

http://www.homeobook.com/pdf/strange-rare.pdf
 
Strange symptoms are those which defy our logic and make no sense to us, yet still exist – e.g. pain in rectum, eructations, during empty.
 
Rare - those which we rarely encounter in our patients or remedies. They’re found in very few patients, and very few remedies.
 
Singular symptoms – so rare that they’re found in one remedy in our materia medica and repertory.
 
Peculiar symptoms are different to what is normal or expected. Symptoms that are against our expectation. E.g. pain in knees better by walking – if there is knee pain, we may expect to be worse for moving. Or painful throat better for cold drinks – most patients find a warm drink more soothing with a sore throat.
 
Common symptoms are not to be ignored – a good remedy usually covers both the common and uncommon symptoms. We decide on our remedy based on the characteristic symptoms, but that doesn’t mean the common symptoms never have any value.

This is such a vast topic that whilst writing my book The Joy of Homeopathy, trying to condense a definition for my Terminology section into 4 or so lines was a real challenge. Helen who I'm working with to publish the book suggested a blog post on the topic, which was a great idea. If you're here from the book, welcome. If you're here having discovered my website or via the blog, hello too!

When I was first taught potency in College, it's pretty fair to say, it was accompanied by echoes of 'What...? You mean...? How...?' around the classroom that I sat in.

It goes hand in hand with our Law of Minimum Dose, which is quite the step for us, so used to our material world. Two aspects of this are key - one is that we give the minimum dose to enable a reaction to for our client to start their journey towards healing, in terms of repetition, and the second, in a weird twist of ‘really, but how?’ the more diluted and succussed (shaken) a remedy is, the stronger the potency. The power seems to be particularly related to the shaking, the succussion. How I can’t tell you, and to be fair, I have given up trying to really understand. I’m OK with seeing it working. I’m happy to know that I see change. I’m really happy to know that way cleverer people than me are working in many countries around the world investigating the how, demonstrating the efficacy of homeopathy on plants, seeing it work in agriculture and lots more.
 
Much research is frequently self-funded or funding comes from within the industry, which doesn’t make it a level playing field with the world of conventional medicine, but research is ploughing ahead regardless. People’s passion, people’s recognition for something that works, commitment to learning and curiosity about the world around them and this thing that shouldn’t work but clearly does, has much to be said for it. Then there’s the fact our current scientific paradigm says that it can’t work and yet still it does, perhaps makes it all the more fascinating.
 
If I'm totally honest, I can no longer tell you in detail how a lightbulb switches on. Once upon a time I could have told you the physics of it, but those heady A Level Physics days are gone. I don’t care how my car turns on when I turn the ignition key. I’m curious about much in the world, but I see these things working and that works for me. I’m grateful mechanics are way more up on my car than my awareness that it’s metallic dark grey with a fabulous panoramic roof, I’m very grateful my dad knows exactly what he’s doing with it. But do I need to? Years ago, single parenting away, getting my business set up, supporting ourselves with bit jobs on the side, I recognised there were many things I needed to do and know and that I could accept help with others. My car is one I accept help with. I admire those who can do cars too, but I’m OK that’s not me.
 
Similarly, I’m very grateful we have incredible researchers, I’ve met some of them and am inspired by their passion for the topic. My passion is seeing the change on the front line. Being in clinic, working on cases, seeing clients. Seeing results which clients describe as life-changing. That’s my space. And the rest will come. I believe we’re getting close to the ‘how’ and there are several fascinating theories which may well be shouted about soon. They may soon show us how what we do does it. There may be several ways to explain it, and that’s where I think we'll be in the end, that it’s not just one thing. Not just nanoparticles or Exclusion Zone water. Not just the quantum world that will give us clues. But I’m leaving that to the marvellous researchers. I don’t think it’ll be long before we know a whole lot more.
 
Back to potency, commonly used potencies in homeopathy are:

6X, 12X and beyond, these are on the Decimal scale.
 
6C, 12C, 30C, 200C, 1M, 10M which are all classed as being on the Centesimal scale.
 
The LM scale goes from an LM1 upwards and you can start at 1 and work up, or adapt accordingly depending on the energy of our client.

In the decimal scale, noted by an X after the number, 1/10 of the liquid is added to 9/10 of alcohol and shaken (succussed) well. The first dilution is a 1X. The number in front of the X notes the number of times it has been diluted and succussed. A 12X potency of a remedy will have been through this process 12 times.

Our centesimal scale is similar, 1/100 of the starting material or tincture is added to 99 parts of alcohol. That creates a 1C of our remedy. And so on upwards.

Our M potencies have been through this process in the orders of thousands, 1M a thousand times, 10M ten thousand times.

LM potencies, which are sometimes called Q potencies are made by diluting and succussing 1:50 000 of the original tincture/substance.

The short video here is helpful to describe how we make remedies and gives an insight into potency.

We’re always looking at each case as an individual and that means matching the remedy and the potency to the person in front of us.

2023 has had its challenges for so many, and reflecting on my year feels like it's been the year of dental challenges, slight and insignificant compared to much out there, though personally with some quite intense pain. Fortunately I've found an amazing dentist I trust, who at times will sugggest I take a remedy that'll help for certain things eg recovery from procedures etc, and the year is ending in a much more pain free place.

I hope relief is to be found for many out there - unfortunately many challenges aren't quite as fixable as mine were and it makes me feel humble that mine were solvable, and gratitude for where I am at with it. However, as ever, I digress from what I meant to write of...

I've written a book this year and am currently working with someone who is helping me to publish it - it's on the intense editing phase at the moment, but with the end of the year galloping towards us, or us towards it, it got me thinking about books in general. I feel like 2023 has been a particularly rich year on that front for me, so I thought I'd mention some of my much loved reads of the year, including two on the go.

I've recently found a friend has every Jack Reacher book (author Lee Child) ever written, and have been working through the ones I haven't read yet, very grateful to her, and it's always great to find another Reacher fan. I've the latest one waiting for me to finish A Year of Marvellous Ways, which I am really enjoying, kindly gifted by another friend as we met to drive to Manchester Airport together. She was off on holiday, I returning from a weekend of teaching in Wales.

So in no particular order, though no Jack Reacher in my top 2023 reading list, but I do love him for a romp through some modern day Robin Hood-ing:

Jack Zipes' Buried Treasures: The Power of Political Fairy Tales stood out to me at a storytelling event we were at recently. The cover appealed, and as we'd walked into town we were running later than I wanted, I had a quick stroke of the cover and told it I'd be back soon. We were reunited after the event and on getting it home and reading the interaction between the author and Einstein, I was hooked. Really enjoying it, though is still on the go, but learning lots and am still totally intrigued by it.

I give myself a 150 page 'rule' - if I can't get on with it by then, then I'm happy to say I've tried, and to let it go. This one I'm only 30 odd pages into and don't try to pry it off me...

Edith Eger's The Choice and The Gift. These two I listened to first, then bought as a hard copy to be able to reference in teaching and for my partner to read. Two of the most brilliant books I've read. Let alone this year. I read The Gift, which is the second book first, then decided I wanted to also listen to The Choice, which is a longer book and tells more of Edith's story. Really really recommend for students of homeopathy and students of life.

On Sacred Ground (pictured) and Andrew Terrill's first book The Earth Beneath My Feet were incredibly enjoyable. The author, as I was doing my A Levels and heading off to University in 1997, decided he'd walk the length of Europe and begins his epic 18 month journey starting in Italy and finishing in Norway. He (and you as the reader) encounter Europe's wild places and finds hospitality throughout his journey. His vulnerability and gentle way of writing both appealed and I found myself wanting to go to bed to continue the journey*. Many aspects of these books have stuck with me, at the forefront of my mind, his love of wild camping and desire to leave a camping ground better than he found it.

To be fair, this intention nearly got me stranded on the patio of a cottage recently as I tried to leave a holiday let better than I found it - it was tough as it was pretty damn perfect. However there was some bird mess on the sliding door so I decided I'd clean it off and joked to myself that I mustn't totally shut the door in case it had some clever auto-locking... it didn't but the door wasn't the newest or easiest to slide and it got stuck (with a 6 inch gap leading inside...) anyway, a bit of realigning, some sweating and swearing and praying and I was back in...

*I have a 2 pages reading rule and unless I'm incredibly tired I aim to read at least two pages a night in bed. Often in the day I'm busy with something so this is my sacred reading ground. I encountered this suggestion on a TEDx talk about microhabits, and the idea that if you decide you have to read, say a chapter, it can be overwhelming, but a small accessible intention means it's more likely to happen. Of course often I read more, but the goal is to read a little every night. As with crochet, which I frequently do if waiting somewhere for someone (usually my teenager) I find it's amazing how you progress with just a little and often approach.

Suzanne Simard's Finding the Mother Tree and Merlin Sheldrake's Fantastic Fungi both changed how I look at nature too. I've been convinced we're looking at climate change and our care of this wonderful planet the wrong way around, and these books were both a delightful adventure in a way that made sense to me. It was years ago my daughter told me that she wouldn't watch David Attenborough as it was too depressing. I've grown up with him and missed the new insights she took from it. I listened to her, listened to him, and recognised so many of our messages are about doom. This, in my opinion, is only going to motivate some people. Love, I think motivates far more. These books, along with Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, were like a meditation of love for our beautiful planet. Dive in, fall in love and see how you protect something. There's nothing quite as fierce as a mother fighting for her children...  of course sometimes that's from fear, but I'd argue mostly from a place of purest love.

Speaking of love over fear, I see a lot of people worried about the state of the world, and perhaps rightly so... I'm not going to argue with that. Teaching in Manchester in November this year I was happy to be sharing more about the Radioactive remedies in homeopathy. I love teaching this lecture, and was reminded again, and more so this year than other years, that in the darkness there is so much light.  I don't believe it's possible to have one without the other, and as Edith Eger in her two books discusses, there is always a choice. Perhaps if you can't see the light, you are the light in the darkness? That's not Edith's quote, or mine, and I don't recall where I first saw it, but it's perhaps something to ponder. There are so many, doing amazing things, being love out there that it's easy to forget as headlines generate more fear in a fearful world. Love may not control, but it does protect, regenerate, allow, expand and evolve. If we have to choose, at least we can know we have a choice.

I've surprised myself sharing my rules... I am not a huge rule lover, and never wanted a bedtime routine for my daughter, feeling myself constricted by the word. We had the same thing and I called it a pattern which felt freer. Reading is sacred to me, whether it be listening or reading, reading on a kindle, which is rarer these days, or a book, it's a happy place for me, so I suppose the rules can stay.

Last two - The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. Gorgeous. Gentle, slow and an insight into Island living over the summer from a child's perspective. A perfect book for a Greek trip.

Grain Brain by David Perlmutte is the last one, which is on Audible for me at the moment. Having recognised years ago that gluten and I weren't friends albeit I experienced no digestive challenges with it, it was joint pain for me, and it went away if I didn't eat it, I got quite intrigued. It was Maria Jevtic's Cave to Computer that made me recognise the issues were inflammation anywhere - and her references to anxiety and depression with gluten sensitivity made me stop and think. This much loved substance may not be as bland as it may look... This is a research led, fascinating read/listen and I highly recommend it.

That's 10, I thnk it'll do for now. It's been a great year - oh and lastly my friend Claire's book 18 Months was a joyful, thought provoking adventure of and musings on everyday life. Available on Amazon where she self published it. The others are easily findable but I'll link to this one here as I struggled to discover it when I first searched on there.

Several of these books we've read with our Kindness Book Club, which is somehting that Bev Nickolls and I set up around 2 years ago. We meet 6-8 weekly usually and anyone is welcome. Get in touch if that is of interest and I'll happily add you to our mailing list. We next meet January 22nd at 7pm (UK) and are chatting about North Woods and The Book Thief (we had an extra long session due to unplanned life happening hence 2 books).

I'm likely to be starting 2024 with a couple of books on the go but would love your recommendations of your favourite reads of this year (or at all) to add to my to-read list.  Nick Cave and Sean O'Hagan's Faith, Hope and Carnage is near the top of the list and I think I'm shortly to fall deeply in love with that.

With best wishes for a peaceful, and book happy Christmas and New Year!

Em x

It's been over a year and I thought I'd ponder on what a year of doing social media in a different way has brought me.

Autumn 2022 I decided to take a giant leap - backwards was how I considered it at the time. I'd had accounts with LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and one or two smaller platforms. At one point I was managing accounts for several organisations, and was getting whispers it was time to step back. By the time I was hearing the shouting, it was definitely time - another lesson in listening to the whispers*!!

*In case helpful for reassurance they were not actual whispers, more that intuitive knowing sense.

I did it gradually, and mentioned it a few times in order that should people wish to remain in touch the newsletter was there. And I did it differently to how I thought I would, but with reflection it's a far healthier place now than it was before.

I left Twitter entirely, although I do think there may be an account lurking on there 'belonging' to my cats, Joey and Monica (Joey is the handsome chap below) that I was using in a twitter training course to walk people through getting set up. It's not something I've lost sleep over.

I chatted with my daughter about shutting down my Instagram account, and she mentioned that she sometimes looks through there at memories of fun stuff we've done if she's feeling sad. So that got made personal, the app deleted off my phone and sits there, and she can use it to cheer herself up if she needs anytime. I ignore requests, and barely do anything with it. It does have a post that mentions I've stepped back from social times and get in touch directly if you want.

LinkedIn was a joy to leave. I'm aware other homeopaths have used LinkedIn well but I have always felt it was clunky, unintuitive and I wasn't its biggest fan. No more LinkedIn account.

Facebook I went away from, with an awareness that it was something that would be useful when promoting the Ceilidh that I've been organising at Christmas time for a few years now. There is a peace and spaciousness with walking away but also a joy in connecting for me. Groups were hard to not be around, especially for hobbies or work, and I found a space of deleting the app from my phone and being more disciplined with it worked for me.

Telegram I had already had to step away from as found myself delving down rabbit holes, ending up terrified about the state of the world and the crazy going on out there. That got deleted, as did Signal.

In short I'd say I've more simplicity, less access to the vortex and more happiness about the balance and where it is currently at. More space to ponder and be delighted in the more immediate world around me. Less sharing and more quiet. I think that'll do for now.

Has it affected my business? Mostly I would share homeopathy related info, particularly on more work focussed pages, so perhaps affected client numbers. I'd say not, I'm as busy as I want to be now. What I would say is that it has brought me more space and enabled more creativity. I've produced several postcards, a compassion series of cards, my new 'taking LM potency' cards and the 'Play out' cards here if you want to take a look. I started writing a case up for the blog and wrote a book, in the process of editing and refining that currently. I'm not sure much of that would have happened without the space from stepping back.

In terms of client numbers, January is looking fairly full for the first part of the month with appointments available from the 22nd onwards. I've space for 5 new clients in January. More info on my home page here.

It's funny, from recommending everyone use social media to help promote homeopathy, I've retreated and am very happy here. It can be brilliant to be out there, and it's great to be quieter too.

I was reflecting this morning just how grateful I am for homeopathy in my life, and despite having hundreds of remedies around my house and clinic room, how these kits come into their own time and again.

I've several. I've the yellow Childbirth kit which I'll do sessions on how to use for pregnant mamas and their birthing partners, and 3 of these that I can rent out, if people wish to borrow it instead of purchasing their own. That was something that was going on when I started working at Craven Clinic and something that I still offer. I've the Ainsworth's 42 remedy kit, I've a small kit in the car made from a wallet someone kindly gave me.

Then I've several blue kits just like the one pictured. My daughter was at boarding school for a few terms and she had the kit with her at school, I've had conversations with the pastoral care lead on what remedies to give to support her in different times. My partner has a kit that he takes if he's travelling without us. I've got Jeremy Sherr's ultimate 200c remedy kit which is a bit more of a whopper of a kit, and is what I take if I'm travelling for a while away from my remedies, though sometimes will just opt for the 36 Helios kit too.

I've given a remedy to a hairdresser struggling with cold sores who was heading out to photograph a wedding in Rome. Probably the highest ever remedy gifting I've done, however many thousand feet up in the air on our plane. I've helped out a waitress in Skiathos who was struggling with nausea and dizziness. I've heard feedback from so many clients who get the kit and are incredibly grateful for it, the latest being:

I took my first kit travelling to Thailand, Australia and lots in between and used it to help people with splinters, hangovers and lots more. I hope you're seeing how much I love them!

The latest, and this morning's reflections come about through having a boyfriend with flu sleeplessly get through several nights. I tend to be more reticent to come forwards in terms of rushing in with remedies now, but it was 3am and no fun so I mumbled something along the lines of 'can I help? Shall I get the kit?'. My partner, who is so much more organised than me, has his kit in the wardrobe and it was only a short wander across to get it. He went through his symptoms and I put a remedy into his mouth, and was grateful at that point he got to sleep for several hours.

It reminded me of the time my daughter had croup many years ago, and moments after the remedy was taken she was sleeping easily; he did the same. From snottily snuffling his way through the first half of the night to sleeping with ease... hooray! A repeat at 6am had similar effects and he's steadily improving away.

Improvements for me, better sleep for him, happy all round.

They really are the gifts that keep on giving.

Thanks to Helios and all involved in making these and similar treasures!

Em :)

Working in a teaching clinic recently has been fascinating for me for several reasons, one of them being kind of observing what I do myself (as well as being observed), rather than just doing it which perhaps I've just done for a long time without examining it.

It's made me clarify things for myself, reflect more and been a very positive exercise. It's made me look at who my main influences are in my case work, appreciate them even more (thanks to Jeremy Sherr, Jan Scholten, Annette Sneevliet and the wonderful trio who taught the Joshi's work to me, alongside the Joshis themselves).

One thing it's made me reflect on is that there's really only ever two things I want to know. What is bringing someone to sit with me in clinic and who are they.

These areas are of course expanded upon and much more details are shared to get to understand them fully, but at the basic level this is really all there is.

Understanding someone's pattern in the world, their program (Annette Sneevliet's term), their non human song (Rajan Sankaran's term) or the lens they view the world through (my take) allows us to match that to one of our approximate 6,500 remedies in our homeopathic pharmacopeia and likewise understanding their symptoms, the dis-ease expression helps us the same. Some of my cases I reach through one, some through the other, and I particularly love it where both combine.

Of course, when I ask someone to describe themselves, they don't come straight out with telling me what the lens is like that they see the world through, we build up a picture through conversation, finding out about how they deal with challenges, what hobbies they have, what interests them, what work they're drawn to, films they like, dreams, fears and lots more.

Likewise, with symptoms, we often see clients who are used to a very medicalised view of the world, sharing perhaps just a disease label, headache, IBS, ulcerative collitis. We want so much more to make it useful in the world of homeopathy, to know how they experience it, their symptoms, what is unique to them, what it's better for, worse for, when it started.

There's a brilliant short video here of Dr Julie Geraghty, a homeopathic GP, who talks about how when she was a GP people would tell her things that weren't any use, now it's all relevant.

It's all relevant.

Words are our way of communicating that across, and there can be a lot of them shared, so perhaps my title simplifies it too much, but really, that is all there is. What are you experiencing, how are you experiencing it and who are you, are at the core of what I want to know.

Once I can get a sense of that, then starts the matching process with which I'm grateful for a few different tools in my kit, different approaches to work with. Some cases I understand through one approach, some another, and I never know how it's going to be until I sit with someone, and sometimes until I go away to work on the case.

I'll share more on that in another blog, let's keep it simple for today :)