What do a Maasai warrior and a six-year-old princess have in common?

They, along with a caracal, mean something to me.

Last weekend I did a MindScape seminar. I had learned about this from Debbie, my BodyTalk practicioner. She had recommended the seminar as a tool to learn how to improve visualisations and also for self-healing and remote healing of others.

I’ve been getting a bit New Agey recently, and some of the stuff I buy wholeheartedly, about some stuff I am sceptical. I need to understand things or feel things to believe they are real. I tried acupuncture the first time on a recommendation and when I felt such a distinct and amazing physical response, that convinced me. So, I consider myself an open-minded woman of science.

The seminar teaches you how to ritualistically put your mind into an alpha state, in which you can do various things (like visualisation). I think it helps as a tool if only because of the placebo effect: if you believe that you can now do something better as a result of a methodology then you will do it better. If I believe I can heal faster by going and doing self-healing, then probably I will but obviously this is also not testable.

A tough pill to swallow for a woman of science. But yet. I spent most of the weekend in a somewhat dream-like state between actually practicing the techniques and hearing stories that sound crazy. Maybe this is where the leap of faith comes in, and there certainly is a whole lot that we don’t know. But I am also consciously aware of the neurological evidence that our brains want to see patterns where none exist.

This morning I reached into my cupboard, pulled out a black top, and put it back because I don’t look good in black. Then I learned today was Black Tuesday (more on this in the next blog post).

Saturday, in one of my sessions I got a very clear warning to watch out. Saturday night, Mona and I were watching a movie about a psycho roommate (no she didn’t go all psycho on me), but I did then go into the other room, pick up a big chef’s knife and joked about how funny it was for me to be picking up such a big knife after that movie. Damned if the knife didn’t slip when I was cutting gem squashes and I nearly sliced the end of my fingers off.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, right?

• "Sometimes the 'aha' moments come when you least expect them." – Dale