Hanna Cloger, natural therapist, gave me a warm welcome. My anxiety about is the new field melted slowly away in meeting her. After exchange greetings, my friend and I were guided to the class room, where other students were gathered to take the ten-day training course together. While we were introducing ourselves, a member of staff came into the room and told us to come to the kitchen. We followed him. What we encountered was Hanna herself who was cooking frying egg and sausage. She served them for us with toasts. “You haven’t had breakfast, have you? It is no good for you to skip break fast.” she said. I just wondered if she had known that we drove from East coast to Colorado throughout the night…… We were astonished by that, but she continued. “My friend made the bread with natural yeast and delivers it every morning. The eggs from a neighbor are organic. No mention to the winners! Have at it…!” She addressed us while we were eating. “Eat some bread with vegetable or fruits, but it is not very advisable. The important thing of how to consume food is the combination of the color, yin and yang. Remember that.” I was touched because the famous Hanna Cloger cooked breakfast for us, who were nothing but foreigners to her. She had welcomed us and even gave us a lesson. I felt as though I had spoken to my mother who lived in my home country. It was a nostalgic and gentle feeling.

After the luscious breakfast, the class finally started. It was divided into four subjects of hourly session; “meal”, “herbs”, “homeopathy” and “energy”. The classmates were diverse in an age, occupation and nationalities. They included; natural therapist from India, doctor from Rumania, medical student from Germany, doctor and therapist from the USA. There was a wide variety of people across the world. Most of them had trained long and specialized in this field. I was the only one who was totally new to this field. But I felt uneasy when I discovered the fact; I did not want to let the anxiety defeat me. “I will do my best! I will absorb everything here!” I spoke to myself before entering the class room. However, the handicap was beyond me. I did not seem to understand if my words made sense: “absorb everything”. I was totally at the end of my rope.

The classes continued based on theory and experience like ordinal classes at school. However, I, as a beginner, was all confused because it was totally Greek to me. I felt like being told to go away if I did not understand. As the days went on, I started blaming myself for being unable to understand. I overwhelmed by emptiness and lost myself. In addition to this terrible mental condition, I also had to endure physically. I mean my accommodation was a trailer house without air conditioner even it was summer. It was incredibly hot. The window screen was broken, so mosquitoes could easily get inside. The situation prevented me from having good night sleep. The heat, itch and noise brought lack of sleep. Also, a string of special terms in the class made me more stressed. All I came across in the class were mysterious and superstitious words like herbs, homeopathy, electrical energy and frequency of body. I had to know about quantum mechanics and medical terms as well that would be learned in postgraduate school. I just wanted to say who understands those things if you do not have some knowledge in advance? Looking back, I was living a hard life at that time. One night, I was having a restless night and tried to come up with a good excuse to escape from what I had been experiencing. “This is more than I can bear! I definitely return to Japan tomorrow”, I murmured. On the next morning, I finally decided to tell Hanna that I had to go back to Japan to deal with an urgent business. That morning when I was going to speak to Hanna, one of her assistants announced news. “Today, you are not going to take classes. You have interview and workshop outside.” he said. The entire student seemed to be relieved and broke into cheers. So did me. I was waiting for my interview although I had been thinking of returning to Japan seriously. While I was waiting, I got an opportunity to talk to other students for the first time. Actually, we hardly communicated each other until then. To my surprise, other students told me that the class was beyond them. As I said earlier, most of them were quite familiar with this field. So I assumed that I was the only person who was struggling a lot. However, what I found out at that time was not the true at all.

When I confessed that I never attended that kind of class before nor I had connection with any medical field, an American doctor envied me. He said that I was in a much better place than he was because I had no knowledge about Western medicine. Then I realized that what the most important was to know the field itself rather than to struggle to understand. When this thought occurred to me, I regained my energy. However, I did not know that I was going to awe into fear by Hanna in my interview.

In my interview, Hanna started with a question. “How is the class? You don’t understand at all, do you?” she asked. I was embarrassed. But when I answered yes, she smiled. “It is impossible to understand at once. We are just learning the simple and great power of the nature such as ‘neutralization’, ‘harmony’ and ‘fusion’ which we also have naturally. Those are possessed by every single human being including you and me. You will understand soon even if you cannot now. Your body will bring this feeling back. Use your soul and DNA.” Then she stared me for a while and continued. “You are giving out very strong aura widely both to right and left from Chakra. I have hardly seen like this before. You are like an angel with large wings….” She told me that I was with a noble person who protects me like God. “You seem to be born to study holistic and spread it for yourself and the people. Do your best!” Her words remind me that Hanna had cooked breakfast on my first day and that I had felt nostalgia against her. I was glad that I had not given up my hope. I knew that I might have been flattered, but I accepted her words happily. She asked what my goal is and I answered that I was there to make natural dog food. I took courage to ask her to examine the food I made. She promised that she would do it once I finished my 10 days training. I was very pleased by that.

But she continued as if she did not care about my feeling. She said, “By the way, from when you have been suffering from your knee problem?” I had played base ball since I was in fourth degree and I continued it for 12 years. However, when I was a senior in high school, I dreamed to play in high school baseball tournament. I developed the disease that keeps water in the knee. Since you cannot tell from my appearance, nobody noticed it before. “You keep micrococcus a lot in your knee. If you leave it as it is, you will be unable to move when you get old.” Her following words in the interview filled my mind with gratitude towards her.

I even felt fear when Hanna pointed out about my knee that I had never talked about. These illnesses are likely to inflict a large or small deal of suffering on those who have been engaged in sports. Since the athlete tend to regard it as their own fault, they are not willing to confess. I did not want others to realize that I had the problem. I continued training as if I had no problem. In the meantime, the acute pain turned to chronic illness which was the state I kept water in my knee. When I consulted a doctor at university hospital, I was told that my bone had changed its shape due to excess training when I was growing up. I was advised to have a surgery to shave the bone in my knee. However, I could not decide to do it because the surgery seemed to be very difficult with the need of shaving the bone of the back of knee. I was also told that the pain would be beyond description even if I would have been under anesthesia. I was scared stiff by the doctor’s explanation. It was difficult for me to believe Hanna straight away. She said, “If you remove the germ from your knee by taking these herbs, the problem will be solved soon.” To be honest, I doubted her statement. But she added, “I can see your distrust against me in your eyes, but do trust me and take the herbs for a month”. I was surprised again because she looked through even my inner most feeling.

She asked me if I had brought my family’s picture. I handed it to her. Once she saw it, she said, “Is the lady your mother? She has an ulcer and hypertension…. And the person must deal with the lung disease before it gets too late.” I was totally astonished. Because I did know that my mother had been suffering from a duodenum and stomach ulcer. I didn’t know that the man had been spaying strong medicine containing mercury in his throat for treatment for his asthma. “Tell your mother why she needs to take herbs. They are lucky because they will be cured before their condition gets too bad. I am happy for them their condition will get better soon.” I was almost moved to tears because I had never expected my interview to be held in this way. I could not say thank her enough thinking that she would help me make natural dog food together.

After she finished all interviews, Hanna addressed the students. She said, “I discovered five out of you had sickness, and it is more than ten people including your family members. Once the course finishes, I want you to return to your family and solve their problems. You are the one who can lead them to their happiness. I am more than pleased by that. Do your best in your class from now on too. Achieve your goal to spread the greatness of healthy life across the world. Well, I am also glad that I felt strong aura from some of you today, there were three people or so.” I felt like flying up to the sky with joy. I was not pleased because I was told to be noble, but because I was told to have special spirit. Actually, I visited a shrine before I decided to face a challenge of natural remedy. I was at my devotions there and was advised the luckiest choice in terms of Kigaku, the combination of the calendar date, time, and directions. I appreciated the bliss of nature and brought the holly water to the USA with me. I was very happy because Hanna accepted my Japanese way of admirations towards natural energy, God and devotions. She even expressed it by words for me. I felt the connection with her in our bottom of our heart.

That is something like understanding each other as human being. I became to understand her greatness and humanity more and more, and I begun to trust her sincerely. Those feelings made me much happier than before. One of the senior students who had attended her class many times told me the story about her. I strengthened my ambitious more and more.

The story of the senior student was very interesting. He told me that Hanna can see though her students’ illness at their interview and she recommends relevant herbs, homeopathy, and aromatherapy, breathe control and color remedy. Then she makes their ailment fade away. With her help, they and their family regain their healthy life, and based on these facts, her instruction were brought to hospitals and clinics. They depended on her method of cure there, and sometimes their patients were sent to Hanna to have her treatment. Hanna has made steady efforts and her reputation spread by word of mouth across the country. No wonder that she ended up having as many patients as she could not see even with her six assistants’ help. She does not accept money for herself but asks her patients to donate for her church. She explains that since she runs a company of herb supplement and homeopathy, it is enough to earn for her life. She even spends a large amount of the company sale on the church that was built for peoples’ benefit.　It is said that she is acting this way because her daughter was a victim of scientific rationalism in Western medical science. After this, she went to Germany and studied natural remedy in a national hospital in Dresden. She studied very hard in view of bringing the theory into her home country. She did not want anybody to have the same sorrow any more. She started spreading natural remedy as soon as she returned to the USA thirty years ago. The senior student thinks that her act might also result from her father who was traveling all over the world as a faithful Christian. He is believed to have been in Japan for a couple of years. However, natural remedy, the alternative care that Hanna studied in Germany was not welcomed in the USA where there was no idea of preventive medicine. Until recently, natural remedy was not considered effective treatment. She was even asked to appear in the courthouse. However, Hanna never gave up her hope, and to everybody’s surprise, she gave a lecture on health matter to the judge. When she had to confront with doctors and professors, she brought many medical materials in order to persuade the goodness of natural remedy to them.

When I hard about Hanna’s life, I felt deeply honored to be sharing her philosophy, and was extremely encouraged and could not help feeling gratefulness for her. I swore that I would never be against her will.