BOOK Extract

Chapter I

Chapter I – Growing Up In France

“Never look down on anybody,
unless you’re helping them up.”
Jesse Jackson

I asked my angels for inspiration for the introduction of this book and how to introduce myself and I got the message loud and clear: keep it simple.

So, my name is Pascale; I am French and my French husband, Xavier and myself moved to Ireland in 1985. I was 25. I have now spent half my life in this beautiful country and I wouldn’t live anywhere else.

I grew up in Paris in the sixties and seventies. I had a very happy and loving childhood and years later I was like any Parisian teenager going ice skating with my friends, taking the Metro with my skate board, whizzing past the Eiffel Tower, taking the time to stop at little cafés around the Champs Elysées and ordering hot chocolate and croissants, watching the world go by, trying a new museum every week, walking aimlessly in the streets of Paris just for the pleasure of discovering new tiny shops and galleries, playing hand ball in the school team. It appeared my life would be smooth sailing. My parents were teachers and they never influenced us in our choice of career. I can only imagine what they thought of my choices: I wanted to work in a pharmacy, be an equestrian guide, a parachutist or a lion tamer. So I’m sure it was a huge relief to them when I finally decided to be a teacher for delinquent children.

One of the foreign languages I first studied at school was German at age 11 and the teacher we had was fantastic; he organized trips to Germany where we each had a pen pal. We used to go to school with them and I was fluent in German. Then they came to France to our school. I kept in touch with Carola for many years and she even came to our wedding. English was the second foreign language I chose in 3rd year and the teacher we had was not very interested in teaching us and I quickly lost interest. Little did I know then at the tender and stubborn age of 13 how useful it could have been to me one day. I hadn’t a word of English when we arrived in Ireland. Thankfully Xav had a college degree in English which was very useful.

How could I have guessed that one day I would become interested in the world of healing, alternative therapies and angels? French people are generally not open to those kinds of things, energy work is not very well thought of and French people tend to be rather rational. Having had no religious education and not being baptized, I didn’t believe in God and the angels were something made for children, like fairy tales. Looking back on it, I suppose my interest in healing was inherited from my Mum who inherited it from her Mum. When we were younger, my Mum always used to put her hand on our head when we had a headache, or on our tummy if we had a tummy upset and five minutes later, the pain was gone. She can feel tingling in her hand where the pain is and her hand gets all red. Neither my sisters Sylvie and Virginie nor me ever had the privilege of a lie-in and pretend to be too sick to go to school, not a chance with a healer Mum.

She never really thought of herself as a healer because it came so naturally to her, like her Mum before her. My Mum thought nothing of what she did to us. She knew though that it wasn’t something you talked about and I don’t think she ever told anybody, but still continued her healing work with family and friends, without making a fuss of it. She said to me that she was always very interested in it all and bought a lot of books on magnetism, healing and positive thinking. She practices it all and is quite psychic naturally anyway. She’s able to use her pendulum to find missing objects and heals her doctors when she goes to see them when she is sick herself.

Recently she went to see a specialist for her ears and the poor man was crippled with pain in his back. My Mum asked him if he was willing to let her have a go at his back, saying that either it would work or it wouldn’t and very cautiously he said yes. My Mum put her hand on his back for about five minutes and when the doctor turned around, my Mum thought something was wrong when she saw his face. He was astounded as he twisted his back in every way, whereas a few minutes before he could barely get up from his armchair. She also helps to heal all the care assistants who come to look after my Dad who had a stroke six years ago and is now paralyzed on his right side.

When I was living in West Cork and I told her about Bill Parfrey, my Mum sent me books about healing, positive thinking and visualization. I practiced all three fervently with fantastic results.