I have noticed that not many people who visit The Alchemycal Pages take advantage of the wealth of information contained in these reports. What we do at the conferences , after we have had the welcoming meal, is get together and decide on the agenda of topics for discussion. The topics are suggested by the participants at the conference and agreed upon by consensus. The participants range of experience with macrobiotic living range from the conference being their first experience of macrobiotics to seasoned veterans of 30 or more years. Then, once we agree on the topics for discussion we allot a block of time to each topic, and the person who suggested the topic is the one who both leads and moderates the discussion, even if this is their first experience with macrobiotics. The next day, we sit in a circle in the in the room and start off with the first topic. Also, we do not adhere strictly to the agenda. If a topic really gets going and the participants are really involved, we let it go on longer than the time allotted to it. Everyone in the conference can say what they want about a topic, so we have the thoughts, ideas, observations and feelings of many people on a wide variety of topics. In looking over these reports, which are transcriptions of the recordings of the proceedings, pretty much verbatim, I think they offer a great deal of good information about macrobiotics and how it relates to the world in which we live, and I encourage everyone getting here to really take a good look at ALL of them. And note that many of these people have healed themselves of a variety of cancers, asthma, arthritis, diabetes, candida, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, etc., etc. using a macrobiotic approach.
We have just finished the 38th Conference (March, 1999) and here are some of the comments on how people felt about their experience:
"a powerful sharing experience", " a lot of positive feedback and support", "relaxed", "valuable information", " an amazing fount of knowledge", "feel validated in what I am doing", "wonderful exchange of ideas and experience", "great to see young people getting involved " (there were some 18-19 year-olds participating and they said "it is exciting to meet older people who are 'cool'!), "food was great", "learning a lot more about macrobiotics beyond the dietary aspect", "surprised and happy to find it was so informal".
It was decided at the 33rd Pacific Macrobiotic Conference held
September 19-22, 1996, in Oakland (they are always held at the
Spring and Fall Equinoxes and have been going now for 19 years,
from their inception as The West Coast Macrobiotic Teacher's Meeting
in 1980, in San Francisco) to have the Conference Reports put
up on the Web for all to read, with the exception of the names
and addresses of participants. I am, and have been the Secretary
of The Pacific Macrobiotic Conferences since 1982, and I have
all the Reports on disk from 1987. The ones prior to that I have
on paper and will place them on disk at some future date. Meanwhile
I will put the Report of last Fall's 31st Pacific Macrobiotic
Conference up now. I will then place each previous one, going
backwards chronologically , until they are all archived on the
Web.