Footprints – Walk with Me

By Signe Adams

This book is a personal and openhearted account of Signe Adamss spiritual and physical journey through life and how a serious cancer illness became a turning point. This is a story of hope that provides insight into how it is possible to move forward after such a serious setback with new values and priorities and another way of looking at life. When you learn to listen, to be aware, and to summon the courage to take responsibility for yourself, there is hope. Such hope is a gift for the body and soul - your life!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jun 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504358958

Signe Adams

Signe’s journey starts in Denmark in a city called Esbjerg, where she was born and grew up. Through her job as an executive secretary with the Danish Foreign Service she found herself, as a young woman, out in the big world with all of the various experiences associated with that way of living and working. A journey that physically ends when she, at a mature age, marries and gives birth to two children. However, simultaneously, the spiritual journey begins to really gather speed. Up to this point, Signe has mainly followed the adage that one should think about others before thinking about oneself. This proves to have near fatal consequences when Signe - despite the many warnings and signals her body has given her - chooses to continue to live in this fashion, putting herself and her own needs aside, until she is brought up short one day when the doctor says: “You have cancer. You know that can kill you!” That’s when she wakes up - and listens!

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Copyright © 2016 Signe Adams.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-5894-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-5896-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-5895-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016909222

Balboa Press rev. date: 06/07/2016

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 Background and Berlin

Chapter 2 Washington, DC (1979–1983)

Chapter 3 Copenhagen and Manila (1983–1988)

Chapter 4 Moscow and the Healers for Peace Conference in Elsinore (1988–1989)

Chapter 5 Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia (1989–1990)

Chapter 6 St. Louis, Round Trip, and New Challenges (1990–1992)

Chapter 7 Washington - Establishing a Family (1992–1996)

Chapter 8 Return to Denmark - Great Changes (1996–2006)

Chapter 9 The Turning Point of My Life: Cancer! A Rude Awakening (2005–2006)

Chapter 10 Operation and Subsequent Treatment (2006–2007)

Chapter 11 Taking Stock (2006–2010)

Chapter 12 Hope and Optimism - New Energy (2013–2015)

About the Author

Acknowledgments

To those special people who have helped me on my way by means of their wisdom, insight, and special qualities; the people who crossed my path when I had lost my way and needed support and guidance; the people who were there just when I needed their wisdom in order to go on. There have been many, and it is impossible for me to name them all here, but I am deeply grateful to all those I have met along the way and who have been a part of my life and my evolvement. Some merely gave a short remark that made all the difference, a sentence at a particular moment, a push in the right direction, a smile, a hug, or their mere presence. Others have accompanied and enriched me during a greater part of my life’s journey. They have helped me, challenged me, annoyed me, made me furious, and contributed in many ways to my continuing development. To all of my teachers, I am more than grateful.

When the pupil is ready, the master will appear, as someone very wisely said, and I have had to admit that this is so, even though I have often wished that the process could go a little faster. But that’s not how it works. It is only when one is receptive that it happens, and because patience is not my greatest virtue, it has at times been a hard process for me. I had to wait until the Universe felt I was ready.

One of the first people to cross my spiritual path, and who really was to make a big and positive impact on my life, was Lone Hoeffer, a psychotherapist, healer, and clairvoyant who I met in 1990. Lone is, unfortunately, no longer physically with us, but I am sure that from her present abode, she is aware of my gratitude for having been part of her world, having been under her hands, and of having had the benefit of that wisdom she so generously shared.

Healer and clairvoyant Gina Allan, who I met in Elsinore and who was the direct reason that I found myself in New Zealand (and there met my husband), is also one of the people who has influenced me to make great changes in my life.

A special thanks to Loise Boel Rasmussen, who is a healer and masseuse, very talented in effecting aura transformations and much more, and who has encouraged me to write this book ever since we first met, and also Anne Straarup who was a phenomenally gifted kinesiologist but is, unfortunately, no longer with us. Without help from Loise and Anne, it would be impossible for me to write this book because, at this present moment, I would, in all likelihood, be in another dimension.

Thanks also to Mette Boensvig, channeling and clairvoyant advisor, Malue Wittusrose, clairvoyant, healer, mystic amongst many other skills, and to Signe Lykke, dietary advisor and cookbook writer, who have all, each in their own way, supported me wonderfully during the past few years.

A big thank you to Gitte Pind and Tove Jakobsen for support, inspiration, guidance, good advice, and proofreading throughout the whole process. Thank you to Gitte’s friend Karin Rasmussen, and also to Tove’s friend Jette Simonsen for good and inspiring telephone conversations, proofreading, and support. Thanks to Duke Sadler for breathing life into the American English version.

Many thanks to my dear father for his invaluable help and support from the next world and my mother and my sister who have accompanied me in the process. For proofreading, thanks to my husband, Bob Adams, and my son, Cristian Thuesen, and a big thank you to my husband and my two wonderful children for their help, patience, understanding, support, and tolerance throughout the whole writing period. Special thanks to my daughter, Cristina Thuesen, for taking the beautiful cover photos and my portrait, and last but not least, a heartfelt thanks to my brother, Soeren Thuesen, for proofreading, good advice, invaluable support, and guidance in the last phase of finishing this book. Also a very special thanks to my brother-in-law, Tom Adams, for proofreading, good advice, and support with the English version.

Introduction

The first time someone told me that I should write a book, I was in Manila in the Philippines. Two clairvoyants told me this, independently of each other and with an interval of a few months in the middle of the eighties. This same message also came from an astrologer, also in the Philippines.

At that point, it was a message that seemed to have no relevance for me so, although I have always loved to write. I did nothing more about it then or in the many, many years that followed.

In the intervening years, I periodically received the same message from mediums and clairvoyants, but I never believed that I had anything interesting to write about. I wasn’t ready to write a book earlier, and neither was I ever told precisely when I should write it nor what it should be about. In the other dimension, time is a very loose expression. I have certainly been given many signs and messages from the Universe, my guardian angel, and all the other helpers and advisers who watch over me, but it’s been hard for me to hear and decipher these messages. There has simply been too much interference on the line.

Over the years, the message has also been extended to include giving talks and running courses, but as it has, until now, been impossible for me to stand up in front of an audience and say anything, those messages also bounced off me, and I ignored them. Then I was told that it was my book I have to give talks on. So I thought I had better get it written! Otherwise, there certainly wouldn’t be any talks.

During the past few years, I was often told what I should write about. I had been particularly reluctant to the subject of cancer and at the same time couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to read about my life. I decided to get my thoughts down on paper, hoping that someone could benefit from my experiences. Many of them have been acquired at a price, but then that is part of life, that we should experience things that we can learn from and that will hopefully make us wiser. Some of us, however, need to be given the message more than once - or some are a little denser than others, as I tend to say about myself with a forgiving smile, because a large part of learning is actually being able to forgive yourself.

The idea behind this book is to recount my life and how my journey led to becoming aware of the spiritual side of life through many experiences. Hopefully, this will inspire others to take responsibility for their own lives. I wish to convey this message to the world - that it is necessary to be aware and to listen to the signals your body sends instead of ignoring them. Terrible things don’t only happen to your neighbor! It is necessary to stop in the middle of the everyday hustle and bustle and notice what is best for you, where you are headed, and what you want to do with your life. The family won’t come to any harm if you take yourself seriously instead of sacrificing yourself on the altar of family. No one gains from this. It can be a big advantage for children to see that their parents are aware of and do the things that make them happy. They will notice that a parent in this way comes home with renewed energy, and they will, themselves, go out into the world convinced that it is important to look after yourself, listen to yourself, and do what makes you happy - without, of course, being egotistical and selfish in a negative way and without hurting other people.

I realized this too late. If I had acted differently earlier, I could have avoided a lot of stress, frustrations, arguments, anger, anxiety, and sorrow. But again, every experience is an opportunity to create something greater. You, the book that you are reading, and what you make of it, can lead to something greater, healthier, happier, and more beautiful.

CHAPTER 1

Background and Berlin

I am an exercise in irony. On the one hand, I am the product of a secure childhood, the eldest of three siblings, and confident in the assurance that my stable parents (my father a fish exporter and my mother a housewife until she turned forty) were there for me to call and come home to in Esbjerg no matter what misadventures, big or small, might befall, from failed love affairs to ethical dilemmas. I was lucky in my choice of parents.

On the other hand, I have always experienced myself as somehow different from others, something of an outsider - and this existential loneliness became more pronounced as I entered adolescence.

One aspect of this dissonance, and another irony, was my tendency toward silence. Reflecting back on my younger years, I was probably extremely observant and aware of others; at any rate, I was described as very quiet … never says anything. This declaration inevitably invokes skeptical amusement across the spectrum of friends, family, and acquaintances from my more recent life - and I don’t blame them!

That early silence cost me. My chronic sore throats spoke up for my silent pain. Had I known then what I know now about the physical ramifications of emotional repression, I would have expressed my feelings. I would have learned to say, No! rather than having my boundaries violated. And violated again. And again.

My education was neither what I had originally planned nor was it restricted to conventional definitions. Growing up working in fish at my father’s business every summer, I developed an understanding of how widely diverse people and their backgrounds can be. I followed up this early experience with the completion of my high school language exams, a full-year Niels Brock business course from Aarhus, more life experience as a pub waitress in Esbjerg and England, and finally legal secretarial training.

I had intended to study psychology and archaeology - these were my true interests. But I decided to take a year or two to travel and applied for a job as a correspondent for the Foreign Ministry. I wanted to see some parts of the world and especially to go to the United States. I never did study psychology and archaeology. My career with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which took me traveling all over the world (five times stationed abroad), lasted twenty-two years.

In 1978, I encountered another personal irony. When I took my first posting to Berlin, East Germany, I suffered from serious homesickness, which would prove to be an ongoing challenge for many years. The irony is that, while big changes are difficult for me, I can’t stand it when things become too static. It’s a confounding dilemma.

Being in East Germany was an incredible and eye-opening experience.

Having spent my entire early life in Denmark, I found it hard to comprehend that an ideology could rob people of freedom - personal freedom, freedom of speech - in a country just a few kilometers from my own childhood home. It was difficult to take in.

I also had a hard time accepting that my life as a diplomat was so different. Driving through Checkpoint Charlie from East to West, I was driving through a gate into another world, and the contrast between these two worlds was severe for me. Another irony: I felt best in the East. There were too many Mercedes, too many mink coats, and too much food in West Berlin. It was a showcase of the West, and there was too much of everything. The difference was too great and made me feel ill.

Although I was more comfortable in the East, I seem to have seen it all in a dull monochrome. When I returned in 2012, I was surprised to see how green the city was. There were the beautiful linden trees on Unter den Linden where the Embassy had been. The trees had been there when I was there; I just don’t remember them. I realized then how gray my experience had been.

We went about our business as if in a bubble because we were not to have anything to do with the East Germans, and neither should they have anything to do with us. But at least I could understand what was happening around me and what people were talking about. I didn’t feel quite as isolated as I did many years later in Moscow, where, unfortunately, I never mastered the language.

Those with whom we did have contact were obviously employed by the Stasi, the East German security police. Our housekeepers, our chauffeurs - in fact, every local Embassy employee, including, of course, the secretaries (it was necessary to have locally employed secretaries if we were to have any hope of getting through to the East German authorities, so it was seen as normal and acceptable), was employed by the Stasi. We knew that they spied on us and reported our doings, and they knew that we knew. Odd as it was, this was our version of normal conditions.

We also knew that there were microphones in our apartments and houses in the diplomatic ghettos in which we resided. We joked that the houses consisted of 50 percent concrete and 50 percent cables and microphones. The situation also resulted in some amusing situations.

My apartment on Leipziger Strasse was under surveillance enhanced by microphones. Our telephones were tapped, and all telephone conversations were recorded on tape. I shared a phone line with a colleague in the same block of apartments, and of course I could not call out when she was on the line.

We installed a direct line between the two apartments so that each of us would know if the other was on the line. By the same means, we could determine if there was a problem with the surveillance tape having run out. This happened quite often, and when the Stasi’s recording tape was not working, neither were our telephones. No tape - no outgoing calls.

Fortunately, we discovered an effective solution. If we stood in the living room and spoke to the secret microphones, a Stasi employee would immediately react to what we said.

Our situation was similar to the 2006 German film Other People’s Lives (originally Das Leben der Anderen), in which a cynical Stasi agent finds himself transformed by human compassion. In that film, as in our lives, many people were employed to check up on many other people, with the positive aspects (if one chose to look for them) including a total lack of unemployment and the capability to immediately reach the authorities.

An example of this extremely efficient access to authorities involved a visit from my mother.

The preparation for her trip had been a tedious affair involving myriad forms to satisfy the East German Embassy in Copenhagen. All of this had been accomplished, my mother had obtained her visa, and I had been looking forward to calling her to wish her a good trip. But I could not get through. I contacted the coworker with whom I shared the line. She was not using it. I came to the conclusion that there were problems with the surveillance tape, and after more frustrating attempts to get through, I lost all patience.

I stood in the living room and projected in loud and clear German that I wanted to call home to my mother, that they knew she was due to come the following day, and that it was important to get through. The reaction was quick - too quick for efficiency, it would seem. When I managed to get a line out, I found myself listening to the taped recording of a conversation I had had with my mother some days before. They had reversed the recording device.

This did nothing to improve their standing with me.

I told the living room, in no uncertain terms, that I was now going to take a bath and that I expected a new tape in place by the time I was finished so that I could get through to Denmark. They replaced the tape, and after my bath, I called my mother. And never, before or since, have I ever encountered such a prompt response from any authority or phone company.

Another odd surveillance by-product involved my car’s right headlight. When said headlight suddenly stopped working, I drove from East Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie (being closest to my apartment, this was my habitual crossing) to a mechanic in West Berlin, who listened to me and then told me that my problem was almost certainly a microphone. I’m quite certain that I looked as nonplussed as I was. This was a new one on me! Ironically enough, he was completely correct. Apparently when a surveillance microphone had been installed in my car, the right headlight had been damaged.

Frustrated, I went back and had some words with my living room. I announced loudly and clearly that this was simply not acceptable. I requested that they make sure that the lights - and anything else, for that matter - worked whenever they went to install a new microphone in my car. This was received in silence, and I had no further microphone-related automotive malfunctions.

Another important protocol involved informing the microphones that one was taking a sick day, rather than simply calling in. This did not usually present a problem, but on one occasion, as I lay in bed with a high fever, I was grateful that I had set the safety chain. Someone attempted to come in. Had they entered, it would have been an awkward situation. We all knew that the Stasi regularly came into our homes to search for anything that might compromise us, and they knew we knew - but a direct confrontation never seemed in order.

On another occasion, I had doubled back to my apartment after forgetting something. When I inserted my key. I could not turn it, and someone jammed the lock and looked out at me through the peephole from my apartment. My apartment. My peephole. My wit’s end.

Oh, well. Again, no confrontation was in order.

So I spoke to my door. I announced that I was now going for a fifteen-minute walk, after which I expected to be able to reenter my own apartment. And fifteen minutes later, I did exactly that.

As a general rule, we always had to be on guard to any personal overtures. It was common practice for operatives to offer drugged drinks that would loosen tongues and capture confidential information. There were even cases of East Germans posing as West Germans and romancing or even marrying foreigners, investing years of ruse toward ultimately extracting secrets. This subject has been broadly written about, so I need not go into further detail, beyond remarking on the care that we had to take.

At first I had assumed that, working as an administrator, I would be of no interest to these seekers of information, but I learned that it was precisely the administrators who were most interesting, due to our access to codes and confidential documents that we handled. Fortunately, I was on my guard, so I never fell victim. And as a final precaution, I always kept all of my personal papers with me in a purse that resembled a small suitcase. As precautions went, this was a heavy one (we also kept some of our personal papers locked up at the Embassy), but it proved to be effective.

When my parents and siblings came to visit me to celebrate my father’s fiftieth birthday, they had all of their papers in order, and I had warned them not to carry anything in writing to which the authorities might take exception. They did not share my diplomatic immunity, despite having an officially authorized invitation from the Embassy, and they had to drive through a border-crossing checkpoint near Lübeck. I had heard stories of harassment and delays of people attempting to enter East Germany. So they had no newspapers, no magazines, and nothing else that could upset anyone.

There was one person who was upset.

I had warned my father to keep on the main route to Berlin, just the highway directly from the checkpoint to the city, with no detours whatsoever. But my father needed gas. And he thought that he could fill up in East Germany. (I had even told him that the quality of the gas in the East was inferior.) As a foreigner, he was not allowed to drive around freely, but in his search for fuel, he had to leave the main route and go down a secondary road to the gas station. He drove calmly. He drove carefully.

The owner there was not so calm, nor did he find my father careful. He was visibly nervous and upset, as he was not allowed to serve foreigners. He urged my father to return to the main road immediately. My father did - but only after filling the tank.

We had some lovely days in Berlin.

My father (who, sadly, is no longer with us) had a great interest in all forms of classical music. Being a frequent patron of the State Opera, I was aware of how difficult it could be to get tickets there, so I was very happy that I managed to get very good seats there for all five of us to Richard Strauss’s opera Der Rosenkavalier. As usual, it was an amazing experience.

My father also loved zoological gardens, and I took the family to visit the zoological gardens in Berlin, East Germany, and in West Berlin, close to Kurfürstendam.

There was an overwhelming difference between the two gardens, and it was this difference that I had wanted my family to experience. We started in East Germany. The animals looked very scruffy, and it was obvious that they didn’t get enough to eat, and what they got wasn’t the right food. I wanted to treat my family to sausages and a soft drink in both the gardens, so we joined the long line in front of a sausage stand. We stood there for a long, long time. Suddenly, the line came to a complete standstill. I walked around to the front to find out what was happening, and it turned out that they had run out of cooked sausages, so we would have to wait until a new lot had been prepared.

My family had wondered what was going on, and I had asked about the delay, but the East Germans had just stood and waited without asking any questions. This gave us quite a bit of food for thought. When we eventually got our sausages, they were no gourmet delight, but we managed to eat some anyway. Things went much better in West Berlin where the zoological gardens were a far more gratifying experience. The healthy animals had lots of room, and upon reflection, a big delicious Frankfurter sausage is really nothing to sneeze at.

My father was puzzled by the sense he got that everyone in the East stared at us. After all, we seemed to him to be dressed in much the same manner. In fact, there was a superficial resemblance. But when I had him look a bit closer at the quality of the East Germans’ clothing, he realized that their leather jackets were not leather at all - nor were their boots. And so as we were happily walking around snug and warm, they were freezing miserably in their cheap imitation gear and generally poor-quality clothing.

Of course the clothing was representative of the general state of affairs; obtaining virtually any day-to-day item could be difficult. Things taken for granted by us - cleaning materials, soap, deodorant, paint, nails, toilet paper - were not taken for granted. Big-ticket items were an even larger challenge. Cars, refrigerators, washing machines, and the like had to be signed up for, and the wait for even a chance of getting one could be years.

Of course by the same token there was no unemployment, rents were low, and what was available in the stores was generally affordable, so in a sense no one was really poor. In many ways, the East Germans were better off then than they are today when they experience life as (and are regarded as) second-class citizens in a new Germany in which life is not so easy.

But for all of the relative ease, there was a lack of personal freedom. And there was a lack of freedom of expression. And this lack of freedom was the core problem.

Another painful aspect of this existence was a system mandate to inform on one’s acquaintances, neighbors, friends, and even family members should they step over any line of proper conduct. The result was a society made of mistrust and insecurity. (There are unfortunate parallels in modern Danish society involving some aspects of public sector expectations of informing on peers, but of course this is a different discussion altogether.)

My family’s visit afforded many opportunities to see different places of interest and experience the contrast between East and West, but they never felt particularly comfortable when I was driving them back and forth through Checkpoint Charlie with the soldiers pointing their machine guns at us. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable situation, but I had gotten used to it. In fact, being so close, I frequently walked across, which saved me having to wait in line, and I experienced no problems, as the soldiers eventually got to know me very well. I just waved, and they acknowledged me with a little nod whenever I either walked or drove through.

I never saw any problem with this casual waving and nodding, although some took objection to my approach, considering that the soldiers were the enemy. Frankly, I just saw the entire situation as a sort of political drama in which each of us was just playing our assigned role.

Finally, the day came for my family to return home, and as it turned out, their adventure was far from over.

It all began with a knitting pattern in my mother’s bag. It had never occurred to her that an innocent idea in yarn - she was knitting socks for my father - would be cause for detainment and search, including partial deconstruction of the car …

But, of course, I had very precisely schooled my parents in the avoidance of all things suspicious, so after the soldiers had searched under the car with mirrors, they then removed the seats of the vehicle and took hours in scrutiny for anything or anyone being smuggled out of the country, nothing was found, and my family was released to complete their escape to home.

Of course, during their entire ordeal, there was an ever-more-anxious daughter back in Berlin who was trying to understand why they had not called her to let her know they had arrived safely home.

When we had parted, my father had expressed a desire to come back and experience more, despite Checkpoint Charlie. After the search and detainment, which had been an unspeakably uncomfortable experience for my family, he became adamant