Tue, 12 Sep 2006

More competence for nursing managers: new further training course from September at Witten/Herdecke independent university

WITTEN/HERDECKE (NNA) - A certificate course for the further training of nursing managers is being offered from the end of September at the independent university of Witten/Herdecke in Germany. According to the university’s press release, the new further training course entitled “Health Care Manager” is a targeted response to new challenges in nursing and healthcare institutions.

Increasing pressure of costs, reduced incomes from statutory healthcare insurers and a change in patient expectations have led to a need for additional qualifications. Skills taught include better business and employee management and self-publicising of institutions. After completing five course sections (modules), which will be taught from 29 September to 16 December, participants can gain a certified qualification.

The course will include themes such as management for change as factor in success, transparency through cost assessment, and new work structures. Single modules can also be taken individually.

NNA/end/ung/mb

Information: Frau Josat, Tel.: +49 (0)2302/926-903, -906 (fax), e-mail: weiterbildungpflege@uni-wh.de

Link: Internet: www.uni-wh.de/zwb

Item: 060912-02EN Date: 12 September 2006

Copyright 2006 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See http://www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: http://www.nna-news.org/

Sensing invisible forces in Vienna’s Castle park: a geomantic walk at Schönbrunn

By Cornelie Unger-Leistner

VIENNA (NNA) - The park at Schönbrunn Castle, the Vienna summer residence of Austria’s royal family, is one of the most important baroque landscaped gardens in the world. With over seven million visitors a year it is a major attraction of the Austrian capital for tourists and local people. Now it has an additional attraction. The guide “Invisible Forces” enables tourists interested in geomancy to align themselves more consciously while walking in the park. From “positive” to “discharging, releasing power point” the geomantic map suggests various possible ways of using the park. Sacred sites are also marked, and locations which emit negative energies due to their former use.

A decade and a half ago Dr.  Peter Fischer-Colbrie was director of the park, and noticed how differently people were using it: “During my almost daily walks I repeatedly noticed that some areas of the park attracted much greater use, while others, even very beautifully designed garden areas, were more or less completely neglected” he writes in the guidebook. Dr.  Fischer-Colbrie was given even greater cause for thought when he found that birds in the park followed very similar patterns of usage to the visitors, avoiding or preferring the same places. He stresses that these preferences could not wholly be explained by season, weather, sunshine or shade, or even noise levels from neighbouring streets.

Finally, when a famous Feng Shui expert was visiting from China and pointed out to the park director places that emitted negative energies, which corresponded exactly with the neglected areas, Fischer-Colbrie made a decision. “From then on I planned to add a geomantic guide to the numerous publications dealing with Schönbrunn’s art and garden history.” The small brochure cannot be compared, certainly, with the big coffee table art books about Schönbrunn on sale in Vienna. You have to look hard for it, too, as it can only be purchased from the historic Palm House at the park’s Hietzinger Gate. But there it is, and in the foreword the former director also acknowledges, among others, Vienna City Council and the Austrian department of agriculture and forestry for their support in the laborious geomantic survey of the park, undertaken by Otto Hepfel and Oskar Mattausch of the Austrian association for radio-æsthesia and geobiology.

Another interesting factor here is that a real centre of positive energies can be found at the place where the gardens first came into use in the 17th century, the so-called Lovely Spring (Schöner Brunnen) which gave the castle and park their name. While out hunting Kaiser Matthias discovered a spring close to his hunting lodge, the former first being mentioned in historical documents of 1642. Adorned with the statue of a nymph and the name ‘Lovely Spring’, this gave the impetus for the hunting lodge to be transformed in the course of time into a magnificent summer residence.

During the Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683 the building and the park belonging to it were severely damaged. After the Turks were defeated, the Hapsburgs gained greater power than ever before, and demonstrated this fact by turning the ruined palace into an Austrian version of Versailles. Leopold I commissioned the famous baroque master builder Fischer von Erlach to create landscaped gardens in the French style, in accordance with the tastes of the time. The French landscape gardener Jean Trehet, pupil of the famous garden artist Le Notre, was entrusted with the task of planning and executing the gardens. In the 18th century, in the reign of the Empress Maria Theresa, both the castle and the park were extended to become the Hapsburg’s main summer residence and representative symbol. Various landscape gardeners created a star-shaped system of diagonal alleys, a zoological gardens and the viewing hill with the glazed “Gloriette” structure, which is intended as a memorial to the victory of Austrian troops over the Prussians at Kolin in 1757. The statues to be found throughout the two square kilometres of park represent figures of ancient myth and legend.

In the second half of the 18th century the monarch commissioned great collector expeditions to remote parts of the world, which brought back large quantities of exotic plants to Schönbrunn. The Great Palm House was built near the Hietziger Gate in 1882 to house some of this collection. The park has hardly changed since then. In 1996 Schönbrunn was entered in the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage sites. Both castle and park reflect the spirit and atmosphere of the Hapsburg rule like almost no other landscape in Vienna. This opportunity to travel back in time through European history has now been extended with a geomantic view of the whole terrain.

The experts from the association for radio-æsthesia and geobiology spent three months in the park with their pendulums, divining rods and so-called parallel grip dowsing technique, to locate the most interesting sites. Their findings reach back much further than the time of the Hapsburgs, all the way to the Middle Paleolithic age. Here, close to the Gloriette, radio-æsthesia can trace a small tower building as the most ancient sacred site of Schönbrunn. The geomancy guide says that a paleolithic mother goddess was worshipped here, and that various different cultures used this place as a holy and sacrificial site.

In contrast to this place of negative energy, the central point of the maze, focused on a huge plane tree, offers a place of powerfully positive energy. The maze was recreated and opened in 1999, as closely as possible matching its historical original. The positive energy of this place was enhanced with two arrangements of granite stones from the nearby wood. The rose garden too, and the area around the Palm House, are highlighted in the guide as areas of particularly positive energy.

The guide also offers points of reference for further research. For instance, the so-called “Fan” - a particularly charming area of the garden with architectural features and a wonderful view - has a dark past. Dowsing suggested “iron”, and the suspicion that in this area a long sword was to be found in the ground. Other investigations pointed to mass graves nearby, which may derive from the time of the Turkish wars. This was one of the places which visitors shy away from, despite the lovely view.

Thus a walk through the tourist attraction of Schönbrunn, linked with geomantic information, can demonstrate that we have the capacity to perceive non-sensory realities.

End/NNA/ung/mb

References:

F. Fischer-Cobrie/O. Heppel/O. Mattausch, Die unsichtbaren Kräfte im Schönbrunner Schlosspark. Ein geomantischer Spaziergang. (No date or place of publication given)

Can be ordered (in German) from: the Schönbrunn Palm House cash desk or via AV Astoria Druckzentrum GmbH, 1030 Wien Faradaygasse 6, Austria

Item: 060912-01EN Date: 12 September 2006

Copyright 2006 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See http://www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: http://www.nna-news.org/