14/02/2021
Farewell Dear Gail ❤️
RIP Gail Meggersee
I am sad to report that Gail Meggersee passed away today, 12 February 2021. She was the co-founder of Body Stress Release with her late husband Ewald Meggersee. She was the Principal of the BSR Academy, an accomplished artist and writer and an all-round amazing, multi-dimensional lady. She trained hundreds of BSR practitioners who, over more than three decades, have eased the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people through the practise of Body Stress Release.
Twelve years ago, she was diagnosed with cancer and declined most traditional treatments like chemotherapy, choosing alternative, less toxic ways to deal with the disease and relying largely on her incredible strength of will, to manage her condition. She outlived the expectations of her medical advisors and her oncologist called her an oncological anomaly.
In 2014 she assisted in the establishing of the Body Stress Release Academy Europe, having trained a group of experienced BSR practitioners to run the BSR training course in Dorset, United Kingdom. The current team is Tracy Highton, Gwen Masureik, Chris Balaam, Kees Varkevisser and Erik Onderweegs.
For 24 years she and Ewald ran the BSR training course in South Africa until his retirement in 2011. Since then, she and I have run the course as a partnership, and we were joined by Sandy Damant, Jeanette Gibbs and Mary Parker over the past five years. With her passing Gail has left the Academy in excellent shape, with good teams in South Africa and the United Kingdom. The transition of the Academy from the pioneer, founder stage to a more institutional stage was taken an important step forward when Gail established the Body Stress Release Academy Trust a year ago to take over as the entity that would run the BSR course after her death. The following is an extract from Gail’s letter of wishes as Founder of the BSR Academy Trust:
“I the undersigned Gail Meggersee in my capacity as Founder of the above Trust, hereby wish to place the following on record for the Trustees of the said Trust to serve as background and to guide them in the future administration thereof….
…
“Most education institutions are focussed on the intellectual development of their students and the acquisition of knowledge in the form of information to equip them with skills for life. The Body Stress Release (“BSR”) training course (“the course”) offered by the Academy does this but has key additional attributes or aspects that go beyond this basic goal. The BSR technique exists primarily to serve life and all living beings by ameliorating their suffering.
“The course is designed not only to equip the students with the necessary intellectual and physical skills for practising the technique of BSR, but to develop the qualities of the heart, the qualities of caring, kindness, compassion, empathy and love. Therefore, in addition to the academic and theoretical training on the course, and the training in the practical, physical technique of BSR, and the training in the management of clients’ healing processes, the course takes the students on a journey of self-discovery.
“The structure of the course as a four- or five-month in-residence programme, facilitates a process of personal growth enabling many to make a deeper connection with their innermost Being, the pure nature of which is love. Consequently, the Body Stress Release Academy is a heart-centred place of learning.
“The Body Stress Release Academy will grow and expand both at its base and foundation where it has its roots in Rondevlei, Western Cape, South Africa, and through the establishing of branches in other countries and regions of the world. In the same way that the roots, trunk and branches of a living tree are one whole, so is the Body Stress Release Academy one whole even though its branches may require the establishing of separate legal entities in different jurisdictions. The same spiritual forces and energies that support the roots and trunk of the Body Stress Release Academy at its base in Rondevlei, will support, nourish, bind and unite the branches with their foundation in Rondevlei.”
(Signed at Rondevlei on23 November 2019.)
Dear Gail, you did well. You did so very, very, very well. What a privilege to have walked beside you. How I will miss you my dear, dear friend. Farewell.
Boetie Toerien
