By Pat Davis
In 1975 I was attending one of Michio’s regular lectures at the East-West Center in downtown Boston. The topic that night was “seeing our ancestors.” At one point we were asked to pair off and try out the techniques that Michio had demonstrated. Specifically, we were to observe various aspects of the partner’s eyes as they pertained to our parents and grandparents, then ask the partner whether our observations of them were accurate.
Not everyone could get a partner, as there were an odd number of students. I chose not to participate, because I was adopted as an infant and knew nothing of my biological heritage and thus would be unable to confirm or deny the observations of a partner. Michio saw me standing alone and approached me, asking why I was not doing the exercise. I told him. His response was, “Three years from now, you will meet your biological parents.” I thought to myself, “How could he know that?” and promptly filed this exchange in the back of my mind.
Fast forward to 1978, when I was living and working in Ann Arbor, Michigan at a macrobiotic restaurant along with a gentleman named Doug who had also studied restaurant management under chef Hiroshi Hayashi at the Seventh Inn in Boston. Doug was thinking of moving to Reno, Nevada to open a natural foods restaurant with his brother. Doug thought I might be a good addition to their team and asked if I would be interested. I said I would think it over.
Doug suggested that it would be good to have a compatibility analysis done by the astrologer, Michael Erlewine, who was a friend of our employer, Mike Potter. I agreed to this, but since I didn’t know the exact time of my birth, due to the adoption, I called my foster mother to ask if she had that information. She did not. She suggested that I contact the hospital where I had been born and ask them.
I called the hospital and asked if that information could be found. They agreed look through their records and send me the results. Several days later, I got an envelope from the hospital containing my “complete” birth record including footprints, doctors’ notes, time of birth to the minute, and my biological mother’s full name. Since her surname as shown on the hospital record was unusual, I tried looking it up in the Greater Detroit telephone directory and found only one listing for that name. The number belonged to a member of my biological mother’s immediate family, who put me in contact with her.
With my biological mother’s help, I was able to locate my biological father’s parents. I met my paternal grandparents before meeting my father in 1978. Michio’s prediction from 1975 only came to mind when I learned that my father had cancer and started talking with him about macrobiotics. Sharing the story of that prediction with my father was what clinched his decision to give macrobiotics a try.
Michio did more than predict the future; he could accurately read the past. While speaking with him after one of his lectures in 1975, he said to me “Four days ago, you ate lobster.” I was floored. How on earth could he have known that I had eaten lobster, for the very first time in my life, precisely four days hither? I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone.
Pat Davis began her macrobiotic journey in 1972 in Winnipeg, Canada. She has survived three bouts with cancer and worked quietly in the macrobiotic community for decades as a chef, writer and health consultant.