Perhaps by the time I'm done writing this, The five thousandth reader will have read one of my posts!
Thank-you! Thank-you, thank-you! Perhaps for those of you who return time after time, I should recreate this page and my online self to better reflect a shaman. Healing and teaching require a few basic bits of knowledge. Certain things are well beyond our ability to understand or quantify. True healing takes place well beyond any place that we can reach through drugs, massage, chemo-therapy, the most skilled scalpel or radiation alone, but with belief, trust, and feeling a resonance with the unnameable, Creator, Great Loving Father/Mother God or whatever you wish to call it, healing cannot occur. Symptoms are often easier to correct, but in so doing other damage is occurring as well that is often not worth the relief. In my world view, the whole of the pharmacopoeia is suspect because especially in the most careful organic chem lab, while extracting the magic bullet (usually from nature) the very process has effectively stripped away perhaps hundreds or thousands of other compounds that nature put with the drug, to help in your healing.
No one in their right mind would say that a car only runs on anti-freeze! There are metabolic processes that we cannot quantify in the collateral portion of all of the herbs that have been used for- "ever" to treat human conditions, but "don't say it too loudly" giant corporations might just get the urge to genetically modify our chamomile or hibiscus! Anyone who knows about biology knows that a sterile compound, devoid of fiber, starch and carbohydrates is much harder to metabolize than the same compound as part of food. It may make it into the blood, but then the liver cleans it out, burdened by the additional processing requirements. That's one of the reasons that herbs are better, they are food. I see them as a sophisticated group of plants, They have built an association with humans and we play a role as propagator of some that have medicinal and/or culinary value. By becoming a living part of our culture, they have guaranteed their existence...or have they? It seems that centuries ago, there were far more varieties of nearly every plant species than their are today.
I'm going to make up numbers that seem crazy, but are probably on the conservative side of reality. A century ago, there were over thirty types of potato grown across the US, now it is two or three making up 98% of the harvest. Carrots, onions, cabbage have all faced the same commercial drive to standardization. Things are beginning to change at the margins, a little, but for every seed saver there are perhaps several hundred gardeners who select mass produced and genetically deficient seed. variety is more than just the spice of life, it is the possibility of future life as well.
Anyway, that should be for another time...My point is that we used to have many thousands of varieties of most healing herbs, brought in from the wild into a kitchen garden perhaps or a small plot. These "wild things" were only partially domesticated and our relationship with them enhanced the lives of us and the plants. The technology, and commercial benefit, exists now to raise cardamom seed in Asia and plant it in Wisconsin the next year. In the olden days, perhaps generations of a particular plant would grow in a certain area, becoming specialized to that micro-climate. Given time, it could adapt and always has, or has not as chance would have it. This is what makes genetic diversity essential for continuation of species. My readers already know, that since age seven, I realized that Darwin had his theories completely wrong. A nineteenth century mind, perhaps looking back into the "mists of time" might see shadows that recall an earlier gilded age of order and reason, but in fact survival of the luckiest has always been the rule rather than the exception. The fittest of all can be hit by lightening or overcome by hanta virus. Mortality assures a tenuous existence whether we are necessarily "fit" or not.
The diversity that used to exist amongst healers of the world was as helpful and essential to helping us come through the ages. Now, our fascination with standardization and mass production is killing off, or destroying through neglect and abuse, vast categories of beneficial herbs, foods and ways of living. That is why I have made the commitment to heal through herbs. I have not seen an allopathic doctor in nearly twenty-five years. The last time I was under the care of a physician, they nearly killed me through misdiagnosis and ignorance. Having studied human health and our relationship with the plant and animal kingdoms for nearly forty years, I have learned much. However, as I stated before, the amount that I do not know is still, and always will be greater than what I have learned. I firmly assert that knowing this is perhaps the most vital part of becoming a healer. I humbly submit myself to being the servant of those who need help finding a path to health. I am always as healed as those I seek to help and thank them for the opportunity to learn and grow further along my own path to health.
As I said earlier, Thank-you for reading me! This month only, I am offering a free consultation to my readers about herbs for health. Just leave a comment before September tenth 2012, and I will spend some time on your particular health issues and let you know what I would do if I were in your moccasins! Peace, Love and Understanding!
Thank-you! Thank-you, thank-you! Perhaps for those of you who return time after time, I should recreate this page and my online self to better reflect a shaman. Healing and teaching require a few basic bits of knowledge. Certain things are well beyond our ability to understand or quantify. True healing takes place well beyond any place that we can reach through drugs, massage, chemo-therapy, the most skilled scalpel or radiation alone, but with belief, trust, and feeling a resonance with the unnameable, Creator, Great Loving Father/Mother God or whatever you wish to call it, healing cannot occur. Symptoms are often easier to correct, but in so doing other damage is occurring as well that is often not worth the relief. In my world view, the whole of the pharmacopoeia is suspect because especially in the most careful organic chem lab, while extracting the magic bullet (usually from nature) the very process has effectively stripped away perhaps hundreds or thousands of other compounds that nature put with the drug, to help in your healing.
No one in their right mind would say that a car only runs on anti-freeze! There are metabolic processes that we cannot quantify in the collateral portion of all of the herbs that have been used for- "ever" to treat human conditions, but "don't say it too loudly" giant corporations might just get the urge to genetically modify our chamomile or hibiscus! Anyone who knows about biology knows that a sterile compound, devoid of fiber, starch and carbohydrates is much harder to metabolize than the same compound as part of food. It may make it into the blood, but then the liver cleans it out, burdened by the additional processing requirements. That's one of the reasons that herbs are better, they are food. I see them as a sophisticated group of plants, They have built an association with humans and we play a role as propagator of some that have medicinal and/or culinary value. By becoming a living part of our culture, they have guaranteed their existence...or have they? It seems that centuries ago, there were far more varieties of nearly every plant species than their are today.
I'm going to make up numbers that seem crazy, but are probably on the conservative side of reality. A century ago, there were over thirty types of potato grown across the US, now it is two or three making up 98% of the harvest. Carrots, onions, cabbage have all faced the same commercial drive to standardization. Things are beginning to change at the margins, a little, but for every seed saver there are perhaps several hundred gardeners who select mass produced and genetically deficient seed. variety is more than just the spice of life, it is the possibility of future life as well.
Anyway, that should be for another time...My point is that we used to have many thousands of varieties of most healing herbs, brought in from the wild into a kitchen garden perhaps or a small plot. These "wild things" were only partially domesticated and our relationship with them enhanced the lives of us and the plants. The technology, and commercial benefit, exists now to raise cardamom seed in Asia and plant it in Wisconsin the next year. In the olden days, perhaps generations of a particular plant would grow in a certain area, becoming specialized to that micro-climate. Given time, it could adapt and always has, or has not as chance would have it. This is what makes genetic diversity essential for continuation of species. My readers already know, that since age seven, I realized that Darwin had his theories completely wrong. A nineteenth century mind, perhaps looking back into the "mists of time" might see shadows that recall an earlier gilded age of order and reason, but in fact survival of the luckiest has always been the rule rather than the exception. The fittest of all can be hit by lightening or overcome by hanta virus. Mortality assures a tenuous existence whether we are necessarily "fit" or not.
The diversity that used to exist amongst healers of the world was as helpful and essential to helping us come through the ages. Now, our fascination with standardization and mass production is killing off, or destroying through neglect and abuse, vast categories of beneficial herbs, foods and ways of living. That is why I have made the commitment to heal through herbs. I have not seen an allopathic doctor in nearly twenty-five years. The last time I was under the care of a physician, they nearly killed me through misdiagnosis and ignorance. Having studied human health and our relationship with the plant and animal kingdoms for nearly forty years, I have learned much. However, as I stated before, the amount that I do not know is still, and always will be greater than what I have learned. I firmly assert that knowing this is perhaps the most vital part of becoming a healer. I humbly submit myself to being the servant of those who need help finding a path to health. I am always as healed as those I seek to help and thank them for the opportunity to learn and grow further along my own path to health.
As I said earlier, Thank-you for reading me! This month only, I am offering a free consultation to my readers about herbs for health. Just leave a comment before September tenth 2012, and I will spend some time on your particular health issues and let you know what I would do if I were in your moccasins! Peace, Love and Understanding!
No comments:
Post a Comment