3/7/09
I think I’m finally getting to use this correctly - I had 42 comments that I didn’t know I had… I apologize to anyone who felt ignored. And I’m resolved to write more often!
It has occurred to me that a great gift from parent to child is a belief in problem solving. It is easy to become immobilized by decisions or so beset by ambiguities that action becomes impossible. However, self confidence as a problem solver leads to coherent action. This affects everyone significantly. Take, for instance, an occurrence of cancer. If problem solving is delegated to the MD, the only choice open is to follow their advice. However, a confidence in problem solving can lead to making choices based on knowledge and research accumulated by the patient.
This will not necessarily, by the way, rule out following the advice of the MD. But it may. We are overwhelmed by the problems inherent in our current medical systems. These are, unfortunately, not simply limited to bureaucratic overload. They also include a rising rate of MRSA and other iatrogenic illnesses engendered by the hospital /medical settings themselves. Reports of MRSA occurring in hospitals and in the offices of health care professionals make many think twice about seeking medical help.
Alternative and Integrative Medicine is on the rise, without question. As I drove home from SF I noted a new enormous building being erected for Integrative Medicine. This is wonderful in ways, and certainly will promote the integration of allopathic and traditional medicines by having a central place in a large city to provide patients. However, a bigger facility may then leads to more bureaucracy and more crowding and probably more iatrogenic illnesses again. Let’s hope not, but recognize the danger there.
For many years we have been stating that 80% of the world population uses alternative healing as their primary mode of medicine. Some cultures have never left using Alternative Health (AH), not really alternative at all, of course, but traditional. Some cultures have blended AH and allopathy (Allopathic medicine is what our medical system uses), some cultures have moved into AH because allopathy disappeared (Cuba) and some, such as our own, are moving into AH because of a combination of economic and cultural determinants. Personally, I was very impressed by the Cuban experience when I was there in 2001. However, the Cuban government embraced the move to AH which makes a profound difference.
In Cuba there is government support of herbal medicine that begins with the growing of medicinal herbs in Organiponicas, or large organic gardens. Research is done on the medical benefits of specific herbs, funded by the government. Processing is done by the government. Selling is done in Green Pharmacies, or Pharmacia Verdes. Herbal medicine is then dispensed in the Green Pharmacies or in the hospitals or by the neighborhood doctors. Cuba has a very high percentage of MDs per capita and these MDs are placed demographically, rather than geographically, as in our system. Thus, in Havana, doctors are settled in a community where they are needed most, and service their neighborhoods. It is most analogous to our rural clinics, although MDs are not encouraged to live demographically.
MDs in our culture tend to cluster in the wealthier communities to live, although they may travel to poorer communities to work. Nature hates a vacuum, and so the vacuum has been filled with other healers living as neighbors. Traditionally these healers may have simply been an older relative or one interested in naturopathic type healing. What is important is that often they arise as healers from necessity. The back-to-the-land movement of the late 60’s and 70’s in our own country led to the formation of an “underground” web of these healers, often from the commune movement. Again, it was often necessity that began it. For instance, many of these communes were very rural and the health of the communards and their children depended on the knowledge of the group.
Because of the rural nature of the communes, herbal medicine growing and using often became a necessity. In 1969 I co-founded a very rural commune in Northern Vermont. There we used herbal medicine, and some naturopathic practices, because we were too far away from any medical center to use it, and there were literally no doctors in our town. We were, in addition, like our neighbors, very poor. We were extremely interested in the traditional uses of medicinal plants. There I read Culpepper by kerosene lamp, as we were without electricity. An interest in the medical practices of other cultures, particularly China, led to the viewing of movies depicting, among other things, acupuncture used to anaesthetized an elderly woman being operated on for a large tumor. The woman chatted throughout with the doctors.
In the four years on the commune, we had recourse to medical doctors and facilities for births, for illnesses in the children or adults that did not respond to the herbs (two children in four years, one an unresolved ear infection requiring antibiotics; the other response to a fall that turned out to have caused no damage to the child; and the non-treatment of several adults who contracted viral meningal encephalitis although I personally required a spinal tap for this). Pretty remarkable, really, for four years of living in rural poverty, exposed to countless pathogens as well as high risk behavior such as cutting trees for firewood, using horse drawn equipment for farming, and such.
Practical Herbal Tip: The nettles are out…. full of vitamins and minerals. If you have a favorite patch, pick them consciously, if not it’s a good time to head for your health food store to get some! Most health food stores will allow you to order bulk and give you a discount too - so order a pound! My friend Karin Uphoff, author of Botanical Body Care, says that the wonderful teacher David Hoffman tells students to use a long complicated formula of herbs, then pauses and says, “Or just use nettles”. That’s about the size of it. While traveling in Peru I took powdered nettles in case I ran short of vegetables… keep some on hand to sprinkle on food. And a great tea, by itself or with other herbs. Susun Weed will suggest filling a quart mason jar with nettles in the evening - with boiling water right to the top - letting it sit overnight and then drinking it throughout the day. Wonderful. I personally love fresh nettle omelettes - no sting! Once they are chopped they no longer sting. The sting, by the way, is formic acid, the same as red ants. I suggest meditating in front of a field of nettles…. think about the power of plants. That’s it for now. Blessings.
The Star Angels are transmitters and the flowers are symbols of their communications. The closer one is to the world of nature, the closer one is to the world of God.