As we enter the twenty-second century, herbal medicine is being integrated into
mainstream medicine in the United
States. Or is it the other way around? Are
we in danger of adopting the limited, linear scientific view of a practice that
is also considered an art? Are we abandoning the sense of delight that drew us
to herbal medicine? Are we vulnerable to needing to be validated from outside
because we don't value ourselves highly enough?
In order to answer these questions, we will use the model of the Three
Traditions of Healing--Scientific, Heroic, and Wise Woman. Knowing the
differences between these three views allows us to become informed consumers of
health care, to repossess the power of our health/wholeness/holiness in a new
and uniquely functional manner, and to maintain our dignity as herbalists in a
world dominated by scientists.
I want to focus on the Wise Woman Tradition, its spirit and practice; because I
believe it offers us a way to look at what we have as herbalists, and what
society seems to be offering us, and to make a better-informed choice as to the
path ahead.
What Are
the Three Traditions of Healing?
The three traditions are ways of thinking, not ways of acting. Any technique,
any substance can be used in any tradition. There are scientific and heroic
midwives as well as wise woman midwives; there are MDs who are heroic and those
who act as wise women, as well as scientific ones. There are scientific
herbalists, heroic herbalists, and wise woman herbalists. There are preferred
ways of working in each tradition, granted, but surgery is not restricted to
the scientific realm, nor is a shamanic trance strictly relegated to the realm
of the wise woman. To determine the tradition of the practitioner, we must look
at the thoughts that lie behind their use of any form of healing.
Each one of us contains some aspects of each tradition. And these different
aspects may want different things -- at different times -- or at the same time.
The scientific aspect wants facts, the heroic aspect wants to be told what to
do, and the wise woman aspect smiles and offers you a bowl of soup and some
bread and cheese she made herself. As I define the characteristics of each
tradition, identify the part of yourself that thinks that way.
The
Scientific Tradition defines truth as measurable and repeatable. The whole is
the same as its most active part. Herbs are reduced to standardized extracts;
only the active ingredient is important. Healing is fixing. Linear thought,
linear time. Good and bad, health and sickness always at war.
Nature is mechanized. Bodies are machines. Anything that deviates from normal
needs to be fixed. Measurements determine deviation; drugs insure normalcy.
Plants are potential drugs, safe only in the hands of licensed experts.
The legalized use of herbs in Germany
follows the scientific model. Herbs are available by prescription and paid for
by National Insurance because they are viewed and treated as drugs. Herbs are
available only to those with a prescription written by an MD, who has received
little or no training in the use of herbs, so the overall effect is to severely
limit the use of herbal medicine and its availability.
Ready access to a wide variety of manufactured herbal medicines is a freedom
that many American herbalists seem to take for granted. It is due, in part, to
the strength of the Heroic tradition.
The
Heroic Tradition is not one unified tradition, but many similar ones
collectively known as the Heroic tradition. Predating the scientific tradition,
the heroic view sees that the whole is a circle made up of all its parts --
body, mind, and spirit.
Sickness is caused by pollution of the body, mind, or spirit. Healing is the
removal of the corruption, the detoxification. Puking, purging and bleeding.
Removing curses. Cleansing the colon and the aura. Making everything light.
We are all filthy sinners. We have to pay for our fun. No pain, no gain. If it
tastes bitter it is good for you. Food is the first addiction, learned at the
mothers' breast. Control yourself. Control your thoughts. Control your
appetites. Control you desires. If you want to get to heaven, follow the rules.
If you are sick, it is your own fault. You were negative. You were bad. You ate
the wrong food, thought the wrong thought, sinned. You stepped outside the
charmed circle. You need a savior, purification and punishment. The Heroic
healer saves the day thanks to rare substances, exotic herbs, and complicated
formulae. Powerful, drug-like herbs (such as cayenne and golden seal) and
vitamin and mineral pills are favored remedies in this tradition. Most books on
herbal medicine, and many on nutrition, are written by men of the Heroic
tradition.
Wise
Woman Tradition is the world's oldest healing tradition. Its symbol is the
spiral. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Life is a spiraling,
ever-changing completeness. Disease and injury are doorways of transformation.
Each one of us is inherently whole, yet seeking greater wholeness; perfect, yet
desiring greater perfection. Whole/healthy/holy. Substance, thought, feeling,
and spirit inseparable, intertwined.
Good health may be freedom from disease, but it is also openness to change,
flexibility, and compassionate embodiment, even when dancing with cancer or
healing from a serious accident. Uniqueness rather than normalcy. Not a cure,
but an integration; not the elimination of the bad, but a nourishing of
wholeness/health/holiness.
Nourishment of wholeness/health/holiness is invisible, simple, grounded,
holographic, both/and, ever-changing, woman-centered, and compassionate.
Nourishment
is Invisible
Invisible as a bowl of soup. The World Health Organization says ninety percent
of the health care provided in the world is given by women in their own homes.
Invisibly. With a smile. A hug. A word of praise. In small daily increments,
the wise woman builds the health of herself, her family, her community, her
country, her world. She does it in the Tao, so she is invisible.
Nourishment
is Simple
Simple as the weeds in the garden. Simple as in one thing at a time. Simple as
in easy. Simple, common, single, unique. Open to subtlety, simply. The wise
woman uses what is local and common, allying herself with one plant at a time,
matching the uniqueness of the plant with the uniqueness of the person.
Nourishment
is Grounded
Grounded as the earth, flowing with the seasons, ever changing, ever the same.
Seeking to increase the power of the patient. Power flowing from
responsibility. Planting the patient in the ground, to become rooted, to delve
deep, to gain a foundation to grow up from. Praising the gift of the body, the
ground of our being. Eating from the ground, locally, organically.
Holographic
Nourishment
Holographic images contain the whole in every part. The more parts there are,
the clearer the image. The wise woman nourishes all the parts of the unique
individual so they become clearer, more filled with life. The wise woman
herbalist gathers holographic plants, not active ingredients, not flower
essences, but the amazing, complex, vital hologram of healing that her green
ally gives away. A hologram that nourishes all parts, integrates all the parts,
both/and.
Both/and
Universe
The both/and universe embraces all possibilities. Allows distinction, sees
beyond opposition. Yin and yang cooperate, reach consensus. Walking in beauty
along the rainbow path of peace. We are all alive and dead, whole and
piecemeal, healthy and sick, good and bad.
No
Diseases, No Cures, No Healers
Woman-centered, heart centered, the Wise Woman tradition has no rules, no
texts, no rites. It is constantly changing, constantly being re-invented, open
to the ever-changing perfection of the eternal moment. The focus is on the
person, not the problem, nourishing not curing, self-healing not healing
another. A give-away dance of exploration and experience, with no answer to the
question "why?" No blame, no shame, no guilt, no reason, no answer
ever to "why?"
The Six
Steps of Healing
The Wise Woman tradition offers self-healing options as diverse as the human
imagination and as complex as the human psyche. How confusing! We need a way to
cut through the confusion and decide which option to use when. I call it the
Six Steps of Healing, a hierarchy based on the concept: "First do no
harm."
Step 0 -
Do Nothing
Step 1 - Collect Information
Step 2 - Engage the Energy
Step 3 - Nourish and Tonify
Step 4 - Stimulate & Sedate
Step 5 - Use Drugs
Step 6 - Break & Enter
I see
the wise woman. From her shoulders, a mantle of power flows.
I see the wise woman at her loom. Every thread is different, each perfect and
splendid, alive with sound and color.
I see the wise woman. She is old and black and walks with the aid of a
beautifully carved stick. She speaks in song, in story, in dance. She lives in
every herb.
I see the wise woman. And she sees me. She winks at me and spreads her arms.
mainstream medicine in the United
States. Or is it the other way around? Are
we in danger of adopting the limited, linear scientific view of a practice that
is also considered an art? Are we abandoning the sense of delight that drew us
to herbal medicine? Are we vulnerable to needing to be validated from outside
because we don't value ourselves highly enough?
In order to answer these questions, we will use the model of the Three
Traditions of Healing--Scientific, Heroic, and Wise Woman. Knowing the
differences between these three views allows us to become informed consumers of
health care, to repossess the power of our health/wholeness/holiness in a new
and uniquely functional manner, and to maintain our dignity as herbalists in a
world dominated by scientists.
I want to focus on the Wise Woman Tradition, its spirit and practice; because I
believe it offers us a way to look at what we have as herbalists, and what
society seems to be offering us, and to make a better-informed choice as to the
path ahead.
What Are
the Three Traditions of Healing?
The three traditions are ways of thinking, not ways of acting. Any technique,
any substance can be used in any tradition. There are scientific and heroic
midwives as well as wise woman midwives; there are MDs who are heroic and those
who act as wise women, as well as scientific ones. There are scientific
herbalists, heroic herbalists, and wise woman herbalists. There are preferred
ways of working in each tradition, granted, but surgery is not restricted to
the scientific realm, nor is a shamanic trance strictly relegated to the realm
of the wise woman. To determine the tradition of the practitioner, we must look
at the thoughts that lie behind their use of any form of healing.
Each one of us contains some aspects of each tradition. And these different
aspects may want different things -- at different times -- or at the same time.
The scientific aspect wants facts, the heroic aspect wants to be told what to
do, and the wise woman aspect smiles and offers you a bowl of soup and some
bread and cheese she made herself. As I define the characteristics of each
tradition, identify the part of yourself that thinks that way.
The
Scientific Tradition defines truth as measurable and repeatable. The whole is
the same as its most active part. Herbs are reduced to standardized extracts;
only the active ingredient is important. Healing is fixing. Linear thought,
linear time. Good and bad, health and sickness always at war.
Nature is mechanized. Bodies are machines. Anything that deviates from normal
needs to be fixed. Measurements determine deviation; drugs insure normalcy.
Plants are potential drugs, safe only in the hands of licensed experts.
The legalized use of herbs in Germany
follows the scientific model. Herbs are available by prescription and paid for
by National Insurance because they are viewed and treated as drugs. Herbs are
available only to those with a prescription written by an MD, who has received
little or no training in the use of herbs, so the overall effect is to severely
limit the use of herbal medicine and its availability.
Ready access to a wide variety of manufactured herbal medicines is a freedom
that many American herbalists seem to take for granted. It is due, in part, to
the strength of the Heroic tradition.
The
Heroic Tradition is not one unified tradition, but many similar ones
collectively known as the Heroic tradition. Predating the scientific tradition,
the heroic view sees that the whole is a circle made up of all its parts --
body, mind, and spirit.
Sickness is caused by pollution of the body, mind, or spirit. Healing is the
removal of the corruption, the detoxification. Puking, purging and bleeding.
Removing curses. Cleansing the colon and the aura. Making everything light.
We are all filthy sinners. We have to pay for our fun. No pain, no gain. If it
tastes bitter it is good for you. Food is the first addiction, learned at the
mothers' breast. Control yourself. Control your thoughts. Control your
appetites. Control you desires. If you want to get to heaven, follow the rules.
If you are sick, it is your own fault. You were negative. You were bad. You ate
the wrong food, thought the wrong thought, sinned. You stepped outside the
charmed circle. You need a savior, purification and punishment. The Heroic
healer saves the day thanks to rare substances, exotic herbs, and complicated
formulae. Powerful, drug-like herbs (such as cayenne and golden seal) and
vitamin and mineral pills are favored remedies in this tradition. Most books on
herbal medicine, and many on nutrition, are written by men of the Heroic
tradition.
Wise
Woman Tradition is the world's oldest healing tradition. Its symbol is the
spiral. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Life is a spiraling,
ever-changing completeness. Disease and injury are doorways of transformation.
Each one of us is inherently whole, yet seeking greater wholeness; perfect, yet
desiring greater perfection. Whole/healthy/holy. Substance, thought, feeling,
and spirit inseparable, intertwined.
Good health may be freedom from disease, but it is also openness to change,
flexibility, and compassionate embodiment, even when dancing with cancer or
healing from a serious accident. Uniqueness rather than normalcy. Not a cure,
but an integration; not the elimination of the bad, but a nourishing of
wholeness/health/holiness.
Nourishment of wholeness/health/holiness is invisible, simple, grounded,
holographic, both/and, ever-changing, woman-centered, and compassionate.
Nourishment
is Invisible
Invisible as a bowl of soup. The World Health Organization says ninety percent
of the health care provided in the world is given by women in their own homes.
Invisibly. With a smile. A hug. A word of praise. In small daily increments,
the wise woman builds the health of herself, her family, her community, her
country, her world. She does it in the Tao, so she is invisible.
Nourishment
is Simple
Simple as the weeds in the garden. Simple as in one thing at a time. Simple as
in easy. Simple, common, single, unique. Open to subtlety, simply. The wise
woman uses what is local and common, allying herself with one plant at a time,
matching the uniqueness of the plant with the uniqueness of the person.
Nourishment
is Grounded
Grounded as the earth, flowing with the seasons, ever changing, ever the same.
Seeking to increase the power of the patient. Power flowing from
responsibility. Planting the patient in the ground, to become rooted, to delve
deep, to gain a foundation to grow up from. Praising the gift of the body, the
ground of our being. Eating from the ground, locally, organically.
Holographic
Nourishment
Holographic images contain the whole in every part. The more parts there are,
the clearer the image. The wise woman nourishes all the parts of the unique
individual so they become clearer, more filled with life. The wise woman
herbalist gathers holographic plants, not active ingredients, not flower
essences, but the amazing, complex, vital hologram of healing that her green
ally gives away. A hologram that nourishes all parts, integrates all the parts,
both/and.
Both/and
Universe
The both/and universe embraces all possibilities. Allows distinction, sees
beyond opposition. Yin and yang cooperate, reach consensus. Walking in beauty
along the rainbow path of peace. We are all alive and dead, whole and
piecemeal, healthy and sick, good and bad.
No
Diseases, No Cures, No Healers
Woman-centered, heart centered, the Wise Woman tradition has no rules, no
texts, no rites. It is constantly changing, constantly being re-invented, open
to the ever-changing perfection of the eternal moment. The focus is on the
person, not the problem, nourishing not curing, self-healing not healing
another. A give-away dance of exploration and experience, with no answer to the
question "why?" No blame, no shame, no guilt, no reason, no answer
ever to "why?"
The Six
Steps of Healing
The Wise Woman tradition offers self-healing options as diverse as the human
imagination and as complex as the human psyche. How confusing! We need a way to
cut through the confusion and decide which option to use when. I call it the
Six Steps of Healing, a hierarchy based on the concept: "First do no
harm."
Step 0 -
Do Nothing
Step 1 - Collect Information
Step 2 - Engage the Energy
Step 3 - Nourish and Tonify
Step 4 - Stimulate & Sedate
Step 5 - Use Drugs
Step 6 - Break & Enter
I see
the wise woman. From her shoulders, a mantle of power flows.
I see the wise woman at her loom. Every thread is different, each perfect and
splendid, alive with sound and color.
I see the wise woman. She is old and black and walks with the aid of a
beautifully carved stick. She speaks in song, in story, in dance. She lives in
every herb.
I see the wise woman. And she sees me. She winks at me and spreads her arms.
"These are the ways of our grandmothers, the ancient ones. Every pain,
every plant, every problem is cherished. Night is loved for darkness, day for
light. Uniqueness is our treasure, not normalcy.
"These are the ways of our grandmothers, the ancient ones. Receive
abundance with compassion, knowing you will be food for others. Know that dying
is a portal just as birth is. Celebrate all comings and goings, they are the
turnings of the spiral.
"These are the ways of our grandmothers, the ancient ones. The joy of life
is the give- away. You are the center of your universe. You are the axis,
life's matrix, the still point in the ever-moving. The designs of the universe
radiate through you. You are god/dess, unique and whole."
I see the wise woman. And she sees me. She smiles from shrines in thousands of
places. She is buried in the ground of every country. She flows in every river
and pulses in the oceans. The wise woman's robe flows down your back, centering
you in the ever-changing, ever-spiraling mystery.
Everywhere I look, the wise woman looks back. And she smiles.
This is
an excerpt from Healing Wise
every plant, every problem is cherished. Night is loved for darkness, day for
light. Uniqueness is our treasure, not normalcy.
"These are the ways of our grandmothers, the ancient ones. Receive
abundance with compassion, knowing you will be food for others. Know that dying
is a portal just as birth is. Celebrate all comings and goings, they are the
turnings of the spiral.
"These are the ways of our grandmothers, the ancient ones. The joy of life
is the give- away. You are the center of your universe. You are the axis,
life's matrix, the still point in the ever-moving. The designs of the universe
radiate through you. You are god/dess, unique and whole."
I see the wise woman. And she sees me. She smiles from shrines in thousands of
places. She is buried in the ground of every country. She flows in every river
and pulses in the oceans. The wise woman's robe flows down your back, centering
you in the ever-changing, ever-spiraling mystery.
Everywhere I look, the wise woman looks back. And she smiles.
This is
an excerpt from Healing Wise
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