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The love I feel for my clients and friends has helped immensely stay on this rewarding path of mine. Also, I believe strongly in a life force or energy behind all there is. Ancient healers from around the world understood this, the Lakota elders taught me about the interconnectedness of creating balance and energy. It is fascinating how old European Folk Medicine, Ayurveda, Native American and Quantum Physics have many of the same beliefs in common. They all include an acknowledge Mother Earth.
In European Folk Medicine, my grandmother taught me to pay attention to the life force of the plant. In the waning and waxing of the moon, healers gathered plants. I also was taught never to pick plants when I am angry or out of sorts. The European herbalist intuitively respected energy. I believe this knowledge of life force and interconnectedness has always been available. Ayurveda works on balancing this energy. I also believe in our modern day most disease is present because we are not in balance!
Our Mother Earth has given us food, medicine, and shelter and a memory of what perfect can be. Each tree and plant shows us a cycle of beauty and being. Each mountain, cloud and stream reflects light of the sun. Our motions and our actions set the stage to help us remember! When we behold the beauty of a stream glittering in sunlight, or taste the fresh herbs and vegetables from our gardens, or when our skin is brushed by the wind. We are stirring a memory of something more than we can create. It's always been here and perfect. Only when we change the environment and God's perfect food, and alter what is perfect by nature do we run into trouble.
Water allows us to cleanse and replenish ourselves. Fire enables us to digest, it transforms. Air allows us to feel, to touch, to know. Space gives us the power to resonate. We hold the memory of the five elements in our physical body. I can't find this wholeness in our processed food our chemically changed medicine or technology. If God would have wanted us to have white flower he would have invented it. Man bleaches it. The cycle is broken. The cycle and life force from seed to fragile sprout, to the flourishing plant, to careful harvest, is our sustenance!
The reason I needed to work on a Clinical Master Herbalist degree is to learn more about anatomy and learn the science behind all the herbs I know and that my grandmother taught me in her Folk Medicine. I needed to learn the chemical constituents, medicinal and pharmacological activities, and safety profiles of herbs. Also I learned more about homeopathic medicine, food as medicine, life style modifications, and the wonderful tool of Iridology.
This knowledge I received also is based on balance. As a herbalist, the herbs I use need good nutrition as a carrier. I also received in my studies: Nature gives us great medicine. Using the whole plant can buffer and reduce side effects much better than using the isolated active main constituent.
As an herbalist, I understand that the whole plant had more than one active constituent which, if not isolated, can stabilize the bio-availability of the main constituent.
Our world has moved to a quick fix mentality. This scientific age had brought us the application of chemistry and modern medicine. We are striving to survive and thrive in a versatile range of environments. Applying scientific principles to medicine has led to remarkable diagnostic tools and has increased the length of our lives. The ability to treat acute illnesses has been significantly improved.
At the same time, our almost exclusive reliance on drugs in the treatment of illness had also led to antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria and many other serious medical implications and side effects resulting from chemical drugs. The prioritization of synthesized drugs over natural sources has become the way of western medicine. The quest to synthesize new and more powerful pharmaceuticals has forgotten one very important fact: Nature gives us great medicine and should always be considered!
Using the whole plant can buffer and reduce side effects much better than when using just the isolated active main constituent. Modern medicine has forgotten that most pharmaceutical products sold today contain active ingredients from nature. As an herbalist, I understand that the whole plant has more than one active constituent, which if not isolated, can stabilize the bioavailability of the main constituent.
Modern medicine has forgotten what wise men and elders taught us: The wisdom of energies and how our health is linked to everything around us, from the preparation of the soil to growing the medicine; from the time the plants are harvested to the care and energy we, as conscious herbalists, bring to the preparation of the medicine. I can't imagine this can be done in a lab!
The food we eat can be medicine if we respect the life force and keep it intact! Hormones, antibiotics, preservatives and refining are all for the convenience of the manufacturer. I'm not proposing we go back to the dark ages. I'm saying we need to consider a holistic approach and use natural food, herbs, and keep our environment clean so this great medicine is available for seven generations to follow. There is great wisdom including the seventh generation from today's generation when making decisions. It means we consider the effects beyond our own limited self-interest. This is what the wise elders did seven generations ago and their decisions directly impact how we live today.
We are all related and interconnected. Our body systems teach this knowledge: we are missing the enzymes to digest chemically altered foods. Mother earth also shows us our interconnectedness with its circles. We all know raw organic food is better for us. We need to be more in balance! Pay attention how we grow our food, how it is processed, and the soil it grows in needs to be considered. If we stay closer to natural the life force is more intact. |
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